# [Midnight] Dark Tower's Shadow (Updated 12/10)



## Paka (May 23, 2003)

Story Posts Written by Judd Karlman

Player Notes by JJ Enslow

*Story Post #1

Chapter I - Theros Obsidia Trained* 

Also posted on www.againsttheshadow.org

_Armies of Elves, Dwarves and Men attempted to defeat Izrador, the Shadow in the North, in the most important and final battle of the Third Age. They met and fought valiantly against armies of Orc, Demons, Dragons and other of the Shadow’s Minions on the southern shore of the Pellurian Sea. 

They lost. 

It is 99 years later, the Last Age._ 


* Drip of Wax and Sealed Fates* 

The Shadow Legates could see the sliver of the moon from their study high in the dark tower of Theros Obsidia. A hearthfire kept the cold air at bay. Below their windows the moans of beggars could be heard along with the drums from the nearby Orcish fires. 

Councilor Legate Hannah looked over the list of newly frocked Legates while fellow Councilor Legate Pintoss glanced at the maps of Eredane. 

“Unaros, newly frocked in the Holy Order of Izrador’s Legates. His father has had no small number of successes in the Erethor. His son seems promising,” Hannah said, seeing that his teachers spoke well of his abilities. 

Pintoss thought to himself of a particularly fine slave Unaros had given him, a Halfling girl with talents. 

“Yes, I don’t see him being right for the Erethor nor the Kaladrun fronts.” 

Hannah sniffed, “They need promising talent on the hard fronts too. We cannot expect the Shadow to fall completely if we only send our fools and failures. Where do you see him?” 

“Unaros has good friends. I see him and his friends going to Baden’s Bluff. It is a good city for a young Legate and it has trials all its own.” 

They looked over recent missives from Baden’s Bluff. Last month they had lost a Legate, a crossbow ambush in a dark alley. 

Hannah shook her head, “The insurgents are bold in that city.” 

“Don’t be too sure. I spent my first five years in the Bluff. Fellow Legates are just as dangerous thereabouts as the cursed Baden Family.” 

“Fine, send him there, then and send his friends with him along with nine Orc.” 

A drip of wax and a stamp of a seal and their fates were set. 

* Introduction to the Dornish Wildlander with Steelblood * 


Karhoun Esben was caught worshipping small statues, praying to his ancestors through them. His father beat him severely and sent him away to Theros Obsidia for schooling. The dark tower was magicked out of the sea rock; it towered above the skeleton of the old Highwall library. Karhoun first arrived to the dark tower during his ninth winter. 

Puppet nobles Izrador put into power sent their children to Theros Obsidia. It was a sound way to keep them in line, a hostage taken and a fresh mind turned to Izrador. 

They say that Karhoun’s father, Vildar Esben, had sent more sons and daughter than any five men in Eredane. He had turned to the Shadow before the Final Battle a hundred years ago and somehow he still walked and bred. They say his spite kept him alive, that he lived and breathed only because he couldn’t bare to turn his wealth and land over to anyone else. 

Karhoun didn’t have a head for strategy and so he wasn’t put into the Soldier-Legate training. Instead he now ranged with the Goblins, keeping his eyes open and wondering what he was good for. 

As his trainer had said, “We have Orcs to be tough and cunning, bred to be so from Izrador himself. We have no need for big, dumb humans.” 

Rebels would be stupid to venture so close to the capitol of Izrador’s power. It was here all of his clerics and wizards were trained. It was here in the dark tower where his worst enemies were tortured. 

Karhoun and the Goblins returned from their perimeter scouting, finding nothing of interest.  They threaded through the beggars, ignoring their pleas when a Halfling slave approached. Immediately, the Goblins began to push the little creature, yelling at him, forcing him to the ground. 

In one motion Karhoun grabbed him off the ground and walked away with the slave under his arm, “What do you want?” 

"I-i-i-I, was s-s-sent to bid you come to the common room at the foot of the tower. Unaros has s-s-sent…” 

“Tell him I’ll be there in a moment,” and the massive Northman set the Halfling down. 

Karhoun looked up at the tower as he had many times before and remembered the first time he saw it.  He had come over the rise in the midst of cruel Orcs.  The cold air and the squalor of the beggars outside all shocked him. Bruises were still raw on his body and he knew that if his entire life was lived to raze this tower to the ground, it would be a life worth living. 

* Introduction to the Wood Elf Channeler on the Healer’s Path * 

Vorden Quele was cataloguing items. A new batch had been brought from a recent battle and now that the blood was cleaned off of them it was up to him to make sure they really were magickal and determine what kind of magicks had gone into them. 

His father hadn’t taken much interest in him and Vorden quietly excepted that. His father, after all was the Shadow’s own Sorcerer. A Night King has important matters to attend to. 

Vorden dressed in red robes and was called by many of the Legates, outside of his hearing, The Scarlet Prince or the Night Princeling. The Orcs just called him The Little Elf. 

Three such Orcs were in the room with him, making sure the items, a dagger, a ring and a neck brooch were returned to their tribe when he was done cataloguing them for the Legates. 

One of the Orcs bent over, looking at the dagger, sniffed at the Elf. 

“Can I help you?” Vorden asked, using that Elven haughtiness that came so easily, a gift from his father, no doubt. 

“Just smelling what’s for dinner,” the Orc replied and the others grunted laughs. 

“Hm, I doubt that. Who do you think would get into more trouble: you for eating me or me for eating you?” 

The others watched their friend, watching for weakness. He sneered and replied in perfect Elvish, “Daddy’s not here now. I’m willing to take a risk, Little Elf.” 

Vorden opened his mouth for a response and an Orcish hand gripped his throat. Vorden couldn’t know that this Orc had lost half of his tribe in  the Erethor Forest by Elven arrows but the Orc was telling him all about it while choking the life out of the Little Elf. Spittle was hitting his face as the Orc began to scream and then, quite suddenly, it wasn’t spit coming out of the Orc’s mouth but blood. 

The Orc was too busy throttling him to see his tribesmen bow to one knee, a common custom when a Night King enters a room. 

Ardherin, Sorcerer of Shadow, watched the Orc fall over with interest, as this spell was a new one and he was interested to see how it would work. 

His son rubbed at the blossoming bruises on his throat and regained his breath. When the Orc collapsed Vorden put his hands on him and healed him. Eyebrows raised, Ardherin greeted his son while the Orc skulked away. 

“Father, I tried to explain to the Orc that he would get into more trouble – “ 
His father cut him off, “Explaining does not work with them. They only understand blood. You will be sent away from Theros Obsidia soon.  Are you ready?” 

“Yes, father.” 

“Good, I will not have weakness blighting our family’s name. If you distinguish yourself, there will be rewards, as there always are when serving the Shadow. There is a continent, another land that Izrador rules. You could be the first Elf to see its shores, to study its magic, if you distinguish yourself in His service. 

Stay away from the Erethor and the Witch Queen’s influence. The forest will whisper to you and put her enchantments upon you.” 

Vorden nodded. 

“Come to me.” 

Vorden approached his father and felt the touch of his father’s cold signet ring on his forehead, it burned for a moment and his entire body was covered in cold sweat and then, on his forhead was the Night King's infamous seal. 

“We are an outlawed race due to the Witch Queen’s foolery in the south and west. This will let the Shadow’s servants know who your father is and perhaps keep you alive. 

When Vorden opened his eyes, his father was gone. He realized that it was the first time his father had ever touched him. 

A frightened Halfling, fresh from being kicked down the hall by three Orcs in a terrible mood, told him to meet his friends in the tower’s common room. 

* Introduction to the Shadow Legate and the Oath-Taker’s Conspiracy * 

Unaros’s father was a General of the Soldier-Legates on the Erethor front. He was born with the Shadow over his heart and knew he would die that way too. His mother had died in childbirth and his father never spoke of her. 

Olin sat lazily next to him, his wide mastiff head in his master’s lap. Unaros pet his ears in the way Olin liked, “Soon you will have one of Izrador’s demons in you, Olin. Then we will hunt those who would harm the Shadow together. Will you like that, boy?” 

Olin licked Unaros’ hand, not knowing that later this evening a Wizard would visit and put an Astirax into his body, a demon bred for smelling magic and hunting those who channeled it. 

Unaros re-read his orders to make for Baden’s Bluff before a fortnight had passed. He was given leave to go with nine Orcs and one Wildlander, Karhoun and one Shadow-sanctioned Wizard, Vorden. 

Unaros had wild dreams in his head of the three of them hitting Baden’s Bluff like a storm off the Pelurian Sea. They would ferret out the Baden family, see their heads on spikes and rule the city for the rest of their lives. 

But the young Legate didn’t understand reality nor his friends very well. 

He had no idea that his friends awoke in the middle of the night, six months ago and made their way down to the library ruins. He had no idea that they entered a secret passage in the library, a room created for oath-taking. 

There his friends swore to see the dark tower of Theros Obsidia broken, razed to the ground and they swore to thwart the Shadow and his minions in every manner possible along the way. 

On the night he made his way to the oath chamber, Vorden dreamed of his mother. She told him about his father before she was given to a Shadow’s servant as a gift. She spoke of a time when his father was the greatest hero of the Elven kingdoms. He hunted and killed Demons for the Witch Queen and was known throughout the land as a powerful and just Wizard. 

Karhoun dreamed of his father’s bitter face as he beat him. His ancestral tokens were knocked to the floor as his father whipped him and screamed, “You want to know your ancestors, boy? Look at my face and see where you came from. 

"You want guidance? Pray to the Shadow in the North. Your ancestors all lie under his power now, boy.” 

Unaros had a strange dream where a woman was begging him to do what was right, to be just and true. He woke up and felt the slightest compunction to sneak down the stairs and make his way to the broken library, a monument to Izrador’s might. 

He thought of the Orcs and the penalty for being caught outside of your rooms at night. Unaros went back to sleep, wondering what would have put such a foolish thought in his head. 

The young Legate smiled as his friends entered the common room. He was excited to inform them of their orders. It was time to gather his Orcish host to him; tomorrow they would begin their journey.


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## Paka (May 23, 2003)

*Story Post #2*

*Cleaver Unsheathed *

They all watched the Orc Shaman take his cleaver out of his belt. The Orc had burns all over his body, desplays of his devotion to the Burning Mother Tribe, grabbed Vorden’s thin Elf wrist to hold it down to a rock but he shook away, “Get away from me!” 

Defiantly, he put his lithe fingers on the rock and looked the shaman in the eye. The Shaman lined the cleaver up with his hand and Vorden took his fingers away, leaving only the one, they one they agreed to. 

The Shaman grimaced. 

Karhoun and Unaros, friends with the Elf since their own childhoods were holding their breath. Tomorrow they will leave with 6 Orc and 6 Goblins for Baden’s Bluff, begin their adult lives, their paths of manhood. 

But in the now Vorden was giving up his finger. They thought back and wondered how they got here.  This was madness.

Unaros’s mastiff, Olin, now possessed by a Demon, licked his lips, smelling fear and knowing that blood wasn’t far behind. 

*Before Now* 

Two hours ago Karhoun’s Dornish arms were ready to wrap Vorden up to hold him down. Unaros was going to do the cutting. The shaman wanted two fingers, he had said, two freshly cut Elven fingers in fair trade for his magic staff. 

Unaros assured his large Dornish friend that the trade was in Vorden’s best interests and he would thank them in the end for making the decision that he could not make. 

But Karhoun had tripped and Unaros’s dark magics had failed them. 

Vorden walked away from their attack, left them in a pile and threw a dagger at Karhoun, which stuck in the meat of his buttocks. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so damned terrible. 

Unaros healed his friend’s back end with his Shadow Legate magic, letting the cold comfort of Izrador wash over him like a winter’s wind. 

Four hours ago they had been haggling with the Shaman and the Chief of the Burning Mother Tribe, trying to get their allotted nine Orc escort. The Shaman turned the missive upside down and claimed it was only six. 

That was when Olin smelled the staff. He said it was powerful, maybe a marred Covenant item of some kind. 

Vorden’s mouth had nearly watered when he checked the markings on the staff with runes in his Lorebook and realized it had Druidic origins. They all knew he would stop at nothing to get it. 

They tried everything. They couldn’t get the Chief to allow his Shaman to go on the journey around the Pellurian Sea towards Baden’s Bluff. They couldn’t kill him and take it with his tribe all about him. 

Vorden had even considered taking a Halfling slave and enlarging the cut off fingers. When it was put forth that an Orc would know the difference between Halfling and Elf fingers by smell he seriously considered marinating the magicked finger in his own blood. 

In the end they got six Orc and six Goblins for their journey. The Chief was glad to be rid of the Goblins, parasites on the tribe. 

As if to make Vorden want the staff more the Olin, the sniffer-demon said, “The staff smelled of the Erethor. I was in a body once on the Elven Front, serving a Legate who died there. The staff smelled like the wood from that cursed place.” The words seemed odd out of the mastiff’s mouth. The astirax or sniffer-demon was a new tennat in the once sweet and eager to please mastiff. 

*Last Day* 

Karhoun thought about walking around the tower for the last time. Seeing the links from Orc to Orc, tribe to tribe. He closely watched the way power worked here, how some Legates commanded better slaves and some Orc commanded more fear. Goblins had their own pecking order, he had seen that but in Orc presences the Goblin pecking order meant little to nothing. Karhoun walked around Theros Obsidia for the last day and thought about lines of power 

Unaros thought about how everything had changed. Olin was his dog, had been his dog since his father’s bitch had birthed him in their family kennels. Now an ancient Demon walked in Olin’s skin. 

His friends seemed distant, almost antagonistic. Would his status as a Shadow Legate be outshined by the Elven Night Princeling? If so, the Elf would have to perish. 

Karhoun would do that, would do it for his old friend Unaros. 

Vorden thought only of the staff. He was brought up far from the Elves and only knew his mother, his father and a few torture victims in the tower. The staff was made of Elven wood…wasn’t it? 

It was a link to his past, to his future, to the man his father was. 

He had to have it. 

*Paying the Price for Magic* 

The cleaver went through meat without a sound, through bone with a sick crunch and hit the rock with a metal on rock scrape and a spark. 

The pain blinded Vorden and blood soaked the Scarlet Prince’s left sleeve. 

Unaros healed the wound, closed it and Karhoun helped his friend away. 

The Shaman slurped the finger into his mouth, eating it on the spot, blood on his lips and rapture in his eyes. 

They walked away with the staff, marred at the ends where once there were iron shods before they were ripped away. 

It was a fitting lesson for younglings on their way out into the world, a moral they would need to compile for themselves.  It was up to them to take the magic, the squalor, the blood and the toll it all took and glean wisdom from the experience.


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## Tuerny (May 24, 2003)

Looks good!

I can't wait to read the next chapter?

So what does the staff do? 

Jesse Dean


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## The Forsaken One (May 24, 2003)

Nice nice


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## Siridar (May 24, 2003)

Cool.

Very nice.


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## LRathbun (May 24, 2003)

Very well written!  Good stuff.


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## Paka (May 27, 2003)

*Meta-Game*

Thanks for the praise.  I appreciate it .

Maybe you care about this stuff and maybe you do not. 


*House Rules* 

Double 20 Instant Kill Rule   - I want combat to always have that danger. Even a dagger should be feared. Every arrow is a possible death. See the 3.0 DMG, page 64, Variant: Instant Kill 

In the world of Midnight, I think that kind of un-romantic arrow to the throat in the midst of combat works. The players are aware that they can die fast and furious and I've asked them to just keep a secondary character concept in their minds just in case. 

DM Keeps Hit Points Rule   - In the Unknown Armies game I played in I was always interested in the way the game pretty much used a hit point system for a modern horror game. 

The DM kept track of hit points and didn't tell you how many points you were hit for, he just described the hit and the effect it had on your body. 

In a fantasy game it would keep the players afraid of the edge of the knife, not the piddly 1d4 of a knife's damage. 

I'm not sure how well it is working since in the intro one of the players threw a knife at the other play but it works well in theory, in my mind. 

Levels   - I don't plan on using CR's and all that but will probably just give the players a set number of XP per game. I want levels to advance at a fairly brisk pace, Midnight is a world that demands the heroes grow strong or die . 

I seem to remember their being a set XP per game rule in Star Wars. I will probably look that over before making any definite house rulings. Maybe Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed will have something interesting to swipe regarding experience points. 

No Alignment  - Detect Evil will be Detect Shadow more like the L5R Detect Taint, detecting a direct link to Shadow.  If the players did a Detect Shadow on a cultist who worshipped a Demon not related to Izrador, then I would describe a different darkness than the one they are used to.

*Who We Are* 

I've been trying to get a game started with JJ for a while now. He was in a car accident a few months ago and has been mostly bed-ridden and often stuck in his house. If anyone I know needs a game it is him. 

He had made up two Riddle of Steel characters but the other gamers kept having to stand us up, real life getting in the way of gaming. Grrrr. 

Finally, I just decided to run a game with just one other player, easier to get both together during the day on Wednesdays after I get off work on the night shift at five in the morning. 

The nice thing about the game's scheduling is I drive a cab and run the game right after a 12 hour shift (5pm to 5am) means that I've had 12 hours to think about it a bit, mull it over in my brain. The bad thing is that I am often exhausted but I also run some of my best games strung out on caffeine, eyes bloodshot. 

The players, JJ and Barry are prominent members on a plot comittee of a local LARP, IFRA. They also are veterans of what was probably my best game ever, a Tolkien and Jordan influenced Ars Magica game that ran for about a year before I went abroad and returned to the players scattered to the hills. 

JJ and Barry have been friends since high school and when Barry get's married in a year or so, JJ will no doubt be the Best Man or at least in the wedding party. I say this only because I think trust is a very important issue for a gaming group and it is nice to know that I think it won't be much of an issue here. 

Barry's fiancee, Brandy, has also been invited to play and hopefully, she will. She's a loud, fun, dynamic gamer who brings alot to the table and when I pitched the game to her with the standard, "Picture Middle-Earth but Sauron won," her eyes lit up. 

The game will run every Wednesday and hopefully the Story Hour will be posted in the next 24 to 48 hours or so. 

For the record, I am a cab driver/frustrated writer, who quit my job working with teenagers so that I could take more time to write. My current project is a modern Arthurian fantasy about the bastard son of Elvis Presley. That has been put on hold far too much while writing this fine crap here. 

I picture running this game until JJ can walk and/or the PC's take down, lay siege to or take over Theros Obsidia (and maybe they can happen at around the same time, that'd be cool). 

I like the idea of journaling a game completely and in the end, having a detailed account of what happened as a memento. Hopefully, I'll dig *Crown of Shadows* and will begin running out of that once it comes out. 

Thanks for reading and thanks again for your kind words.


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## Paka (May 29, 2003)

*Story Post #3*

*Sad Father* 

Durannil Feyworth of the High Clouds stood at a full three feet. Still, as the old Gnome stood beneath the dark splendor of Theros Obsidia he felt small. He wished he were on the deck of his ship, Feya’s Sacrifice. He felt sure of himself there, sailing the Ebron Sean down to the Rivers in the south. Lately, though, even on the river, he had felt small. 

His son, Thanil, stood just under three feet and had his mother’s green eyes. Thanil’s hair was shaved because the young Gnomes felt it made them faster swimmers. 

Quickly they were ushered past the beggars by a squad of Orcs with breast plates stained with blood. Durannil knew that was the tradition of the Mother of Blood tribe. He looked over at his son and tried to work up a smile for his boy's sake but couldn’t make it happen. 

Together they were locked into a guest quarter and told not to leave. The list for what the tower will need for summer was almost completed and it was the High Clouds who brought it across the sea. Durannil wondered if this would be the last time he would ever see his son. 

“You won’t be joining me on the barge,” he explained to Thannil. 

“Why not?” 

“My business won’t allow for it. There is a Legate traveling with some Orcs and others. They will be making their way along the eastern rim of the Ebron Sean, what the humans called the Pellurian.” 

Thannil nodded and his father reminded himself again that his son wasn't a boy anymore. 

“You will go with them and look up your auntie once you reach Baden’s Bluff. The Bluff is a good place for a young Gnome, a good place to seek your own fortune. It is time for such things.” 

He wanted to say things to his son, tell him that he missed his mother and that sometimes he reminded him of her so much it made him ache. They silently sat in the cell until an Orc summoned Thannil to meet the Legate and his men-at-arms before they left on their overland trip. 

A mastiff whose shoulder was as high as Thannil’s head led him down the dark halls to a Legate’s private room. 


*Introduction to the Gnomish Rogue on the Charismatic Path*

Thannil observed his new traveling companions carefully. The Northman, introduced as Karhoun, was a brute, six spans high with a shaved head and blonde beard. He noticed that a space was on his left cheek where no hair would grow, perhaps a scar. Karhoun wore wool clothes in muted colors and had notched weapons on his belt. 

Prince Vorden was the first Elf he had ever met who he wasn’t smuggling illegally on a boat. He wore a red metal skull cap with a deep crimson robe. His bow and sword were jeweled, little as that meant nowadays. Thannil had heard older Gnomes talk about how pretty stones once were a sign of wealth. 

In this Last Age a sign of wealth is food or a few goats. 

When Thannil looked at the Elf and Man he felt the tickle in his head, the knowledge that these were two who wanted to see Theros Obsidia fall, to kill Orc and Goblin and other Shadow Minions. He knew that they were in the oath room a week ago with him. They were noble. They had heard the call. 

He sighed in relief. 

The mastiff turned to the other man in the room and spoke, “Here’s the Gnome.” 

The other man had no such shred of nobility. He wore his black hair short and was beginning his first beard. On his back were the newly spun robes of a Legate with a red collar, close to his throat. On his hip was a shiny new morning star. 

Unaros spoke to the Gnome in Trader’s Tongue, “I am Unaros, newly frocked Shadow Legate. We will leave at first light tomorrow for the Bluff. You may spend the night here with Karhoun and Prince Vorden.” 

Karhoun looked at the eating dagger on Thannil’s hip and spoke, “Should we equip him?” 

Unaros responded, “With what?” 

The Dornishman shrugged. “We might meet trouble on the road. It is a long journey.” 

“That is why we are traveling with the Orcs. No, I won’t arm this merchant. I wish to pray to the Shadow for a safe journey. Good night.” 

As the Legate left his slave scurried after him. Thannil hadn’t even known he was in the room but the Halfling slave exited behind the Legate, eyes downcast. 

They were all left in the room alone. Slowly and deliberately, Karhoun silenced Thannil’s questions by putting his finger to his lips and said, “We’ll _talk_ later.” 

Vorden looked tired and rubbed the bandage over his left hand where his finger used to be.  He asked, “You speak Erenlander?” 

The Gnome nodded. 

“Good, do you have any gear on your ship you’d like to fetch?” 

“I’d like my shortsword.” 

The both shook their heads, “Not a good idea right now. When we kill a Goblin, that will be your gear.” 

“Maybe my bedroll for the road.” 

They walked him to the ship and while aboard the Freya’s Revenge for the last time he tried to get some food off of the quartermaster who sternly but kindly refused him and wished the young Gnome a safe journey over land. 

Vorden, the Crimson Prince saw to other business. 


*Prince Vorden’s Other Business* 

Kaza was a dirty little boy. He saw the one the Orcs called the Little Elf.  He had never seen colors like the ones on the Elf's robes anywhere but in a sunset. He must have food, Kaza thought and approached him for alms. 

Vorden was looking at the written signs he had posted in all over the shanty town surrounding Theros Obsidia. He noticed that Orc were standing guard over them, making sure none of the populace could read the words. After a short and frustrating parley with a pipe-smoking Orc warding his sign, he walked away, shaking his head. 

Tired of the squalor he almost tripped over the little boy asking for food, “Hey mister, some food for me or my ma?” 

He looked down at the boy and surmised that the child looked healthy enough. “I need someone to carry my things, boy. Do you know who I am?” 

“You’re the one the Orcs call, Little Elf. Do I get food?” 

“Hm, is that what the Orcs call me? We will go on a long journey and yes, I will feed you while you are under my car.” 

Kaza thought about this and said, “You’d better talk to my ma.” 

Kaza’s ma lived under an old fruit cart, set up to keep the weather off of them. It was hell in the winters but the summer rains were mostly off of their backs. 

When she saw the Elf she was scared. Kaza had done something and this creature was going to take him away. She had heard stories about how the Witch Queen came in the night to take children away from their parents, leaving only wood in their place. 

“Madame, I would like to employ your son.” 

She shooed Kaza down the street and spoke, “He don’t do things like that but I do. For a day’s food I’ll see that your needs are met, master. Let’s just wait until Kaza is out of earshot.” 

Comprehension and sadness dawned over Vorden. “No, ma’am, that is not what I mean. I mean I want to take him away.” 

She murmered, “He’s all I have.” 

That sentence sat between them until the Elf broke the silence, “Kaza can have a better life than this. It will be a dangerous road but I will keep care of him.” 

She shook her head. 

When they parted company, Kaza walked away with the Prince Vorden. His new master claimed that Kaza wasn’t a slave but Kaza didn’t really understand the difference, nor did he care either way. When they got to Baden’s Bluff (wherever that was) his new master had said that Kaze would be able to send for his mother if he saved enough. 

His mother was given a week’s dry rations in return for allowing an Elf to walk away with her son. She hoped the old wives’ tales she’d heard about the Witch Queen were false. 

The boy was brought into the tower.  Vorden, not knowing how else to let Orcs know not to kill the child, put his Wizard Mark on Kaza’s hand. 

Given explicit instructions to bathe before he returned, the child was left alone in his new home. 


*Meeting at the Grove* 

The trees were all about a hundred years old, almos the same age as Prince Vorden, the Crimson Prince.  The elder trees had been cut down in the sacking of Highwall to feed the fires. Izrador had wanted the smoke of Highwall to be seen from the southern Pellurian shores where the mass of three armies awaited. 

It was a safe place to talk freely. Thannil, the Gnomish Merchant, Prince Vorden, the Elven Channeler and Karhoun Esben, the Dornish Wildlander discussed the coming journey. 

Oddly the human preached patience and the Elf wanted blood. Karhoun wanted to get to Baden’s Bluff safely with the Legate and set up safely, knowing that life on the road would be difficult. 

The Elf wanted to kill the Legate at first opportunity. He said that they needed a plan, a signal a swift action to break the yoke of tyranny. 

The Gnome wanted to play evil against evil, let Orcs and Legates and Goblins do the work they didn’t have to. 

Karhoun expressed worry concering the Astirax now inhabiting Olin's immense mastiff body, “That thing is scary and I’m not sure who is in charge, the Legate or the Demon.” 

Vorden nodded agreement, “I’m not sure who is in charge and furthermore I’m not sure if it matters.” 

Karhoun began to rant, “That thing said it was in the Erethor with its former master but its body was killed. That means if we just kill the damned thing on the trail it is going to float back here and tell everyone that we went renegade. Killing the Legate and Orcs in their sleep is signing our execution notice.” 

They argued more about pride, how much longer they could live in the Shadow and a concise plan of action. Vorden mentioned how when they were discussion the journey he had wanted to go west around the Pellurian, make his way to the Erethor. 

Karhoun expressed his doubts that their reception by the Elves would be a warm one. 

In the end no clear decisions were made. They would leave tomorrow at first light and when the time came would take action. None of them knew when that time would come, all they knew is they hoped it came soon. They had all seen their fathers twisted by Shadow and many of them had known their mothers killed by it. 

