Hour of the Wolf (WHF)
- Thread starter prometheus110
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prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
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prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
II - The Hunt Continues
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prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Healer: The closest thing to a doctor in Roslas, you did everything from delivering babies to creating healing poultices and tinctures to aid the sick.
[X] Grungi's Baldric
[X] Your control of yourself
"Young Gunther has cut his hand while sharpening his knife after use. It is a shallow cut and short in length, but already, it has inflamed and become painful. He has also been afflicted with a plague of sternutation and coughing and has come to you for aid. What do you do?"
The old master's voice is whisper soft and as dry as yellow grass, the afternoon sun's light turned to crisp beams by the slats in his windows and painting stripes across his cabin's interior. Lying in a bed surrounded by bundles of dried sage and lavender, the craggy-faced man could be mistaken for asleep were it not for the gem-bright eyes that shine beneath heavy lids; the jade green waters of his gaze focused squarely and purely on you. Seated beside him and fussing over his pillows, Franziska—today's volunteer to aid the old doctor—gives you a sympathetic smile that makes it hard to concentrate.
Standing a few feet away, trying to keep your eyes locked on his and failing miserably, you clasp a hand behind your back and nod. As always, it is a mistake.
"Don't act like a chicken, boy," the old master interjects harshly. "And stop staring at Siska. Answer."
"What was he cutting?" You shoot back, the hitch in your voice making you squawk like a bird. Franziska doesn't bother hiding her amusement, heat flushing up your neck as she smiles broadly.
The master coughs, a loud liquid noise almost deafening in his cramped cabin, and nods.
"Good!" He declares, a warmth filling you. "You've remembered to ask basic questions."
The feeling vanishes.
"He was cutting Ragweed for the Richtus's. A crop has appeared recently, and they needed help cutting down its stalks before removing it."
Like thunder flashing across the sky, understanding dawns within you, and a proud smile spreads over your face.
"Gunther is allergic to Ragweed," you declare. "Like as not, the sternutation and coughing are a symptom of exposure and can be ignored."
If you were pleased that you knew the answer or just that you got a chance to show off in front of Siska, you couldn't tell. Either way suited you just fine. Pausing to let her properly appreciate your recently found eruditeness, her heart-shaped face adorned with interest, you stand tall and proud and continue.
"As for his cut, a poultice of yarrow or similar herb should suffice to ease his pain and prevent infection."
You stop and instinctively glance towards the cabin's roof, the old timbers time-worn, smoke-stained, and dark as night. "I would also tell him to return the next day so I can ensure the swelling has reduced and his cut is healing well."
Staring back at you with piercing eyes, the old master nods stiffly.
"An acceptable answer," he says. "Where would you find yarrow?"
Before you can reply, he turns to Franziska and says in a sweet voice. "Could you pass me a sip from my bottle, dear?"
Leaving you with a lingering look, the winsome girl retrieves the man's black-bottled tincture and carefully spoons a few drops into a mug of water. Within moments, the cabin's still air fills with the scent of ginger and anise.
Dimly, a part of you thinks it a bit ridiculous to do these tests when he trusts you enough to drink to the tinctures you brew, but the wiser part of you refrains from saying so. You've little need to press your neck to the blade; the master remains fit enough to do that for himself.
Taking it from her gratefully, your master drinks deep from the mug and gestures for you to continue.
"I grow enough in my garden to make a dozen poultices, but if we were to run out, once can find yarrow growing in meadows and fields and the outer edges of the forest. You can identify it..."
Frost crunches underfoot as you bolt through the forest, the smell of beast flesh burning hot in your nostrils despite the chill in the air. Overhead, flitting past, skeletal boughs groan under the weight of freshly fallen snow, the powdery flakes drifting idly from the sky to cover the earth in a stubborn slurry. The stench of beastmen is that of horses, goats, and other, worse, things, the almost metallic stench heavy in your mouth as you pant and gasp your way over twisting roots and swelling rises; what few items remain yours in the world in a bag clutched tight to your chest as you ran.
You wear Ulric's blessing like a cloak cast over one shoulder for the hunt, taking on what lupine aspects you need to scent the foe and nothing more. That a fully lupine form would be faster was obvious. Still, you couldn't bear the thought of leaving your things behind to fester and rot along with the rest of Roslas, and they might come in handy. And besides, in the cold light of the afternoon sun, you could see the trail of destruction the beastmen had left in their wake easily enough.
Like the herd they were, they had pushed their way through the Forest of Shadows with no regard for the world around them, branches broken, bark stripped bare, and earth churned to mud beneath their feet and hooves and trotters. It was as if some daemon had pulled a wicked blade through the land, the earth's black blood boiling out of the cut and forming the ragged edges of the path. Pausing for a moment behind a victim of their passage—a mighty oak whose limbs claw the sky with every gust of wind—you steady yourself against its damaged flesh and suck in one lungful of air after another, the burning in your chest easing but not vanishing.
Turning your gaze upon the scene, you pause as you spy a whiteness among the slurry that does not belong; the flatness of its colour against the sparkling slush a siren call.
Treading over to it, the cold ignored in your haste, you plunge a hand into the drivel and feel your fingers close around something hard and round, your extended nails scraping against its surface. Wrenching it forth in a spray of semi-liquid mud, you stare at it slackly before understanding sets in, a violent spasm sending the skull landing with a splash of mud. Keening in some mad combination of hate and disgust, you can only watch as the tooth-marked bone vanishes into the muck, its steady grin swallowed by the beast-made mire as it slips below, a glimpse of black the last all you see of it before it's gone.
Kill, the wolf growls with its not-words, Ulric's blessing a liquid gurgle whose rage warms your blood even as your sweat turns to frost. Hunt.
"Soon," you gasp as you clench your fist painfully tight, the spark of pain that blossoms a beacon that draws you back to the forest. "Soon."
Steam still spilling from your mouth, you make to continue your chase when a thought stops you cold. Turning back to where the skull landed, you wade over to its liquid resting place and plunge your hand into the well-churned mud once more, a bitter cold surrounding it as you feel for the macabre marker. A heartbeat later, your fingers close around a familiar hardness, and you pull at it once, twice, three times, the earth reluctantly releasing it with a liquid squelching sound.
Muddy tears streaming from its empty sockets, the tooth-marked skull stares at you in accusation.
Where were you? It seems to say. We needed you. Where were you?
The smell of Rosemary surrounds you in a delicate embrace as you hack away at stem after stem, the knife in your hand slick with plant juices and shining in the mid-afternoon light. Good for aches and pains, the teas and poultices you could make with it were ever needed by the people of Roslas, and you were more than happy to exchange them for flesh and greens.
Humming to yourself as you bind the wooden stalks in a coloured cord that once belonged to a girl named Franziska, you smile at the memory of her warm skin and dark curls. Your entanglement had finished two years and a skirmish with goblins ago—she had married, of all people, Gunther—but it had been a pleasant spring for the both of you. Nor could you find it within yourself to begrudge the moon-eyed fool his success in wooing the handsome Franziska; too long had the two of you known each other.
Your back creaking in protest, you rise from your stoop and carefully wipe the blade on your sleeve, wondering all the while who you might spend the next spring with: blonde-haired Ludmilla or fiery Sibylle—another of Ulric's Children so strong you were sure she could wrestle an ogre. As if in jest, an image of the huntswoman, Eleanor, pops into your mind before you banish it with a snort...
Your wolf snarls, and the skull's silent indictments wither before it.
Ignoring the memories that press behind your eyes and your own twisting gut, you turn the thing over in your hands until the scorch mark you saw earlier rolls into view, the evil black scar marring the bone's yellow-white.
Gingerly, a feeling of disrespect sweeping over you like a chill gust, you bring the skull to your eyes and examine the macabre remnant as closely as you dare. Large enough that it can only have belonged to an adult, a fact that you find yourself immediately grateful for, the skull has been gnawed on and chewed as if by a rabid dog, scratches and teeth marks covering the object and telling you of some frenzied feast in the dark hours of the night. Fighting the bile surging in your gullet, you bring the skull closer still and breathe in a lungful of air near the burn site, the expected scent-taste of charred bone filling your sinuses.
Letting out a confused noise as no other scent emerges, you are about to return the skull to its earthen grave when the faintest whiff of some unpleasant and indescribable smell prickles your nose; the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end for reasons you can't explain. Closing your eyes, you breathe in again, the scent redoubling in strength but still too faint to describe. Again, you breathe it in, and it is suddenly no longer so faint.
With the force of a tree collapsing, the stink hits you without warning. A student of herbs, plants, and medicine, you have exposed yourself and been exposed to countless odours from the astringent to the fell; Witch-hazel in full bloom and rank puss merely two of your myriad companions. Somehow, this stench is worse than all of those combined. It is sweet and bitter and sharp and cloying all at once. Like blood from a tongue freshly bit, it fills your mouth with itself, and the bile in your throat surges again as your eyes fly open.
Dark magic, you think as you jerk the skull away—an act of will required to push down the hot bile. Dark magic burned the skull.
You have never seen it used, but like any good godsfearing Ulrican, you have always been wary of it. If the Brayherd was using dark magic, that meant either it was led by a Bray-Shaman, or it held one within its ranks. Either option spoke poorly of your odds against the herd.
At the thought of facing a Bray-Shaman, the wolf within your blood stirs and growls. Ulric has no particular enmity for magic beyond the caution advised to all who live around an art that so often destroys the minds and bodies of men and dooms their souls to damnation. However, it doesn't mean you, he, or your wolf care for its use by things chaotic.
Gently placing the skull off the muddy trail, you whisper a quick prayer to Morr to preserve its owner's spirit from all things fell and an equally quick prayer to Ulric for the strength to avenge their death. Then, without ceremony, you set off again, snow and frost crunching underfoot as you tear between trees and over stones.
For a timeless moment, you run, the slap of shoes and solemn winter bird calls replaced by the thunder of blood in your ears and the rasp of your hungry breath. Then, all at once, the knotted ground suddenly dips before you, a curse escaping your lips as you slide to a halt mere feet from a stream's steep-sided banks. Blinking in surprise, you look left and right before growling as you spy the remnants of a great fire smouldering in the woods west of you. The beastmen had camped here and recently, too.
We're catching up, you tell yourself.
At the thought, the thing inside your soul seems to rise, satisfaction radiating out as phantom memories of ripping and tearing prod at the back of your mind.
