[WFRP2e] The Saga of Jorunn - Part 1 - "That Which Remains"

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will attempt to show the wolf mercy. if that doesnt work, well its dinner time

animal care
(1d100)[36]

outdoor survival

(1d100)[2]

perception

(1d100)[77]

[MrAbdiel]

You have never needed to, before; but you read the animal's behaviour, and try to cater to it some. You wake it with some saltfish in your palm, and placid and morose, it nibbles it up; though you suspect the profusion of salt to preserve it is not ideal for the beast. It is sick; and without special medicines the likes of which you do not know, the best you can offer it is real meat, and some sips of water splashed out from your waterskin. It overs a reedy little whine it its throat, and accepts your kindness; complaining only a little when you rise to pack up camp.

It's in more luck than you are on the road, when your eyes spot a deformation in the snow where a rabbit has dug a hasty burrow. Giving it a good stomp on top and bracing yourself, you plant your weight down and snatch the scrawny beast up when it bolts for its life, breaking its neck and having it over it spit that afternoon. A welcome break from rations - and fresh meat for the pathetic, but inoffensive wolf that nibbles up the gizzards and cuts you toss him.

Spoiler: OOC:

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No need to spend rations today!

But as the snow continues to fall, it obscures the remnants of track you've been relying on to guide yourself towards Zagdhelm. It takes all your focus and concentration not to veer off and become lost; and while you accomplish that, the sacrifice of your senses costs you.

There are three of them, surrounding you before you realize; leaning out of the shade of the trees and rocks about you having followed you for, you guess, perhaps half a mile, catching up only now. Mutants; wretches, deformed and rejected; unworthy of a tribe, striving only to live, never to prove themselves to gods or clan. Pathetic. But here you were, with them around you: a horrific bloody skeleton containing a sagging collection of wet organs; a man whose skin and body entire seem to have been turned into jagged glass; and a third man, whose body... seems not to have changed at all. The first two carry clubs made from the limbs of trees- the crystal-man hoisting his with easy, the repulsive skeleton wretch barely lifting his. The third, the leader, you think, has a rough leather quiver on his back, with spares like the javelin in his hand. They do not call a warning, asking you to surrender. The mean to kill you, if you do no kill them.

Spoiler: ROLL INITIATIVE!

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SkellyboyUnnervingVs32 - (1d100)[48] Unnerved!
SkellyboyInitiative - (1d10+4)[6]
TheGlassManUnnervingVs36 - (1d100)[75] Unnerved!
TheGlassManInitiative - (1d10+3)[13]
TheJavelineerVs36 - (1d100)[32]
TheJavelineerInitiative - (1d10+4)[14]

If your initiative comes out higher than all of them, you can go right away. The wolf is following you, but not tamed and able to take orders just yet; you'll have to wait and see what it thinks of all of this.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn gawks for a second at them, but a second means all the world in the trenches of combat. after that second has passed, he lets out a bellow and attacks the javelin-wielding mutant

(1d10+4)[12]

Spoiler: ooc

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i assume i have my shield out, so i get a free parry

[MrAbdiel]

With a howl of his own, the javelineer cranks back his arm, aiming to compensate against your shield, and flings his weapon...

Spoiler: Javelin!

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vs36 - (1d100)[91], +10 for aim and -10 for shield included. If it hits, (1d10+3)[7] damage.

...though you easily duck it, and it sail on to embed in a snowdrift behind you.

The glass man, whose features are unreadable as they glimmer and shine with the light off the snow, hesitates to charge you; instead, he shifts sideways to guard his leader, crouching defensively.

Spoiler: OOC: Your turn!

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The Glass Man has moved between you and the Javelineer, so he's impeding a charge. You could charge him, but he has taken a parry stance to prepare to receive you.

The Skeleton-Man has yet to act, though he also seems unnerved in his miserable posture.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will charge the mutant he's dubbed organ meat, and make a chop at him. he slips on the snow, and nearly goes prone, but keeps his feet

(1d100)[92]

(1d10+4)[5]

[MrAbdiel]

The grotesquery skitters back on the snow as you come for it; then makes an almost ginger swing with his club. You lean away from it, not enacting the labor of parrying such a feeble strike.

Spoiler: Attack!

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vs11 - (1d100)[72] for (1d10+2)[7].

The skinless, fleshless creature makes a pitiful warble for aid; though his companions are not particularly forthcoming. While the Glass Man shuffles forward, club held defensively, the javelineer makes a risky throw into the melee; a second shaft whipping by without really endangering you.

Spoiler: Rolls!

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vs16 - (1d100)[87] for (1d10+3)[10] with the javelin. Glass Man moves towards Jorunn, and takes parrying stance again

Oh, and attempting to save off Unnerving:
Glass Man (1d100)[60].
Skellybo (1d100)[88].

Nope! Your turn again!

Your new wolf friend dances back from this combat, ears drooping in trepidation, tracking the combat with distress.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will make two attacks against organ meat, hoping to drop him before glass man can come to help. "get in the fight, damn you" he yells at the wolf

(2d100)[81][34](115)

(1d10+4)[14]
(1d10+4)[11]

[MrAbdiel]

The mangy wolf makes a mournful roowoowooowoo; its experience in combat, it seems, less than favorable, and it fear of harm too strong for it to commit.

Your blow crashes into the skeleton-man, cracking ribs and jostling guts; and he releases pathetic wheeze while trying to raise a reasonable defense. The javelineer gives up his effort of engaging from range - he draws the half of what might once have been a good sword, but is now broken off halfway down the length to make a very poor one indeed. As he does so, his companion, the glassy juggernaut, charges in and swings for your lower back with his club!

Spoiler: OOC: Rolls!

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BoneyVs11 - (1d100)[75] for (1d10+2)[9].
GlassyVs21 - (1d100)[83] for (1d10+4)[8].