They knew one thing: They were tired of waiting. 

Tomorrow they would go east along the shores of the Pellurian Sea. The first town they would come to was Whitecliff, once the trading capitol of the north, now an abandoned and perfectly preserved ghost town squatted by Goblins and frequented by smugglers and bandits. 


_(Note: Again we only had about an hour to game due to *Real Life* stuff but I felt we covered a fair amount of ground and these past two weeks will serve as good prelude-style introductions. Hopefully, the tone has been adequately set. Next week I am eager to get along with the journey. Truth is, I wanted to start this week but there just wasn't time. 

Brandy is talking about playing an Orc, which should be interesting. If she is going to play I'll make her character up with her before the game day to save time for GAMING. 

Thanks for reading.)_


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## wolff96 (May 29, 2003)

It's nice to see a story hour set in the world of Midnight.

I'm intrigued by the setting but haven't had a chance to pick up the book yet. So it's very cool to see your characters setting out into a world that I know very little about.

Keep up the good work!


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## Paka (May 29, 2003)

Thanks.

The players were great in this one and had some amazing dialogue that I didn't remember faithfully enough to put in.  I am seriously considering taping games with a microcassette recorder just to make sure I catch everything.

Again, I've always wanted to document a game from beginning to end and thought this one would be a fun one to try it with.

If you haven't picked up Midnight yet, please do so.  It is a wonderful worldbook with great rules variations on D&D.  There are threads about it on ENworld and on RPG.net, not to mention the Midnight fan site (www.againsttheshadow.org) and the Yahoo group frequented by the writers.  All worth checking out.

Thanks for reading.


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## Pillars of Hercules (May 30, 2003)

*Definitely in!*

Paka,

I'm definitely pulling up a chair and an ale to listen to this yarn!  You seem to have a great world in Midnight and good players to boot.


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## Captain of the Guard (Jun 1, 2003)

Nice story hour. I'm running a midnight campaign soon and it's so scarily similar of what my characters have decided for classes. Can't wait for the next update


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## Paka (Jun 2, 2003)

Pillars and Captain, welcome to the Story Hour.

I re-read what I have and edited , re-wrote some sentences, nothing drastic, just some little changes that needed doing.  I think the most dramatic thing I did was re-write the last sentence to one of the posts.

This week we will get to put in a proper five hours of gaming and I am looking forward to that.  I wish we could game some more, eight hours would be great but so be it.  Should be fun.

Below is an e-mail exchange with one of the players, JJ, that I thought was worth keeping and worth posting. 

Chain of command: 
who eats who, and who fears who, who bribes who 
legates and asterix who's in charge 
orcs, goblins, legates, humans, halflings, gnomes (the food chainof command) 
What do goblins respect/fear the most 
what do orcs fear/respect the most 


It is all a convoluted chain of command. Some Orcs are also Legates, some Legates are Soldiers. Some Legates command men and Orcs in the battlefield and some, for whatever reason, cannot and do not. 

Fear? Izrador. He is the top of the food chain and while he's a God, he is a God who has a body and walks Eredane. Once, a year or so after you first visited Eredane he visited. You never saw him directly but could tell he was there. 

It was the worst ten minutes of your life, made being beaten by your father look like a Restday Picnic. 

Halflings are slaves in your understanding. They are the lowest on the totem pole and the only reason some aren't ritually beatne, eaten and raped (in any one of the nine possible orders) is because of the status of their owner. They are, after all, property. 

Gnomes are boatmen and it is their ships that take Orcs, supplies and such across the Pellurian Sea and into the rivers. They are a vital part of the Shadow's food chain but it is also known that they flaunt the laws and smuggle, sometimes to the Dwarves and Elves or other Insurgents. 

Goblins fear and respect anything that can kill them. Every so often a Goblin will get brutally cunning and rise in the ranks. If a Goblin really distinguishes himself he can become a Black Hood, a cabal of Goblin Assassins. They are especially nasty because they are trained and then put back out into normal patrols. One never knows when a Black Hood will strike on orders from a Night King of Izrador himself. 

Orc fear nothing. They are the true sons of Izrador. Well, in theory, they fear nothing. Truth is they are killed in droves in the Kaladrun Mountains and in the Ethenor Forest. They fear but to show it is to show weakness and to show weakness is to DIE. 


General: 
1- how can we get slaves 

Get a writ from your friendly neighborhood Legate and bribe, bribe, bribe. Take the weak, put chains on them and declare them as your slaves; it is about that easy with a Legate's word on your side. 


2- what r common bartering goods 

Good question. Food is a big one. Metal, fur, leather, tools of any kind. Hunting equipment, bows, arrows, slings, traps. Boots, this far north, warm clothes are a big deal. Live farm animals. A good healthy sheep would be worth a mint (but where would you put it when the Orcs come into town and get hungry or horny or angry?) 

There is a list in the book. I'll show it to you. 


3 - what do gnomes often carry for trade and what do they want 

Gnomes carry much of the above, taking it where the Legates tell them. They also carry black market Elven and Dwarven items and take some stuff to different fronts for insurgent use. 

What do they want? They want to live on the river, survive while still doing their part to mess with the Shadow. 

And they want the bottom line, they want a profit at the end of the day. 

4- how do we get weapons, armor, mounts 

You've been lucky little bastards and started with all of the equipment you could want because you were Tower Trained. This ain't normal by a long shot and I fear you guys are in for a rude awakening if you should ever rebel hard and fast. 

You get weapons, armor and mounts by being in the party of a Shadow Legate. THe moment a Legate isn't there to hold your hand you are an outlaw and will be killed or tortured and killed or just thrown into slavery. 

How would you get it without Legate help? That will be a big part of the campaign should you two decide to take the Rebel Plunge. 


Dorns: 
Ancestors any i might have herd of tales and fables. all word of mouth probably. any ancient mytheology, ancestral worship, and gods stuffs where are the largest communities of dorns. 
outlaw dorns of rewnon 


If it is cool with you, let's use Norse Myth for the Dornish ancestors. I picture them as vikings anyway. Let's bastardize Norse myth. 

You had an ancestor named Tor who threw lightning bolts and one named Loki Skywalker who is sly of tongue, etc. etc. Odin One-eye, the One Tree, all neat, brutal stuff that I think really works within Midnight. 

Let me think a little about the Baden family in particular. 

Please feel free to always make stuff up. Making up your corner of the universe is *ALWAYS* cool. 

More later...


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## Paka (Jun 5, 2003)

*Story Post #4*

*Suk's Story (N.P.C.)* 

Suk was called before the War Chief and the Matron of the Mother of Pain tribe. They were stern, covered in the scar-gifts of the tribe’s ritual tortures. 

The Matron looked into his eyes and spoke, “The Night King put his magicks to you, Suk. The Night King sits at the feast table of Father Night, eats His meat. Yet, you are not a dead Orc. Make us understand.” 

Suk cleared his throat and began, “I taunted the Little Elf while guarding the tribe’s treasure and his father magicked me while I choked the Princeling. Blood began to pour out of me from unnatural places. I felt Father Night pull me towards the North.” 

They nodded and the chief grunted, urging him to continue and so he did, “Without asking, the Princeling healed me. I left, not wanting to bring trouble to the tribe by killing one of the Night King’s spawn. Did I do wrong?” 

The Matron and the War Chief exchanged glances. The Chief spoke, “No, Suk, you are one of my most trusted sons. Matron and I are proud of you. 

“The Crimson Princeling is a man now and will travel dangerous paths. He has asked the Legates for you to join him, lead his war band. I say you go.” 

The Matron agreed. 

Suk gathered his things: one long iron needle, a pair of boots, two daggers, his Vardatch, some scale mail armor and a sharpening stone. 

They were gathered outside the tower at first light, the Elf, a Northman, a Shadow Legate and his hound along with five Orc and six Goblins of the Burning Mother Tribe. At second glance Suk noticed three others. There was a boy-slave with the Elf’s mark on him and a pack over his shoulders. He took note of a Gnome with no one’s mark on him, eyes looking everywhere, probably pricing everything, Suk thought. The Legate’s Halfling slave was five steps behind his master, eyes properly downcast. 

Suk looked over the Elf, wondering why he had healed him, why he hadn't let his father's dark magicks finish their bloody work and why the Crimson Prince had gone out of his way to request Suk's presence in this party. 

The Northman took charge of the Goblin scouts, setting up their marching formation; the human seemed competent to Suk and if he wanted to order Goblins around it mattered not to him. 

Suk exchanged some harsh words with the Burning Mother Tribe’s appointed leader. The leader, some ratty Orc with a burnt face named The Gabber, wanted to take point. Point was a position of honor at the head of the party, leading attacks. Those who led attacks would get glory and the first choice of the spoils. Suk wasn’t sure if the Legate would assert dominance or not and for now allowed the words to remain only words. 

The Elf and the Legate discussed how they would address Suk’s problematic presence. They spoke quickly in Elvish and from the Gabber’s face Suk could tell that the crispy fool didn’t speak Elvish. Speaking to the Elf, the Legate said that he would allow the Orcs to figure out leadership for themselves. 

Instantly Suk held the tip of his dagger in his fingertips and threw it with all of his seven stone weight behind the throw. The Gabber howled as the dagger pierced his shoulder. Bleeding and screaming, Gabber grabbed for the weapon at his hip. His hands would just be on the hilt when his guts were spilled on the ground by Suk’s Vardatch. Suk cleaned the fool’s intestines off his jagged blade and took his victim’s boots and a dagger. He left a kind offering to the other Orcs, a showing of what kind of leader he would be…ruthless and just. 

Without a word of their dead former leader the other Orc cleaned the rest of the pickings from the body, finally cutting off the feet and the head to bury at the next cross roads. They put oil over the body and lit it aflame. It wasn’t a proper burial pyre but they were on the trail and this brief funeral would have to do. 

The Elf bent towards the Orc’s corpse with a knife in hand but Suk stopped him, “What are you doing? You didn’t kill him, you are not in his tribe.” 

The Elf managed to look guilty and explained, “I was going to take a thumb.” Suk thought the Elf must be hungry for fingers after losing one of his own for the magic staff. 

In Elvish, so the other Orc might not understand, Suk explained, “If you take the thumb it will make my leadership weak.” 

The Elf put his dagger away. Suk nodded, glad the Elf could reason and didn’t need to be overtly threatened. 

First blood of the journey spilled still within sight of Theros Obsidia, they set off east. If they marched at a good Orcish pace and met no trouble they could make White Cliff during the day after next. The Northman explained to the Goblins his way of scouting and took the useless green vermin a quarter mile ahead in fear of ambush. 

Making sure none of the Burning Mother Orcs had their hands near their weapons, Suk proudly took point.


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## Rune (Jun 6, 2003)

Woohoo!  Paka's back!

Excellent character development, but then again, anyone familiar with your old game would expect that, wouldn't they?


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## Paka (Jun 6, 2003)

*Story Post #5

Boots the Goblin (N.P.C.)*

Boots the Goblin did what the tall sun-haired Northman Wildlander said because Karhoun seemed to mean what he said and the Orcs didn’t contradict his orders.  The Goblins fanned out in front of the Legate’s procession.  A few were up with the Wildlander and a few were between the Wildlander and the Legate.  It was Boots’s job to communicate what the Wildlander found back to the Shadow Legate.

He got this job because when the Northman asked who the fastest was they all pointed at Boots.  Boots shrugged.  He was fast but not so much because his legs were strong or his feet speedy but because he knew precisely when and where to run.

The Wildlander had a name too.  Karhoun…Karhoun something or other.  To Boots all of the human names sounded alike.  The Northman found tracks; the Fell had been near here.  For two days they kept east along the road, and they continued to find traces of the undead’s movements.

They made camp and the Orcs set up watches and ordering the Goblins to set up camp.

The Elf took out his book, his Lorebook he called it.  The Goblins stopped what they were doing and gathered around it.

“Is that a book?”

“Yes, my Lorebook, I am writing of the things I have seen today.”

Another Goblin asked, “Are…are we in this Lorebook?”

The Elf showed them pictures of the burns often found in the Burning Mother Tribe.  There was a picture of a Goblin there.  Boots and his fellow Goblins were in awe.

“Could you put us in the book?  Then we would be immortal.”

Kindly, the Elf took out his quill and wrote down all of their names.  The only one he knew offhand was Boots.  Everyone now knew Boots, Karhoun’s little helper.

The next day, a few hours after high sun they came over a hill and there was Whitecliff.  Goblins back at Theros Obsidia whispered that Whitecliff was a place where a Goblin could find a home and not be ordered by anyone.  A Goblin could stay there and be free.  That sounded like a big lie to Boots, a tale told around the campfire.

Karhoun took notice of three cook fires throughout the city.  They all took notice of different things.  Thannil the Gnome noticed a hidden Gnomish barge in the bay.  The Orcs noticed the unspoiled white buildings reflecting sunlight, making their heads hurt.  Prince Vorden noticed where the trees had become overgrown in the time it had been since he had seen Whitecliff.  Suk the Orc looked for a safe place to make camp.

Again the Northman and the Goblins scouted ahead.  Karhoun pointed and Boots followed his finger.  In an overgrown square in the abandoned city a pack of Fell zombies were digging through a pile of rubble.  A house had fallen on top of itself somehow and they were digging for the meat they smelled.  Odd that, most of Whitecliff was untouched by ravages of war.

The Gnome began to pick up rocks to throw at the Fell, prompting the jeers of the Goblins.  The Gnome threw a rock; hit a Goblin square in the face.  Boots tried not to laugh at that too.  

Suk the Orc explained to the stupid Gnome the price for assaulting an agent of the Shadow.  The Gnome apologized and put his rocks down and handed his only weapon to the Orc, a knife he used for eating.

Karhoun separated the Goblins into two groups.  They would flank the undead while the Legate led the Orcs in a charge.

Suk screamed a battlecry and the battle was on.  The Fell turned to see the Legate’s entourage.  Their stomachs were distended and their mouths twisted in pain.  Obviously, these peasants had died of hunger and when their mortal hungers killed them, a deeper hunger brought them back again.  Boots gripped his spear and shuddered.  He didn’t want to charge but he did, following Karhoun because he knew he would be killed if he didn’t.

The battle was fast.  The Legate controlled half of the Fell while the Orcs put others under the Kadatch.  The Elf used magicks on Suk to make him larger and stronger while the Gnome actually picked up rocks and hurled them at the zombies, missing one and hitting an Orc in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.  

Karhoun sent some Goblins out of the square where the battle took place, to scout the perimeter, make sure there were no surprises.

The wounded were bandaged but not yet healed.  The Orc who had been hit by the Gnome’s rock lay unconscious but not dead.  Lucky for the Gnome, no one saw the stone hit him.

Happy that he had survived the battle, Boots put his spear down in the rubble, tip first so that it would stick up, easy to grab if trouble happened.

His tip hit something soft and the rubble exploded.  A blur of red fur and roaring erupted all around them.  A feral human face bit at a Goblin standing next to Boots and claws shredded two Orcs.  Great black wings shrugged the rubble off of the lion-like body and a tail hovered above it, spikes quivering, looking for a likely target.

Boots ran behind Karhoun and the Northman drew his hand and a half sword.  He stood ready for a bit and then swung at the creature, who deftly avoided the sword.

Boots gripped his spear, too frightened to use it just yet.

The Gnome, still a stone's throw back from the main battlefield, ran away into the city of Whitecliff. 

The Elf opened his book, frantically, looking to see what the creature was.

The Legate spoke from across the square, “Lord Manticore!  We are brothers in the Shadow.  Allies!  I am a newly frocked Legate and these are my entourage.  Please, we meant you no harm.”

As quickly as it had begun the Manticore stopped his rampage and in one scoop of a paw scooped out a pit for cooking.

He piled up the dead Orc bodies and purred, “Well met, young Legate.  Let’s eat.”


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## Paka (Jun 6, 2003)

*Story Post #6

Leaving the Square* 

Before they reached the Square, Prince Vorden put his servant boy, Kaza, up a nearby tree with instructions to only come down when Vorden returned. 

Then they fought the Fell in the Square, with the Legate taking six for his own and the rest of them dying on Orcish Vardatch or Elvish Magicks or Karhound’s blade. 

When the Manticore exploded from his resting place under the rubble the party sprang into action. Prince Vorden got behind the Legate and his two Orcish bodyguards, frantically looking for mention of this beast in his Lorebook. Karhoun was closest to the beast, lucky to not have been within his immediate view, he took out his bastard sword and prepared for battle. Unaros sent his newly aquired Fell minions to surround Karhoun, “Protect him at all costs,” he had yelled. Thannil, the Gnomish Merchant, ran as fast as his little feet could take him. 

Thannil quickly made his way out of the square and turned the corner still sprinting. He hadn’t forgotten the Gnomish barge he had seen in Whitecliff’s bay when he first entered the city. If he was lucky they were still waiting for the morning tide to take them away. He nearly ran into the Goblins’ spears. They had been sent out by Karhoun after the entourage defeated the Fell to scout the perimeter. When they heard the Manticore’s roar they pretended they heard nothing, not wanting to see what had created such a din. 

“Where’re you going, Gnome?” 

Thannil tried to explain but they wouldn’t hear it. Finally, he turned on the charm _(Charm Person)_ “There is a terrible monster over that way. If you want to die, that is fine, go ahead and die. But I’m going to the docks where it is nice and safe. You can go with me if you want to.” 

To one of the Goblins, this seemed like a perfectly good plan. The other Goblin, while not convinced, wasn’t going to contradict two, when he was only one. They followed the Gnome down to the docks. 

The crossbow bolts came as a surprise to everyone, Thannil included. They weren’t meant for him, though. His Goblin companions fell over quickly, dead from the ambush. 

They came out of the brush with short swords in hand, still not sure of this Gnome who walked through Whitecliff with Goblins for friends. 

The eldest asked who he was at swordspoint while the other two Gnomes collected their crossbow bolts from the Goblin corpses. When they had heard his story they decided to take him to the ship, let their father figure out what to do. Thannil had mentioned his friend, Prince Vorden, son of a Night King. He didn’t seem like the sort of fellow their father would want to meet. 

“I am Easthoven and these are my brothers, West and Southhoven. We are named after the parts of the world where we were born.” 

Prince Vorden, having excused himself from the supper with the Manticore, came upon all of them, introduced himself and told them his plan. 

“We will go find Bolus and Kaza before they reach the Legate. We will take them to the Gnome’s boat so they can be free and then go the rest of the way to Baden’s Bluff on foot. If the Manticore leaves and the opportunity presents itself, we will be on the boat before it leaves on the morning tide.” 


* The Manticore Feeds and Departs* 

Karhoun was careful to stay out of paw’s reach of the Manticore while he spitted the dead Orcs on the Goblin spears. He threw the dead Orcs on the fire pit the Manticore had built while the Legate spoke with him of his plans to reach Baden’s Bluff. Unaros was clearly in shock, never having met a creature like this before and stammered his way through the conversation. 

During the conversation Thannil and Vorden and Kaza returned. Thannil had a cut along his face that was still bleeding. Vorden explained that they had been ambushed by human bandits and barely got away with their lives. 

“I am sorry, Unaros, but they killed Bolus, here is his belt, the only thing of value he had on him. We came upon them while they were taking crossbow bolts out of the Goblins Karhoun sent to scout the perimeter.” 

The Manticore asked if they knew where the humans were laired but they did not. 

Karhoun and Unaros’s fear of the Manticore clearly amused and pleased him. After eating the two Orcs he had killed along with the one unconscious from the Gnome’s stone he left, wishing the young Legate and his friends good luck on their journey. He flew away, hoping to come upon the bandits so that he could break fast tomorrow morning on human meat. 


*Bolus the Slave* 

After the Fell had been defeated they sent Bolus, the Legate’s Halfling slave back to the tree where the Elf had stowed his boy. 

Bolus went as ordered and got to the tree. He ordered the boy down but Kaza, remember the Crimson Prince’s orders, refused. Bolus wasn’t used to failing his master and refused to go back empty-handed. 

“Boy, if you do not come down this instant I will hand you over to the Orc for a good buggering. They will do things to you that your pathetic mind couldn’t hope to imagine. I even heard their leader, Suk, remarking on how he favored young boys.” 

Kaza figured that Bolus was lying for at least part of that but came down from the tree anyway, careful that his pack filled with Prince Vorden’s alchemical lab wasn’t damaged in his descent. They were a few feet away from the tree, making their way back to the square when Vorden and Thannil found them. 

Vorden spoke quickly and succinctly, “We have made contact with some Gnomish smugglers and they will take you to freedom.” 

Both Kaza and Bolus looked puzzled. Bolus spoke first, “Is this some kind of trick? A test from Master Unaros?” 

Vorden and Thannil shook their heads. Maybe it wasn’t a trick. 

In the end, Kaza elected to stay with Prince Vorden, in hopes that he would be able to send for his mother soon. Bolus was taken back to the docks and left with the Gnomish brothers, Easthoven, Westhoven and Southoven. Together they took him back to their hidden ship, Garl’s Pride. 

Bolus watched Vorden, Thannil and Kaza depart and then asked the Gnomes, “Could I have a dagger? Master would never allow me to carry one and it would mean I was truly free.” 

Southoven, the youngest of them, was happy to give the Halfling his first dagger. “We will have you back on the Halfling plains in no time, friend. Welcome to freedom out from under the shadow.” 

"There is no life without Shadow," and the Halfling deftly hit the young Gnome in the throat, a nasty shot with the dagger’s tip. Instantly, West and Easthoven were covered in Southoven’s blood. The brothers saw to their youngest sibling’s wound while Bolus ran away, hoping to reach his Master before the sun went down on this damned city.


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## Paka (Jun 11, 2003)

*Story Post #7

The Two Rooves*

When Prince Vorden and Thannil returned with the Elf's boy-servant, Kaza to tell the Legate that his slave had been killed in an ambush everyone was so raw from the meeting with the Manticore that nothing came as a surprise.

Thannil’s weak gash across the cheek was accepted without comment as the only wound taken in the battle and no further questions were asked.  Unaros, the Legate, Karhoun, the Wildlander, Suk, the Orcish leader, all accepted the Elf’s word as fact.  Whitecliff had turned too dangerous too quickly to do otherwise.

Olen, the demon-possessed mastiff, trained to smell magic-users and magic items for the greater glory of Izrador stayed silent.

Suk found a stable to bed down in for the night.  It was a good building on high ground that afforded a good view of the surrounding area.  The roof was sturdy enough with only a slight tilt to allow sentries to watch from above at night with good footing for archery.

The doors were barred and the Fell were left outside to guard the doors, which was better for all.  The entourage was growing sick of being in the presence of the Fell’s distended bellies and rank undead hunger.  The doors weren’t barred as much as closed solidly, forcing anyone entering through one of the three doors to make noise if they somehow managed to get past the Fell.

Karhoun went to the roof and dry shaved his head with one of his treasures, a straight razor.  Once his scalp was a smooth dome over his blonde beard he took stock of the area, getting a feel for this section of the city before dusk fell away into an all too sudden and black moonless night to come.

The Northman saw a Gnomish stranger, creeping through the streets with a crossbow in hand.  He was making obvious clumsy signals to other parties.  Karhoun did not know the truth of Vorden and Thannil’s interaction with the Gnomes and so he sent for Unaros and told the Cleric of the Northern Shadow that one Gnome was spotted but likely more stalked the streets.

Assuming they had something to do with the bandits who attacked Vorden and killed his slave, Unaros opted to stay put for the night in their defensible position.  “With any luck,” Unaros said, “They will pass us by in the night none the wiser.  Our forces are too thin at the moment.”

Shortly following the Legate's decree, Thannil handed the Northman a note from Vorden, explaining the truth of the Gnomes and how Bolus was now free and a boat awaited but would depart in the morning.  After shredding the note, Suk and Thannil broke bred together, keeping watch as night began to fall.

Thannil had been restless ever since returning and didn’t really understand why he had returned at all.  While Suk and Karhoun ate, the Gnome slowly and quietly dangled from the roof and fell to the ground, landing without a sound.  He would make his way to the boat, Garl’s Pride, and be among Gnomes again, on the open sea.

Slowly and methodically but most of all, quietly, Thannil made his way from the stables, none the wiser.  He was thinking about the series of shadows he would ride out of view when a sharp pain stuck him in the back.  Thannil struck out behind him but his attacker’s hands held him close and he passed out before ever seeing his aggressor.  Thannil never would see the Halfling who attacked him.

Bolus had run from the Gnomes but as soon as they stabilized their brother’s bleeding, they gave chase, knowing that if the Halfling slave made it to his master it could mean certain death for their new Elven and Gnomish aquaintences.  As dusk quickly descended Bolus grew scared with only a dagger to protect him.

He considered it a sign from Izrador Himself when Thannil the Gnomish traitor crossed in front of the window he huddled in.  He took out his dagger, quiet as a slave, and put it in the Gnome’s back.  The traitor had struck out, given Bolus a nasty punch to the eye but stopped struggling fast enough.  

Bolus had seen death often enough but had never actually killed a living thing before then, in the near dark of an abandoned city far from what he considered home, too far from who he considered Master and feeling far from his God’s greatest place of learning.  He began to gibber and finally could not stop himself from screaming, “Master!  Master! I am sorry, Master!  I didn’t know.  They tricked me but I got away, Master!  Master, please help your loyal slave!  Help Bolus!”

He had stabbed the Gnome from the boat, the one who had given him this dagger but that was different.  He ran from that, didn’t see the Gnome before him like this one, watching him gasp his last breaths.

The Legate turned to Vorden in the stables, an eighth of a league away and spat, “I thought you said he was dead?”

Vorden looked shocked, “He was.  I saw his body.”

As the Legate began barking orders at the Orcs and Goblins, Vorden, the Night Prince, crawled out a stable window into the dark streets, unseen but not unsmelled.

Meanwhile, on the roof, Karhoun sprung into action, easily climbing down from the stable roof and making his way to the screaming.

He was the first to find his way to Bolus who was a frightful sight.  The Halfling was covered in blood from head to foot and one of his eyes was swollen shut.  Karhoun didn’t know, couldn’t know that it was the blood of two Gnomes he had stabbed that day that covered the slave.

“Quiet fool, would you bring the crossbow bolts of every bandit in the city upon us?  Or perhaps the Manticore’s claws?”

Bolus turned his gibbering rant into a pathetic sniffling.  Karhoun bandaged Thannil as best he could, not knowing if the Gnome would live.  It seemed that too much of his blood coated the Halfling and the cobblestones.

“W-w-why are you bandaging him?”

Karhoun answered quickly, gruffly, “Master Unaros will want him for questioning.  Come let’s hide.”

They made their way to a nearby house, a former brewmaster’s manor, but not used as anything but a toilet for goblins for almost a hundred years.  They made their way up the rickety stairs and out onto the roof, which unlike the stable roof was slick and steep.

Once on the roof, Karhoun changed the Gnome’s bandages again, trying to see if the bleeding had stopped or not.  It had seemed to halt but the Gnome’s breath was almost too shallow to detect.

“Will you take me to Master Unaros?”  Bolus asked.

Karhoun shook his bald head, “In time, once I am sure we won’t be leading bandits back to the camp.  You made quite a noise back there.”

Karhoun could hear Suk and a few Goblins in the night, tracking them threw the Brewmaster’s pub in the dark.  Their Shadow-granted sight allowed them to see the Gnome’s blood in the night-time.  Once upstairs, they lost the trail, not thinking to check windows out to the roof.