Frowning at the flowing waters, polluted by waste and other things, you realise with a start that you know the stream from old, the once-crystal waters emerging from a spring deeper in the woods and flowing northwest towards the Middenheim-Erengrad road.
Doubtless, the beastmen had paused here to slake what thirst remained after plundering ale. The fire, too, was doubtlessly made so they could enjoy the fruits of Roslas' destruction. If you were minded to, you could venture near the smouldering embers and find bones aplenty, not that you were after earlier.
Still staring at the water, a dire thirst suddenly overtakes you, the pain in your throat as though a crystalline flower had bloomed within. As if in sympathy, your stomach growls and clenches. For a moment, you consider ignoring the sensations and pressing on. Then you shake your head. You're no good to anyone half starved and dying of thirst—killed before you could smash a single skull or tear out another throat.
Shaking your head to dismiss the crazed thought, you lope some meters upstream of the beastmen's temporary camp until the spring-fed waters run clear, then clamber down the mossy banks. Warily—your ears open for any hint of a threat, and your nose twitching for the stink of beastmen, spiders, or worse—you plunge a hand into the freezing stream and bring out a palm-full of water, drinking until you slake your thirst. Stopping before you overdo it, you retrieve a hunk of brown bread from your bag and wolf it down.
It's likely the last bread Enger Helshentz baked in his life and the best you've ever tasted; a few spots where the ashes of his bakery had polluted the bread unnoticed added a soupçon of bitterness.
Your austere meal finished, you wash your hands in the stream's waters and clamber up the slopes. Glancing skyward through the denuded forest canopy, you grin for the first time since yesterday as you spy a pink-orange tint creeping into the grey and white sky. Nightfall is coming, and with it, the hour of the wolf.
Eagerly, your nose filled with the stink of beast flesh, you follow the stream northwest towards the road, the stony ground near the waterway easing your path but doing little to hide the beastmen's trail of destruction. Several hundred meters down the trail, you suddenly veer from the stream as the beastmen depart its side with a sharp left turn. Not slowing your pace, you wrack your brain trying to decipher what target they could be going for.
"Beeckerhoven," you mutter as the thought flashes through your mind a moment later, surprise curling your tone upward.
It is the only community of note to the west of Roslas and one from which the Beastmen could doubtlessly pull much plunder given its location on the Middenheim-Erengrad road. While there are countless smaller hamlets and homesteads in the same direction and towns both north and south of it, Beeckerhoven is the only one likely to satisfy their appetites for a time.
Are they large enough to take it? You wonder. Are they stupid enough to try, or do they have some plan reliant on bestial cunning?
Huffing at their behaviour, you continue your chase, the beastmen's musk prickling your nose as you draw ever closer. Your heart pumps sonorously, and you feel the sun dip below the horizon before you see it, the first chill gust of the winter night's air rolling over you and sending a shiver up your body despite the heat in your limbs. Glancing from side to side as you dodge around trees, you send another prayer skywards as the snow and frost start staining the colour of sunset, pinks, golds, and oranges blooming as sunlight filters through the trees' knotted fingers.
"The cold fire reveals all," you mutter to yourself.
With a sigh that rolls from ear to ear and the clatter of withered tree limbs, a mighty wind blows down from the west, the long gust carrying new smells to fill your senses. Stopping for a moment beside a toppled tree—the single long rent in its side too much like an axe blow for your liking—you close your eyes and breathe in deeply. Pushing past the musky smell of deer and squirrels and the rich scent of stored nuts and waxen honey vaults, you find the scent you're looking for coming from both the north and west before freezing as another hits you.
Tangy and familiar, underlined with a rich metallic taste, it tickles your nose and makes your heart ache. Suddenly, a painful stinging afflicts your eyes, and you bat away frozen tears.
Humans, the wolf spirit within confirms as you scent them among the beastmen. Bleeding humans, another breath adds.
Shifting from side to side, sniffing all the while, you feel your expression harden as you realise that the human scent hails from both groups of beastmen, one headed northeast and the other west. Prisoners. Feedstock. Damn it all.
Opening your eyes, you find the forest floor lit by the silvery light of a Mannslieb waxing gibbous, the shadows of a million skeletal branches now a cage above your head. Stalking half a hundred steps forward, you stop again as you come to a fork in the stygian path the beastman herd has carved in the forest, a thinner and less-trodden branch turning northeast and the other continuing westward.
The beastmen have sent out another raiding party.
Torn by indecision as to which to chase, you buy time by examining the tracks heading northeast, hoping that a clear view of their numbers might clarify the right move.
"C'mon, Kaz," you tell yourself as you examine the split. "How many of them are there?"
You move slowly and carefully over the much-churned mud as you examine the northeast trail, booted feet careful not to stray from what few safe areas you can determine. Eying the muck and broken branches, wishing to Ulric and Taal that you'd bothered to learn much hunting lore when you had the chance, you try to imagine what kind and size of force could so forcefully make their way through the Forest of Shadows. Slowly, painfully, you assemble a picture of what happened, your blood cooling as the scale of the brayherd grows and grows in your mind's eye.
Untrained in hunting and going off only those signs you can detect, you count anything from one to three score beastmen heading northeast, an able force considering the size of the towns in that direction. Meanwhile, you don't even bother attempting to count the number headed westward, the sheer size of that force having obliterated any sign you could read.
A newfound appreciation for the forces arrayed against you lying heavy in your heart, you make your choice and make it quick.
[X] Grungi's Baldric
[X] Your control of yourself
"Young Gunther has cut his hand while sharpening his knife after use. It is a shallow cut and short in length, but already, it has inflamed and become painful. He has also been afflicted with a plague of sternutation and coughing and has come to you for aid. What do you do?"
The old master's voice is whisper soft and as dry as yellow grass, the afternoon sun's light turned to crisp beams by the slats in his windows and painting stripes across his cabin's interior. Lying in a bed surrounded by bundles of dried sage and lavender, the craggy-faced man could be mistaken for asleep were it not for the gem-bright eyes that shine beneath heavy lids; the jade green waters of his gaze focused squarely and purely on you. Seated beside him and fussing over his pillows, Franziska—today's volunteer to aid the old doctor—gives you a sympathetic smile that makes it hard to concentrate.
Standing a few feet away, trying to keep your eyes locked on his and failing miserably, you clasp a hand behind your back and nod. As always, it is a mistake.
"Don't act like a chicken, boy," the old master interjects harshly. "And stop staring at Siska. Answer."
"What was he cutting?" You shoot back, the hitch in your voice making you squawk like a bird. Franziska doesn't bother hiding her amusement, heat flushing up your neck as she smiles broadly.
The master coughs, a loud liquid noise almost deafening in his cramped cabin, and nods.
"Good!" He declares, a warmth filling you. "You've remembered to ask basic questions."
The feeling vanishes.
"He was cutting Ragweed for the Richtus's. A crop has appeared recently, and they needed help cutting down its stalks before removing it."
Like thunder flashing across the sky, understanding dawns within you, and a proud smile spreads over your face.
"Gunther is allergic to Ragweed," you declare. "Like as not, the sternutation and coughing are a symptom of exposure and can be ignored."
If you were pleased that you knew the answer or just that you got a chance to show off in front of Siska, you couldn't tell. Either way suited you just fine. Pausing to let her properly appreciate your recently found eruditeness, her heart-shaped face adorned with interest, you stand tall and proud and continue.
"As for his cut, a poultice of yarrow or similar herb should suffice to ease his pain and prevent infection."
You stop and instinctively glance towards the cabin's roof, the old timbers time-worn, smoke-stained, and dark as night. "I would also tell him to return the next day so I can ensure the swelling has reduced and his cut is healing well."
Staring back at you with piercing eyes, the old master nods stiffly.
"An acceptable answer," he says. "Where would you find yarrow?"
Before you can reply, he turns to Franziska and says in a sweet voice. "Could you pass me a sip from my bottle, dear?"
Leaving you with a lingering look, the winsome girl retrieves the man's black-bottled tincture and carefully spoons a few drops into a mug of water. Within moments, the cabin's still air fills with the scent of ginger and anise.
Dimly, a part of you thinks it a bit ridiculous to do these tests when he trusts you enough to drink to the tinctures you brew, but the wiser part of you refrains from saying so. You've little need to press your neck to the blade; the master remains fit enough to do that for himself.
Taking it from her gratefully, your master drinks deep from the mug and gestures for you to continue.
"I grow enough in my garden to make a dozen poultices, but if we were to run out, once can find yarrow growing in meadows and fields and the outer edges of the forest. You can identify it..."
***
Frost crunches underfoot as you bolt through the forest, the smell of beast flesh burning hot in your nostrils despite the chill in the air. Overhead, flitting past, skeletal boughs groan under the weight of freshly fallen snow, the powdery flakes drifting idly from the sky to cover the earth in a stubborn slurry. The stench of beastmen is that of horses, goats, and other, worse, things, the almost metallic stench heavy in your mouth as you pant and gasp your way over twisting roots and swelling rises; what few items remain yours in the world in a bag clutched tight to your chest as you ran.
You wear Ulric's blessing like a cloak cast over one shoulder for the hunt, taking on what lupine aspects you need to scent the foe and nothing more. That a fully lupine form would be faster was obvious. Still, you couldn't bear the thought of leaving your things behind to fester and rot along with the rest of Roslas, and they might come in handy. And besides, in the cold light of the afternoon sun, you could see the trail of destruction the beastmen had left in their wake easily enough.
Like the herd they were, they had pushed their way through the Forest of Shadows with no regard for the world around them, branches broken, bark stripped bare, and earth churned to mud beneath their feet and hooves and trotters. It was as if some daemon had pulled a wicked blade through the land, the earth's black blood boiling out of the cut and forming the ragged edges of the path. Pausing for a moment behind a victim of their passage—a mighty oak whose limbs claw the sky with every gust of wind—you steady yourself against its damaged flesh and suck in one lungful of air after another, the burning in your chest easing but not vanishing.
Turning your gaze upon the scene, you pause as you spy a whiteness among the slurry that does not belong; the flatness of its colour against the sparkling slush a siren call.
Treading over to it, the cold ignored in your haste, you plunge a hand into the drivel and feel your fingers close around something hard and round, your extended nails scraping against its surface. Wrenching it forth in a spray of semi-liquid mud, you stare at it slackly before understanding sets in, a violent spasm sending the skull landing with a splash of mud. Keening in some mad combination of hate and disgust, you can only watch as the tooth-marked bone vanishes into the muck, its steady grin swallowed by the beast-made mire as it slips below, a glimpse of black the last all you see of it before it's gone.
