This blog is a narrative outline (a literary embelishemnt if you will) of a campaign and setting that I created for 2E when I was in college. I adapted to 4E and am currently playing out with my son, who has followed in his father's love of the game.
II.III What Have I, I Wonder
Posted 15th February 2009 at 06:48 PM by H.M.Gimlord
Updated 17th February 2009 at 02:11 AM by H.M.Gimlord
Updated 17th February 2009 at 02:11 AM by H.M.Gimlord
Havar lingered for a few days, but the poison eventually did its work. It was a beautiful brew that Bradon found while hiking through the forests to the south of the farm where he grew up. The berries were edible, but if one dried them, and dissolved them in an alcoholic drink, the result was a chemical that destroyed one’s ability to recover from any disease, no matter how trifling. It left no telltale signs, and its affect was immediate.
Havar had gotten into an annoyingly persistant habit of raising their “rent” repeatedly, at every opportunity. It was a poor form and risky, Bradon thought, for Havar to blackmail them when he was the only one who knew what they were up to and where they had decided to hide. Havar was just setting himself up as a target, and Bradon did what comes naturally when all animals are cornered. He fought back.
Bradon knew that Blagarm would take over business at the inn, and this posed some serious problems, Havar having kept the basement cask a secret all the way up to the end. That entrance was no longer safe. No telling what kind of suspicion it would arouse to see Bradon going down there as regularly as he used to without the cover of the inn’s proprietor. In anticipation of this, Bradon had Smoc and Lars spend the days of Havar’s sickness carving out the remainder of a passage leading out to where the Ulmar flowed under Fortress Wall Street, providing an entrance secretive enough such that the cask could be locked up and never used again. Smoc, being a natural burrower, even threw in a couple touches like coating the door in layers of dust and mortar in order to blend it in with the surrounding stratified sandstone. The door to the passage was virtually invisible from the outside, but swung open easily if one knew where to push.
The Ulmar may have once been a beautiful river cutting though the sandstone bedrock that formed the foundation of the city, but it now served as the city’s sewer and refuse management system. Its waters were born in the mountains to the south, springing forth and flowing down through dale valleys formed by plateaus that extended like fingers into the plains below. Continuing west, it passed through the fertile fields that at this time made up the farmlands of the Southshire until the higher ground along the coast caused it to turn sharply northward behind an outcropping on which the Hallmasters had constructed a lighthouse to guide ships to port. It was at this bend where the Ulmar lost its beauty. From here it ran up to the very southern edge of Rioc Alair’s port district and slammed into a natural, thirty-foot wall of sandstone that redirected its waters eastward carving a ravine into the rock, sinking as land rose around it. A single bridge spanned the ravine connecting the port district with the manufacturing sector. After this, the Ulmar turned northward again and disappeared underground, tunneling beneath the city until it emptied into the ocean a mile, or so, later.
Coupled with its proximity to the city, and its steady, swift current the Ulmar was ideal for disposing of trash and excrement, but speed alone did not prevent the water from taking on an acrid smell. Because of this, most people in the port district avoided its banks. Upstream, however, its waters were fresh, and an aqueduct of considerable size was constructed to divert fountain water to both the port and manufacturing districts of the city. Every city block of the port district was outfitted with four fountains that found themselves in common use. Ale was, for the time being, no longer a necessary beverage when it came to potable drink. In fact, several wealthy business and government officials had plumbing directly linked to their residences. Over the course of the city’s history, a system of grates, runoff drains, and dump chutes was added to handle the needs of the growing population, and the result was that the city was able to build on an extremely close-quartered street plan without suffering the infirmities of pestilence that resulted from exposure to the filth of every-day life.
