Homecoming Part 8

 Ginjo and Sukh spent several weeks resting in Ronkan and giving their retinues the chance to celebrate their accomplishments. The Traldar cautiously ventured outside their houses after nightfall, relieved that the walking dead had finally found rest. But there was clearly still a great evil to confront.  As Ginjo had predicted, the tentacled monster became more active.  Sukh and Ginjo, after conferring with Ben-Kraal, decided that they should give the Hutakaan a chance to join in destroying the common enemy.

So one fine day, Ginjo, Sukh and company made their way to Byxata.  They were welcomed.  "We knew that you would come when you were ready for the truth."  Several Hutakaan families opened up their homes.  The high Priestess Kfaz invited the bakemono shamans to share her dwelling.

Kfaz was reluctant to join with the Traldar for any reason.  "It was their ancestors who released the monster in the first place, why should we expect a better outcome this time?"

An agreement was made that the party would meet Kfaz at the temple.  And the party would travel via Ronkan so Sukh could ask Ben-Kraal to contribute help.

As Kfaz had predicted, Ben-Kraal refused. "We risked our neck with the ghosts and zombies, it's their turn!"  He also warned Sukh against leaving the temple with the Hutakaans during thenight. "Enter in daylight and leave in daylight."

So Sukh and Ginjo together with their followers, met the Hutakaans and entered the temple.  Sukh had made a careful and so they explored the crypt and other places the party had visited with the Traldars.  There was no obvious way to track down and fight the tentacled monster, except by going into the dark pit.   In discussing various options, Kfaz learned that Ginjo had taken books from the temple library and the two began to argue.  The argument seemed ready to come to blows when Sukh noticed several tentacles emerging from the pit. Dripping with sticky slime, one tentacle caught Irak and another caught Dew Blossom.  Immediately their companions charged with their weapons and began hacking at the hideously writhing appendages.  The tentacles were like thick, slippery leather.  All but the strongest blows slid or bounced off harmlessly.  Meanwhile additional tentacles emerged until the entire monster, a huge green mass, a bloated stomach studded with teeth and dripping slime and acid, crawled out of the pit.  The heroes charged toward this horror, shielding their helpless friends from the gnashing teeth while hacking at the disgusting monster.  One-by-one, they cleaved the tentacles from the body of the monster, leaving it helples and then stabbed it with spears until it fell still.  Only when the monster was dead, did the Hutakaans approach it.  They had seen the large key embedded in its gullet.  And when Ginjo also reached for the key, a struggle ensued.  Ginjo slipped out of the Hutakaan's grip and dropped her onto the body of the monster.  The gelatinous mass jiggled and slid into the pit, carrying the hutakaan with it.

Later, Sukh was say that more outrageous than anything else was Kfaz's cavalier attitude with regard to her own assistant.  The high priestess sniffed, "It seems the key will remain in the temple for now."

"Don't you want to do anything about this?"  Sukh demanded.  And then Sukh asked for assistance in getting into the cage.

They lowered Sukh into the pit and a darkness so deep, he couldn't see his own legs.  He asked them to lower him under and then pull him right back up.  The darkness, below the top of the pit, was complete, even with a torch, but Sukh re-emerged unscathed with the torch still burning.    He asked them to lower him further and then to pull him up when he shook the chain. Bo Jing and Saw turned the winch until the chain went slack.  A few seconds later the chain began to shake and they winded it back up.  

Sukh was relieved but disappointed.  "I reached the bottom and it was still dark.  I couldn't see anything and the ground was slimy beneath me.  I listened for the breathing of our companion, but heard nothing.  Sadly, she must be dead."

Kfaz and the other priestess shrugged and left the temple.  The sky, visible through the hole in the dome, was still dark and so the party, remembering Ben-Kraal's warning, remained in the temple to wait the dawn.  

As the Hutakaans were gone, Sukh began laughing and pulled out the slime-cvered key that he'd tucked into his tunic.  It was dark at the bottom of the pit, he confessed, but not pitch black.  In the flickering light of the torch, he'd seen the crumbled body of the unfortunate hutakaan priestess, and , emerging from the dissolving  mass of the monster, the large, oddly-shaped key.  Phubi revealed that sshe, too, had located, a fantastic schedule, a set of scrolls with powerful healing powers, including a chant for calling someone back from the brink of death to full health.

About an hour later, as the sky turned pink, the party left the temple, very cautious and weapons at the ready.  They were ambushed-- badly-- by a group of Traldars waiting on the roof.  One spear glanced off Gentle Foot's shoulder.  The Traldars called out an apology.  Sukh was angry and suspicious, but accepted the Traldars' apology on the condition that they return to Ronkan with the Traldars leading the way.

The Traldar complied, and by their conduct when they reached Ronkan, proved that they were not shapeshifters.  Most of the warriors of Ronkan were gone, and those that remained were in an expectant mood.  The reason, one giddy Traldar matron revealed, is that the day had come to extinguish the Hutakaan.  Having learned that Kfaz was gone from Byxata, Bem-Kraal and a large party had rode out at dawn to attack the Hutakaans.  Without their leadere to protect and lead them, the jackal-headed tyrants would be slaughtered!  Every dog bitch and pup!

Sukh resolved not to tell the Traldars about the key.

Homecoming Part 7

As the Traldar warmed to the visitors, they explained that the Hatukaan’s main temple lay not far away. “We will not allow them to return because if they do, they will summon all the dead to their evil work.”

Sukh and Ginjo were curious and decided to see the temple for themselves. A few traldars, mounted on lizards showed them the way. The temple was a two-story building. The domed roof had been badly damaged by a large landslide. As they drew closer, they noticed a gathering of people on top of the dome. They were about 20 and had the canine heads of the hutakaan and the muscular bodies of the traldar. In other words, they looked like hyena-headed bakemono from the Caves of Discord. They seemed to have just arrived in the valley—the dozen or so on the roof were being joined by others rappelling down the cliffs.

Sukh and Ginjo engaged the surprise visitors, with Ginjo explaining that the Traldar and Hutakan were engaged in civil war. The visitors explained that they were under the banner of the Master and that whichever side pledged allegiance to him would surely come out on top in any local conflict. The traldar guides, objecting to the conversation rode back to Ronkan. Sukh did his best to licit information from the hyeana-headed visitors but they seemed to have little to offer expect that, yes, the flying women were also part of the Master’s forces.

Sukh and Ginjo decided that they should also return to Ronkan. They were met with outrage and derision, accused of giving away secrets to the enemy. Ben-Kraal quieted the rabble and asked for a more in-depth briefing, but this was unnecessary as the hyaena-men soon arrived in person.

