Role Playing Game (4 to 10 players needed)

[Atrapa Almas]

Prologue 2: Atolsia (@Misery)

Atolsia decided that humans could be dangerous, as Alistar said. So knowing more about the orcs seemed a good idea. After all, while the dwarves back home could be a bit stuffy, they were also straightforward and honest. She would be able to learn something from the orcs before meeting up with Alistar again.

She started walking back to the orc settlement, good thing that she could see quite well in the middle of the night. They came over that rock… Here were the clear tracks of Alistar… there was the big tree with a funny shape… One hour after that she was lost… Which meant time to settle a small camp and sleep.

It was a good thing that Atolsia had everything she would need in her backpack. A tent, a nice frying pan… that with smoked bacon and some herbs would make a great dinner… a few minutes after that she was by her fire having dinner. She then went to sleep.

It was early in the morning when she woke up. Alistar was making a lot of noise out there, he probably was having breakfast chewing loudly… Atolsia suddenly realized that the noise could not be Alistar… She grabbed her pickaxe and went out of her tent. A very big wolf was eating a big roasted piece of meat…

• Good morning dwarf lady! -A voice in her back said-. Your weapon won't be needed, we are friendly. I hope you won't mind that we use your fire to prepare our breakfast.

The young dwarf looked around and saw a tall woman sharpening a sword, she seemed a ranger. A human-orc ranger.

• You announced your presence with that fire of yours. Not that you was in silence before… I was in charge to… escort you back to my tribe in case you decided to return. Alistar was worried that you could get lost. My name is Tanna. And this wolf is Wurzak.

Atolsia pointed at the wolf and asked about him. She had not seen any wolf at the tribe before.

• There are many things you have not seen of our tribe, dwarven stranger. We do not trust that much in dwarves either. Durum dwarves were our enemies years ago, according to our traditions. Why did you decide to come back with us? I thought all dwarves hate orcs.

Atolsia remembered the words of Alistar. “Orcs are strong and dangerous in an obvious way…” Well, that was the case. The big wolf and the ranger seemed quite experienced and dangerous.. but they also seemed honest and direct. So she put down her pickaxe and joined the fire asking if they had some spare meat to share.

That surprised Tanna, who laughed and relaxed. They had breakfast together and Atolsia shared her fears about human imperium and the way it seemed to grow and grow. She talked a lot and Tanna mostly listened. Once they finished, they headed to the orc tribe.

Atolsia started to see trees covered by mushrooms and that's how she knew they were close to the settlement. She asked Tanna if those were the addictive mushrooms they eat… Tanna laughed again. Those are the mushrooms we harvest, yes. I am not allowed to answer that kind of questions. Not yet at least.

The orc settlement was well fortified, big wooden walls and towers with archers and many wolves patrolling. She had not seen any wolf before, and orcs did not seem drugged this time. Many of them were training. Where she saw tools, there were scimitars and shields now. It really seemed like a very different place…

As soon as the guards met them, they blew a war horn. Some guards and a Troll came, also wolves. They did not seem happy and discussed loudly with Tanna.

Tanna explained Atolsia that she was going to meet their boss and the chaman too, it was a big… honor. Guards took the dwarf backpack and pickaxe and escort her to a big tent.

Shortly after, the Boss Grisnak and the Shaman Tumrod entered the tent. Tanna and some guards were there too.

The boss Grisnak looked at Atolsia with curiosity and started to talk with the guards in orc. He shortly sent them out of the tent and changed some words with Tanna, who seemed relieved. Suddenly the boss changed to a common language.

• So you must be the great danger, little dwarf lady. Please excuse my guards, they were ordered not to allow strangers to see… our village as it is now. Tanna should have warned them of your arrival so we could have played our roles properly… apparently she considers you worthy of our trust…

The massive orc put his two handed sword, if that thing could be considered a sword, on the floor and looked at the shaman, who had been observing silently. He started talking now.

