On Common Ground
Twenty Fifth Day of Ashinu-hamba (Ashinu Descendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
Even for a short stay there is much bustle and jostle of loading and unloading, fresh water taken on from the creek upstream of its mouth where it isn't brackish, supplies of firewood laid down when you left checked over and made use of. Most of your men stay well clear of the whole thing, needing some 'gentle encouragement' from Tom to get on to helping the sailors, but Wanderer shoulders the burden without complaint, almost without a word.
He keeps to himself, Tom had told you. Not that he caused any trouble, but the wariness of those first days, when the rest of your company had only seen the young hunter more as the enemy he was and not the oathsworn comrade he had chosen to be, had turned into a sort of quiet distance, enforced as much by himself as by the others. On the crowded deck he is given twice as much room as any other man and at feasting or drinking he spends more time with 'his folk'; Watcher, Tender and the others, never mind that they are as different from Wanderer's band as a Norman from a Scott.
Understandable you suppose, but you cannot help but wonder if you had made the right choice. In a shieldwall men are meant to be brothers.
Rather hard to do that without a shield, isn't it Roland? you chastise yourself. He does not fight like the others, net, shield and bow aside, so how then could he be expected to fit among their number?
"Hail and well met. How do you find my service and the journeys it brings?" you ask in Anwari to start with.
"Long, journey long way from home, big battle," he replies struggling a little over the words.
"It was good?" you ask, startling him by using his own tongue, or at least as close as Tender could coach you. If there is one thing the Barons' War taught you it is that you do not win a man's loyalty by vow alone. Every word, every gesture one does as a lord is reflected in the eyes of your sworn men as surely as in the eyes of one's peers, and only a fool mistakes obedience alone for loyalty.
He replies in like tongue and now it is your turn to try to make sense of it. Something about good fights against... worthy foes, at least so you think, though it is at least half guesswork. Your mastery of the Knikut tongues is not what you had hoped, though of course given that it is not one tongue but many one can hardly expect much more. A pity that oil you had seen Zaia daub behind his ears only works on him, but that is why you did not come here alone.
At your signal Swift Pebble comes close, always happy to translate it seems.
"He said if he is going to die, better to die fighting the Dark Ones than scrounging for food in the winter like a starving wolf at the edge of the pack. You have good food, good place to lay your head down and be warm, though his stomach likes not the roll of the ship, and he is happy to be back on the earth that birthed his mothers and fathers, even if it is for only a little while."
"Ah, be at ease in that you are not alone in that. Five years ago I had not been on a ship in my whole life and the first three days aboard one I spent with nothing in my stomach but water and precious little of that."
Swift Pebble, as much at home on the water as on land, does not catch on to your meaning, but Wanderer does and snorts with surprised mirth.
With the ice broken it is not long until you get to the meat of the conversation, how he is to fight from now on and with what tools. Of course he already has a spear tipped with steel and not stone, but much to your surprise he raises no objection to learning to fight in armor, nor even in formation if that is what you think is best, though he says that fighting careful like that will drive the spirits of rage from him and they will not come back.
How do you want Wanderer to fight?
[] In the manner of his people, only armed and armored as best you can manage it (Remains 2 level Barbarian)
-[] Write in sheet
[] Trained to fight in the shieldwall, taken under Tom's wing to make sure he does not lack for the skills the others have (Becomes a 3 level Fighter Spearman)
-[] Write in sheet
OOC: Wanderer is a 10 point buy character with 16 STR and CON, 14 DEX, 8 WIS and INT, and 10 CHA after the racial adjustments from
here. I was going to give you a sheet, but am positive that even if you do choose barbarian you are going to want to make changes. Speaking of changes, because the Neanderthal species does not have any racial feats you can use the orc ones within reason, so no blatant supernatural feats like
Fire God's Blessing.