Ben-Kraal order that they should be provided hospitality and gave them an empty house to use as they wished (the same one where that tentacled monster had recently attacked) while he considered their offer of alliance with the unseen Master.

Ben-Kraal confided to Sukh and Bo-Jing his belief that the conflict of the valley would soon come to a head. And as long as the valley was haunted by the undead—whom he believed were controlled by the hutakaan, it would be impossible to consider negotiating peace. He believed that the undead would be put to rest through a special ritual inside the temple. To conduct the ritual, they needed water from the singing pool. Unfortunately, it was impossible to get to the singing pool and back within one day—and the Traldar dared not be caught out in the valley after dark . . .

Bo-Jing volunteered to lead a small group to the singing pool while Sukh provided support in Ronkan lest the hyaena men caused any trouble. The hyeana men were loud and boisterous, but in their crude unaffected manners and apparent martial prowess, they earned some begrudging respect among the Traldar.

Sukh was suspicious that something else was going on and patrolled the village with Phru, making many visits to the roof of Ben-Kraal’s tower. He sensed an invisible presence in the tower and called an alarm. In a burst of fire, that presence showed itself, a woman dressed in dazzling red and gold robes. She too declared her allegiance to the Master and warned the people of Ronkan that they must accept accept his authority. When Sukh and Phru attacked her, she ensnared them in a giant spider’s web and then blasted her way out of the tower, killing most of Ben-Kraal’s most trusted advisors. The hyena men burst out of their house and charged out of the village, while the flying women swooped down from the cliffs. Sukh chased the woman to a tower balcony and stabbed her twice before she escaped on the back of one of the flying women. Sukh ran back to the top of the tower to help Phru but was too late. She saw two of the women flying off with his lifeless body and a third with his axe.

The next day, groups of Traldar war parties set out with an unelaborated mission to “find out what’s going on!” One group returned late in the day with a badly-beatan Hutakaan. They put him in the same house that had been occupied by the hyaena men and deliberated over how to make him “tell what he knows about the fire witch!”

Ginjo returned in the evening. His missin had been a success. He cautioned the Traldar against torturing the Hutakaan prisoner. “Just because you make him talk doesn’t mean you can make him tell you the truth. If you hurt him he will only tell you what you already think.” Ben-Kraal agreed and ordered that the torture should cease. “We have a more important job to do now.”

The next day, a large group set out for the temple, including Sukh and Bo-Jing and their entire retinues, plus Ben-Kraal and six of his best warriors. They entered by breaking down the front door where they met a dozen zombies, most of them hutaakans, but one of them a reanimated hyena man. While the Traldar hesitated outside, Sheng and Shek held the doors half open so that Sukh and Bojing could fight the zombies in small groups, while Phubi castigated any that managed to escape the gauntlent. Ben-Kraal was thoroughly impressed by the combination of tactics and bravery; ordered his men to assist the fight. Together, the group destroyed the zombies while suffering only a few minor wounds. Gentle foot and the other bakemono shaman were glad to tend to these wounds and together the group entered the temple itself.

They soon found themselves in the main sanctuary—a large room, under the cracked dome with a pit in the middle surrounded by blue flames. Sukh found the stone altar, at the foot of a monumental statute of a jackal-head man. But there was no bowl to hold the water from the singing pool.


It was time to explore more thoroughly. While being harassed by more undead and quasi-sentient puddles of gray ooze that corroded boots and armor, they found a library full of books describing the history of the Hutakaans, at least from their point of view. While looking for clues about the golden bowl, Ginjo stumbled upon the story of his own family. Centuries ago, the Hutakaan held authority in the lowlands in a kingdom that included the tiny village of Pasar. The stubborn and ungrateful humans resisted everything the Hutakaans tried to teach them and when they did learn something, managed to forget that they had learned it from the Hutakaans. Some of the most ungrateful humans began to gather in secret, and made an evil plan to kill their teachers and destroy their most beautiful works. At almost the last minute, two of the plotters, Kwam-Rak and Tral-Dar, realized the error of their ways and confessed everything to their masters. The other plotters were captured and punished. Kwam-Rak and Tral-Dar were rewarded. Kwam-Rak was given authority over the lowland humans. Tral-Dar was invited to retire with the most learned of the Hutakaans to the Hidden Valley. Bojing considered these treasures were valuable than gold and he stowed as many as he could in his backpack, asking Phubi and the bakemono shaman to do the same.

Elsewhere in the temple, in a half-collapsed corridor, they stumbled upon the long-dead body of a Hutakaan priestess in all her temple finery, clutching a golden bowl. When Sukh grabbed for the bowl, the spirit of the priestess rose to attack. Her chilling touch drained a part of his very lifeforce. Most weapons were unable to harm the vengeful spirit. Saw, with the magical spear taken from the bull-man was able to pin the spirit to the ground and destroy it.

When the party returned to the sanctuary, they met additional undead, including re-animated bird-woman wielding Phru’s axe. The battle was quick and brutal. Phubi held most of the zombies at bay while the rest of the party fanned out and shot them with arrows. And when the battle was over, an argument broke out. Bojing had read the books from the library and he now understood that the the undead were temple guardians. If they were destroyed, a more terrible evil would be unleashed. He would rather fight squads of ambling zombies than even see whatever terrible thing lived in the pit. Sukh argued with him, but when he ran out of facts, made a dash for the altar and filled the golden bowl with water from the singing pool. Bo Jing tried to stop him but the Traldar “accidentally” stepped into his way. Sukh placed the bowl on the later and pronounced the words that involuntarily came to his lips. The sanctuary was bathed in a soft, golden glow. Everyone felt a little calmer. Some a lot calmer. Bo Jing just a very little tiny bit calmer. And he still thought Sukh was an idiot.

Homecoming Part 6

Ginjo, Sukh, together with Irak, Shek, and Vanilla Rainbow ventured out to observe the “jackalhead” ceremony. The other bakemono were required to stay in Ronkan and Phru and Saw protecting them. Following the directions of their hosts, the party found the ruins of a temple, reduced nearly to its foundations. Weaving around the half-columns and around a circular fire pit, a dozen fox-headed creatures chanted in a low drone, taking turns shouting out ecstatic phrases in a language that Ginjo barely recognized as bakemono though he identified only a few individual words.

Sukh cautiously walked down the slope and onto the floor of temples, holding out his open hands.

One of the fox-headed people stopped abruptly and raised up her own hands, and shouted out, “Behold, they have come!” The other chanters fell silent and all looked to the speaker, a tall and slender being, wearing robes trimmed with silver.

