You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Recent posts by Eol Fefalas
Topic: Smuggler's Moon Q&A
Subject: The Continental Nations (pt 1)
The Continental Nations
At this point, the nations of the Continent as they are known today began to take shape. Following are write-ups of the various nations and regions, and through them the history of the Continent from the fall of the Necro-Kings to today is explained.
- The Bone Lands
Formal Name: None
Symbol: Crossbones (informal)
Ruler: None
Important Landmarks: Vinro’s Necropolis, Crimson Falls, Giant’s Reach
Allies: None
Enemies: Druzhdin, Hexworth, Rolland, Vorizar
The Bone Lands is a catchall term for the northern part of the Continent, most of which was dominated by the Empire of Ashes. Today the area is overrun with nomadic tribes of savage humanoids and other strange and monstrous creatures. Raiding into Hexworth, Vorizar, and Rolland is constant, though larger incursions have always been beaten back. The hobgoblin tribes are the best organized and most powerful and they may yet strike south in numbers not seen in centuries.
History
The Bone Lands were originally given the name because the fall of the Empire of Ashes and the destruction of the Necro-Kings had littered the region with smashed skeletons of all races. It is equally appropriate to think of this part of the Continent as the boneyard of past empires. There are ruins scattered across the landscape that date back to the time when giants dominated the Continent, not to mention those of Valossa, the Empire of Ashes, and the lands of the Necro Kings. This naturally makes the whole area a magnet to adventurers and treasure hunters. Many brave the ruins, but few return. This merely throws some fresh bones on top of the pile.
Since the time of Rajko the Ghūl, this region has been barren. This is why the victors of the Starfall Alliance never extended their borders further north. Instead, these wastelands became the home of tribes of orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, and monstrous humanoids that embodied the forms of man and beasts. Some human tribes roamed the Bone Lands as well. All of these groups lived nomadically by necessity, going to where food could be found. Raiding became a way of life, as did eating the dead. In a land where little grows, food was whatever could be choked down, even if it was goblin meat.
The mountains at the northern border of the Continent have remained remote. Sheer cliffs drop into the sea, so ships cannot dock there. And it is just as well, as these mountains are the last refuge of the giants that used to rule this land. They were hemmed in by magical wards millennia ago, and they are trapped here still. They live a primitive existence, fighting with other strange monsters of the mountains and telling tales of their bygone glories.
- Druzhdin
Formal Name: None
Symbol: A grinning skull
Ruler: The Dark Apostle
Important Cities: Obelek (capitol)
Important Landmarks: Cairn’s of the Troll Kings, Wyrm’s Bones
Allies: None
Enemies: Everyone
Druzhdin isn’t so much a land as a people. They were nomads for nearly a millennium but 200 years ago, they began a migration that ended with the conquest of Wyrm’s End, an island off the north coast of the Continent. Now the Druzhdin are skilled sailors and dreaded raiders. Their society worships the God of Death above all, and many Druzhdin mortify the flesh on their faces as a sign of this dedication. They believe killing appeases the God of Death and forestalls his coming for the killers. Due to this doctrine and their deadly raids, the Druzhdin have few friends on the Continent.
History:
The ancestors of the Druzhdin were human mercenaries in the service of the Necro-Kings. They fled north, scattered and disorganized, ahead of the victorious Starfall Alliance. Those who survived coalesced into three tribes. They became nomads in the Bone Lands, always wandering and always fighting against the savage humanoids of the region. This continued for countless generations. Century after century slipped by and though leaders rose and fell, the Druzhdin lived as their forefathers had.
Then one day everything changed. A man appeared among the Druzhdin as if from nowhere. He was tall and dark, and his words enthralled the barbarian tribes. He was the Dark Apostle, and he had been sent to lead the Druzhdin out of the Bone Lands to a land oftheir own. Once before they had served the God of Death, he said, and if they would do so again, they would be rewarded. Death is the herald of change, after all, and they would need the god’s help to escape from the Bone Lands.
The three tribes of the Druzhdin often squabbled among themselves, but no one raised a voice against the Dark Apostle. They packed up their camps and followed their new leader east. The journey took years, as the Druzhdin fought their way past tribes of orcs, goblins, monstrous men, and hobgoblins. At last, they reached the ocean’s shore and they despaired when the Dark Apostle told them that their land was across the sea. What did the Druzhdin know of the sea? The Dark Apostle smiled and said that he could teach them the crafts of the sea, and so he did.
A year later the Druzhdin had a fleet. It did not need to sail far, just across the straight to the island of Wyrm’s End. The Dark Apostle had promised Druzhdin the island, but they would have to fight for it. Although named for an enormous and ancient set of dragon bones, Wyrm’s End was in fact overrun with trolls. Aided by the Dark Apostle’s magic, the Druzhdin fought a pitiless war against the trolls and seized the island yard by bloody yard, each corpse a prayer to the God of Death.
After conquering Wyrm’s End, the Druzhdin developed into a true seafaring nation. In many ways, they simply adapted their nomadic lifestyle to sea. Their ships are constantly on the move, raiding up and down the Coasts of the Continent. Their raids are quick and violent and before superior forces can react, they are in the wind. Four years ago they made the mistake of going to war with Rolland, and then compounded that mistake by trying to capture Freeport. Since suffering defeats with grievous losses in both conflicts, they have returned to their old raiding ways.
The Dark Apostle left them once Wyrm’s End was theirs, saying that he would return one day. Most of the Druzhdin thought him long dead, but just a year ago the Dark Apostle did in fact return. This has galvanized the Druzhdin after their recent defeats and Continental nations are watching developments warily. Some say this new Dark Apostle is just an imposter, others that he was always a devil and this proves it. A few learned men have an altogether more frightening theory: the Dark Apostle is none other than the Crawling Chaos.
- Hexworth
Formal Name: Empire of Hexworth
Symbol: A black tower on a red field
Ruler: Empress Mariota I, the Glory of Hexworth
Important Cities: Gullwater, Redcastle, Queensport (capitol)
Important Landmarks: Church of the Avenging Angel, Greatdridge, Wight’s Hill
Allies: Kizmir, Rolland, Vorizar
Enemies: Bone Lands, Iovan, Tagmata
The Empire of Hexworth dominates the western Continent and for centuries it has been an active and expansionistic power. Hexworth was once one of many small human kingdoms in the region, but over time it subsumed or conquered them all to create a true empire. Empress Mariota I, the Glory of Hexworth, rules over the largest territory on the Continent. The Empire itself is made up of a bewildering array of provinces, principalities, marches, dukedoms, and free cities. Nearly all the power is in the hands of the noble class, whose families feud and scheme as they intermarry. Although most areas are firmly under imperial authority, some perennial trouble spots have never accepted the Empire’s yoke. These regions always simmer with rebellion and periodically attempt to free themselves. While these uprisings have led to a rich library of romantic songs about doomed heroics, Hexworth has always stamped them out in the end, after great loss of life.
History:
After the defeat of the Necro-Kings, King Chaldris I of Hexworth was the preeminent human monarch. The western region of the Continent did not unify as the elven lands did, however. There remained many petty kingdoms, each with its own traditions and way of life. In an attempt to bring some unity to the human lands, Chaldris hosted the Council of Harmony, a synod of prominent temples. At the urgings of the council, King Chaldris I issued the first Necromantic Censure, a sweeping set of laws and edicts to outlaw the practice of necromancy from Hexworth. The practice and teaching of necromancy was prohibited. Possession of animated dead was forbidden. Trading in mortal remains was subject to imprisonment. The purchase, sale, trade, and even possession of various magical and non-magical items of a necromantic nature (scrolls, books, wands, grave earth, salts, potions, etc.) were forbidden. Even undertakers had to tread carefully, lest they be accused and condemned as “necromancers.”
The task of detecting and discovering necromancers, who were assumed to be hiding throughout the land in secret cults dating from the time of Rajko the Ghūl, was given to the Royal Arcane, the minister in charge of magical affairs. He in turn selected Seven High Inquisitors to root out the entrenched foe. Only the Royal Arcane, the Council of Harmony, or the king himself could challenge their powers of arrest and interrogation. The Merciful and Just Lord Judges of the Arcane—all Inquisitor-Mages—handed down the sentences for necromancy in the Magus Court.
The Council of Harmony and the king had hoped that the other human kingdoms would follow the lead of Hexworth. As the violence and mania in Hexworth spun out of control, this hope evaporated. Thousands of suspected necromancers—sages, madmen, hedge wizards, seers, the misunderstood, and innocents uncounted—were all dragged before the courts and summarily sentenced. Thousands died, their bodies burnt and their bones ground to dust. The other human kingdoms felt that the threat of necromancy had ended with the death of the last Necro-King, and they wanted no part of Hexworth’s obsession.
This Inquisition lasted roughly 200 years. King after king not only reaffirmed the Necromantic Censure, but also strengthened and expanded it. Finally, King Hadris II issued the famous Decree of Hadris. The Inquisition, which for all its power had always been “temporary,” became permanent. More than a few families, great and small, packed up and left Hexworth. They were fearful of being falsely condemned like so many before them. The exiles found homes other lands, for the most part taking care to vanish behind false names and false professions lest they invite more trouble. This was wise, as it proved, for Inquisitors made careful note of who departed and sent many a zealot to follow and dispatch the refugees, when they could locate them.
Five years after the Decree of Hadris, Hexworth was at last pronounced cleansed. King Hadris II, however, was not satisfied. Surely many vile necromancers had simply taken refuge in neighboring human kingdoms. Should a domineering figure like Rajko the Ghūl rise again, these rival kingdoms could prove a grave threat to Hexworth. King Hadris knew he had no choice. The petty human kingdoms must become part of his Hexworth, whether they liked it or not.
Today, the 300 years of conquest that followed are known as the Wars of Unity. Of course, the victorious men of Hexworth wrote the histories that made the subjugation of previously independent kingdoms seem like a hard but necessary choice. Some of these kingdoms joined Hexworth peacefully, in return for certain guarantees of their rights and customs. Others were simply conquered and integrated. When no more petty kingdoms remained, armies swept north to reclaim land formerly part of the Empire of Ashes. This was to act as a buffer zone between the core provinces of Hexworth and the monster-haunted Bone Lands further north. King Veldris IV ordered the construction of a series of border fortresses, to stretch from the mountains to the sea, to keep Hexworth safe. The so-called “Gates of Veldris” took a generation to complete, but they now form the northern boundary of Hexworth.
Some 500 years after the fall of the Necro-Kings, Hexworth was the colossus of the western Continent. Queen Marvis V decreed that Hexworth was no longer a kingdom but an empire. None dared to gainsay her and she became Empress Marvis I.
- Iovan
Formal Name: Autocracy of Iovan
Symbol: A gargoyle
Ruler: Autocrat Silivas Redmantle
Important Cities: Craski, Razma (capitol), Vabin
Important Landmarks: Palace of the Conclave, Blue Sky Eyrie
Allies: Kizmir
Enemies: Hexworth, Ivory Ports, Rolland, Vorizar
The Autocracy of Iovan, home of the crag gnomes, is the most isolated nation on the Continent. A militaristic society ruled by an Arcane Conclave of powerful sorcerers, Iovan has alienated all of its neighbors over the centuries. Although it started the War of Crowns sixteen years ago and ultimately was defeated, Iovan is still on the map because of its difficult terrain, well-trained army, and gargoyle slave-soldiers. With the failure of its attempts at conquest, the crag gnomes have retreated into the shadows, there to try to win with sorcery and subterfuge what they could not on the battlefield.
History:
While the Starfall Alliance fought against the Necro-Kings in the north, an entirely different struggle was raging in the south. In the Korbu Hills, communities of gnomes were constantly at odds with the kobold tribes. Both races claimed the hills as their own, mining them for metals and other resources.
The kobolds professed descent from the serpent people. Gnome scholars asserted they were just another servitor race, though the kobolds denied this, seeing themselves as the favored children of their progenitors. Whatever the truth, the two races escalated the violence as time went on, from raids and skirmishes to outright war. The Korbu Hills War was a long and brutal conflict and in the end it came down to magic. The gnomes mastered sorcery faster than the kobolds; this enabled the gnomish legions to finally push the kobolds out of the hills entirely. The remaining kobolds moved further south, into the dark forest of Nham. Here they spent centuries dreaming of revenge against the gnomes. It was not to be.
A mighty gnome sorcerer named Iovan magically enslaved the gargoyles of the Ironhome Mountains. He used his new pawns to take over the Korbu hills and proclaim the Autocracy of Iovan. Emboldened, he then embarked on an ambitious campaign of conquest. Armies of gnomes and gargoyles pushed south, taking more and more kobold land. For a time Iovan seemed unstoppable.
