Slowly, ever so slowly you rise up out of the snow and pull your arm pack, eyes intent on a lone Hare that has yet to notice you, finally you throw the first stone, and, as you almost knew you would, you missed greatly, quickly you pick up one of the other stones you had prepare again, once again you miss the now fleeing Hare, a third stone also missing your prey.
It is your fourth stone, which you throw more in frustration than an actual attempt to hit, which strikes the Hare in the head, instantly killing it, for almost a minute you just stare at the distant Hare in confusion and shock before you manage to gather yourself together and starts walking to retrieve it's body.
Ballistic Skill Roll
1d2 → [1] = (1)
just as you are about to leave the copse you hear a growl and you freeze your movements, a second growl makes you turn your head and before you is a large Warg, it's eyes staring straight at the dead Hare in your hands, which you have no intention of letting go after your lucky throw earlier.
The Warg obviously notices the tightening of your hand around the Hare, most likely to hungry to care that it will have to fight for it's life for this small meal, the winter that you were born into has taken it's toll on all creatures living in Angmar.
The Warg raises it's eyes to meet yours and the two of you stand staring at each other for what feels like eternity, through it all you hope, a futile hope you know, that the Warg will change it's mind and leave, but then it finally starts moving towards you, quickly entering a sprint which terrifyingly fast turns into a lunge when it get's close enough.
The Warg's lunge is broken when your last stone hit it in the chin, it being far to close even for your abysmal skills to miss the hungry creature.
But the blow barely manage to phase it and even as you jump to the side it's enormous jaws snap after you, barely missing.
Falling down from shock at how close it got you start crawling backwards as it moves against you once more, only to be meet by a hard kick on its snout, causing it to emit an angry yelp of pain from it.
Using the time it takes the beast to recover you manage to stand up and despite all your senses telling you that you are dangerously close and that you are being stupid you swing one of your large fists landing a solid blow right above it's left eye.
You pay for it as its jaw immediately react despite the pain and catches your arm it's mouth nd clamp down.
Screaming in pain you fall down partially, being hold up solely by the strong Warg, but this turns into your salvation as in your pain you drive your hand into the snow and find a wooden branch.
Resisting the pain as much as you can you soar up and stabs the branch into right eye of the beast, pushing it as far in as you possibly can, the thrashing from the Warg's in it's pain help you as the motions shake the branch around inside it's enormous skull, quickly killing the beast.
Weakness gained:
Vulnerable to Large Beasts: -1 to parrying when fighting against Wargs, Trolls, Caragors, Graugs, Oliphants or other large beasts.
injured: -1 toughness and strength until healed.
- - - - - - - -
It takes you quite a bit of time to recover from the pain, even longer to extract yourself from the giant jaws that even in death holds a tight grip on your jaw, but eventually you manage to get lose.
After taking some more time to recover you ignore the cold and remove the cloth scraps that serve as your shirt you careful bandage your arm, hissing in pain as you do so.
Once done you retrieve the Hare that was behind the fight and start making your way back home to the cave.
- - - - - - - - -
A sight of contentment leaves your lips once you sit down next to the fire, the now skinned Hare roasting on a stick, the other Orcs glaring jealously at you and longingly at the roasting meat.
It is just as you are about to take a bite of a piece of the meat that it happens, someone grabs you from behind and throw you into the fire, roaring in panic and pain you try to rise up only to feel your attacker push down on you, making sure to pull you slightly back so that your head is in the middle of the fire, increasing your fear and panic to heights you have never felt before.
Weakness gained:
Fear of Burning: if you get burned you immediately take and fail a Leadership test.
"that juicy piece of meat is mine now maggot, but you scream so sweet s-" the voice gets cut off and the strength that was holding you down vanish, allowing you to push your way out of the fire, and despite your panic you manage to orientate yourself and rush outside to shove yourself down into the snow, quickly extinguishing the hot flames burning your body.
It takes you quite a bit of time before you manage to get up, the pain yet to subside but your rage at being betrayed and burned like that easily overpowering the pain.
Even before you pulled you head out of the snow you could hear the sound of fighting but now that you return to the cave you can see it as well, the entire group of Orcs have turned on itself and they are now fighting over the ash covered piece of meat that you caught earlier.
The sight of Orcs that were meant to be allies is almost enough to overpower your anger, the sight terrify you even more than your fear of the cursed spawning pits in the depths of the mountains and your newfound fear of fire.
Weakness gained:
Fear of Betrayal: witnessing Orcs that are supposed to be allies causes you to take and fail a Leadership test.
But your rage burns hot and you march into the cave and goes straight for the first Orc with a weapon that you can see, pulling him around you prevent him from deflecting a blow to his stomach from another Orc, quickly taking advantage you grip the sword and pushes him into his killer who fall down to the ground and squeals in panic as he sees you raise the rusty sword in your hand, the sound satisfyingly turning into a gurgle as you stab him in the throat.