Slowly and surely, they made their way back to the stables while Karhoun and Bolus sat quietly on the roof over the pale and near-dead Thannil Boatswain.


*Praying to Wood*

Vorden watched from hiding as the Orcish leader ushered his Goblins into the house.  He held his staff close with all nine of his fingers.  The Prince held it to his face, unsure of how his noble intentions could have gone so very wrong.  He whispered to the staff, an item from his ancestral homeland, the Erethor Forest, “Please, please if anyone is in there.  If you can help me I beg of you to help me.  Is anyone in there?”

The only sounds he could hear was Suk, grunting distant orders to Goblins in Black Tongue.  He was up against the wall of the building, ivy clinging up the walls in the years of abandonment.  He held the staff to the ivy and begged in a fierce whisper, “Do something.  Do something!”

Miraculously the ivy began to grow thick and strong.

_[I had decided that this weapon would only come into its true glory once its iron shods were replaced on its broken ends but that it would certainly have some Druidic powers and I even thought about Plant Growth as one of them.  His desperation appealed to me and I thought it made for good story.  So the ivy grew]_

Not one to take a gift spell in the mouth, Vorden climbed the Ivy to apparent safety.

Meanwhile, Suk had returned to the stable with news that Gnomish blood was thick in a nearby house, freshly spilt.  Unaros ordered the party out again, this time led by Olen, the Astriax, Olen, the Demon-Possessed Mastiff, Olen, the Magic-Sniffer.

Karhoun was keeping an eye out for Gnomes, bow in hand, thinking to perhaps kill one or two in order to prove his loyalty to the Legate and keep his cover secure.  It was at that moment that Bolus chest ripped as Vorden’s longsword made its way through his back and out the Halfling’s sternum. 

The Elf has climbed the Ivy onto the roof and found himself behind the meddlesome slave.  

Karhoun, already covered in the blood of Thannil, was now also covered in the blood of Bolus.  The Elf took his sword out of the slave and Karhoun thought to grab the body, lest his falling make unnecessary noise that would lead undesirables to their position.

Below the Elf and the Northman, they could hear Olen leading the Goblins by his astute nose.  The mastiff padded up to the newly grown ivy, made strong and climbable by magic.  He sniffed and smiled, “It smells like Erethor,” he said.  

Olen took stock of his hunting party, an Orc and two Goblins.  If Vorden and Karhoun were gone over, and the Gnome was still alive or had more bandit allies, this could be a death trap.  He had smelled all manner of tracks surrounding this place and numbers were too uncertain.

Causing Vorden and Karhoun to sight in relief, Olen led his party back to the stables to consult the Legate.

Angry and terrible whispering spilled between the Elf and the Northman over the bloody bodies.

“What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?”

“Staying alive.”

“There was no need to kill him.  He was usefull.”

“If Unaros had spoken to him it would have meant my death.”

“It has already meant your death, Unaros knows you were lying about those bandits.”

“It is done.  What am I to do?”

“What are you to do?”

The Northman tried to kick Prince Vorden off of the roof but he missed.  Karhoun teetered on the edge of the roof, above an unforgiving cobblestone road but managed to steady himself.

“Why did you do that?” Vorden asked.

“Good-bye,” was Karhoun’s only response as he jumped from the roof.

The fall was dizzying, an amazing amount of time went by before the sickening contact with the ground.  He heard his leg snap.  He was wincing, expecting pain but felt nothing, only a fresh coat of cold sweat that covered him from smooth scalp to booted feet.  He cried out in pain and frustration.

Suk’s strong arms swept him up while Goblins leveled their spears outward, looking for the Gnomish bandits Olen had sniffed and mentioned.

“How many?”  Suk asked.

“Hard to tell, get me out of here.  Too many,” Karhoun grunted, bleeding and in pain.

Unaros was waiting and he healed his Wildlander.  Karhoun winced as the cold northern wind of Izrador’s healing covered him.  It was a terrible sensation but his leg was now right and he wouldn’t bleed to death.

Meanwhile, Vorden lowered Thannil’s body from the roof with one of his treasures, a thirty foot length of rope.  He felt someone take the body before it touched the ground and he held his breath, prepared to channel magicks upon enemies.

Two of the three Gnomes they had met earlier, sons of the Garl’s Pride’s captain greeted him in silence.  They ushered him down and left that part of the city in stealth and haste.

When they were near the ship they spoke again, “Your Halfling stabbed our brother in the throat with his own knife.  What kind of slave was he?  Didn’t he want to be free?”

Vorden sighed, “I should have considered the lifetime of conditioning he was put through.  I’m sorry.”

As a final apology Vorden saw to the brother and put his healing touch upon him, making sure he wouldn’t die of the near-fatal wound during the long night.  Vorden was taken to a secret room made for smuggling illegal cargo like magic weapons, food or Elves.  It was no bigger than a closet where he and Thannil barely fit.

Their newfound traveling companions _[NEW PC's!] _being smuggled by the Gnomes were none too pleased to share the limited space but were intrigued by their newfound company.

*Epilogue*

Karhoun was asleep, having lost so much blood had winded him.  Suk, Unaros and Olen made their way to the roof and made palaver.

Olen looked at Unaros and spoke in a near bark, “The Elf has betrayed you.  He has stolen your staff and will no doubt make his way to the Bitch-Queen’s forest to covort with others of his kind.”

Unaros’s mouth was a grim, thin line under his growing black beard, “I counted him as a friend.”

Olen’s mastiff face sneered, “You have no friends.  There is no such animal.  You should know this.  You are a Legate.  Izrador is your friend and he doesn’t reward weakness nor stupidity.  You allowed the Elf access to it with too little leash because of who his father is.”

Unaros smiled bitterly, “Too little leash indeed.  You can track my staff’s scent as long a he is within a mile of you.  He could not possibly escape.  We will always have you, a compass towards him.”

The Demon shook his mastiff-host’s head, “He has a Gnome with him.  Gnomes have ways to ships, ways out to sea.  Once he goes beyond a league, we are done and he is lost to us, lost to the Shadow’s justice and lost with your staff.”

Suk took all of his in quietly, not wanting to interrupt the conversation of his betters.

Unaros and Olen bickered while Suk made his way down from the roof.  He made sure that his sentries were still awake and that the Fell were still in their positions.

When he came up to the roof again, he cradled something in his arms and smiled.

“Masters.  If you would allow me to speak.”

The turned towards the Orc, ready to dress him down for interrupting but then they saw what he had in his arms.

“Masters, the Elf left something behind, it seems.  Mayhaps we can find a way to make it talk.”

Kaza lay perfectly still in the Orc’s arms, too frightened to move and confident that his Elven master would not allow anyone to harm him.  The boy rubbed the Night King’s sigil, Wizard Marked onto his hand and blinked away tears.

Unaros touched the boy's hair almost delicately and thought to himself, _yes, Prince, you have been sloppy.  I will give Suk time with the boy, let that loosen his tongue.  

If that doesn't work we will make our way quickly to Baden's Bluff and then send our fastest messengers to your father.  I wonder what he will say when he finds that his son is making his way to the Erethor Forest.  I wonder what kind of Shadow Minions he will grant me to hunt you.

From the Demon-infested Jungles of Aruun to the bone plains of the White Desert; from Izrador's storms on the Kasmael Sea to the bitter winds of the Northern Marches I will hunt you with all of the might and resources of my Night King patron._

*End of Chapter I*


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## handforged (Jun 11, 2003)

I really like the direction that this story is going.  Could you give us a little meta-gaming insight?  Like who the PC's are, etc.  At first I thought that Karhoun was one, but now it appears that he is to be left behind.  Maybe this is just your cliffhanger making us wait before we can understand.

~hf


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## Paka (Jun 11, 2003)

*More Meta-Game Talk*



			
				handforged said:
			
		

> *I really like the direction that this story is going.  Could you give us a little meta-gaming insight?  Like who the PC's are, etc.  At first I thought that Karhoun was one, but now it appears that he is to be left behind.  Maybe this is just your cliffhanger making us wait before we can understand.
> 
> ~hf *




The PC's:

Karhoun Esben - Dornish Wildlander played by JJ

Thannil Boatswain - Gnomish Rogue played by Matt

Vorden Quele - Elven Channeler played by Barry


Yes, Karhoun was left behind.  That was how the player chose it and that is how it happened.  Today we will get together and figure out how to deal with that.

I might have JJ roll up a new character of equal XP to Karhoun, and run him on a solo game every so often with just Karhoun.

It was obvious from the very beginning that Karhoun was on a different page than the rest of the party.  He wanted to stay close to the Legate, use the SHadow's resources while fighting the good fight with subtlety.  The Gnome and the Elf wanted to get outta there post-haste.

Today we will talk about it as a party, what to do and how to deal with it.

I am not only happy with the direction of the story but I am kinda psyched about how this particular installment came out.  It was as cool as the game, which is nice.  I think it captured the feel and excitement of that session, which is what this is all about.

This afternoon we game again (all with odd jobs that leave our Wednesdays free) and I can't wait to see what direction we decide to take the game.

Thanks for reading.


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## Paka (Jun 12, 2003)

*Midnight Supplemental - Holy Order of the Southern Pelurian Shore*

Knights in the *Holy Order of the Souther Pelurian Shore* are Warrior-Legates, knights errant given leave by Izrador himself to traverse the roads of Eredane leaving despair and Shadow in their wake. 

When the final battle of the Third Age took place Izrador's forces needed a beach head and it was this group of warriors who were there to aid in the successful crossing of the Pellurian Sea. Some enacted traitorous deeds against the forts lining the southern shore and others merely guided Gnomish barges filled with Orcs to safe harbor. 

These vile bastards were gifted with eternal life, they can die by steel or magic but as long as their bodies remain functioning they will continue existing their horrid, angry lives. 

The Southrons are shrouded in mystery and it is said that Vilard Esben, liege-lord of Port Esben, is the Master of the Order, among the first humans to ask for the eternal life-span denied humanity. 

The Order's knights are the rare few who can travel the roads of Eredane without a papers. Their Shadow-kissed Weapons act as word from Izrador himself and it is rumored that their dark covenant items were enchanted by the Shadow in the North himself. 

Every so often a Legate will distinguish herself in a knight's presence and will be taken as a Squire. When they are knighted the last part of their initiation is a pilgrimmage North, to the dark mountains where Izrador spent thousands of years while marshalling his strength. 

A few select young Warrior-Legates have been chosen to become the Holy Order of the Southern Pelurians, often called Southrons.  Since Izrador’s victory on the Pelurian, he has not given any of these new knights the honor of eternal life found in the template, Izrador’s Blessed Knight.  Mayhaps if a Legate were to distinguish himself, by making some significant progress on the Dwarven Kaladrun or Elven Erethor fronts they would be granted this boon.

*Knight Concepts:* 

*Belloush Farrissimi, Gnomish Captain -* He was the admiral of the fleet for the crossing and since then has been matching wits with the Pirate Princes all over the Pellurian. Gnomes respect him to his face but when they are out at sea where Izrador's ears are far from hearing they tell a different story. 

They say that he has spent too long far from the rivers, sailing the Ebron and this has severed his link with any Gnomishness in him. But none say this to his face, for fear of being fastened to a rock and thrown into the sea. 

*Sir Jerris Bogia, Questing Knight -* Jerris is hunting a herd of Pegasi who uncovered his position during the war to a troop of Dwarves which led to the decimation of his unit, some of whom were his sons. 

He travels southern Eredane looking for word or tracks left during one of their rare grazings on the earth. Any word of items that allow one to fly will also draw his fast attention.

*Kevin the Silent -* Kevin was on tower duty. His partner had fallen asleep and when Kevin saw the black ships break the mist, he said nothing, allowing the guards on the ground who couldn't see through the mist think they were in safety. 

The rest of the fort was butchered but Kevin was spared, given the magic blade, black cloak and iron ring of a Knight of the Souther Pelurian Order. 

Since that day he has not spoken a word but wanders Eredane in total silence only rarely taking part in a conflict. 

Some Legates once whispered that he has turned from Izrador and feels guilt for giving his fort to the Shadow's will but anyone who has stood up to him has been utterly destroyed. Since then they say he is especially blessed by Izrador himself.


*Order of the Southern Pelurian Shore - Prestige Class*

Based off the Blackguard with a few minor tweaks. 

Replaced sneak attack with additional Smites/day, detect good becomes detect fey, and Knowledge (arcana) was added as a class skill. 

*Knight of the Southern Pellurian Order* 
Hit Die: d10. 
Requirements: 
• Alignment: Any evil. 
• Base Attack Bonus: +6. 
• Knowledge (religion): 2 ranks. 
• Hide: 5 ranks. 
• Feats: Cleave, Sunder. 
• Special: the Knight of the Southern Order must have played some key role in the Last Battle or have been squired by a Knight of the Order, impressing the Knight with his/her cunning and dedication to Izrador. Oftentimes the Squire's final test will be to turn an old friend or family member over to Izrador for torture and death when their lack of faith is uncovered. 

Class Skills: The knight’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Ride (Dex). 
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Knights are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all types of armor, and with shields. 
Table: The Knight 
Base 
Class Attack Fort Ref Will 
Level Bonus Save Save Save Special 
----- ------ ---- ---- ---- ------- 
1st +1 +2 0 0 Detect fey, Poison use 
2nd +2 +3 0 0 Dark blessing, Smite (1/day) 
3rd +3 +3 +1 +1 Command undead, Aura of despair 
4th +4 +4 +1 +1 Smite (2/day) 
5th +5 +4 +1 +1 Astirax mount 
6th +6 +5 +2 +2 
7th +7 +5 +2 +2 Smite (3/day) 
8th +8 +6 +2 +2 
9th +9 +6 +3 +3 
10th +10 +7 +3 +3 Smite (4/day) 

Class ———— Spells per Day ———— 
Level 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 
----- --- --- --- --- 
1st 0 — — — 
2nd 1 — — — 
3rd 1 0 — — 
4th 1 1 — — 
5th 1 1 0 — 
6th 1 1 1 — 
7th 2 1 1 0 
8th 2 1 1 1 
9th 2 2 1 1 
10th 2 2 2 1 

Detect Fey: At will, the knight can detect fey as a spell-like ability. This ability duplicates the effects of the spell detect good except that it applies to fey creatures. 

Poison Use: Knights are skilled in the use of poison and never risk accidentally poisoning themselves when applying poison to a blade. 

Dark Blessing: A knight applies his Charisma modifier (if positive) as a bonus to all saving throws. 

Spells: Beginning at 1st level, a knight gains the ability to cast a small number of divine spells. To cast a spell, the knight must have a Wisdom score of at least 10 + the spell’s level, so a knight with a Wisdom of 10 or lower cannot cast these spells. Knight bonus spells are based on Wisdom, and saving throws against these spells have a DC of 10 + spell level + the knight’s Wisdom modifier. When the knight gets 0 spells of a given level, such as 0 1st-level spells at 1st level, he gets only bonus spells. (A knight without a bonus spell for that level cannot yet cast a spell of that level.) The knight’s spell list appears below. A knight has access to any spell on the list and can freely choose which to prepare, just like a cleric. A knight prepares and casts spells just as a cleric does (though the knight cannot spontaneously cast cure or inflict spells). 

Smite: Once a day, a knight of 2nd level or higher may attempt to smite with one normal melee attack. He adds his Charisma modifier (if positive) to his attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per class level. For example, a 9th-level knight armed with a longsword would deal 1d8+9 points of damage, plus any additional bonuses from high Strength or magical effects that normally apply. Smite is a supernatural ability. 

Aura of Despair: Beginning at 3rd level, the knight radiates a malign aura that causes enemies within 10 feet of him to suffer a –2 morale penalty on all saving throws. Aura of despair is a supernatural ability. 

Command Undead: When a knight reaches 3rd level, he gains the supernatural ability to command and rebuke undead. He commands undead as would a cleric of two levels lower. 

Knights choose their spells from the following list: 
1st level—cause fear, cure light wounds, doom, inflict light wounds, magic weapon, summon monster I*. 
2nd level—bull’s strength, cure moderate wounds, darkness, death knell, inflict moderate wounds, shatter, summon monster II*. 
3rd level—contagion, cure serious wounds, deeper darkness, inflict serious wounds, protection from elements, summon monster III*. 
4th level—cure critical wounds, freedom of movement, inflict critical wounds, poison, summon monster IV*. 
*Evil creatures only.

Based off the Lich template: 

*Izrador’s Blessed Knight - Template* 

Izrador’s Bleesed Knight is a template that can be added to any humanoid creature (referred to hereafter as the "character"). The creature’s type changes to "undead." It uses all the character’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here. 

Hit Dice: Increase to d12 

Speed: Same as the character 

AC: The Izrador’s Blessed Knight has +3 natural armor or the character’s natural armor, whichever is better. 

Damage: Creatures without natural weapons gain a touch attack that uses negative energy to deal 1d6+5 points of damage to living creatures; a Will save with a DC of 10 + 1/2 Izrador’s Blessed Knight’s HD + Izrador’s Blessed Knight’s Charisma modifier reduces the damage by half. Creatures with natural attacks can use their natural weaponry or use the touch attack, as they prefer. 

Special Attacks: A Izrador’s Blessed Knight retains all the character’s special attacks and also gains those listed below. Saves have a DC of 10 + 1/2 Izrador’s Blessed Knight’s HD + Izrador’s Blessed Knight’s Charisma modifier unless noted otherwise. 

Fear Aura (Su): Izrador’s Blessed Knights are shrouded in a dreadful aura of death and evil. Creatures of less than 5 HD in a 60-foot radius that look at the Izrador’s Blessed Knight must succeed at a Will save or be affected as though by fear as cast by a sorcerer of the Izrador’s Blessed Knight’s level. 

Spells: The Izrador’s Blessed Knight can cast any spells it could cast while alive. 

Special Qualities: A Izrador’s Blessed Knight retains all the character’s special qualities and those listed below, and also gains the undead type (see page 6). 

Turn Resistance (Ex): A Izrador’s Blessed Knight has +4 turn resistance (see page 10). 

Damage Reduction (Su): A Izrador’s Blessed Knight’s undead body is tough, giving the creature damage reduction 10/holy. 

Immunities (Ex): Izrador’s Blessed Knights are immune to cold, electricity, polymorph, and mind-affecting attacks. 

Saves: Same as the character 

Abilities: A Izrador’s Blessed Knight being undead, has no Constitution score. 

Skills: Izrador’s Blessed Knights receive a +4 racial bonus to Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, and Spot checks. Otherwise same as the character. 

Feats: Same as the character 

The Izrador’s Blessed Knight’s Phylactery 
An integral part of becoming Izrador’s Blessed Knight is the creation of a magic phylactery in which to store its life force. Unless the phylactery is located and destroyed, Izrador’s Blessed Knight reappears 1d10 days after its apparent death. 

Izrador ties the Blessed Knight’s lifeforce to it’s Iron Ring. If this iron ring is destroyed then the Blessed Knight is forever destroyed. The iron ring’s are incredibly difficult to destroy. The destruction of each iron ring is done in an individual manner, usually tied to the individual's background.

 Special thanks to the gentleman who posts under the name, Siridar over at www.againsttheshadow.org, who took my written idea on those forums and made it a working prestige class and template.  Making the immortals, granted life by Izrador a Template was his brilliant idea and it was really cool of him to format the Order as well as he did.  

We will see which roads the PC's take and if they will have the misfortune of meeting one of these knights on their roads to come.


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## Paka (Jun 14, 2003)

*Story Post #8

Chapter II - As Yet Unnamed*

Boots, back from his Legate assigned morning errand, knocked on the stable door and Unaros ordered the Fell aside, letting the Goblin enter.

“They will wait by the broken bridge, Master Legate.  I’m not sure but I think many will come to hear you.”

Unaros nodded, “Excellent,” he turned to Karhoun, asleep on a hard wood floor covered with a few pieces of dirty straw, “Wake up, Karhoun, it is time to go.”

Karhoun awoke in the stables and his hands shot to his leg, broken last night in a bad fall from a roof to the cobblestones of Whitecliff.  

Unaros assured him, “I healed your leg last night and allowed you to sleep in..  It is time to work again, do the Shadow’s bidding.  The Shadow in the North does not reward the weak.”

Karhoun wiped the sleep from his eyes and nodded, remembering Unaros’s healing, the cold touch of Izrador.  The Wildlander looked up at the Legate he served, despite his oath to take down the tower of Theros Obsidia, despite his hatred of the Shadow, he served competently and without complaint.

“Unaros, I failed you.  I allowed the Elf to get away.  He killed Bolus.  I was patching up the Gnome for questioning and the Elf got up to the roof somehow.  I should have killed him and I hesitated…because of who his father is, I stayed my hand,” Karhoun explained.

The Legate nodded, “I know.  Don’t do it again, Karhoun.  Izrador has no tolerance for failure, none at all.  Now rise, we have one more surprise to prepare for our Elven and Gnomish friends before we leave Whitecliff for your father’s lands.”

The Northman said, “I think the staff warped his mind.  He was never this way before then.”

Unaros shrugged, “It doesn’t matter.  There is no excuse.”

Boots and Karhoun scouted ahead.  Karhoun found Vorden’s departing tracks and pointed them out to Olen, the mastiff inhabited by a sniffer-demon.

“Olen, three people and the dried blood of a fourth dragged away.”

Olin sniffed, “Elf and Gnome scent.  They’re heading to the docks, take the morning tide out, no doubt.”

Karhoun looked grave, “Will we follow them?”

“No, track ahead east, Wildlander, tell me what you find.  I have one more gift for our old friends.,” Unaros had a rare smile on his lips.

Karhoun’s wilderness lore found traces of Goblin tracks.  He thought it was two, or three but after some looking it was impossible to count.  A horde of Goblins had come through near here recently, in such a large party that they didn’t care who found them or knew they were there.

When they turned a corner, suddenly, waiting around the base of a broken bridge across a river were the Goblins.  There were hundreds of them, Karhoun through he counted seven hundred but he wasn’t entirely sure.  The most scarred, cruel and cunning waited by the lip of the broken bridge, to stand by the Shadow Legate while he addressed the horde.

Unaros strode up, allowing his robes to billow, his red collar prominent on his throat, gleaming morning star on his hip.  He turned to the Goblins and their chatter stopped, no sound but the breeze.

“An Elf has stolen from me.  Would you break fast on Elf this morning?”

This question was met with a roar of approval that was silenced as Unaros raised his hands, the young Legate getting his first taste of his position’s power, “I will head east with my party.  The Goblin who brings me the Elf’s staff will not only get Izrador’s most sacred blessing but this,” and the Legate held up Kaza, the beaten and tied servant boy of Prince Vorden, the Night Prince.

“The boy is yours to do with as you will if you bring me the staff.  Now go, go before the Gnomish ship leaves on the tide.  Make them fear your numbers and your power and the faith in the almighty Izrador!”

The Goblins were already running, high on thoughts of dining on Elf and gaining a human slave to raise, abuse and stick in the stew pot.

“Good luck, Night Princeling,” Unaros said, leaving Whitecliff east towards Port Esben.


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## Paka (Jun 19, 2003)

*Story Post #9

The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*


*The Road to Port Esben*

I am Karhoun Esben and I am a servant of the Shadow, a good peon, the Legate's faithful Wildlander. 

We were on our way to Port Esben after Whitecliff decimated our party.  The Elf and the Gnome left us to find what they consider freedom.  Mayhaps freedom will be the death of them and mayhaps it won’t be.

Goblins and Orcs were killed by the Manticore, most assuredly the most frightening beast I have ever met.  The Manticore was walking proof of Izrador’s terrible power.  There is only one creature in the world that might be more frightening than the Manticore, one animal that comes close:  my father.

Picked up to an Orcish pace now that the Gnome and Elf weren’t slowing us down we made good time towards the place that was my home before the dark years of Wildlander training in Theros Obsidia.  Boots the Goblin and I were head of the party while Suk and that other Orc waited with Unaros and his demon-mastiff.  We found tracks, great ruts in the ground that no normal cart could make.  The party guarding the cart was very professional, very well trained.  There were thirteen of them and their patterns of scouting were complicated and well thought-out.  I was fairly certain I could get closer but some of my approach will be left to luck and trickery, Loki-craft.

On the road I found an oak leaf, not a tree indigenous to this area.  I folded it up like a sacred parchment and bought it back to Unaros with news of the cart.  The Legate, in his dark wisdom, sent us to get closer to the cart, find out what it might be.  Again Boots and I went to the fore.
We made our way to a nearby ridge, careful to avoid their overlapping patrols.  I estimated that it would only take about twenty minutes for the party to figure out that one of their number is missing.  In the wild that is doing well.

Careful to avoid showing our silhouette to the valley below we peered down at the travelers.  There were nine of them around the cart, with a scout coming to report back every so often.  Upon inspection it was obvious these were no ordinary Orcs.  These were Oruk.  Orcs call themselves the Sons of Izrador; Oruk call themselves the True Sons of Izrador.  They were brutal warrios with wicked looking Vardatch (Vardatch= Orcish for Cleaver) and well-kept full plate armor, dulled to a smoky tint so’s not to reflect the sunlight.  Between their weapons and their armor they were walking king’s ransoms.  But who would be willing to collect such treasure?  They walked in a perfect formation around the cart, not too bunched up but close enough to support one another.  Half carried bows and the other half had their Vardatch at the ready.

The cart itself was a marvel, with an Oak standing upright between its four wheels, pulled by a team of six draft horses.  It was placed in the cart carefully, held aloft by pullies and winches so’s not to damage the roots.  There were two drivers sitting up front, directing the team and near the tree was a woman, a dark Fey beauty with light brown hair the color of summer wheat.  This was what they were transporting, but what and why?

We watched for a while, looking for a clue.  Someone from Port Esben arrived by horseback, a woman in mail, carrying a sword.  She presented the Esben family banner, a tower breaking on a gray field, as it has always been.  The Esben colors were put below the other banner that rides with the oak, an Orcish tribal marker of some kind.  Odds are the rider was a kinswoman of mine but I couldn’t recognize her from this distance.

Slowly and carefully, we headed back to the Legate and Boots made his first mistake.  He got up too hastily and kicked some stones down the ridge.  Everything stopped and the Oruk form a ring around the cart.  Now we began to hustle back to Unaros; I would’ve killed the Goblin if he wasn’t our own one remaining.  Surely Loki himself must be making me the butt of some epic joke to have been placed with the traveling companions that I have recently endured.

We made our way around a boulder and there was an Oruk scout, bow string notched, having gotten the jump on us.  Hands up, weapons given to him, I was taken back to the cart.  The captain allowed Boots to return to the Legate.  I told the Goblin to run and he runs towards Unaros and bring the Legate.

They seem confused that I am an Esben but not from the city.  I explained that I was from Theros Obsidia, part of a Legate’s entourage that was traveling towards Baden’s Bluff.  The captain nodded.

The Esben was Valanicia, my sister.   She took care of me when I was but a babe, some ten years my senior.  Her mail and sword must mean that she grew tried of raising us babes.  Tis a shame she left the nursery because she kept many of father’s beatings at bay for the younglings.  Maybe she grew tired of sheltering us from his wrath or maybe his anger is directed in new avenues.

It is said father wishes to spawn ninety-nine children, one for each year of Izrador’s reign.  It is also said that he is more than halfway to his goal, but none have a clear record of us to be sure.  So many of us Esben spawn are spread all over Eredane, serving the Shadow as best we can.

