Enforcer
Explorer
Greetings. I started working on this before winter break, and I only picked it up again tonight. This is the journal of Reimon Jaspur, a noble who's seeking his fortune in the Westlands. His recent adventure with three new friends prompted him to buy a leather-bound book and record his experiences. This is the first story I've ever written (adventure notes don't count) outside of school work, so please give me honest, polite feedback/criticism. If there's an interest in future updates, I'll try to have something more soon.
Stats for Reimon and his friends may be found in the Rogues Gallery Character Stats
I didn't want to force you to be familiar with them to (hopefully) enjoy my story. Also, after Reimon meets his friends (2 PCs and the other NPC I run besides Reimon), Wheel of Time players may notice that the adventure they have is remarkably similar to the one found in the Wheel of Time core rulebook. That's because I ran that adventure for my two players.
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Adar the 24th, 998 NE [Part 1]
The events of the past two days have prompted me to buy this leather-bound book, so that I can record the events of my travels. I wish to one day read this journal and fondly remember both my triumphs and my failures. Mother once said that a man truly knows himself only by acknowledging his past. Although my most recent adventure has certainly been the most unusual experience of my life, I think it best to start with my departure from home—Mother always told me to do a complete job of things.
As the youngest of three brothers, I never really held my father’s attention. My father, the Lord Marcos, was always far more concerned with my eldest brother Nataniel, as he is heir to the title. Father also pays some attention to my other brother, Jeb, in case Nataniel meets an untimely end. I suppose my existence is pointless—there is no need to train more than one replacement heir. I fear the day that Nataniel will take his place with the other Lords of the Land. He is an intelligent, capable man, but Father has taught him to think only of himself. Because of this, Nataniel is selfish and cruel. He once rode down a young boy on our estates with his stallion; he then fined the boy’s father a month’s wages for allowing the poor lad to get in his way. Jeb has a much kinder heart, but he is unassertive and too quick to trust. If he comes to lead our family, many others will take advantage of his weak resolve.
As for myself, I received more freedom than what is usual for a Lord’s son. I spent my youth learning the rudiments of history and heraldry, and I had a knack for the Old Tongue, which I speak fluently unlike most nobles. Mother taught me. Father deemed it unimportant for me to learn diplomacy, so I learned the ways of court surreptitiously from Mother. She took ill when I was fourteen. A traveling Aes Sedai offered to heal her, even despite the harsh laws forbidding it, but Father said he would not let the unclean touch of a Tar Valon witch disgrace his good name. He showed no concern about his wife, the mother of his three sons, just his reputation.
Soon after Mother’s death, Father stopped paying for my tutors. I ended up spending much of my time on our estates. Life was good out in the country. The olive trees there are beautiful in the summer. A kindly old guard named Andreu taught me the rudiments of combat, and Filip the stablemaster taught me how to ride and care for animals. I would wager that Father would take notice of me if he learned that I know how to brush down a horse and drive a plow! Yes, life was simple and pleasant there, and my body grew strong. Topping two paces and weighing eighteen stone, my added muscles made me even more handsome with my wavy brown hair, brown eyes, and olive Tairen skin. Had I not grown so restless there, I would have become involved with Filip’s pretty daughter to the point where honor dictated I marry her. Thank the Light my curiosity to see the city of my nation’s namesake got the better of me!
When I turned eighteen, I saddled Dovienya—my stout warhorse descended from the best of Tairen stock—and rode from the family estates to the city of Tear with all of my personal belongings. In my letter to Father, I explained my need to make something of myself; that I was not content to rest on the fortunes of my brothers.
The city of Tear is quite a place. The Stone dominates the rest of the city as Daes Dae’mar dominates Cairhien. Certainly any guest of a High Lord would have been invited to stay in the Stone, but the third son of a minor Lord of the Land had to make other arrangements. The inner city is where all the finer houses and High Lord palaces may be found, but unfortunately I had spent most of my allowance in the purchase of Dovienya. I ended up staying at The Dolphin’s Swim, one of the lowest of inns in the Maule, the rough port district of the city. My first night I lost most of my purse learning how to gamble with dice as opposed to playing Chop.