Unfortunately, it was into this every-day filth that Lars was now forced to delve on a regular basis. Bradon’s new door was functionally brilliant but lacked the sophistication and comfort of its predecessor. This day was particularly annoying on account of the rain. Beads of water streamed of the end of Lars’ nose as fumbled in his tunic for the picks that Smoc had given him. Long ago, the city had placed a large grate over the cave-like hole where the Ulmar plunged below the city. On the bank of the stream, a crumbling sandstone path wound its way up to a metal door in the grate that was secured by a large, steel padlock. The grate was not necessarily for security so much as it was to serve two purposes. On the one hand, it kept unscrupulous people from being exposed to the choleric environment within, and on the other, it gave anyone who fell in the river a last chance to save themselves before beings swept out to ocean.
Lars was still not used to the art of picking a lock, but he could tell he was getting better at it every day. This time it only took him a quarter of an hour to spring the lock allowing the metal door to open. Smock had also been careful to grease the hinges daily to keep the door quiet. Lars gagged as he stepped through the door and closed it behind him, being sure to replace the lock before continuing. He wiped matted tendrils of hair from his eyes, and tried to inhale only when necessary.
The drumming of rain quickly faded into the sound of trickling streams of water flowing through the sewer system underneath the city echoing off the walls of the cavern where brick-lined holes unendingly vomited jets of mucked water into the Ulmar.
It had been a little over two weeks since Lars had won Smoc’s curious hunting knife, and in every second of that time, it occupied his thoughts. Shear, the city librarian, had become weary of finding him books on the subjects of Dwarven language, smith craft, and metallurgy.
In his studies, he discovered that his initial assessment of the similarity of the knives was not entirely accurate. For one thing, Lars’ knife couldn’t cut through a dagger blade. That was the first thing he tried. Secondly, while it was true enough that the knives appeared to be made by the same hand, following the same design, the runes on the blade hilts were not identical. He quickly deciphered this riddle. Dwarves, he learned, were rather vain in constructing weapons and hunting tools. They often raised their initials like hallmark dies in strategic places so that their victims, if they survived, would bear scars to remind them from whom they had received their wound. Lars’ deduced from this that his own knife bore Bard’s initials in the Davek equivalent of “B.M.” But there was a problem. Bard’s knife had three initials. Throughout his entire life, so far, he had only heard the name Bard Mast. No third name was ever used to refer to the old dwarf. Smoc’s knife also bore three initials, two of which were the same as those on Bard’s knife. Lars couldn’t tell whether they were the first two initials or the last, but the similarity in design suggested that the shared initials indicated a family relationship at the very least.
In addition to the hilts, the pommels also bore a noteworthy difference. Though they were the same shape, a Davek inscription completely encircled the pommel of Smoc’s knife. It was this inscription that compelled Lars to devote every spare moment of the last sixteen days in the city library until his skin grew pale from a lack of sunlight.
Lars pushed back the panel of faux sandstone and stepped into Bradon’s hidden common room. Light flooded his eyes, and the dry, sweet air contrasted heavily with the damp stench outside.
“Where have you been!?” Bradon bellowed from across the room. “If it weren’t for the fact that your father seemed unconcerned with your disappearance, I would have had the town guard out looking for you myself.”
“I’ve been in the library, Bradon. Perhaps you should try it.” Lars knew about Bradon’s attitude toward education, and it showed in his lifestyle. Smoc cracked a smile from his chair at the table.
Bradon frowned at the challenge to his intelligence. “I thought you’d be a solid addition to our group, but you haven’t turned a copper since the day you arrived.”
“I think,” Lars replied “that you’ll find my studies profitable, if you’d care to listen.” Lars pulled the two knives from his belt. “Do you remember these?”
“That’s my knife.” Smoc stood from his chair, suddenly interested. “Where’d you get the other one?”
“It’s my knife,” Lars corrected, “and yes I have two of them now. This one, however,” Lars wagged one of the knives, “was made by our own Bard Mast. It’s not as impressive, but its similarity to this one, “Lars wagged the other, “is too close to be ignored. In fact I’ll wager that Bard would recognize both blades if he saw them.” Lars continued, “Look down here.” He pointed out the inscription on the pommel of Smoc’s knife. “It says, ‘When it is my turn, I will show you my power.’” Lars looked Bradon and Smoc in the eye as he grasped the pommel and rotated it. As he did, the pommel screwed out of the handle to reveal a cylindrical chamber from which emanated a brilliant blue light. Lars righted the knife, and out slid a beautiful sapphire prism the size of a finger. The prism pulsated with white light that shown blue through the sapphire in which it was contained. “It appears that you were right, Smoc. This knife is worth more than either of us suspected, and I imagine that our friend Mr. Mast may be hiding a few secrets of his own.”