Kill, the wolf growls with its not-words, Ulric's blessing a liquid gurgle whose rage warms your blood even as your sweat turns to frost. Hunt.
"Soon," you gasp as you clench your fist painfully tight, the spark of pain that blossoms a beacon that draws you back to the forest. "Soon."
Steam still spilling from your mouth, you make to continue your chase when a thought stops you cold. Turning back to where the skull landed, you wade over to its liquid resting place and plunge your hand into the well-churned mud once more, a bitter cold surrounding it as you feel for the macabre marker. A heartbeat later, your fingers close around a familiar hardness, and you pull at it once, twice, three times, the earth reluctantly releasing it with a liquid squelching sound.
Muddy tears streaming from its empty sockets, the tooth-marked skull stares at you in accusation.
Where were you? It seems to say. We needed you. Where were you?
The smell of Rosemary surrounds you in a delicate embrace as you hack away at stem after stem, the knife in your hand slick with plant juices and shining in the mid-afternoon light. Good for aches and pains, the teas and poultices you could make with it were ever needed by the people of Roslas, and you were more than happy to exchange them for flesh and greens.
Humming to yourself as you bind the wooden stalks in a coloured cord that once belonged to a girl named Franziska, you smile at the memory of her warm skin and dark curls. Your entanglement had finished two years and a skirmish with goblins ago—she had married, of all people, Gunther—but it had been a pleasant spring for the both of you. Nor could you find it within yourself to begrudge the moon-eyed fool his success in wooing the handsome Franziska; too long had the two of you known each other.
Your back creaking in protest, you rise from your stoop and carefully wipe the blade on your sleeve, wondering all the while who you might spend the next spring with: blonde-haired Ludmilla or fiery Sibylle—another of Ulric's Children so strong you were sure she could wrestle an ogre. As if in jest, an image of the huntswoman, Eleanor, pops into your mind before you banish it with a snort...
Your wolf snarls, and the skull's silent indictments wither before it.
Ignoring the memories that press behind your eyes and your own twisting gut, you turn the thing over in your hands until the scorch mark you saw earlier rolls into view, the evil black scar marring the bone's yellow-white.
Welcome to the very first roll of the game. As the One-Roll Engine system is likely new to many of you, I'll give you a demonstration of how it works.
Here, we have a skull that has suffered some damage marring it with a burn. We want to examine the damage to see if it is merely a burn from a mundane fire or something else. This kind of check could be performed with the scrutinise skill or the eerie skill (eerie in this case being Reign's catch-all "magical detection" skill) and is considered a static skill check since we're not being opposed by anything.
While Kasled has a base Eerie and Scrutinise skill of 0, his impressive grasp of his gift allowed him to borrow some of his Wolf form's scrutiny skill before this update started.
Static skill checks are made simply by rolling your dice pool against the target difficulty (if the check has a difficulty) and seeing if you have any matching sets of dice whose value is equal to or greater than the difficulty. If you have no matching sets of dice that meet or exceed the difficulty, you fail the check. If you have one matching set of dice that do, you pass. If you have multiple sets that do, you get to pick which one applies (this becomes very relevant during combat for reasons you'll no doubt see soon).
The pool of dice you roll (your dice pool) is determined by the value you have in the relevant skill plus whichever stat governs/is relevant to that skill. A die pool for anyone can never be larger than 10 die.
In this case, you're scrutinising the skull to see if it was burned by a wooden/chemical flame that would leave a distinct smell or look, so it's Scrutinise + Sense.
Sense (3) + Scrutinise (2) for a total dice pool size of 5
Rolled: (6 +5 +7 +2 +6) = 26
Pairs: 2x6
That's a pretty good success! As we don't have a difficulty threshold, all we needed to do to pass was achieve 1 matching set of dice and we did that. If this skull had been sitting in the water for days and days and the check had a difficulty of 7+, we would have failed to smell anything at all due to the water washing it away. However, it wasn't, so we succeeded.
While it didn't happen particularly fast, we've successfully scrutinised the skull and can tell that whatever burned it was not a wood or chemical fire. In fact, Kasled can smell a weird stink that raises the hairs on the back of his neck, so it seems that whatever burned the skull was some strange, bad magic.
Here, we have a skull that has suffered some damage marring it with a burn. We want to examine the damage to see if it is merely a burn from a mundane fire or something else. This kind of check could be performed with the scrutinise skill or the eerie skill (eerie in this case being Reign's catch-all "magical detection" skill) and is considered a static skill check since we're not being opposed by anything.
While Kasled has a base Eerie and Scrutinise skill of 0, his impressive grasp of his gift allowed him to borrow some of his Wolf form's scrutiny skill before this update started.
Static skill checks are made simply by rolling your dice pool against the target difficulty (if the check has a difficulty) and seeing if you have any matching sets of dice whose value is equal to or greater than the difficulty. If you have no matching sets of dice that meet or exceed the difficulty, you fail the check. If you have one matching set of dice that do, you pass. If you have multiple sets that do, you get to pick which one applies (this becomes very relevant during combat for reasons you'll no doubt see soon).
The pool of dice you roll (your dice pool) is determined by the value you have in the relevant skill plus whichever stat governs/is relevant to that skill. A die pool for anyone can never be larger than 10 die.
In this case, you're scrutinising the skull to see if it was burned by a wooden/chemical flame that would leave a distinct smell or look, so it's Scrutinise + Sense.
Sense (3) + Scrutinise (2) for a total dice pool size of 5
Rolled: (6 +5 +7 +2 +6) = 26
Pairs: 2x6
That's a pretty good success! As we don't have a difficulty threshold, all we needed to do to pass was achieve 1 matching set of dice and we did that. If this skull had been sitting in the water for days and days and the check had a difficulty of 7+, we would have failed to smell anything at all due to the water washing it away. However, it wasn't, so we succeeded.
While it didn't happen particularly fast, we've successfully scrutinised the skull and can tell that whatever burned it was not a wood or chemical fire. In fact, Kasled can smell a weird stink that raises the hairs on the back of his neck, so it seems that whatever burned the skull was some strange, bad magic.
Gingerly, a feeling of disrespect sweeping over you like a chill gust, you bring the skull to your eyes and examine the macabre remnant as closely as you dare. Large enough that it can only have belonged to an adult, a fact that you find yourself immediately grateful for, the skull has been gnawed on and chewed as if by a rabid dog, scratches and teeth marks covering the object and telling you of some frenzied feast in the dark hours of the night. Fighting the bile surging in your gullet, you bring the skull closer still and breathe in a lungful of air near the burn site, the expected scent-taste of charred bone filling your sinuses.
Letting out a confused noise as no other scent emerges, you are about to return the skull to its earthen grave when the faintest whiff of some unpleasant and indescribable smell prickles your nose; the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end for reasons you can't explain. Closing your eyes, you breathe in again, the scent redoubling in strength but still too faint to describe. Again, you breathe it in, and it is suddenly no longer so faint.
With the force of a tree collapsing, the stink hits you without warning. A student of herbs, plants, and medicine, you have exposed yourself and been exposed to countless odours from the astringent to the fell; Witch-hazel in full bloom and rank puss merely two of your myriad companions. Somehow, this stench is worse than all of those combined. It is sweet and bitter and sharp and cloying all at once. Like blood from a tongue freshly bit, it fills your mouth with itself, and the bile in your throat surges again as your eyes fly open.
Dark magic, you think as you jerk the skull away—an act of will required to push down the hot bile. Dark magic burned the skull.
You have never seen it used, but like any good godsfearing Ulrican, you have always been wary of it. If the Brayherd was using dark magic, that meant either it was led by a Bray-Shaman, or it held one within its ranks. Either option spoke poorly of your odds against the herd.
At the thought of facing a Bray-Shaman, the wolf within your blood stirs and growls. Ulric has no particular enmity for magic beyond the caution advised to all who live around an art that so often destroys the minds and bodies of men and dooms their souls to damnation. However, it doesn't mean you, he, or your wolf care for its use by things chaotic.
Gently placing the skull off the muddy trail, you whisper a quick prayer to Morr to preserve its owner's spirit from all things fell and an equally quick prayer to Ulric for the strength to avenge their death. Then, without ceremony, you set off again, snow and frost crunching underfoot as you tear between trees and over stones.
For a timeless moment, you run, the slap of shoes and solemn winter bird calls replaced by the thunder of blood in your ears and the rasp of your hungry breath. Then, all at once, the knotted ground suddenly dips before you, a curse escaping your lips as you slide to a halt mere feet from a stream's steep-sided banks. Blinking in surprise, you look left and right before growling as you spy the remnants of a great fire smouldering in the woods west of you. The beastmen had camped here and recently, too.
We're catching up, you tell yourself.
At the thought, the thing inside your soul seems to rise, satisfaction radiating out as phantom memories of ripping and tearing prod at the back of your mind.
Frowning at the flowing waters, polluted by waste and other things, you realise with a start that you know the stream from old, the once-crystal waters emerging from a spring deeper in the woods and flowing northwest towards the Middenheim-Erengrad road.
Doubtless, the beastmen had paused here to slake what thirst remained after plundering ale. The fire, too, was doubtlessly made so they could enjoy the fruits of Roslas' destruction. If you were minded to, you could venture near the smouldering embers and find bones aplenty, not that you were after earlier.
Still staring at the water, a dire thirst suddenly overtakes you, the pain in your throat as though a crystalline flower had bloomed within. As if in sympathy, your stomach growls and clenches. For a moment, you consider ignoring the sensations and pressing on. Then you shake your head. You're no good to anyone half starved and dying of thirst—killed before you could smash a single skull or tear out another throat.
Shaking your head to dismiss the crazed thought, you lope some meters upstream of the beastmen's temporary camp until the spring-fed waters run clear, then clamber down the mossy banks. Warily—your ears open for any hint of a threat, and your nose twitching for the stink of beastmen, spiders, or worse—you plunge a hand into the freezing stream and bring out a palm-full of water, drinking until you slake your thirst. Stopping before you overdo it, you retrieve a hunk of brown bread from your bag and wolf it down.
It's likely the last bread Enger Helshentz baked in his life and the best you've ever tasted; a few spots where the ashes of his bakery had polluted the bread unnoticed added a soupçon of bitterness.