Seeing Val was a cold splash of reality and we received each other coolly.   I feel what I have always felt when seeing one of my kin, that they are looking for weakness.  I wondered if she found any.

She said, "Father told me you would be here.  Izrador sent him a dream in which you arrived with his monument."

"Monument?" I asked and she motioned towards the oak tree.

Now that I was next to the cart I wanted to get a closer look at the dark beauty, the lady of the oak.  Mysteriously, I could find no trace of her, I considered what she might be while looking at the oak leaf, before folding it up and putting it away.

After Master Unaros met with the Oruk captain we began our final approach of Port Esben.



[Meta-game Note:  Special thanks to JJ, the player of Karhoun for writing extensive notes after this game and sending them to me.  I always feel funny writing anything from the POV of the player's characters, thinking that it is there place to put thoughts to their actions.  JJ was kind enough to give me a doorway to Karhoun's thoughts.  Thanks, JJ.

Also thanks to Akayla, for playing Val this game.  It was nice to game with them again and I hope she can make it to more of these games in the future.

And as always, thanks to young 8 month old Jack, who gurgled quietly while his mom and dad gamed.]


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## Paka (Jun 19, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

*Story Post #10

Meeting Lord Vildar Esben: Grandmaster, Holy Order of the Southern Pelurian and his three faithful wardens*

From the walls of the Esben family fortress, in the middle of the city hanged the bodies of dissidents.  One such corpse wore a Legate’s robes.  I saw it and looked to my sister for an explanation but she offered none.  Unaros grew paler and Olen’s fur bristled.

The fortress is roughly triangular with three main towers on the walls and one on the port to protect against sea attack.  The tower to the north is called the Holy Tower and sits snug with a now-finished cathedral to Izrador; it was still being built when I left here as a boy.

There are eastern and western towers.  The southern tower was torn down a few years before my birth by my father’s orders.  As he said, “Not even a tower will stand in opposition to the Shadow in the North.”

There is also the Sea Tower, warded by Durgen; he was called Durgen the Brave when I was a boy but now he was Durgen the Silent.  Val explained to me that he had cut out his tongue a few years ago and hadn’t spoken since, only learning a complicated sign language with which he communicates with his squire.

When I asked her why he had done such a thing, she shrugged, not knowing.

When I was a boy I asked my father why Durgen didn’t have to carry his palanquin and father replied, “Durgen has more difficult burdens to bear than his father’s body.”  Durgen was High Captain of father’s fleet was known to be an accomplished warrior.

My father was brought to the gate on a cushioned chair made of a dark wood.  Three of his sons carried him.  I recognized them:

Orengar the Fat carried from the position of the Warden of the Holy Tower.  It was a high position and he wore a Legate’s robes.  His tower is said to be the strongest in the port because it has to be in order to hold his tremendous girth.

Calum Giant-Friend was now Warden of the Western Tower.  He was no older than me and had risen fast.  Calum rose to power, I would later find out, was largely due to his friendship with a tribe of Giants in the hills and a total lack of scruples.  

Apparently, one of their boulders found their way to the former Warden of the Western Tower, a cunning sister whose tombstone now reads: Aslinda the Red, Daughter, Wife and Faithful Warden.  Her hair wasn’t red but she was called such because of the buckets of blood she spilled in order to gain her position as Warden.

The Warden of the Eastern Tower, as it had been since my living memory, was Hroth the Elder.  He had aged and it was a wonder he was alive, it is said that he was among my father’s first sons and looked a good deal older than his father.  Izrador hadn't granted Hroth eternal life...yet.  It was said that he was always looking for a way to display his loyalty to Izrador.  He had poisoned more Esbens and killed more supposed threats to my father than any three of us.  Still, he had never left the Port, always the dutiful son.

Seated between the three of them was my father, Lord Vildar Esben: Grandmaster, Order of the Southern Pelurian and blessed by the Shadow in the North.  He hadn’t aged a day since before I was born, a gift from Izrador for his faithful service.  His face was pock-marked skin stretched over his skull and his blonde hair showing no signs of gray.  His black tabard had both the heraldry of Esben and the burning lake of his knightly order.

He wore no weapons.  He greeted the Oruk and saw that they were sent a pit in front of the Cathedral, dug for his new monument, the oak.

After this business was seen to he turned his attention to me, “My son returns.  Head shaven?  Still worshipping your ancestors?”

I bowed and introduced Shadow Legate Unaros and Suk, “I am bald now, father, just a humble servant of Izrador.”

Father snorted and replied while grinning, “Mayhaps they have taught you some manners at Theros Obsidia, a good thing.  Have you come to claim Port Esben for your own, to kill your father and take his seat of power?”

My eyes went to the floor, “No, father, only stopped here on the way to Baden’s Bluff where Unaros is to serve.  We had a bad time of it in Whitecliff.”

He nodded, “Welcome home, give me your blade.”

I went to my hip but my axe and sword were still with the Oruk, who had left to the courtyard already.  When my brothers realized I had no weapons, looks were exchanged, weakness found.  I handed father my dagger.

His eyes flared with a dangerous anger, “Where is your blade?”

“Father, I gave them to the Oruk when I met them on the road.  I will retrieve them,” I explained.

He nodded and again my brothers sent uneasy glances to each other, making sure to keep the suspicious looks out of my father’s view.  My loving lord father caressed my dagger with a damp cloth and said, “May this dagger’s touch give your enemies long nights of agony and suffering,” and he handed the now-poisoned dagger back to me.  “We will have dinner tonight to welcome your return.  See that you and your Legate are there.”

He turned towards Valencia, “Girl, see that this Legate is cared for.  Whatever becomes of him during his stay here will also become of you.”

She nodded, dutifully.

My brothers picked up his chair and took him towards the oak, now being planted in the earth in front of the cathedral.  Not wanting to show weakness, knowing full well I was being watched, I went to the Oruk to retrieve my weapons.


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## Paka (Jun 20, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

*Story Post #11

Regaining Lost Weapons*

I am Karhoun Esben, spawn of Vildar Esben, a good son.

We watched as the oak tree was planted with some ceremony in the courtyard, in front of the Cathedral to Izrador.  Unaros said the Lady of the Oak was a Dryad, the Shadow in the North has a grove of such trees he converted and often he sends them to be planted in front of his greatest temples, so the Black Oaks might ward them.  It is another beautiful creature wasted to the Shadow but I don’t say any such thing, dare not even think it.

Father sees the Dryad and seems to gain a look of lust in his eye.  I wouldn’t want to be his current wife right about now.

I asked Suk, the leader of our Orcs how I should go about approaching the Oruk.  He suggested that he goes about getting the gear back but I disagreed, not wanting to appear weak in front of my family.  Unaros hem’ed and haw’ed, refusing to pull Legate rank and Olin, the Legate’s Demon-possessed mastiff just laughed.  Either this was a test or everyone was scared of these Oruk, these High Orcs.  I think they were scared.

The crowd from the oak planting was dispersing, father was chatting with the Dryad and the three warden/brothers were standing around him but watching me out of the corner of their eyes.  They trusted me like a brother, which is to say, not at all _[ripped that line right off from Zelazny’s Amber series, forgive me]._

I approached the Oruk with my weapons and cleared my throat, “Excuse me, sir, you still have my weapons.”

He smiled, a big tusky grin and replied, “They stopped being your weapons when I captured you in the forest and you gave them to me.”

“My father is Lord here.  I would recommend that you return them.”

He began yelling, “I am a true son of Izrador and my father is the Shadow in the North!  Do you wish to compare lineage!”  He beat his chest while he talked, his fist making hard contact against his blackened plate mail.  Two of his friends stepped in from behind but the Captain of the troupe and a few other of the older Oruk stood away, near the Oak’s former cart, watching carefully.

A good hunt takes patience, I thought to myself, let him yell, let him think I am a weak, puny human who is going to back down.  Another thought came to my head, unbidden: _This is going to hurt._

Then Valenicia stepped from behind me, my sister, still standing up for her babe of a brother is at my side.  Another unbidden thougth came to my head: _It is good to be home again_.

He was still yelling, spitting his words, “Go away, Esben-spawn, be thankful that you learned such an easy and valuable lesson from a True Son of Izrador.  Get a new blade from your powerful father and rest easy knowing that the Shadow will be using your weapons well.”

I tried to make the following words sound as hollow as possible, “Okay, but I’ll remember you.”

Then I waited, I waited for him to turn around, waited for him to show his back to me.  Then he will taste what my father’s gift, I thought.  Then the Oruk on the right and then, if I’m still alive, the one on the left.  The wait for him to turn around was an eternity but he was going to do it.  I convinced him that I was nothing but a weak human, depending on my father’s name for a boon.  

May I feast with my ancestors in Valhalla if I die.  I found myself wondering if father would have given my a proper send off or would have just let me rot for the crows, to show other Esben children what happens to fools.

The Oruk was set to turn his back to me when my supportive sister spoke, “You can’t take those; they aren’t yours.”

The Oruk sought to backhand her across the face but noone slaps an Esben in this city but another Esben.  I drove my dagger into his guts, driving with all I had so that his body went into the Oruk on the right of him.  If my sister wished to be involved she could take the Oruk on the left; if she doesn’t, I am dead.

His ribs cracked as I lifted him off of the ground and I held the dagger in, hoping the poison does its work.  It did and he died fast of the gut wound and I took my dagger to the Oruk on the left.  They allowed themselves to get too close and the Vardatches didn’t draw easily when Dornish folk are right in your face.  I tried to put my dagger in its throat but missed, hitting its shoulder.

Suk, eager to test his mettle against his Oruk cousins, was attached to the Oruk on the left.  While they wrestled, Suk trying to stop the Oruk from drawing his Vardatch, Valenicia put her bastard sword in the Oruk’s skull.
The last Oruk and I were in a vicious embrace.  While I held the dagger in his shoulder he attempted to draw his weapon.  When the Vardatch doesn’t come easily he abandoned it and attached his tusks to my face, ripping meat and biting into the bone of my jaw.  We were both holding on to each other, refusing to let go.  I was waiting for the remaining batch of my father’s poison to go to work and it was attempting to bite its way through my face.

Unaros approached, putting his Legate’s hands on the Oruk's face and said, “I give you the Shadow’s blessing,” and with a cold breeze, the Oruk died.

I eyed the Oruk Captain and said, “No Fell shall rise in my father’s keep,” and proceeded to take off their heads and feet with my regained bastard sword.  It was just an excuse, though, I wanted more blood.  I tried to say to the Oruk Captain, “Their lives were worth a battle-scar but yours will bring us true glory,” but I’m truly not sure what came out.  My jaw was more or less broken from the bite and blood was everywhere.

The Captain of the Oruk approached and said to Unaros, “Thank you, Shadow Legate, for removing these weaklings from our party.  Please take their weapons and armor as our thanks for your service.”

I nodded, blood streaming from my Oruk-bitten face.  Unaros accepted graciously and healed my face with his cold Shadow-touch.  Now my face has another scar, another place where my blond beard will not grow.

I took ears from the ones I killed and the tusk that had lodged into my face.  We divvied up the geat, Suk eager to try on his new full-plate.  The third suit we gave to the church, as a bribe…no, donation through Unaros.
We decided to tour the Cathedral before dinner, perhaps stopping by the Oak along the way, talk to the beautiful Dryad.  I still had blood on me but Unaros assured me that bearing the blood of your enemies into Izrador’s cathedral was far from a bad thing.

I strapped my axe and my sword to my back and hip and walked toward the cathedral.  My father and brothers were gone by the time I thought to look for them but they would know of what happened.  I will attend dinner in a few hours, my weapons will be worn as a message, a reminder to my family of what I learned while away at Theros Obsidia.


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## Pillars of Hercules (Jun 21, 2003)

*Nice*

Have I mentioned that this story hour rocks?  'Cause it rocks!

Paka, how did you handle these sessions with Karhoun?  Solo play by e-mail?  Probably not, since I notice you mention one other player standing in, but what of the rest of the group?  A difficult situation arose in your campaign when Karhoun chose to take a different path - you seem to be handling it well, and I am curious as to how.


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## Paka (Jun 21, 2003)

*Re: Nice*



			
				Pillars of Hercules said:
			
		

> *Have I mentioned that this story hour rocks?  'Cause it rocks!*




Thanks, I'm glad you dig it.  It is fun to write.



			
				Pillars of Hercules said:
			
		

> *Paka, how did you handle these sessions with Karhoun?  Solo play by e-mail?  Probably not, since I notice you mention one other player standing in, but what of the rest of the group?  A difficult situation arose in your campaign when Karhoun chose to take a different path - you seem to be handling it well, and I am curious as to how. *




JJ made the decision to split Karhoun from the party and then, as fate would have it, the rest of hte party couldn't make it to the past three or so games.  So, since I started this game for JJ anyway, I ran him solo, with Kayla stepping in for a guest NPC/PC shot.

JJ will run a new character if the group get's back together and we will have a split story group.

I am lucky that JJ is a gamer who I can run solo games with.  Also his post-game write-ups make writing a Story Hour really easy and fun to write.  I do'nt like writing Story Hours from the PC's perspectives because I feel like I am putting thoughts in their heads when it isn't my place to do so.  That is why I often us NPC perspectives.  JJ's write-ups give me an insight into what is going on into Karhoun's mind.

Thanks for reading.


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## Paka (Jun 22, 2003)

*Karhoun Esben's character sheet*

*Crunchy Supplemental*

_I will post the rest of the character sheets when the players of Vorden and Thannil are back in the game.  For now it is more or less a solo game for as long as the subject header says, "The Ballad of Karhoun Esben" that you will be reading about for the next 5-7 posts, each post portraying an encounter or two._


*Karhun Esben*

*Character Race: *Dorn 
*Heroic Path: *Ironborn
*Character Class(es): *Wildlander 2nd level

*Gender: *Male 
*Age: *about 19, I guess
*Height: *6ft 
*Weight: *200 lbs 
*Eyes: *Blue
*Hair: *Bald, Blonde Beard

*Character Level: *2
*EXP Points Gained: *a bunch
*EXP Needed For Next Level: *a bunch more

*Known Languages: *Erenlander, Norther 

*ABILITY SCORES *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
*Strength: *20 (+5) 
*Dexterity: *8 (-1) 
*Constitution: *14(+2) 
*Intelligence: *8 (-1) 
*Wisdom: *14 (+1) 
*Charisma: *8(-1) 

*SAVING THROWS *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
*Fortitude:*+6 
*Reflex:*-1
*Will:*+2 

Special Save Notes: Fortitude save includes +1 racial bonus on Fort saves 

*COMBAT *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
*Hit Points: *19

*Armour Class: *15 


*Initiative Modifier: *+2 

*Base Attack Bonus: *+1 
*Melee Attack Bonus: *+5 
*Ranged Attack Bonus: *-1

Special Combat Notes: +1 racial bonus with spears, greataxes, bastard and greatswords; 
+1 racial bonus when fighting in groups of 5 or more Dorns 

Weapons: 
Bastard Sword, Great Axe, Dagger, Vardatch

*SKILLS, FEATS & ABILITIES *---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Skills: 

Name: Ranks = Total

Animal Empathy: 1 = 0
Climb: 1 = 6
Craft (boyer/fletcher): 1 = 0
Handle Animal: 1 = 1
Heal: 2 = 1
Intuit Direction: 2 = 0
Knowledge (Northlands): 1 = 0
Knowledge (Shadow Minions): 1 = 0
Listen: 1 = 0
Profession (Trapper): 1 = 0
Stealth: 3 = 2
Swim: 2 = 7
Use Rope: 1 = 0
Wilderness Lore: 6 = 5 (11 due to Bloodhound class ability) (13 total when in Northlands)

*Class Abilities*

Tracking
Bloodhound: +6 Competence Checks on Wilderness Lore rolls when tracking

*Feats*

Power Attack
Mounted Combat


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## wolff96 (Jun 23, 2003)

I really like the adventure you have going.

Thanks for posting Karhun's character sheet... pretty cool. Good luck and please, keep posting!


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## Paka (Jun 23, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

*Story Post #12*

*The Shadow Cathedral, the Lady of the Black Oak and the Witch-Eyed Twin*

The cathedral smelled of musky incense.  The entryway was a stonework chronicle of father’s steps towards the Shadow.  Father’s three weapons were stored there, atop the brothers’ tombs, one weapon per tomb.  Lord Vildar Highfather Esben, Grandmaster of the Holy Order of the Southern Pelurian, had his dagger shined on a pedestal built into the wall with a bas-relief that displayed his first kinslaying, his youngest brother with a quiet dagger to the spine.  The relief behind the bow was a representation of father killing his second brother with an arrow to the throat, shot from a rooftop.  The carving behind the sword celebrated him killing his last brother in a duel on a rainy day.  The doors into the church showed father bowing to Izrador at the end of the Third Age, a born again man of Shadow.

Inside no sun shined, the stained glass glowed by candlelight.  The inner areas of prayer and meditation were open only to Legates but the pulpit area was enough for me.

Unaros said his prayers in the deeper regions of the Cathedral while Boots and Suk headed into town, where the Orcs ruled.  The Esben family held the fortress but the greater portions of the town’s guarding went to the Orcs.

Before leaving Suk and I divvied up some of the things found on the Oruk.  Oddly, there was a braid of hair and a bag of tea.  Oruk took the hair, smelling it and guessing it for a Dwarven braid and I took the tea.

After the divvying up the dead Oruk’s belongings, I visited the black oak; the Lady was hidden and so I knocked gently on her tree three times.  A door opened in a shadow of the bough and out she walked.  Up close she was so beautiful it hurt to look directly at her.  I offered answers to all of her questions but I don’t remember anything we said.  I was too smitten, like a stupid boy, I was.

All I recall of our conversation is that her name is Elayle.

I offered her the oak leaf; told her that I found it on the road.  She took it in both of her hands and kissed it gently, her lip-print still on the leaf when she gave it back.  With a smile she returned it to me.

As I walked away I told myself that I would see her again but at the same time tried to remind myself that she was not only Fey, but also a Shadow-turned Fey planted to ward my father’s cathedral from insurgent harm.  Telling myself this, I put the Dryad’s leaf in a cloth close to my heart.  

Maybe there is some good in her.

On our to wash up to dinner we met Kylie, with her mis-matched witching eyes of green and gray.  She was squire’s uniform, in father’s order, the Holy Order of the Southern Pelurian, an order of knights errant sworn to Izrador himself.  Little Kylie had grown into an austere beauty and if the squire’s garb was any indication, would be a woman to be reckoned with before too long.  She was bringing a cart full of insurgent’s heads to father from Sir Durgen, Warden of the Sea Tower, and High Captain of the Esben Fleet.  

“What is this, little sister, you are a squire now?” I asked.

She responded proudly, “I am squire to Sir Durgen the Silent and I am on important business,” she said with a shake of her red braid towards the mule drawn cart, “bringing father this month’s heads.  I hear you are on your way to the Bluff from Theros Obsidia, how was your trip here?”

I shook my bald head, “Whitecliff was terrible.  We ran into Gnomish rebels and we met the Manticore.”

She was excited by word of the Manticore and for a moment was a little girl again, “Really?  Is he as grand as they say?  Durgen will want to speak with you about that, he has been trying to procure the Manticore for his hunt for the pirates.”

“I am in no rush to be close to the Manticore again, none at all.  He was a 
terrible beast, killed a Goblin and ate two Orc before I could blink.  If Durgen wishes to speak about the Manticore, he can speak with Unaros.  The Legate did most of the talking with the Manticore, I merely kept my head down and made sure I didn’t get eaten.”

She laughed at that and I told her that I would want to speak to Sir Durgen soon, possibly to procure a ship across the Pellurian to the Bluff.  She commented on my shaven head, a sign of humility.

I responded, “We are a conquered people, Kylie.  It does me well to remember that.”

While walking away she said over her shoulder, “We aren’t conquered, father _converted_,” and with that she took her mule draw cart filled with insurgent’s heads to father for inspection. 

I didn’t ask about her brother, Kale, thinking that father might’ve killed him and it might be a sore subject.  But once she was out of earshot I asked Val, “Valanicia, what happened to Kale?”

Val sniffed, “Kale ran to the insurgents.  Father has offered the Shadow’s highest blessings on any who bring his head to Port Esben.  Kylie has been working twice as hard at being a particularly vicious knight in the Holy Order of the Southern Pelurian to impress father ever since he left.  Some say he went west to the Dwarves and others say he went east to the Elves but the none know the truth of it.”

I asked, “She called him Durgen the Silent, I always knew him as the Brave, why is he now the silent?”

She shrugged, “Noone knows, a few years ago he cut his own tongue out with his dagger.  Father says it is because Durgen is a man of action and not words but as always in Port Esben, none know the truth.”

“Sister I have one more question for you, if you may, before I go to dinner.”

She nodded.

“What happened to the Legate, the one strung up to the walls with the Heretic sign hung around his neck?”

She barked a laugh, “That is one story everyone knows the truth of.  He told father that the Shadow was within everyone and Legates weren’t the only path to Izrador.  Father choked him to death.  The Legate took out his morningstar too, hit father several respectable blows but it seemed to do nothing.”

“When did this happen?” I asked.

 “Last week at dinner,” she said, as matter of factly.

I excused myself from my sister’s presence and went to my room to wash and prepare for my first Esben family dinner in over ten years.


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## Paka (Jun 25, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

*Story Post #13*

*Esben Family Dinner*

Orengar the Fat, Shadow Legate and Warden of the Holy Tower greeted me as I entered the dining hall.  Unaros was already chatting with him about religious matters.  Orengar was too fat and too jolly for a Legate, always smiling.  Smiling still, heoffered me kind words and out of Unaros’s hearing told me that I am serving a fine Legate, fine indeed.

He brought us both together and said, “I have been to the Bluff and know its political goings on rather well.  Please allow me to write a guide to the Legates for you so that you know well the wolf’s den you are walking into.  Believe me, the Baden family isn’t the only danger in the Bluff.”

Unaros stroked his beard and said, “Yes, we’ve been hearing that quite a bit.  Thank you.”

I replied, “Thank you, brother.  You are too kind.”

Orengar dismissed our thanks with a wave of his plump, ringed fingers and settled down into his seat, to the left of where father would eventually sit.

I hung my weapons on the back of my chair, as is family custom.  My shiny new Vardatch was where everyone could see it to remind them of my recent victory over the Oruk.

The Esben family trickled in, first the remaining fortress tower wardens Calum and Hroth.  Durgen the Silent, Warden of the Sea Tower, offered me a grim nod while Kylie took her seat next to him, mimicking his grim silence.  

Astrith the Fair came next, said to be the head scribe of the Esben family.  Astrith has always been an odd one, his job was to burn scrolls and books and he wasn’t even fair to look at.  I never knew him well and never mean to.

Valanicia arrived with father’s current wife, Beatrice, and took what I assumed to be her usual seat.  I had never met Beatrice before now but she looked much like father’s wives always looked, like animals in a rusty cage.

Vrastith the Twice-Marked was a notable absentee.  I had heard he was the High Advocate in the city now, a job in the Port the Orcs don’t want for their own.  I had also heard that he was mad as a crucified Elf.  Being an Eesben was difficult enough but being born the bastard son of Vildar Esben, born from the womb of one of his own daughters was the cross Vrastith held on his back.

Father was escorted in by Jorund the Hydra; we all stood until father took his seat.  They say Jorund can creep, skulk and make his face change like no other man alive.  He seemed slight of build and well-mannered to me which probably meant he was a total and complete unscrupulous dog.  He was wearing a tabard, denoting him as my father’s own squire, so he must have spilled his share of blood.  I remember hearing a tale of how Jorund once posed as a woman for nearly an entire cycle of a moon in order to root out a guard father suspected to be an insurgent.

Once father sat, Orengar began the prayer, “Izrador, great Shadow in the North, thank you for the bounty and strength of the Esben family.  While other families in the north starve, we have food on our table.  While other clans in the north wander as shameful vagrants our walls are strong.

“Please watch after our newly returned brother, Karhoun and the Legate he serves, Unaros.  They are questing to Baden’s Bluff so they might dispose of your enemies there.  Please see that they remain strong and always in the Shadow.  Amen.”

“Amen,” we all said in unison and Beatrice began to direct the servants in the bringing of the meal.

Father looked at me, “How many do you travel with?”

“Unaros, Suk, the leader of our Orcs, one Goblin and one more Orc….and the Legate’s mastiff.”

Father sniffed in disapproval, “That isn’t enough, your path is long, the Bluff is dangerous.  Take a few Orc from us for your journey.  I also allow you to take any Esben younger than you so long as they aren’t squired to another.”

Unaros kept silent, allowing me to speak for us.  I thanked him, “Thank you, father, that is appreciated.”

“We need a strong presence in the Bluff.  If an Esben were to make a presence there it would mean our family could have a stranglehold on all of the Pellurian Sea.  Do well in Baden’s Bluff.

“You mentioned that Whitecliff was hard on you all.  What happened?”
Unaros spoke, “We met up with the Manticore who made a few of our party available for his feasting and then some of our party…”  The legate stopped his sentence, unsure of how to describe our unique situation.

Father looked up from his mutton, “Some of your party what?”

I spoke quickly, interrupting Unaros, “Father, it was my fault.  I showed mercy and was foolish.”

He dropped the leg of mutton on his plate and got that familiar look in his eyes, the murder-look, the beatings in the snow look, the banishment to Theros Obsidia look.  He rubbed his pock-marked face and asked, “Showed mercy to whom?”

With his eyes looking at me like that I felt like a child again, “Father, we traveled with a friend who betrayed us.  But this friend’s father was a Night King and I didn’t want to bring a Night King’s wrath down upon us.  So, I stayed my hand and he got away with Unaros’s staff.”

Father’s hand slammed into the table, mugs jumped and knives jingled against plates, “A Night King’s son?  You showed mercy to a Night King’s son?  Who is your father?  What about _your _lineage?”

“Yes, father, I was wro-“

He interrupted me, “Night…Kings…Bah!  Who was this prince you spared?  Tell me of him?”

“His name was Vorden, father, he was an Elf.”

“An Elf?  Sorceror of Shadow.  You spared an Elf,” his hands gripped the table with the same strength and brutality that choked a Legate to death the week before,  “Listen closely, Legate Unaros, you are the witness to this.  My son is to bring me this Elf’s head in no less than one year’s time, one year from this very day or you, Legate, you are to bring me my son’s head.  Is that clear?”

Unaros nodded, grimly.

 I spoke resolutely, “I will bring you his head, father.”

Vildar Esben fixed me directly with his gaze and pronounced, “His head or yours, Karhoun, one or the other will adorn a spike on my front gate one year from today.  See to it the head on my gate isn’t an Esben.”

Elayle walked into the meal late, taking tension and attention away from me.  She wore a dress the color of summer wheat.  When she arrived Beatrice dropped a plate that clattered loudly on the table.  Father wiped his mouth against the back of his hand and leveled his gaze at the Dryad, “Lady Elayle, if you are late to a meal in this castle, do not bother attending.  We dine promptly hereabouts.  Do you understand?”

She bowed her head in agreement and apologized.

The rest of the meal was eaten in total silence, the only noise was the sound of the Esbens loudly devouring mutton and servants scuttling back and forth to keep food in our faces and wine in our cups.  Father leered at the Dryad like an Orc sizing up a Halfling slave and Beatrice excused herself so that she might check on her newborn.