Equipment gained:
Rusty Short sword.
A short whistling sound is all the warning you get before an arrow stabs into your side, with a jerk you turn to the side and spot the archer who is setting another arrow on the string, turning into a sprint you try to avoid the next arrow but fail, taking it in your chest.
You keep going, a small part of you feeling satisfied at the small bit of panic that enter your enemies eyes as you draw closer, fumbling he barely manage to put another arrow on the bow and let loose, this time you manage to avoid it, the shaking in the Orc's hands sending the arrow wildly of course and he pulls his bow up in an attempt to deflect yours but it is to no avail as your strength cuts straight through it and he falls down dead to the ground, his head almost cut in two from the strength of your blow.
Weakness gained:
Vulnerable to Ranged Attacks: -1 to avoiding Ranged Attacks
turning around you head for another two Orcs that are fighting, knocking one of them out while contemptuous ease blocking the attack from the other before turning it around and spilling his guts open, grinning to yourself at the shower of black blood that erupts before he falls down you barely manage to notice and block a blow from behind.
"so little maggot think's he's one of the big boys now huh? Am gonna make you squeal like a pit before you die." your opponent growls at you.
The rage that you had felt earlier is nothing compared to what you feel now as you quickly kill your opponent and goes berserk on the few remaining Orcs that are still standing.
Weapon Skill Roll
1d5 → [5] = (5)
Weakness gained:
Easily Enraged: -1 when parrying and -1 in Leadership rolls during social interactions that require one.
Lost: injured.
Gained: Badly injured, -2 strength, -1 toughness and -1 movement until healed.
- - - - - - - - - -
the haze of rage lifts as you kill your last opponent, several cuts and bruises mark your body besides the more serious wounds that you took earlier and you look around, noticing a small Goblin that you remember have been one of your most eager tormentors you march over to him and happily note that while quite badly injured, he is still awake.
The Goblin however is none to happy about it as he stares up at you, terror clouding his eyes as you bow down and put your sword on his neck.
"you are going to do some things for me, weakling, then I might be merciful to you, begin by calling me by my name, Zog." you growl at him.
"anything, I will do anything you want Zog!" he squeals and as you start questioning him he starts babbling anything relevant he can think of, mostly things you don't care about however so you lightly press your sword into his throat, drawing some blood to your enjoyment and silencing him as well.
The questioning last awhile and you finally learn why you are much larger than the others, you had known that you were an Uruk, but you hadn't known what that meant until now, and you marvel at the stupidity of this group of Orcs, that they really could have thought that bullying a being that would be stronger, tougher and all round just better than they are is amazing.
You also learned it is the year 3000 of the third age, early november apparently, you didn't really care about that but it is nice to know nonetheless.
You also learn that they are not the only group of Orcs in the area, there is many other groups, one that can be found somewhere in the mountain caves, several towards the north in the great forrest with more to the south, often away raiding the lands of humans and elves.
"I have told you plenty, will you let me go now? I have done what you wanted" the Goblin begs, a note of hope entering his tone as he speaks and you make a slight show of thinking it over.
"you have done almost everything I want, there is only one thing left" you say.
"anything!" he pleads, hope entering his eyes, replacing the terror that was there earlier.
"die" you say and push the sword through his throat, laughing in glee as the panic fully returns as he claws against the swords as he tries to draw his final breaths.
Standing up you know that it would be foolish to stay with this group, you could perhaps take it over completely and end their thought that everyone takes care of themselves, but they are simply to stupid and would also betray you at the first chance they got.
So you would have to join one of the other groups in the area, the Cave dwellers might be a bit to close to the spawning pits for your comfort, but possible.
to south is many different groups that it would interesting to join, raiding the human lands, killing and burning where you go has it's own appeal, but it does have a good chance of running into these Rangers that you have heard so much about, led by some great warrior called Strider, but then it might be fun to take that chance and test your strength against them.
The northern groups are apparently mostly stuck in fighting each other and outsider groups for dominance of the forest and it's seemingly never ending supply of animals to eat, there is also plenty of Wargs in the area, as well as a few trolls, not that you know what they are, the dead fool didn't elaborate and you didn't care to ask.
[ ] Head into the cave and find the Cave Dweller clan
[ ] head north into the forrest and track down one of the northern clans
[ ] go south and join one of the dozen groups of raiders that plague those lands
[ ] write-in
- - - - - - - - - -
finally done, it grew pretty big, but the character generation is over, and no, I didn't roll for any of the combat in this chapter.
also, I am renaming the quest to Uruk quest.
any criticism towards my writing and pointing out any spelling errors is very welcome.
some slight edit, forgot to get the name into the update