• The girl is a friend of Alistar and Tanna, and comes from Durum dwarf settlement. We are not at war with dwarfs now, but we are in need of allies…

He was talking to himself, his eyes were glowing in blue…

• The great Grisnak has fear that this little dwarf child could tell weak humans what they already know. Our people are not good enough to deceive those pesky humans. Our destiny was decided by them many years ago…

The boss flexed his hands with anger. The shaman continued…

• Don't get angry little Grisnak, lower your head when your ancestors talk you little brat… there is no danger for us in this dwarf, but an opportunity. Humans don't expect her, nor can predict her. Not even her dwarf comrades can understand this girl, that's how special she is. Listen to what she has to say and let her choose…

The blue glow in the shaman eyes faded and he sat down, apparently tired. Tanna asked Atolsia to tell them all what she feared about humans and so she did. Questions were asked and lunch time came, they shared food and drink until the dwarf had finished answering all their questions.

Tumrod looked less tired now, and thanked Atolsia for the information. This time he talked to her.

• Atolsia, you have to choose. Your fears about humans are indeed justified, we can tell you many things about them, and about us. But that information is only shared with friends.

• If you become a friend of this orc tribe we will help and protect you and you will help and protect us. You won't have to obey us, since you won't be a member of our tribe, but you will behave as a friend. A ritual will be done, with blood and magic, that will link our very souls, like my soul is linked with my ancestors.. It will hurt, by the way. And It will disgust your dwarf family to know you became friends with this orc tribe.

• On the other hand you can choose to not become a friend of ours. You will be allowed to stay here until Alistar arrives and you can come back whenever you want, since you are a friend of Tanna. We won't tell you more about humans or us, since that information is just shared with tribal members. And we will ask you not to tell others what you have seen here.

What do you want to do?

(@Misery will decide what she wants to do next and I will continue the prologue 2 from that point. Send me a PM please)

 

[Atrapa Almas]

Prologue 4: Motte (@Tom )

Motte was about to enter Dragon´s castle when he saw an unicorn walking out the door. He had never seen an unicorn before, the magical creature was really beautiful. The unicorn played little attention to him, since she seemed to be concentrated in a bird that was chirping while standing on her horn…

Motte contemplated the the unicorn as she walked away of the castle, then he approached the door.

• Hello Motte! How have you been?

The guard addressed him in a friendly way, some years ago he was a sergeant in the human army. He could have advanced more in the ranks, but after his lord died, he decided to focus on the arts of healing. Too many had he killed and too many friends had he seen dying. Too much suffering. He was not even sure of the purpose of it. Althius village was defended, the Forest Heart was safe but that did not finished the problems. Orcs had stopped to attack, but would the human empire stop?… He had lived enough in the army to believe that.

His lord was consecrated to Imlater, a generous and compassive Deity. Much learned Motte by his side. The clerics of the order could do healing magic but Motte´s faith was not that strong, and his own healing skills came from practice and learning.

He had some talk with the guard, and asked him about his mother, who suffered from back pain. Motte had visited her not many days ago, and she felt better after the treatment. Today he was visiting another person, one of the dragon´s keepers had suffered a burn injury. Training dragons for coordinated combat with the army had that kind of risk.

The castle had many dedicated healers, but he was welcome and appreciated. There were plenty of injuries and pains for many healers more, if not the cold, it was the training. He entered the nursing room and put some herbs to boil, he meditated while the medicine was prepared.

Some time later the patient entered, undressed the injured chest and lay on the table. The dragon's keeper was nervous at first.

After the healing was done, the man was calmed and felt restored. Not only did the burned skin look better, but also he felt relieved of his worries. More focused on the present. He thanked Motte and gave him some coins.

He meditated again to calm his own mind. He cleaned the room and went to talk with some friends and see if anyone needed help of some kind. A draconian with an injured ankle was curious about him and asked for a healing session. He had quite big wings, but his body was so massive that Motte wondered if he could fly. They talked a bit, but the conversation did not flow properly. The creature just wanted some healing, not talking with him.

Motte´s connection with draconians spirit was weak, non the herbs worked well with him. Disappointed, the creature spat in his face.

• You are lucky that I don't punch that hairy face of yours… bah! You are not worth my time, scammer…

Motte tried to calm himself, he tried to understand the creature and accept his anger… controlling his own anger was a hard job. He needed more self control.