After decades of conquest, however, the Autocrat made a grave error. He turned his eyes north, to the lands of the Vorizar League. Always there had been peace and oaths of friendship between the gnomes and the dwarfs, but Iovan cast them aside and sent his legions into the mountains. This was his undoing. The dwarves had experience fighting gargoyles and they were masters of underground warfare. They cursed the gnomes as oathbreakers and fought with righteous fury. The Autocrat’s armies were stopped in their tracks and at the Battle of the Glimmering Pools Iovan himself was slain. The gnomes retreated in confusion, and it seemed the Autocracy might fall.
The gnomes regrouped in the Korbu Hills, and a conclave of powerful sorcerers chose a new autocrat. The Dwarf-Gnome War was ended and new campaigns were mounted against the kobolds. Since then the Arcane Conclave has continued to rule Iovan, choosing a new autocrat when required. While the politics of the conclave can be vicious, and many an Autocrat has been assassinated over the years, the system has endured. So has the gnomes’ domination of the gargoyles, and their hatred of the kobolds.
- Ivory Ports
Formal Name: None
Symbols: A black axe (Blackburn), a lion’s head (Grenato), three golden fish (Pikebridge), a silver crown (Silverus), a chain with 12 links (Thalburg)
Rulers: Lord Protector Feargus Rorac (Blackburn), Patriarch Ivo Simoni (Grenato), Mayor Chester Ruggles (Pikebridge), Prince Attis Galba (Silverus), Council of Guildmasters (Thalburg)
Important Cities: Blackburn, Grenato, Pikebridge, Silverus, Thalburg
Important Landmarks: Plaza of a Thousand Columns (Grenato), Twilight Colossus (Blackburn), College of the Antiquity Scholars (Silverus)
Allies: Rolland, Tagmata
Enemies: Druzhdin, Iovan, Kizmir
The Ivory Ports are a loose coalition of five city-states in the Continent’s southeast. While those in the north were dealing with the Empire of Ashes and Necro-Kings, the people of Ivory Ports looked outward. They explored the seas, set up trade routes with distant lands, and eventually founded colonies. They made contact with the lands of Khaeder in the south and first imported the commodity that gave the cities their name. Although the city-states have fought amongst themselves from time to time, they have grown their influence by pursing a mercantile path. While the ships of the Ivory Ports have suffered more than most at the hands of Freeport’s pirates in the past, these days there is much trade between them and the City of Adventure.
History:
The region now known as the Ivory Ports has long been a place of refuge. During the dark days of the Anarchy, men and women of all races came over the Towers, the mountain range that isolates the area from the rest of the Continent, seeking safety. The history of that era is obscure, but a few facts are clear. First, petty kingdoms, freeholds, and tribal groups rose and fell quickly in this region. Second, a diabolic threat from the Towers caused bloodshed on a massive scale for many years. Third, a desperate coalition managed to stop the threat but the peoples of this alliance fell out as soon as the threat had passed. Thus a dominant political entity never emerged here.
By the time of the Kingdom of Rolland’s founding, all of the towns that would later become the Ivory Ports had developed from small holdings into larger settlements. Over time, each grew into a sizeable city and dominated the surrounding countryside. In this way the Ivory Ports became full-fledged city-states, each controlling a series of villages, towns, and fortresses, and eventually including overseas colonies.
The Ivory Ports currently consists of five city-states. There was a sixth, Newtown, but Kizmir sacked and destroyed it nearly fifty years ago. The remaining city-states are:
• Blackburn: This is the most militaristic of the Ivory Ports, because it is closest to Kizmir and must frequently deal with its raiders. A Lord Protector rules Blackburn, advised by a council of guildsmen.
• Grenato: The powerful Simoni family controls this city-state and has dominated its politics for the last two centuries. The Simonis are ruthless to their enemies, but they have poured money into public works and turned Grenato into the most beautiful of the Ivory Ports.
• Pikebridge: This city began as a small fishing village, and the harvest of the sea is still its most important business. Once every five years each citizen in good standing may vote on the next mayor.
• Silverus: The only city-state with a true aristocracy, Silverus was once a center of democracy. This rule was overthrown by the so called “merchant princes,” who fancied themselves true princes. Now a powerful group of families, led by a ruling prince, runs the city-state.
• Thalburg: A city noted for the quality of its wool and textiles, Thalburg is controlled by its craft guilds. It is the Council of Guildmasters that makes the laws and runs the city-state, always to the benefit of the guilds first and foremost.
Due to the history of the region, the Ivory Ports are easily the most diverse cities on the Continent. Humans, elves, halflings, gnomes, and dwarves of many cultures are found in all of the city-states. Indeed, halflings are found nowhere else on the Continent in such abundance, and their villages play a key role in keeping the cities fed.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 16:43:47.
Edited on 2011-08-26 at 19:06:40 by Eol Fefalas
|
Topic: Smuggler's Moon Q&A
Subject: Historical Info: The World of Freeport
In the beginning…
To understand the unique nature of the World of Freeport, it is necessary to go back to the very beginning, to the time before time. In pre-history the universe was nothing but a cosmic soup of possibility. Moving through this miasma were strange beings without form or name. No one knows their origins or how they achieved sentience, but somehow it was they who unconsciously guided creation. Amongst these Primal Gods was the great serpent later known as Yig. This being used his will and his essence to create an island in the soup and claim it for its own. Others of the Primal Gods did the same and in this way the universe was formed.
For the first time Yig took physical form. He imposed his will on his island, naming it Valossa and creating mountains, rivers, hills, and plains, as well as creatures to populate them. Still, Yig was not satisfied. He then created the serpent people, gave them intelligence, and taught them the secrets of sorcery. They thanked Yig with worship and undying loyalty. Yig experienced unbridled adulation and found it to his liking. It didn’t take long for him to begin wanting more than Valossa could provide.
Soon Yig sent coils of cosmic power out into creation and pulled new realities around his island. Those Primal Gods that could resist the powerful Yig did so; the others were consumed or imprisoned and their lands amalgamated. The serpent people conquered these realities one by one, adding them to their god’s domain. This went on for time uncounted, yet no amount of conquest could satisfy Yig. Always he lusted for more: more power, more lands, more servants.
So the Lands of Yig grew and always the serpent people were Yig’s champions. The Valossan Empire stretched across many lands, and new wars were planned for those beyond. It was at this time a new cult appeared amongst the serpent people—the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign. The rulers of the serpent people paid the cult little mind. It was insignificant, they thought, and beneath the notice of the chosen of Yig. They had faced the powers of many gods in their conquests, and did not fear this upstart cult.
The Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign was different from the other foes the serpent people had faced. For one thing, it was an enemy within, a secret cult that could not be defeated in open battle. Also, the cult drew its power from the worship of another Primal God, a being known as the Unspeakable One. This dread entity had been trapped in a cosmic prison in the early days of the universe, but the Brotherhood managed to summon him with a display of incredible magical power. The Unspeakable One manifested in the midst of Valossa, the center of Yig’s domain and power. Madness and destruction overtook the Valossan Empire. Most of Yig’s island fell into the sea, entombing the god’s physical form and sending him into a torpor that has lasted for two millennia. The majority of the surviving serpent people were driven insane before the sorcerous energies waned and the Unspeakable One was pulled back into his prison. The Lands of Yig were shattered, their origin and their creator forgotten.
The World of Freeport
Today’s World of Freeport is built on the ruins of the Lands of Yig. The Serpent’s Teeth are all that remains of the island of Valossa. The city of Freeport is located almost precisely at the center of Yig’s former domain and, unknown to the surface world, the god himself slumbers deep beneath the ocean. Although Yig has not stirred since the manifestation of the Unspeakable One, his dream-sendings still affect the mortal world. Freeport in particular is influenced by Yig’s dreams. They stoke the lusts of the mortal races, making them desire power, money, and even blood. It is perhaps no surprise that a city of pirates sprang up at the heart of Yig’s empire.
The world’s origin gives it an unusual character. It is not a traditional globe rotating in the depths of space; it a pastiche of lands pulled in around Valossa by coils of cosmic power. It is therefore easiest to understand the world as a central point, the Serpent’s Teeth, surrounded by a seemingly endless ocean dotted with lands great and small. The further away from the Serpent’s Teeth one sails, the more difficult it is to navigate. The lands closest to the center—most notably the Continent—are the core of the World of Freeport and are thus easily accessible. Getting to more distant lands is treacherous and ships always run the danger of sailing into the mists and getting forever lost. Sailors tell endless stories of the perilous seas, ships that reappear after decades in the queer fog, and lands inhabited by strange creatures and ferocious monsters unlike anything on the Continent. There is only one reason there is contact and trade between distant parts of the World of Freeport: the mystic navigators. These cryptic adepts have come to understand something of the nature of the former Lands of Yig, and they have mastered the technique of navigating between them. Ships without mystic navigators may be able to get to where they are going using charts alone, but the likelihood of this becomes smaller and smaller the farther away from the Serpent’s Teeth they travel.
Since the World of Freeport is an amalgamation of pre-existing lands, time is hard to reconcile. Lands like the Continent were conquered so long ago and so completely that there is little memory of the time before. Others, though, had thousands of years of recorded history before the serpent people showed up. The most distant lands were pulled into the Lands of Yig, but were spared from the serpent people’s legions by the fall of Valossa. A good example of this is Hamunaptra, a land far from Freeport that never so much as saw a serpent person, and whose original culture is thus entirely intact
Out of this World
Although the World of Freeport is vast and many of its lands remain unknown, the former Lands of Yig are but one part of the larger universe. These lands represent only those pulled in around Valossa. Beyond there are other worlds and planes of existence. Some are cold tombs that have known no life for millennia, others host or imprison alien Primal Gods like the Unspeakable One, and yet others are dominated by creatures unknown in the World of Freeport. Scholars have many theories about these legendary worlds, but little is truly known of them. It is said some powerful wizards and priests can travel beyond the World of Freeport. If true, it seems few of them come back.
What is known of these other worlds is often conflated with myth and mysticism. Most religions in the World of Freeport have some concept of Hell, for example. And beyond the former Lands of Yig there is a fiery plane home to a race of diabolic creatures that live to inflict pain and suffering. To religious people this must be Hell, and its agents demons or devils. Scholars are less sure. Perhaps the King of Hell is another Primal God like Yig, or maybe he’s something else entirely. By and large, though, these debates are left to the academics. For the common people of the World of Freeport, Hell is Hell and if you see a devil, run. That’s all you need to know.
The Continent: Genesis
When the serpent people first invaded the Continent, it was a land of giants. Since they outsized their opponents to such a degree, the giants thought they had nothing to fear from the puny snakes. They were quite wrong. The sorcery of the serpent people was potent and the giants lost battle after battle. Most of the survivors were eventually driven to the northern mountains and hemmed in by powerful warding spells. The serpent people kept this region wild and used it as a testing ground of sorts. Powerful serpent people warriors and wizards entered the mountains to prove themselves in combat against the giants. The magic of the serpent people kept the giants from leaving the warded area, so it became a virtual prison for the former lords of the land. Over many millennia, the serpent people brought slaves of various races to the Continent to serve them. It is said that some, like the lizardfolk, were even bred by them, but the truth of such statements is unknown. What is certain, however, is that by the time of Valossa’s fall, large numbers of humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings were on the Continent. So too were savage humanoids like orcs, goblins, kobolds, bugbears, and hobgoblins. The serpent people’s methods of control were so efficient that it took only a small number of them to maintain Valossa’s yoke over the peoples of the Continent. Everything changed when the Unspeakable One manifested in the heart of the serpent people’s empire and sent Valossa to the bottom of the sea.
The Continent: Anarchy
The years after the summoning of the Unspeakable One were dark ones for the Continent. It began with the sinking of Valossa, a disaster of epic proportions that caused tidal waves and massive flooding in which countless thousands perished. Some land masses drew closer together, others spread apart. The forces unleashed were so powerful that they created a mystical vortex that played havoc on the World of Freeport. Some distant lands were pulled into the world during this cataclysmic event. Some races never before seen by the serpent people appeared in the former Lands of Yig, while other entire civilizations were wiped out instantly. The Valossan Empire crumbled overnight and there was nothing to fill the void. The former slave races found themselves suddenly without masters. It didn’t take long for factions to form and blood to flow. The next 750 years saw little but conflict and devastation. Warlords and petty kingdoms rose and fell, grand alliances were made and broken, and borders were established and then smashed. Records for this era are patchy at best and it is for good reason that it is known as the Anarchy.