BoneyCourage - (1d100)[94]
GlassyCourage - (1d100)[18]

Gosh, these guys have bad targets to hit; but they've also rolled garbage. Can't catch a break! Atleast the Glass Man seems less unnerved - now you're ganged up on in the melee, with the poor pathetic wolf unable to muster the lupine courage to commit to combat.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will make one attack on bonesy, hopefully finishing him off, and then move to attack glassy

(1d100)[67]

(1d10+4)[12]

(1d100)[12]

(1d10+4)[14]

[MrAbdiel]

The repulsive skeleton, whose flesh seems to have already fled him, manages to weave back from your executing blow, with the crystalline opponent crowding into your vision, bombarding your senses with prismatic glare coming off the snow. Furious, you turn your attention his way, strike aside his incoming blow, then bring down your stolen axe with vengeful fury on the attacker's arm. There is no satisfying wet smack of flesh, but there is a somehow gruesome sound of glass cracking and crazing as shards fly, and the mutant's arm goes slack to its side, the wound glowing orange and bubbling with molten glass rushing from it like an arterial flow. Wailing with a weirdly human throat, the creature has the presence of mind to pick up his dropped club with the other hand and bring it to bear on you, just as the skeleton does the same; the pair hammering you with nuisance blows.

Spoiler: OOC:

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First Organ Meat hits your left arm for 5 damage (down to 1, after your TB of 4); then the Man of Glass hits that same arm for 6 (down to 2, after your TB). But you can attempt a parry and dodge to these blows, to negate even this small damage!

A clear and inexplicable instinct warns you these two, furious as they are, are not your greatest danger; your instinct to charge the other first was right, though they impeded it. Now with club in hand, standing in the snow, the mutant starts to bark and froth; eyes growing bloodshot, biting at the skin of his club and the skin of his wrist in wild hate as he draws up his anger, just as you have done in the past.

The mangy wolf seems so slowly find its will, now; going from nervous disengagement to slowly assured then concentrated, warning barking at the berserker. And soon it's apparent why - not only does he grow mad with anger, insensible to the instinct to survive, but he grows taller, his arms and legs longer. You hear bones clicking as they rearrange themselves; tufts of dull grey fur stabbing through his skin in clusters until he is covered in mats of it, his face pushing out into a lupine muzzle dripping with saliva and full of fangs as fierce as the claws on his hands.

A were. A man touched by the gods, perhaps the Hound, and given the blood and soul of an animal. He will surely charge you, in a moment; and you must wonder what such a monstrosity might do, if you have to consider its friends as well!

Spoiler: Your Turn!

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The "Javelineer" spends this turn entering Frenzy, which triggers his were mutation. He is now considerably more threatening!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn curses, and will attempt to parry and dodge the attacks. then he'll make two attacks on organ meat in hopes of finishing him off

parry

(1d100)[35]

dodge

(1d100)[8]

(2d100)[46][44](90)

(1d10+4)[6]
(1d10+4)[12]

[MrAbdiel]

Two blows crash into the wretched mess of bone and organ meat; the first blow smashing through its shoulder and shearing off one skeletal arm, the next crunching through the exposed ribcage and into the panic-beating heart within, topping him over backward and ending his pathetic existence. Oozing molten glass from the jagged stump of a shoulder, the vengeful mutant with a body of glinting crystal brings down a punishing blow toward your head just as the bounding wolf-creature behind you roars into combat, swiping with its massive claws at your exposed back. The mangy wolf, rather than becoming afraid at this, seems to become impassioned by it - a wolf that hates its own kind, perhaps, though it cannot manage to lay fangs on the monstrosity.

As you defend yourself, your heart hammers in your chest. You think you can finish off the Man of Glass - but what of this monster? Have you come all this way, just to die in the snow and be fed on by a slavering monster? The very thought touches your heart with defiant fury... and a clear and inexplicable instinct urges you that rage does not belong to animals; it belongs to men, like you.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Two big hits to defend against this turn - 14 and 13 damage. But after that, I will offer you, this one time, an opportunity to enter Frenzy for free, instead of taking a round to do so; if you choose.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will dodge and parry, and take a swift attack as the rage boils over inside

dodge
(1d100)[72]

parry
(1d100)[2]

attacks
(2d100)[17][91](108)

(1d10+5)[7]

(1d10+5)[12]

[MrAbdiel]

Another chop at the Man of Glass throws jagged chips of him into the air; his body tough to crack but brittle with leverage; and he recoils away from a blow that, properly twisted, might have split him in half. As he totters back, you slap away the club from his hand and he lets it loose; falling back to the ground and turning to try to crawl away with his one arm and molten-slag stump leaving a trail behind him. You might have given chase, but then the other one, the wild and hideous wolf creature is upon you; almost too fast for you to comprehend. Most of the blow that comes in merely rakes across your shield, but even the tail end of the slash leaves agonizing, gory gouges up your bicep and shoulder; gobbets of blood splashing away from you into the snow. Turning to confront this deadly foe more fully, giving him now the respect a true enemy deserves, you feel the fury come up from the floor of your guts and boil into your head until red fills your eyes, and a shout leaves your mouth - not a shout but a scream, not a scream but a roar.

But it's... not like last time. It's not like the times you've raged; not like when you sacked Truskholm, or fought the Imperial dogs in Albion, or any time inbetween. The rage comes up, and fills you, but pushes on your body from within and you feel it stretching you, threatening to split you entirely from within. More than that, you see it in the eyes of the wolf-man who towered over you a moment ago, but now looks up at you; the frenzied warrior insensible to fear as you have become now, but trepidatious in your expanding presence. You feel the stitches of your clothing splitting and bursting, as you lunge forward. When you strike, and the wolfman dances away, you see your hand holding the hatched - a huge, clawed hand holding the weapon's whole haft; your arm and hand covered in fur as snow-white as your hair, and eyes. But your fury will not let you relent, and you barrel onward following the missed swing with an instinct to bite; and your mouth - or rather, your muzzle, your jaws, crash down on the wolf's shoulder and you taste its blood and muscle tearing beneath your fangs. As you do, the mangy wolf picks up on the sense of your frenzy and lunches up to latch its jaws on the back of the man-wolf's knee; writhing and biting, adding insult to your significant injury.