I spent two months at The Dolphin’s Swim, gambling and fighting. While most Tairen peasants would not dare attack a man with a signet ring, the sailors on shore leave had no such inhibitions. Soon word had spread that I was stronger than all but the strongest oarsman was, and my exercise became infrequent as a result. Despite what any other noble may think, I learned more during my two months spent with the bottom of society than I ever did from my tutors (excepting Mother, of course). Peasants will be honest to even the son of a Lord of the Land if you buy them their drinks. They gave me an appreciation of what the common person thinks.
Unfortunately, my time in Tear was cut short by a riverboat captain named Huyen Derniv. Huyen was a tall, stocky man who controlled his crew with as much brute force as yelling and cursing. He and I had been playing at Crowns for much of the evening, and I was having much better luck with the dice than he. After a toss where he lost his twenty-fourth Tairen mark, he decided it was wiser to brandish his oak cudgel than call it a night. I responded by drawing my plainly adorned longsword and dueling with the man outside. Regrettably, the fight ended with Huyen sliding off my blade into the thick mud of the Maule. I did not want to kill the man, but he had no cause to attack me—my dice are fair, unlike those of some others I have played against. Looking back on it now, I suppose it was lucky that Huyen’s men hated him, or I might have ended up dead in the mud next to him, despite Andreu’s lessons.
That did not erase my need to flee the city, however. While it is true that the son of a Lord has every right to kill a commoner in Tear, it was also true that Huyen owed his twenty-four marks and more to a disreputable man named Thad the Hatchet. Thad was awarded his moniker by using a woodsman’s hatchet to dismember a man who failed to pay back his loan in time. He decided that Huyen had diced with money that did not belong to him, and that I was now responsible for the riverboat captain’s debts.
I packed everything I owned into Dovienya’s saddlebags and left that very night. Fortunately my signet ring—my sign is two crossed silver daggers, pointing up, inside a golden circle—and a few well-chosen words allowed me to exit the city while the Hatchet was delayed by negotiating a bribe with the guards. Carried swiftly on Dovienya’s strong legs, I was well gone by the time any pursuit had made its way outside the city walls.
My journey away from Tear was not easy. My luck apparently ended with taking Huyen’s money. By the time I crossed the Goine Bridge into Far Madding, I only had ten silver marks left, and no gold. When the gate guards “peace bonded” my sword—a process that involves the tying of cord around the hilt and scabbard, making the sword very difficult to unsheathe—I cannot say I was offended. If we obeyed a similar custom in Tear, I might not have had to flee Thad the Hatchet and his ruffians.
I only spent a week in Far Madding, but in that time my luck with the dice returned—I had more than doubled the weight of my purse. Nevertheless, word reached the city that the captured False Dragon, Logain Ablar, would be passing through Caemlyn on his way to Tar Valon to be gentled. This was something that I never could have seen back home, and I had no desire to miss it!
I reached Caemlyn the 22nd of Adar, having lost even more coin on that leg of my journey than I lost from Tear to Far Madding. I swear that if for some reason I end up being a Lord of the Land (may the Light forbid that!), I will tax my peasants less so that they would be willing to gamble for more than a few measly silver pennies. I almost hit an elderly farmer who wanted to dice for copper coins. Copper coins! But I digress. My first night in Caemlyn was when things got interesting.
I had paid for a room at the Golden Stag Inn, a nice establishment situated in a prosperous area outside the walls of the Inner City. So many had come to see the False Dragon that the Innkeeper, one Master Ferrin, had set up tables and benches in the stable yard to accommodate his numerous patrons. The winter air became quite chilly with the setting of the sun, and so Master Ferrin had large fires going among the tables as well, making the atmosphere more than comfortable. A fiddler was playing peasant songs in one corner of the yard, but I paid him no attention. Instead, my eyes were riveted to the creamy complexion and flawless features of a Domani woman named Resara. Ah Resara, your name flitters off the tongue like a beautiful butterfly. She had soft blue eyes like the sea and flowing brown hair so lustrous that it reflected the firelight. And her dress…Domani women certainly deserve their scandalous reputations. Oh, how I want her! Unfortunately, Resara’s attentions were divided between me and two other men.