The Continent: Empire of Ashes
It was at this time that the necromancer Rajko the Ghūl arrived on the stage of history. His origins are mysterious. Nothing is known of him before the day he appeared in the court of Duke Hamur. The name and location of Hamur’s dukedom are lost to history, but what is remembered is Rajko’s offer. He said he could give the duke powerful armies unlike anything seen before. Hamur, ambitious and anxious to one-up his rivals, agreed. That night a great spell flowed out from the palace and the dead walked. The buried clawed their way up out of the graveyards, the drowned rose from the lakes, and silently they stumbled back to their homes to embrace their families and take them into the land of death. When the dawn came, the Duke had his armies—legions of undead created from the slaughter of his own people. Furious at the betrayal, the Duke attacked Rajko himself—to no avail. Before that day ended, the Duke joined his own armies as another mindless soldier. With his new legions, Rajko the Ghūl struck out at neighboring lands. As soldiers went, his undead were poor ones: uncreative, inflexible, and slow. But they did not flee from battle and for every man they killed a new creature joined their ranks. The conquered lands were harvested for more bodies to mindlessly serve. The undead armies had no concerns for casualties, food, disease, or comforts. Rajko the Ghūl had other powers, too, powers that made the wise wonder if he was the avatar of some dark god. In the wake of his armies came a blackness that clung to the land and swallowed the sun. The cold eyes of the stars looked down day and night. Plants weakened and grew pallid, light strangled into ghastly forms. The most sinister night creatures stalked the land, freed from the fear of sunlight. Cults of murder and death found comfort in the gloom. Rajko welcomed these creatures and cultists as agents he could use to carry out tasks his undead minions could not. His land grew to swallow the northern lands of the Continent and became known as the Empire of Ashes. But conquest was only a means, not the necromancer’s goal. He conquered merely for unlimited access to raw materials and freedom to pursue his ultimate goal, not earthly power. Rajko the Ghūl was creating an artifact, a ziggurat of flesh, blood, and bone that would focus magic of world-spanning power. Its exact purpose unknown but deeply feared, it slowly rose at the center of his black empire, damp and rotting, constructed by those he conquered and built with the raw materials of their own kin. For 150 years, the ziggurat grew until its horrid form cast a shadow as long as a mountain. Before Rajko the Ghūl’s purpose could be realized, however, the great elven hero Thodomer Windgrass slew him. His body was cut into pieces, which were cast into the flames. Then his scorched bones were ground to dust and scattered in the deep oceans. All pieces of his handiwork—his incomplete ziggurat, his laboratories, his experiments, his spellbooks, his notes, and his legions—were destroyed.
The Continent: Wars of the Necro-Kings
With the fall of this necromantic monster came a time of troubles and naked ambition, as the surrounding lands rushed in to seize the spoils. A number of pretenders, known collectively as the Necro-Kings, attempted to claim the mantle of the mighty Ghūl. Some said they were his apprentice (he trained none), some his heir (he sired none). At least one, the moderately successful Molocai I, claimed he was the undead general of Rajko the Ghūl’s armies, a pretense he maintained for several years before he was unmasked. But the Necro-Kings were weak and petty, mere mortals compared to the Ghūl’s unholy might. None knew the secrets to raise the Rajko’s vast legions. Furthermore, the lands they fought over were dead, barren wastelands. Although the darkness had receded with the necromancer’s death, what was left was a blighted landscape. Crops did not grow, trees were twisted in death agonies, livestock—where it could be found—was barren or gave birth to monstrosities. It was a time of constant warfare as the Necro-Kings fought each other for supremacy. The barren land was ravaged further as elves, dwarves, and uncorrupted humans united under the name the Starfall Alliance, and marched to wipe these scourges from the land. One by one, the Necro-Kings fell, victim to their own experiments, treachery from their fellow Necro-Kings, or the vengeance of the Starfall Alliance, until the land was at last cleansed of the undead yoke.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 16:43:15.
|
Topic: Smuggler's Moon Q&A
Subject: Smuggler's Moon Q&A
This is the Q&A Thread for "Tales from the Smuggler's Moon" - a moderated freeform game set in/based on "The World of Freeport" setting by Green Ronin Publishing.
Current cast and crew:
- Jericho Hawkes - Captain of the Smuggler's Moon (played by Eol Fefalas) *
- Davian Passat - currently a somewhat reluctant and untrusting passenger aboard the Moon, recently 'rescued' from a Mazini slaver's ship. Definitely more than what she seems at a glance... (played by Merideth) *
- Saercyn Willow - half-elven bard/shanty-singer. Long time friend and confidant of Cap'n Hawkes. (played by Celeste) *
- Khashnagob "Khash" Hawkes - A half-orc, First Mate of the Smuggler's Moon, Jericho's half-brother. (played by Tuned_Out) *
- Vleryn "Rope Runner" - a cocky, knife wielding lad, more than adept at fighting in the rigging. (NPC - formerly played by Steelight)*
- Askurt Maaast - The Smuggler's Moon's Dwarven Master Gunner. (played by Chessicfayth)*
- Marlow Stone - a fairly new addition to the crew. A healer who's really good with his fists, to boot. (played by Dragonblood)*
- Lyriandel "Lyri" Evermoon - a young, somewhat unprepared half-elf in search of adventure. (played by Lady Dark)
- Jean Gusto - an Azhari swab recruited in Freeport. (played by The_Haruspex)
- Kismet - a roguish gypsy ribbon-dancer and stowaway aboard Smuggler's Moon. (NPC - formerly played by Skye)
- Asim - a young Kismiri swab of about 16. Been aboard the Moon for just under a year. "Rescued" from a life as an abused cabin boy on a Kismiri ship in the Sultan's Navy. (Played by RP Noob)
I wanna be a pirate too!
((Characters with an asterisk (*) by their names are already aboard the ship as of the prologue entries... Those without an asterisk are assumed to be in Freeport during the preceeding events and will be RP'd onto the crew (or sneaked aboard, as the case may be) after the Smuggler's Moon has docked... Once I have the rest of those concepts I'm waiting for, more names will appear above... stay tuned.  ))
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 16:41:35.
Edited on 2011-09-29 at 22:17:37 by Eol Fefalas
|
Topic: Wanna get Shanghaied?
Subject: Come aboard, then...
...looking forward to your concept, Haru!
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 16:29:02.
|
Topic: Wanna get Shanghaied?
Subject: Darn, indeed!
Sorry to hear that, Celtia... I'm hoping that this thing might take off and continue running for a good while, though, so if you ever find yourself looking for something to jump into and feel like joining us in the future (even if you just want to carve out a smallish role, somehow), just let me know.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 16:25:44.
|
Topic: Wanna get Shanghaied?
Subject: Cast and Crew, so far!
Confirmed/Approved Players
- Jericho Hawkes; Captain of the Smuggler's Moon (Eol Fefalas)
- Davian Passat; Currently a somewhat reluctant and mysterious passenger (Merideth)
- Saercyn Willow; a half-elven bard/shanty-singer. Long time friend and confidant of Jericho's (Celeste)
- Vleryn the Rope Runner; a cocky, knife wielding lad, more than adept at fighting in the rigging. (Steelight)
- Lyriandel Evermoon; a young, somewhat unprepared half-elf in search of adventure. (Lady Dark)
- Khashnagob "Khash" Hawkes; A half-orc, First Mate of the Smuggler's Moon, Jericho's half-brother. (Tuned_Out)
- Jean Gusto; an Azhari swab recruited in Freeport. (The_Haruspex)
- Askurt Maaast; The Smuggler's Moon's Dwarven Master Gunner. (Chessicfayth)
- Kismet; A gypsy ribbon-dancer. Stows away aboard the Smuggler's Moon when it harbors in Freeport. (Skye)
- Marlow; a bare-knuckle boxing healer type. (Dragonblood)
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 15:53:08.
Edited on 2011-08-31 at 21:38:47 by Eol Fefalas
|
Topic: Wanna get Shanghaied?
Subject: Absolutely!
Are ya coming along? *grins*
For the record this game is what we've come to call "moderated freeform," hereabouts... (Much like our many Trek games that ran on these boards - although I don't think that this one will be quite so expansive as trek.)
What is moderated freeform, you ask? Well, it's freeform... sort of...
I will assume the role of Captain Hawkes, and will lay the most basic foundations for the plot and guide the adventure along. However, it will largely be the cast and crew as a whole that determine the outcome of the various missions/adventures/whathaveyou. You will be given almost free reign to form the story, within reason. However, "god moding", plot hijacking, and controlling of other people's characters (without permission, of course) are all strictly prohibited, and will be cause for dismissal from the game.
If you are interested in joining, you will first need a concept for your primary character. I say primary due to the fact that on a ship the size of the Smuggler’s Moon the crew contingent is, on average, 30 to 40 bodies counting all of the “officers”, “swabs and salts”, and passengers on board. Naturally, our gaming group will be MUCH smaller than this! In order to tell the story, it often becomes necessary to introduce minor characters or NPCs - you will have the freedom to create these, as long as it makes sense for you to do so.
For instance, let's say that you are playing the role of our gunner. You will be responsible for all of the Moon’s cannon, powder, etc. and, as such, will have gunner’s mates, etc that might be under your control. Naturally, you'll need several bodies to manage this “department”, so you will be encouraged and expected to give some of these names and (at the very least) cursory descriptions.
Pretty much freeform, you see, just with some stipulations.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 15:44:07.
|
Topic: Wanna get Shanghaied?
Subject: Wanna get Shanghaied?
After much thought, deliberation, pondering, and (ahem) coercion, I've decided it's more than time to knock of some rust and take a shot at throwing a game out there.
My idea, here, is sort of a moderated free-form romp that, if successful, could lead from the single adventure I've got in the works into a series of adventures following the crew of a pirate/freebooter/privateer ship known as the Smuggler's Moon. It was born of the "prologue" that you can find posted in the game thread, actually - and that prologue started as yet another collaborative writing effort between Meri and myself a while back. Even as we were writing up those first few pages of "The Witch's Wake" we were tossing around the idea of opening this up to other Innmates and, now, since she and I both are finally starting to show up more frequently around here, we figured why not give it a shot?
So... read the Prologue posts in the Smuggler's Moon game thread to get a general "feel" for the thing and either PM me or post here if this at all looks like something you might have an interest in. We're looking for crew (all those crew members mentioned in the prologue are available should any of them strike your fancy - but you're free to conceptualize one of your own, as well) or even passengers/swellswords/etc... Got a character concept? Let me know...
If there's enough interest, I'll post more regarding what's expected... although I'll likely do that anyway since this post doesn't tell you much, at all, does it? 
Note: This game will be taking place in a setting based on "The World of Freeport" by Green Ronin Games. More information on the setting and history is available (and will continue to be added to and/or updated) in the Q&A thread .
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 15:21:02.
Edited on 2011-08-26 at 19:36:18 by Eol Fefalas
|
Topic: Tales from the Smuggler's Moon
Subject: Prologue: The Witch's Wake (pt 6)
Later that morning, after finding some food in the galley and spending more time staring out over the cruel waters, she deliberately made her way up to the quarter deck. With as much confidence as she could ever muster Davian approached the captain.
Leaning on the wheel, Jericho had lazily watched Davian approach... much the same way he had watched her during earlier conversation with Willow and, thereafter, her somewhat vexed meanderings about the decks… he had hoped that she’d have seen her way clear to talk with him then, of course, but, when she deigned to do so, he hadn’t taken offense. Willow had mentioned, in passing, that should the girl wish to speak to him, she would surely do it in her own time and only when she was ready…
“There are tangles of thought through which Davian must sort first, Jericho,” the bardess had told him, “and only when she’s found an end on which to pull to begin the untangling will she so much as know how to begin the parlay you seek to have. Patience, my Captain. She’ll seek you out when she’s found that end and, when she does, do try to be gentle, hm?”
…When her footsteps whispered to a stop not far off, Jericho offered a warm, unassuming smile along with a faint nod; “Missus Passat.”
"I've heard people say that three times is a charm... perhaps a third attempt at a discussion would be in order then, if you had a moment of course..."
Despite the uncertainty churning in the eyes that met his, her voice and her poise was steady.
“Aye, o’ course,” Jericho nodded, straightening a bit as he regarded her and, once more, finding himself marveling at the liquid quality of her eyes, “Always a moment fer a passenger er crew… Figured where it is ye’d like ta go as yet have ye, m'lady?”
Nodding slightly she started, “I think it is best if I get off at Freeport. It is not the safest port for me, but I’ve gotten out of it before and I will again. It is probably also best if you and your crew know as little as possible about where I go after this and how I will get there.”
