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Old Stories

A place to share in-character stories and event recaps! All out of character text should be noted as such.
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Paul_Kettlebones
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Old Stories

Post by Paul_Kettlebones »

So I found a few old stories in a file I had forgotten about. Not sure I ever posted them so I will post them here. The first was a short piece about some background surrounding House Gray.

Tale of the Grimy Mariner

Bosun Kif swung the sack of wheat from the hold and into the waiting cargo net with apparent ease. Seaman Drake barely keeping pace with the man 30 years his senior could only marvel at the old man’s strength as he hurled the 100lb bags of grain. Kif neither paused nor spoke as he moved the grain bound for House Gray but something haunted his pale blue eyes that Drake could not ignore.

“Sumthin’ troublin’ ye Bosun?” Drake asked finally.

Kif shot Drake a glare that would stop a charging orc before he grunted a barely audible reply.

“Leave it.”

Kif continued chucking the sacks of grain as before but Drake saw the haunted look in the bosun’s eyes. Not one to argue with the ill tempered bosun, Drake fell back to his duties and tried to keep up with the old man.

As the last sack of grain was tossed on the pile Kif and Drake secured the netting around the load and gave a sharp tug on the rope.

“Haul away lads!” Kif called up to the deck hands before he turned and muttered, “Good riddance.” The bosun stalked over to another cargo bin to prepare the next load.

“Good riddance?” queried Drake half fearing to press the issue with Kif.

The bosun worked on without pause seeming to ignore the Seaman at first. The next load ready Kif moved to spread out the next cargo net muttering as he did so apparently to himself, “Cursed island and bloody cursed House it is.”

Drake listened closely but did not press the bosun further. On the very rare occasion when Kif talked about things that disturbed him he frequently seemed to talk to himself about the issue. Folks had long ago learned to leave Kif be as he did so and not ask questions. Kif was not a man the crew took lightly. With the next cargo net spread out and ready to load Kif and Drake began moving crates bound for the Gateway tavern as Kif continued to mutter.

“Freak weather, folk coming up dead or missin’. Right minded folk’d be leavin’ Mulrok afore annathin’ worse ‘appens.”

Drake thought back to the sacks of grain with the House Gray seal. Shipments had increased to the House in recent months but Drake thought little of it. What did he care how much rich folk ate as long as they left him alone. The crates bound for the Gateway were heavy but Drake’s body did the work dumbly without any thought. He was roused from his ruminations as Kif continued to grumble.
“Ain’t no right minded fella gonna take over that bakery neither aft’uh them murders. Black elf mischief that were.” Kif clenched his jaw as if to stop himself speaking but to no avail.

“Mate o’mine tells me he seen a drow there, shoor. Nice as ye please he says that black elf jes’ was let right into tha’ House Gray.”

Drake’s thoughts turned to the old former Mulrok baker and his wife and the rumors of what had happened to them. Folk in the Salty Dog said they were butchered like hogs. Some folk said it was the drow that had done it while others hinted at a darker culprit. No one would say the name but it seemed like everyone knew who it was. House Gray had even made the crier’s lists a few weeks back. No one was surprised when some of House Gray’s guards showed up to ‘talk’ to the crier. What could the crier do but rephrase his reports to speak favourably of the Grays? Kif’s thoughts seemed to be in the same place.

“Strong armed ‘im they done. Made ‘im stop reportin’ what all knew was goin’ on. We know’d they would. Me own cousin saw ‘em talkin’ to the crier and boom, next day ‘appy as ye please, suddenly Gray is soundin’ right nice inna reports.” Kif gathered the net and yanked the rope again. “Haul away lads!” and the crates for the Gateway squeaked their way out of the hold. Kif reviewed the cargo manifest, clenching his jaw in a vain effort to keep himself quiet.

Drake could only imagine what speaking of such things openly would bring. Mystery of one sort or another always followed House Gray and its’ members but never dark mystery. Never until now that is. Kif slammed down his charcoal pencil.