It swipes back, in its own desperation; one claw slashing narrow lines in the hide of the wolf below it, while its teeth bite into your shoulder in kind; but your shoulder is now a bulwark of muscle and fur, and not so easily damaged. Never have you felt more powerful; never more deadly and masterful over the world. You must kill this creature; and then, its pitiful ally crawling away; and daemons take all the why, and how, that would delay you!

Spoiler: Surprise!

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Well, this isn't something I expected when I first thought about your adventure, but it's what the dice demanded. Rolled up fair and square. Remember when I made you roll that 20% chance to be a mutant, and we did your mutation? Well, on top of that, Norscan characters who start with a mutation ALSO have a 10% chance of being ... more. And I wanted that to be a surprise if it came up, and low and friggen behold... https://forums.giantitp.com/showsing...&postcount=269

Jorunn is an Were; specifically, a Bjornwernar; a Werebear. This does two main things to a starting character.

The first is that it sets your Fate Points to Zero. Since this is a solo game and there's no need to balance the game against other player characters who might feel put out, we're not going to worry about that, so your Fate Points stay the same.

The second is that it dramatically alters how your Frenzy talent works. Normally, Frenzy is... pretty bad.

Normal Frenzy: Spend a round psyching up. Next round you lose control and go berserk. +10 Strength and Willpower, but -10 Weapon Skill and Intelligence. Can only make all out attacks, charge attacks or swift attacks; can't flee or retreat. Lasts until combat is over.

That's alright, but a -10WS is a really big price to pay for those small bumps to Str and WP. But a Werecreature, when they Frenzy, gets the following:

+10 WS
+10 S
+10 T
+20 Ag
-10 Int
-10 WP
-20 Fel
+1 Attack
+5 Wounds
+1 Move

And replace skills and talents with:

Skills: Concealment, Follow Trail, Perception, Silent Move, Swim
Talents: Keen Senses, Natural Weapons, Night Vision

So instead of becoming a little stronger and stronger of will, you become a reckless killing machine half-bear. The only real downside compared to normal frenzy is the reduced WP in that state, which will matter only when dealing with certain spells and effects that target WP. As it stands, it means you become signficantly more deadly, especially with that extra attack - which is why I asked you to roll that third swing.

Also worth noting is Natural Weapons, which means you are considered to always be armed with a handweapon for everything except parrying. So right now, you have that hand weapon and shield and they're still important for generating that free parry; but you're attacking with your bulk, and claws, and teeth, without that pesking -5WS for poor quality on the axe.

If any part of that isn't clear, let me know; I know it's a bombshell, but I hope the surprise was a welcome one. I tried to foreshadow it a bit with all the bear imagery and the white hair mutation; but now you're a were polar bear, and if you're anything like me you will find that sick as hell.

You do need to parry this wolf boy's attack, though you now have an extra 5 wounds to burn even if you fail. The glass man withdraws and starts crawling away. You may now, at your leisure, attack three times and rip this guy apart.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn cackles through a mouth full of blood, and will make three attacks on the wolf-man. his heavy claws scything through meat and muscle like a hot knife through butter. "come to die, have you!" he crows

parry

(1d100)[96]

attacks

(3d100)[17][50][5](72)

(1d10+6)[11]
(1d10+6)[11]
(1d10+6)[16]

[MrAbdiel]

Your little ally, seeming so small now when he was almost your size a moment ago, releases his grip on the towering wolfman just in time for your display of gore. Dropping shield and hatchet, your massive paws rise to grab top and bottom jaws of the wolfman, your strength powering through his bite pressure and quickly detatching him from you with an audible, dislocating crack. His howl becomes a yelp, just long enough for your claws to slash across his throat and pour blood down his chest and to the snow - a mortal blow, with the rage leaving his eyes as he knows it. But mortality is not enough; and with one massive hand clutched around the enemy's broken muzzle and another dug in under his collarbone, you rip him open; snapping away bones and innards and leaving a grotesque pile of insides while the hollowed, exposed chest chavity smokes in the cold air. Heart shredded to pulp by this maneuver, he goes slack; his body remaining in its half man half wolf form even in death.

Your roar of triumph shakes the trees; and with no enemies left, the blood haze begins to fade; and the feeling of unstoppable power in your blood sizzles down; and within moments you are yourself again; but exhausted, and bleeding, and surrounded by bodies. The Glass Man has bled to death; his strange blood cooled into a glazed streak in the snow terminating at his still corpse. The slain skeletal monstrosity cannot look much worse in death than in life; but it, too, is destroyed.

The wolf, still mangy, still somewhat pathetic, joined in the battle by the end; but in the aftermath, he sniffs at the bodies and recoils; knowing by instinct not to eat the flesh of mutants.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Gain 250XP for this brutal revelation. You are presently on 4 wounds remaining, I believe.

You are not trained in medicines; and if you were, you couldn't address a wound on your back. But the blood isn't rolling off you; so it doesn't seem mortal... yet. You pick through the bodies, but find little spoil worth taking; the clubs are just choice chunks of wood. But they had to be staying somewhere - they had to have chosen this ambush point for a reason...

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Give me a +20 Perception test, to scout about for the mutant's camp. Failing that, you'll have no choice but to forge on (for two days) towards Zagdhelm; or go back (one day) to Truskholm.

Spoiler: Oh, how do those Extra Wounds work, you ask?