Sukh murmured a bakemono greeting and Ginjo came down the slope to join them.

The silver-robed bakemono uttered a series of friendly but unintelligible sentences.

After a few minutes of awkward pleasantries, the party determined that the speaker was trying to speak to them in Pasari, though her pronunciation was very strange. Ginjo asked how she had come to know his language.

“Your language? My ancestors taught your people how to speak. And sing and dance. We helped you develop laws, planned your cities and roads. All the systems you traverse.”

Her name was Kfadz and she listened eagerly as Ginjo told her about his family, about the caves of discord and about the carpet by which they had found their way to the bakemono homeland.

Kfadz and the others explained that they were the Hatukaan, and they were indeed ensnared in a war against the ungrateful Traldar. “As you have no doubt seen, they are brutish people. They refused to learn anything and rather than apply their animal strength to useful labor, demand to make their own way, destroying the beautiful things by which we once hoped to bring them up to a better way of being.”

Sukh expressed his hope that a peace could be negotiated. He declined the initiation to accompany the hatukaan back to their own settlement of Byxata, explaining that they had friends back in Ronkan. “But we will find a way to get out and come to Byxata.”

The party returned to Ronkan and reported that they had witnessed the ceremony and that it did not involve the summoning of undead monsters. Ben-Kraal sneered that they had been tricked by the jackalheads. The party began discussing how they would escape. They stayed up all night to watch the guard changes. In the middle of tne night they heard a scream coming from one of the houses. Ginjo broke down the door and found a Traldar teenager in the coils of a slimy green tentacle that was pulling her toward a dark hole in the floor. While her family clung to her desperately, Ginjo drew his katana and leaped into action. The tentacle was thick and tough, barely yielding to the katana’s edge while another tentacle burst through the floor and smacked Ginjo to the floor. Phru entered the house, pulled Ginjo to his feet and together they chopped at the tentacles until freed the girl. They fled the house and watched from outside as the tentacles thrashed about before finally withdrawing into the floor.

The Traldar complimented Ginjo on his valiance. After some reluctance, they admitted that the tentacled monster made appearance on almost a weekly basis, and attributed its attacks to the jackalhead magic.

The party spent a few more days in Ronkan, giving Ginjo a chance to recover from his fight with the monster. A fw days later, a strange flying woman appeared above the village. The Traldar instinctively raised the spears to hurl at her, but as she descended, she began to sing and they dropped their spears to stare at her stupidly. Sukh, shaking off the charm of her song, raised his bow and begin shooting arrows at her, driving her away. He recommended that the wall guards should begin plugging their ears with wax to avoid being deceived by any future attacks. Furthermore, he recommended that one of the “vocals”—whose voice could easily be heard from anywhere in the village and drown out any other noise—join the guards and pay special attention to any threats form the sky. Ben-Kraal was impressed by these suggestions and ordered that they should be done.

Homecoming Part 4

 The silver needle, when inserted into Kwam-Rak carpet, slipped out of Ginjo's and, seemingly with a mind of its own, began to embroider the carpet with a golden thread.  The thread grew as the needle worked, passing over every square inch of the carpet to add line, shading, definition, even the illusion of flowing water and fluttering leaves.  The abstract shapes became a map and a beautiful landscape on which well-known landmarks were clearly visible including Lake Pasar, the Cave of Discord and hundreds of villages including the Kwam-Rak compound.  Pasar itself was only a small village and the map did not show the empires to the west or their roads.  The needle finished its work in the jungle near Lake Pasar, seemingly at the exact point where Ginjo now stood in the Monastery of the Two-Fold Path.  Ginjo and Sukh agreed that they must show the carpet-map to their bakemono friends.

By the time they reached the bakemonos' lair in the forest, the needle had moved. It had embroidered a pathway, using tiny letters in a script form of bakemono: "Now is the time for the dear ones to reconcile and return home."

Sukh and Ginjo discussed the matter with their bakemono friends and decided that they would use the carpet to find their way to the bakemono homeland together.  Sheng and Shek, plus Irak and a few other sohei would join them.

Relying on the carpet as a guide, the travelers returned to the Caves of Discord and the Shrine of the death cult, where they found a blocked tunnel.  Working diligently, they moved enough boulders and rubble to reveal a passage deep under ground.  After provisioning themselves with torches from the stores of the death cult, they ventured into the hidden underground highway.  They followed its course for many miles, soon realizing that they must conserve their torches by allowing the bakemono to lead the way while the darkness-blind humans made do with the light of glowing embers.

They spent two nights in the tunnel, crossed an underground river and found themselves in a maze of smaller tunnels.  As with the expansion of Pasar into a large town and the blockage in the shrine of the death cult, the carpet-map did not show this presumably more recent construction.  The maze seemed to be part of an abandoned mine.  The party lit additional torches to find their way and fought off attacks from an enormous, half-invisible spider.  They found their way at last by following a draft of pure air.  They came upon a wide tunnel slanted upward at a steep enough angle that a trickle of water ran steadily down it.  Following that tunnel they emerged on a blustery cliffside in the middle of the night.  After spending the night inside the tunnel, and waiting for the dawn, they ventured outside once more.  According to the carpet-map they were still on the right way, and would follow a path on the side of a cliff for several more days.  

At the end of those days, the travelers were confronted with another disconnect between the map and current reality.  The beautiful stone bridge that arched over the chasm to a pair of enormous iron doors had collapsed.  The party camped, rested, and discussed what to do.  Sukh had recovered a few magic potions from the lair of the bull monster.  According to wise woman he'd consulted in Pasar two of the potions had properties that might assist them in crossing the ravine.  

The party had enough rope that they climb down the wall of the ravine without expending any of their magical resources.  Despite a couple close calls, everyone reached the bottom safely.  They drank deeply from the river and rested on the soft grass.  Then they prepared to climb the other side.

Ginjo drank a long draught of dank, frothy liquid and within a minute, grew to five or six times his normal size.  His clothing and possessions-- including the rope-- also grew in size.  Climbing up the the other side of the ravine was a strenuous challenge, especially with Irak holding onto him.  But he was large enough and strong enough to use the ledges and outcropping like the steps on a ladder.  When he reached a large enough ledge half way up, Irak let the rope down and helped the others climb up it.  Then Ginjo and Irak repeated the maneuver to reach another ledge near the top.  The ledge at the very top was the too narrow and unstable to support the enlarged Ginjo.  He gave Irak a push and helped ther others climb up to the to ledge.  Then when the potion wore off and he returned to his normal size, Ginjo joined them by way of the rope.  

