Of Sound Mind the Halfling Way

[the Jester]

Don't hate me.

I'm starting yet another story hour.

Wait, wait- let me explain- this is for a very good reason. To wit, since we switched to 3.5 the group decided they wanted to try it at first level, and then they decided to play a theme party- "halflings" being the theme- and so that's what we've been playing lately. Prolly one or two more sessions til we switch back to the high-level group for a few games; we'll likely do a lot of back and forthing.

So don't worry, I'm going to update the other threads all soon, and really truly start this one off; and for now, I'm just going to lay down (yet another) teaser before we get started here.

So here we go...

 

[the Jester]

Prologue: the Plains of Strogass

For a million years the sun has blasted its light from the sky every day, revolving around the island of Forinthia and sinking into the sea at night. Forinthia, of course, is home to the worship of the Light, Galador, the Sun God. And far from her is a huge continent called Strogass, home of the Dark Empire that serves Bleak, the light-snuffing opposite to Galador.

For hundreds of years one man held the chaos and evil that was the Dark Empire together through force of arms. All who opposed him died terribly, made examples for the education of his people. He warred against Forinthia time and time again, sent a constant stream of subversives, spies and malcontents to undermine the Galadorian faith, and spent considerable resources fighting for the glory of the Black Sun.

Then, a couple of years ago, the Dark Emperor vanished- died, is likely- and everything fell apart.

The Forinthians don't know it yet, and their own Emperor has also vanished, so perhaps there's some sort of parallelism involved in current events.

Or, maybe, the times they are a-changin'.



Northern Strogass has many bands of halflings, loosely related, that travel the plains and wander the rolling hillocks. Every year, there's an annual week-long gathering of all the bands, who meet to discuss matters of import to the halfling nation. It takes several weeks for all the folk to gather, and usually a few of the more politically-minded groups stay at the site of the gathering for a month or more after it's all over. For the week before the gathering starts the first tribe present rings the gathering bell each morning at dawn to call the scattered kinfolk from far across the plains.

Unfortunately, over the last year the gathering bell was struck by lightning and cracked.

Thus it is that our heroes are dispatched to a town called Bellhold, thence to commission and return with a bell....


Next Time: We'll introduce our characters as they make their journey to town!

 

[Piratecat]

Hey, I know that place!

 

[paulewaug]

Nice start jester!
it's fun to get in on the beggining of a new story hour! Woo HOO!

 

[the Jester]

Our Heroes

As they set off from the grassy knoll where the halfling gathering will be centered, our heroes might look an odd bunch. This is because, in addition to the halflings, there are a few... oddities.

Eight years ago, in the depths of a terrible winter, a human child, screaming, dashed into a barn. He was fleeing a pack of hungry wolves that had just torn his family limb from limb. He was backed into a corner when salvation came in the unlikely form of a halfling party that rescued and adopted the lad. Now a young man, he's kept his stature quite short for a human, but at 5'2" he still looms over his adoptive kinfolk.

Along with the halflings are a number of dogs, too. But here we're using the term loosely; one of them is a kobold who was also adopted into the halfling clan as a waif after his kin had been slain by the halflings in redemption for their previous depradations. Federico acts the clown and is well-loved by the clan, much as a good dog is sometimes even better-loved in his way than a foul relative. One of the other 'dogs' is actually a wolf bitch, Misha. She's Trinia's companion and there's a bond between them that's stronger even than that between most married couples.

As they walk through the fields of Strogass, they make a colorful picture. Two of them, 'Airhead' Ed and Coco, are fraternal twins. Ed, despite the name, is a hot halfling chick; she's got blonde hair in a long ponytail and blue eyes. She stays reasonably fit, but like any halfling she likes to have her second breakfast. And elevensies. And supper, dinner, tea time, snackies, and so forth. So she's a little plump. She wears purple and yellow stripes. Coco, her twin brother, is also striking; but he's dressed in leather unbuttoned at the top to show off his chest hair.

The halfling clans tend to trade members often to help cement the ties between all of them, so there's also a stout with the group. Everyone calls him Sandy (his name's actually Thenal Sandybanks, of the Sandybanks clan down on the Upper Lofta. Sandy's immaculate and sort of academic; he's good at talking people into things.

Trinia- Misha the wolf's friend- is exotic-looking, with vivid purple eyes, and sometimes a little out there compared to most halflings. She's always talking to animals and trees and stuff. Then again, she seems to have certain 'powers' granted by nature. For instance, her friendship with the wolf. But more than just that- she can actually cast spells sometimes.