The first called himself Tarlan, a strong Andorman slightly taller than my own six feet with green eyes, which I found to be an interesting experience. He had the same corded muscles and an even greater grace of movement than I possess. Belted to his waist was a hand-and-a-half sword that the people of Andor call “Warder’s swords,” though Tarlan was obviously no Warder. On the other side of his waist, the man carried a plain dagger. Strapped to his right thigh he bore a short sword and against the wall nearest him lay a boar spear and the tallest longbow I have ever seen! When I asked him about his need for so many arms, he told me that the wilderness that he spends most of his time in requires preparedness, and that he has a handaxe hanging from the pack in his room as well. Nevertheless, Tarlan was a companionable man, though I found him to be somewhat more focused on Resara than myself, the Light knows I cannot blame him.
The other man went by Ronan; he was a shorter and stockier man from Shienar. Despite what I had learned of Shienarans from my tutors, this man did not wear his hair in a topknot. When I inquired about his hair, he guardedly explained that only Shienaran warriors wear it in such a fashion. Despite his claim of not being a soldier, the man still wore a morningstar and a dagger on his belt. At least if he had any interest in Resara, he kept it to himself.
Suddenly, two men, one wearing red and thus showing support for the Andoran Queen, Morgase, the other wearing white in opposition, interrupted our polite conversation. The one in red called the other a coward; the offended man in white replied angrily and drew his dagger. One of Master Ferrin’s bouncers grabbed the poor sod and tossed him into the door of the stable’s large shed, breaking it open. I gasped, and I was not alone, for inside was a horrible creature with the head of a goat, and goat legs, taller than a man by half! I supposed it to be a trolloc, though before that moment I certainly would have called any man who believed in trollocs a fool. I also noticed two more of the monsters stuffing what looked like a small child into a sack. The sight of that made me angry, I had also never believed in trollocs eating humans…
“Who will help me destroy these Shadowspawn?” I asked, loudly so I could be heard above the panicking crowd. I figured that Tarlan might side with me, and even Ronan, but Resara’s frightened, yet determined nod surprised me; that is until she drew forth a dagger from between her ample breasts and handled it like one who knew its use. Everyone else was too overcome with fear to act.
Tarlan was the first to reach the beast, his Warder’s sword held strongly in two hands. His attack was skillful, yet still it was parried by the trolloc’s cruel curved sword. The counterblow Tarlan received cut right across the man’s broad chest. The blow was surely telling, but Tarlan shrugged it off as if such blows were a common experience for him. I rushed in and cut my longsword deeply into trolloc flesh. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed what must have been Resara’s dagger strike the frame of the shed door with a loud “thunk.” Ronan came up to the trolloc on the other side of Tarlan, and struck the creature hard with his morningstar. The monster looked satisfactorily pained. Tarlan had already attacked again, glancing his sword off the creature’s black mail, by the time I struck the killing blow across its neck. It collapsed in a heavy heap. Tarlan bravely made his way over to a bench, dragging his sword in one hand while clutching his bleeding chest with the other. Resara retrieved her dagger, and I noted with dismay that the other two trollocs had fled through the back wall of the shed with their victim.
At least the other inn patrons had collected themselves again. Master Ferrin led the bravest of these back into the stable yard. Everyone was shocked at seeing the dead trolloc; I myself was quite stunned at seeing the body now that the fight was over. When Bennet, the stablemaster, made his way through the crowd, I saw by his face who the trolloc captive was. Trollocs had taken his daughter Sirene.
Everyone began searching the stables and other parts of the inn, but my three new companions and I knew she was gone. Soon the crowd turns from searching to speculating at the horrible fate that awaited Sirene.
“The Light knows you’ve done more than any other, and so I’m hesitant to ask this,” Master Ferrin said, “but Sirene is just a child, and she’s all the family poor Bennet has. Everyone at the inn has treated her as if she was their own. Won’t you please help her?”
Bennet, nervously twisting a handkerchief in his hands, followed this by saying, “Please, every moment of delay is another moment that she’s in danger! Hurry!”
None of the four of us seemed to be stepping forward, so I decided to. “Of course we will help you, I shall not let a child be stolen by trollocs. We leave at once.” I dare say I sounded a lot braver than I felt—I knew there were at least two other trollocs, and a good chance for more. Seeing a maid tend to Tarlan’s wound with healer’s balm did not serve to settle my stomach. Fortunately, the woodsman looked a lot better than he did, we would need him in the battles to come.