Your austere meal finished, you wash your hands in the stream's waters and clamber up the slopes. Glancing skyward through the denuded forest canopy, you grin for the first time since yesterday as you spy a pink-orange tint creeping into the grey and white sky. Nightfall is coming, and with it, the hour of the wolf.
Eagerly, your nose filled with the stink of beast flesh, you follow the stream northwest towards the road, the stony ground near the waterway easing your path but doing little to hide the beastmen's trail of destruction. Several hundred meters down the trail, you suddenly veer from the stream as the beastmen depart its side with a sharp left turn. Not slowing your pace, you wrack your brain trying to decipher what target they could be going for.
Difficulty: 2
Knowledge (4) + Lore (3) for a total dice pool size of 7
Rolled: 3 +10 +2 +3 +6 +2 +3
Pairs: 2x2, 3x3
Using the 3x3 success since it's faster and still passes.
Knowledge (4) + Lore (3) for a total dice pool size of 7
Rolled: 3 +10 +2 +3 +6 +2 +3
Pairs: 2x2, 3x3
Using the 3x3 success since it's faster and still passes.
"Beeckerhoven," you mutter as the thought flashes through your mind a moment later, surprise curling your tone upward.
It is the only community of note to the west of Roslas and one from which the Beastmen could doubtlessly pull much plunder given its location on the Middenheim-Erengrad road. While there are countless smaller hamlets and homesteads in the same direction and towns both north and south of it, Beeckerhoven is the only one likely to satisfy their appetites for a time.
Are they large enough to take it? You wonder. Are they stupid enough to try, or do they have some plan reliant on bestial cunning?
Huffing at their behaviour, you continue your chase, the beastmen's musk prickling your nose as you draw ever closer. Your heart pumps sonorously, and you feel the sun dip below the horizon before you see it, the first chill gust of the winter night's air rolling over you and sending a shiver up your body despite the heat in your limbs. Glancing from side to side as you dodge around trees, you send another prayer skywards as the snow and frost start staining the colour of sunset, pinks, golds, and oranges blooming as sunlight filters through the trees' knotted fingers.
"The cold fire reveals all," you mutter to yourself.
With a sigh that rolls from ear to ear and the clatter of withered tree limbs, a mighty wind blows down from the west, the long gust carrying new smells to fill your senses. Stopping for a moment beside a toppled tree—the single long rent in its side too much like an axe blow for your liking—you close your eyes and breathe in deeply. Pushing past the musky smell of deer and squirrels and the rich scent of stored nuts and waxen honey vaults, you find the scent you're looking for coming from both the north and west before freezing as another hits you.
Tangy and familiar, underlined with a rich metallic taste, it tickles your nose and makes your heart ache. Suddenly, a painful stinging afflicts your eyes, and you bat away frozen tears.
Humans, the wolf spirit within confirms as you scent them among the beastmen. Bleeding humans, another breath adds.
Shifting from side to side, sniffing all the while, you feel your expression harden as you realise that the human scent hails from both groups of beastmen, one headed northeast and the other west. Prisoners. Feedstock. Damn it all.
Opening your eyes, you find the forest floor lit by the silvery light of a Mannslieb waxing gibbous, the shadows of a million skeletal branches now a cage above your head. Stalking half a hundred steps forward, you stop again as you come to a fork in the stygian path the beastman herd has carved in the forest, a thinner and less-trodden branch turning northeast and the other continuing westward.
The beastmen have sent out another raiding party.
Torn by indecision as to which to chase, you buy time by examining the tracks heading northeast, hoping that a clear view of their numbers might clarify the right move.
"C'mon, Kaz," you tell yourself as you examine the split. "How many of them are there?"
Sense (3) + Scrutiny (2) for a total dice pool size of 5
Rolled: 4 +6 +5 +9 +7
Pairs: None
Alas, Kasled has failed to determine how many beastmen are heading northeast on a raid with human prisoners/a human larder in tow. All he can tell for now is that the northeast group is noticeably smaller than the one headed westward.
Fortunately, given the comparatively slow speed of the beastmen, he has enough time to try again at no penalty, this time taking his time to examine the tracks for a +1d bonus to his dice pool.
Sense (3) + Scrutiny (2) + 1d (going slow in his investigation) for a total dice pool size of 6
Rolled: 9 +3 +8 +2 +2 +5
Pairs: 2x2
It's a success! Though not an amazing success, Kasled has learned that there is anything from 20-60 beastmen heading northeast. However, due to his low roll, he has no idea what kind of beastmen they are.
Rolled: 4 +6 +5 +9 +7
Pairs: None
Alas, Kasled has failed to determine how many beastmen are heading northeast on a raid with human prisoners/a human larder in tow. All he can tell for now is that the northeast group is noticeably smaller than the one headed westward.
Fortunately, given the comparatively slow speed of the beastmen, he has enough time to try again at no penalty, this time taking his time to examine the tracks for a +1d bonus to his dice pool.
Sense (3) + Scrutiny (2) + 1d (going slow in his investigation) for a total dice pool size of 6
Rolled: 9 +3 +8 +2 +2 +5
Pairs: 2x2
It's a success! Though not an amazing success, Kasled has learned that there is anything from 20-60 beastmen heading northeast. However, due to his low roll, he has no idea what kind of beastmen they are.
You move slowly and carefully over the much-churned mud as you examine the northeast trail, booted feet careful not to stray from what few safe areas you can determine. Eying the muck and broken branches, wishing to Ulric and Taal that you'd bothered to learn much hunting lore when you had the chance, you try to imagine what kind and size of force could so forcefully make their way through the Forest of Shadows. Slowly, painfully, you assemble a picture of what happened, your blood cooling as the scale of the brayherd grows and grows in your mind's eye.
Untrained in hunting and going off only those signs you can detect, you count anything from one to three score beastmen heading northeast, an able force considering the size of the towns in that direction. Meanwhile, you don't even bother attempting to count the number headed westward, the sheer size of that force having obliterated any sign you could read.
A newfound appreciation for the forces arrayed against you lying heavy in your heart, you make your choice and make it quick.
Article: [] Northeast: Substantially smaller than the brayherd headed west, the northeastern beastmen will doubtlessly be easier to confront than the western brayherd. Better still, its small size will make it easier to rescue your kinsmen if they still live and avenge them if they do not.
[] Westwards: Larger and slower and doubtlessly helmed by the brayherd's leader, the brayherd headed west will almost certainly be holding more of your people prisoner. How you will rescue them will require some thought, however.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I've also updated the character sheet with Kasled's details. It might look intimidating, but I'll guide you through everything as the quest continues. It's not turbo apparent just yet, but I used your choices to determine Kasled's backstory, so that should become apparent soon.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
That said, don't expect 4k word updates every day. I'm only on holiday for one more day, so things will slow down soon.
Hour of the Wolf (WHF)
It is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful, when the fated are born. It is the Hour of the Wolf...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
That said, don't expect 4k word updates every day. I'm only on holiday for one more day, so things will slow down soon.
Last edited:
- Location
- The Middle of the Howling Wilderness
[X] Northeast: Substantially smaller than the brayherd headed west, the northeastern beastmen will doubtlessly be easier to confront than the western brayherd. Better still, its small size will make it easier to rescue your kinsmen if they still live and avenge them if they do not.
[X]Northeast
I reckon that the reason the herd split up is so they could send their first lot of prisoners back to their den to fill up the larders while the second, larger group gets more man-flesh. So we could not only get our people free or avenged when we catch up to them, but we could also possibly find out where their den is.
EDIT: Just realized I forgot about the blimming Shaman so it could be acting as either magic artillery for the larger group or as the main foci point for a ritual involving the people being taken away in the smaller group.
I reckon that the reason the herd split up is so they could send their first lot of prisoners back to their den to fill up the larders while the second, larger group gets more man-flesh. So we could not only get our people free or avenged when we catch up to them, but we could also possibly find out where their den is.
EDIT: Just realized I forgot about the blimming Shaman so it could be acting as either magic artillery for the larger group or as the main foci point for a ritual involving the people being taken away in the smaller group.
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[X]Northeast
Less enemies easier to kill
Less enemies easier to kill
IofTheBunny
✧:*AngeryOpossum*:✧
- Pronouns
- she/her
[x] Northeast: Substantially smaller than the brayherd headed west, the northeastern beastmen will doubtlessly be easier to confront than the western brayherd. Better still, its small size will make it easier to rescue your kinsmen if they still live and avenge them if they do not.
both because of already mentioned stuff and because it, imo, fits the control and healer traits we picked earlier.
also because lone wolf dies easily
both because of already mentioned stuff and because it, imo, fits the control and healer traits we picked earlier.
0t4n1z3r019
Member of the HAFPTG
- Location
- Philippines
[X]Northeast
- Location
- SEAsia
- Pronouns
- Thou
I just love how MC's charisma is no more potent as a man than it is as when he's a wolf. 
MC Wolf Form: Grrrrr!
MC Man Form: Grrrrr!
MC Wolf Form: Grrrrr!
MC Man Form: Grrrrr!
[X] Northeast: Substantially smaller than the brayherd headed west, the northeastern beastmen will doubtlessly be easier to confront than the western brayherd. Better still, its small size will make it easier to rescue your kinsmen if they still live and avenge them if they do not.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I forgot to mention it, but I've updated the character sheet with some things I missed. Aside from the passions (which can add or remove die depending on whether you go along with them or against them), there's not much that's major.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'll be closing the voter after dinner, so get your vote in now.
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
III - The Northeast Passage
New
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X]Northeast
Making your decision, you hurl yourself northwards, the moonlit trees around you blurring as you race after the beastmen raiding force. Your nostrils full of the scent of the chaotic creatures and their path through the forest as stark as lightning in a moonless sky, you barely have to think as you track them. Dashing past the gnarled trees and craggy rocks that fill the Forest of Shadows, the smell of the beastmen and their human captives grows stronger with every passing moment, your fingers flexing as your Ulric-born wolf prepares for a fight and your mind racing as you wonder where they are being taken.
A den? A part of you jabbers as you hurtle over a snow-covered gully, images of some grim cave in the woods flashing through your mind.
A larder? A slave pit? A herdstone?
Tearing past a fallen tree, you try to drive the morbid thoughts from your mind, only for them to multiply like vermin, a million formless, shapeless terrors forming in your mind's eye and assailing you with their foulness. Biting your lip at the self-inflicted psychic assault, you barely notice as the forest's shadows start to thin, a split-second glimmer of silver overhead all the warning you have before Mannslieb bursts into view. Rising high above the woods and shining radiantly, the pockmarked face of Manann's beloved waxes gibbous in the sky and casts its light upon the world. Despite the coldness of the night and the grimness of your task, the clarity of the moon's silver light seems to penetrate and purify your mind, all thoughts but those of finding your brothers and sisters vanishing without a trace.