A brow raised beneath the bandana tied about Jericho’s head and his mouth opened as if to say something but…
Quickly she brought up her hand to silence his objection to this so she could continue the speech she had been preparing. “I know I have been less than grateful to you. I do not trust easily. I doubt you would react much differently if you were in my position…”
…Hawkes’ mouth had found its way shut again and, as Davian spoke, his gaze had tracked away from the waves that broke in her eyes and, for the moment, were intent on those ahead of the ship. After considering her words he nodded, silently concurring that his own trust would be hard earned were their positions reversed, and the faint grin playing on his lips emoting both understanding of her caution and acceptance of her veiled apology…
“By now I imagine you have figured out that I was not meant to be a long term ‘guest’ onboard the Rapier. There is a very high ‘reward’ for anyone who finds and returns me to him. Luckily for me there is a provision on this reward, it can only be collected if I am returned alive, not unharmed…” she added with a bit of disdain, “but alive. I don’t know exactly how high it is, but...”
…“More than’d be enough tae buy oneself a spot on th’ Cap’n’s Council, I reckon,” Jericho mused, his eyes darkening a little as the woman’s revelations confirmed, more and more, the suppositions he had made as to her identity since he’d first set upon The Rapier, “if ye be who I’m thinkin’ ye be, Davi...”
“…I know that if you had not stopped them from reaching Freeport I would have been given back and the crew of the Rapier could have likely retired in luxury.”
…The warm and accommodating smile withered into something of a scowl at that, and Jericho’s eyes, flicking from the sea again to settle on the uneasy expression on Davian’s features, narrowed a little more. “A’ready Freeport bound were ye? On a Mizini ship, yet? Curious… but… Aye, a King’s bounty an’ Marilise bein’ in th’ know as much as she is’d make all th’ more sense then, wouldn’it? The scowl set a bit deeper and one hand lifted to scratch at his beard as, studying her intently, he began to ponder this unexpected snippet of information… Had it not been for the need to port in there in order collect on the scuttling of The Rapier, he’d have been suddenly inclined to forgo Freeport, now, himself.
Her eyes closed then and she took a deep breath. “It is not easy for me to openly speak of these things… you could easily decide that once we get to Freeport you could cash in on this reward instead of them.” Slowly she raised the lids on her eyes and looked directly into his sea worn face. “But I don’t think you will. If that proves true… you will never be able to fully comprehend how grateful I am. The best way I can repay you for that kindness is to leave. I don’t want more blood on my hands, especially not the blood of those who have… who have been decent…”
“Fergive me fer sayin’ so, Davi,” Jericho said, then, stepping away from the wheel and motioning for Epidii to take the helm as he did so, “but, if what ye say ‘bout th’ Rapier be true an’ this bloke Wiles be waitin’ on ye there, then, in good conscience, there’d be no way I’d be wantin’ tae leave ye off in Freeport…”
Davian’s liquid eyes blinked in surprise.
“…Aye,” Jericho nodded, “I know th’ name o’ the man’s been huntin’ ye… not hard tae figger when deHerstberghe’s log were full o’ scribblin’ in regards tae yer bounty…”
It was his turn to cut of her objections with the lifting of a hand, then. “Shush,” he said when the gesture alone hadn’t been enough to curtail her protest, “I know wha’ yer like tae say, lovely, an’ I’m tellin’ ye there be no need fer it. Should there be blood spilt o’er any o’ this, it’ll be on my hands, not yers, aye?”
He took her gently but firmly by the elbow, then, and led her towards the stair that descended from the quarterdeck. “We cannae be bypassin’ th’ Serpent’s Teeth all t’gether,” he said softly, almost under his breath, as they reached the foot of the stair and he turned her toward the hatch that led to his cabin, “I’ve had these lads a’sea far too long in search o’ ye tae deny ‘em th’ liberty I’ve promised ‘em but, yer right… Freeport, right now, is nae th’ best place fer ye tae be leavin’ us behind… We’ll talk on this some more once we’re away from all these ears, though… There be some weighty questions I need tae ask ere I toss me crew intae this storm, lovely, an’ yer th’ only one wha’ c’n be givin’ me th’ answers in truth…”
The sound of the ocean rushed in her ears as Hawkes led her into his cabin. His voice barely registered above the sound and she found herself wishing that it could block him out completely. Vernon was not what she wanted to discuss with him, she was not ready for that discussion. She was also not certain she was ready to reveal to Hawkes what it was she could do.
As he let go of her arm to close the door behind them, though, she knew she would not have much of a choice in the matter. Keeping her silence she moved toward the edge of his bunk and sunk down onto it. Again she curled her serpented arm around herself and lowered her eyes to its black design.
Why couldn't you simply be content with rescuing me? I don't want a champion, and I'm not asking you to be one for me. Please don't do this... she silently begged as she perched before him.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 15:04:30.
|
Topic: Tales from the Smuggler's Moon
Subject: Prologue: The Witch's Wake (pt 5)
Even with the door securely closed Davian had difficulties sleeping for more than an hour at a time. Balled up on the divan the slightest noise near the door would startle her awake and she’d stare at the door with her watery eyes, waiting for it to burst open. It never did.
When mid morning daylight poured through the porthole in the captain’s quarters she finally released the chair lock on the door and again slipped out onto the deck of the Smuggler’s Moon. A strong wind still pushed them east. Her crew scuttled across her, obviously so familiar with the ship that they seemed more an extension of her than individuals. That was how a ship should be run, she thought to herself.
Quietly she dismissed her thoughts on how Hawkes ran his boat, and the memories that it tried to stir in her, and began to make her way toward the bow. She could feel the eyes of the crew on her as she walked, but kept her own eyes fixed on the ocean that lay before them. Even with the limp her walk to the bow was as sure footed and direct as any of the crew’s might have been. Growing up she had often wondered how those on land could even walk with such a hard unforgiving surface constantly under their feet, the gentle sway and surge of a boat seemed perfectly natural to her.
At the bow she stood at the railing, letting the spray spatter over her as the Smuggler’s Moon broke the waves.
Hawkes had presented an interesting question to her the day before. Where did she want to go? It was something she had stopped considering over two years ago. Her destiny seemed to be almost completely out of her control, and bobbing along as quietly as she could seemed to be the best way of handling it.
Returning home would seem a reasonable request. Last she had heard the family estate was empty but still owned by one of her brothers. There were also at least two boats that were run by her surviving siblings, and she knew she would be welcome to any of that. She had nieces and nephews she longed to know. Her aunt would be greatly eased if Davian returned home. Familial connections tugged at her heart, but she could not return home. They loved her and that was the problem. Across the world they were the only people she felt safe with, she knew that they would rather die than see her hurt… and too many had already done that. She would never again risk their lives in a selfish attempt to feel safe.
She pressed her fingers to her lips then blew a kiss out over the waves as she recalled all of those she had lost. “Keep them safe…” she whispered.
Freeport would, honestly, make another reasonable option. She could easily find what she needed there to begin a journey of revenge. Starting right there with Vernon Wiles. A deep sigh fell from her though and she sunk a little bit against the railing. Revenge, as reasonable as it might seem, was far from her desires. To begin with she did not have the energy for it. The past few years had drained her. And revenge would not give her what she wanted. It would not bring back those she had lost, it would not erase what was done to her. Instead it would simply create a circle of violence she would be swept into until she died.
All she really wanted was to be left alone, to be safe. Tears again blurring the horizon she looked out over the expanse of blue, searching for some sign of hope along its lines. Perhaps out there somewhere was some small island that she could carve a life on. Laying on the sand, her toes curled in the tide while watching the stars cross the sky without having to worry that another soul would find her would be paradise. Putting that into words, and giving it to a man she barely knew, though, was something she could not yet do.
Captain Jericho Hawkes… there was another interesting topic. She had finished off the last bit of the food he had brought her this morning while flipping through the logs she found in his cabin. The story he had told her about how and why he had taken the Rapier followed what he had penned in the logs. Similar tales were peppered throughout, but it seemed that majority of their jobs coincided with the ship’s name, smuggling.
He seemed to have genuine affection for most of the crew, especially the first mate whom she assumed was the half-orc brute she had seen back on the Rapier. It seemed the two were related, brother’s perhaps… although she shuddered at the thought, knowing all too well how such relations are created.
Dealings with his contacts usually carried less affection and were often guided by a sense of decency that she had not at first expected. A few of the names that appeared in the logs were familiar to her, some to a point that turned her stomach and made her uneasy. Nothing in them suggested that he would be the type to hold her against her will or make some exchange with her as the pawn. Still… there was a first time for everything.
In the end reading over the logs had only upset her. He had penned himself down on those pages and she had found herself wondering if she could trust him. Perhaps finding herself aboard the Smuggler’s Moon was fate finally twisting in her favor.
Her eyes closed tightly as if to bar out those thoughts, for they were dangerous. Instead she forced herself to recall the names in the journals that she knew. Forcing herself to play out scenarios in her mind in which those connections could lead her back to places she wanted to avoid.
“The sooner I can get off of this ship the better…” she finally concluded, opening her eyes to watch the ocean. Eventually the horizon would be broken by the jagged tops of the Serpent’s Teeth and she would be closer to making that happen.
“Or,” suggested a soft but musical voice from behind her, “perhaps the longer you can stay aboard this ship the better, hmm?
Forgive me,” the smiling half-elf said as Davian, apparently surprised that she wasn’t quite as alone with her thoughts as she imagined, turned and blinked at her, “I didn’t mean to startle you… I’m Saercyn… most of this lot, though, just call me Willow… and you must be the one our Captain’s calling Davi…”
Blinking Davian turned quickly to face the voice that called to her, her fingers flinching for a moment toward Jericho's dagger still affixed on her hip. They stopped when her eyes found the rather disarming looking woman before her instead of whatever nightmare she might have imagined briefly. While Willow introduced herself Davian took a moment to regain her composure, but did not return the smile.
"Davi? Rather presumptuous of him I'd say..."
Davian finished turning so that she now leaned back against the bow and spoke while she gathered her hair with her fingers as it whipped into her face with the strong wind.
"Tis a common trait for pirate captains, however..." she did not even try to hide the slight bitterness to her words.
"And no. I should not stay aboard this ship for any longer than I have to. Whatever port we end up after Freeport will be where I get off. Everyone has their price, and I don't intend to stay around long enough to find out what your captain's is..." her voice was steady, but the way she gripped her golden hair and the slight quiver in her eyes betrayed the unease she simply could not shake off.
“Presumptuous,” Willow laughed, “Hmmm, yes, I suppose that would be one word suitable enough for Captain Hawkes… brash, impetuous, rapscallion, haughty, scalawag... These words, too, are fitting, I think,” the bard shrugged her shoulders and the scarlet silk of her blouse rustled with the action, “And, knowing him the way I do, I’d wager he wouldn’t argue a one of them. But pirate… hmmm… Pirate might cause a balk… and some might say that you, Davian, are the presumptuous one to so quickly label him so.”
“Now,” the sandy-haired half-elf continued, holding her hands up to forestall the protests that were surely set to spill from the other woman’s lips, “none of that is to say that you’re entirely incorrect, of course, and, given the circumstances in which you were found, it isn’t an arduous task to see how you may have arrived at your conclusions… I was quick to arrive at the same ones when first I met him, you see?.. but I can assure you, my lady, that your suppositions are farther from truth than fiction.
I’ll say no more about the Captain aside from urging you to get to know him better before you make your judgments,” Willow winked, lifting her fiddle and gesturing to where Hawkes stood on the quarterdeck gazing out over the sea, “Just as I advised him to consider who and what you are before he made his own, hmm?”
Davian lifted her eyes along the line of Willow's gesture and sighed for a moment before again curling her snake coiled arm about herself and turning her eyes away. "No... I'd prefer it if he didn't consider it. As I said, everyone has a price... the more he learns of me the higher that price is likely to go."
Her watery pools slid over to Willow though, "And just what might you know about who and what I am?"
“You’d be surprised, I think… I might know more about who and what you are even better than you do,” Willow answered with a coy wink and then, with another tip of her head toward where Jericho stood by the ship’s wheel, grinning happily as he stared out over the bounding waves ahead, “and I definitely know more than he does…”
The fiddle found its way to it’s inevitable place in the crook of Willow’s slender neck, then, and she offered a knowing smile as the bow met strings, evoking the opening strains of a hauntingly beautiful melody.
“…He thinks, mostly due to his brother’s superstitions,” she murmured over the tune as it grew, “that you’re likely a witch or sorceress… perhaps a priestess of some powerful god… which is why deHertsberghe felt the need to ‘beat you senseless and bind you with spells and charms,’ as he so eloquently put it, until he got you to wherever it was that you were to be sold."
Quickly her eyes shut, temporarily damming the tears that welled up behind the lids. She knew all too well where she was to be sold, and to whom.