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I'm going with "they appear 'full' when you change, and they disappear with whatever damage they took when you change back". So you gained 5 "Temporary" wounds, the wolfman mauled you for 3 of them; but those 3 points of damage and the two untaken wounds went away when you turned back, so you're back at the 4 wounds you were on when you got whacked the one time. We'll call that a kind of.. mild regeneration.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will stalk around the wilderness looking for their camp. his blood is up, and he wants no further scuffles. he finds nothing, and continues to zagdhelm

perception
(1d100)[91]

[MrAbdiel]

You scout about the area, following tracks as best you can; but all you find is a crummy, cold calmfire and a pot of boiled tree-bark; a testament to how desperate these mutants were. They must have moved south towards Truskholm, then spotted you on the way and stalked you back here, intending to kill and eat you. But now they are dead, and you are not; may all fools end this way. With no other options, you and your skittish lupine tag-a-long continue west towards Zadghelm. When the sun begins to fall, you painstakingly set up one of your tents, and struggle to light a warming fire. Every action that involves twisting or moving or shifting stresses the tears on your back, and spikes you with pain. With a stomach moderately full of rations, you drift off to difficult sleep.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Down one more shot of rations; but you heal 1 Wound overnight, so you should be up to 5. Fortunately, you weren't reduced to 3 or fewer wounds, which would have rendered you Heavilly Wounded and only able to regen 1 wound per week!

But the morning doesn't bring much relief. When you wake to the pathetic wolf licking your face and stir painfully to look outside, you see that the sun has neglected to rise; in its place are dense grey clouds, and curls of snow-laden wind that you know well precede a considerable fall.

You skip breakfast, pack with haste, and start on the road; the biting winds kept off you skin by the trophy-furs you took from the hunters, and push on towards Zadghelm. You have little choice; turning back, away from the storm, would drive you towards Truskholm, where certainly the town has learned of the fate of their hunting party and put together the circumstances in which a stranger sold them skins in the same timeframe. If you can get to Zagdhelm before the blizzard hits in full, you will be safe for a time; but if you are caught on the road and it really comes down, you will certainly perish in the frost. So what choice do you have? You push on, at a jog when you can; sparing your energy and embittered by the pain of your wounds.

The snow is coming down, and your best hope based on the descriptions you were given is that Zagdhelm is just a couple of hours further west. But an opportunity presents itself - off the road, on a slope of ground cleared by hand, is a small log house with an empty animal pen beside it, and smoke rising from its circular chimney. A freeholder's home - whoever lives there has likely taken their animals inside against the coming blizzard, preparing to wait it out. But the presense of such a home at all suggests Zagdhelm must be as close as you hope.

Options lay themselves before you, and time to choose one runs out.

The homestead is closer; you could go there and seek hospitality (or force that hospitality on the bluff that they won't fight you, wounded as you are). But if those who live there are strange people or become hostile in the time you may end up trapped by the snows, you will be in more danger than you would have been in Zadghelm; a thrall market enjoys the enforced peace of a trading hub that provincial homesteads do not. An ambitious farmer might simply kill you in your sleep rather than risk your threatening presense, but it's much less likely a boarding house operator in Zagdhelm would do the same.

...But what good is a warm bed in Zadghelm if you freeze to death on the road, having hoped the storm wouldn't be so bad or wouldn't last so long, and so chose to risk it?

Spoiler: OOC: Options

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Option A: Check the homestead. You can do this with a concealment roll if you want to approach sneaky like, though if spotted this is much more suspicious behaviour; or simply walk up and make yourself known for a more civil approach. This may put you at the mercy of whoever lives there.

Option B: Try to push hard on the road hoping to get to Zadghelm before the snow boxes you in. Zadghelm is safer, but you're gambling the weather will not become foul; and the worst scenario of all is being stuck in a small tent in a blizzard, which tempts a cold death. But if you want to try pushing on, give me a Toughness roll to keep up a good pace.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will push on, huddling in his furs as he curses the weather

toughness roll

(1d100)[79]

[MrAbdiel]

Growling a curse to the weather - and in the same breath, a prayer to Bjarna the she-bear with whom you now hold new shocking kinship, to keep you in sure footing as you move westward, toward hearth, toward home. Slowly the stony path before you fades entirely into white powder; only the cut way through the trees guiding you on; and after a while, with feet numbed to blocks of marble and skin so cold you fear your blood is turning to rubies in your veins, you finally can see nothing at all. All is white; but the knowledge that slowing will mean you are buried in slow and lost to the cold drives you on, with your mangy wolf scuffing along behind you in your snow-carved wake. At last, you shut your eyes as the freezing wind threatens to pearl your eyeballs; and a moment later your eyelids and frosted closed. You feel tilt when your numb feet catch something, and the snow and earth races up to smash into you; and for a few more exhausted feet, you crawl in the way you think is west. Then comes the darkness; and a dream of warmth.

Spoiler: You Dream...

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"That's right, Jorunn. This is the one."

You sit, so young and bright eyed that dreams of glory have not yet come into your head, and all you want to do is climb trees and catch snowhares. The snow is heavy and thick outside; when it stops, the hares will be trying to kick open their tunnels and that is the best time to snatch them up, if you are quick enough. But you are forbidden to go out in the blizzard; you are inside, in front of the fire. It's no climbing-a-tree, but time with this man, who seems to you so big he must hold up the world, is also good. He holds an axe in each hand; both have short hafts, but one has a plain, squared head and the other has a narrower band of steel which sweeps down into the axe's 'beard'. It's also fancier; it has carved runes in it, not like the runes you see around town. Runes belonging to whomever the axe was made by, before your father killed them, and took it as a prize.

"This is a tool, and this one is a weapon. Both can kill; both can cut wood. But this one is made to cut wood, and this one is made to kill. It is the same for men, as axes. Some men are made to cut wood. Others -"

You lay on the floor in an unfamiliar longhouse; the remnants of a meagre feast being doled out to hardy men as others lay out their bedrolls. You are heaped infront of a fireplace beneath your furs; you are shivering, but alive; the mangy wolf sleeping on top of your feet, lending them its warmth.