No more healing for today, the anger in his chest was not going to disappear soon. It was time to leave the castle. Maybe he could use the remaining daytime to walk a bit and search for some herbs.

He left the castle and walked. His mind returned to the unicorn. Should he go to visit the Forest Heart? He had never been there, maybe this was a good time to learn to connect with other creatures. They probably had good healing knowledge there.

He could also go to Althius Village, the place was very safe nowadays with all the territory around so patrolled by imperium explorers. He could gain some coins there, and probably meet some old friends.

(@Tom will decide what he wants to do next and I will continue the prologue 4 from that point. Send me a PM please)

 

[Atrapa Almas]

Prologue 4: Motte (@Tom )
Motte decided to collect more medicinal herbs so he could sell them at Althius Village and make some money. He headed to the west river and followed its course until he got to the village a couple of days later.

Althius had been built on a rocky island in the middle of a lake. It had stone walls and towers to protect the people living inside. The only entrance to the walls was by boat, since the arch was over the water protected by a metallic portcullis.

As he paid the entrance fee and the boat was getting closer to the fortified village, he observed the archers at the towers and over the walls. Many of them had strange shapes, like they were non-humans.

After a small talk with the locals, Motte realized how much had the village changed in the last months. Almost half of the human population had left and been replaced by non humans. Not that it was a problem, but could make finding clients more difficult since his connection with humans was stronger and healing them was easier for him.

He went to the main army building, the only one that was connected to the walls, and the only way to enter walls and towers. He soon found some old friends there, quite old indeed, since all youngsters had moved to other places. One good thing about old friends is they were always in need of his services.

Motte was there talking with his old friends, when the captain requested him. Marcos had been in charge of that place for many years, he was not only a great fighter but a skilled diplomat. They met back in the old days, and he supported Motte when he decided to leave the army.

Marcos offered him a place as a dedicated healer in the village for the next few months. Some younger human healers had left the village and the old humans soldiers missed them and did not get used to non human healers that replaced the human ones. Motte could sleep and eat in the tavern as a payment for healing old human soldiers in the first hours of the morning, he was free for the rest of the day to do his business.

(@Tom will decide what he wants to do about the job offer. Send me a PM please)

Marcos also asked Motte to help two new soldiers in a mission this same evening. He was being paid five gold coins, which was a good amount of money for the task.

End of prologue 4.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

Kill 10 rats: Galgan, Nienna and Motte (@FoxLovinPat ) (@Stuttermabolur ) (@Tom )

Nienna gave the young dwarf woman a friendly smile before speaking up.

• "Hello there! I noticed you sitting over here all by your lonesome and thought maybe you'd like some company! That and I wanted to hear your story as a young dwarf lady such as yourself is quite the odd sight here, after all you are rather far from the dwarvern lands.”

Galgan gave her name and rank, pretty much as if she was being interrogated by an enemy…

Nienna smiled gently and continued, not letting Galgan's brisk answer affect her good mood.

• “Also it would seem that my fox companion, Vix seems drawn to you, and she's typically a fairly good judge of character so there must be something about you that drew her attention."

Nienna said, gesturing to her fox companion, who is currently lying on her lap and looking at Galgan intently.

• "Oh where are my manners! I nearly forgot to introduce myself! My name is Nienna Riversong, I was an Elven Ranger in my homeland but recently decided to take up the offer to become a full time explorer for the Humans. What's your name?"

As Galgan looked at her unexpected new companion, she saw a beautiful elven woman with reddish orange hair roughly the same hue as her fox companion's fur and who appeared to be wearing Hide Armor with various accents made out of animal parts, such as antlers, claws, and fangs. Nienna also had a bow and quiver on her back, which also share the animal part accented theme of her armor and if one were to look closely they'd see a dagger on her belt, with what seems to be a beautifully carved antler as a hilt, and resting inside a hide sheath.

Decided not to be rude, Galgan used her most formal accent to ask Nienna about the forest, she was specially interested in edible wildlife and plants in the area. She also asked Nienna about her reason to join the army.