"He also figures that the serpent tattoo on your arm has some special meaning… again, in his words, ‘likely some coven mark or sign of her order’…” Willow grinned, then; “So he knows a bit, doesn’t he? But not all, hmm?
He might know more, by now, had you not locked him out of his cabin and kept him from his reading…"
Her eyes still locked shut she murmured, "That was not my intention... just an added benefit I suppose..."
"…he’d have likely found more on The Serpent of the Sea…"
The Serpent of the Sea... The Sssserpent of the Ssseea... My Ssserpent... a familiar voice hissed through her mind when those words dropped so easily off the bards tongue.
"...that could have refined his assumptions and brought him closer to knowing what I know… To knowing what you might know about what you really are… You, Davian Passat, are a Navigator…”
'Navigator' was not a term she had ever had attached to her, but she did find it fitting. Coming from Willow, a woman she had only known for a few moments that was greatly unsettling. The wind hung to the word for a few moments and swirled it around her before finally whipping it off into the distance behind them.
The next moment she had clamped one of her hands over Willow's and the neck of the fiddle as well, silencing those haunting notes as she looked into the bard’s eyes. Behind the washing of tears the blue pools swirled in a way that made Willow think of a cornered animal.
"He knows too much already then. And you are a great danger to me... and everyone else if you share what you think you know. I cannot wait until the next port... as much as I don't want to risk it I'll have to get off at Freeport." These words were spoken more for her own sake than for Willow’s but the next were sharply focused at the other woman. "Please, don't tell him anything else... I beg you."
As if snapped from some sort of trance Willow blinked rapidly when the other woman’s hand closed around her own and abruptly stifled the song she had been playing. That brief flicker of surprise or confusion dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, though, and was replaced once again by her ever-kind and placating smile. “I have told him nothing to this point, Davian,” Willow said softly, lowering the fiddle (along with her hand and Davian’s), “Nor would I ever be so reckless as to reveal secrets of the sort you obviously keep. I am but a shanty singer, a story teller, and a historian, dear girl, not a gossip monger…”
The bard gently slipped loose of the witch’s grasp, then, and glanced back to where Jericho tended the ship’s wheel. “Even if I were,” she continued with a small chuckle, her gaze returning to Davian, “our Captain is quite a bit smarter than he sounds or appears, hmm? He’d not believe a thing to be true simply because I said so. No. Jericho is more the sort to take all that he sees and hears with the proverbial grain of salt and, should he, on his own, find truth in the rumors he’s fed, that truth is seasoned all the better to his liking.
He’ll not be long in figuring it out for himself, at any rate, Davian,” Willow cooed as she lifted the fiddle again, “and, were I you, I might be doing some figuring of my own betwixt now and then.
You say that simply being what you are is a danger to us… and that any of us knowing the truth compounds the danger all the more. I say that the very danger you speak of is all the reason you should need to stay on with Captain Hawkes and the rest of us who call this ship home, milady,” the half-elf’s bow found the fiddle strings once more and, as Saercyn Willow turned and began to saunter away, started coaxing a new tune from the well-worn instrument, “I’m sure, should you take the chance to get to know the man, you’ll find that he’ll be able to keep you safer than any port you may find in the storm of your life…”
Her hands dropped to her sides and an unsaid apology for her brashness slipped into the deep pools of her eyes. Watching the bardess she knew she did not have to speak it, instead she gave her a slight nod before returning her troubled gaze towards the water again.
"You are most cruel at times..." she whispered out over the waters, and then sighed as a moment later the strong gale that had been pushing them towards Freeport lost some of it's strength and the sails overhead fluttered with the change.
"Most cruel..." she repeated as she turned back toward the ship and looked up at Hawkes.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 15:03:22.
|
Topic: Tales from the Smuggler's Moon
Subject: Prologue: The Witch's Wake (pt 4)
Jericho looked back once or twice as he made his way across the waists of the ship toward the forecastle. The first time, he caught Davian’s own eyes following him and, for an instant, considered going back and offering an apology for the rather sharp admonition he’d just given but, catching the wink of moonlight on the tears that seemed to perpetually pool in the girl’s eyes, thought better of it and, just as quickly averted his attentions… He’d had a bit too much to drink for him to have been able to deal with that properly, he figured…
’Specially in her state, aye? Lass’s got nae but storm clouds in her head a’present…
He looked back again when, just before he reached the foredeck, an unexpected gust popped the canvas and, in the wake of a chorus of surprised chirrups from the tops, the Smuggler’s Moon surged forward under the augmented wind…
“Hoooo-Ah! Badessey, ahoy!”
…His gaze had sought out, first, the lads in the tops – ascertaining that they were tending rig and sail as they should and not busying themselves with getting tossed into the brine instead – then dipped to where Epidii manned the wheel to ensure that, like the rest of the crew, the navigator was reacting appropriately to the gust. It was then that his eyes found her again, wrapped in his blanket and borrowed shirt, breezing across the decks as easily as the wind herself strode the skies… she paused, briefly, and said something to Epidii who, after a moment of puzzlement, nodded and returned to his tending of the wheel as Davian whisked off on her way back, Jericho assumed, to his own cabin… He tried not to follow her progress… wanted to look away and dismiss this second coincidence of wind and wave… but, with the moonlight winking stars off of the tears in her eyes and the way her bearing matched the wind, he couldn’t effectively manage either. Instead, Jericho’s gaze stayed locked to the girl and the Serpent of the Sea slithered through his mind even while his feet kept him moving, albeit in a backward fashion, toward the prow until Davian disappeared from sight.
When she, at last, vanished through the hatch and the door shut to the rest of the ship, Jericho’s transfixed stare was finally let loose and, with a smirk and a swig of rum, the privateer captain spun about on his heel and swaggered the remaining distance to the foredeck. “Gen’rosity’ll be me downfall if naught else, Willow,” he snorted to the half-elven lass who was perched on the cat head.
“Troubles with the new passenger, my Captain,” turning her golden, almond-shaped eyes from the horizon and setting them on Jericho, the tawny-haired woman smiled the question.
“Th’ usual, I s’pose,” Jericho shrugged, “Doubt. Distrust… I reckon she think us ta be no more’n pirates.”
Willow nodded. “Mmm, initial reactions shared by most that you take on, indeed, Captain,” she grinned, brushing a wisp of wind tossed hair from her face, “And that reaction from this one troubles you more than usual, does it?”
“I don’t reckon so… least ways it shouldn’t…” His shrug, this time, evoked a scowl, though, because, this time, it did trouble him. “This’n ain’t like most others, though, aye? Most come on an’ keep them sorts o’ things stowed away til they’re proved right er wrong… ye sees it in their eyes, a’first, but ye ne’er hear it from their lips. This Davian Passat, though… She all but said them very words to me face an’ not so much as a flicker o’ gratitude in any of it, aye?”
He took another sip of rum and considered the wash that broke off his ship’s bow for a moment. “How long’d it take fer ye ta fully trust me when t’were you, Will?”
“O’ my Captain,” the half-elf giggled, then, “what ever makes you think that I trust you at all, let alone fully, even now?”
“Mind yer tongue, Saercyn Willow,” Jericho smirked, his eyes glittering as they lifted to regard the snickering bard, “er I’ll be shovin’ ya inta th’ drink along wi’ all yer pretty words.”
“Who, then, would sing these lads of yours into shape should that happen, Jericho Hawkes,” Willow winked, nestling the fiddle she always carried under her chin and coaxing a long, low tone from the strings with a deliberate stroke of the bow, “None with the ease I can muster, I think.”
“Aye,” Jericho agreed with a wink of his own, “why do ye nae stifle yer gobbin’ an’ give us a song, then, shantywench? Somethin’ ta match th’ winds…”
“Only because you asked so nicely,” Willow smiled, pulling another droning note from the fiddle strings, “and, my Captain, because when I do, you’ll be more apt to consider the words you’ve just spoken to me and determine for yourself why this one’s skepticism bothers you so, hmm?”
“Ain’t it always th’ way, though,” Jericho smiled, leaving the bard to coax the crew into song as he moved to the bowsprit to lose himself in the sea ahead while he considered her words and his own… along with the enigma that was Davian Passat…
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 15:01:46.
|
Topic: Tales from the Smuggler's Moon
Subject: Prologue: The Witch's Wake (pt 3)
It was over an hour before the door to the captain’s cabin reopened and the slim apparition slipped out quietly from it to the upper decks. A few feet into the open she stopped and let her eyes take in the sapphire water that surrounded them.
“I’ve missed you…” she whispered softly to it. The salted air picked up briefly and ran it’s fingers through the tangles of her blonde hair, pushing it out of her face that finally showed the slightest sign of a smile upon the lips. It dried her cheeks from the tears she had obviously been shedding, and caressed over her tense body as if to try and relax her. The blanket she had taken from the room fluttered about her. Between the edges anyone who cared to look her way would notice she had traded the tattered remains of her dress for one of the oversized shirts in the captain’s room. On her the sleeves had to be rolled up several inches to let her fingers escape from the cuffs, and the hem dropped easily to her knees. She had cinched it closed with an old belt that had to be knotted instead of buckled to stay on her hips, but it held up the sheathed dagger she had also taken from the room well enough.
For several minutes she simply stood there, watching the little white crests that the wind whipped up on the sea, as one might watch the approach of a lost love.
When she began to move again she did so with a slight limp as she approached the captain. A few feet downwind from him she stopped and placed her hands on the edge of the ship keeping her eyes on the distant blue horizon.
“Davian Passat… and I hope you don’t mind…” she finished by indicating his shirt by touching the buttons near the neck with her fingers.
He had been perched on the bulwarks – one hand curled lazily around a rope that dangled from the rigging much as the other clung to the half-empty rum bottle between his knees – and looking out at the sea, himself, before she approached. He’d heard the cabin door open, of course, and watched her briefly as she padded across the deck and gazed out over the waves. Knowing that look the way he did, though, he forestalled the greeting he had planned and had turned his own eyes away to allow some bit of privacy for the lovers reunion. Only when she, at last, decided to introduce herself did Jericho let his gaze consider the girl again.
“Davian Passat,” he repeated, the syllables drawled out and just the slightest bit slurred as a result of the rum, as his smiling eyes skipped over the waves and settled on her… where her fingers lingered on the buttons at the throat of the shirt she had borrowed… “Pleasure ta make yer acquaintance, Davian Passat,” he grinned, almost chuckling as he swayed in her direction a little, holding himself in check by tightening his grip on the rope, “an’, o’ course I dinnae mind…”
“It seemed better than my dress and as you know I have no other possessions…”
“Aye,” he agreed with a nod, hauling himself back into a more upright position, “tha’ frock o’ yers’d seen a few better days… an’ I b’lieve tha’ blouse looks much better on ye than it does me, eh?” He chuckled again, took another pull from the bottle, and then slid off the bulwarks to plant his feet firmly on the deck. “Ye c’n keep th’ blade, as well,” he said with a smile, turning to lean on the railing and follow her gaze out over the water, “I’m expectin’ nae shenanigans betwixt here an’ the Serpent’s Teeth, but it dinnae hurt ta be pr’pared, does it?”
“He’s dead then,” Davian asked after a moment, “The captain of the Rapier?”
“Cap’n Tasin deHertsberghe,” Jericho nodded, his eyes still skimming the horizon, “Aye. He’s dead.”
“And what of the ship herself? Sunk?”
“Aye,” he confirmed, “likely ta th’ bottom by now, I’d reckon. We took a coupla her cannon, looted her powder and sail, but th’ rest were scuttled.”
Her eyes closed as he confirmed the fate of the Rapier and her crew. Solemnly she dipped her head and brought her left hand to her forehead, creating a line with the inked snake that ran perfectly perpendicular to the horizon, and then began her prayer.
“To those who now rest in Her eternal embrace, do so with tranquility in your hearts, for She shall be your guardian until the end of days. To She who keeps the watered dead, may you be pleased with their sacrifice, and may you be benevolent to those not yet in your keeping.”
With a deep breath she raised her head again, looking out over the ocean as her hand moved down until it curled neatly against her breast.
His gaze turned towards Davian again and he studied her for a long moment… his mouth opened as if to say something but closed just as quickly as he thought better of the words he had in mind… Jericho smirked a little, his gaze swinging back outboard to play over the waves again, and tipped the rum bottle to his lips.
After a moment of contemplation spent on the easily rolling surface of the sea, the corsair looked in Davian’s direction once more. “Been my experi’nce, tha’ when a soul’s found aboard a Mizini ship,” he murmured, “particular when tha’ souls’ in th’ state we found ye ta be in, tha’ poor soul’s likely not bound fer where they’d like ta be. I’ve set me course fer Freeport as she’s the safest harbor fer th’ likes o’ us I c’n fathom but I dinnae reckon tha’ even Freeport’s where ye were bound when ye left wherever ‘tis yer from, is it?”