Cloossee, your not-wolf growls in a wordless tongue, another breath filling your mouth with the scent-taste of blood.
Though not a tracker, you can tell it is correct, the frost covering the blood-black trail ahead of you not quite as thick as it once was, saplings still slowly oozing sap from their broken limbs, and the putrid smell of the beastmen's dung growing ever harder to ignore. Disgusted but encouraged, a fresh burst of energy fills your limbs, and your growing fatigue slackens as if another has taken up its weight.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the crunch of frost fades away, the squelch of still-liquid mud replacing it as you close upon your quarry. With every maddened footstep through the woods, the dense cage of barren branches thins, and the frozen oaks and pillar-like pines spread further apart. Soon enough, meadows and clearings appear interspersed among the trees, the light-filled bubbles of some other world invading the forest that has been your home for some twenty years.
All but blind to the changes, you halt at the edge of a cliff only a few metres tall and blink at the scene before you.
Standing like a titan among children—a throwback to the ancient trees lying within the forest's depths—a great spruce rises surrounded by smaller trees, its low branches wide enough to hold a house and its high branches seeming to scrape the stars themselves. Painted in the silver light of Mannslieb, the ground shines radiantly, and fawn spots larger than a man can leap smatter the frost-sprinkled ground. Still visible along the ground and tracking northeast, the beastmen's trail winds its way past the base of the cliff and under the spruce's sheltering branches, the broad path dwarfed by the tree's almost impossibly wide trunk.
Admonishing yourself for your tunnel vision, you huff once and half leap-half slide down the cliffside, a wave of scree accompanying you with a clatter. Landing with a splash of liquid mud, you huff and clutch your bag tightly, the clinking of your medicine jars cushioned by your herb bundles. Trudging through the muck towards the spruce, you are about to restart your mad dash when a familiarly musky smell reaches you from up ahead.
For a long moment, the smell remains elusive, the answer to what it belongs to hovering on the tip of your tongue but refusing to come forth. Then, without warning, a memory rises to your mind.
The goblin gives a panicked screech as its spider mount tumbles out from under its legs, the snot-green gobshite rocketing over Axel's hastily thrown spear and slamming to the ground before sliding to a halt before you. Acting on instinct, you lash out with your borrowed blade and clip it about the head, the rising forest goblin falling to the ground dead with nary sound. Your heart thundering in your chest and your face cold as new snow, you glance around the battlefield and feel a surge of relief well up within you as you realise that the skirmish with the goblins is all but over; Sibylle, Axel, and Engerick tearing through what remains of the yellow hatted greenskins with ease thanks to their razor-sharp claws and crushing jaws.
Glancing around, you realise with a start that you've become separated from Roslas' scraped-together militia, your bag of healing goods nowhere to be seen among the corpses of goblins and the spiders they ride. About to chide yourself for getting separated and losing your bag, you stop as something prickles the back of your neck, and gooseflesh rises.
Suddenly, a powerful musky smell assaults you from behind, and you turn just in time to see an onyx and viridian blur hurtling towards you. Yelping, you raise your hands just in time to catch the leaping spider in the neck with your blade, a spray of ichor splashing across you as it bears you to the ground. Chittering and screeching in equal measure, its spiny legs scrabbling for purchase, the dog-sized spider snaps at the air with its fangs once, twice, three times, every bite accompanied by a piercing clack as the finger-sized needles strike empty air. One hand beneath its heaving thorax, you pull your blade from its body and give a wordless yell, throwing the spider aside with a roar, the hideous creature landing on its back and hissing furiously. A moment later, you're on your feet—your heartbeat thundering through your veins—and you snarl as the thing finally rights itself, hesitant steps sending it left and right as the handle of your knife gleams in its neck.
Distantly, you wonder if you have time to embrace Ulric's Gift before the spider charges...
And then an arrow whips past your ear faster than you can blink, a feathered shaft appearing in the spider's eye an instant later. Letting out one final shriek as its hateful life is cut short, the spider spasms and collapses, its eight legs curling tight towards its body. Relieved, you give a long sigh and turn to thank your saviour, pausing as you see the woodswoman, Eleanor, staring back at you with unblinking eyes, her bow held tight in her hands.
You banish the memory with a snarl and check the ground before you for confirmation, a brief scan revealing dimples in the mud and snow that your experience aiding Roslas' militia tells you can only come from giant spiders.
Arachnidis titanicus, a memory of the old master corrects; the phantom words bring a brief smile to your face. He was ever a pain in the arse.
"Thank Ulric he passed the year before," you say to yourself as you bring your eyes to the spruce, the shadows on its boughs as impenetrable as stone.
Lowering your bag to the ground and pressing your fists against the cold ground, you feel the first hints of Ulric's Gift emerge as you let the change wash over you.
Heat flares across your body as your bones warp and shift, your arms, legs, and chest lengthening and widening monstrously, and your fingers extending until they are twice as long as normal. An instant later, you feel your muscles writhe and become turgid, whipcord strings doubling in size, then doubling again, the whole mass surging and bulging as it shifts to cover you. Thickening and elongating, you watch with dispassionate interest as the ground races away, two feet in height and Verena alone knows how much weight added to your frame by Ulric's blessing. Suddenly, all over your body, a forest of tiny daggers sprouts, dark fur bursting through your skin like grass shoots through soil.
Steadily, your breathing becomes heavy, and you feel more than see your skull change shape. Like half-melted wax drawn by a wire, your face extends and broadens until it resembles a wolf's snout, the world around you shifting strangely as your eyes slide across your face before settling in place. For the briefest instant, your now prominent snout blocks your vision, and then, by some trick, Ulric makes it vanish between one blink and the next.
At least my clothes stayed intact this time, you think as you let out a sonorous growl, your tunic stretched over your long-limbed and broad frame. The less said about your trousers, the better.
Your eyes now the eyes of a wolf, the already bright night becomes almost as day; the once impenetrable shadows are now merely dark.
The spider does not disappoint.
No doubt recognising that it was detected, the vile thing leaps from the lower branches of the giant spruce and crashes to the ground. The size of a small pony, it hits the ground with a chitter you can hear from here and races towards you on eight spear-like legs. Jewel blue and screeching, the spider charges forward with wild abandon, the fat-bodied thing quickly picking up speed until it barrels towards you like a warhorse.
Ready for it, the wolf within you surging at the thought of combat, you leap to the side just as the spider throws itself at you, its questing fangs missing your matted hide with centimetres to spare before it slams past. Sliding in the well-churned mud as momentum carries it past, the bright blue spider struggles to heave itself around as you step closer, one wild kick after another failing to connect despite your impressive stature. Snarling in a mix of rage and disgust, you leap upon the meat-fat thing and slash at it with your claws, the finger-long razors cutting deep into the still-supple exoskeleton of one of the youthful spider's limbs and severing it in an instant.
Chittering at a frequency that stings your ears—its severed limb flailing back and forth and spraying a foul-smelling yellow ichor onto the frozen ground—the giant spider retreats a dozen paces and hisses. Growling a challenge that makes your heart sing, you charge towards the spider recklessly and slam a claw down onto its fanged head before wrenching free a gob of chitin and icor. Furious at the blow, the spider retaliates, a dagger-covered leg lancing forth and barely missing your left arm, the wind of its passage ruffling your pitch-black fur but doing little else.
Letting loose a liquid snarl, you pause as a shiver runs through the spider and leap left just as it lunges forward, scimitar fangs slashing through empty air and sending a spray of pale venom splashing against the ground. A heartbeat later, another treelike leg sails through the space where your head would have been if you lept right, a curtain of red descending over your eyes as you send a wild slash back. Staring into the spider's eight beady eyes, you feel the blow travel up your arm as another leg snaps beneath your hand, a shrill shriek emerging from the creature's horrid mandibles as yet more ichor covers the land.
"Diiiiieeeee," you snarl over teeth that could serve as daggers, a long streamer of drool spilling out as you flex your claws once more.
As if understanding your intentions, the sapphire spider frantically retreats towards the giant spruce, one leg lashing out after another as it tries to buy distance. Ignoring the danger of the thrusting limbs, you howl and dart after it. An instant later, you're amongst its stabbing limbs and attacking, five curved claws slamming down onto the spider's already weakened skull and piercing it with a soft sucking sound. Keening, the spider jerks and spasms beneath your claw, its six remaining legs scrabbling and sending streamers of mud into the air. Ignoring the vomitous yellow substance spewing from the wound and the equally nauseating stench that emerges, you stab your other hand into the wound and pull, a sound akin to that of a cooked joint of meat being pulled apart filling the clearing as you fairly tear the spider's skull in half. Giving one final chittering shriek, the now headless spider shivers one and then collapses, a greasy rainbow sheen covering the mud as ichor and venom spread across it.
Throwing your head up towards the moon, your heartbeat thundering in your chest and adrenaline singing in your veins, you breathe deep and…
The howl dies in your throat, an act of will allowing you to regain control over your body before you make a dreadful mistake and alert the beastmen to your presence. Ignoring the snarling of the wolf within you, you let out your breath in a long exhale and close your eyes, Ulric's Gift slipping away after a moment and the bulk of the changes wrought on your body sullenly reversing themselves. Breathing with human lungs and a not-quite-human sense of smell, you open your eyes to see the silvery moon still lighting the night, the beastman path just as visible as ever. Sparing the spider's ruined corpse one last look, your stomach churning at the devastation you wrought, you retrieve your bag from where it fell and spare the great tree from which the spider emerged a final glance.
Glinting in the moonlight, the start of what must be the spider's web hangs from the spruce's lower branches, the rope-thick strands covered in something slimy. No expert in spiders—giant or otherwise—the paucity of the web suggests it was a new arrival to this part of the woods. Commonly found deep inside the Forest of Shadows, you think it no accident that it chose the spruce as its nesting place; the smell of blood or the noise of so many beastmen pushing through the forest was as good as a dinner bell for the beast.
Grinning as the wolf within you agrees with a lazy yawn, you are about to continue the chase when the clink of glass within your bag gives you pause. Glance back at the spider's head and the venom leaking out from its fanged maw, you ruminate on the stories you've heard of such venoms.