*A Night of Rest*

My head was racing with thoughts before sleep took me.  These thoughts, memories and schemes flocked around my bed like ravens, keeping me from sleep.  I thought about how close Unaros just came to death.  Father’s wrath at the Legate would have been tremendous if I hadn’t interceded on his behalf.

I thought about the family’s designs on Baden’s Bluff, father wants me to hold the Bluff for him.  That would be a high position, far better than rotting in a tower at his right hand.  I thought of the damage I could do once that high in the Shadow’s forces.

I thought about Vorden, foolish Vorden.  That damned Elf would plague me for eternity.  Maybe, just maybe it would be time for me to fight with the insurgents before a year was up and if so, I could join him.  If not, Vorden would die and his head would decorate my father’s front gate on an iron spike.  His death was merely a weak link taken out of the insurgent’s chain as far as I was concerned.

This fortress was the first place I had ever seen that wasn’t entirely run by Orcs or Legates.  Father has carved an interesting place for himself on the Shadow’s food chain here.

While falling asleep, one strange thought echoed in my mind before sleep came: _It is good to be home_.

I was woken up violently surrounded by several house guard with spears against my chest.  Father was there too, holding something but by the candlelight I couldn’t tell what it was.  He growled, “My son, how long did you think you could be _a traitor _in my own house without me knowing?”

_[Note:  I'm going to Origins, the rest'll be posted on Sunday night.]_


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## dbenson (Jun 25, 2003)

Aarrgh!!!!  Must....Read...More...!!!!


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## Paka (Jun 28, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

*Story Post #14*

*Rude Awakenings *

I took a deep breath, trying not to think too hard about the sharp spears.  Somehow managing to keep my voice level, I responded, “Father, what in all of Izrador’s kingdoms are you speaking about?”

He threw a braid down on the bed.  I recognized it as the Dwarf’s braid that Suk found among the dead Oruk’s things.  I had taken tea and Suk had taken the braid.  It had seemed inconsequential at the time and now my life was risked because of a piece of hair found on a dead Oruk.

Father spat out the words, “Did you think that you could swear an oath to a filthy little Dwarf and let it slip by my notice?  Do you believe you could bring the oath-braid into my very house and that I would be ignorant to its presence and meaning?”

“What is an oath-braid?” I asked.

He was raving, “Lie to me, boy and Izrador himself will show me the truth of it.  Do you truly not know what an oath-braid is?”

I was feeling the points of the spears at my chest, causing pinpricks of blood to stain the sheets.  “I have not the faintest idea what an oath-braid is.  I have never heard of such a thing until just now.  I swear it.”

He waved his hand and the guards put away their spears, with as much ease and care as they would have taken with killing me in my bed.  His scowl continued, “This was found among, that Orc leader, Suk’s things.  It is a braid Dwarves give to companions when powerful oaths are sworn, a sealing of a pact.”

“Suk took it from the Oruk after we killed them.”

Father nodded, “Very well, take what rest you can from the night remaining.”

As swiftly and as silently as he had entered, the Lord of Port Esben and his house guard left the room.  I noticed that there was a slot where the guards could take the bars off of the doors, allowing them to enter any locked room.  There was no way around it, so I closed the door and hoped an interruption like that wouldn’t happen again.

Unaros and I met in the hall, whispering about our rude awakening.  I was relieved to see the Legate was still alive, there was no doubt father would have killed him with little to no thought.  Olen went into town to make sure Suk was well and the Orc was fine, sleeping in a fine inn among his own kind.

Despite the night’s happenings I managed to sleep for another hour before the sun rose.  When I woke up I realized I had been dreaming of a dark beauty wearing a dress the color of summer wheat.


*Valanicia's Night*

While I was being held at spear-point, my sister, Valanicia was also awoken.  A desperate knock on her door woke her and there was Vildar the Highfather’s current wife, Beatrice.  Her eyes were large and darted to every shadow.  She pleaded with Valanicia, who was a bit older than her, “Please, please m’lady, please help me.  You’ve seen the way your father looks upon the Fey bitch.  

“I have been out of favor ever since the most recent newborn smited the Legate mid-wife.  None are sure if she is blessed by Izrador or cursed by him.  No one will touch her and ever since her birth, your father won’t speak to me or touch me.

“I must run.  I beg that you help me.  Please help me take Sholada from this cursed place.”

Sholada was my most recent born sister, Val would tell me later, she was born some weeks before my arrival.  Upon her birth the Legate mid-wife father had called in to deliver the babe was lit on fire.  None save Beatrice would lay a hand on the newborn now and fierce whispering debates went on between the factions who believe the child is cursed or blessed by Izrador.

Val listened and closed the door.  When Beatrice was done ranting Val responded her tone was warm and distant, “There is no way out of Port Esben without my father knowing.  You wouldn’t get far.

“My brother travelled all the way from Theros Obsidia and father was sent a dream foretelling my brother’s arrival from the Shadow in the North himself,” Val smothered her own night shift and concluded as matter of factly, “If you run, you will die.”

At that, guards knocked on the door, a heavy gauntleted hand against the wood.  Beatrice jumped, Val settled her down and whispered, “Just _sit_, we are merely having girl-talk.”

Valanicia opened the door just as the guards were about to use their key.  Father greeted her and looked at Beatrice’s presence with a narrowing of his eyes.

“Girl, why is my wife here with you?”

She shrugged, giving no indication that she had come to beg aid in escape.  “We were talking about the handsome Legate with Karhoun.  Unaros is a dashing servant of Shadow, I think.”

Father smiled and then turned to Beatrice, “Go to your room, woman, see to that child your birthed,” after his wife was gone he turned to his daughter and spoke almost tenderly, “Valanicia, have you noticed anything odd about your brother, Karhoun or that Legate?  Anything at all?”

She shook her head, “No, father I haven’t noticed anything worth telling.  He seems well.”

With that, he left towards his apartments to simmer in his anger.
Vildar the Highfather was reading over missives from other Legates on the sea and knights of his holy order abroad when Valanicia entered his study, just as the sun was rising.  He didn’t look up from the papers when he said, “Yes, Valanicia?”

“Father, your wife came to visit me last night.”

He put his papers down, looked up and said, “Yes?”

“Father, she asked me for help escaping Port Esben.  I thought you should know.”

He rubbed his scalp and for a moment looked tired.  Then he set his jaw and began giving her orders, “Tell the kitchen servants to set our breakfast table under the oak.  Also tell Vrastith to set up a noose over the oak’s branches so that my former wife’s feet will dangle just over the table.”

Valanicia curtsied, “Yes, father,” and then went forth to complete the morning’s errands.


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## handforged (Jun 30, 2003)

wow, I had read that Midnight was what would happen if Sauron won in LotR, and the dealings of Port Esben definitely seem to supprt that claim.  Their cold and calculating cruelty and lack of compassion is amazingly told.  Good job.

~hf


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## Paka (Jun 30, 2003)

handforged said:
			
		

> *wow...[edited and cut]Good job.*






> _Originally posted by dbenson_
> *Aarrgh!!!! Must....Read...More...!*




Hand and D, thanks for the compliments and thanks for reading.

I am fresh back from Origins, with my geek-ass batteries refreshed and a session and and then some's worth of Story Hours to catch up on.  I think the next few sessions are doozies.  I hope you dig 'em.

The next few chapters will have names like:

*Death of an Esben*

-and-

*The Great Manticore Hunt*


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## Emiricol (Jul 2, 2003)

I was completely uninterested in Midnight until I read this.  Oh, man...

"More, please..."


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## wolff96 (Jul 2, 2003)

*Re: The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*



			
				Paka said:
			
		

> *Also tell Vrastith to set up a noose over the oak’s branches so that my former wife’s feet will dangle just over the table.*




Here's hoping that they let her go to the bathroom first.

Getting hung tends to cause the dead person to lose control of both bladder and sphincter...  which could make a real mess on the breakfast table.

-----------------------------------

Facts in poor taste aside, I love this story hour, Paka.

Looking forward to seeing it continue.


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## Numion (Jul 4, 2003)

I must chime in too: 

Great stuff, Paka!

You got me totally addicted to this ..


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## Paka (Jul 6, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

*Story Post #15*

*Hanging Breakfast*

I had forgotten what it is like to wake up in Port Esben, my ancestral home.  First, you are grateful that you weren’t killed by father or assassinated by a jealous sibling.  Then you wonder if someone died in the night.

Did father kill my sister for not telling father about the braid?  Was one of my brothers now dead because he had tried to whisper sweet poison into father’s ear, turning him against me?  Would Unaros be drawn and quartered at breakfast?

A hard knock hit the door and a gruff voice announced, “Breakfast will be served under the Dryad’s Black Oak.  Please be prompt.”

On my way to breakfast I saw a bald man in the courtyard with scars along his head, as if an axe cleft him but didn’t quite finish the job.  As soon as I saw him I knew he had sworn the same oath I had.  He had sworn an oath to defy Izrador.  He had sworn such an oath in one of the lost Oathrooms and he had meant it with all of his heart.  The feeling I got looking at him was the same feeling I got looking at Thannil or Vorden (even if such feelings didn’t last).  It was a warm feeling of trust and comradery.

I assumed that if he saw me he had felt the oath’s pull also.  Those oathrooms we swore in were ensorcelled with a powerful magick. Thannil and Vorden had felt the pull of it too, knowing me for an oathtaker with only a glance.  

I asked my sister who he was and it turned out that he was Odannin, Durgen’s right hand man, first mate on his flagship, Esben Honor.  Trying to purge thoughts of defiance out of my head, I walked towards breakfast, making a mental note to track down Odannin later.

A table was set with bread still hot from the oven and porridge still steaming.  Over the table a noose was hung over one of the oak’s lower branches.  We all sat down with grim determination, trying not to panic, everyone wondering if the noose was meant for their neck.  Unaros looked faintly green, not used to the Esben Clan’s vicious hanging meals.  Olen looked at the noose like a normal dog would look at a tasty bone.
Father sat and we all followed suit.  Then he clapped his hands, a loud sound in the deserted courtyard and his current wife was dragged from the house guard’s barracks.  She appeared ragged, tears streaked her face and bruises were on her arms and hands where the guards had held her roughly or had clamped her in chains.

Only father’s eyes motioned to the noose.  The rope was tied so that the neck would snap quickly, a mercy on the condemned as well as a mercy on all of us.  I had expected her to curse our already cursed family, lay a wyrd of woe upon our terrible Clan but she didn’t.  She merely screamed the word, “No,” over and over until her feet spasmed one final time, dripping her body’s final act onto the breakfast table.

We ate and ate studiously, making sure not to eat too fast nor too slow, doing everything in our power not to gain father’s attention.  Once he tasted blood it was easy for him to begin murderous habits, killing a few at a time, even re-using a noose with its former body still in, so the second victim is choked to death against the body of the first isn’t unheard of for Lord Vildar Highfather Esben, Grandmaster of the Order of the Southern Pelurian.

Father looked at the Dryad, silently eating her meal at the far end of the table, opposite from him.  While his former wife’s feet dangled between them he asked, “Elayle, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
While she swallowed her bite of porridge with an audible gulp the rest of us stopped eating, holding our breath.

Quietly, she croaked, “I accept.”

I looked around the table and knew that none would take any actions, so I rose, mug in hand.  “A toast to father and his lovely bride-to-be.”  The poor thing might be a Shadow servant but she had no idea what she was in for now.

We all toasted and attempted to salvage what we could off of our plates, finishing the worst broken fast ever.


*Three Conversations*

Varsith the Twice Marked looked like he hadn’t slept in days.  No doubt, he hadn’t.  He sees to his trials.  I watched him condemn three men and two women to death before he caught sight of me.

I told him what I wanted and needed.  He took from his stock, discarded items of the criminals he has condemned.  While considering a deal I proposed he sentenced an old lady to be drawn and quartered for refusing an Orc a meal.  He gave me the gear I asked for in trade for some of the loot off of the Oruks.

“I would suggest you take that keen Vardatch you have there and give it to the local chieftain.  Always best to leave a good impression on the Orcs, brother,” then his eyes glazed over, he looked at the child put before his court and waived his hand, “Hang him, so he dangles and chokes slowly.”

I left Vrastith and left quickly.

While I was talking to the Twice-Marked Advocate my sister was approached by Odannin.  He intercepted her in the courtyard and had a conversation that would change my life forever, set the markers falling and put me on the path of my destiny, for light or shadow.

“Valanicia, your brother and I have need of your advice.  Durgen bid me call on you.”

She looked on him with her cool Esben gaze, her blue eyes had no tinge of guilt for the hanging she had all but tied the noose for herself.  “Durgen bid you to see me?  What for?”

“We need to speak to your brother, Karhoun,” Odannin said carefully.
Her eyes narrowed and she raised her chin, “Then speak to him, he is easy enough to find.”

“But you see, we need to speak to him about…Esben family business and that Legate he serves is always about.  We need to speak to him without Unaros’s ears so close.”

She nodded, considering, “He will be going across the Pellurian on your ships, see to it that you put the Legate and Karhoun on different ships.”

Odannin grinned, a strange sight on his scarred head, “Thank you, m’lady.  That is a more complicated proposal but thank you, I think we can do it.  Please, treat this conversation with me as you would a conversation with Sir Durgen, Warden of the Sea Tower, High Captain of the Esben Fleet.”

She curtsied, “You can count on my discretion.”

While I was talking to Vrastith and Odannin was speaking with Valanicia, Unaros was received at the Sea Tower by Sir Durgen the Silent.  Durgen’s would have been using an altered version of the Snow Elf Patrol Sign to communicate with his squire, Kylie.  They met at the top of the Sea Tower, with all of the Esben fleet arrayed beneath them.

Sir Durgen would have signed his curious hand-signed language while Kylie spoke his words to Unaros.

I wasn’t there and Durgen couldn’t tell me about it later.  But I can well imagine how it went.  Unaros requested passage and Durgen nodded but said that it would be difficult, getting him to Baden’s Bluff safely.  And that once out at sea, it would be difficult not to set out on a hunt for the Pirate Princes, the sailors would almost demand such a hunt with the Legate and a Demon-Hound Mage-hunter aboard.

Unaros would mention that they had no time for detours and Durgen would have said something about the sea working in mysterious ways.  Then Durgen might have changed the subject, mentioned how his hunt for the Princes would be made so much easier with aid from the Manticore.
Unaros would have stroked his beard and mentioned that he had a way to get in touch with the Manticore, a spike from his tail, freely given.  When burned the spike drew the Manticore to the spot of the fire, a crude summoning magick.

Durgen would mention that such a spike would be quite useful in his battles on the Pellurian against the insurgents.

Unaros would consider this deal.  He would know he was getting the e side of the bargain.  He would have to be thinking about the dead Legate on the walls of Port Esben with the word, “Heretic,” on a sign around his neck.  Unaros would consider that once he was in the Bluff, fellow Legates would be as much of a threat as insurgents and having good contacts in the Baden family would be useful.  Unaros would also think about the long treks around the Pellurian, through Dwarf infested mountains to the east and Elf-ridden Erethor to the west.

While I was watching Vrastith blithely advocate for the unjust slaughter of peasants and while Valanicia planted dark seeds on Odannin’s cleft skull, Unaros handed over the Manticore’s spike in return for safe passage to Port Esben and Esben support if he needed it while in the Bluff.

Sir Durgen the Silent took the spike and shook hands with the Legate, never smiling, expression never wavering from its usual grim stone-faced determination.


*Death of an Esben*

I gave the Vardatch to Suk, who relayed the fine weapon to the Orcish leader in Port Esben.  Suk thought the gift was a smart idea.  We all gathered again and went into the fortress in the heart of the city, to prepare for our departure.

Something was wrong, I could tell by the way the servants were scurrying and the way the guards were edgy.  Orengar the Fat is sweating, patches of wetness forming on the back and in the armpits of his silken Legate’s robes.  He had begun to smell.

An Esben had been murdered and it hadn’t been verified if another Esben had been behind the death.  I found out that Unaros was deep in the deep, dark Cathedral, praying in the shadows.  It was best not to disturb him, I thought.

I reported to father but he was in War Council with the Wardens, Sir Durgen included.

While waiting in the hall I was told that Squire Jorund the Hydra had been killed, shot to death by crossbow bolts while sleeping in his room.  Jorund was father’s golden boy, his own personal squire, being groomed, they said, to take over his Holy Order as its Spymaster.  Father’s face was tighter than usual, choking back the tears for a son he didn’t butcher himself.

Father held my shoulder while the Wardens stood behind him, all managing to admirably pretend to be mournful while wondering which one of them did the deed.  “Karhoun, we have discussed it and we think Jorund was killed by Baden’s Bluff Legates.  Crossbows are frequently used for murder in Baden’s Bluff, practically a signature killing.  We think they got word of our plans to move into the Bluff behind you and your Legate.  Now is not a safe time for you to venture far from the safety of home.

“Sir Durgen can make use of you on his Pirate hunt and we will send your Legate as an ambassador, to sue for peace in the Bluff so a War of Shadow doesn’t erupt over the entire Pellurian Sea.  We need peace for now and we need you safely in Baden’s Bluff.

“See Unaros off and then report to the fleet.  We will send you after Unaros as soon as we deem it safe.”

I accepted father’s decree gracefully and saw Unaros off.

The Orcs and the Goblins took most of the food I had gathered for the journey.  I sent a live goat for Olen, unsure if the Demon-Hound would eat it or mount it.

Unaros and I shook hands and the Legate disappeared into the horizon.  It was the first time I was out from under his service and despite the obvious loathing and fear in Port Esben, it felt good to be home and felt good to be serving my family.

I reported to Sir Durgen, High Captain of the Esben Fleet’s flagship, Esben Honor.

We went out to sea to hunt for Pirates.  Kylie confided in me that she often got seasick and she hoped she didn’t get sick this time.  Then she promptly vomited on the deck; the sailors cleaned it up and Durgen gave her some herbs to ease her stomache and nerves.

After a half hour at sea, Kylie passed out and some spearsman carried her below decks.  At that moment, once she was below, Durgen and Odannin approached me together.  Durgen signed frantically and Odannin translated, “Durgen hasn’t sworn in an oathroom like you have, but he is sword to defeat the Shadow in every way he can, as has every last warrior on these two ships, sixty strong.”

I felt my spirits rise as he continued, “We sent all of those loyal to Vildar with the Legate to Baden’s Bluff so that we could talk to you safely here.  The only Shadow-loyalist is Kylie, Durgen’s Squire, who we can’t leave at port without arousing suspicions.

“We arranged for Jorund’s death so that you could be here for a noble purpose.

“Durgen has heard of your meeting with the Manticore.  The creature is an abomination and a powerful Shadow ally.  We wish to hunt it and kill it.

Is it possible to kill the beast with sixty men?  Can such a thing be done or shall we just chase pirates for a few days before delivering you to the Bluff?  It is not worth risking our positions.  If we are careful, we could kill your father some day, take Port Esben for Durgen’s own.  A suicide mission is not worth risking Durgen’s trusted and close placement.  Think on this, Karhoun, can we kill the Manticore with only one Channeler of no mean skill along with sixty men, twenty spear, twenty sword and twenty archers.” 

I thought hard about the Manticore, the most majestic and dangerous beast I had ever met.  Perhaps my father was more imposing while ensconced in his keep.  Perhaps not.  I thought about how we met it.  I thought about how quickly it had desposed of such great numbers of our party, killing them and eating them without a second-thought.

These were warriors, marines, pirate-killers, not hunters…but I am.  I could show them how to kill a monster.  With every dirty trick the Tower imparted to me, we could do it.  It will be an under-handed ambush.

It had burst from the rubble after a Goblin spear had accidentally been stuck in its foot…the Manticore had bellowed in pain.

It had bled, before eating a Goblin and swiping an Orc in twain, it had bled.

I looked Durgen in the eyes, meeting his stare with my own Esben intensity, “We can kill the Manticore.  Let’s hunt.”

We turned the ship towards Dragon Island, a secluded place without too many prying eyes and Durgen knew a good gorge fit for ambushing the Manticore.  I leaned against the wooden dragon-prow of the ship.  Carefully, I took the Dryad’s leaf out from my inside breast pocket and kissed it lightly.  The leaf was still a fresh summer green.

With my brother at my side and sea mist in my beard a thought slipped into my mind:  _It is good to be home_.


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## handforged (Jul 8, 2003)

This keeps getting better and better!  Sir Durgen shall prove to be an interesting ally, I'm sure.


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## Paka (Jul 8, 2003)

handforged said:
			
		

> *This keeps getting better and better!  Sir Durgen shall prove to be an interesting ally, I'm sure. *




Right before the Esben adventure I put a post on the Midnight Yahoo group and out among my friends for Esben NPC's and Durgen was sent to me by my buddy, Pete.  I have to thank him, Durgen is fantastic...wait 'till you read his whole story.  Tis a doozy.

Truth is the three main tower wardens were the only Esbens I made up.  Vildar was in the book and the other children were sent to me by people in the Yahoo group and my buddies.  It was a nice way to get NPC's because suddenly the Esben children became a very twisted and very ecclectic group and everyone named had a tragic, wild and desperate story lurking behind them.

Thanks for reading and to everyone who contributed, thanks for participating.  You've all made Port Esben a richer and more frightening place.


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## Tokiwong (Jul 9, 2003)

Posted on the other boards, but it deserves double praise, keep it coming...


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## Paka (Jul 10, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

*The Great Manticore Hunt, Part I*

I am Karhoun Esben and I am a hunter of the Shadow’s minions, a good man, a proud Northman.

I had never been so proud.  In all of my life I have never fought alongside my fellow Northmen, always alongside Orcs or Goblins.  These are good men, soldiers and sailors, all looking to me because I am the hunter.

Including Durgen and Odannin, his second in command, we had sixty men, 20 spears, 20 swords and 20 bows.  Our blessing is the Channeler, Elowan, who seems a beardless boy, a treasure Durgen has kept as a secret on his flagship for these past years.

We held council, drawing in the gorge's sand, a place they suggested when I mentioned that we’d need somewhere confining, somewhere he couldn’t fly away once the trap was sprung.  The council was made of the finest Northmen I have ever fought met.  Sir Durgen, my mute brother, the madman usurper who leads these noble insurgents.  Odannin, my brother’s second in command and my brother's voice, translating my brother’s sign into words, his cleft-scarred skull holds its fair share of war-wisdom.  Cole, leader of the archers and Elowan, the beardless Channeler.

To the south and west were cliff walls with nothing but rock and the occasional weed clinging fern.  North were waterfalls, making tremendous noise and putting mist everywhere.  At the bottom of the falls was a shallow pool and under the falls was a shallow cave.  East were woods, where we entered the gorge down a perilous slope.

They looked to me with my Theros Obsidia training, using the Shadow’s training in treachery and cunning against one of the Shadow’s minions.  This fight was going to be filthy, using every dirty little trick I knew.

The waterfall would deaden its hearing, which was good, the beast had amazing senses.  Next I would deaden its smell.  They had brought bodies with them, so they could claim they were trophies, dead insurgents.  We would put the corpses to different use.

The Manticore loves nothing more than eating.  We would roast him a feast.  We will gorge the monster and when its belly is fat and it feels like napping, fat and lazy, we will strike with arrows and steel.

We hid archers in the woods and behind the waterfall.  Spearmen were in a pit under the pile of bodies that I would cook.  Some men would act as new travel companions and help me cook him dinner.  We would tell the Manticore that Unaros had summoned him but he was praying behind the waterfall, in the shadows.

Sir Durgen’s unconscious squire, Kylie, would be hidden in the cave with half of the archers, bound and gagged in case the creature can sense the shadow’s taint, if any such thing can be smelled.  The other half of the arches would be hidden in the woods, another pit.  Cole thought the waterfall might do harm to the archer’s bowstrings but it was a chance we had to take.

Elowan will be alone on top of the cliff, ready to rain magicks down and keep the creature from flying away.  He tried to explain his spell to me but I have no mind for it.  If it would bind the Manticore’s wings it was fine enough for me.  Durgen would have no battleplan hinged on magicks and so we tied five barbed spears with ropes, hoping to keep the creature anchored if need be.  Durgen apologizes that he cannot spare men to guard Elowan while he hides above us on top of the cliff.

If it gets away it would destroy our boats on the distant shore and hunt us to the last…if we were lucky.  If we were unlucky it would flee and tell of our treachery.  My hope was that it would be too vain to flee, or too hungry for more man-flesh.  No, my hope is that it won’t get away, that we will kill the bastard.

We would wait for Elowan to cast the Web upon its wings and then we would attack.

Then it was a flurry of activity as Northmen dug pits for hiding, piled the Manticore’s meal and made sure they were hidden from the air.  I had never even considered killing this beast when I met it last.  It was far beyond my meager sword’s mortal reach.  I thought to myself:  This is no angry Oruk who has stolen your sword.  This is a monster, bred by Izrador himself to hunt and kill men.

I am the only one the Manticore has met and so I will be the one who talks to it while it eats.  I shuddered to think that I would be matching wits with this beast.  I know the wilds and bladework but this game is new.  If I lose I die.  Ancestors please watch my tongue.

In frustration and nerves I cleaved a dead tree next to the pool with my newly won Vardatch.  We used the wood to begin the cooking fire.  Durgen throws in the Manticore spike, freely given to Unaros when we were in Whitecliff.  It fizzles as it burns.  The Manticore has been summoned.  We have no idea when it will arrive.

The bodies begin to cook and after the hair is burned off the smell is not bad.  I am ashamed to admit that my mouth watered.  Perhaps I am weak.

The wait was agony.  The late afternoon’s sun went down and shadows grew.  Naturally, it would appear at night.  The cooking fire casted a terrible glow over the falls, making everything appear ominous.

I prayed to Ull for the hunt and offered a prayer to Tyr, who put his hand in the Fenris Wolf’s mouth.  

A flap of wings was heard overhead.  It circled once and circled again.  Then it flew away.

After minutes that felt like days it landed, red fur glowing in the firelight, bearded face wider and more ferocious than any face should be.  Its wings folded neatly behind its back and it perched on a bed of rock across from the fire.

The Manticore asked, “Did your Legate summon me, Esben-spawn?” 

I bowed, “My father sends his regards from Port Esben, great Manticore.”

Its eyes narrowed and without another word it flew away again.  Thinking back, mention of my father would arouse my suspicion too.  After a few minutes it landed again, claws flexing, scraping the rock.

Again, I bowed, “Unaros is praying in that cave, Lord Manticore.”

“Then summon him to me.  I have no time to waste on young, ambitious Legates.”

I nodded and motioned to the fire, “He ordered that I not interrupt his meditations but I am to feast you if you are kind enough to wait.”

A deep purr came from its lion-ish body, bat wings folded on its red furred back.  

I brought the Manticore the first of its man-flesh.  It smelled the body carefully, thinking of my father’s penchant for poisons, no doubt.  Then, it tore into the body, claws flexed, teeth rending.  Blood and organs spilled out onto the rock.  In three gulps and the twig-like snaps of uncounted bones it was done.  It had swallowed a man in the time it takes me to draw a bow and fire it.

It wiped its mouth with the back of its paw and purred again, “More, Esben-spawn, bring me more.”

I did, I brought the beast five more roasted bodies and it ate each one.

No spell, no magicks came down to bind its wings.