He smiled a bight brighter as, almost hesitantly, her eyes tore from the horizon and met his. “Where is it tha’ ye fancy ta go, Davian?”
"Believe what you want about where we go when we die Captain Hawkes. But the ocean takes no sides, and She keeps Her dead. We're all bound for the same place…” And I never asked for their deaths... any of them." She finished with a sad heavy sigh.
"As for where I was from..." her eyes ticked to the sea a moment before going back to him, "I was born on the waves and as long as I am still on them I am home. For now it is enough for you to know that. To where I was headed once..." she shrugged lightly, "twas so long ago it no longer matters. Now to where we are headed..." her face pinched slightly and she curled her left arm almost protectively across herself and gripped her upper right arm with her fingers, "I do not wish to go to Freeport. Perhaps that is the safest harbor for you but not for me. I would prefer to never set foot on the bloodied soil of Freeport again. If you are planning on keeping your word, which I still have difficulties believing, I would prefer to stay on board until safe passage aboard another vessel could be arranged for me."
“The bloodied soil o’ Freeport, is it now?” Hawkes’ smile had scarcely diminished as Davian spoke. Even those few instances wherein she paused long enough for him to interject he offered little more than a passing nod, a dubious shrug, or, perhaps, a discerning eye turned to sea, sky, or sail after a tip of the bottle. When she spoke those last words, though, the smile faded into an expression of tight-lipped contemplation and his somewhat narrowed gaze, no longer wandering over the waves, bored into her for a long moment.
“Ye’d pr’fer, per’aps, th’ bloodied soil o’ one o’ them countries onna Continents, then? Er mebbe off ta far-flung Hamunaptra er Tahuantinsuyu, aye? Places where th’ blood’s been spilt fer less an’ fer far longer’n it’s been done a’ Freeport’re more yer fancy, I reckon?”
Her expression set to mirror his own, except that the slight sheen the moonlight cast in her eyes betrayed the unspoken pain beneath her surface.
Jericho shook his head, pushed away from the railing on which he had been leaning, and let go a short, snorting chuckle as he turned an eye skyward and swaggered a few steps toward the Captain’s wheel. “Ye’re more’n welcome ta stay aboard once we port in, lass,” he offered, following his contemplation of the stars and, with an almost languid spinning of the wheel, adjusting the Smuggler’s Moon’s course per their positions, “an’, if’n ye care so, yer welcome ta stay aboard when we, again, leave ‘er in our wake…” his eyes flitted back to her, then, and he offered what might have been interpreted as an indifferent shrug, “…we’ll only be off them ‘bloodied shores’ fer a handful o’ days, I reckon, an’ll be bound fer only th’ gods know where, thereafter, aye? Back onna sea ta be sure, though, lovely, an’ if’n it’s yer will, I’m sure there’d be work ta which yer hands could be put…”
The smile had begun to work it’s way back onto his features by the time the course adjustment had been made but his eyes remained somewhat narrowed as he left the wheel, once more, under the auspices of the Moon’s swarthy-looking navigator. “Believe wha’ ye like about Freeport an’ th’ likes o’ us wha’ call ‘er home, Miss Passat,” he grinned as he passed behind her and took to the short flight of steps leading down to the main deck, “Jus’ th’ one caution, though…"
Davian turned a bit to follow his movements tensing her body with each word that was falling from his lips, until the head of the snake bit hard into the flesh of her other arm.
"We’re not, all o’ us, th’ blood-thirsty, cutthroats an’ brigands ye seem ta think us ta be… E’en th’ darkest corners o’ th’ farthest reaches finds a speck o’ light now an’ again… an’ ta think otherwise’d be a folly hard-forgotten an’ easily lamented, aye?” With that, he flicked the woman a wink and sketched a somewhat exaggerated bow before taking another long swig from the rum-bottle and weaving his way across the deck towards the bow…
His every step was followed by her eyes even as the tears began to roll down her cheeks again. The wind gently caressed over them though and left only salted trails down her face.
"We should not tarry amid these waters... if to Freeport we are destined, then to Freeport..." she seemed to speak to the wind itself. As if in response, it fluttered, the sails above them whipping in its grip for a moment before pulling taunt under a new gale that swept them east.
The next moment she turned back around and looked over at the navigator, who no doubt held a bit tighter to the wheel to keep the ship steady under the sudden strong wind. "Tell your captain it is Mrs. Passat..."
The navigator looked perplexed for a moment, his dark brow furrowing and knitting his wooly white brows together above blinking hazel eyes as they dipped from the lads scurrying about in the rigging up top and fixed on Davian. “Aye, missus,” he nodded after a moment, “I’ll be seein’ he gets th’ message.”
With that said she started back towards the captain's cabin, slipping inside and then propping a chair under the doorknob as soon as it was shut.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 15:00:53.
|
Topic: Tales from the Smuggler's Moon
Subject: Prologue: The Witch's Wake (pt 2)
As Jericho had expected, there were several of the saltier salts on his crew who had been more than a little disappointed that the girl whom their captain had brought up from below decks of the Mizini ‘escort-ship’ wouldn’t be included as or considered with the other plunder that had been taken from the corvette and the larger brig it had supposedly been guarding. When the Smuggler’s Moon was crewed with old hands who knew Jericho Hawkes it didn’t happen as often but, when he had a fresh crew and they took a prize that carried ‘fleshly cargo,’ it seemed that challenges of this sort always went up… and he always responded the same way…
“There’s them folk tha’d see th’ Moon comin’, lads, an’ say ‘there be a privateers boat’… an’ there’d be still others’d piss down their legs an’ cry out; ‘Avast, it’s th’ Smuggl’r’s Moon! Surely there’s nae a soul aboard’s not a cutthroat pirate’… an’ even so, lads, there’d be them’d see our colors flyin’ an’ have even a lesser opinion an’ call ye lot worse’n tha’… but so long as Jericho Hawkes’ captainin’ her, me hearties, ye’ll never hear a right-minded soul call us out as slavers!
Pirates, brigands, freebooters, an’ rogues may we be, boys, but, we’re free men and there’s nae a sliver o’ space on me decks fer a man what fancies ‘imself a flesh peddler. If there’s one o’ them amongst ye, now, ye lot o’ randy bastards, ye can bring yer complaints ta me on yer blade er ye can toss yerself intae th’ drink ere we weigh anchor! Either way, I swear tae ye tha’ ye’ll be chum in th’ end, saavy?”
…There had only ever been a handful of times that the issue had been pressed to Jericho’s promised resolution… never once had that resolution come with a voluntary leap over the gunwales… and, this time, it hadn’t come to that at all. Most of those who had initially supported the challenge were impressed enough by the Captain’s bravado or cowed enough by the remaining crew’s boisterous cheers that they simply let the matter go. There was one lad, though – a young Kizmiri lad named Asim – who still looked baffled by the decision not to sell a slave that would certainly fetch a good price.
“But sir,” Asim called out as Jericho had turned to carry the still unconscious girl to the cabins beneath the quarterdeck, “a girl such as that would easily fetch twenty Lords in the markets Underside. That’s a tidy profit for…”
“There’s nae any profit ta be made from th’ sellin’ o’ others, mate,” Jericho called back without turning to look at the lad, “only mis’ry an’ sorrow. If it’s th’ gold’s worth yer wantin’, I’ll buy drinks ta th’ sum o’ twenty Lords once we’re harbored off A’Val, but none o’ ye swabs’re ta touch th’ girl…”
The roar that rose from the deck, then, gave Jericho leave to continue on to his cabin unchallenged and the flurry of activity inspired by the promised liberty in Freeport left him with no doubt that he’d have to worry about delays in getting underway.
~*~*~*~
It had been several hours since Jericho had retired to his cabin and, after cleaning and covering the girl as best he could given her state, set her to rest on a cushion strewn divan. Other than to wash the layer of sweat, blood, and grime from the unconscious girl before he covered her in a warm blanket, though, he kept the same promise he’d demanded from his crew and touched her with neither inappropriate hands nor untoward eyes. Well… other than to make a closer inspection of the serpentine tattoo that snaked along the length of her left arm, that is… He’d first noticed the intricate design when he’d discovered her hanging in that tiny cabin aboard the Rapier and, even then, had found it curiously familiar – like something he knew he’d seen before and should know what it symbolized. That up close study hadn’t provided any more clarity, though, and, after a short while, he forced himself to abandon the appraisal of her inked skin and, instead, seek out his answers in the pages of the myriad tomes, journals, and scrolls in his collection. He was well into a bottle of black rum, half through a pipe-full of sweet-smelling snakeweed, and long into his research when the girl finally began to stir.
Her ascent into wakefulness was precipitated by a faint groan and a rustling of blankets as she moved beneath them that drew Jericho’s gaze across the room. Clenching the stem of the pipe between his teeth, the privateer laid a ribbon across the page he had been poring over before she had begun to stir – tapping the cryptic reference to “the serpent of the sea” with a finger – and closed the cover before turning his smiling eyes expectantly back to the awakening lass…
Across the room she woke up slowly, but kept her eyes closed. A familiar sensation gently rocked her to and fro; she was on a boat, headed in an easterly direction with the wind to their backs. It was a comforting feeling and she wanted to hold onto it as long as she could. Little comfort had come to her in the past few years and what had come her way she had learned to cherish.
As long as she kept her eyes closed she could imagine she was back on the Bountiful. Darenic guiding them through the clear waters and Hawthorne watching her sleep. It was a lovely dream. A small covered cough from across the room shattered it though. With a heavy sigh she let her eyes open to inspect the cabin she was in, after a brief inspection of the room she settled her eyes on the pirate sitting nearby.
The young woman held back the tears that welled up over the pale blue pools of her eyes as she looked at him and tried to determine if he was her savior or her captor.
“What now?” she asked in a quiet voice and waited for him to explain his intentions to her.
Jericho grinned at her from behind a curl of blue-gray smoke that danced in the lantern light and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Well, luv,” he said, “whatever it may be, now, sure there’s nae need fer tears, aye?”
Carefully she watched him as he spoke to her, but his words did not seem to stop the threat of tears. “That has yet to be seen…” she whispered softly but let him go on.
“I’d thought intr’ductions’d be in order but, as ye seem ta have concerns more pressin’… We’re bound east fer th’ Serpent’s Teeth an’, gods an’ fortune favorin’ us as they seem ta be, should drop anchor at Freeport in four days.”
Her breath caught at that but she held his gaze and her tongue.
“I’ll be lettin’ the crew ashore, then, an’ givin’ ‘em their leave ta blow off steam. I reckon if it’s yer inclination ta take yer leave o’ us there, lovely, tha’ll be yer choice…”
The breath that had caught over Freeport poured from her lungs suddenly as her eyes glistened with tears about to be shed in obvious relief. The potential freedom he dangled before her had caught her off guard and for a moment she sat vulnerable before him.
“Til then, I fear, yer stuck aboard th’ Smuggler’s Moon wi’ me an’ mine…”
His cinnamon eyes sparkled in the lantern-light as he flicked her a wink before tipping the bottle to his lips and indulging in another swallow. “…Tis nae a horrible proposition, I hope, considerin’ wha’ ye’ve just come from, aye,” Jericho shrugged, the charming smile returning to his lips as he set the bottle aside on a table strewn with maps and journals and tomes of all sorts, “If nothin’ else, luv, ye’ll be treated a far sight better by me an’ mine than ye were by them Mizini curs.”
The relief had begun to fade almost as quickly as it had come over her. Rational thought, prodded by experiences past, forced her to examine the carrot he held before her carefully.
“Now, if’n ye were wonderin’ ‘bout a more immediate ‘what now,’” he chuckled, “I s’pose that ye’ve got yer restin’ outta th’ way an’ are likely hungry, aye?” He gestured to where a tray covered with a silver lid waited for her on one corner of the table; “It’s nae much but salt pork an’ oranges, a bit of bread, an’ a ladleful o’ stew what Cooky made, I’m afraid, but better’n wha’ ye’ve been fed o’ late, I’ll wager…”
Instead of reaching for the food he offered she kept her eyes trained on his, seeming to search decipher his words, and perhaps more importantly his soul.
“You’ll have to forgive me if I do not seem overly grateful to you for ‘rescuing’ me. I do not trust you.
I gather you overtook the Rapier because you were expecting some great treasure to be aboard her. You seem intelligent enough to have figured out you now hold that treasure…”
Carefully she shifted on the pillows, pulling the blanket over herself a bit more and then neatly folding her battered arms across her lap, her left hand laying over her right so the snake’s head pointed directly at him. As she did she noted the way his eyes flickered toward the tattoo. With a slight nod to herself she continued.