Now it was Sukh's turn to make use of a magic potion. He unstoppered a small glass vial and tossed back a dull blue liquid that turned to mist as it poured into his mouth.  As Sukh inhaled the thick mist, he too turned into mist and, in the form of a dull blue cloud, rose up and over the pair of tall iron doors.  For a moment, he took on the sight of the bakemono homeland.  His vision was blurred, but he could make out a verdant valley that matched the carpet-map, with towns and roads and other small structures dotted throughout.  He was not able to see any movement or detect signs of life.  Not knowing ow long the potion's effect would last, he descended to the ground on the other side of the doors.

On the inside, the doors were flanked by a pair of eight-foot jade statues-- humanoids with the head's of foxes or jackals.  These figures looked like what Sukh would call bakemono but their flowing robes, haughtily serene demeanors, and especially the artistry of the statues themselves were suggestive of something very different from anything Sukh had encountered in the Caves of Discord or his kind-hearted but simple friends.  Sukh was distracted from his musings by a chortle of laughter from Dew Blossom and Gentle Foot on the other side of the doors, still held shut by an iron bar.  With a shout, he heaved the bar off its brackets and called to his companions.  They pushed their way inside as the jade statues came to life.  

Relying on battle-tested tactics, Sukh and Ginjo each attacked one of the statues directly with a flurry of aggressive slashes while their companions made coordinated flanking attacks.  The jade statues were terrifying opponents, the faces set in fearless disdain but they fell to ruin under the rain of blows. They had reached the lost valley of the bakemono.

Immediately before them was a collection of stone buildings, the beauty of their proportion and precise construction still evident in their ruined state.  For they were ruined.  Roofs were missing, walls had collapsed, moss grew thickly, and, as they wandered into the town, they found the streets strewn with rubble, a tree growing from a dry fountain.  Looking closer, it seemed the destruction was deliberate.  Carvings and frescoes were deliberately defaced and marked by graffiti, in a style reminiscent, in form, style, and substance, of the Caves of Discord.

Welcome home?

Homecoming Part 3

 Ginjo and Sukh decided they would look for the needle in the Caves of Discord.  Based on their experiences with the bakemono, they reasoned that it would most likely be found with the strongest bakemono, the bear-like "kidnapper gang" that had captured Shek.  In their investigation, they learned that this group had only become bolder after the destruction of the Death Cult and the dispersion of the other bakemono groups.  They were regularly attacking human villages to obtain captives.  At least one village was offering a bounty.  Ginjo and Sukh decided that they would leave this problem to other adventurers and maintained a focus on finding the magic needle, which the inscription on the carpet  described as being made of silver.

They visited the "kidnapper" of "bear" bakemono and were welcomed gratefully.  The kidnappers proclaimed that they had several humans to sell. And their price had only increased slightly since the last time.  When Ginjo let it be known that they were more interested in a magic needle and that they had the carpet, the bear bakemono became talking over each other, some of them clamoring to see the carpet, with others shouting out prices to sell the needle, and one still threatening to sell the humans to another buyer who wanted to eat them. Sukh led the negotiation for the captives while Ginjo hinted that the magic needle looked like any other old needle.  Together they came up with an offer for the humans and agreed that they would come back soon to buy the needle.

The captives were a man and wife who lived on the other side of Pasar.  They required frequent rests and made repeated requests for "better food."  As they reached their home village, they chided the party for ransoming them.  "You know it only encourages them to raid us because they know they can get money.  What you should do is go and kill them all."

Sukh and Ginjo decide to leave this ambiguous and returned to the bear bakemono cave.  The needle presented was old and rusty. When Ginjo said he was looking for a silver needle, the bakemono tried to tell him it was silver, but needed to be polished.  Sukh and Ginjo debated buying the rusty needle, but decided they could always return and buy it later.  The references to people-eating monster who was also interested in buying captives made them wonder if this monster was the keeper of the needle.    If they killed the monster and didn't find the needle, they would only be in a better position to bargain with the bakemono.

Based on conversations with their bakemono friends, Sukh and Ginjo deduced that the people eater lived in the labyrinth where Liu-Po had been killed by giant beetles.  Ginjo warned that their foe would be a formidable one to live in such a strange place and share it with such  hideous creatures. But Sukh avowed that he would face any dangers with his sword ready.  Perhaps both thought of Gunjar, who had been Ginjo's first companion in exploring the Caves of Discord.  Ginjo missed the holy man, but he appreciated Sukh's wisdom in battle and felt confident knowing that together they were leading a well-disciplined group of warriors.

On an auspicious day, at about mid-morning, they entered the maze of the monster, a creature described as a powerfully-built man with the head of a bull.  Sukh did his best to map the narrow, twisty corridors, but soon found the effort made him dizzy.  They pushed onward by trial-and-error, avoiding the tell-tale red glow of the giant beetles.

After at least an hour of walking in circles, they found themselves in large cavern.  Their flickering torches created strange shadows that danced on the walls beside crude drawing of the foe they were hunting and the many victims he had hunted before them.  A pungent, bestial scent hung in the air, soon broken by the sounds of aggressive snorting and stomping.  Ginjo order the sohei and mercenary to spread out and find places to hide themselves.  He and Sukh stepped boldly into the middle of the cavern and drew their swords.

From out of the darkness, the monster charged, wielding a thick-shafted spear with a blade nearly as long as a sword.  Sukh whirled to miss the point of the spear whereupon the monster lowered its head and gored him with its horns.  Sukh was knocked to the floor and struggled to get up as Ginjo closed, slashing at the monster's back, opening two great wounds.  Bellowing in pain and rage, the monster turned.  Sukh and Ginjo mastered their fear and flanked the monster, taking turns withstanding its powerful blows while the other slashed and stabbed, remaining close enough to prevent it from gathering speed to charge.  Just as the monster was faltering, Ginjo was struck in the face with the butt of the spear and fell on his back.  Sukh, fighting to stay on his own feet was slow to come to his aid, and this was the moment for Phru to shine.  Chanting a prayer from the monastery of the two-fold path, he led the other sohei in a surprise charge against the monster.  Dropping its spear, it thrashed and kick like a pure animal as the sohei's spear found its heart.  The monster was dead.

They rested and explored the monster's lair, at last finding a boulder that concealed a cahce of strange treasures-- foreign coins, weird elixirs, and a small ebony box that held a silver needle with a thread of gold.  Ginjo gratefully granted the monster's spear to Phru.  Together, they collected all the coins they could carry and made their way of the labyrinth and back to Pasar. eager to test the needle.