Between living in the Forest of Shadows, battling spider-riding greenskins yourself, and hearing tell from others who have faced such things, you know for a fact that giant spiders have some of the most potent and terrible venoms among all animals. Some thicken the blood and make it like overcooked custard, others melt your very flesh, and yet more make a man's limbs spasm of their own accord or utterly refuse to obey his wishes; the former often breaking bones and the latter leading to suffocation and death if it doesn't simply stop the heart. What this one does, you cannot tell without a test subject, but you suddenly find yourself very glad that its attempts to envenom came to nought during your battle.
Still, watching the undoubtedly deadly venom leak upon the ground, a thought occurs. Though you don't know what the venom does, storing some in a spare bottle could be useful should you find yourself in need of a dose of poison, assuming you wish to spend the precious time required.
Making good on your decision, you set off after the beastmen raiders, the forest blurring again as you race after them. Bypassing the spruce and the beginning of a sticky web—you very much do not wish to be caught like a fly—you return to the trail and continue your loping run with your chest heaving and pulse thundering. Despite the brief pause following your battle with the spider, you can feel the cost of your transformation weighing heavily on your body, fatigue dogging every movement and a dull ache spreading across your muscles. Though not yet spent, you understand the rhythms of your body well enough to know that you will need to rest soon if you wish to continue to chase as you have, the thought making you spit in disgust.
Not while they still need me, you think, focusing on the faces of those you need to avenge; your wolf spirit silent but encouraging nonetheless.
Sometime later—how long, you're unsure—something occurs that snatches your attention as effectively as a knife against your throat. Stopped against a blissfully spider-free tree, you suck down a lungful of air to regain the scent of the beastmen and prisoners, only to freeze as you realise that the odour trails have diverged. Still bearing northeast, the unmistakable odour of the beastmen lies heavy on your tongue, an almost visible glow leading you down the muddy path as their stink fills your sinuses and makes your hackles rise. However, diverging from the trail and heading more northerly, the faint scent of human sweat and blood tickles your nose.
"What?" You mutter to yourself, your wolf sharing your confusion.
Stepping away from the tree, you sniff again, the same odours leading in two directions. Turn this way and that—your confusion shading into concern—you range from point to point and repeat the action. To your surprise, the outcome doesn't change; your every breath confirms that the paths have diverged.
Did I make a mistake? You find yourself thinking as you take a few hesitant steps away from the beasts' path, fresh frost crunching underfoot. Were they prisoners?
Myriad possibilities popping into your mind, you turn your attention to the ground and pray that the feeling swelling in your chest is more than a fool's hope.
There, written in the frost and barely noticeable, you spot the tread of a boot pressed into the hard ground, the human footprint the first real hope you have of ever seeing another human. A short distance away, another bootprint lies half obliterated by the mark of a beastman's hoof, the points of the two feet lying in similar but different directions. Your attention fully focussed on the task, you spot a half dozen other prints leading away from the beastmen's path, the frost-hardened earth rendering them difficult but not impossible for your keen eyes to spot.
"They weren't prisoners," you laugh, the sound almost deafening in the still quiet of the moonlit woods.
Giddily, you continue. They weren't ever prisoners! The beastmen were chasing them and lost them!
Bubbling up like a pot left too long on the boil, a wave of laughter suddenly escapes you and rolls through the woods. Slowly hunching over from the pain of such frenzied laughter, the rolling giggles take on a maddened edge as you continue, a final dull croak ringing out before you shove your hand in your mouth.
Forcing yourself to calm, the metallic taste of blood touching your tongue where you broke the skin of your hand with your teeth, you unfold yourself and stare at the woods with fresh eyes. Though still a primaeval forest filled with threat and shadows, the trees in this part of the forest press less tightly together and loom less ominously overhead, almost as much light reaching the forest floor as darkness. Distantly but with growing insistence, you feel a sense of familiarity invade your mind, something about the sparseness of the trees and your northern journey sparking your mind.
You're near Varrel.
The thought hits you like a lightning bolt, the force of it sending you rocking on your feet.
Located far to the north of Roslas, you had only been to Varrel a handful of times over the years. Still, you had enjoyed it—and some of its inhabitants—plenty, and it had proven useful to know people there. Only a little larger than Roslas wa-used to be, Varrel was one of your home's closest neighbours and an eager buyer for the things only those willing to brave the forest's depths could provide.
"They must be running there for shelter," you say aloud, your wolf whining in agreement. "Do they even know they're being pursued?"
Facing towards the village, or where you suspect it lies, you narrow your eyes as if doing so can let you see through trees and try to imagine the lay of the land before you.
According to the memories of your visit the year before, most of the village's population lived either within or near the safety of its wooden walls, their proximity to the forest's edge fostering a healthy sense of preservation among them. Still, more than a few—woodsmen and hunters mainly, but some families—choose to live away from others, need or greed driving their actions and leaving them easy prey. More like than not, the beastmen had been heading to Verral to raid it when they stumbled upon the survivor's trail—if they had stumbled on it at all, you remind yourself—and were either continuing there or already raiding outlying steadings.
About to burst into fresh peals of laughter, you stop yourself as a sobering thought emerges. For the first time since you started your quest for vengeance, there's a chance of meeting survivors. Moreover, after trudging through the frozen forest, they are likely tired, injured, and perhaps even sick. On the other hand, now that you know that the survivors are on the way to Verral, you can turn your attention—and fury—on the beastmen themselves, either laying into them with tooth and claw or observing them and figuring out a plan.
Making your decision, you hurl yourself northwards, the moonlit trees around you blurring as you race after the beastmen raiding force. Your nostrils full of the scent of the chaotic creatures and their path through the forest as stark as lightning in a moonless sky, you barely have to think as you track them. Dashing past the gnarled trees and craggy rocks that fill the Forest of Shadows, the smell of the beastmen and their human captives grows stronger with every passing moment, your fingers flexing as your Ulric-born wolf prepares for a fight and your mind racing as you wonder where they are being taken.
A den? A part of you jabbers as you hurtle over a snow-covered gully, images of some grim cave in the woods flashing through your mind.
A larder? A slave pit? A herdstone?
Tearing past a fallen tree, you try to drive the morbid thoughts from your mind, only for them to multiply like vermin, a million formless, shapeless terrors forming in your mind's eye and assailing you with their foulness. Biting your lip at the self-inflicted psychic assault, you barely notice as the forest's shadows start to thin, a split-second glimmer of silver overhead all the warning you have before Mannslieb bursts into view. Rising high above the woods and shining radiantly, the pockmarked face of Manann's beloved waxes gibbous in the sky and casts its light upon the world. Despite the coldness of the night and the grimness of your task, the clarity of the moon's silver light seems to penetrate and purify your mind, all thoughts but those of finding your brothers and sisters vanishing without a trace.
Cloossee, your not-wolf growls in a wordless tongue, another breath filling your mouth with the scent-taste of blood.
Though not a tracker, you can tell it is correct, the frost covering the blood-black trail ahead of you not quite as thick as it once was, saplings still slowly oozing sap from their broken limbs, and the putrid smell of the beastmen's dung growing ever harder to ignore. Disgusted but encouraged, a fresh burst of energy fills your limbs, and your growing fatigue slackens as if another has taken up its weight.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the crunch of frost fades away, the squelch of still-liquid mud replacing it as you close upon your quarry. With every maddened footstep through the woods, the dense cage of barren branches thins, and the frozen oaks and pillar-like pines spread further apart. Soon enough, meadows and clearings appear interspersed among the trees, the light-filled bubbles of some other world invading the forest that has been your home for some twenty years.
All but blind to the changes, you halt at the edge of a cliff only a few metres tall and blink at the scene before you.
Standing like a titan among children—a throwback to the ancient trees lying within the forest's depths—a great spruce rises surrounded by smaller trees, its low branches wide enough to hold a house and its high branches seeming to scrape the stars themselves. Painted in the silver light of Mannslieb, the ground shines radiantly, and fawn spots larger than a man can leap smatter the frost-sprinkled ground. Still visible along the ground and tracking northeast, the beastmen's trail winds its way past the base of the cliff and under the spruce's sheltering branches, the broad path dwarfed by the tree's almost impossibly wide trunk.
Admonishing yourself for your tunnel vision, you huff once and half leap-half slide down the cliffside, a wave of scree accompanying you with a clatter. Landing with a splash of liquid mud, you huff and clutch your bag tightly, the clinking of your medicine jars cushioned by your herb bundles. Trudging through the muck towards the spruce, you are about to restart your mad dash when a familiarly musky smell reaches you from up ahead.
OOC: I found out that I could order roll results by value, which makes it a lot easier to see pairs.
Rolled: 1+2+2+6+10
Pairs: 2x2
Rolled: 1+2+2+6+10
Pairs: 2x2
For a long moment, the smell remains elusive, the answer to what it belongs to hovering on the tip of your tongue but refusing to come forth. Then, without warning, a memory rises to your mind.
The goblin gives a panicked screech as its spider mount tumbles out from under its legs, the snot-green gobshite rocketing over Axel's hastily thrown spear and slamming to the ground before sliding to a halt before you. Acting on instinct, you lash out with your borrowed blade and clip it about the head, the rising forest goblin falling to the ground dead with nary sound. Your heart thundering in your chest and your face cold as new snow, you glance around the battlefield and feel a surge of relief well up within you as you realise that the skirmish with the goblins is all but over; Sibylle, Axel, and Engerick tearing through what remains of the yellow hatted greenskins with ease thanks to their razor-sharp claws and crushing jaws.
Glancing around, you realise with a start that you've become separated from Roslas' scraped-together militia, your bag of healing goods nowhere to be seen among the corpses of goblins and the spiders they ride. About to chide yourself for getting separated and losing your bag, you stop as something prickles the back of your neck, and gooseflesh rises.
Suddenly, a powerful musky smell assaults you from behind, and you turn just in time to see an onyx and viridian blur hurtling towards you. Yelping, you raise your hands just in time to catch the leaping spider in the neck with your blade, a spray of ichor splashing across you as it bears you to the ground. Chittering and screeching in equal measure, its spiny legs scrabbling for purchase, the dog-sized spider snaps at the air with its fangs once, twice, three times, every bite accompanied by a piercing clack as the finger-sized needles strike empty air. One hand beneath its heaving thorax, you pull your blade from its body and give a wordless yell, throwing the spider aside with a roar, the hideous creature landing on its back and hissing furiously. A moment later, you're on your feet—your heartbeat thundering through your veins—and you snarl as the thing finally rights itself, hesitant steps sending it left and right as the handle of your knife gleams in its neck.