“You might not have yet calculated the exact worth of this treasure… but you will. And being the type of man you no doubt are…” she shook her head as a tear slid down her cheek, “you won’t just let me go. So far you appear to be civil enough, however. And as I gather you have at least some inclination as to what you have before you I can expect that the food will not be poisoned, at least not yet.”
Now the head of the snake rose and lifted the lid off the tray of food while her right hand ducked underneath and took out a few bits of the pork and bread.
“I will not be trouble as long as the civil treatment continues. I need the rest so I can better face whatever lays ahead for me at Freeport. I only ask out of courtesy that you at least inform me of your true intentions when we arrive.” Her own pair of watery pools were no longer able to keep his gaze in hers and so she dropped them to the morsels of food she held in her hands. Despite the churning in her stomach she could not bring herself to eat them though and instead stared at them as her tears began to fall and further salt the pork.
Jericho reclined somewhat in his seat and, puffing casually on his pipe, continued to smile as the girl spoke but didn’t bother to interject right away. When she spoke of her distrust despite having been liberated from the hands of the Rapier’s Master, the privateer’s smile broadened just a fraction and he offered a faint nod that seemed to indicate his understanding of that particular brand of skepticism. When she guessed (with more than a small amount of accuracy) at the events and circumstances that had set him on the hunt of the Rapier, Jericho arched a brow, impressed with her insight, but, also, offered a slight shrug that might’ve said ‘Aye, tha’d be a part o’ it, I reckon, but far from all’ had he bothered to speak the thought…
C’n she be readin’ wha’s in me head? he couldn’t help but wonder as his eyes flicked, for an instant, to where the head of the serpent tattoo rested on the back of her hand.
… Instead, though, he imparted only that faint change of expression and subtle lifting of shoulders as his reaction. He continued smiling and puffed once more on the pipe as his eyes lifted back to capture hers again. Jericho’s gaze hadn’t been away from her face long enough, though, for him to have missed the scant nod that the girl let slip, as if his glance at that serpent’s head had somehow validated that her professed mistrust wasn’t misplaced, and this urged him, at last, to set the pipe aside and lean forward.
When the words ‘being the type of man you no doubt are’ passed her lips and one of the tears that had been welling in her blue-as-the-sea eyes broke through her lashes and rolled down her cheek, Jericho’s smile began to wane and his eyes narrowed a bit. His brow lifted again but, without the smile behind it, the expression seemed more querulous than quizzical. He had leaned far enough forward, now, to rest his elbows on his knees, and, as the poor lass continued with her assumptions in regards to his character and intentions, he found himself lacing his fingers together and pressing the knuckles to his chin in order to keep his mouth from opening… A bit of the sparkle was gone from his eyes and the corsair’s smile melted further and further into a scowl as she continued on… the food will not be poisoned, at least not yet… as long as the civil treatment continues… so I can better face whatever lays ahead for me at Freeport… His head, which had until now been canted curiously to one side as he studied her, shook slowly from side to side as the girl’s eyes broke away from his and the tears she had been valiantly holding at bay finally won out.
“…I only ask out of courtesy that you at least inform me of your true intentions when we arrive,” her voice waivered a bit as her tears fell on the few morsels of food she held in her hand.
The heavy sigh that escaped his lips, then, blew across his knuckles before they fell away as he rose to his feet. “There’s a bit o’ wha’ yer sayin’s true, lovely,” he said after a moment, his gaze flicking to the pile of books he had been poring over before she woke, “I set upon th’ Rapier much fer th’ reasons ye say… missed th’ bounty Rheobryn put on yer once an’ former cap’n’s head, ye did, but… aye, I’d heard there were a prize what defied price onnat float.” His hand lifted and his fingers ran over his beard in thought as his eyes flitted back in her direction; “An’, yes, lass; once I seen there weren’t much else aboard, I come ta figger t’wasn’t quite th’ treasure I were expectin’, aye?
All o’ tha’, lovely, ye’ve got pegged,” he produced a kerchief from beneath his belt, then, and, taking a step or two closer to the crying girl, offered it over to her, “but yer a fair sight off in wha’ ye’ve got goin’ on in yer head where me an’ me intentions’re concerned.
I cannae profess ta know where ye’ve been er wha’ ye’ve seen, lass,” Jericho said, letting go of the kerchief as she slowly pulled it from his hand, “nor can I know wha’ become o’ ye an’ at who’s hands ye may’ve suffered. I reckon tha’s enough ta justify yer lack o’ trust, aye… If’n a soul’s known nothin’ but torment it comes ta expects torment as th’ day-ta-day… There’s plenty o’ salts wha’ sail these waters as it’d be easy ta reckon, after a time, tha’ one’s not much unlike t’other in them cases, so I’ll nae take offense ta yer presumptions.
I will tell ye, though, lovely,” he said, the smile slowly returning to his lips and the sparkle to his eye, “tha’ my true intentions fer ye once we’ve made Freeport’ve already been said…” He reached for the bottle of rum he’d set aside and tipped it to his lips before turning for the door… “I aim ta let ye decide what ye wanna do fer yerself, aye? True, I also figger on findin’ out a wee bit more bout wha’ makes ye such a treasure… beyond th’ obvious, o’ course…” He winked as he opened the hatch and backed out of the cabin… “but t’ain’t me way ta take an’ make slaves o’ no one.
I’m Cap’n Jericho Hawkes, by th’ way,” he grinned before turning and striding away, “Once ye get yer belly full, lass, I’ll be up onna quarterdeck if’n ye feel much like intr’ducin’ yerself… er maybe just seein’ the sky’s more yer fancy?”
She had taken the handkerchief and dabbed at her dampened cheeks while he spoke, but she had not once raised her eyes to look at him nor had she dared to let even a single word pass her lips as he spoke.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 14:59:55.
|
Topic: Tales from the Smuggler's Moon
Subject: Prologue: The Witch's Wake (pt 1)
No one had bothered to lock the door, but the runes hastily scrawled on it in blue chalk suggested that there was something of note waiting beyond it. He slowly opened it, holding his breath and his weapon ready for whatever the runes were protecting or hiding. Nothing attacked, however, and instead he was greeted with a small dimly lit room. A few blinks helped his eyes adjust to the light and at once he regretted opening the door.
Veiled in the faded light the figure of a girl was pressed against the wall opposite him. Her delicate wrists were bound in iron cuffs attached by chains to the ceiling, so her hands hung limply just above her head. The line of her body, scarcely covered in a dirty gown, wandered to the floor where she kneeled, the strength to stand obviously missing and the ability to lie down prohibited by the chains. Her knees settled over a large circular rune also drawn in blue chalk that covered most of the floor. The dark stains blotting her pale skin with harsh bruises and splashes of blood spoke of her treatment. As the door opened she had not lifted her head, strings of once blonde hair covered whatever damage had been done to it.
“Please… no more…” her tiny voice whispered as he took in the sight before him.
“Aye,” the corsair answered his tone as soft as the captive woman’s as he blinked against the gloom, “there’ll be no more, lass. I’ll promise ye that much…”
The pistol carried in his left hand was tucked into the sash at his waist, then, as his dark eyes tore away from the pitiful creature shackled there and, once more, pondered the blue-chalk runes that festooned the hatch, bulkheads, and deck of this tiny cabin before committing himself to breeching the doorway. Jericho Hawkes was no magician, nor did he pretend to understand the complexities of how magic worked. He did know, from more than one personal experience, that magic was dangerous and the signs and symbols that witches and warlocks utilized in the workings of their spells were not to be taken lightly even when they were naught but roughly scribed swirls of chalk.
“Khash!” he called along the corridor before stepping over the threshold, at last, and cautiously approaching the captive girl, “Fetch us a blanket an’ a spot o’ water, mate! An’ make it quick, aye?”
“Aye, Cap’n,” a deep, gravelly voice replied from some short distance away. The response was followed by the sound of heavy footsteps pounding the deck-boards and, then, a crash and clatter as Jericho’s hulking First Mate pillaged a neighboring cabin in search of the requested items; “Whutcha find?”
“Not what I were expectin’,” the corsair murmured, stopping just before the toe of his boot crossed the barrier of blue chalk that encircled the girl. His cinnamon colored eyes flitted up to where the chains that bound her were tethered to a sturdy beam, then followed the links of those chains back down to where the dark irons were clamped around raw and frail wrists, “not what I were expectin’ at all…”
His gaze moved from the manacles, then, and tried to catch glimpse the girl’s face behind the tendrils of dirty and matted hair that veiled it. The girl didn’t move, though… not so much as an effort to raise her head and look to see who it was that had come through the door… in fact, if Jericho hadn’t have heard her speak with his own ears, he might have thought, given a glance in passing, that she was dead where she hanged. “An’ I reckon this i’nae th’ place ye’d imagined ye’d be findin’ yerself, either, is it, lovely,” he whispered to the girl as, at last, he sheathed the blade he carried in his right hand and let his eyes fall to study the blue circle at his feet. “Jus’ a moment more, lass,” he told her then, “an’ we’ll have ye free, aye?”
“Whutcha say, Jarek,” Khash asked, turning sideways so as to fit his shoulders through the smallish door of the cabin, “I din’t heard ya… oh… et’s a gurl…”
“Aye,” Jericho nodded, turning to look at the dreadlocked half-orc who now stood behind him… he gestured at the runes inscribed about the place and offered a knowing wink as he took the waterskin that Khash had brought; “an’ more’n jus’ a girl, I’d wager, given all o’ this, eh?”
“Aye,” Khash growled, his black eyes narrowing suspiciously, almost nervously, as the Captain pointed out the magic symbols he had, at first, missed. “Ya reckon she’s da treasure whut da Sea Lord were talkin’ bout? Dere wasn’t nuffin’ on da brig whut coulda beed called treasure, I says… Jus’ some powder an’ guns’s about alls we’re ta get off’n dat, I’m ‘fraid… an’ dere ain’t much more ‘board dis’n but whut da crew mighta called pers’nals…”
Jericho nodded – the half-orc’s appraisal of the situation was very close to his own – but said nothing in reply as his attentions were fixed on using the contents of the waterskin to wash away a portion of the chalk-etched circle that surrounded the wretched girl and, as his free hand clutched at the turtle-shell pendant that hung about his neck, his lips silently formed the words of protection that should keep him safe if he made a mistake in dispelling the ward.
"They're for me... removing them won't hurt you. But I make no promises as to what this 'treasure' will do without them..." she whispered as she slowly raised her battered face and brought a pair of watery blue eyes to Jericho's.
Jericho’s lips abruptly stopped dancing over the incantation and curled into a roguish smile as his gaze sank into the liquid depths of the eyes the girl had just lifted to his, but his hand didn’t move from the tiny, painted turtle shell. “Now, now, lovely,” the corsair purred, “no need in makin’ threats ta th’ man’s about ta set ye free, is there?”
He set the waterskin aside, then, and without taking his eyes from those of the beleaguered girl, dragged his fingertips through the water and chalk to break the circle. That same hand lifted, then, and the tips of his fingers dipped under the edge of the black bandana tied about his head. “I’ll nae ask any promises o’ ye, lass,” he cooed, still smiling as he pulled a set of picks from amidst the braided and beaded tendrils of his khave-colored hair, “fer anythin’ other’n nae meltin’ me ta a puddle once yer free, aye?”
No further words passed her broken lips. Instead she pressed them tightly together as she took deep breaths through her nose, each one threatening to end in a cough that she managed to keep in her chest somehow. As the deeply intense pools that swirled in her eyes watched him approach the rest of her body tensed causing the serpent inked around the slender line of her left arm to almost shudder in anticipation.
“Aye,” Jericho grinned, “I’ll be takin’ tha’ as a yes, then…” He let go of the turtle shell pendant, at this point, and with both hands, reached for the manacles that fettered the girl’s wrists.
“Cap’n,” Khash rumbled from behind him, sounding a bit skeptical as to the actions Jericho was about to take, “I dunno dat ya should be doin’ wut yer tinkin’… Dese magicks is trouble an’…”
“Belay tha’ drek, Khash-mate,” the corsair captain interrupted, still keeping his eyes on the girl. “These magics’re nae any trouble at all, are they, lovely,” he winked at the girl as he worked at her bonds with the picks, “an’, soon enough, we’ll be settin’ ‘em in our wake an’ all th’ better fer it, aye?”
He felt the lock spring free, then, and the cruel, iron bonds gave way of some of their bite. “Now,” he said over his shoulder as he secreted the lockpicks away in his bandana again and used his other hand to fully open the restraints, “give us over tha’ blanket, lad. This young lady’s seen her enough o’ th’ chill, I reckon, an’ she’ll nae wanna be goin’ topside wit’ naught more’n this scrap o’ a dress she’s wearin’, will she?”