And of course there's Dogfish, a wild halfling. He was adopted into the clan as a youth and has had a horrible temper ever since. Sometimes it's like he can't even see straight when he gets really mad.

It's a two-day walk to Bellhold, and our heroes enjoy the spring weather. It's warming up, so though the nights have been chilly lately the days are pleasant enough. And the walking- across rolling hills that extend for hundreds of miles to the north- is easy enough, with plenty of proper mealtime breaks.

In the evening, as the puffy clouds in the sky turn pink, Thelonius once again tells the tale of his adoption into the clan, and- as always- Ed cries. The entire group is moved as the human finishes up, "...and ever since, I've done my best to help protect the clan from the big folk. To my shame, I have discovered that halflings' worst enemy, more often than not- is human."

They drift sleepily through the night, being sure to set watches (though Ed goes to sleep on hers and until Trinia wakes groggily in the middle of the early morning they are unguarded). An orange sunrise, a cheerily-cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs, and they set off again, the dog doing tricks.

Next Time: Now that our heroes have been introduced, let's see how they do with their first random encounter!


...so, in game terms, our party (at this point) consists of:
Coco the pimp (bard 1)
Thelonius (human ranger 1, favored enemy humans)
Trinia (druid 1)
Airhead Ed (rogue 1)
Sandy (rogue 1)
Federico (kobold bard 1)
Dogfish (barbarian 1)

Except where noted, everyone's a halfling, though Dogfish is of the wild halfling subrace, Coco and Ed are tallfellows (different in Cydra than in the MM), and Sandy is a stout. So there is some racial variance, after a fashion.

We'll get to Bellhold and the actual module soon...

 

[the Jester]

To Bellhold

Strogass is a dangerous place, make no mistake about it.

Even now, with the Dark Emperor presumably dead- in fact, especially now. For now, with no authority to enforce the peace, the evil and chaotic forces that have overrun this continent for centuries have gone wild. Ravening humanoids roam the plains, evil man travel the countryside 'taxing' whoever they find, foul necromancers kidnap victims for their experiments. Nowhere is there anyone to turn to.

A dangerous place indeed, muses Thelonious. He keeps casting his eyes around, watching carefully as his small charges follow along behind him. Federico, the kobold, capers wildly around them, bounding through the tall grass like a rabbit. By now it's afternoon and the shadows are beginning to lengthen; they should find Bellhold in another two or three hours, assuming they're in the right spot and haven't gotten lost.

As our heroes amble along, crossing a small creek (no wider than the length of Thelonious' forearm and less than 6" deep), there's a sudden flurry of movement, and from beneath a tangle of brush along the edge of the creek emerge a quartet of centipedes nearly as long as the halflings themselves! Ed screams in fear and starts crying as the skittering creatures crawl in, one of them biting Trinia's calve. The purple-eyed druidess gives a yell, feeling an ominous itch start in her leg around the wound. She whips her scimitar from its sheath even as her wolf friend, Misha, growls, barks and bites, snapping the centipede up and shaking it violently, killing it.

Thelonious springs to guard Coco, drawing his axe and swooshing it through the air above one of the centipedes. "Get back, bug!" he cries. "Leave my halfling friends alone!!"

A series of blows from Airhead Ed (still crying), Misha and Coco the (would-be) pimp slay the rest of the monstrous centipedes before they can bite anyone else, and then the group clusters around Trinia while she applies poultices to her injured leg and tries to squeeze as much of the poison as she can from it. The group then continues along towards Bellhold, Ed walking with a limp and a stick. In this fashion they come to a dirt path that heads in their direction; and, following it, they soon find an amusing scene.

Along the road there are occasional farms, and as they come to within about one hundred yards of one of them, the halflings and their allies are amused to see a human farmer cussing in frustration as he tries to catch a pair of garen*. They will let him almost get to him, but not quite; as soon as he's almost on top of them, they gallop away a few dozen feet, then stop and look back placidly at him.

"Garen!" exclaims Trinia. "Maybe we can help him out."

They move forward and the man turns, frustration evident on his face. "Eh? Hello there!" he calls to them, wiping sweat from his brow. He smiles genuinely, though the frustration is still there as well.

"How's it going?" Ed asks.

"Not so well," the human admits. "My cursed garen got out, and they won't let me get 'em back in! Ooh, it's almost like they're playin' with me!"