Homecoming Part 2

 Ginjo spent a few days studying the Kwam-Rak family heirloom that had been entrusted to him, a beautifully-crafted carpet.  He puzzled over the design, seemingly abstract, but seemingly real.  He puzzled over the border, a complicated script that he recognized from the book he'd studied to learn Bakemono.  He recognized the individual words, but had trouble finding a meaning that matched the usually brutish and most often simple perspective of the bakemono he'd encountered in the Caves of Discord.

After consulting with Sukh, he decided to seek out his Bakemono friends, the four disciples of Gunjar who had helped him defeat the Death Cult.  He found them in their new home deep in the forest, in a cramped hollow beneath an enormous and vine-covered fallen tree.  When Ginjo described the carpet, the Bakemono were at-once eager to hear about it and reluctant to share what they knew.  Vanilla Rainbow sneered at the others, "Why waste our time on the old stories when we have a new one to tell?"  This confirmed for Ginjo and Sukh that there was a story and they decided they would bring the carpet to the bakemono.

When this was done, even Vanilla Rainbow could not hide her interest.  Ginjo shared the story that he had heard from Pau-Lung and the bakemono nodded.

Gentle Foot interpreted the border inscription.  The carpet was a map, a map to the bakemono homeland.

"But we need the needle," Vanilla Rainbow interrupted, "and the needle is lost!"

The needle, as Gentle Foot explained, would complete the carpet and show the way to the bakemono homeland.  "When the time is right."

Ginjo and Sukh heard four stories about the fate of the needle.

1. It was still held by the strongest bakemono.  
2. It was given to a powerful monster for safe-keeping.
3. It was hidden in a foul, disgusting place where no non-bakemono would dare to go.
4. It was lost and would never be found.

Beatriss and Tetsukichi learn that different groups of indigenous peoples claim different cultural practices.

Beatriss and Tetsukichi had plans to return with Golfo and their companions to Xitaqa, the place where Golfo had been imprisoned, and loot the wizard’s treasure.  But on their way up the River Lam, a ragged man on the shore waved frantically for their help.  Their sense of duty and fatalism outweighed their paranoia and they approached him.  He explained that he was from one of the sister villages of Quitokai and that he and several and his neighbors had been captured by slavers.  He had escaped, and needed help to rescue the others.  Beatriss and Tetsukichi agreed to help him.

The villager led the party into the jungle for about an hour and then stopped to point ahead at a wisp of smoke.  There was a clearing there, he explained where the prisoners were held.

The party approached until they came upon a path, where they were spotted by one of the slavers’ sentries.  Before they could raise their bows to fire, the sentry ran away down the path, shouting the alarm.  The party pursued him to a clearing and there a battle ensued.  Beatriss and Tetskuich led the charge, but they were knocked to the ground, stunned, by a hidden spell-caster.  Afu and Ju-Mei called on the power of the Sun Goddess to apprehend the slavers’ archers.

The slavers, numbering about half-a-dozen, commanded another 10-15 men from the jungle.  Hunters rather than warriors, several of these men fell quickly under the blows of Golfo, Naron, and Al-Fitar, and the others fled.  Beatriss and Tetsukichi recovered from whatever spell had affected them.  The villager found his captive friends and began freeing them from their bonds.  Immediately, the freed villagers began attacking the other prisoners with sticks and stones.  Beatriss intervened.  “What are you doing and why are you doing this?”  The man they’d met at the river explained that, several of the captives were not village people, but jungle people.  “They are the ones who help the slavers to find us and catch us.  If you free them, they will kill us later.”  Beatriss ordered that the “jungle people” should not be killed and should not be freed either.   The party ordered the “village people” that they should follow them out of the clearing so they could be taken back to Quitokai.  Golfo stayed behind to free the remaining captives, leaving them to find their own safety. 

, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

The company returned to Quitokai without further incident.

Smashing the wolf-people's idol

Beatriss and Tetsukichi, along with their companions and guides, sailed down on the western branch of the Lam River and then up the eastern branch, as guided by Xīngqíliù.  Along the way, they passed near Quitokai and picked up Afu the Priest and Kreppu-San, a warrior from Zipang who claimed to have been travelling with Gwinch and to accompanied him in his attack on the slaver’s stockade.  Indeed as they traveled up the eastern branch of the Lam, Kreppu-San was able to point out the peaks behind which—according to him—the stockade was situated.

And, according to Xīngqíliù, they were also nearing Xitaqa.  But before he would reveal the exact location of the tower that was Golthar’s former home and the likely prison Golfo, he would demand, as he had warned them, a favor.  His demand was in fact both a request for a favor and a loyalty test.  Xitaqa was a wicked place, built by wicked people of a former age, and a beacon to their sucessors in wickedness.  And what better way for the party to prove that they were not among the wicked than to destroy an idol of wickedness?
Xīngqíliù indicated a path, faintly visible from their boat that, he explained, led to a cave inhabited by a family of wolf-people.  They had built a wolf idol for themselves and worshipped it in the cave until they were rewarded and cursed with the power to turn into wolves and to command natural wolves.  If the party would enter the cave and retrieve the idol so that he could destroy it, he would reward them with the information they sought.

Tetsukichi, Beatriss, and Kreppu-San debated Xīngqíliù’s offer.  What was their quarrel against the wolf people?  What if these were just natural wolves?  But they weren’t being asked to murder but only to steal.  And if they were natural wolves, they would have no interest in an idol.  If they were wolf-people, then they shouldn’t be eating people-people, as Xīngqíliù claimed that they did.
They made a plan to attack at night when most of the pack would be out hunting.  Neither Xīngqíliù and his brothers nor Afu would enter the wolf cave, but the priests did give the party some assistance—one glowing stone to provide them with light and a second to mask the sound of their footsteps. 

The party disembarked and followed the path up the river to the path that Xīngqíliù had pointed out.  They followed it to the cave, obviously the noisome den of a pack of wolves.   

Al-Fitar was posted outside to watch for the pack’s return while the others entered.  The short entry tunnel led to a central chamber with several smaller caves radiating off of it.  Climbing up to a ledge, they found a small alcove and inside it, the idol—a clay statuette with gemstone eyes.  While discussing (silently) how to retrieve it, the natural wolves inhabiting the lair detected their presence and began to emerge from the other rooms.  The party fought the wolves and killed them and then swiftly retrieved the idol and ran out.  Al-Fitar reported no sign of danger, but the party didn’t linger. 

They returned to the boat. Xīngqíliù congratulated them and took the idol.  His brothers guarded it while the party spent a few hours in restless sleep, awakened near dawn by the sound of piteous howling.  They pushed up from the shore and remained anchored in the middle of the river until daybreak.  When the sun was up, Xīngqíliù asked for he and himself to be put down on shore where, after a short ritual, they smashed up the idol.  (And, it seemed, pocketed the gemstone eyes.)  Xīngqíliù was well-pleased with the party and agreed not only to show them the path to Xitaqa, but to accompany them there.