Finally freed of the binds she sunk down to the floor and curled her damaged wrists onto her lap. Her blue eyes closed and she simply sat there, waiting.
Despite the cautions alluded to by the runes and the warning uttered by the girl, herself, Jericho wasn’t sure that he’d been expecting much more from her than this. Nevertheless, it took him a moment longer to react to her circumstances that it might have had she been any other woman… He watched her for a moment, instead, crumpled there on the floor with her injured wrists cradled in her lap, and waited for her to make good on the threats leveled, first, by the arcane scrawlings about the cabin and, then, whispered past her own lips…
“Jarek?”
“Aye?”
“She’s not gon’ turn us ta frogs is she?”
The privateer blinked, at last, and there was a mirthful glimmer in his eyes as he managed to tear them away from the tattered lass and cast a glance back at Khash. “‘Twould appear not, mate,” he grinned, winking at the big half-orc before returning his gaze to the crumpled blonde and crouching down before her, “An’ I don’ reckon she’ll be havin’ any such inclination ‘s long ‘s we treats ‘er proper, will she, lovely?”
The girl had listened but not reacted to what was going on around her until the pirate bent down to her level. She had been through this before and had learned that the more she reacted and the more she said the worse it usually got. The pirate waivered before her vision and she slowly shook her head as she drew her tongue over her parched swollen lips.
"Thirsty..." she whispered and felt the first pricks of unconsciousness work into her.
“Aye,” Jericho said softly, still smiling as he shook out the blanket his first mate had brought and draped it gingerly around the girl’s shoulders, “I reckon so, lass…” He made sure not to touch her as his fingers let go of the blanket and reached for the half-full waterskin he had set aside a moment ago… “Here ye be, then,” he continued after unstoppering the thing and offering it to her.
The extent of the pitiful girl’s torture became all the more obvious as, when they reached for the waterskin, her arms moved as if they were made of lead and her slender fingers trembled as they tried to take hold of the thing and tip it to her cracked lips. Jericho’s smile faded just a bit and there was some bit of disgust comingled with pity in the faint shake of his head just then. “Slow a’ first, aye, lovely,” he urged, tipping the waterskin to her cracked lips, himself, and allowing her hands the rest they deserved, “We’ll nae want ta have freed ye jus’ ta watch ye choke, will we?”
She did seem to choke down the first few swallows, of course – it was only to be expected that the power of her thirst would overwhelm her sense when the first drops hit her lips after so long – but, at his urging, the girl managed to slow her gulps, and, after a moment, actually swallowed more water than spilled uselessly down her chin. He let her drink her fill, of course, which left scarcely a drop left in the once-full skin, and, once her thirst was slaked, withdrew the waterskin and handed it behind him to the looming Khash.
The corsair stayed crouched before her for a long moment, simply watching and waiting as, he thought, he was allowing her time to gather her strength. He hadn’t waited overlong, though, when he cocked his head to one side and asked; “Can ye stand, lass? It’s been a while since yer legs been under ye fer standin’, I reckon, but, if ye can, now’s likely th’ time ta do so. We’ll nae be wantin’ ta linger aboard this scow much longer…” Almost tentatively he reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder, not quite giving enough pressure to his touch to indicate that he was about to haul her to her feet but, with the placement of his hand, gave enough of an indication that he was here to help her up should she require it. “Come along, now, lovely,” he cooed, “let’s be off and get ye ta rest, then…”
The water had helped stave off the prickles of darkness. However, now that the moment had come that she was expected to get to her feet and go with this pirate they began to return. Closing her eyes and trying to will herself to stay strong she slowly began to rise from the chalked floor. She rose nearly to her full height before the tides overtook her. As her delicate frame loosened with the faint the ship they were on shuddered slightly as the ocean around it rippled for a moment before falling into a quiet calm.
It happened so quickly that Jericho wasn’t entirely sure that his stumbling toward and catching the toppling girl in his arms was a reaction to her fainting or, rather, if it might have been resultant of the sudden turmoil of the sea that the captured vessel seemed to find itself in just as she succumbed to unconsciousness. Either way, whether from instinct and foresight or from pure coincidence and luck, he did manage to capture the beset lass in his embrace before her head met the deckboards and, also – whether by luck or skill equally in question – managed to keep his own feet under him as the Mizini corvette bucked crazily for no longer than it took to draw an apprehensive breath…
“Kraken!” Khash bellowed, his ham-sized hands crushing dimples into the wood of the doorway as the half-orc’s fingers sought purchase there in hopes of remaining upright himself.
…Jericho held that breath for a moment – listening to the short burst of surprised shouts up top and waiting for the waters to actually heave and toss as the demon kraken they all expected shot it’s tentacles through the surface and brought them to bear against flesh and timber alike. That breath finally escaped in the form of a dismissive chuckle, though, and the corsair hoisted the unconscious girl more securely into his arms and let himself rock away from the bulkhead where he had braced himself. “I’m nae inclined ta think so, Khash,” he said, flicking his first mate a confident wink before letting his eyes fall to the girl’s face, “she’d’ve had us all b’now if ‘twere, aye?
Per’aps a whale er some such gived us a nudge, mate,” he rationalized, shaking a spill of beaded locks over his shoulder as he carried the girl toward the hatch that Khash was now backing out of, “but ‘tweren’t no kraken… Either way, lad, the sea’s tellin’ us it’s time ta be goin’.”
“We takin’ her ta Rheobryn?”
“Nay, lad,” Jericho answered as he sidled past Khash’s bulk and made way along the corridor, “Rheobryn’s paid us fer scuttlin’ this Mizini tub an’ that’s what he’s gettin’ fer th’ price… this here ain’t th’ type o’ spoils I’d be givin’ th’ likes o’ him, anyway… not fer twice or three times th’ purse, saavy?”
The half-orc’s eyes dipped for a moment, as if he were ashamed to have to have been reminded of that. “Aye, Jarek. Saavy, mate.”
“An’ I knew ye’d be so,” Jericho replied, “Chin up, mate. Twas a fair question… an’ ye’ll not be th’ first o’ the crew ta ask…”
“Aye,” Khash grumbled, cracking a tusky smile and falling into stride behind the captain, “Ye’ll be bunkin’ ‘er in yer quarters, den, will ye?”
“Aye… unless ye think she’d prefer yers…”
“Don’ tink so, Cap’n.” Khash snorted out a laugh. “So, if we’re not gonn’ give ‘er ta Rheobryn, wut we gonn’ do wif ‘er den?”
“Not rightly sure, brother,” Jericho shrugged as he stepped onto the maindeck of the Mizini escort ship, “I reckon that’ll come down ta what she’ll be wantin’ once she comes ‘round, aye?
Fer th’ time bein’, though, what say we set course fer the Serpent’s Teeth an’ figger our way from there?”
“Freeport?”
“Aye. Freeport. What better place?”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n… No better place wut I c’n tink of…”
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 14:58:34.
|
Topic: Tales from the Smuggler's Moon
Subject: Tales from the Smuggler's Moon
((This is the game thread for the sea and sail adventures of the crew of the Smuggler's Moon... Being as this tale involves pirates and the like it should be assumed that the content, here, is intended for "mature audiences"... You know, blood, guts, harsh language, salty innuendo, wenches, etc.))
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 14:57:11.
Edited on 2011-09-09 at 15:40:23 by Eol Fefalas
|
Topic: Good morning Red Dragon Inn! Or is it Evening? I am never really sure!
Subject: I did that...
...just to lure you in, Meri!
I'm devious like that.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 14:01:47.
|
Topic: Last one to post wins - Part II
Subject: And it'll work too...
*nodnodnods*
Meri wins.
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 13:25:16.
|
Topic: Good morning Red Dragon Inn! Or is it Evening? I am never really sure!
Subject: Avast, Friday!!! Weekend, ahoy!
Reef the sails and scuttle the work-week, maties! We be droppin' anchor in ta th' bonney-blue lagoon o' the weekend!
Put ashore, me hearties, and break out th' rum, aye?
Posted on 2011-08-26 at 13:04:35.
|
Topic: Render Swiftblade: The beginning
Subject: LOL @ punctuation mine-field
Good stuff, Haru... I liked it and, other than that "minefield" you mentioned (oh... and that paupers is spelled with a "u"), think that it's very readable. *nods*
So readable, in fact, that you might even want to flesh out what you've already got posted up there... throw in some more details about Render's life in the orphanage, how he ended up "on the streets," and such... *shrugs* ...make it more "personal" as well as "statistical," you know?
Good stuff, though... 
Posted on 2011-08-25 at 14:22:38.
|
Topic: Star Wars Dnd
Subject: Ah... Star Wars...
There have been quite a few Star Wars games run on these boards in the past, Grim...
In fact, if I remember correctly, the very first rules based game I played in here at the Inn was a SW game run by Grey Sorcerer... "Legend of the Dark Jedi", I think... Fun stuff... Obsidia Dern still gives me the  ... And then there was "Tides of Fate" - got to actually play a jedi in that one... wouldn't mind resurrecting that character, either, now that I think of it...
Anyway, I ramble... Hang tight, Grim, another SW RPG might be coming along before you know it.
Posted on 2011-08-25 at 13:58:31.
Edited on 2011-08-25 at 14:01:46 by Eol Fefalas
|
Topic: Chronicles Role-Playing System
Subject: That...is...
...just entirely too cool!
Posted on 2011-08-25 at 13:50:26.
|
Topic: Good morning Red Dragon Inn! Or is it Evening? I am never really sure!
Subject: Now you've done it! Happy Thursday Serenade!!!
Good mornin',
Good mornin'!
We've talked the whole night through,
Good mornin'
Good mornin' to you.
Good mornin', good mornin'!
It's great to stay up late,
Good mornin', good mornin' to you.
When the band began to play
The sun was shinin' bright.
Now the milkman's on his way,
It's too late to say goodnight.
So, good mornin', good mornin'!
Sunbeams will soon smile through,
Good mornin', good mornin', to you,
And you, and you, and you!
Good morning,
Good morning,
We've gabbed the whole night through.
Good morning, good morning to you.
Nothin' could be grander than to be in Louisiana
In the morning,
In the morning,
It's great to stay up late!
Good mornin',
Good mornin' to you.
It might be just a zippy
If you was in Mississipi!
When we left the movie show
The future wasn't bright
But tame is gone
The show goes on
And I don't wanna say good night
So say, Good Mornin'!
Good Mornin'!
Rainbow is shining through
Good Mornin'!
Good Mornin'!
Bon Jour!
Bon Jour!
Buenos Dias!
Buenos Dias!
Buon Giorno!
Buon Giorno!
Guten Morgen!
Guten Morgen!
Good morning to you.
Waka laka laka wa
Waka laka laka wa...
Ole, toro, Bravo!
Posted on 2011-08-25 at 13:27:18.
|
Topic: Red Dragon Inn Facebook page?
Subject: Yes it is!
You should stop by, join up, and introduce yourself. 
Now, that said.... TASTE THE RAINBOW!!!
*ka-jingle-pounce.... faaaaaceliiiiick!*
Posted on 2011-08-25 at 13:24:56.
|
Topic: Won't be very active...
Subject: Seeee?
I told so, didn't I?
Trust the Eol... the Eol is good... the Eol is wise... He's a wee bit nuts and he talks about himself in the third-person on occasion... and I'm pretty sure he just facelicked death... but...
Yeah... okay... maybe Eol's not exactly wise... but he do be knowin' some stuff.
In all seriousness, though... Glad to hear all went well for the boyfriend. Congrats to the both of you.
E.
Posted on 2011-08-24 at 19:43:37.
Edited on 2011-08-24 at 19:44:12 by Eol Fefalas
|
Topic: The Grim Reaper
Subject: Whaiaiaiaiaiai-Yah!!!
*ka-bounce-ka-pounce-ka-scrunchity-bunchity-tumble-roll*
Take that, Caped Crusader! Who's the baddest in Gotham, now, huh?!?! I totally just... *blink-blink-blink*
Heeeeyyyy... you ain't Batman... 
Sorry 'bout that Grim... It's the robey/capey thing, I guess.
As I said this morning, welcome aboard... and hey, thanks for the coffee! +2
Posted on 2011-08-24 at 19:37:37.
Edited on 2011-08-24 at 19:38:09 by Eol Fefalas
|
| |
View/Edit Your Profile | Staff List | Contact Us
Use of the RDINN forums or chatrooms constitutes agreement with our Terms of Service.You must enable cookies and javascript to use all features of this site.
|
|
What game do you own the 
Return to Charadun - Q&A
The Morphing Game
Return to Charadun - Recr