"You're up. Damn - I had bet another man a sceatta that you would not wake. The last rider back through the gate had found you buried in snow just outside the boundary stone, nothing but the tip of your axe to tell you were there, and this mutt yarping away. Tried to put it away for you so it wouldn't be stolen; but your fingers seemed frozen around the half, or else gripped like Old King Death."

The speaker is a little older than you; a wiry young warrior with markings suggesting he is from the mountainous Vanaheimlings, sipping a mug of hot mead as he chats away. Attention drawn to your hand, you look down under the furs and discover, indeed, your hand is still gripped tight around the haft of the axe. But not the woodcutter's axe that has served you in these last days. It is the bearded axe that your father gave you that he won so long ago; the one you carried into your trial, so ill-fated as to see you emerge to your father's death.

The axe that you had to release to the deep black of the sea, to survive the horrid wreck in the freezing sea. How is it possible, that it is here now? This is the second item returned to you from the fickle ocean, this time far from the shore where it could feasibly have happened by chance, and this one not likely to ever float on a wave anyway.

Is this a blessing from the gods... Or something of which you should be wary? The answers, still, are not clear. Your story grows only more complicated; never simpler.

Spoiler: OOC: Zadghelm

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You're holed up in a longhouse, to wait out the blizzard; safe, apparently surviving. And somehow, your old axe has found its way back to you.

It's likely to be at least a day of isolation before the snow stops and the market can resume. If you have any questions for these travellers who have come here for the Thrallmarket from many tribes and clans, now is a good time for gossip/charm rolls. Otherwise, you can have another day of rest (for another 1 wound back), and decide what you're hoping to look for at this Thrallmarket; after which I'll set the scene for you.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn jerks awake, and then relaxes. "thought i was dead for a second" he jokes, slinging the axe back in his belt. jorunn will take it easy for the day, gaining another wound back

[MrAbdiel]

You keep a low profile and recover for the day, your drive to survive having paid off. Your eyes watch the room, and those assembled here; Aeslings, Skaelings, Vanaheimlings... even some Bjornlings like yourself, though you suspect from the great city of Skjold, as they seem well provisioned and you recognize none of their markings as the regional clans you know. It's not a particularly festive arrangement; no one drinks to excess, and everyone's eyes are on everyone else. Norscan clans are not a naturally united bunch, and a 'neutral' ground like a Thrallmarket only restrains that so much; but there is no deviation from that quiet simmer of tension.

The day after, the blizzard breaks; a handful of the Vanaheimlings bore through the snow heaped at the door, and the local Skaelings with the responsibility to facilitate the Thrallmarket in process are already well underway clearing, preparing, lighting warming bonfires. You let the other warriors, the ones who are not recovering from such vicious damage, head out first; the less attention you draw to yourself, the better. But then you emerge, and the village of Zagdhelm lies before you; a great circular array of huts and longhouses with a village 'square' dotted with recently stoked bonfires; and a field of tents pitched around and between all the structures. In the square itself, the assembled tribes have their banners planted, and present their wares - live and otherwise - for purchase.

Spoiler: Points of Interest in Zadghelm

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You can investigate any, or all of these points, in sequence. It's a large market, but a small enough affair you won't miss out on any today.

- The Aesling Sale Block
- The Vanaheimling Sale Block
- The Skaeling Sale Block
- The Bjornling Sale Block
- The Vikti's Hut (i.e., the local Skaeling Shaman)
- The Chaos Dwarf Delegation
- Shrine Of Kharnath (Primary Skaeling Deity)
- Shrine Of the Chained Maiden (Local minor deity)
- Ring of Proving (Pitfighting and Mercenary recruitment)

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will wander the markets, looking for a healer thrall to patch him up, and check the stalls in no particular order. he'll also check the chaos dwarf stall, though he's prolly too poor to afford anything in there

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: OOC: A Polite Warning For Readers

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I don't normally do trigger warnings as a matter of principle, but when we're coming up on a slave market in a game, it's worth making a note, just for anyone who happens to be glancing through this thread who might recoil.

Slavery is bad and wrong. In the world of Warhammer, it is practiced by the worse people in the world, as well as some runners up.
The fact that this system has classes for thralls and slaves and slavers is neither an endorsement of those behaviours in real life or a minimization of their historical evils; either by myself, or my noble player here, or a reader, or the designers of WFRP2e.

That said, while I don't intend here (or ever) to run a game that has an ongoing side feature of the players trading slaves and exploiting them in one way or another, I don't have any intention of bubble-wrapping the worst parts of this dark fantasy setting. If a man gets chopped in half by a demon, he's getting chopped in half. If Jorunn needs to purchase a thrall to hunt rabbits in his journey or protect him while he sleeps or tend to his horrible werewolf wounds, that's what's gonna happen; and on account of none of these people being real, I'll construct those scenes and those NPC's and I'll be privileged for the opportunity to do so.

Slavery bad; stories that glorify slavery disgusting; stories that feature bad or disgusting things are just part of an honest approach to fantasy.

- MrAbdiel.

You walk the rows of thralls, eying them over as you go. If you were buying a horse, this would be complex. There are secrets about a horse's hooves, and teeth, a buyer ought to know before taking out his lucre. But humans are humans; and as an inflictor of damage, you can tell damage on humans, as well as which might have the skills their sellers claim they do by the quality of their hands, and muscles.

There are about forty thralls for sale; these have distinguished themselves by surviving to be sold here. They all look predictably sorry as a rule, but you pass over those that are particularly undernourished. Those might be fed and made to work the land on a freehold, but they'd be no good to you in the days to come. You winnow out those with no usable skills, or obvious weaknesses of form, until you are choosing between those who have something you offer you - they speak enough Norscan to not require constant violent supervision, they do not look immediately eager to flee into the wilderness and die cold rather than live in service, and you are able to learn from their handlers something about what they, atleast, claim to have done in their life before capture. And they are not so outrageously valuable.

