Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
The Fall of Civilization
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 4551815" data-attributes="member: 1210"><p>The hut is made of large slabs of hard fungal material. It’s about 15’ square, with a door shorter than most of our heroes could comfortably fit through. Just about the right size for a xvart. Behind the hut is a garden of strange underground growths- fungi and lightless plants. Sta’Ligir glances over the garden, and then gasps. “Be careful,” he tells his companions, “there are some assassin vines in the garden.”</p><p></p><p>“What’s an assassin vine?” asks Nowhere Jones.</p><p></p><p>“It’s a vine that assassinates you,” Heimall replies. “Let’s just be careful.”</p><p></p><p>“Are we trying to befriend whatever is in the hut?” asks Nixie. “Or are we going in weapons drawn?”</p><p></p><p>“If we have to go through a city of xvarts, we have to deal with them sometime. I say we take a peaceful approach,” the warlord answers.</p><p></p><p>The others agree, though Nowhere Jones is plainly not happy with the idea of spending any more time around the xvarts than he must. <em>I’ll be glad to cut every one of their blue throats, though,</em> he thinks, rubbing the still-chafed spot where the slave collar had rested around his neck. </p><p></p><p>Heimall calls out to the hut. “Hello? Is there anyone in there?” </p><p></p><p>There is no answer, but the more perceptive members of the party can hear something moving inside. After a moment, Torinn shrugs and walks up to the little door. He lifts a hand to knock, but the door opens before he can, and a cantankerous-looking old xvart, covered in wiry white hair, peers suspiciously at them from within. Rats crawl everywhere in the hut behind him. A crude table, with some kind of letter open on it, is behind him. “Svarti kefl hoof javaselflehl,” the xvart says, and launches into a brief, babbling, questioning-sounding rant. </p><p></p><p>The party tries their collective languages, but nobody can make themselves understood by him. The xvart starts to grow foul-tempered, spouting off more hostile sounding noises, until Nixie pulls out some travel biscuits and begins breaking off bits to feed to the rats. This catches Svarti’s eye (not that anyone knows his name is Svarti, but hey), and he seems somewhat appeased. Heimall follows suit, and Svarti seems more mollified. He makes shooing gestures, but at least he doesn’t attack.</p><p></p><p>The party moves on, having made friendly contact with their first xvart. </p><p></p><p>As they walk on, Kratos mutters under his breath, trying to figure out what bits of the Xvart tongue that he can.*</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>The party travels on, the dark lake to their left. After about an hour, a beam of light in the darkness alerts the party to another blindheim nearby. They prepare for battle, and sure enough, before long an attack comes. This time the blindheims are accompanied by giant poisonous frogs, which seem almost like pets to them. The battle rages, and before long a group of darkmantles joins the fray, attracted by the noise! By the end of it, a bat swarm has been spooked into action by the bright lights of the blindheims, and they swirl about, blinding Torinn and flapping about confusedly; but our heroes manage to fight off all of their opponents, disperse the bats and win the day without any losses to their party.</p><p></p><p>They continue onward, traveling along the lake’s edge, for about two hours. Then they stumble upon what seems to be a campsite of some kind. “Looks like xvarts to me,” Nowhere Jones says. “Everything’s pretty small, and pretty messy. Look, there’s garbage everywhere.” </p><p></p><p>“I hear something,” Vann-La interrupts him. “Fighting ahead.”</p><p></p><p>“Want me to go check it out?” Jones asks. “I can be pretty stealthy.”</p><p></p><p>“All right,” says Sta’Ligir.</p><p></p><p>“But we’ll be right behind you,” adds Vann-La.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Nowhere Jones creeps forward, sticking to the shadows. He can hear the sounds of fighting up ahead now himself, and before long, a scene comes into view, lit by flickering torches that are discarded on the ground. A band of xvarts is in combat with a strange group of enemies- weird, spider-like beings, most with two shields and two swords in hand. There are several dead xvarts on the ground already. The whole dance seems to be taking place in front of a large cave mouth.</p><p></p><p><em>Boy, do I hate xvarts,</em> thinks Nowhere Jones, and he pulls out a shuriken and throws it at one of them. He misses, but this results in the xvart whirling and hurling a javelin at him. And then the frenzy of battle takes over, as the party charges into the fray and a swirling, chaotic, three-way mess develops. One by one, xvarts and spider-folk drop, but the xvarts definitely drop faster. And the spider-folk show no sign of taking it easy on the adventurers; as they squeal with joy and try to take all the warm-blooded creatures down, our heroes get the creepy feeling that the spider-folk simply view them as food. </p><p></p><p>However, our heroes are no easy pickings. Already damaged from the xvart attacks, the spider-folk are soon slain, and the party stands triumphant. “What were those things, I wonder?” muses Torinn.</p><p></p><p>“Chagmat,” replies Sta’Ligir.</p><p></p><p>”Bless you,” says Torinn.</p><p></p><p>“No- those things are called chagmat.” The wizard pokes one of the corpses with his foot. “They sometimes war on surface folk, trying to take us as food. They’re a pretty gruesome kind of folk, from what I’ve read.”</p><p></p><p>Everyone looks at the cave mouth.