Strange Tides

People did not like talking about monsters, Semni thought as she looked down on the small collection of Earth Folk stilt houses after a long day of trekking through hills. Or to be more precise, people didn't much like talking about monsters close at hand. They would fill your head with stories of dragons that dwell beyond the setting sun, or winged lions in the hot lands where summer never died, but the story of an ill-omened barrow over the next hill where children had gone missing, that they would speak sparingly of from sorrow and from fear that the darkness might hear them.

Alas that she wasn't here to hear just that sort of tale, all too often guarded as tightly as sheep from a wolf's gaze. It was needful to her new home and to her children, as much as water and food, as much a firewood to warm themselves through the winter. Only the greatest of fools let a god's charge stay idle, and to conquer a place one first had to know it from those who lived in its shadow.


Though it was too dark to see the shadow of the mountain by the sliver of the waning moon, it still loomed over the gathering, a presence unseen but felt, not cold darkness but hot somehow stifling murk. Twas so amid the leaping firelight and many cups of wine that the elder of the tribe told at last the tale of the Hollow Men of the Mountain, the Forsworn.

In the time before time when the gods of the Earth Folk had not settled these lands, ere Gradivus taught men to reap grain, there lived in these lands a people old as the hills. Some say they sprang from the rocks themselves, birthed by the mountain's rumbling, for they were fearless of its moods and loved it for its fierceness. Dark were their blades and sharper than the finest bronze, and dark their hearts also.

Each decade at the height of midsummer they would cast a pair of high blood, one man and one woman, into the flames to serve the mountain gods in their smoky homes. And so it was for many turnings of the heavens as the Men of the Mountain made peace and war among themselves in their own savage fashion, until that is the first Earth Folk came into the land. Proud and fierce were they bearers of bronze and great might, but not yet so mighty that they could not fall to trickery among the hills.

So it was that Arso, king of three tribes, was cornered and caught, and the Mountain men quarreled what to do with him. Some said kill him and take his bright axe, others said to burn him and cast his ashes to the gods for this drawing of other metals from the belly of the earth offended the gods. But Arso was wise in more than gold, and he said to the chief among his raiders that if he were let go he would offer up onto the his very own daughter to wed, and of such beauty was she that even in the deep woods she had been spoken of. Thus it was done a wedding under the gaze of the sky, but then the girl passed under the shadow of the mountain and from there she did not return.

After she had borne three strong sons unto her husband it came due that a sacrifice must be made, and so her beauty was her curse as was her husband's cleverness for said the Men of the Mountains: 'What servant more beautiful than she for the gods to have?' and 'What man more canny to speak for us to the gods than he who trapped Arso?'

On hearing of his daughter's slaying for no crime or fault but for the whim of black-hearted gods, Arso made war on the Men of the Mountains and hunted them through the hills, and he said onto them: 'For each of the seven years my daughter walked among you, I will make thralls of your kindred hundredfold .'

Righteous was his fury and mighty his purpose, for at the last the Mountain Men were driven to the very slopes of their place of fire and torment and such was their fear that the last of them cast themselves into the flames.

In choking ash were they shrouded, stealing the breath from all who draw close, and the first to fall to their hateful kiss was Arso himself. They say twas his daughter who slew him, driven to madness by the Dark Below, and from that day only the foolish draw near the sleeping fire mount. The fires wane, the old gods voices fall to whispers, yet still there wait the ashen dead.


Something of the tale's end felt strange and ill-fitting to Semni ever as she rose from her seat. Why would the woman fight besides those who had tricked and murdered her? Why had not her own gods taken back her spirit? Might she not have been content? Semni thought but did not say. The greatest sacrifices were those given willingly... If that had been so, then what a bitter waste it all would have been. To have a father who would raise a kingdom for you... a husband you would jump into the flames besides.

Supplies: 19 (Stocks) +2 (Herds) -17 (Upkeep) = 4

Wealth: 16 (Stocks) + 2 (Trade) +8 (industry) -7 (Upkeep) = 19

As she returned to Hyphyria to find the city weathering the winter well but fearful, Semni learned that Argurios was late in his roaming, and she knew not what to feel of it.

OOC: You guys got a good success on legends. It's either fey or the living dead if you want a volcano.