Putting pieces together in Menkan

The morning after their battle on the dirty side of Mekan, Tetsukichi, Beatriss, and Al-Fitar were nursing their wounds, and eating a late breakfast at The Nice Inn, when who should walk in the door but Golfo’s wife Phi Phong. She was very happy to see them and at the same time very distraught.

Golfo had been captured or killed or had been captured and was about to be killed. She explained what regular readers already know—not long after they left Quitokai in resumption of their mission to find Gwinch, Goyat, and Kawabi, she and Golfo, along with Tsao Ho and the other monks were ambushed by a large group of men, led by a flying sorcerer in yellow robes. Their brave guides had assisted Phi Phong in escaping their assailants, but when she rejoined Tsao Ho and his monks, Golfo was not among them. Two monks had fallen as well and Tsao Ho refused to risk their mission to go back and try to find them.

When it was time to make camp, Phi Phong convinced one of the guides to help her go back and look for Golfo. At the site of the ambush, they found the dead bodies of the monks, but no sign of Golfo. Phi Phong and the guide returned to Quitokai. Some people there knew of Golthar, the flying sorcerer in the yellow robes, that he was in league with the slavers, and that he may well captured Golfo alive, whether to interrogate him or send him to a mine, or for some other evil purpose. They knew that Golthat lived at an ancient citadel known as Xi Ta Qa, but they didn’t know where it was. Phi Phong decided to go to Menkan, both with the hopes of meeting Tetsukichi and enlisting his aid in rescuing his cousin and with the object of finding someone who knew something more about Xi Ta Qa.

Tetsukichi and Beatriss were interested in helping. And they recounted the story of their encounter with Golthat the previous night. They made a plan to return to the scene of last night’s battle, hoping Golfo might be found there.

But first, they were injured, and needed healing. They visited several temples on the north side of Menkan and received some small measure of expert care for their injuries. They also asked various priests if they had heard of Xi Ta Qa, and received a few blank looks and a few vague answers (“in the mountains.”) And when they returned to The Nice Inn, they found a self-styled holy man waiting for them: “I have heard that you are looking for Xi Ta Qa.”

Hermit :), a photo by aufidius on Flickr.

The holy man, who was named Xīngqíliù , said that he knew the exact location of Xi Ta Qa, and that he, with his six brothers, would take them there. “But I will want a favor from you in return. And horses.” Xīngqíliù also agreed, for the price of 30 taels, to accompany them in their return to Golthar’s hideout in Menkan.

When they returned to the dingy neighborhood in the vicinity of the south end of the wharf, they found a crowd of people milling in the alleyway in a state of restrained excitement. The people’s stares seemed less hostile and they gave the party space to pass. Beatriss knocked on the door of the gate, demanding Golfo. “Go away. He’s not here,” said the people inside. There was a woman’s voice among them, probably that of the woman in black robes. After some argument, the party barged in. Besides the woman in the black robes, there were three men, one of them armed with Beatriss’s bow, which she’d dropped the night before. The woman fled while the men held the party at the gate—briefly.

After dispatching with the men, the party pursued the woman through the house and into the street. Here the party hesitated, but then, noting that the crowd was perhaps very subtly hindering her flight, continued the chase. People in the alleyways, with nods and half-glances guided Beatriss into the alley where she at last captured and killed the woman. The party returned to the house, searched it, and found no sign of Golfo. They did however, recover a good bit of money. Now it was time to make plans for Xi Ta Qa. Learning from Xīngqíliù that Xitaqa was on a cliff overlooking the Lam river, they decided not to buy horses, but instead to pay for everyone to go by boat. And so the next morning they set sail.

Slum on Chao Phraya River Bangkok Thailand 1995, a photo by wordcat57 on Flickr.

Tough time in Menkan

Beatriss and Tetsukichi had promised Afu-- the Priest from the Temple of the Sun who had accompanied them from Khanbaliq-- that they would join him in making an expedition to the slaver's stockade in hopes of rescuing any captives still imprisoned there. After several months of delay, they decided that they would delay a little longer and instead make a trip to Menkan, to see if they could hear news of how their families were doing. In this they disappointed not only Afu, but also both Tsao Ho and Golfo, who argued that their commission from the Emperor had not been satisfied-- it was not enough to find that Gwinch was no longer languishing in Quitokai, they had to confirm that he was still pursuing the traitors, and be ready to assume this mission themselves. Without argument, Tetsukichi and Beatriss simply confirmed that they were going to visit Menkan and would return to their responsibilities in good time.

 Tsao Ho with his disciple monks and Golfo, accompanied by his wife Phi Phong, set out on the trail of Gwinch, Kawabi, and Goyat alone, guided by three villagers from Quitokai and the area. Afu declared that he would continue to investigate the slavers' dealings on his own, while waiting in Quitokai. Beatriss and Tetsukichi, accompanied only by Al-Fitar, made good time traveling to Menkan, and checked in at "The Nice Inn," their designated meeting place. And then they got ready to wait for one of Sansar Anca's ("Uncle") men to show up and take them to where the herds were grazing.

 While waiting, they got to know the town.

Temple amidst the river-side slums, Bangkok, Thailand, a photo by JGHurst on Flickr.

Beyond "The Nice Inn," and the avenue where it sits, the town of Menkan is not very nice. The main avenue-- running from the main gate past the governor's house and the favored temples, and a handful of inns and shops catering to Imperial visitors and other well-heeled foreigners, to an imperial warehouse at the riverside-- is the only street well patrolled by the watch.

The three visitors became the subject of much interest, both official and unofficial. They were questioned by the watch who, finding their papers counterfeit, ordered them not to leave the city until representatives from the Sansar family arrived to vouch for them. A fortune teller warned them that a man in yellow robes was looking for them. A dropped note let them know that they were being targeted as "Gwinch's friends" and that their "secret admirers" were meeting that night at a boarded-up tavern on the very south end of the riverfront. They found the moribund tavern, but rather than venture inside, lingered and watched.

dim lights, faint shadows, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

They noticed someone watching them, a hooded figure who, being noticed, ran down an alley. The party pursued, the lightly-armored Beatriss running ahead, and staying close enough behind the watcher to see him enter a deserted house. They entered the deserted house, and in the upper story found the foot bridge connecting it to a fortified compound. And as they entered the compound, they were attacked by close to a dozen armed men. Beatriss, Tetsukichim and Al-Fitar are seasoned warriors; adopting a disciplined defensive position, they cut down their attackers. But then the spellcasters emerged-- a man in yellow robes and a woman in black robes. The sorcerer's magic seized Beatriss's muscles from within, incapacitating her. And he threw bolts of magic energey at Tetsukichi and Al-Fitar. The initial attackers were replaced by stranger foes, half-human beasts with the heads of rats, and with the rats uncanny habit of popping out of small holes and scurrying up walls.