</p><p></p><p>“Let’s check it out,” suggests Vann-La.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Next Time:</strong></em> Against the Chagmat!</p><p></p><p></p><p>*He took Linguist as his feat at 2nd level, and Xvart was his first new language.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="the Jester, post: 4551815, member: 1210"] The hut is made of large slabs of hard fungal material. It’s about 15’ square, with a door shorter than most of our heroes could comfortably fit through. Just about the right size for a xvart. Behind the hut is a garden of strange underground growths- fungi and lightless plants. Sta’Ligir glances over the garden, and then gasps. “Be careful,” he tells his companions, “there are some assassin vines in the garden.” “What’s an assassin vine?” asks Nowhere Jones. “It’s a vine that assassinates you,” Heimall replies. “Let’s just be careful.” “Are we trying to befriend whatever is in the hut?” asks Nixie. “Or are we going in weapons drawn?” “If we have to go through a city of xvarts, we have to deal with them sometime. I say we take a peaceful approach,” the warlord answers. The others agree, though Nowhere Jones is plainly not happy with the idea of spending any more time around the xvarts than he must. [i]I’ll be glad to cut every one of their blue throats, though,[/i] he thinks, rubbing the still-chafed spot where the slave collar had rested around his neck. Heimall calls out to the hut. “Hello? Is there anyone in there?” There is no answer, but the more perceptive members of the party can hear something moving inside. After a moment, Torinn shrugs and walks up to the little door. He lifts a hand to knock, but the door opens before he can, and a cantankerous-looking old xvart, covered in wiry white hair, peers suspiciously at them from within. Rats crawl everywhere in the hut behind him. A crude table, with some kind of letter open on it, is behind him. “Svarti kefl hoof javaselflehl,” the xvart says, and launches into a brief, babbling, questioning-sounding rant. The party tries their collective languages, but nobody can make themselves understood by him. The xvart starts to grow foul-tempered, spouting off more hostile sounding noises, until Nixie pulls out some travel biscuits and begins breaking off bits to feed to the rats. This catches Svarti’s eye (not that anyone knows his name is Svarti, but hey), and he seems somewhat appeased. Heimall follows suit, and Svarti seems more mollified. He makes shooing gestures, but at least he doesn’t attack. The party moves on, having made friendly contact with their first xvart. As they walk on, Kratos mutters under his breath, trying to figure out what bits of the Xvart tongue that he can.* *** The party travels on, the dark lake to their left. After about an hour, a beam of light in the darkness alerts the party to another blindheim nearby. They prepare for battle, and sure enough, before long an attack comes. This time the blindheims are accompanied by giant poisonous frogs, which seem almost like pets to them. The battle rages, and before long a group of darkmantles joins the fray, attracted by the noise! By the end of it, a bat swarm has been spooked into action by the bright lights of the blindheims, and they swirl about, blinding Torinn and flapping about confusedly; but our heroes manage to fight off all of their opponents, disperse the bats and win the day without any losses to their party. They continue onward, traveling along the lake’s edge, for about two hours. Then they stumble upon what seems to be a campsite of some kind. “Looks like xvarts to me,” Nowhere Jones says. “Everything’s pretty small, and pretty messy. Look, there’s garbage everywhere.” “I hear something,” Vann-La interrupts him. “Fighting ahead.” “Want me to go check it out?” Jones asks. “I can be pretty stealthy.” “All right,” says Sta’Ligir. “But we’ll be right behind you,” adds Vann-La. *** Nowhere Jones creeps forward, sticking to the shadows. He can hear the sounds of fighting up ahead now himself, and before long, a scene comes into view, lit by flickering torches that are discarded on the ground. A band of xvarts is in combat with a strange group of enemies- weird, spider-like beings, most with two shields and two swords in hand. There are several dead xvarts on the ground already. The whole dance seems to be taking place in front of a large cave mouth. [i]Boy, do I hate xvarts,[/i] thinks Nowhere Jones, and he pulls out a shuriken and throws it at one of them. He misses, but this results in the xvart whirling and hurling a javelin at him. And then the frenzy of battle takes over, as the party charges into the fray and a swirling, chaotic, three-way mess develops. One by one, xvarts and spider-folk drop, but the xvarts definitely drop faster. And the spider-folk show no sign of taking it easy on the adventurers; as they squeal with joy and try to take all the warm-blooded creatures down, our heroes get the creepy feeling that the spider-folk simply view them as food. However, our heroes are no easy pickings. Already damaged from the xvart attacks, the spider-folk are soon slain, and the party stands triumphant. “What were those things, I wonder?” muses Torinn. “Chagmat,” replies Sta’Ligir. ”Bless you,” says Torinn. “No- those things are called chagmat.” The wizard pokes one of the corpses with his foot. “They sometimes war on surface folk, trying to take us as food. They’re a pretty gruesome kind of folk, from what I’ve read.” Everyone looks at the cave mouth. “Let’s check it out,” suggests Vann-La. [i][b]Next Time:[/b][/i][b][/b] Against the Chagmat! *He took Linguist as his feat at 2nd level, and Xvart was his first new language. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
The Fall of Civilization
Top