"Let me try," Trinia says. She takes the halters the farmer has been holding and starts moving gently towards the garen, counting on her natural affinity with animals to win the day. Softly clucking her tongue at the equines, she manages to slip the halter over the first one's head, but after slowly following the other along a zig-zagging path all over the area for about fifteen minutes she has to concede defeat.

"I'll talk to it**," Coco offers, and does so. The two huff and whinney back and forth for a minute, during which time the garen tells Coco that it hates the farmer but not much else. Coco shrugs to himself; the farmer- by now introduced as Othic- seems nice enough to him.

Thelonious and Trinia work together, trying to convince, trick or trap the other garen into the harness, and after another ten minutes they finally succeed. By now it's about the fourth hour of the afternoon, and Bellhold is only about a half mile away. Othic thanks the group profusely and offers to have them over for dinner in a couple of hours. They gratefully accept but tell him they have business to attend to first; they do, after all, have a bell to commission. That's got to come first; they have twelve days to get it back on time.

So our heroes venture into town, telling Othic they'll be back for dinner soon. After all, they are halflings....


*Cydra has few horses. Garen are one of the main mount species, looking like zebras, but instead of black and white each is two colors of green, yellow and brown.

**Cydran tallfellows, among other things, can speak with equines much like a gnome can speak with small burrowing mammals.


Next Time: Our halfling heroes enter Bellhold proper and discover that something weird's going on! And boy is there!

 

[Lela]

Ooo, a new story to read. And I'm in on the ground floor too. Yayness.

I knew it was a good idea to go trolling for a new story fix. And I'm not disapointed.

Let the Halflings rule!

 

[the Jester]

Into Bellhold

Our heroes find Bellhold to be a pleasant place; it's a small town, with a predominantly human but mixed-race population. Within the center of town is a large plaza, named by a sign Wyrmcall Plaza. Off of that is a tall bell tower. Around the plaza are an array of shops and a couple of churches. Of most immediate interest to our heroes is a bar.

The Bell & Clapper, as it's called, is reasonably full but the patrons seem generally somewhat subdued. The halflings and there adoptive brethren (and dog) manage to acquire a table and gain a barmaid's attention in order to procure a proper tea time, with food and drink in proper proportions.

The cute Airhead Ed and Coco start circulating, asking the locals where to find a bellmaker, and quickly receive directions; but it's too late in the day to talk to them by now. However, they also receive a few more juicy tidbits of local gossip.

"Everyone here's been having nightmares for the last few days," Coco informs them.

"And did you know," Ed breathlessly tells the others, "that this town used to be run by a dragon??"

"I'd gathered," Thelonious says, gesturing. On the walls are hung what appear to be a number of trophies- a talon as long as a human's arm, a portrait of an adventuring party, weapons, a book and other items. Sipping his drink, he says, "I'll ask the proprietor if he knows more."

The proprietor turns out to be Tokket, a half-elf man of middle age and garrulous nature. When queried, he answers brightly, "Sure I'll tell you about it!"

Pointing at the painting, he says, "Those were the adventurers who killed the dragon Copperdeath. He was a mean, evil beast, that Copperdeath. Fifty years ago next summer this was- anyhow, he'd enslaved the townsfolk and forced them to work his copper mines. Until they came along and slew him, that is- those adventurers." He walks proudly to the painting. "This one here, Alissa- she was my mother. After she retired she set up shop here in Bellhold, built the Bell & Clapper here, and lived the rest of her life comfortably. Now it's passed on down to me."

A little more friendly conversation, and Tokket mentions that the book on the wall is the diary of one of the adventurers. Curious, our heroes cluster around and read it for a time; it seems to imply the dragon mind-controlled the entire town, and possibly the adventurers as well, for a time.

"Well, isn't it about time we went back to Othic's?" ventures Trinia, and the group cleans off their plates and hurries off to dinner.

"Aw, I think we're going to miss supper," Ed mopes.

Next time: Dinner with Othic! Inevitable bad dreams! And bad news in the morning!

By the way- and I'm sure 90% of you reading this already know this, but hey- Of Sound Mind is a fantastic module written by our own Piratecat. It had the most satisfying conclusion of any module I've ever run when we finished it up the other night!

 

[Lela]

P-Kitty's the best at what he does. Like Wolverine, only different. Less death and trips to Japan for example.

I do like the town has a history thing. That's always fun.

 

[the Jester]

Lela, I'm glad you're enjoying this story hour- you might like one or more of the other ones in my sig, too. The Early Years is a relatively new thread and it gives you a ton of the backstory of the world because the pcs back then are of legendary stature now (Dexter, for instance).