Chinese Horoscope - Rat, a photo by Yoyo Miyoko on Flickr.

 Al-Fitar lifted Beatriss over his should like a sack of flour and made for the exit, Tetsukichi guarding his retreat and slaying several of the ratmen. But then the sorcerer threw a net of sticky black netting, like the web of spider, both blocking the exit and ensnaring Al-Fitar.

Tetsukichi, unencumbered by any immediate assailants, exchanged his katana for his bow and fired several arrows at the sorcerer who, responded by sailing into the air and out of sight. The black robed woman directed the remaining ratman and her personal guards to attack Tetsukichi, simultaneously offering him a chance to surrender. He hesitated, but then concluded his superior skills still outweighed his attackers' superior numbers (and if nothing else that he would have additional opportunities to surrender) made an all-out counter attack. He swiftly killed most of the his assailants and put the others to flight. For her part, the black-robed woman clumsily clubbed the helpless Beatriss and Al-Fitar and then ran for her life. Tetsukichi did not pursue her. Instead, he cut Al-Fitar's web and together they carried Beatriss across the bridge, and out to alleyway.  They stopped to look for anyone following them, and Tetsukichi spotted the yellow-robed sorcerer, silhouetted against the moon.  As he raised his bow, the sorcerer flew higher, but not fast enough.  The arrow found it mark and a body wrapped in yellow robes plummeted from the sky, crashing the slanted roof of one of the alleyway hovels on its way down.  Their were gaps and muffled cries of surprise all around, but the houses stayed dark and closed.

Treading their way through the slum, the three warriors returned to The Nice Inn.  With some hot water and time, Beatriss muscles loosened and she was back to normal, save for a couple bruises. Tetsukichi and Al-Fitar had suffered some more serious wounds and the three concluded that they should stay at the inn for a few days.

NDT 21 Play Report: Hutakaan Temple

#529. Anubis, a photo by hawhawjames on Flickr.

Our group left the scene of the battle, and allowed the Traldarans to escort us back to one of their encampments. Like their lowland brethren, the Traldarans are a stiff-necked lot, coarse, bad-tempered, and unreceptive to wisdom, more likely persuaded by displays of power than reason and insight. They do not know of any way out of the Lost Valley, and hope to achieve secure freedom by eliminating their Hutakaan overlords. That campaign began three seasons ago and they have had considerable success, including the take-over of the Hutakaan temple about a month ago.
The Hutakaans have tried several times to re-capture their temple. And, various evil undead things have been coming out of it. So our group proposaed and the Traldarans agreed that we should go inside, find out what’s there and destroy it.
The temple was a large stone rectangular building with a dome roof and, according to the Traldarans, an extensive network of underground chambers, most of which they had not explored. Roger climbed up on the roof and, peering through a hole in the dome, confirmed that the main Temple room was safe to enter. The Traldarans opened the main doors and our group entered, accompanied by two of the Traldarans. The most notable feature in the Temple room was a pit surrounded by blue flame and with a person-sized cage hanging over it. Roger climbed on top of the cage so that he could peer into the pit. Darkness.
Leaving the Temple room, we immediately encountered a large group of re-animated skeletons and walking corpses. Pavel and Nitely, calling on Halav, Petra, Zirchev introduced the formerly benighted Traldarans to their powerful and benevolent gods and obliterated the undead horrors.
Beneath the temple, our group discovered a Hutakaan crypt containing still more of the restless dead. Not just skeletons and zombies. But also “fast zombies” whose mere touch will kill most mortals, and who gave the stalwart Olimarus a little cold taste of death. And, in a disgusting pantomime of life above, a long-dead, jackal-headed Hutakaan despot, his mummified remains most unnaturally preserved and animated with evil, lorded over the other undead. Like the flesh-and-blood Hutakaans, this mummy was something of a coward. Late to join the battle, it was destroyed by Martin’s magic fire, by Olimarus’s hammer, and by Roger’s well-timed shot with a vial of holy water.
In searching the crypt, we claimed the mummy’s crown and scepter, and found a narrow unworked tunnel descending still lower into the earth. Eager to share news of our success with the Traldarans, we resealed the secret tunnel and returned to the surface.

NDT 11: Elves. Ick.

Kaylyth "Crossroads" Farrar, a photo by rosaumbra on Flickr.

This session was kind of a “ride along” for Pavel, in part just because I wasn’t in the mood to do the kind of things that would slow down the main plotline. We made our way back to Sukiskyn, fighting some wolves along the way. Pyotr reacted stoically to the news that we hadn’t yet found his brother, but only the news that he had been taken to “Xitaqa,” a place that no one had heard of. We decided to make our way to Rifllian, sell the horses and other goods we had acquired, and hopefully find someone with specialized knowledge in forgotten places. Although Pavel himself finds large groups of elves even more unsettling than large groups of his own kind, the party as a whole seemed to find their stay in Rifllian very restful. The DM memorably described Rifllian as a kind of tourist trap, a compromise between elven and human sensibilities that leaves both unsatisfied. But we sold those horses and took our share. Pavel now has more money than he’s ever seen and no idea what to do with it. Get a dog? But the best ones are free.

Full story

Street dogs, Udaipur, a photo by Dey on Flickr.

NDT 10: ransacking

The bulk of the goblins' treasure was held by their chief and stored under or in his throne, and included an ancient and well-made shield that was claimed by Pavel. And he carried it into melee after failing once more to turn the undead creatures that beset the party, in this case three of the especially horrid re-animations of hobgoblins that Pavel himself had once encountered in the Caves of Chaos. Not only did turning the thouls fail, but so did attempts to lure them into a pit or burn down the roof on top of them. It was Roger who took on this last effort. When Cromartie heard him get dragged down from the roof, the rest of the party rushed into the Thoul's lair and hacked and slashed them Surprisingly satisfying after all the failed attempts to get creative. And then we ransacked their master's chambers. No sign of the map we expected to find to help us find Xitaqa, the place where the goblins had taken Stefan.