[Part 2 coming soon!]
In the mean time, please respond to the poll and/or leave any comments/criticisms/death threats in this thread. Thank you!
Stats for Reimon and his friends may be found in the Rogues Gallery Character Stats
I didn't want to force you to be familiar with them to (hopefully) enjoy my story. Also, after Reimon meets his friends (2 PCs and the other NPC I run besides Reimon), Wheel of Time players may notice that the adventure they have is remarkably similar to the one found in the Wheel of Time core rulebook. That's because I ran that adventure for my two players.
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Adar the 24th, 998 NE [Part 1]
The events of the past two days have prompted me to buy this leather-bound book, so that I can record the events of my travels. I wish to one day read this journal and fondly remember both my triumphs and my failures. Mother once said that a man truly knows himself only by acknowledging his past. Although my most recent adventure has certainly been the most unusual experience of my life, I think it best to start with my departure from home—Mother always told me to do a complete job of things.
As the youngest of three brothers, I never really held my father’s attention. My father, the Lord Marcos, was always far more concerned with my eldest brother Nataniel, as he is heir to the title. Father also pays some attention to my other brother, Jeb, in case Nataniel meets an untimely end. I suppose my existence is pointless—there is no need to train more than one replacement heir. I fear the day that Nataniel will take his place with the other Lords of the Land. He is an intelligent, capable man, but Father has taught him to think only of himself. Because of this, Nataniel is selfish and cruel. He once rode down a young boy on our estates with his stallion; he then fined the boy’s father a month’s wages for allowing the poor lad to get in his way. Jeb has a much kinder heart, but he is unassertive and too quick to trust. If he comes to lead our family, many others will take advantage of his weak resolve.
As for myself, I received more freedom than what is usual for a Lord’s son. I spent my youth learning the rudiments of history and heraldry, and I had a knack for the Old Tongue, which I speak fluently unlike most nobles. Mother taught me. Father deemed it unimportant for me to learn diplomacy, so I learned the ways of court surreptitiously from Mother. She took ill when I was fourteen. A traveling Aes Sedai offered to heal her, even despite the harsh laws forbidding it, but Father said he would not let the unclean touch of a Tar Valon witch disgrace his good name. He showed no concern about his wife, the mother of his three sons, just his reputation.
Soon after Mother’s death, Father stopped paying for my tutors. I ended up spending much of my time on our estates. Life was good out in the country. The olive trees there are beautiful in the summer. A kindly old guard named Andreu taught me the rudiments of combat, and Filip the stablemaster taught me how to ride and care for animals. I would wager that Father would take notice of me if he learned that I know how to brush down a horse and drive a plow! Yes, life was simple and pleasant there, and my body grew strong. Topping two paces and weighing eighteen stone, my added muscles made me even more handsome with my wavy brown hair, brown eyes, and olive Tairen skin. Had I not grown so restless there, I would have become involved with Filip’s pretty daughter to the point where honor dictated I marry her. Thank the Light my curiosity to see the city of my nation’s namesake got the better of me!
When I turned eighteen, I saddled Dovienya—my stout warhorse descended from the best of Tairen stock—and rode from the family estates to the city of Tear with all of my personal belongings. In my letter to Father, I explained my need to make something of myself; that I was not content to rest on the fortunes of my brothers.
The city of Tear is quite a place. The Stone dominates the rest of the city as Daes Dae’mar dominates Cairhien. Certainly any guest of a High Lord would have been invited to stay in the Stone, but the third son of a minor Lord of the Land had to make other arrangements. The inner city is where all the finer houses and High Lord palaces may be found, but unfortunately I had spent most of my allowance in the purchase of Dovienya. I ended up staying at The Dolphin’s Swim, one of the lowest of inns in the Maule, the rough port district of the city. My first night I lost most of my purse learning how to gamble with dice as opposed to playing Chop.
I spent two months at The Dolphin’s Swim, gambling and fighting. While most Tairen peasants would not dare attack a man with a signet ring, the sailors on shore leave had no such inhibitions. Soon word had spread that I was stronger than all but the strongest oarsman was, and my exercise became infrequent as a result. Despite what any other noble may think, I learned more during my two months spent with the bottom of society than I ever did from my tutors (excepting Mother, of course). Peasants will be honest to even the son of a Lord of the Land if you buy them their drinks. They gave me an appreciation of what the common person thinks.
