Forbidden Lands - Session One

From the journal of Belinda the Hunter

Our tale begins in a backwater Aslene village, from which three intrepid adventurers set out on an epic quest for fame and glory. It has been 5 years since the Blood Mist, a mysterious phenomenon occurring every night, ended its three-century long reign of terror on the land. At the mercy of the Blood Mist, most of the denizens of the Ravenland have been unable to travel outside their home settlements. but now without the threat of gruesome death hanging over their heads the world has opened up to those brave enough to face the unknown.

Belinda the talented, cunning, and all-around incredible Hunter, along with her less awesome (but generally okay) companions, Verik the Rogue and Kjel the Wolfkin Druid set off in search of the Hollows, a nearby village they have heard of from other travelers. Along the way, they encountered a severely wounded minotaur defending his incapacitated and heavily pregnant mate from a collection of truly idiotic soldiers. After a swift battle full of sweet, sweet moves and clutch action by our heroes, the soldiers were defeated, and Kjel attempted to save the life of the female minotaur while her wounded mate looked on anxiously. Unfortunately, Kjel lost control of his druid magic, leaving him with a serious substance abuse problem, and killing minotaur chick. As you can imagine, dude minotaur wasn’t thrilled, and so our heroes decided he might as well make himself useful as a battle trophy.

Soon after, the trio found the Hollows, and quickly learned that the racist as shit village is currently on the verge of a civil war between the tavern owner Yazzz Queen and Lady Palmolive (those names may not be accurate but they’re close enough). After questioning a few of the denizens and befriending the village idiot and crazy cat lady, the Belinda Squad (this is my recap, I can call us what I want) are now faced with a decision. Should they involve themselves in the local politics, or stay out of it altogether? Yazzz Queen has offered then some shiny gold as a reward for their assistance, AND it comes with the added bonus of possibly getting to kill a Rust Brother.

But they have yet to hear Lady Palmolive’s side of the story….

From the Journal of Verik the Rogue

Our Village is at its most, roughly a couple hundred people, the bulk of that would be humans with a few remnants of various kinfolk to give it a surprisingly cosmopolitan feel. This was once home to myself, Kjel, and Belinda. Each of us wanted more out of life and knew together that our friendship forged in Aslene was unbreakable as we sought our fame and fortune in the world.

We weren’t far from our village when we heard the strangest sound of someone chopping down a tree with a loud wailing sound after hitting the tree. Folklore paranoia drew me into the shadows, dagger at hand creeping forward to investigate. There was an unsaid communication of gestures and glances that could only come from sharing our childhood as I headed off into the woods. From the periphery of the woods I could see a dead female minotaur riddled with arrows and towering above her stood her mate doing his best to topple a tree with very scared humans. Taking in everything else there were maybe three to 5 other human corpses strewn about with two others almost with arms reach. If Kjel had been with me I could hear his gravelly voice muttering about “smelling their fear”. I used the impact of the axe hitting the tree and some shrubbery to obfuscate my escape.

I brought the group up to speed with what they could expect to encounter and how it could play out. I would initiate the conflict by shoving one of the two humans forward closer to the minotaur and from there see where the fight takes us. Belinda loosed an arrow from the tree line at one of the humans in the tree, the shoved human got to his feet before or after he soiled his breeches and ran off with the minotaur in tow. The two humans came down from the tree to engage with Belinda leaving the other human to Kjel and I. Kjel was bouncing stones off his human adversaries as I was gutting the closest one. I saw one of Belinda's foe fall to the ground clutching at his face with an arrow buried deep within. Her last remaining wounded foes retreated backwards leaving Kjel and I to deal with the minotaur. I shudder to think of a rematch with an unwounded one as we made quick work of it. In scavenging up equipment from the humans we had noticed that the female Minotaur was with a child. I’ll never pretend to understand magic but Kjel had tried to save the baby with his magic, he could not. He wasn’t quite the same after that needing to drown his sorrows in alcohol. I wonder what happened?