While it digested its five man meal, the Manticore and I made pleasant conversation.


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## handforged (Jul 10, 2003)

you're kidding me right?

right?

you're just going to stop there?

what about my nerves man?

I mean what gives, how I am supposed to sleep at night?

I NEED MORE!


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## Paka (Jul 10, 2003)

handforged said:
			
		

> *you're kidding me right?
> 
> right?
> 
> ...




My job as a writer is done.

I will try to get on it and post another tonight or tomorrow and complete the hunt.


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## Pillars of Hercules (Jul 11, 2003)

*Arrghh!*



			
				handforged said:
			
		

> *you're kidding me right?
> 
> right?
> 
> ...





What handforged said!


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## Paka (Jul 11, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

*The Great Manticore Hunt Part II*

If someone had told me that it was my fate to die while making polite conversation with the Manticore I wouldn’t have believed them.  But there I was, waiting for the Manticore to see through my ruse, to discover a lie.  If it weren’t for the fact that the beast likes to hear itself talk I would no doubt have been long dead already.

“…and the Oruk are just Orcs.  They took the toughest and finest of the Orcs after the battle of the Second Age and bred them for strength in the breeding pits of the north.  Oruks will never admit it but they are just Orcs, a mite taller, a bit tougher but only Orcs for that.”

It picked its teeth with one of its black claws, glinting in the firelight, smell of cooked man still lingering on the air.

“Do you know any Channelers who would be watching your party?  Was a Channeler traveling with you?”

I lied, “No, Lord Manticore, none.”

“Lord Manticore, I do like that.  Nice,” he purred but then his tone changed, grew more dangerous, “Are you sure, Esben?”  He took out Elowan's, the Channeler’s Lorebook, tossed it onto the ground.  I thought about Durgen, refusing to spare men to guard the Channeler.

I began to stammer out a reply, another lie to pile onto the other lies I’ve told but the words never came out.  Its claws ripped past my chainmail into my chest, twirling me like a child’s toy.  That its bite missed my neck was pure chance.  I landed in the shallows of the pool, hitting the rocks, bleeding for the Manticore's claws.

I could hear the roaring of the falls, the cackling of the fire, the beating of the Manticore’s wings and Durgen let loose an inhuman battle-cry.  His wordless roar called our Northmen to battle.  Durgen ran across the shallows in front of me, drawing the beast’s tail spikes.  His chest was a bloody mess as spikes made a pincushion of his armor.  Despite his wounds he threw his spear.  The barbed spear chased the Manticore through the air, rope tied to a tree in order to keep it from flying away.

The spear missed.

Arches erupted from the forest in formation and swords and spearsmen filed out of nearby pits.  Durgen yanked on the rope meant to anchor the Manticore to the earth, returning the spear to his hand while I regained my footing.  Again he let the spear fly and again he missed.

In fear and panic I wondered if he was missing on purpose, secretly in league with the monster.

The Manticore was in the air, letting spikes fly from his tail at our soldiers, hovering beneath where our Channeler was supposed to cast magicks upon the beast, tying its wings together.

All of the roped spears missed and now it hovered out of the rope’s range.

Cole’s archers let loose two volleys of arrows that wreaked havoc on the beast and Odannin and the other spears left their marks in the monster’s flesh.

Spikes had taken their toll on our men, a few had died or had fallen to his claws before he took flight.

As it hovered, in fury, I threw my Vardatch at it.  The Orcish Cleaver was not meant for such use.  My furious throw had no effect on anything but the cliff wall.

It turned and flew out of the gorge.

It is gone.  We failed and now we will die.

Durgen began signing to Odannin who helped rally them men, “To the boats, it will make for our boats!  To the ships, men!”

While the men made for the ships I grabbed Odannin and begged for men, “We can still hunt it.  There are almost two dozen holes in the creature.  It bleeds.  I can track it.”

Cole volunteered himself and nine of his arches who can be rather quiet in the woods.  I will track this bastard across the Pellurian if need be.  We climbed the side of the gorge, up the cliff-face.  Two men fell and we left them behind, not able to see if they were well or wait for them to climb again.

By torchlight I found blood on a rock, where it had stopped to lick its wounds.  Now we were hunting the hunter.

We came over a hillock that gave a good view of the boats, where I expected to see carnage or a battlefield or the smashed remains of the boats.  Neither were apparent.  Durgen had arranged the men in a circle perimeter, shooting fire arrows into the night in search of the beast.  I caught the creature flying a cautious perimeter, seeking a weak spot in Durgen’s defenses. 

Torches extinguished we grew quiet and followed, waiting for the beast to strike.

Out of a copse of trees it took an archer out of Durgen’s perimeter but the other men drove it away.  The death was swift and quieter than I would have liked.  The Northman barely had time to scream.

It didn’t know we were here.  We grew quiet and followed it to the tree where it hid and perched.  We crept towards it, bowstrings notched with arrows, barely breathing.  Like a thunderclap a twig broke under an archer’s foot.  Spikes flew out of the night, going by my head like arrows.
Two more men fell to the Manticore’s spikes.  Then it closed, flying low over my head in the midst of all of us.  I cleaved it best I could, driving my hand and a half sword deep into its flank.  Cole took his arrow and jumped on top its back, taking blood.

The Manticore’s words to Cole chilled me, “You want to ride the Manticore, little man?”

It flew away, giving us time to swing again, hoping not to hit Cole.

Cole corpse was dropped from a great height, broken, rended, half-eaten.  But I knew where it had been, Cole’s body told me.  Using that information, using slow outward spirals I caught its trail again.  It was making its way back to the falls, our original ambush point.

It is bleeding heavily but so am I.  We are both weakened.  I can’t fall yet, the hunt’s not over.  It has to rest, pull out arrows, lick gashes.  My steel hit bone twice, I know.  Quietly, I made my way down the falls to the pools below.  We sent one man back to Durgen, back to the main body of men to explain our position.

I spotted the monster sipping water in a pool a step above where the beast and I initially chatted above the last of the falls.  Careful not to kick rocks into the pool below, we made our way down.  Stags drink the same way.  I would give my Vardatch to be able to be in the cool water…thirsty…tired…bleeding.  Time to finish this or good Dornish men will have died for nothing.

One of the tethered spears Durgen missed with was below, not twenty feet from the Manticore.  Checked the barb head, coiled the rope and steeled myself.  When I picked the spear up and he looked up at me, growling.  The spear flew through the air, as it should have the first time, and found its target, buried deep in the Manticore’s side.  It’s red fur was matted with even more of the monster’s own blood.

I gripped the rope and tugged.  It pulled against me, trying to take me into the deep water, where I would have no footing.  For a moment the rope went taut and I was sure its strength would overcome me.  My feet dragged along the pool’s rocky bottom and I could hear its claws digging into rock.

Noises were coming out of my mouth that I had no idea were possible, horrible primal screams.  With the last of my will I pulled and Lord Manticore fell.  It came down hard on its own weight and there was a snap as one of its wings broke in the fall.  

_Die, you dark spawned fiend…you can’t fly away this time…DIE._ 

It layed there in a pile, only its tail swishing back and forth.  I dove for cover beneath the water, fired spikes splashing alongside me, a few hitting my chest.

I dragged it to me.  Where is my sword?  The water was so fresh and cold.  It would be so nice to just float for a while, heal.  Come here, bastard.  Come here, monster.  You cut like anyone else.  I felt my arm working, my dagger seemed to hit the beast independent of my arm.  Then I heard it snarl and its paw splashed out of the water towards my bloody torso, claws bared.

_Valkeries, please bring me mead aplenty.  Take me to the Hall of my Ancestors.  I’ve earned a place with them._


*The Manticore Hunt Part III*

Only a few words pierced the darkness, odd pieces of the night’s events: 

“There he is.  Over there.”

“Ancestors alive, he did it.”

“Careful, the spike’s in his lung.”

Odannin held me while they peeled my mail and clothes off of me and slapped mud on my wounds to stop the bleeding, “You’ve bled into this pool more than any man has a right to, Karhoun.”

My chest was burning but it was a distant feeling, as if this all were happening to someone else and I was doomed to only watch it happen to this poor fool named Karhoun Esben.

_Elaylee, is this what it feels like when you are in your tree, all darkness and comfort?_

I awoke on a swinging hammock, the smell of salt water and the sound of gulls in the distance.  I heard a Northman say, “Get them, he stirs.”

Odannin came to see me, brought me a bowl of stew and a wooden vial.  The stew was warm.  I could’ve eaten Orc meat to stop this hunger.  I shoveled in spoonfuls and said, “Did we get it?”  I sniffed the vial, still wondering if it was poison, if Durgen was as noble as he claimed.  Deciding that if he wanted me dead he would have let me bleed to death under the falls, I drank.

Odannin grinned, “They say you pulled it off of the cliff, played tug-o-war with the beast.”

I nodded, slurping stew and belching.

“The men put a few more arrows into it after it swiped you down but it had passed out from blood loss.  Then we all arrived.”

I rubbed mouldy bread into the stew, soaking up the last remnants, “Is Durgen alright?”

The first mate nodded his scarred head, “He is angry about missing those first two throws but he’ll live.”

“Tell him the spear was where it needed to be in the end,” I responded.  “How many?”

“Alive or dead?”

“Dead.”

“Fifteen.”

They gave me one of its claws, a Claw of the Manticore, informing me that to be caught with such a trophy is a death sentence but that I’d earned it.  When I asked  about what would be done with its body I was informed that it had already been broken down into parts, and would be sent all over Eredane, mostly to the Elves of the Erethor, to act as components for magic items, Covenant Items that would aid in our war against the Shadow.

Durgen came and signed, Odannin speaking his words.  When I asked Durgen to write he looked ashamed, and told me that he couldn’t make runes, never had learned.

Durgen informed me of our alibi.  He told me how Kylie had been killed in the cave and would be reported as having taken an insurgent arrow the throat, which was no lie.  They would say that they met a ship with a Dire Lion aboard, as some insurgents have pacts with such creatures.  They had never seen such a beast on board a ship but the lie was the only way to explain the scars the Manticore had dealt out.

They would head back to Port Esben and most likely word will have reached that the Bluff has accepted our overtures of peace and it will be safe for me to return to Unaros’s side again.  Esben Pride will take me to the Bluff once that word is received.

On the way home I was ordered to heal and rest.  I had more time to myself than I ever had in my life, as the crew was ordered to allow me to sleep.  The time alone was sobering.

I thanked my ancestors and the Gods of my people, the true Gods of the North.

I thought about the very real possibility that perhaps Durgen missed his spear throws purposefully.

I wondered how much Manticore blood mingled with mine in the pool below those falls.

I realized how much I truly love killing the Shadow’s minions.

I understood that I still serve Unaros.

I hated to admit that I want to see Elayle, the Lady of the Black Oak.

I discovered that somehow, through all of this madness, I still have hope.


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## wolff96 (Jul 11, 2003)

You know, it's a REALLY good thing you posted parts two and three together. Otherwise, it would have gotten ugly around here.  

Seriously, though, that is a heck of an update. And one hell of a fight.

Keep it coming, that was awesome!


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## Paka (Jul 11, 2003)

Yeah, I think I had taken the cliffhanger as far as it was going to go.  It was tired.

This catches the StoryHour  up with the game.  We havne't played for 3 weeks due to my summer trips and such.  Next week we game again.

I am going to write three epilogues, one from Durgen's point of view, because he is SUCH a kick ass NPC, made up by my buddy, Pete.  I had to let his story outta the bag.

And I want to show the ripples the death of a creature like this sends throughout the Midnight world.

The Epilogues should be from the POV's of:  Sir Durgen the Silent, The Lord of the Breeding Pits, The Sphinx, and The Chimera.

Should be fun. 

Thanks for reading.


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## Paka (Jul 13, 2003)

Story Post #18

*Epilogue #1 – Durgen the Silent*

Durgen sat in his cabin, his crew knew their duties.  He hoped that there would be no battles with the many terrors of the Pellurian Sea.  The men were all tired, never having combatted a Shadow Minion of this magnitude.  He thought about leaving the Esben world, just taking off and joining the Pirate Princes. Damn the wardenship, damn the Sea Tower and most of all damn the Esben family.

Fool thoughts, thoughts for a boy who still believes in fairy tales.

No, he would return to port.

Durgen took out his dagger and sharpened it.  It was the dagger he had used to cut out his own tongue.  Few knew it was of Elven make, curved slightly with intricate braidwork on the handle.  He thought about the dagger and how he had first used it.

Durgen had distinguished himself as a good soldier, manning his father’s finest ships and meeting success after success.  The former Warden of the Sea Tower, Kell the Reaver had been embarrassed by his young Squire’s many successes.  It was coming time for Durgen to be knighted and his induction into the order would mark him as a competitor for Kell’s highly sought after position.  Back before his tongue had come out he was called Durgen the Brave.

None knew that Durgen Esben was haunted by dreams of a woman with long reddish brown hair the color of brass and eyes entirely black.  She was as beautiful as a rolling thundercloud and when he awoke he was always saying her name.  In time he found out the name on his lips was that of the Witch-Queen of Erethor.  That father could know of these dreams was the only thing in all of Eredane that frightened him.  Indeed, his father was the only person he had ever met who struck fear in his heart.

Kell and Durgen orchestrated a brutal ambush at sea, using the morning’s mist and an oracular Sea Hag. 

During the vicious battle at sea an Elf died in Durgen’s arms.  The Elf, with black eyes like the woman in Durgen’s dreams, stared at his killer, Durgen Esben.  When the he died he placed a dagger in Durgen’s hands and whispered his last words, “Why do you kill us when you have seen the Queen’s beauty for yourself?”  At that point Durgen had been dreaming of the Witch-Queen every night for a year and a day.

The battle was decisively won, with the combined battle-wisdom of Vildar’s most battle-wise sons,  Kell the Reaver and Durgen the Brave.  As they divided the spoils, Kell clapped his younger brother on the shoulder and Durgen responded quickly, plunging his newfound Elven dagger into his black-hearted brother’s throat.

Then Durgen spoke to his men and released his final words, “If you would overthrow the tyranny of my father and the spiteful Demon he serves from the North then kill for me now.  Slit the throat of anyone here who serves the Shadow willingly and serve me, Durgen the Usurper!”

He had expected to be killed, cut down but men responded.  One hundred men were left when the slaughter was done.  Years later less than sixty remained and he counts himself lucky to have that many.

He cut out his own tongue, scared that his words might one day betray him or more importantly, betray Her.  The deeds done during the ritual Durgen was put through in order to be anointed a full knight in his father’s order still woke him at night.  But he told himself, every night he awoke covered in sweat and guilt, “Those were the vile deeds I had to do in order to accomplish any good in this broken world.”

Durgen thought of his brother, Karhoun the Knife.  Karhoun had earned his moniker when he offered his knife to Vildar as his only weapon.  Later Karhoun engaged in a bloody battle with the Oruks who held his weapons and used the dagger father had poisoned to kill his enemies.  Karhoun earned the name yet again by taking his dagger to the Manticore in a desperate attempt to wound the beast.  None of the Esbens would ever hear of that battle, though.  

Durgen thought of the terrible road that the fates had set head for Karhoun and him.  Durgen thought of the blood, the strife and pain and did something he only did in private; Durgen the Silent smiled.


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## handforged (Jul 14, 2003)

YIPPEE!!!


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## Paka (Jul 14, 2003)

Story Post #19

*Epilogue #20 - The Pit Breeder*

There is a land so far north that the only distinguishing feature is the Shadow.  

Even the Snow Elves don’t venture there.  It is said that one did, but her name has passed into tales and legends.  The land that far north is a barren wasteland, all colors there seem to be varying degrees of gray.

A man lives there in the cold.  He lives in a deep pit where you can hear the screeches, cries and screams of many creatures, some of which do not yet have names.  The man himself had a name once but it was lost.  Some people lose a ribbon given to them by a loved one and others lose their minds, this man lost his name.

He was staring at an Elf, a captured Wood Elf, suspended above the ground by wires and covered in so many spiders that the Elf’s real shape was hard to tell.  The Elf was a seething mass of crawling arachnids.  These creatures, crawling over every inch of his skin and making good use of most of his orifices had driven him mad days ago but still the man watched the process and took notes, knowing it would be time soon to begin the Magicks in order to facilitate the Change.

While taking notes on his progress on the Elf he heard a crash, a strange thing in his breeding pits.  He put his ledger down and walked over to his shelves and saw that his statue of the Manticore had broken.  The man shook his head and tssked tssked, as if he had caught a child stealing a pie from a window ledge.

“This won’t do at all,” the man said to himself, “but still, I wonder...”

The man took an older ledger off of the shelf where three statues sat, one of a Sphinx, one of a Chimera and the broken shell of the Manticore.  He turned the pages past his notes on beasts containing a mixture of different beasts like the Griffon, the flying fish, the centaur and the platypus (which, quite frankly, he didn’t believe existed), past the notes on the mating habits of Gryphons, and past the pages upon pages of Dire Lion womb studies.  Finally he found his sociological notes and wrote, “Manticore dead.  Note sibling reaction.”

Calmly, the man closed the book, put it back on its shelf, tidied up the broken pieces of the Manticore statue and continued his good work, torturing an Elf with millions of spiders in order to create something beautiful and terrible.


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## Inez Hull (Jul 14, 2003)

Really enjoying this story hour, particularly the tales of the Esben family. Keep it coming Paka!


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## Tuerny (Jul 14, 2003)

Just wanted to let you know I was still reading. 

Good work.


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## dbenson (Jul 15, 2003)

Paka,

I'm pretty sure you should stop wasting your time on this story hour right now and start writing Midnight short stories for FFG.  I'll preorder one right now.

D Benson


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## Paka (Jul 15, 2003)

Story Post #20

*Epilogue #3 - The Sphinx*

There is a land so baked by the sun, so pale and sun-drenched that it seemed to some folk that the Shadow could have no foothold there.  Those folk were wrong.

The Clanless were leading a doomed existence.  The surface was cruel to the Dwarves and their numbers were dwindling.  Many in their community were calling out for drastic measures.  Some wanted to build ships and go overseas to old Pelluria.  Some wished to assault Theros Obsidia itself in an act of suicidal desperation that might spark Eredane into action.  Others wished to move the entire people to the White Desert.

Karul was the last scout left in the party gathered to scout out the White Desert.  Half had been killed in an Orcish ambush, just three leagues outside of their home encampment.  The rest had been done in by thirst, hunger and the White Desert’s cruel way of misleading even the trail-wisest of Wildlanders.

Karul’s brown beard has been bleached into a bright red by the sun and most of his armor had been stored near an oasis that he was going to return to after scouting the area.  He had told himself that little lie three days ago.  The oasis seemed to disappeare since being entrusted with the heavier parts of his kit.

This should be easy, Karul thought, the bloody ocean is to the east and the blessed mountains are to the west.  How can I be lost?

He crested a hill and saw a statue.  It was hard to tell what it represented with the sand whipping about on the wind but he’d know soon enough.  Stones are home, he thought, and maybe a sign-post of some kind.

The statue seemed to be of a mixture of a woman and a lion, like the Chimera that had been plaguing the Dwarfholdts of late or the Manticore who hunted along the northern Pellurian.  Karul approached the statue carefully, wary of traps the Shadow might have left here in the desert.  The woman’s top half was humanoid and bare.  The bottom half was like a lion’s, curled underneath her.  Feathery wings were curled on her back.  The Dwarf did not realize they were like giant eagles wings but caked with sand.

The Sphinx spoke, “Do you come to riddle me, Dwarf?”

“I’ve come for reasons that are none of your concern, construct.  I’ll take your leave, if ye will.  My apologies for having disturbed ye.”

“Construct?  Turning one’s back on me is always a mistake,” the Sphinx explained, opening her eyes.  Sand still encrusted her skin, leading Karul to mistake her for a statue.  She asked again, “Riddle?”

Karul slowly moved his hands towards a handaxe on a sash around his waist but stopped when he saw her eyes follow his hand.  “Yes, m’lady, a riddle.”

“Riddles are an ancient sport of the mind.  The best riddlemasters can make up their own Riddles.  Mine own riddle is based on a riddlegame from antiquity.  It was told by one of my kind in old Pelluria.  Are you ready to hear it?  If you fail to answer the riddle to satisfaction, this desert will be your grave, the sky your tomb and the sandstorm’s wind your only mourner.  Ready?”

Karul nodded, sun-weary and heat-exhausted.

“What has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and seven legs at night?”

Karul’s eyes squinted when he asked, “Seven?”

The Sphinx nodded, more movement than she had taken since she had begun her desert meditations, ten years ago.

Karul asked again, “Are ye sure it is seven at night?  Sure it isn’t three?”

“Do you think I don’t know the riddle, Dwarf?”

The Dwarf stroked his beard, thinking and from within his beard he produced a throwing dagger.  He hurled it at the Sphinx with all of his might and in one fluid action drew his hand-axe.  The dagger hit her in the shoulder.  Red blood leaked through the sand, showing her for a creature of flesh.  The pain made her roar and the sandstorm seemed to increase with her roar.  

Karul quaked, wanting to run over dunes and under cliffs to get away from this roaring beast but he gripped his axe white-knuckle tight, put his other hand up to compensate for the sun’s glare and awaited the beast’s charge.  The dagger hidden in his beard was the only missile weapon he had left.

The Sphinx a symbol into the sand with her sharp claws.  The symbol pacified Karul.  When the Sphinx asked him to drop his axe, his brow furrowed, but he did it.  He had a nice chat with her while she flew him to an oasis.  He drank and told her about the Kaladrun’s plans.  She smiled, understanding, making helpful comments and mentioning how she knew the way out of the desert and she would be glad to show him.

When he had wetted his parched throat he looked down and there was another symbol, carved into the sands by his new friend.  This one put him into a deep slumber.  She stood over him, her wings offering him shade.

“Sleep well, little Dwarf.  When you awake you will be well on your way to being my slave.  I will need you to go out into the world.  I need to find out who killed my brother.”

In his sleep he mumbled, “Riddle…what did it..?”

She laughed, “Riddles?  The world is riddle enough without fools going and making them up.  Don’t be naïve.”

Troubled, Karul slept.


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## Paka (Jul 15, 2003)

Story Post #21

*Epilogue #4 - The Chimera*

One could tell the age of the halls in the Dwafholdt by the amount of gore strewn on the floor.  This room was venerable, sealed for decades.  Gore had long since turned to brown stains on the floors and wall.  Now all that remained were the brittle bones that crunched under the Chimera’s feet.  The monster paced the chamber, once the meeting hall for Dwarven Kings.  

The Chimera was three heads joined:  The Goat thought about eating, the death of his brother made him want to feed.  The Lion thought about revenge, the death of his brother made him want to kill.  The Dragon thought about treasure, something shined on the floor under some bones and he wondered if he could coerce the others to pace in that direction.

A nervous Orc entered the chamber, careful not to crunch on any bones, not to make any noise that might upset the Chimera.  The beast was the factor that tipped the stalemate this siege had become over to the Shadow.  But still the Orcs were wary of the beast.  If two heads ate insurgents, it was generally known that one would chew on an Orc.

“Master, do you need anything?” the Orc grunted.

Goat:  “No.”

Lion:  “We’re fine.”

Dragon:  “Yes.”

The Dragon’s head half-heartedly bit at the Orc on its way out.  The Lion’s head looked over at the Dragon reproachfully.

Dragon:  Don’t preach to me.  I’m the mythic one and I hunger.  

Lion:  How dare you hold your status over us!  Little good your breath did us in the battle.

Goat:  I’m hungry.

Each head sighed, each one for entirely different reasons.

Lion:  Our brother is dead, Chimera.

Dragon:  He was always the foolish one.

Goat:  Brother’s dead?

The Lion and Dragon roared in frustration, the Goat bleated loudly in response.

Goat:  How do you know brother’s dead?

Lion:  One knows if one pays attention.

Dragon:  True, the Shadow has linked us in the womb, He has.

The Goat sniffed, feeling left out, the only one not to have known.  The Lion surveyed the room, looking over the brittle graveyard underfoot and thinking about death.  The Dragon wondered who had killed his brother and what treasure they had.

Dragon:  We should get revenge, Chimera.

Lion:  Our work is done here.

Goat:  I miss Brother Manticore.  He used to fly over the Pellurian with us, back when we served in the Erethore.

The Chimera agreed, all heads roaring at once, “Revenge.”


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## Paka (Jul 15, 2003)

Story Post # 22

*Epilogue #4 - The Queen & King *

The Witch Queen and the King of the Aruun met on neutral ground,  a high plateau in the Arunath Mountains.  The Queen appeared out of the morning mists, black eyes taking in the breathtaking view of the Erethor and the Aruun.  The King trod up a mountain path, main ruffled in the breeze, nose on the wind, making sure no ambush was imminent.

They nodded to one another.  

The Queen broke the tense silence, “I am sorry to summon you like this.  I have word, the Manti-…your wife’s murderer has been slain.”  She let those words sit on the morning air.  

The King stood proud and strong, like an emblem on a banner and growled, “I am honored that you came in person, didn't send one of your little black-eyed pawns.  I made my intentions clear.  Your insurgents were to leave that Shadowspawn to me.”

Somewhere above the heart of the Erethor, thunder rumbled. She returned his stare but not quite his growl, “They are hardly my insurgents.  We are a fractured lot, spread thin throughout the Eredane.”

“I am too busy cleaning up the mess of Demons Izrador has left in my lands,” the King said, as if it were an explanation.

Again the uncomfortable silence that was typical of their meetings settled over the plateau.  The Queen broke the silence, “Please accept my condolences again.  Your wife was a great woman, a fine compliment to the King’s pride.”

Unsure of how the Witch-Queen meant the word, pride, the King could only laugh, “It is not too late to make me your Witch-King, m’lady.  The Jungle would adore you and the joining of our two kingdoms could do nothing but make us stronger in our struggles.”

The Queen smiled, the gesture felt alien on her face.  She immediately wondered how many decades it had been since her face had done any such thing.  “You make me smile, good King.  I thank you for that.”

The Queen disappeared as quietly as she had come, leaving the King with the stunning view of the besieged whispering woods of the Erethor Forest and the untamed Aruun Jungle.


_[Note:  All caught up, tomorrow we game!] _


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## dbenson (Jul 16, 2003)

Who or what is the King of the Aruun?

D Benson


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## Paka (Jul 16, 2003)

dbenson said:
			
		

> *Who or what is the King of the Aruun?
> 
> D Benson *




I'm not telling.  I posted the answer and now I've edited it out.


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## Tokiwong (Jul 18, 2003)

Looking good Paka, looking good


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## Emiricol (Jul 18, 2003)

Paka! You said you were back on track and would post tomorrow!  It has been a few tomorrows now!

  You slacker, I'm going through withdrawls here.


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## Paka (Jul 19, 2003)

Emiricol said:
			
		

> *Paka! You said you were back on track and would post tomorrow!  It has been a few tomorrows now!
> 
> You slacker, I'm going through withdrawls here.  *




Heh.

We gamed on Wednesday, just some short solo role-playing between me and JJ, the creator and player of Karhoun.  I am awaiting JJ's notes so I can go over what we did and write it all down.


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## Paka (Jul 21, 2003)

Story Post #23

*Dreams of Hope and Nightmarish Realities*

I slept deep and had dreams of hope and heroism after the slaying of the Manticore.  But the sun has risen on another day and Izrador is still the only God answering prayers; there is work to be done.  Last night I was so filled with optimism but today it is back to our duties.