Nienna listened to Galgan's brief introduction and questions and replied:

• "Ah so you recently joined the Imperium army eh, so guessing you wouldn't know too much about them other than what you've been told so far as a new recruit, and I sense your hesitancy to provide personal information which is understandable as you don't exactly know me. Now as for your questions..."

She paused for a moment as she thought of responses for some of the questions before continuing…

• "I did recently join the Imperium too, but as an explorer as that aligns more to my skillset, and before that I did indirectly work for them but that was more then sometimes paying me for whatever information I could give them of things I observed in my travels through the forests if my homeland so I have some experience I guess in that regard. I'm afraid I can't give you much information on this area as I recently came to it myself so I'm just as new as you are to it, but as for the flora and fauna of the surrounding area.."

Nienna reached into a pouch on her person and pulled out a small book and flips through it a little before placing it on the table where Galgan can see it too, she then proceeds to go through it with Galgan showing her information on various common flora and fauna that are likely to be in the area. She also added:

• "If you do have to hunt any local fauna for additional food in your travels, do try to be respectful of them and kill them quickly and humanely and try and use as much of the animal as you can."

Nienna couldn't help but add that, even if Galgan found it annoying because she couldn't stand hunters that show no respect for the animals they hunt so she always instructed any prospective hunters on proper hunting etiquette.

They were there talking and looking at the book illustrations of flora and fauna when captain Marcos arrived to greet the new recruits. They were so focused on the conversation that they skipped the instructions for the village tour.

Fortunately Marcos was a good man and did not punish them too much. Instead of the original village tour, they were taking a special tour into Althius Sewers…

Every soldier in the mess hall started laughing.

After the other soldiers had left, Nienna and Galgan were told that their mission was to patrol the sewers in search of ratmen, a task usually done by lizardmen who are better to patrol sewers. Unfortunately lizardmen tend to forget to capture ratmen alive so the army can properly interrogate them.

To be sure that ratmen are captured alive, the army will provide an experienced ex-soldier with healing skills. He is currently healing some old human soldiers, let me introduce you.

That's how Nienna and Galgan met Motte, who was surprised about being hired for that.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

Hello all,

Due to lack of responses from some of the players I dont think it is worth to continue this game.

Thank you all for your participation.

For those of you who may be interested in testing role playing games, there are solo playing games like D100 Dungeon.

D100 Dungeon

Old school dungeon delving without the need for a GM or friends!

boardgamegeek.com

Im also open for feedback. I have been wondering if the lack of response has been somehow my own fault. Maybe the story was boring... I dont know.

 

[Misery]

Hello all,

Due to lack of responses from some of the players I dont think it is worth to continue this game.

Thank you all for your participation.

For those of you who may be interested in testing role playing games, there are solo playing games like D100 Dungeon.

D100 Dungeon

Old school dungeon delving without the need for a GM or friends!

boardgamegeek.com

Im also open for feedback. I have been wondering if the lack of response has been somehow my own fault. Maybe the story was boring... I dont know.

For me honestly it's just hard to keep track of the forum sometimes, with topics that arent like, "recent". I dont know about you but the whole thing sometimes just seems to not send alerts sometimes? Like, this message you posted just here was the first alert I've gotten about this topic in quite awhile. When I scroll up and look at some of the posts above this, I've not seen them before.

I've seen this happen more than a few times on the forum here, with other topics. I've wondered a couple of times if it was something on my end, I cant tell if others miss anything. I've even had it happen with topics I made myself, where I'm like wondering why nobody replied only to go look at it after a couple of weeks and there's like 5 responses in there that I never knew about.

With topics that are recent enough to still be showing on the front page this isnt an issue as I'll spot that the number of responses on one has gone up, but once a topic leaves the front page I can lose track of it.

The story was fine, I'd quite enjoyed it, really.

 

[FoxLovinPat]

Yeah, it's like I said in the group dm this can be tricky at times to coordinate online what with different time zones and schedules and what not.
Plus what Misery said about the forums notifications not working as intended at times, tho I haven't seen much of that myself so I'll just take Misery's word for it

I think you were doing a good job with it, you had excellent world building and I thought the idea in general was good otherwise I wouldn't have joined up, heh.