Havar had gotten into an annoyingly persistant habit of raising their “rent” repeatedly, at every opportunity. It was a poor form and risky, Bradon thought, for Havar to blackmail them when he was the only one who knew what they were up to and where they had decided to hide. Havar was just setting himself up as a target, and Bradon did what comes naturally when all animals are cornered. He fought back.
Bradon knew that Blagarm would take over business at the inn, and this posed some serious problems, Havar having kept the basement cask a secret all the way up to the end. That entrance was no longer safe. No telling what kind of suspicion it would arouse to see Bradon going down there as regularly as he used to without the cover of the inn’s proprietor. In anticipation of this, Bradon had Smoc and Lars spend the days of Havar’s sickness carving out the remainder of a passage leading out to where the Ulmar flowed under Fortress Wall Street, providing an entrance secretive enough such that the cask could be locked up and never used again. Smoc, being a natural burrower, even threw in a couple touches like coating the door in layers of dust and mortar in order to blend it in with the surrounding stratified sandstone. The door to the passage was virtually invisible from the outside, but swung open easily if one knew where to push.
The Ulmar may have once been a beautiful river cutting though the sandstone bedrock that formed the foundation of the city, but it now served as the city’s sewer and refuse management system. Its waters were born in the mountains to the south, springing forth and flowing down through dale valleys formed by plateaus that extended like fingers into the plains below. Continuing west, it passed through the fertile fields that at this time made up the farmlands of the Southshire until the higher ground along the coast caused it to turn sharply northward behind an outcropping on which the Hallmasters had constructed a lighthouse to guide ships to port. It was at this bend where the Ulmar lost its beauty. From here it ran up to the very southern edge of Rioc Alair’s port district and slammed into a natural, thirty-foot wall of sandstone that redirected its waters eastward carving a ravine into the rock, sinking as land rose around it. A single bridge spanned the ravine connecting the port district with the manufacturing sector. After this, the Ulmar turned northward again and disappeared underground, tunneling beneath the city until it emptied into the ocean a mile, or so, later.
Coupled with its proximity to the city, and its steady, swift current the Ulmar was ideal for disposing of trash and excrement, but speed alone did not prevent the water from taking on an acrid smell. Because of this, most people in the port district avoided its banks. Upstream, however, its waters were fresh, and an aqueduct of considerable size was constructed to divert fountain water to both the port and manufacturing districts of the city. Every city block of the port district was outfitted with four fountains that found themselves in common use. Ale was, for the time being, no longer a necessary beverage when it came to potable drink. In fact, several wealthy business and government officials had plumbing directly linked to their residences. Over the course of the city’s history, a system of grates, runoff drains, and dump chutes was added to handle the needs of the growing population, and the result was that the city was able to build on an extremely close-quartered street plan without suffering the infirmities of pestilence that resulted from exposure to the filth of every-day life.
Unfortunately, it was into this every-day filth that Lars was now forced to delve on a regular basis. Bradon’s new door was functionally brilliant but lacked the sophistication and comfort of its predecessor. This day was particularly annoying on account of the rain. Beads of water streamed of the end of Lars’ nose as fumbled in his tunic for the picks that Smoc had given him. Long ago, the city had placed a large grate over the cave-like hole where the Ulmar plunged below the city. On the bank of the stream, a crumbling sandstone path wound its way up to a metal door in the grate that was secured by a large, steel padlock. The grate was not necessarily for security so much as it was to serve two purposes. On the one hand, it kept unscrupulous people from being exposed to the choleric environment within, and on the other, it gave anyone who fell in the river a last chance to save themselves before beings swept out to ocean.