Unfortunately, my time in Tear was cut short by a riverboat captain named Huyen Derniv. Huyen was a tall, stocky man who controlled his crew with as much brute force as yelling and cursing. He and I had been playing at Crowns for much of the evening, and I was having much better luck with the dice than he. After a toss where he lost his twenty-fourth Tairen mark, he decided it was wiser to brandish his oak cudgel than call it a night. I responded by drawing my plainly adorned longsword and dueling with the man outside. Regrettably, the fight ended with Huyen sliding off my blade into the thick mud of the Maule. I did not want to kill the man, but he had no cause to attack me—my dice are fair, unlike those of some others I have played against. Looking back on it now, I suppose it was lucky that Huyen’s men hated him, or I might have ended up dead in the mud next to him, despite Andreu’s lessons.
That did not erase my need to flee the city, however. While it is true that the son of a Lord has every right to kill a commoner in Tear, it was also true that Huyen owed his twenty-four marks and more to a disreputable man named Thad the Hatchet. Thad was awarded his moniker by using a woodsman’s hatchet to dismember a man who failed to pay back his loan in time. He decided that Huyen had diced with money that did not belong to him, and that I was now responsible for the riverboat captain’s debts.
I packed everything I owned into Dovienya’s saddlebags and left that very night. Fortunately my signet ring—my sign is two crossed silver daggers, pointing up, inside a golden circle—and a few well-chosen words allowed me to exit the city while the Hatchet was delayed by negotiating a bribe with the guards. Carried swiftly on Dovienya’s strong legs, I was well gone by the time any pursuit had made its way outside the city walls.
My journey away from Tear was not easy. My luck apparently ended with taking Huyen’s money. By the time I crossed the Goine Bridge into Far Madding, I only had ten silver marks left, and no gold. When the gate guards “peace bonded” my sword—a process that involves the tying of cord around the hilt and scabbard, making the sword very difficult to unsheathe—I cannot say I was offended. If we obeyed a similar custom in Tear, I might not have had to flee Thad the Hatchet and his ruffians.
I only spent a week in Far Madding, but in that time my luck with the dice returned—I had more than doubled the weight of my purse. Nevertheless, word reached the city that the captured False Dragon, Logain Ablar, would be passing through Caemlyn on his way to Tar Valon to be gentled. This was something that I never could have seen back home, and I had no desire to miss it!
I reached Caemlyn the 22nd of Adar, having lost even more coin on that leg of my journey than I lost from Tear to Far Madding. I swear that if for some reason I end up being a Lord of the Land (may the Light forbid that!), I will tax my peasants less so that they would be willing to gamble for more than a few measly silver pennies. I almost hit an elderly farmer who wanted to dice for copper coins. Copper coins! But I digress. My first night in Caemlyn was when things got interesting.
I had paid for a room at the Golden Stag Inn, a nice establishment situated in a prosperous area outside the walls of the Inner City. So many had come to see the False Dragon that the Innkeeper, one Master Ferrin, had set up tables and benches in the stable yard to accommodate his numerous patrons. The winter air became quite chilly with the setting of the sun, and so Master Ferrin had large fires going among the tables as well, making the atmosphere more than comfortable. A fiddler was playing peasant songs in one corner of the yard, but I paid him no attention. Instead, my eyes were riveted to the creamy complexion and flawless features of a Domani woman named Resara. Ah Resara, your name flitters off the tongue like a beautiful butterfly. She had soft blue eyes like the sea and flowing brown hair so lustrous that it reflected the firelight. And her dress…Domani women certainly deserve their scandalous reputations. Oh, how I want her! Unfortunately, Resara’s attentions were divided between me and two other men.