“Two loads an’ done. Never in my days haulin’ cargo fer Deek has Mulrok taken in only two loads of nuthin’. Bloody exodus it is.” He griped as he stormed aft and slammed the door behind him.

Drake had only been with Cappy Deek’s freighter service for a few years but that was long enough to know that Kif was right. Shipments of goods out to Mulrok had dropped off sharply in the last few months. Shipments out of Mulrok had changed too. The only cargo leaving the island were furnishings and household goods. Household goods that followed their owners away from Mulrok and towards presumably safer shores. Kif was right, the locals were leaving Mulrok.

A peal of thunder sounded in the skies above, its low slow rumble signaling one thing that was coming to Mulrok with greater frequency. Storms.
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Paul_Kettlebones
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Re: Old Stories

Post by Paul_Kettlebones »

This one was a bit of role play on why the svirfneblin do not begin the game in Mak'a'nor the way other underdark races begin the game in their respective cities. Naturally I included plenty of references to our player group at the time. :D

Of Sholo and Svirfnebli…

Coel looked over his pack one more time and like every other time he had checked it since his arrival at the gate, everything was still there. Laced carefully into the outer leather shell of the pack was a parting gift from his father, a well polished pick of gleaming black iron. The familiar feel of his gem cutting kit hung at his belt like an old friend. Coel’s father sat on the hand hewn steps nearby absentmindedly cutting gemstone and sparing the occasional glance up to his oldest son. With a smile only deep gnomes can appreciate (or recognize as a smile rather than gas or some other intestinal discomfort) Brum Stonetapper conveyed all the feeling of pride to his son that needed to be conveyed. Coel felt the swelling pride in his own heart that came from his father. Something more dashed about amid the gloomy corners of Coel’s mind however. Something just beyond the pride and restrained happiness. Something darker loomed in the heart of his father. Something Coel could not quite grasp but rather slipped away from him like something the consistency of shadow. This evasive scrap of gloom raised more curiosity than concern and Coel returned to thoughts of what lay ahead of him outside the gate. Master Brum was always a hard read even for a svirfneblin and he had always hid his emotions well.
Coel surveyed the others of the cleaving party, all assembled at the gates of the deep gnome outpost. He felt the flurry of emotions drift among the gathered young deep gnomes like a light early snowfall on the surface. “The surface!” Coel thought, and several others turned to him suddenly, feeling his sudden rush of concern over that strange world above. Coel smiled sheepishly and regained control over his flow of thought permitting the others to turn their minds back to their own concerns. The thought of the overworld had come to him suddenly as it had several times over the last few cycles of sleep and work. “Days they call those on the surface,” he thought to himself. “I’ll never get their timekeeping right. Hours, weeks, days, minutes, or some such order,” he fumed in his frustration to remember his lessons on surfacer time keeping. Coel tried to remember whether minutes or hours were the smaller measure of time. Days he was certain figured into the weekly cycle somehow. “Greater than hours are the days…,” he knitted his brown trying to remember when suddenly a great grinding noise came from the front of the party.

“The gate opens,” exclaimed one of the svirfnebli at the front of the party.

Coel looked up and watched the two foot thick iron and stone gate grind open slowly. He felt his father’s stare on the side of his face, but Coel resolved not to look. Not to see Brum’s eyes and beyond, that flitting shadow of emotion that defied his reach. Coel resolved to be brave for his father and make him proud. As Brum’s pride grew surely that shadow would be further driven away, gone perhaps, from his father’s mind. Only the sound of the gate opening echoed through the outpost. Those nearby stopped and watched it grind open wider and wider. Tools hung idle in strong leathery hands. Master Brum did not cleave another facet into the waiting sapphire. The assembled party of young svirfnebli dared not breathe. For the first time in their lives they would not just watch this gate open, today they would step through it! Their young hearts hammering in their chests, the assembled youths stood transfixed as the gate ground open the last few inches. The squealing grinding cacophony played on in their ears for some time after the gate had fallen silent. Someone shifted and adjusted their pack, another coughed lightly and looked around as if they had just shouted in the midst of a solemn ceremony.
In the deep places of the earth, sound precedes sight and one can stand for a long span of time before the source of a sound is seen with the eyes. From the thick blackness of the opened gate emerged a shuffling sound punctuated by a steady tap of something solid upon the worn stone floor. Anticipation and anxiety moved over the young svirfnebli like a smooth cloth being pulled overhead. The shuffling continued and the alternating tap grew louder by the moment. Walking into the gloom, his pale staff rapping the floor at each alternate step, Father Dribo approached the assembled deep gnomes. Clearing his throat briefly he spoke,