Lars was still not used to the art of picking a lock, but he could tell he was getting better at it every day. This time it only took him a quarter of an hour to spring the lock allowing the metal door to open. Smock had also been careful to grease the hinges daily to keep the door quiet. Lars gagged as he stepped through the door and closed it behind him, being sure to replace the lock before continuing. He wiped matted tendrils of hair from his eyes, and tried to inhale only when necessary.
The drumming of rain quickly faded into the sound of trickling streams of water flowing through the sewer system underneath the city echoing off the walls of the cavern where brick-lined holes unendingly vomited jets of mucked water into the Ulmar.
It had been a little over two weeks since Lars had won Smoc’s curious hunting knife, and in every second of that time, it occupied his thoughts. Shear, the city librarian, had become weary of finding him books on the subjects of Dwarven language, smith craft, and metallurgy.
In his studies, he discovered that his initial assessment of the similarity of the knives was not entirely accurate. For one thing, Lars’ knife couldn’t cut through a dagger blade. That was the first thing he tried. Secondly, while it was true enough that the knives appeared to be made by the same hand, following the same design, the runes on the blade hilts were not identical. He quickly deciphered this riddle. Dwarves, he learned, were rather vain in constructing weapons and hunting tools. They often raised their initials like hallmark dies in strategic places so that their victims, if they survived, would bear scars to remind them from whom they had received their wound. Lars’ deduced from this that his own knife bore Bard’s initials in the Davek equivalent of “B.M.” But there was a problem. Bard’s knife had three initials. Throughout his entire life, so far, he had only heard the name Bard Mast. No third name was ever used to refer to the old dwarf. Smoc’s knife also bore three initials, two of which were the same as those on Bard’s knife. Lars couldn’t tell whether they were the first two initials or the last, but the similarity in design suggested that the shared initials indicated a family relationship at the very least.
In addition to the hilts, the pommels also bore a noteworthy difference. Though they were the same shape, a Davek inscription completely encircled the pommel of Smoc’s knife. It was this inscription that compelled Lars to devote every spare moment of the last sixteen days in the city library until his skin grew pale from a lack of sunlight.
Lars pushed back the panel of faux sandstone and stepped into Bradon’s hidden common room. Light flooded his eyes, and the dry, sweet air contrasted heavily with the damp stench outside.
“Where have you been!?” Bradon bellowed from across the room. “If it weren’t for the fact that your father seemed unconcerned with your disappearance, I would have had the town guard out looking for you myself.”
“I’ve been in the library, Bradon. Perhaps you should try it.” Lars knew about Bradon’s attitude toward education, and it showed in his lifestyle. Smoc cracked a smile from his chair at the table.
Bradon frowned at the challenge to his intelligence. “I thought you’d be a solid addition to our group, but you haven’t turned a copper since the day you arrived.”
“I think,” Lars replied “that you’ll find my studies profitable, if you’d care to listen.” Lars pulled the two knives from his belt. “Do you remember these?”
“That’s my knife.” Smoc stood from his chair, suddenly interested. “Where’d you get the other one?”
“It’s my knife,” Lars corrected, “and yes I have two of them now. This one, however,” Lars wagged one of the knives, “was made by our own Bard Mast. It’s not as impressive, but its similarity to this one, “Lars wagged the other, “is too close to be ignored. In fact I’ll wager that Bard would recognize both blades if he saw them.” Lars continued, “Look down here.” He pointed out the inscription on the pommel of Smoc’s knife. “It says, ‘When it is my turn, I will show you my power.’” Lars looked Bradon and Smoc in the eye as he grasped the pommel and rotated it. As he did, the pommel screwed out of the handle to reveal a cylindrical chamber from which emanated a brilliant blue light. Lars righted the knife, and out slid a beautiful sapphire prism the size of a finger. The prism pulsated with white light that shown blue through the sapphire in which it was contained. “It appears that you were right, Smoc. This knife is worth more than either of us suspected, and I imagine that our friend Mr. Mast may be hiding a few secrets of his own.”
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