The first called himself Tarlan, a strong Andorman slightly taller than my own six feet with green eyes, which I found to be an interesting experience. He had the same corded muscles and an even greater grace of movement than I possess. Belted to his waist was a hand-and-a-half sword that the people of Andor call “Warder’s swords,” though Tarlan was obviously no Warder. On the other side of his waist, the man carried a plain dagger. Strapped to his right thigh he bore a short sword and against the wall nearest him lay a boar spear and the tallest longbow I have ever seen! When I asked him about his need for so many arms, he told me that the wilderness that he spends most of his time in requires preparedness, and that he has a handaxe hanging from the pack in his room as well. Nevertheless, Tarlan was a companionable man, though I found him to be somewhat more focused on Resara than myself, the Light knows I cannot blame him.
The other man went by Ronan; he was a shorter and stockier man from Shienar. Despite what I had learned of Shienarans from my tutors, this man did not wear his hair in a topknot. When I inquired about his hair, he guardedly explained that only Shienaran warriors wear it in such a fashion. Despite his claim of not being a soldier, the man still wore a morningstar and a dagger on his belt. At least if he had any interest in Resara, he kept it to himself.
Suddenly, two men, one wearing red and thus showing support for the Andoran Queen, Morgase, the other wearing white in opposition, interrupted our polite conversation. The one in red called the other a coward; the offended man in white replied angrily and drew his dagger. One of Master Ferrin’s bouncers grabbed the poor sod and tossed him into the door of the stable’s large shed, breaking it open. I gasped, and I was not alone, for inside was a horrible creature with the head of a goat, and goat legs, taller than a man by half! I supposed it to be a trolloc, though before that moment I certainly would have called any man who believed in trollocs a fool. I also noticed two more of the monsters stuffing what looked like a small child into a sack. The sight of that made me angry, I had also never believed in trollocs eating humans…
“Who will help me destroy these Shadowspawn?” I asked, loudly so I could be heard above the panicking crowd. I figured that Tarlan might side with me, and even Ronan, but Resara’s frightened, yet determined nod surprised me; that is until she drew forth a dagger from between her ample breasts and handled it like one who knew its use. Everyone else was too overcome with fear to act.
Tarlan was the first to reach the beast, his Warder’s sword held strongly in two hands. His attack was skillful, yet still it was parried by the trolloc’s cruel curved sword. The counterblow Tarlan received cut right across the man’s broad chest. The blow was surely telling, but Tarlan shrugged it off as if such blows were a common experience for him. I rushed in and cut my longsword deeply into trolloc flesh. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed what must have been Resara’s dagger strike the frame of the shed door with a loud “thunk.” Ronan came up to the trolloc on the other side of Tarlan, and struck the creature hard with his morningstar. The monster looked satisfactorily pained. Tarlan had already attacked again, glancing his sword off the creature’s black mail, by the time I struck the killing blow across its neck. It collapsed in a heavy heap. Tarlan bravely made his way over to a bench, dragging his sword in one hand while clutching his bleeding chest with the other. Resara retrieved her dagger, and I noted with dismay that the other two trollocs had fled through the back wall of the shed with their victim.
At least the other inn patrons had collected themselves again. Master Ferrin led the bravest of these back into the stable yard. Everyone was shocked at seeing the dead trolloc; I myself was quite stunned at seeing the body now that the fight was over. When Bennet, the stablemaster, made his way through the crowd, I saw by his face who the trolloc captive was. Trollocs had taken his daughter Sirene.
Everyone began searching the stables and other parts of the inn, but my three new companions and I knew she was gone. Soon the crowd turns from searching to speculating at the horrible fate that awaited Sirene.
“The Light knows you’ve done more than any other, and so I’m hesitant to ask this,” Master Ferrin said, “but Sirene is just a child, and she’s all the family poor Bennet has. Everyone at the inn has treated her as if she was their own. Won’t you please help her?”
Bennet, nervously twisting a handkerchief in his hands, followed this by saying, “Please, every moment of delay is another moment that she’s in danger! Hurry!”
None of the four of us seemed to be stepping forward, so I decided to. “Of course we will help you, I shall not let a child be stolen by trollocs. We leave at once.” I dare say I sounded a lot braver than I felt—I knew there were at least two other trollocs, and a good chance for more. Seeing a maid tend to Tarlan’s wound with healer’s balm did not serve to settle my stomach. Fortunately, the woodsman looked a lot better than he did, we would need him in the battles to come.
[Part 2 coming soon!]
In the mean time, please respond to the poll and/or leave any comments/criticisms/death threats in this thread. Thank you!
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