The Aeslings, the ritually scarred and horrific maniacs they are, have come this way from the far east of Norsca - perhaps it is their proximity to the frightful Kurgan that is responsible for their particularly wicked aspect. Of those of interest from their mess are two strong fighters - a Bretonnian Man-At-Arms and a Kislevite Kossar. Both look strong and young, though the Bretonnian likely has less disruptive spirit in him (they are all slaves to their dukes and kings already), while the Kislevite is more used to surviving in harsh cold wilderness already. They have with them also a Dwarf Peasant whom, you are given to understand, was a colonist of the Norse Dwarves who strayed too far from their encampment. He has a common man's suite of skills, which means he might be useful handling and training that mangy wolf... but dwarves make bad thralls. They do not long tolerate the collar, so their captors tend to work them to death quickly rather than risk the stunted ones developing the spirit required to kill them in their sleep. All are male; each of these would cost three sceatta.

The Vanaheimlings are high mountain dwellers from the jagged uplands north of both the Bjornlings and the Skaeling. They are tall, rough folk even by Norscan standards; with few words to mince, but a patient indifference to the games of dealers and hagglers. Of their captives, three stand out, all snatched up from the same ill fated adventuring convoy that made its way into the mountains to perish. The two men are a Mediator and a Deepwatcher; the first a kind of negotiator between castes or classes (who apparently failed to talk his way out of this) and the second a member of a guild of explorers and adventurers that originated in Tilea and has flung its chapters across the Old World. The former possesses a quick tongue and a talent for language and deal making, the latter has the skills of a fighting man and one accustomed to navigating deep places. The third is a woman who claims to be a Bounty Hunter, though what bounty was worth going into the Vanaheim Mountains, she refuses to say. She certainly has tracking and stalking skills; and seems capable enough, especially for a woman. Your people, the Bjornlings, are somewhat more open minded about skilledness than other tribes; and if the other tribes are willing to sell a female thrall to you for two sceatta while the men cost three, then all the better for your pocket.

The Bjornlings are a party from the great port town of Skjorn, from which raiding ships go out to seek thralls and plunder even as Marienburg trading vessels come in to buy ivory and fur. These are the most 'social' of tribes, though that doesn't say much to the Southerners who see all Norscans as undifferentiated thugs - typical Southerners, all so soft and overeducated. Their offerings are plucked up from the Nordland coast: a Rat Catcher and Miner, both women whose versatile skillsets are likely to be overlooked when they are sold off to a Freehold somewhere that needs them only for their obedience and plot-toil, and a man who has withstood considerable beating without giving back, but holds his bruised self with quiet dignity - a servant of one of the Southmen's gods, you are told. Perhaps good luck, if their gods can be persauded to work with yours. This Initiate has displayed no supernatural blessing, but priests and such often have training in medicine, among the southern peoples. He may be a candidate for your healer-thrall. The Bjornings see enough value in all these captives they want three sceatta for each.

The Skaelings you already know well; legendary sea reavers and constant rivals of your people, whom they see as soft and worldly. They have more thralls to offer, since they haven't had to go so far; but they also have a greater preponderance of Norscans they have captured. It is harder to take a train of thralls across the country if they are native to that country; they are more prone and capable to run off, but since the Skaelings host this Thrall Market, they have the privilege. They possess a female Pilgrim, snatched up from just north of Couronne after she had completed her journey to that walled city and, foolishly, decided to witness the sea before going back to her home. A male Burgher, who seems protective enough of the pilgrim that he might be her paramour but has little in his array of city-living skills to defend her from this awful fate. And a male Student, who knows the letters of the southmen and, like the Initiate, some of the healing mysteries of those book-loving people.

In your currently isolated position, you would be disinclined to take on native Norse thralls. They, like you, are desperately seeking home, and have at least as much chance of you of finding theirs, if they can only escape. But two of them strike your interest, neither for good reasons.

One of the Skaeling slaves is the girl you remember - a young woman now, of course. She does not have the tight blond fighter's braid, and the imperious look has been wiped off her face. The Skaeling are selling her as an Entertainer, who knows how to dance and might serve a freeholder in adjacent ways... but you know this woman is a Bondswoman; sworn to the Jarl of your clan, Osgaer, and a capable enough fighter to have taken your friend Harald's skull in the bloody rite when you were children... and Harald, at the time, was better than you were. This women is riding the Skaeling expectation of her weakness, since the Hound's way is not available to her and she is forced to tread the path of the Serpent. If they had known she was an enemy warrior, they might have killed her, or ritually humiliated her in some fashion to ensure she did not avenge herself upon them.

The other, it grieves you to see, is your old friend Byjan. You are a long way from the firelit ritual in Nathvir village, where you and he snuck away from the festivities to catch that black devil-loach. He is still thick bodied; strong, though perhaps less coordinated that he would need to be to be a fine warrior. He has lost his eyepatch, somewhere; the ghastly pucker of the socket, where he lost his eye to an arrow during your blooding rite, stares out at the world with as much literal emptiness as his remaining eye has emotional vacancy. The last time you had seen him, you were pushing off in the boat he had a hand in making; your place on its deck very much due to his protestations.

Spoiler: Unbidden Memory.

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"You fear that curse? Fear my curse instead! Cursed be the work of my hand, except that my friend Jorunn take an oar!"