Distantly, you wonder if you have time to embrace Ulric's Gift before the spider charges...
And then an arrow whips past your ear faster than you can blink, a feathered shaft appearing in the spider's eye an instant later. Letting out one final shriek as its hateful life is cut short, the spider spasms and collapses, its eight legs curling tight towards its body. Relieved, you give a long sigh and turn to thank your saviour, pausing as you see the woodswoman, Eleanor, staring back at you with unblinking eyes, her bow held tight in her hands.
You banish the memory with a snarl and check the ground before you for confirmation, a brief scan revealing dimples in the mud and snow that your experience aiding Roslas' militia tells you can only come from giant spiders.
Arachnidis titanicus, a memory of the old master corrects; the phantom words bring a brief smile to your face. He was ever a pain in the arse.
"Thank Ulric he passed the year before," you say to yourself as you bring your eyes to the spruce, the shadows on its boughs as impenetrable as stone.
Lowering your bag to the ground and pressing your fists against the cold ground, you feel the first hints of Ulric's Gift emerge as you let the change wash over you.
Heat flares across your body as your bones warp and shift, your arms, legs, and chest lengthening and widening monstrously, and your fingers extending until they are twice as long as normal. An instant later, you feel your muscles writhe and become turgid, whipcord strings doubling in size, then doubling again, the whole mass surging and bulging as it shifts to cover you. Thickening and elongating, you watch with dispassionate interest as the ground races away, two feet in height and Verena alone knows how much weight added to your frame by Ulric's blessing. Suddenly, all over your body, a forest of tiny daggers sprouts, dark fur bursting through your skin like grass shoots through soil.
Steadily, your breathing becomes heavy, and you feel more than see your skull change shape. Like half-melted wax drawn by a wire, your face extends and broadens until it resembles a wolf's snout, the world around you shifting strangely as your eyes slide across your face before settling in place. For the briefest instant, your now prominent snout blocks your vision, and then, by some trick, Ulric makes it vanish between one blink and the next.
At least my clothes stayed intact this time, you think as you let out a sonorous growl, your tunic stretched over your long-limbed and broad frame. The less said about your trousers, the better.
Your eyes now the eyes of a wolf, the already bright night becomes almost as day; the once impenetrable shadows are now merely dark.
The spider does not disappoint.
No doubt recognising that it was detected, the vile thing leaps from the lower branches of the giant spruce and crashes to the ground. The size of a small pony, it hits the ground with a chitter you can hear from here and races towards you on eight spear-like legs. Jewel blue and screeching, the spider charges forward with wild abandon, the fat-bodied thing quickly picking up speed until it barrels towards you like a warhorse.
Combat in the One-Roll Engine is very different from some role playing game systems you may be familiar with. Instead of rolling for initiative and doing everything in that order, in ORE, all players and entities declare what they're going to be doing (E.G making one attack, making an attack and parrying, doing a called shot to the self esteem, etc), then roll their pools simultaneously, and work out pairs and which action is associated with what pair.
While this takes a bit of getting used to, it makes things go pretty quickly once you're used to it.
Round 1
Spider Charges and bites (for this attack, we use the dice pool for the spider's run skill which is 8d10 -1d10 as this counts as a multiple action)
4+5+5+6+7+7+10
Pairs: 2x5, 2x7
Kas dodge
10+2+3+4+7+9+9
Pairs: 2x9
The spider chooses the 2x7 for its charge attack, but Kas dodges thanks to his 2x9 dodge. As the spider wasn't doing a separate action and Kas wasn't trying to hit it back, the remaining pair was discarded.
Round 2
Spider lashes out with its legs
(1+3+5+6+8+10)
Pairs: 0
Kas does a multi-action to attack twice with fight (dropping 1 dice per extra attack from the dice pool of 9d10)
(2+3+3+4+5+7+8+10)
Pairs: 2x3
Spider takes Width + 1 (I.E. 2) killing damage to its left legs, losing one.
Round 3
Spider lashes with its legs again
(1+2+3+3+6+7)
Pairs: 2x3
Kas pulls back before attacking with his claws, taking his time.
1+3+4+7+10
Pairs: 0
Normally, this would be bad for Kas as he doesn't have a pair. Fortunately, he has a master die in his claw skill that he gets to assign after rolling but before sets are assigned, and he has a ten in his results...
1+3+4+7+10+(10 MD)
Pairs: 2x10
Kas hits first as his pair has a higher value and deals Width + 1 killing damage (I.E. 2 killing damage) to the spider's head. Being hit first, the spider loses one die from its pair and misses/deals no damage.
Round 4
Spider tries to bite
2+3+4+9
Pairs: 0
Kas tries to dodge and slap back
1+1+4+4+6+9
Pairs: 2x1, 2x4
Kas assigns the 2x4 to fight since he's already taken off a left leg and may as well keep going. The dodge result is useless.
Kas deals Width + 1 killing damage (I.E. 2 killing damage) to another of the spider's left legs, destroying it.
Round 5
Spider tries to kick again
1+2+5+6+9+9
Pairs: 2x9
Kas tries to end the fight by savaging the spider's head (he makes a called shot at the spider's head, drops one die from his fight pool, setting another to 10, and rolling the remaining 7d10 as normal)
2+3+5+5+6+6+10+(10 from called shot)
Pairs: 2x10,2x6,2x5
Kas could use any of his pairs if he wanted to, but we did get a result that would hit the spider in the head, and it would ruin the spider's attack, so...
Kas hits the spider's head for Width + 1 killing damage (I.E. 2 more killing damage), destroying it and killing the spider.
While this takes a bit of getting used to, it makes things go pretty quickly once you're used to it.
Round 1
Spider Charges and bites (for this attack, we use the dice pool for the spider's run skill which is 8d10 -1d10 as this counts as a multiple action)
4+5+5+6+7+7+10
Pairs: 2x5, 2x7
Kas dodge
10+2+3+4+7+9+9
Pairs: 2x9
The spider chooses the 2x7 for its charge attack, but Kas dodges thanks to his 2x9 dodge. As the spider wasn't doing a separate action and Kas wasn't trying to hit it back, the remaining pair was discarded.
Round 2
Spider lashes out with its legs
(1+3+5+6+8+10)
Pairs: 0
Kas does a multi-action to attack twice with fight (dropping 1 dice per extra attack from the dice pool of 9d10)
(2+3+3+4+5+7+8+10)
Pairs: 2x3
Spider takes Width + 1 (I.E. 2) killing damage to its left legs, losing one.
Round 3
Spider lashes with its legs again
(1+2+3+3+6+7)
Pairs: 2x3
Kas pulls back before attacking with his claws, taking his time.
1+3+4+7+10
Pairs: 0
Normally, this would be bad for Kas as he doesn't have a pair. Fortunately, he has a master die in his claw skill that he gets to assign after rolling but before sets are assigned, and he has a ten in his results...
1+3+4+7+10+(10 MD)
Pairs: 2x10
Kas hits first as his pair has a higher value and deals Width + 1 killing damage (I.E. 2 killing damage) to the spider's head. Being hit first, the spider loses one die from its pair and misses/deals no damage.
Round 4
Spider tries to bite
2+3+4+9
Pairs: 0
Kas tries to dodge and slap back
1+1+4+4+6+9
Pairs: 2x1, 2x4
Kas assigns the 2x4 to fight since he's already taken off a left leg and may as well keep going. The dodge result is useless.
Kas deals Width + 1 killing damage (I.E. 2 killing damage) to another of the spider's left legs, destroying it.
Round 5
Spider tries to kick again
1+2+5+6+9+9
Pairs: 2x9
Kas tries to end the fight by savaging the spider's head (he makes a called shot at the spider's head, drops one die from his fight pool, setting another to 10, and rolling the remaining 7d10 as normal)
2+3+5+5+6+6+10+(10 from called shot)
Pairs: 2x10,2x6,2x5
Kas could use any of his pairs if he wanted to, but we did get a result that would hit the spider in the head, and it would ruin the spider's attack, so...
Kas hits the spider's head for Width + 1 killing damage (I.E. 2 more killing damage), destroying it and killing the spider.
Ready for it, the wolf within you surging at the thought of combat, you leap to the side just as the spider throws itself at you, its questing fangs missing your matted hide with centimetres to spare before it slams past. Sliding in the well-churned mud as momentum carries it past, the bright blue spider struggles to heave itself around as you step closer, one wild kick after another failing to connect despite your impressive stature. Snarling in a mix of rage and disgust, you leap upon the meat-fat thing and slash at it with your claws, the finger-long razors cutting deep into the still-supple exoskeleton of one of the youthful spider's limbs and severing it in an instant.
Chittering at a frequency that stings your ears—its severed limb flailing back and forth and spraying a foul-smelling yellow ichor onto the frozen ground—the giant spider retreats a dozen paces and hisses. Growling a challenge that makes your heart sing, you charge towards the spider recklessly and slam a claw down onto its fanged head before wrenching free a gob of chitin and icor. Furious at the blow, the spider retaliates, a dagger-covered leg lancing forth and barely missing your left arm, the wind of its passage ruffling your pitch-black fur but doing little else.
Letting loose a liquid snarl, you pause as a shiver runs through the spider and leap left just as it lunges forward, scimitar fangs slashing through empty air and sending a spray of pale venom splashing against the ground. A heartbeat later, another treelike leg sails through the space where your head would have been if you lept right, a curtain of red descending over your eyes as you send a wild slash back. Staring into the spider's eight beady eyes, you feel the blow travel up your arm as another leg snaps beneath your hand, a shrill shriek emerging from the creature's horrid mandibles as yet more ichor covers the land.
"Diiiiieeeee," you snarl over teeth that could serve as daggers, a long streamer of drool spilling out as you flex your claws once more.
As if understanding your intentions, the sapphire spider frantically retreats towards the giant spruce, one leg lashing out after another as it tries to buy distance. Ignoring the danger of the thrusting limbs, you howl and dart after it. An instant later, you're amongst its stabbing limbs and attacking, five curved claws slamming down onto the spider's already weakened skull and piercing it with a soft sucking sound. Keening, the spider jerks and spasms beneath your claw, its six remaining legs scrabbling and sending streamers of mud into the air. Ignoring the vomitous yellow substance spewing from the wound and the equally nauseating stench that emerges, you stab your other hand into the wound and pull, a sound akin to that of a cooked joint of meat being pulled apart filling the clearing as you fairly tear the spider's skull in half. Giving one final chittering shriek, the now headless spider shivers one and then collapses, a greasy rainbow sheen covering the mud as ichor and venom spread across it.