Taking their supplies and good deal of their weapons we headed triumphantly out again although with two giant minotaur heads this time. Not too much further we came across a good deal of traffic waiting to get into a town called the Hollows. It seems that my companions are less than welcome in this town unless you're needed for a power grab between a village elder and a rust brother enforcer against a “dwarven” proprietor who wants the town for his own. The thought of confronting a rust brother consumed me. Would I declare my vengeance and draw steel or belittle the man and bring him to tears before I slit his throat? I will be repaying a blood debt of generations who were too afraid to be defiant. 

From the lorebook of Kjel, the Druid

Art by Johan Egerkrans

When I was a pup playing with my packmates and learning the way of the wolf I thought there could be no greater joy than this.  I had family and I knew my place and my purpose.  As I grew in maturity and skill I yearned for the time that I would be allowed to join them in the hunt, to know the thrill of the chase and to exult in the feeling of companionship, of clanship, as the pack works in harmony to bring down their prey.

So I worked tirelessly to learn all that I could and to be as strong and healthy as I could be.  I set challenges for myself, testing myself at every opportunity.  Only the strong survive, and I was determined to be strong.

And then the day came that I was invited to join in the hunt in a minor but not insignificant way.  We howled as one as we shared the exhilaration of the hunt and the chase, and reveled in the euphoria that comes with the taste of hot blood pouring down our throats as we brought down our prey and consumed it.

But something was different.  I was different.  I did not understand it at the time, nor did I understand the source.  It was just the awareness of that undeniable fact.

As we continued to hunt together and share lies around the campfires I gradually came to see that I viewed the hunt, along with various other subtle aspects of life, differently than the rest of the pack.  For them it seemed that there were but two truths, two goals.  The pack must maintain its health through carefully controlling litters, both who had them and when.  And that the hunt was the only other thing that mattered.  Keep the pack strong and well fed and everything else would work itself out.  The strong survive.

For me it was different.  I understood the wisdom and efficiency of that simple view, but I could not help but recognize that there was much more to it.  If the pack grew too big we would hunt out the game and starve.  Too small and we would not be able to defend ourselves.  Which meant, of course, that it wasn't just about the pack.  We were tied to our prey.  And the population of our prey would vary from year to year depending on weather patterns and how the grasses grew and how disease spread.  And as I continued to explore this line of thought I found that I was the only one interested in this, and that the more I talked about it the more I heard quickly silenced whispers.  "Moontouched" being the nicest among them.

I knew that my burning curiosity was disturbing the pack, and I knew that I was too obsessed with the circle of life to let it drop.  The time had come for me to leave.

I sought out settlements that might have others interested in the ways of nature as I was, picking up pieces of lore here and there as I went, until the day finally came when I was no longer able to travel safely at night.  I had grown up.

Being Wolfkin in a settlement, even a mixed race settlement such as this, is challenging.  There is no sense of pack, and the lesser races all seem to shun you.  It did not bother me a lot, but no one likes to be clanless.  And it was clear that while these people tolerated me, they saw me as too hard and uncaring to be part of their pack, while  I saw them as too soft and weak to be part of mine.

I eventually came to know the orc Belinda, a fellow outcast like me and who seems to have similar thoughts about the weaker races.  Although, she seems to hate them all, and I have hatred for no one.  The strong will survive, the weak will perish.

We began hanging out together with a human, of all races.  His name is Verik.  He, like Belinda and I, seems to have a different view of life than the others of his kind.  He is a very likable person, but with a clinical, coldheartedness about him.

Not long after we met, the centuries-old Bloodmist went away, and we began to share stories and dreams of making our way out into the world to see what we could find.  Each of us had different ideas about how this would go, and different goals to reach, but none were exclusive of others.  It was as if in some unspoken way we agreed to make sure that we could travel together and to share each others victories and failures.  We are pack, and I am very content.

And then one day we stopped talking about it, and packed our gear and left.