But that voyage had been cursed, and you were its only survivor. Though now, perhaps even that's not completely true - for here are two slaves of your clan, Clan Osgaer of the Bjornlings, who must have fallen to some terrible raid by the Skaelings in your absence. What has become of your village? Your mother, your step-father? Are they dead? Are they slaves also? Byjan, and perhaps the warrior-woman may know... but you can hardly ask such things, in the presense of the thrallherds. Only purchasing them, and speaking in a subtler moment, may yield such answers. The Skaelings are offering all these female thralls for two sceatta each, and the males for three sceatta each. Byjan is a skilled shipwright, and that should command a better price... but, you expect, no Skaeling wants to go board on a ship worked on by an enslaved Bjornling. A wise precaution, you imagine; may all their ships fall to flinders under them, in the deep waters.

Spoiler: OOC: "Shopping".

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You have 6 sceatta, which is enough for two thralls - though if you had wanted to try to pawn more of your acquired possessions or barter with those, you might try to sell them off to other warriors, with a Gossip roll to find interested parties for each piece of gear; or a Haggle roll to try to get one of the thrall traders to respect the barter value of an item.

[bramblefoot]

Jorunn will attempt to sell off one of the bedrolls to someone who may need it.

After the bedroll is sold, and depending on how much sceatta he gets, he will pick up the bounty hunter, the mediator and byjan if able

[MrAbdiel]

After a short round of trading with an Aesling bondsman for your spare bedroll, you manage to come away with another twelve sceatta in your palm. In a big market, or with much more time, it might have been twenty; but your options are narrow, and opportunities few; and with eighteen silver pieces in your palm with the printed faces of six different Norscan kings staring up from them, you splash out and purchase some thralls. You come away with three - a former bounty hunter, a former mediator, and a former shipwright.

You take them aside from the blocks, where the iron collars around their necks are removed and they each rub gingerly at the harsh chafing it has left on them. The woman bounty hunter is on the younger side; like you, in the early twenties of seasons; with some bredth to her shoulders suggesting the presence of sufficient skill to do her job in many circumstances. Her eyes are copper brown; and her hair which had been a darker brown has been clipped back close to her skull in an uneven scruff of short locks. The handler selling her to you told you her name was Marlene, if the name of thralls is important to you.

The mediator is a man of middle age, build stocky but going to lean with his recent sufferings; his shoulders particularly rich with bruises suggesting he tried to talk his way out of captivity many times and talked his way into extra beatings. His eyes are beady and dark, but not inherently untrustworthy; light brown hair short and knotted halfway to hell in his present condition. He might once have had an earing in the right ear; but it seems to have been removed rather viciously, leaving a piece of the lobe missing. Once, he was called Liebwen; though he waits sullenly to find out what he is called now.

The tradesman you already know - your old friend Byjan has been spared the clipping of his hair, so it is a messy tangle of dark brown dominating the right side of his head. He is a big man, and time and his captivity have not changed that; and he regards you uncertainly with his one eye, hesitant to look at you too directly; aware of his vulnerability with that one eye, and perhaps used to having it threatened. In your hooded and guarded state, it seems he has not detected who you are, yet.

The thralls shiver; they are dressed in rags and tattered blankets sufficient to keep them warm enough for sale, but it will be a test of endurance for them to travel long distances like this. But they are the ones who survived to here, from wherever they were captured - perhaps they're strong stuff.

You also have ten sceatta remaining in your palm - more than enough for one or a few more thralls, or else perhaps some items purchased to help you on your way, if you can find them. If you don't end up acquiring one of the thralls with skill to look at your wound, your choice might be to check in with the Vikti shaman and pay them for their medicine and blessing.

But first, your thralls wait on your first words to them - waiting to learn if they will suffer more, or less; for you to set the tone of their ongoing nightmare.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will speak to the thralls in a low voice. "let me be clear. if you dont harm me, i dont harm you. you can keep your names, and I'll treat you right." he will move to byjan, and show his face, holding a finger to his lips. "what happened?" he whispers

after the debacle, he'll move to check the local stands for weapons and such, and dish out the spare clothes he has to byjan and the bounty hunter. "need you two strong for the coming trek" he explains levelly

he'll also buy the initiate, and look for like rations and shtuff in case the bounty hunter cant scrounge game

Spoiler: ooc

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im letting the mediator handle the bartering

[MrAbdiel]

The Initiate's name is Ortel; a man just barely young enough to still be regarded as a young man with hair and beard prematurely greyed. He has been robbed of personal effects including holy icons, so it is not obvious which god or gods he serves; and he doesn't assume you and interested, as you take him into your growing coalition of the willing and unwilling. Byjan and Marlene end up with the blood stained, pierced, but still better-than-rags clothes.

You use the illusion of pity for the other thralls and permit them to warm themselves near one of the fires while speaking in clandestine fashion to Byjan. He is startled by the recognition of you; first disbelieving, then confused, then relieved to the point of tearfulness that he has to restrain with all his mustered mettle. "Jorunn! Jorunn, Jorunn, I had lost hope, and thought you dead!" He can barely keep his words at a whisper; clearly wands to lift his hands to clap them on your shoulders, but he keeps them at his sides; understanding the ruse of thraldom in which he finds himself, preferring it greatly to the genuine article. "The Skaeling came. Their ships returned from their raiding afar with much plunder; and many fine weapons from the southern kingdoms. When they came, they first sacked Vaelmar; and when they amassed an army outside of Nathvir, the clan chief called challenge to the Skaeling warlord, and they met in battle; but the warlord cut him down; and then his eldest son, who came to retreive the body in the field. There could be no negotiation, after that; they took Nathvir, and put all the bondsmen to the blade, and carried the women and youths into captivity; drove the elders out into the snow to freeze, or carry word in fear to the other villages. The folk of Loergen fled to our Usjarki, and there we met them, and armed all who could carry spear or club or stone, and built palisades and prepared to fight hoping that your ship would return soon with its warriors, and that it would be enough... but you did not return, Jorunn! Your step-father and my father are slain; and not taken with honor but cast out, skulls and all for the beasts of the wood and birds of the air to have their fill. We had sent runners to Skjold, calling on the pacts that bind out clan to the tribe; but no Bjornling host arrived to save us. I have seen no evidence that they ever intended to - out tribe abandoned our clan, and now all villages of our tribe are looted, and burned. All warriors have been hunted and slain, left as carrion; you are the last bonded warrior of Clan Osgaer. You... and Anja, whom the Skaeling mistook for a dancer and she has not seen fit to correct them."