Throwing your head up towards the moon, your heartbeat thundering in your chest and adrenaline singing in your veins, you breathe deep and…
Dice pool to resist howling
Command (2) * 2 from notable control over your wolf form + Charm (2) + 1d from Passion: To get revenge on those who destroyed Roslas and justice for those who suffered. (I'm futzing it a bit, but you don't want to alert the beastmen that you're coming) = 7d10
Rolled: 1+5+8+8+8+3+3
Pairs: 3x8, 2x3
Command (2) * 2 from notable control over your wolf form + Charm (2) + 1d from Passion: To get revenge on those who destroyed Roslas and justice for those who suffered. (I'm futzing it a bit, but you don't want to alert the beastmen that you're coming) = 7d10
Rolled: 1+5+8+8+8+3+3
Pairs: 3x8, 2x3
The howl dies in your throat, an act of will allowing you to regain control over your body before you make a dreadful mistake and alert the beastmen to your presence. Ignoring the snarling of the wolf within you, you let out your breath in a long exhale and close your eyes, Ulric's Gift slipping away after a moment and the bulk of the changes wrought on your body sullenly reversing themselves. Breathing with human lungs and a not-quite-human sense of smell, you open your eyes to see the silvery moon still lighting the night, the beastman path just as visible as ever. Sparing the spider's ruined corpse one last look, your stomach churning at the devastation you wrought, you retrieve your bag from where it fell and spare the great tree from which the spider emerged a final glance.
Glinting in the moonlight, the start of what must be the spider's web hangs from the spruce's lower branches, the rope-thick strands covered in something slimy. No expert in spiders—giant or otherwise—the paucity of the web suggests it was a new arrival to this part of the woods. Commonly found deep inside the Forest of Shadows, you think it no accident that it chose the spruce as its nesting place; the smell of blood or the noise of so many beastmen pushing through the forest was as good as a dinner bell for the beast.
Grinning as the wolf within you agrees with a lazy yawn, you are about to continue the chase when the clink of glass within your bag gives you pause. Glance back at the spider's head and the venom leaking out from its fanged maw, you ruminate on the stories you've heard of such venoms.
Dice pool: Knowledge (4)+ Lore (3) = 7d10
Difficulty: 3
1+2+6+6+6+7+7
Pairs: 3x6, 2x7
Both beat the difficulty of 3, and you use the 3x6
Difficulty: 3
1+2+6+6+6+7+7
Pairs: 3x6, 2x7
Both beat the difficulty of 3, and you use the 3x6
Between living in the Forest of Shadows, battling spider-riding greenskins yourself, and hearing tell from others who have faced such things, you know for a fact that giant spiders have some of the most potent and terrible venoms among all animals. Some thicken the blood and make it like overcooked custard, others melt your very flesh, and yet more make a man's limbs spasm of their own accord or utterly refuse to obey his wishes; the former often breaking bones and the latter leading to suffocation and death if it doesn't simply stop the heart. What this one does, you cannot tell without a test subject, but you suddenly find yourself very glad that its attempts to envenom came to nought during your battle.
Still, watching the undoubtedly deadly venom leak upon the ground, a thought occurs. Though you don't know what the venom does, storing some in a spare bottle could be useful should you find yourself in need of a dose of poison, assuming you wish to spend the precious time required.
Article: [] Extract the Venom: While it will take time, extracting some of the venom from the terrible beast may come in handy should you have the need/opportunity. You should stop and do it.
[] Leave it: Extracting the venom would take too long and allow the beastmen raiders more time to get to wherever they're going. You should continue the hunt.
Making good on your decision, you set off after the beastmen raiders, the forest blurring again as you race after them. Bypassing the spruce and the beginning of a sticky web—you very much do not wish to be caught like a fly—you return to the trail and continue your loping run with your chest heaving and pulse thundering. Despite the brief pause following your battle with the spider, you can feel the cost of your transformation weighing heavily on your body, fatigue dogging every movement and a dull ache spreading across your muscles. Though not yet spent, you understand the rhythms of your body well enough to know that you will need to rest soon if you wish to continue to chase as you have, the thought making you spit in disgust.
Not while they still need me, you think, focusing on the faces of those you need to avenge; your wolf spirit silent but encouraging nonetheless.
Sometime later—how long, you're unsure—something occurs that snatches your attention as effectively as a knife against your throat. Stopped against a blissfully spider-free tree, you suck down a lungful of air to regain the scent of the beastmen and prisoners, only to freeze as you realise that the odour trails have diverged. Still bearing northeast, the unmistakable odour of the beastmen lies heavy on your tongue, an almost visible glow leading you down the muddy path as their stink fills your sinuses and makes your hackles rise. However, diverging from the trail and heading more northerly, the faint scent of human sweat and blood tickles your nose.
"What?" You mutter to yourself, your wolf sharing your confusion.
Stepping away from the tree, you sniff again, the same odours leading in two directions. Turn this way and that—your confusion shading into concern—you range from point to point and repeat the action. To your surprise, the outcome doesn't change; your every breath confirms that the paths have diverged.
Did I make a mistake? You find yourself thinking as you take a few hesitant steps away from the beasts' path, fresh frost crunching underfoot. Were they prisoners?
Myriad possibilities popping into your mind, you turn your attention to the ground and pray that the feeling swelling in your chest is more than a fool's hope.
Dice pool: Sense (3) + Scrutinize (2)
Difficulty: 4
Rolled: 6+8+8+8+8
Pairs: 4x8
Okay, fuck me, I guess.
Difficulty: 4
Rolled: 6+8+8+8+8
Pairs: 4x8
Okay, fuck me, I guess.
There, written in the frost and barely noticeable, you spot the tread of a boot pressed into the hard ground, the human footprint the first real hope you have of ever seeing another human. A short distance away, another bootprint lies half obliterated by the mark of a beastman's hoof, the points of the two feet lying in similar but different directions. Your attention fully focussed on the task, you spot a half dozen other prints leading away from the beastmen's path, the frost-hardened earth rendering them difficult but not impossible for your keen eyes to spot.
"They weren't prisoners," you laugh, the sound almost deafening in the still quiet of the moonlit woods.
Giddily, you continue. They weren't ever prisoners! The beastmen were chasing them and lost them!
Bubbling up like a pot left too long on the boil, a wave of laughter suddenly escapes you and rolls through the woods. Slowly hunching over from the pain of such frenzied laughter, the rolling giggles take on a maddened edge as you continue, a final dull croak ringing out before you shove your hand in your mouth.
Forcing yourself to calm, the metallic taste of blood touching your tongue where you broke the skin of your hand with your teeth, you unfold yourself and stare at the woods with fresh eyes. Though still a primaeval forest filled with threat and shadows, the trees in this part of the forest press less tightly together and loom less ominously overhead, almost as much light reaching the forest floor as darkness. Distantly but with growing insistence, you feel a sense of familiarity invade your mind, something about the sparseness of the trees and your northern journey sparking your mind.
Difficulty: 2
Dicepool: Knowledge (4)+ Lore (3) = 7d10
Rolled: 3+4+4+6+7+9+9
Pairs: 2x4, 2x9
Using the 2x9
Dicepool: Knowledge (4)+ Lore (3) = 7d10
Rolled: 3+4+4+6+7+9+9
Pairs: 2x4, 2x9
Using the 2x9
You're near Varrel.
The thought hits you like a lightning bolt, the force of it sending you rocking on your feet.
Located far to the north of Roslas, you had only been to Varrel a handful of times over the years. Still, you had enjoyed it—and some of its inhabitants—plenty, and it had proven useful to know people there. Only a little larger than Roslas wa-used to be, Varrel was one of your home's closest neighbours and an eager buyer for the things only those willing to brave the forest's depths could provide.
"They must be running there for shelter," you say aloud, your wolf whining in agreement. "Do they even know they're being pursued?"
Facing towards the village, or where you suspect it lies, you narrow your eyes as if doing so can let you see through trees and try to imagine the lay of the land before you.
According to the memories of your visit the year before, most of the village's population lived either within or near the safety of its wooden walls, their proximity to the forest's edge fostering a healthy sense of preservation among them. Still, more than a few—woodsmen and hunters mainly, but some families—choose to live away from others, need or greed driving their actions and leaving them easy prey. More like than not, the beastmen had been heading to Verral to raid it when they stumbled upon the survivor's trail—if they had stumbled on it at all, you remind yourself—and were either continuing there or already raiding outlying steadings.
About to burst into fresh peals of laughter, you stop yourself as a sobering thought emerges. For the first time since you started your quest for vengeance, there's a chance of meeting survivors. Moreover, after trudging through the frozen forest, they are likely tired, injured, and perhaps even sick. On the other hand, now that you know that the survivors are on the way to Verral, you can turn your attention—and fury—on the beastmen themselves, either laying into them with tooth and claw or observing them and figuring out a plan.
Article: [] Ignore the Beastmen: Now that you know there are survivors, the beastmen don't matter. You must follow their trail to Verral and find them there or on the way.
[] Chase After the Beastmen: Now that you know survivors are waiting at Verral, you can chase after the beastmen raiders with a lighter heart. Fighting them yourself or simply scouting their numbers; either works for you.
prometheus110
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- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm going to put a 2 hour moratorium for this next vote as I want to give people time to stew on the decisions.
- Location
- SEAsia
- Pronouns
- Thou
If we're going for the beastmen, I believe it's important we contextualize it as something we do for the right reasons. Vengeance is all well and good, but I think chasing these ones down to make sure they dont hurt anyone else is a far better motivation for our MC.
To be all philosophical, we need to feed the right werewolf.
To be all philosophical, we need to feed the right werewolf.
[X] Extract the Venom: While it will take time, extracting some of the venom from the terrible beast may come in handy should you have the need/opportunity. You should stop and do it.
[X] Chase After the Beastmen: Now that you know survivors are waiting at Verral, you can chase after the beastmen raiders with a lighter heart. Fighting them yourself or simply scouting their numbers; either works for you.
[X] Chase After the Beastmen: Now that you know survivors are waiting at Verral, you can chase after the beastmen raiders with a lighter heart. Fighting them yourself or simply scouting their numbers; either works for you.