Odannin visited me often, brought me my food.  He explained the alibi we would say back at Port Esben, a night attack of pirates allied with a Dire Lion who was on their deck.

“What is a Dire Lion,” I asked.  He explained that it is a lion but as big as a house and smarter than most men.  The Elves have a pact with them.

“The Dire Bears are terrible wonders to behold,” he mused, then explaining, “The lion will give reason for the claw scars on you and several of the other men.”

“And the puncture wounds from the spikes?” I asked.

“Arrows,” he said, with a smile.

We ate in silence for a while and I could feel Odannin girding himself, preparing to say something.  Finally, after wiping his stew bowl with bread to get every last drop he said, “Karhoun, I am going to call out your brother in front of the crew.  I must get him to abandon this road before we all get killed.”

I put down my wooden spoon and asked what he is proposing and why.  I thought he was sounding like Vorden, that damned fool Elf.  I wondered if he thought I was afraid to die for what we’re doing here.

Odannin explained as best he could, stammering at his foolish notions, “It is only a matter of time before we are found.  This slaying we’ve done here will send ripples throughout the Shadow and it will get traced, traced to us.”

I shook my head, “Durgen explained that the body has already been divvied up, sent all over the Eredane to make weapons and magicks.  The evidence of what was done on Dragon Island is gone.  None could possible know.”

He argued, “We’ve reached too far and must flee.  We could sink the ships and take to the foot hills.  We’d be a ferocious band, attacking supply trains and ambushing Legates.”

“That is nothing compared to what we will do from inside the Shadow’s trust.  No, we are just gaining the positions we need.  Father said that if I gain power in Baden’s Bluff our family will have a stranglehold on the Pelurian.  That will mean that WE have a stranglehold on the Pelurian Sea.  I’m not giving that up for some supply trains.”

Odannin grew grim, “When we return to Port Esben your father will no doubt squire you.  With Kylie dead your brother will need a squire.  Then you will be on the path to knighthood.”

“Squired?  Me?” I hadn’t considered that.  It silenced me for a moment, “So be it, the path to being truly trusted within the Shadow.”

“No,” my brother’s second in command retorted, “My family has been thanes of the Esben family for centuries.   I serve and serve faithfully.

“But I’ve known your brother since we were both boys.  Something in him changed when he became a knight in the Holy Order of the Southern Pelurian.  He was much like you once but now something is wrong and twisted in him.  Some days I wonder if he is an insurgent pretending to be a Knight of Shadow or a Knight of Shadow pretending to be an insurgent.

“I would not see such a horror come to you.”       

He began to argue more and I interrupted him, asked him to fetch Durgen so that we could discuss this all with him.  At that, I saw the fight go out of Odannin.  Durgen must frighten him as much as father, I thought.

A good thing too.  If Odannin had spoken in front of the crew he might have spread his weakness to them.

With a few signed words, Durgen did away with Odannin’s thoughts on running.  Durgen and I, through Odannin’s interpreting, discussed which younger sibling I might bring with me to Baden’s Bluff.  Father had said I could bring anyone younger than me who wasn’t already squired or in servitude to another.

I mentioned my idea, “What if I brought the child of the mother we watched hang.  I have heard that babe is either blessed by Izrador or cursed.  Either way it would be best to have it close to us.”

Odannin recounted for me the child’s history, “It was birthed a little over a month ago and father was hoping for another son.  He called his former wife…the daughter factory.  So he brought a Legate Midwife in order to insure the blessing of Izrador.

“The child, they say, touched the Midwife and she burst into flames.  No one knows if the child is blessed by Izrador or cursed.  None will touch it.  In the tower it remains, fed by a long spoon.”

Durgen signed for Odannin to say, “If something goes very wrong you can always run.  You have nature’s lore and can survive in the wilds.  Would you want to run from Father or a Legate with a babe on your hip?”

Durgen left on that note, leaving me to think about my responsibilities.  Father would be waiting on the docks of Port Esben.  Since Durgen didn’t want Odannin anywhere near the creature that is my father, it would be my place to tell Grandmaster Vildar Esben all about the battle.

I slept knowing that when I awoke in the morning it would be the sound of Port Esben’s wharf against the side of the ship waking me.


*The Squiring * 

Father met us on the wharf, dark mail under his black tabard.  The Wardens surrounded him and some house guard were surrounding the wharf.  Again he carried no weapons.  

“My children return from the hunt.  Durgen the Silent, have you come to kill your father and take his throne, my son?”  Father asked.  

Durgen shook his head and bowed, offering his sword for father to poison.  Father poisoned the blade with the love of a hug and kiss.

I had thought his questions were sarcastic.  Now I have to wonder if there is some darker goal behind them.

Father turned his gaze on me, “Karhoun the Knife.  Have you come to kill your father?  Will you attempt to take the throne of Port Esben?” 

“No, father, I have not come for your throne.”  I offered my sword which he poisoned.

“Where is Kylie?” he asked, eyes on Durgen.

“She died in the battle, insurgent’s arrow to the throat.” I explained.

Father’s mouth grew tight and grim.  It was his murderous expression.  His gaze settled on Durgen like a death shroud, “Durgen, did you kill her?”

Durgen shook his head, no.

I felt the weight of his gaze, “Karhoun, did you murder your sister?”

“No, father, I did not.”

I explained the terrible night battle at sea.  I told him how I had been awakened and how they had a Dire Lion aboard their ship.  As we planned, I told the ship had sunk and we repulsed their attempts to get on board the Esben Pride.  After telling lies to the Manticore, telling this tale to father seemed somehow easier to me.  The wounds from the mauling I took from the Manticore were still fresh and painful; one of Durgen's sailors was holding me up.

Once I was done father said, “Kneel before me, Karhoun,” and I did as he explained his knighthood to me:

“The knights of the Holy Order of the Southern Pelurian were the warriors who allowed Izrador’s Orcish Host to cross the sea and gain a beach head on the southern shore.  This knighthood is always at the forefront of the Shadow in the North’s advancement, always the first to make a foothold, smoothing the way for the rest of His minions.

“Will you be a Squire to Sir Durgen?  Will you start on the road to being a knight in my order?”

Just as predicted, I was squired on the Port Esben wharf by the Grandmaster of the Holy Order of the Southern Pelurian, my father.


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## Darthor (Jul 21, 2003)

Wow Paka,

If I ever run a session in Midnight (doubtful since my group likes things a bit more bright and hopeful), it will be in your Midnight. Thanks for the great story and inspiration.


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## Paka (Jul 21, 2003)

Darthor said:
			
		

> *Wow Paka,
> 
> If I ever run a session in Midnight (doubtful since my group likes things a bit more bright and hopeful), it will be in your Midnight. Thanks for the great story and inspiration. *




Thanks, Darthor, I appreciate the praise.

It ain't MY Midnight.  Once you buy that book, once you open it at your gaming table and begin running it, it is YOUR Midnight and that is why it is so much fun.

Thanks for reading.


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## Pillars of Hercules (Jul 22, 2003)

Paka,

Just a note to say I'm still paying rapt attention.  Midnight's a great world, to be sure, but a great DM & writer like yourself makes it even better.


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## Tokiwong (Jul 22, 2003)

This stuff is cool, and I await the update as always


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## Paka (Jul 22, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

Story Post #24

*A Return to Killing Strength*

Still in agony from the mauling I took from the Manticore, I had trouble standing from my kneeling position.  Father bade me to my rooms, where Orengar the Fat would tend to my wounds.  One of Durgen’s sailors helped me up the stairs to my apartment in the castle.  He steered my way and carried half my weight.

On the way up the stairs I thought about selling Durgen out to father, as it would strengthen my position.  Durgen knew this squiring would happen.  Father would trust me if I handed him Durgen the Usurper.  These thoughts were my Esben upbringing and my Theros Obsidia training shining through.

Valanicia was the first to visit me, always the loving sister.  She had heard about my squirehood.  She wanted something, of course.  If I become a knight she wants to be my squire.

“Anything to get away from this place,” she said.

I agree to squire her if and when I am knighted.  She did take my side in the fight against the high Orcs, the Oruk, after all.  Not to mention she was my nursemaid when I was but a child.  These aren’t easy things to forget.

Val exited briskly, eyes downcast, hands clutching her skirts once Orengar, my Legate brother made his entrance.  He gave my healing droughts (Izrador’s frozen piss, I silently mused to myself) that tasted like liquid winter but my wounds turned to scars, criss-crossing my body like runes.  He also told me that he would write a guide to the Bluff and its Legates.

“It will be more thorough than what I gave Unaros, your Legate,” he said while smirking, “Some things are best kept within the family, you know.  

“You are well now,” he announced to no one in particular, “Father will no doubt have some chores for you soon.  Rest well.”


*The Lady of the Black Oak*

I wanted to give my greetings to Elayle, the newly planted Dryad in the courtyard and father’s bride to be.  Apparently, Dryads are the only of the Fey that can successfully breed with humans.  Odd.

Disguising my visit to her as a trip to the cathedral to pray, I ventured from my rooms.  It would appear as nothing but a passing hello on the way to prayers heading northward.  Prying eyes would no doubt dismiss it as nothing.

I knocked on her door, which opened into shadow, from which she emerged.  She gave greetings and pointed out Orengar’s astirax, in the body of a crow on a low branch of her tree.  She smirked, “Does your brother think that I wouldn’t notice a demon in the branches of my home?”

“Is there anything I could do for you, m’lady?” I asked.

“I have a sister in Baden’s Bluff.  I would appreciate it if you could take a letter to her.  I could give it to you before you leave.”

I agreed to do so.

Her eyes looked at my closely, light brown eyes, hair still the color of wheat and she said, “You still carry my token.”

I nodded, hoping I hadn’t offended her.

“May I see it?” the Lady of the Black Oak asked.

I handed it to her and she took it in her hands gently and laid another kiss upon it.  Then she brushed it against her cheek.  It reminded me of when we were children and Val would put her ear to a seashell to hear the ocean.

Ancestors in _hellfire_ but somehow that leaf carried a tale of my past adventures back to its mother.  I knew it right then.  I’m not sure how but I knew it in my bones, my beard, in my scars, in my bald head.

She handed it back to me and remarked, “Please don’t knock on my oak at too early an hour; I’m a Manticore in the morning.”

_She knows_, I thought to myself.  _She knows all_.

I made my way to the Cathedral and was so desperate and scared that I nearly did pray.

Durgen and I attempted to communicate.  I told him of my suspicions but he couldn’t talk back.  The only words he had taught me on the boat trip were _Father_, _Orc_ and _Friend_.  While necessary and important words anywhere in the North, they did us no good then.

Durgen gave my his wise counsel atop his tower by the wharf with Odannin to translate his words for me.  I left the leaf downstairs, unsure of the extent of its powers.  Durgen said our only hope was that she needed a servant.  She couldn’t travel more than two leagues from her tree without dying.  Someone of my abilities in the wilds would be of enormous value to her.  I had to be of value as I had no other choice.

I didn’t want to have to fight my way out of Port Esben.  I didn’t want to destroy the work I had gotten done and have yet to do with my brother and his loyal men.  I didn’t want to have to kill her.

She seemed to be waiting for me when I arrived after talking with Sir Durgen the Silent.  She was standing under her branches, gently blowing on a spider hanging from her oak’s branches.  The spider was suspended from a long strand and it was rocking back and forth like a pendulum.  As I approached it scurried back up its web, into the oak's dark branches.

We talked, a form of warfare that I am not good at.  She told me she was expecting me and she eased my fears.  She told me that she wanted me to work for her.  She assured me that Orengar’s demon wasn’t watching us.  She told me that I had nothing to fear from her.

I think I truly believed her, not just because I wanted to.

Perhaps she now realizes what it will mean to be the wife of Vildar Esben.  She will be a woman in need of friends.  If anyone will want father dead it will be her and it won’t be long until that need becomes quite intense.  Maybe I will take care of my Elf Hunt and the Bluff and come back to claim a tower in order to be near her.

Knowing that I wouldn’t have to fight my way from Port Esben today, I went back into the keep.


*Father’s Chores*

There was a palpable stir in the castle.  I was summoned to father’s war room, which was filled with his wardens, Durgen included.  A channeler girl had been detected by Orgenar’s magic-sniffing demon.  I was chosen for my trail lore to lead a host of Orcs and this mage-hunting fiend, this Astirax, and hunt this girl down.  

Orengar the Fat brought me to the top-most room of his stout tower above the cathedral, a menagerie.  A kennel of Nordish Shepherd dogs, a mountain cat, countless ravens and a hunting hawk were all penned within.  The raven on his shoulder, red eyes gleaming, approached the hooded hawk.

A viscous fluid came out from the raven’s beak and entered into the hawk’s.  Both of the animals seemed to be choking on this demonic fluid, as both of their beaks were wedged open.  Then the demon was in the hawk, eyes blazing red, fast as a bowshot.  Orengar put a hawking glove on my left hand and the demon jumped onto my wrist.  

Orengar wished me well, “Good hunting, brother.”

_End of that Week’s Game.  Next Game:  Friday 7/25_


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## Paka (Jul 22, 2003)

I really need to post a long overdue thanks to Jim for buying this setting as a present for me. I honestly probably wouldn't have picked up this worldbook for myself. 

I hate published settings. Making up a world is more than half of the fun for me but Jim got me this anyway and I am entirely digging it. 

Thanks, James.


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## Tokiwong (Jul 22, 2003)

awesome stuff all around


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## handforged (Jul 23, 2003)

keep it up man, these are excellent!  I had been worrying about that leaf from the beginning


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## Paka (Jul 24, 2003)

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?postid=1025327#post1025327

The above link is the link to SJE's Midnight Story Hour thread, Black Mirror Apocolypse.  If Midnight is ticklin' your fancy, check it out.


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## Derulbaskul (Jul 25, 2003)

Paka,

This story hour is excellent. In particular, I love the way you show the corruption of the Esben family by the Shadow.

I really, really MUST convince at least one of my player groups to play in this setting.

Cheers
D


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## DiamondB (Jul 29, 2003)

I'm alread a huge fan of Midnight, and this story hour is inspiring.  Now I just have to figure out how to manage my own Midnight campaign. 

Great Story!


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## Kestrel (Jul 30, 2003)

Great story hour!  Thanks for writing this Paka.

Question:  Is the Esben family a canon part of the setting, or one of your own creations Paka?  I really like the twisted vision of this family, especially the tyrannical father.


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## Paka (Jul 31, 2003)

Kestrel said:
			
		

> *Great story hour!  Thanks for writing this Paka.
> 
> Question:  Is the Esben family a canon part of the setting, or one of your own creations Paka?  I really like the twisted vision of this family, especially the tyrannical father. *




Thanks, Kestrel, welcome to the fold.

The Esben clan is in the book.  They don't give you much info on them but with published settings I am big on inspiration over information.  They gave me just enough on the Esben family to inspire me.  Once JJ agreed to make Karhoun an Esben I really got thinking about the family and how I thought they'd work.

Yeah, Vildar Esben is named in the book but i think of a PC wasn't his son I would have portrayed him as more of a pathetic madman rather than a powerful mad tyrannical father figure.  

Thanks for reading.


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## Paka (Jul 31, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

Story Post #25

*Hunting the Channeler*

Simnote, the demon, wore the hawk like a cloak, sat easily inside its body.  The hawk perched on my wrist, hawking glove keeping my hand from being scratched by its claws.  Astirax are special demons, bred by Izrador to smell magic, sniff out Channelers, track magic items.  It is illegal to use or own magic of any kind and the Astirax help the Legates enforce the Shadow’s laws.

Simnote was my Legate-brother's Astirax.  

Father was waiting for us in the courtyard, his three wardens carrying this throne.  “Karhoun, take your sister with you.  She wishes to be a shield-maiden of some kind and a hunt like this will do her good, show her what life on the trail is all about.”

Valanicia stood there, studded leather armor, bastard sword across her back, hair in a tight braid, Esben family crest on her shield.  She didn’t look scared or worried, just as cold and unfeeling as ever.  

I asked, “Father, when we find _it_ what would you have us do with _it_?”

Father’s tight face almost lightened, “If bringing the criminal back is possible, do so.  We haven’t had a good public execution for the peasants since that heretic Legate, well over two weeks ago.  But if not…”

Six Orcs joined us.  Their leader introduced himself as Diegal, from the Shunned Mother Clan.  Diegal had broad shoulders and the tattoos of the Shunned Mother, three parallel black bars on the face.  Others in the party had the bars on the chest, another traditional spot for ink.

Val and I both managed to keep up with what Diegal called a, “Good Orcish pace.”  At night we went to bed sore, the Orcs offering to keep watch because their eyes were so acute in the darkness.  In the morning Diegal would say, “You sun is here.  We can travel now,” and off we would go.

We knew nothing about the Channeler we hunted.  Simnote had caught scent of her casting a spell in Port Esben and she had perhaps a six hour head start on us.  She was leaving trail sign that I was finding as we followed Simnote, the hawk in the sky.

On the third day I found evidence of the girl on horseback.  An abandoned barn had housed her steed, which she came across with its feed and tack all waiting for her.  Suddenly, this smelled like something other than just a random girl on the run.  This could be the work of insurgnts.  Diegal seemed unworried.

Later that day I found her trail again and evidence of a battle with Fell.  Perhaps a score of the Fell had come upon her and she had managed to ride through unscathed.  I had assumed that the hungry dead had eaten the bodies of those struck down but still, the field looked almost too clean.

Using what little authority I had, I stopped the hunting party and searched for bodies.  Diegal grumbled at this but he didn’t wish to push the issue and allowed me to look for a while.

I came upon the bodies, weighted with rocks in their bellies and thrown in a waist-high stream.  The stream was cold but the evidence was colder: Vardatch cleaves had downed these Fell.  The marks on their skulls were unmistakable.

“Diegal,” I called, “Look at these marks.”

He looked and stroked his tusks, “So, what is it you want me to see, human, we are running low on your precious light.”

“These are Vardatch cleaves.  Do insurgents use Vardatch?”

Diegal looked carefully between me and my sister, “Insurgents use whatever they can come across,” and he stomped away.  My sister’s shrewd eyes caught what I had missed.

While I was at Theros Obsidia, learning to track, ambush and listen to the woods my sister was still at Port Esben.  She learned to fight, as all Esbens are taught but she also learned to listen to the intentions of liars just like I listen to the northlands trail.  She came to me later, when the Orcs were all together, discussing the finding of the bodies and Simnote was finding a new body, not wanting to be struck down by an insurgent arrow in a frail hawk.

“Brother, he is lying…about the Vardatch, who knows what else,” she said, still watching the distant Orcs.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

Slowly and solemnly, she nodded and then added, “If he is lying about this, who knows what else might be false.  If something else is false, who knows if Orengar knew of it when he sent us.  Sometime’s wrong.”

Why can’t it just be a hunt, a nice simple hunt?  My family spoils everything.

I nodded and said, “Good eyes, sister.”

Simnote crashed through the brush in a new horse body, a dappled grey steed, with blazing red eyes of the Astirax.  Val’s legs, never having gone this far from Port Esben, were hurting from our Orcish pace and Simnote, noticing her strained hamstring, offered for her to ride on him.  She accepted, smart woman, my sister.  Pride might have made me turn that offer down but my sister took her rest and rode the demon’s back for a day.

There were three keeps in the Fortress Wall that the Channeler could have been heading towards.  One keep was controlled by a Legate, another was held by an Oruk, the third was abandoned.  This abandoned keep was the easternmost and so we traveled east and this tactic kept us on her trail.

My sister pointed out, “That abandoned keep, its name is Karhoun Keep, brother.”

The ancestor whose name I hold saw that keep built and manned it with his sons and cunning, keeping the Shadow at bay.  What is there now?  Would it mean anything for me to go there now?

We discussed the possibility of Simnote taking a message to one of the Shadow-controlled keeps in case we have to venture into Karhoun’s Keep.  If she tries to enter into the deep underground, it will be best if Orcs are waiting for her if she evades us.  Simnote agreed to take word but only as a last resort, as he said, “I haven’t lost her trail yet.  She is gaining, though.  I suggest that we lose a night of sleep, make a final push at a good pace.  There will be a solid road up ahead that she will have to maneuver around to avoid patrols.  We might overtake her while she is still on the trail.”

That evening we dined in the Northern Crossroads, a waypoint for supplies heading from Bastion, capitol of the North, to the Kaladrun and Erethor fronts.  Orcs of every tribe were making their way through and slaves on their way to Steel Hill could be heard, moaning.  Simnote was our living travel pass, speaking with Orcs who would know our business.

The road to Karhoun Keep wasn’t traveled frequently.  Ruts were deep in it from carts that hadn’t been on this highway since the Third Age or more.  All night we made our way and about two hours before dawn a horse nickered from the trail.  We had found her.

I sent the Orcs ahead on the road to cut into the trail a mile ahead.  I didn’t want her getting away by pushing her horse.  Simnote offered to stay on the road in case she made it past all of us.  Val and I pushed into the forest, quiet but not entirely silent.  Hopefully, we would push the girl into the Orcs.

We found a field, about a mile around of tall, golden swordgrass, about chest high.  It is too good a spot for an ambush, chest high grass and dark wood all around.  In the middle of the field we saw her camp, ten yards of pushed down grass, with a horse grazing.

My loving sister offered to approach the girl, “Let me see if I can talk to her.  I’ve been dealing with children all of my life.”  Val went into the camp and the girl was sitting there, playing stones of all things. 

The girl wasn’t eight years old…if that.  She said, “Hi, are you the ones they’re looking for?”

Val responded, “No, you are the one we’re looking for.  Are you okay out here?”

As frightening as a Manticore’s roar the little girl giggled, “I’m fine, you’re in trouble, not me.”

Val shook her head, “We’re in trouble, why’s that?”

She giggled again, “You’ll see,” and as she said that Oruk warhorns sounded in the night.

We were entirely surrounded by an Oruk warband, maybe a hundred strong.  In the night, eyes on the girl’s trail, I had missed them.  Where was Diegal?  Where was Simnote?

I thought about running, trying to cut my way through them, hoping they were spread thin.

Their chief announced himself, “Don’t run.  Don’t bother.  We will only cut you down if you should do anything that foolish.  We aren’t going to kill you, Father Night, has better uses for you yet.  I am Izrahi, chief of this band and instrument of Oruk revenge.”

I stood and faced him, “What is this about?”

“Foolish Esben, did you really think you and your sister could kill two of our number and not pay any price?  We are the True Sons of Izrador and the murder of Oruk does not go unpunished.”

I looked him in the eye.  He was six hands and a half of monstrous Oruk, covered in blackened plate with a two-handed Vardatch across his back and a spiked buckler on his arm.  Still, I responded, “The chief of that band had no quarrel with us.  He thanked us for taking the weak out of his party.”

The Oruk spat with anger, “That chief knew damned well that he was in Port Esben and knew what kind of man your father is.  No, the only way to bring justice to an Esben is to draw them away from their father’s keep.  Let me assure you, daddy isn’t here to save you this time, Esben-spawn.”

Val was quiet.  She sat next to the child, who was unfazed, still playing stones.  Something about that child was bringing out the maternal in Valanicia.  It was hard to picture Val as the girl who turned in Beatrice to father for hanging, only a week or so ago.  

To no one in particular I said, “This entire hunt was a ruse.”  Val nodded in agreement and Izrahi only smiled, a wide tusk-filled grin.  Did Orengar know?  Did the Orcs know?  Did Elaylee know?

Keep on task, Karhoun.  There is an Oruk here with a Vardatch as long as a man who means to do you harm.  I looked at him, with the full might of his Oruk warband behind all around us and said, “What now?”

“Now we fight.  You Northers were once fond of trial by combats.  If you win, you gain control of this Oruk warband.  If I win, we will heal you, not wanting your father to be able to track you down in death.  You will die a terrible death in the bowels of Steel Hill, digging out iron for the Shadow.  You will die deep under the earth, far from home.  You will die for nothing.”

We used the circle of the girl’s camp as a battle ring.  His first two shots took me on one shoulder and then took me on the other.  He was a fine combatant and when I sought to counter-attack all I found was Oruk mail to greet me.  His next attack I blocked but the shot vibrated my sword and the shot rang up my arm.  Again I countered and shot under his mail, scoring a light blow in between the mail greaves at his elbow.

One shot is all I wanted, hoping that father’s poison was still on m blade, hoping that was enough.  Father had said, “May this dagger’s touch give your enemies long nights of agony and suffering,” but this time his poison was put on my sword.  It was the closest thing my father gave to affection and I hoped it would be enough.

I don’t quite recall the blow that drove me to the ground.  But out I went.  It seems I cannot do battle against the Shadow’s minions without giving my requisite blood to the earth or stream.

Hopefully, the poison would be enough.


*Prisoner of the Oruk*

I awoke to Oruk shamans surrounding me, gibbering to one another in their Black Tongue.  Val could understand them, having picked up Black Tongue and Orcish in Port Esben.

“Why does the chief save this pale Northerthing?”

“Because the chief is wise and will not bring the Immortal’s wrath down on us just yet.”

“Feh, his father wouldn’t have feared any man, even one who Father Night gives a long life.”

“His father is dead.”

I looked up and the Shaman-women walked away, not giving my a second glance.  My mail and my weapons were taken off of me.  Val was also armor and weaponless.  I could feel my Dryad’s leaf and my Manticore’s claw under my coat, next to my skin.

Both Val and I were fixed with two guards who watched us like a Dragon stares at its hoard.  If one of them had to do business in the forest, another was sent to take his place.  There were always two on each of us, no exceptions…ever.

Val had watched the camp carefully noticing how the Chief had camped away from our view.  She remarked casually to her captors, “If he dies of the poison on my brother’s blade, will my brother gain control of the Oruk band?”

Her guards looked at each other and one of them quickly called for a replacement.  Within the hour ,the current chief, Izrahi, was called out into trial by combat by some walking Oruk monster by the name of Kahan.

Kahan dispatched of the poison-weakened Izrahi as quickly as Izrahi dispatched of me.  After the battle, Kahan called his prisoners to his tent.

“I called you here to thank you.  It was your words, Shield-Maiden, that prompted me to battle and for that I give thanks.”

I responded quickly, “You are wasting our potential here.  Why send us to Steel Hill when you can have us as scouts.”

He shook his head, “I have my share of scouts, Esben.”

“They couldn’t hide the evidence to your battle with the Fell from me.  I found the bodies, sloppy work.  Let me work for you.”

He looked at me for a few seconds and looked at Valanicia, “Tell me how to kill your father and you will live.”

“No one knows how.”

Kahan agreed, “He has been battered with swords, mace, arrows, nothing seems to work.  Maybe burning would work but none are willing to try it.  Maybe only Izrador’s will alone could murder him.  We don’t know.”

“You could overtake the port, seal father up in a coffin and put him in the Pelurian Sea,” I suggested.

“I wouldn’t have your father alive, wishing me ill.  No, I want him dead or nothing.  Your father’s death is the only thing you could give me,” he told me frankly.

“I was working towards such a goal in the Port.  Let me go back and I will continue my work.”

The newly crowned Oruk chieftan laughed, “No, it is foolery to allow an Esben to return to their father’s arms.  You know too much.”

I pointed at Val, “She was nursemaid to many of father’s wardens.  She knows all of the in’s and out’s of Port Esben.  If the Port is what you want, she is too valuable a tool to throw away towards Steel Hill.”