Night's Dark Terror Session 9: 5,000 gobbos

There we were . . . gobos shooting us with arrows as we crossed the bridge, and then ambushing us from behind. And when we crossed the bridge and entered their noisome den, it was demon dogs assailing us from all sides, while the cowardly gobbos shot at us from the darkness. Did I despair? No, I called on the Law and our enemies were transfixed. And then a great figure of scourgingsmitning appeared to aid us, driving the demon dogs yelping like puppies before a toddling child with a threshing flail. We rested and Lo! the lawless gobos broke in upon our rest. For this they were thoroughly scourged, smited, smitten, smitened, desmittened, and destroyed. And like the burst of driving rain that sweeps the garbage and shit and dead rats and the little nasty bugs crawling over the whole mess right down the alley into the gutter and then through the town into the river, so we the driving rain of Law swept through the goblin’s hall and killed their disgusting king and shivered his throne into pieces!

goblin, a photo by earlywill on Flickr.

Night's Dark Terror Session Eight: demon fish and attacking the goblin stronghold

Pavel: “Allele did not return because he was DEVOURED by a legion of vicious demon fish!” (raises his left hand to show jagged lump of scar tissue at the base of his thumb; reaches his right hand into his pocket to pull out the dried, crumbling remains of a coldwater piranha) “It could have happened to me, it could happen to you.

a photo by mario dns (Mess-45590-2€ da fisso- 1€ sms) on Flickr.

“That’s how we decided that the time for sneaking around had passed and that it was time to confront evil head on.”

Night's Dark Terror, Session 7

The party moved through a forest of stone. More than petrified wood, the trees, most of them still standing, bore branches, leaves, birds and their nests all turned to grain stone. They locaed the lair of the Wolfskull goblins, a rough fortification of stacked stone logs on the other side of a dark river crossed by a narrow river. They moved up river and then sent Allelle down to the river to scout. He hasn’t returned.

york, a photo by zoe seed on Flickr.

PM of 13th - Moldain, 14th Thaumont AC1000

Night's Dark Terror, Session 5

Pavel: "My hopes that Law has a purpose for these people, beyond chasing horses and gold has been encouraged by their decision to attempt the rescue of a good Traldaran who was captured by goblins in one of their raids. As a man of experience, I realize that he already been butchedred, cooked, and eaten, but I keep this to myself, allowing my companions' ambition to encourage their valor and other virtues. Tracking the cowardly goblins has likewise presented hardships-- in the form of cold, rain, darkness, hard beds and hard food-- that stregthens the character of a good man, even while it drives the wicked to increasingly desperate act. Time (and additional hardships!) will surely provide future proof to which camp each of us belongs. (That includes your Pavel. While I may be inured to natural hardships and have faced death in the eyes of embodied evil, I sense temptations and challenges before of forms too terrible to imagine.) Even today, we encountered and slew a terrible wolf that in death showed its true form to be that of a Traldaran man. Today a man in the form of a wolf, tomorrow perhaps we meet a wolf in the form of a man! For any of us, death may come at any time. "

Gromdain, 12 Thaumont AC 1000 (& early AM Tserdain, the 13th)

yellow moon, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this (Night's Dark Terror, Session 4)

I missed session 3, in which the party defended Sukiskyn from goblin raiders. Although they were repelled, the goblins did manage to steal a large number of horses were stolen and in session 4, we went after them, under an agreement that we’d be allowed to keep half(?) of those we recovered. We tracked the goblins to a small, human settlement a few hours away, recovered the horses and brought them back to Sukiskyn. In the morning, a small of group of men approached Sukiskyn, explaining that their own settlement had been attacked and Stefan (brother to Pyotr, our host at Sukiskyn) had been kidnapped. More details can be found here: Soladain, 10 Thaumont AC 1000

This rest of this post is a rambling editorial, looking at why my character Pavel, the cleric, is on this adventure or why any cleric goes on any adventure.







It’s kind of stupid to ask, “Why does my character even want to go on this adventure?” A good answer is, “Why are you even here in my basement?”

But you'll keep reading anyway. Some other answers . . .

Because you’re the strongest, smartest, most generally capable man in the village and if you don’t go kill that Thing, it will come here and kill all of us.

Because you’re too lazy to work, too imprudent to save . . . too shiny to go without and too sexy to care . . . and that Thing is sitting on a big pile of gold.

Because that Thing’s as old as the world and it . . . knows things.

Because you took care of a lot of widows and orphans last week and preached a bang-up sermon yesterday and by golly you deserve your day to recharge like anyone else! And maybe, besides the Thing, there’s a vampire in that cave, and you can kill that, too.

With clerics, it’s hard. Although most members of the priestly caste are insulated from danger, life's random deprivations, even the need to go out and make a living, there are some who exile themselves from the comfort most other adventurers are, at least nominally seeking. In Pavel's case, he was a young acolyte who went into the wilderness for twenty years. That’s long enough to go crazy, and not long enough to get back.

The adventure associated with Night’s Dark Terror is pretty straight-forward: help us get these valuable white horses for a cut of their sale price. That could happen in our world. Goblins and ankhegs take the place of rustlers and injuns. Or to be more narrowly contemporary, speed traps and intestinal worms. (It's just the horses who have worms. Probably).

And the low-fantasy realism of it makes it even harder to explain why the priest-man is there.

He has access to very powerful painkillers and anti-biotics.

In the last game, he was also able to warn Allelle, an Elf Fighter/ Mage about the dangers of consorting with goblins. About an hour after we met a goblin in a tree—whom Allelle communicated with using the disgusting creature’s own perverted language— we met another elf, a woman, who was living in the company of goblins, and whom we shot dead. Slippery slope. Lie down with dogs. (Some of the sharper members of the party think she may have been a hostage, but don’t tell Pavel.)

Pavel is a Traldaran, and has a strong suspicion of not only non-humans, but even non-Traldarans—i.e. Thyatians. At the goblins camp, they found dead prisoners in the huts and almost his first thought was, “Are these Traldarans?” Is it still Xenophobia when those who aren’t your kind want to eat you? (Either literally, with the goblins, or metaphorically, in the case of the Thyatians who are consuming Traldaran resources and obliterating Traldaran culture.)

Pavel rejects the creature comforts of civilization but he hasn't necessarily adapted to the wilderness either. Rather, he endures. And maybe deprivation and fear associated with the wilderness are in some ways easier to grapple with the spirtiual threats presents by city life. Or even outpost-in-the-forest life.

IMG_0230, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

One of the great features of D&D is the leveling system and the qualified expectation that a band of impoverished adventures will one day be heroes. And this gives some credence to Pavel’s otherwise baseless “prophecy” that this is not just about horses and getting paid, but at some point we will be called to do something really important in the service of Law. (Never mind that Pavel may be the only Lawful member of the party, that’s all part of the prophecy.)