“The mining company has secured the passage to the south towards the deep dark and has placed pickets to the north along our planned route to the coast in Sholo. I can assure all of you that are feeling fearful or anxious that you are quite safe.”

There was much relief among the waiting folk. Father Dribo, ardent servant of the Deep Brother, Callarduran Smoothhands, was both respected and trusted in the community. His words soothed and calmed like a warm kindled fire. His pleasant smile was always comforting and his words of deep wisdom were a tonic in all times ill or fair. On his words and their power alone the community and gathered youths shed their anxieties and began to babble lightly among themselves about what their futures held in store for them. Smiling slightly at the young gnomes, Father Dribo allowed them a few moments before he continued.

Rapping his staff firmly upon the ground and drawing the quiet attention of all assembled, Dribo spoke again, “The time has come for the ceremony of cleaving. This is the time when you, our youth, go out into the brightness of the over-world and learn of our neighbors, the surface folk of Nordock.” Brother Dribo smiled at the gathered youth, and in the quiet way of the svirfnebli, expressed his pride in them.
Leaning slightly on his staff he continued, “Many of you may not realize though your parents and certainly their parents do, that the cleaving is a new tradition among our people. Newly arrived since the time of Mak’a’nor’s founding after the fall of our great city, Gibbelmethin, this tradition serves a vital purpose. Never before were our people so close and so entwined with the surface world. As much as we may wish to the contrary our collective fates are bound to the surfacers. As we once thrived on trade in the deep dark, so too do we now thrive on trade with the sunlit realms. It is for this purpose that we send you our youth out among the people of the surface. You go to learn their ways good or ill, you go to gain an understanding of them, and most importantly you go to help them understand us! Long had surfacers labored under the misconception that we svirfnebli were simply evil gnomes banished from the sunlit just as the drow and the duergar were. Thanks to you and those generations that have gone before you, this misconception has changed. As we leave Mak’a’nor, take a care to look about you for some of you may not see these halls for many years.” Brother Dribo looked down in solemn thought and said hoarsely lest his voice should break, “Some of you will not return at all.”
At this a wave of emotion washed over the gathered svirfnebli and their families. Each knew all too well that the only svirfnebli who never returned to the trade town of Mak’a’nor were those who were killed making their way in the sunlit realm. Husbands reached out to wives and held firm to one another, gnarled leathery hands roughened by the hard labors of daily life expressing with touch that which words would fail to accomplish. With but a nod and a single tap of his staff upon the smooth stone floor, Brother Dribo turned and strode into the blackness of the tunnel beyond. Without a sound save the faint creak of well-oiled leather, the gathered young deep gnomes followed. Freshly cloven from their families they left the only home they had ever known to gleam or shatter in the bright surface sun.
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berylgreen
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Re: Old Stories

Post by berylgreen »

(( <3 Svirfs. This is a wonderful story!))
Paul_Kettlebones
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Re: Old Stories

Post by Paul_Kettlebones »

berylgreen wrote:(( <3 Svirfs. This is a wonderful story!))
Thanks! I wrote that one towards the tail end of the player group on Classic. I guess around the time we lost Catapault and Borg.
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raradra
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Re: Old Stories

Post by raradra »

love it :D
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Tymora
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Paragor
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