Considering my words carefully, the Oruk Chief let us go, sent us back to our spots in the middle of the camp.

As we were taken back to our guards, the Shaman were summoned to the chief.  Our words and deeds were having an effect on Kahan.  Perhaps Steel Hill wasn’t to be our fate after all.


*Our New Lot in Life*

The Oruk had a long, loud and brutal meeting with his Shaman and war council.  After the meeting he called us to his tent again.  He ate fruit while he told us our fate.

“Sammuel is the prince of Bastion.  He is Sarcosan, an effete southerner.  A few years ago we delivered a Black Oak to him, as we did to your father.  When she spurned his advances, he burned the oak to the ground.  None should throw away a gift from Izrador like that.

“We wish him ill.

“I will give you a few slaves, criminals to be sent to Steel Hill.  There is an abandoned tower just east of Bastion and there you will roust.  I want you to make it clear that Sammuel is unfit to rule Bastion.

“Bastion is where most of the food is grown.  Gruel is sent from there to both the Kaladrun and Erethor fronts.  Attack his supplies, attack his crops.  Destroy whatever you must so that he seems weak and inept.  I want him destroyed but not killed.

“What supplies you can, keep.  I will tell you of certain caches where you can hide the grain for the Oruk.  

“Do not look surprised, most insurgents are merely tools of one minion of Shadow against the other; there are no true heroes left.  It will be a hard life but it will be far better than Steel Hill.”

Not having any other choice, we accepted.

Soon thereafter a party of Goblin Slavers met the Oruk camp.  I had never seen Goblins like these, self-sufficient, confident and larger than the Orc-pests I knew.  They weren’t happy to give over slaves meant for Steel Hill and Kahan got into a lengthy argument with the Goblin leader.  The leader didn’t want to anger Steel Hill’s Legate but when Kahan offered to eradicate an enemy of the Goblin, a deal was struck.

Those left with us were a raggedy band.  Together we made our way to the abandoned tower Kahan had mentioned.


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## Tokiwong (Jul 31, 2003)

This is kick-ass stuff, gets me inspired for my soon to start game this weekend


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## Emiricol (Aug 1, 2003)

Wow, that's a kick-butt twist.  Insurgents look like a political necessity!  Tell me, is Val now a PC? Or is this still essentially solo?


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## Derulbaskul (Aug 1, 2003)

W
O
W
!
!
!

This just gets better and better.

Cheers
D


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## Paka (Aug 2, 2003)

Emiricol said:
			
		

> *Wow, that's a kick-butt twist.  Insurgents look like a political necessity!  Tell me, is Val now a PC? Or is this still essentially solo? *




Val was always played by KK, who oddly enough, is girlfriend and mother of JJ (player of Karhoun)'s son.

I still consider it nearly a solo, as KK might not be able to make it regularly due to work schedule conflicts but she knows she is welcome at the Midnight gaming table any time.


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## Paka (Aug 4, 2003)

*The Ballad of Karhoun Esben*

Story Post # 25


*Shadow’s Insurgents*

Kahan, the Oruk Warchief, waited until his warband
moved a league or more away before he spoke me,
Valanicia and the slaves.  He was an eloquent liar, “I
am a member of a secret society, the Order of the
White Hand.  We are a group of Oruk and Orcs who are
fighting Izrador in any way we can from within the
Shadow’s armies.

I have purchased you all from slavery in order to
bring misery to the princeling in charge of Bastion. 
This district is the breadbasket of Eredane.  The
gruel eaten by Orcs from the Kaladrun to the Erethor
and beyond is grown here, in these lands.

Sameal is a vile man, a southerner with no respect for
life.  He burned a Dryad’s tree to the ground less
than a year ago and must be made to pay for his
cruelty.  I have brought you all together, under the
leadership of these insurgent captains, Karhoun and
Valanicia, to bring the grain export of Bastion to a
grinding halt.

“There is a broken, abandoned tower less than a league
from here due east.  Roost there and make your plans
for the fall’s harvest.  Destroy fields and grain
silos when you can.  When you can pirate grain, do so.
 I will send word on where to cache the stolen grain
for our use.

“Your work will feed insurgents all over Eredane and
starve the Shadow’s soldiers.  It is a dangerous life
but Steel Hill is your alternative.  To run is to be
hunted and killed by Karhoun, an expert tracker.

“Good luck.”

With that, Kahan and his honor guard made their way to
the departing warband of Oruk and Val and I were left
to look over our party of insurgents.  They were all
hungry and dirty.  While their situation had
infinitely more hope than a life in the mines of Steel
Hill, under an Ogre slavemaster’s lash, they still
were looking ahead at a life of considerable danger
and risk.

The first slave to catch my eye looked like nothing
more than a beggar, raggedy sack covered his chest and
a sack crudely sewed together made a kind of long
kilt.  He seemed to be made of nothing but sinew and
bone with a rough beard hiding his age.

Another was a Halfling, obviously bred into slavery
because he appeared scared of his own shadow.  His
fine clothes were covered in filth from his trip. 
Life as a slave under Goblins hadn’t been easy on him.

The third looked like nothing more than a little girl,
white blonde hair dirty from her travels with the
Goblin slavers.  She had no ears and an odd shape to
her pale blue eyes; I took her for what she was, a
Snow Elf.

The last was a squat monster with Orcish tusks.  His
Orcish heritage dominated his features but there was a
touch of something else there too, probably Dwarf.

I announced, “Let’s make way to the tower Kahan
mentioned.  We have to be quiet.  If anyone sees or
hears us we are dead.”  At that I took out some food
and distributed it evenly.  They ate it quickly,
desperately.  The Halfling nearly choked on the rabbit
jerky and after a few steps on the trail, he vomited
explosively.

“Eat slower next time.  We don’t have the food to
waste.”

The Halfling gave a guilty look while wiping the spew
from his chin.

The tower was overgrown with ivy and seemed to list
southward.  Where once there was a doorway was only a
broken wall, as if a Giant had ripped out the door by
taking down the entire wall.  I noticed a tree with
odd markings, almost like a bear’s claw marks but
there was a difference.

The Snow Elf girl spoke in nearly a whisper, “Owlbear
markings.”

I eyed the clawed tree, trying to make foxes or snakes
of it.  “What is an Owlbear?” I asked, “Can it fly?”

She answered slowly, “Izrador’s breeding pits are fond
of creating creatures like this, mixtures of the most
vile elements of nature’s work slapped together.  The
Owlbears are a failed experiment let loose into the
world.  Now they roam like a natural creature might
roam, finding their place where they may.

“No, it can’t fly.”

“Well, you know your way around the forest…this is
probably a good time to ask, what are your names, what
can you all do?” I asked.

The beggar-looking man answered, “I am Ellis, only a
humble beggar but I am passing fair with my hands.”

“Do you want a sword?” I asked.

“I am better with only my fists,” he explained. 

The Halfling spoke quickly, nervous, “I was a
seneschal for a Legate.  She taught me…” he hesitated,
looking around but said in a whisper, “…taught me to
read.  She died only a few months ago and I don’t
know-“

“You were a seneschal for a Legate?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Which Legate?”

His eyes grew with fear at saying his late master’s
name, “Her name was Calsa.”

It wasn’t a name I recognized.  I pointed a Valanicia,
“You are _her_ seneschal now.  Understand?”

He seemed more at ease to be in service to a mistress
again and bowed, “M’lady, I am Tomene, at your
service.  If there is any way I can help you, please
let me know.”

Val nodded at the Halfling silently.

The Dworg, Half Orc/Half Dwarf, grunted,
“Squud…rrrrg,” he took a thick tree branch and swing
it downwards, grinning.

“Squud, if you prove yourself worthy, you’ll get
this,” and I pointed at the Vardatch that the Oruk had
been kind enough to allow me to keep, when they
returned my gear.  I asked, “How did you end up here,
Squud?”

“I good Orc but after manhood they say some Dwarf in
blood too and so I send slavery instead of what I do,”
Squud explained in that special Squud way.

I didn’t need to ask the Snow Elf her story or how she
might be of use.  The Snow Elve’s ability to kill Orc
was legend all throughout the Northlands.  She
whispered her name, “Hishaya,” and it was all of the
explanation I needed.

The Elf and I approached the tower, now an Owlbear’s
nest, soon to be the quarters of Sameal’s downfall. 
She was as quiet as a ghost.  We approached the broken
opening of the tower and I noticed her hands, moving,
as if by habit.  She was signaling in Patrol Sign, the
Snow Elf hand language.  It was the language my mute
brother, Durgen had altered so he could speak after
cutting out his own tongue.

She realized I noticed her hands and signaled to me. 
I signaled the only three words Durgen ever had time
to teach me: _Father, Orc, Friend_.

She smiled, holding her long sharpened stick forward
as if it were a true spear.  We stuck our heads over
stone rubble and peaked in.  The Owlbear was sleeping,
a mass of fur and feathers.  All around it were young
ones, baby, Owlcubs. 

Not sure if they laired in mated pairs or not,
clumsily signaled for us to return.  That was when an
Owlcub awoke.  Its cry must have been heard throughout
the district.  The mother wasn’t far behind.

It came upon us in a fury of feathers, fur, claw and
beak.  It had the stature of a bear but the eyes of an
owl, its claws were strange talons and its feathered
fur was a mottled grey.  The mother Owlbear shrieked
and attacked while her children ran amok in her den.

The creature was groggy and the sunlight disoriented
it.  In the end it only bit Ellis once in the
shoulder, not a terrible wound.  After the Elf and I
tendered it up a bit Valanicia delivered the killing
blow.   Squud broke his tree branch on the creature’s
skull.  Ellis raked the creatures eyes, blinding it
while his shoulder still bled.  

Val flanked the creature once we drove it back into
the tower and put her good northern broadsword into
the Owlbear’s heart.

Tomene had thrown rocks at it from a distance but his
stone throwing needed considerable work.  He
approached Valanicia after the battle and flattered
her, “M’lady that was an artful finishing blow,
indeed.”

Val nodded, cleaning gore from her blade.  While the
rest of us searched the tower and stuck the Owlcubs
into a long forgotten pantry, Valanicia cut down a
tattered remnant of a tapestry and put the cloth over
her shield.  Wisely, she hid our Esben family
heritage.  None of the ragged band are Dornish but
still, best to be sure.

Broken stairs led up to the roof.  The tower was a
squat stone structure with only one floor and a
parapet roof.  We discussed the possibility of
training the Owcubs but none of us have any knack for
it.  The mother will give us meat and clothing for
some time.

While I dressed it, Hishaya found good wood for bows
and arrows.

I presented my Vardatch to Squud for his excellent
prowess in battle.  

I thought about our objectives, what we would need to
do to stay alive.  

I thought about when Kahan, the Oruk captain wanted
proof of my usefulness.  I could think of two items of
proof: a Dryad’s leaf and a Manticore’s claw kept in a
kerchief under my armor.

This would be home for a while.  For now home is among
insurgents.  For now home is a lonely tower in the
Bastion District.  It felt good to be home. 

I found an Oak tree and sent a missive on its path,
the message traveled a way only Dryads and their
servants know.  After sending a letter written on an
oak leaf, I returned to my new home where we dined on
Owlbear stew.


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## Tokiwong (Aug 4, 2003)

This keeps getting better and better


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## LRathbun (Aug 6, 2003)

New PCs???


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## Paka (Aug 6, 2003)

LRathbun said:
			
		

> *New PCs??? *




The first game started with Karhoun and the Elf and the Gnome.  Then in Whitecliff they were seperated.  As fate would have it, the Elf and Gnome's players couldn't make it to the game, haven't been able to get there since.

So, the game has become about Karhoun, which I think has made it much more interesting than perhaps it would have been in a traditional group.

The only characters being played now are Karhoun and Valanicia.  All of the party, the Snow Elf, the Dworg, the Erendlander and the Halfling are NPC's.  If someone visits me for a weekend, I might hand one of them off to him or...something else.

Hope that clears it up.

Any other questions?


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## LRathbun (Aug 7, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Paka_
> *Any other questions?*





Nope.  I was just wondering about the new members of the party.  Thanks.

Oh, and great work so far!

Luke


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## Paka (Aug 15, 2003)

We didn't game last week because we just needed to chill and talk smack, this week because I was feeling lame, next week I'm outta town.

It will be updated in a few weeks.

Please forgive the lull.


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## Paka (Aug 15, 2003)

double post


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## Paka (Aug 15, 2003)

triple post


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## Paka (Sep 3, 2003)

We've taken this month off, not because we wanted to but it is just the way the end of the summer panned out. This Friday we'll game again. Hopefully, I'll get the write-up done over the weekend or so. 

I can't wait to game again.


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## Tokiwong (Sep 3, 2003)

Looking forward to it


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## Paka (Sep 7, 2003)

*The Jihad of Karhoun Esben*

Story Post 27

_Prologue:  The Missive_

Bough to bough, from great oak to weeping willow to maple to fir the letter on the oak-leaf traveled.  Sid the sprite was lounging in the upper reaches of a maple when she found the leaf that was well on its way.  She knew Elayle and the message was taken to Port Esben as fast as pixie’s wings could carry it.

Elayle read the letter and cried in frustration.  She cried for many reasons but chiefly she cried once again at the fate of her sister, killed in Bastion almost a year ago by Sameal, or as his detractors called him, The Eel.  

Frantically, tears wetting the leaves, she wrote nine missives.  She wrote the same message nine times over, pressing her quill to leaf in an angry manner.

She approached the Pixie, still lounging in her upper branches, “Summon eight of your sisters.”

The Pixie protested, “Eight?  As if I had eight sisters to send.  If you wanna know where they’re at, ask your Northern Lover.”

The branches of the tree grasped the Pixie’s throat with surprisingly decisive speed.  After the Lady of the Black Oak explained her predicament and how far she was willing to go in order to remedy the situation, the Pixie recanted, “How about seven sisters and a little earth Mephit?”

Less than an hour later nine leaves traveled the length and width of Eredane.  Many read of the Dryad who was killed as her tree burned in the northern night.  Most shrugged away the message, “Hard times are upon us all.  Naught to do about it.”

Some went to sleep angry but fear overcame the anger and so they did nothing.

Others ventured from their homes, hollows, valleys or boroughs and were killed by a Vardatch or a superstitious Erendlander or a foul Shadowspawn.  

There are those who have marshaled their fear.  They are the hidden fey of Eredane, hiding in brook or glen, keeping out of  Izrador’s sight, tending their secret groves.  Other fey turned to the Shadow in the North long ago but still sneered at the idea of a Sarcosan Legate setting fire to a fair Dryad’s tree. 

They arrived in the Bastion district on hoof, wing and foot.  They were angry and ready to be led on a vengeful Faery jihad by a Northman hunter with iron in his veins and his cold, emotionless sister.


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## Paka (Sep 15, 2003)

*slowly but surely*

*Bastion – Breadbasket of Eredane*

Scouting gave them an idea of the area.  Bastion was a walled city, in the middle of a triangle of Orc-infested fortresses.  To the north was the Shadow-built Holy Fortress, a nightmare of spires and walls.  To the east was Fort Easterling and to the west was Fort Westerness.  

The river, the Queen’s Tears bi-sected the triangle.  All around were the villages and manors that administered to the breadbasket of the continent.  When carts came to take early harvest grain to the silos in the forts, they were drawn by Ogres and surrounded by Orcs.

Legate taskmasters lived in the manors just as knights and lords would have long ago and Orcish taskmasters drove the harvest.  The many Orc who lived in the villages had been here for almost a hundred years.  Many of them were fat and content, happy to be away from their former homes in the deep north.  Some villages no longer had humans and only the sons and daughters of Izrador remained.  

Scouting went well with the Snow Elf and I doing most of the leg-work.  One of the advantages of hiding in the bosom of the Shadow is that the constant parade of Orcs was keeping the Fell from becoming a nuisance so far.  While sitting around a smokeless fire nestled in the broken tower we called home, we talked about strategy and how to make ourselves a thorn in Sameal’s side without committing suicide.


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## Derulbaskul (Sep 24, 2003)

Bumping for very selfish reasons: I really like Midnight and I want some more inspiration for my own campaign... plus you really do write extraordinarily well.

Cheers
D


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## Derulbaskul (Oct 1, 2003)

Bump... 'coz I really like Midnight.


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## Inez Hull (Oct 26, 2003)

Paka? You still about or is this bump in vain?


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## Paka (Oct 27, 2003)

Inez Hull said:
			
		

> Paka? You still about or is this bump in vain?




Real Life, the adversary of this STory Hour has conspired to keep the player from handing me the notes from our last two games.

I promise I will write about what I have, one way or the other before too long.

Thanks for the kind bumps.  I appreciate it.


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## Paka (Dec 8, 2003)

*A Korred's Tale*
_A Story Hour Apology to this who have waited_


He appeared to be a squat man with the tangled, tendrils of a reddish beard hanging down from his face, onto his chest.  He sat on a standing stone, one of the last in this region.

Once there were many, he thought.  Once the good people on these plains gave wheat and milk to the good neighbors but no more.  He looked at Bastion, visible from here.  Cooking smoke was rising into the sky.  Orc were cooking, you could smell the human on the air.

A dirty man with a walking stick approached.  One of the Korred's threads of beard went into his pocket, grabbed a pipe.  He didn't light it but sat there with it in his mouth.  The cherry of the fire could attract attention, best just to chew on it, though.  

The Korred began the phrase, "Where are the shadows at noon?"  It was a magicked phrase, created by the Witch Queen of the Elves.  None who knew it could willingly say it to a Shadowspawn or minion.  It was a difficult bit of magick but when your age isn't measured in decades, or centuries but has spanned Ages of man, such spells are available to you for a price.

"They are still there, only they are underfoot," the man replied, identifying himself as one of the Queen's eye and ears.  "My leige sends her regards and wishes you well."

The little fey on the rock grunted, "I'll wish her well when she stops sitting in her safe city and leads her people as she should.  We're dying out here."

"She does the best she can," the dirty man defended, his Queen the only force he had ever heard of that fought against Izrador.  She was a person and an idea that he would give his life for.  In some ways he already had.

"We've heard tales of this Ironblooded man.  They say he led the Fey folk in a daring raid against the Shadow.  They are saying he kidnapped a Samael's son and put him in his enemy's hands.  They are saying he works for the Shadow by rebelling against the Shadow.  They are saying he is the spawn of an evil demon."

The Korred nodded, "I'd say they were right on all counts but no one bits of that story tell his true tale."

"What is his true tale?"

"Come within my circle of stones.  It is a ragged bunch," he said, pointing at the stones, like broken stone teeth jutting out of the earth.  There seemed to be a shifting of the rocks at such a statement, as if the stones took umbrage to such a remark.  "I can offer you no bread and no beer.  It has been decades since any villager brought me and mine an offering.  But I can offer you safety for the night and a warm fire that within the circle won't be seen due to glamours and I can tell you the Ironblood's tale.  I will tell it to you so you can go into Bastion and tell others."

"Little good a tale is going to do these folk as they starve and watch their families get eaten by Ork."  The man mumbled the words while walking towards the circle.  He was stopped by the Korred's hand, a stout and strong hand, hard like the rocks.

"If you aren't believing in the power of a tale, then leave, go back and tell your queen that nothing of consequence happened here.  I won't be wasting palaver on those who don't believe in what it can be."

The man nodded, "I believe."

"Then come in and listen careful and be sure to go and tell folk that it wasn't Brownies or Satyr or the Witch-Queen herself responsible for what has happened in this district.  What happened here are the deeds of one man.  Now listen..."


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## Paka (Dec 10, 2003)

The Korred, a squat Fey creature, beholden to standing stones as the stones are beholden to him welcomed the human into his circle.  The human was typical of his race, dirty, frightened and desperate.  He gave a password that none could willingly give to a minion of Shadow without breaking a glamour as ferocious as a thunderstorm.

The Fey welcomed the dirty human into his ring, a broken ring of stones that one stood tall and majestic, marking off solstice for holy folk and collecting offerings of beer and milk from the local peasants who wanted nothing more than good crops and no enmity from the good neighbors.

_Once they had respect_, the Korred thought, as a tendril of his prehensile hair held his pipe and tapped it on the bottom of his boot, shaking out old tobacco.  _Now they only know fear._

"I'm, I'm in between your standing stones, Fairy.  What is this tale of the Northerner with Iron in his blood?" the mortal asked greedily, as if the tale were food.

The Korred stood in the circle and his beard moved like red serpents of tangled hair hanging down from his face.

_Stories are power,_ he thought.  _Want a story, dirty human?  Here's a story for you and yours._  "Word was sent out. Somehow this Iron Blooded Dornishman sent out missives among the dryads.  His tale of revenge was written on oak leaves from one side of the Eredane to the other.     

"Sameal or as we call him, The Eel had offended someone greater than himself.  The Prince of the Bastion District had burned a gift from the Shadow in the North, a Black Oak ported down by Oruk on a cart the size of a small keep with a twisted Dryad creature, born in the North under the hateful gaze of the only remaining God.   

"When she spurned his advances he took oil to her oak and watched them burn.  Her screams even disturbed the blood-soaked dreams of the surrounding Orc.  Sameal left the charred stump in the courtyard, a reminder that he would burn those who refused him to cause fear in his enemies.

"It did not have the desired effect.

"Some say the Iron Blood was sent by the very Oruk who brought the Shadow's gift to Sameal, others say it was a conspiracy of Shadow women-folk called the Courtesans of Izrador.  Others say it was the Shadow himself and others go the other route and proclaim a Dwarven Prince from the east who has set up court a broken keep in the Fortress Wall."

The human interrupted and hissed, "Which is it?"

"None know.  It is not in my wyrd to tell you what a stunted little Fey of the stones thinks.  I only know what I met him.

"He was a bear of a Northman with scars and eyes that took in every details.  He had spilled blood, of that you can be sure.  I could smell it on him just as I could smell the iron in his veins.  He hid any family crests or maybe he was a lost bastard, raised by some beast in the northern wastes.  He was a hunter, a creature that could track an Orc through the bottom of the Pellurian Sea.

"Among his soldiers were a Satyr who had pretended to be a Demon.  He had made his living play-acting as a minion of Hell for bumpkin Legates far from the educated climes of Theros Obsidia.  He was a ragged old goat, sly as a fox.

"No less than three centaurs answered the call.  They walked proudly with wooden lances at their side and short bows on their backs.  They were majestic creatures who had once ruled the plains.  It was their ancestors who had welcomed the Halflings to the plains, showed them how to be nomads and live under the stars.

Almost none are left now, and after this business done here, fewer still.

A Snow Elf girl with no ears aided him.  She was silent as a drift on the wind and deadly as a winter's night.  She cut off her own ears in order to pass as a human maiden.  Her filthy hair, hides her heritage and her knifework makes short work of those who see through her ruse.

"A raggedy human, filthy as you, human, but who had made his life in honing his body into a weapon against the Shadow.  He taught those who would learn his skills as a Defender and fought Orc and Troll with naught but his fists and sharpened stones.  Noble or stupid, hard to say.

"Together they did terrible damage to the Shadow's folk here in Bastion.  They terrorized the chiefs of the tribes with dreams of fire and hunger.  They kidnapped a Sameal's son and heir, sold him into slavery.  None know where Sameal's heir is now.  

"Finally, when they could wait for the Folk to gather no more they struck.

"Fires lit all over the district.  Orc poured out of the Holy Fortress and Fort Westerness and Fort Easterling.  Ogres were used like beasts of burden to bring in grain from local graineries.  Much grain was saved.  But not enough.

"Sameal knows that his days are numbered.  He has taken a retinue south to find his son, who turned up at Port Esben somehow, held hostage there by Vildar himself.  The Eel knows that when the grain doesn't come he will hang or worse for allowing the fires of a fortnight ago to rage through the fields that were his only responsibility.

"In the coming months the Shadow will have to make a choice.  They will have to feed one front this winter or feed the other.  Which will it be, I wonder.  Will they feed the frightened fools who make their way into the Whispering Woods of the Witch Queen or will they send grain and gruel to the miserable bastards who spill a hundred Orc's blood for every inch won in the Dwarven tunnels to the east?"

The human listened to the story as if his life depended on it and then asked, "Where did the leader go?  Where did the Iron Hunter go?"

"I heard he lived and ventured south.  They say he had unfinished business among the cities of the Pellurian Sea.  Perhaps he will hunt the Pirate Princes or find his masters at the dark tower of Theros Obsidia or hunt pret for the likes of Vildar Esben.  Impossible to say."

"South?" the human confirmed.

"South," the Korred nodded, hair putting the unlit pipe into his mouth.

The human scurried away as if he had been given a loaf of bread and made his way back to the city of Bastion.

The Korred poked at the ground with his staff, looking over the broken circle stones that were his home, pointing out of the ground like teeth in a hag's mouth.

The pixies came out from their hiding places and addressed their Korred host, "Did he believe you?"

He nodded, "Yes, he will go back and tell his Legate masters all that I've said of that you can be sure."  The Korred lit his pipe, not caring who saw the fire of his smoking now.  "The Orc will come soon, to rip my stones out of the ground and take pieces of my beard from my corpse."

The pixies looked at their old friend and asked, "What can we do?"

The Korred shrugged.  "Leave this place and live.  Make sure no odd animals are following your trail.  I told myself I would live to see Sameal die and he shall die soon enough.  When he does die, if you could be so kind as to find his grave and put this stone on it.  

"When Sameal was crowned the Prince of Bastion, crowned by Izrador himself in the first decades of the Last Age, he carved his name into one of my stone circles.  Such hubris could not be suffered to live.  Put this stone on his grave or his tossed aside corpse so that his spirit will know how his fate came, who was the architect of his wyrd."

The pixies took the small polished stone and left.

The Korred looked at hthe distant castle in the city of Bastion and smoked his pipe and said to his friends, "They are coming, my friends.  We'll stand to the last together, as we always knew we would.  When humans to come hear of where this circle once, let them know it to be haunted by the restless spirits of the Shadow's minions who wrongly thought they had easy prey.

Let's paint the earth with their blood and teach them stone lessons."


*Epilogue*

Karhoun Esben left burning fields and spinning wheels of Shadow and death in his wake as he trekked northward, towards the Fortress Wall.  The wall isn't literally a wall but a string of keeps that were built in ages past by strong Northerners to hold back the Shadow.  They had never held much interest to him but there is one keep that caught his attention when it was described to him.

There is a keep that no Shadow creature has held for long.  It is silent and deserted, a relic of ages past.  Most keeps now hold the Shadow's armies but not this one.

Turning his back on the bloodshed behind him, Karhoun made his way north to Karhoun Keep, sun at his back, his shadow pointing northward.


_To Be Continued in a New Story Hour Thread:  *The Riddle of Midnight*_


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## Paka (Dec 11, 2003)

Out of Game Report

This game was on hold for some months but I wanted to just write up those last two bits, give the readers some kind of closure on that last storyline.

We have switched the game from D&D Midnight to The Riddle of Steel set in Midnight, same story, plotline and themes but with the TROS system.  Maybe we will be able to play sooner but most likely the game will be delayed until the first of the year.  So, look for a new SH, The Riddle of Midnight, some time in January but maybe sooner.  We'll  see.

I am writing an Actual Play report on the Forge, which is more about system and how it relates to making the story, rather than the novel-style prose I write here.

The URL for that thread is:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8968

Thanks for reading.


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