He glances sidelong to the spearmaiden, feigning harmlessness as she waits for a buyer; the killing eyes of the predator given a doe-soft gleam in her act. Byjan shakes his head in misery.

"The warlord - Áleifr The Sighted -... they say he was once a Bjornling, himself; a son of Skjold, and a fine raider well regarded in that capital place. How then did he come to hate our small clan so much, and betray his tribe in doing so? How do the other clans of Bjornling sit idle against such a wicked betrayal? I do not know. I have been in terrible despair - but now you are here. Where are the other warriors? Are there enough for us to... take revenge?"

Even if you had your full ship of warriors, without the explicit implied backing of the greater Bjornling tribe, it would be foolish to attack the Skaeling en masse. But you don't have those warriors - there is only you, and those thralls now in your hand. Vengeance, if that is something you even dare to want, is hidden in a field of so many questions on top of your own mysteries. Who is Áleifr The Sighted? Why target clan Osgaer? If he is really Bjornling by blood, why does the tribe tolerate his betrayal? With your initial destination, the village of Urjarki, reported to you now to be ask and desecration... you must decide what next move to make.

The mediator is strongly incentivised to succeed in his bartering on your behalf - in his rags, he has little chance of surviving the cold if you plan to strike out into a blizzard or heavy snow. The gods seem kind to him, atleast: he is able to secure a deal with a local pedlar.

The pedlar will give you two more sets of common clothes, each normally worth perhaps one and a third sceatta, for just two sceatta total. He will, furthermore, give you enough rations for your party of five to cover a week of bad hunting; that will cost two sceatta.

The price of the rations seems very low indeed, to you - you wonder infact if you are being sold some kind of slop. You paid several times as much, back in Truskholm. But your mediator Liebwen gives you a pained, awkward look. "Alas, err... Master Jorunn. I think that other merchant ripped you off by a factor of four or five, and pretended he was doing you a favor sparing the copper. But, err... I am making up some of that ill fortune with this deal, here."

He'll further supply you with a fishing net and a hand reel and hook, for one sceatta - a good deal you think, atleast by the reckoning of your mediator, and will go a long way to helping your bounty hunter or Byjan in securing a mean when you are near to fishable waters.

With seven sceatta to your name after purchasing the initiate, clothing your thralls, suppling them with rations for the journey, and the tools to fish would cost you a further five sceatta, leaving you with two to spare. Your coup against the Skaeling hunters was a fine little win; but it is inescapable that you may need to commit to some kind of short term, paying work if you are to purchase much more in the way of gear (or thralls, or hirelings). And the skill you have to sell is killing, and destruction; for which there is always a market.

You make your way to the stall of the Chaos Dwarf delegation. True to your expectation, their wares are so finely made and wonderful that they are far out of your price range. The dwarves are bartering them for skilled thralls; sometimes a dozen thralls for a single blade, or glass oddity. But the dwarves, strange little men with braided black beards festooned with brass toggles and rings, seem amiable enough; even if it is clear for every moment you spend with them that they see very little difference between free humans and thralls. It is simply luck, or the will of the powers, which is wearing the collar and which is holding the leash, as far as they are concerned. Perhaps they are right.

A particularly short, chatty dwarf at the edge of the kiosk notices you. "Friend; I see you you eyeing these wares. I see a man who desires much we have to offer; but has little means to claim it. Do not despair; perhaps, if you are a man willing to bargain, there are services you would provide instead of simple silver, or traded flesh. Tell me, what are you looking for?"

Spoiler: OOC:

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Presuming you buy all that stuff, you're down to 2 sceatta. The dwarf seems to be willing to bargain, though you know to be wary before committing. Open question - what things is Jorunn most interested in? Armor?
Weapons? Oddities?

[bramblefoot]

jorunn approves the purchase, and moves to the chaos dwarf stall. he was looking at the weapons. jorunn looks at the dwarf, sizing him up. "aye, that be true. i'm a warrior" he looks over the instruments of death. "need someone killed?" he whispers

as he looks over the instruments, a blade with the handle of a screaming daemon face appeals to him. "that one" he says, pointing

[MrAbdiel]

The dwarf looks at your selection; looks up at you with a raised eyebrow and stares for a moment as if trying to decide something about your nature; then back down to the blade. He picks it up with his stubby fingertips - oddly, by the blade, not the handle. "A bold choice. Perhaps something about this wicked steel appeals to you, warrior. Here, then - the bargain." He turns, and points up past his shoulder; up the slope of a looming, crooked mountain. "There is a tribe of beastmen that live in the forest against the mountain side - the Split-Hoof herd. They mostly war against themselves, because the Skaeling whip them badly and sell them to us when they come out in force. But recently they have been more bold..."

You recall the shopkeeper back in Truskholm mentioning that Zadghelm is beset by and then trailing off. This, perhaps, is what he meant.

"Which is foolish, because it will rile up the Skaeling to assault them and burn their forest. But that is not my concern. My concern is that they harry Zadghelm, and the road here; carrying off captives when they do. Which makes transporting the slaves back to my destination more perilous than it needs to be. But the road-attacks are quite small, all things considered; and my tracking-thralls tell me they are coming from up the mountain, not deep into the forest. If you can make your way up the slope, find whatever splinter-tribe is dispatching these attacks and stop it, I will be grateful enough to part with this blade. More reward still, if you discover information about what caused this anomaly. My name is Arnuuk - do we have a deal, warrior?"