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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Paka" data-source="post: 4382775" data-attributes="member: 100">Entering WinterhavenWe were on our way to Winterhaven with a Kobold prisoner.  Since the prisoner could only speak Draconic, it was up to Petal, our favorite armored Dragonborn do-gooder for Bahamut to speak to him.  I just stood behind her, making various hand-motions that let the little bastard know that I was going to kill him if I got the chance.As the Kobold had asked when he surrendered, we left his armor behind, so folks from home would think he was dead.  He claimed if they thought he had surrendered, they would kill his family.  Nice folks from home he's got; I can relate a bit.  I tied the little lizard to my hip and considered the pro's and cons of a Kobold pet.We hit Winterhaven's outlying farms before the town proper.  Emilia, the merchant we were protecting, said the town had degraded further.  More farm-houses were vacant and there were sigils here and there, sigilsl to Orcus, we figured out.  The Kobold (whose name we never got...does that make us bad people?) told us that the wyrm-priests from his home under a great waterfall had stopped their worship of Tiamat.  No <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> and they had begun to worship, what he called, the goat-headed god.Kendrick asked me if my family worshipped the Demon Prince of the Undead."No, Kendrick, Orcus is a demon.  My family worships devils and specifically, Asmodeus, God-Tyrant of Hell.""Devils, demons, what's the difference?" he asked, between puffs of his pipe."Demons have no class," I replied, in lieu of a real answer that I didn't have.  But looking back, I think my answer sums it up nicely.I enjoy those little moments of buddy-dom between me and Kendrick.  Bok and Petal have a similiar vibe, leading our adventures to feel like Elric and Moonglum out on the road with Fafrd and the Grey Mouser, a pair of pairs living by wits, blades and sorcery.The crops were fecund but had a rot to them, as if some kind of disease had set in.  It was foul, something rotten in Winterhaven.One of the farmhouses was prominently marked with that Orcus sigil and we could feel eyes on us from within.  I tied the Kobold to Emilia's cart and took a closer look, sneaky-like.  There is a kind of myth among city thieves that out in the country, everyone leaves their windows wide open, maybe with a pie cooling on the sill.  There wasn't a pie on the sill but the window was open.  It was a little shack of a place, two rooms, dishevelled and it smelled like death.  Inside was a farmer, kneeling, head to the ground, worshiping at a makeshift blood-smeared altar to a goat's head.I took out my wand and my knife, thinking I would knife this infernal yokel and burn the barn to the ground.But then I'd have to go out there and explain this to Kendrick and Petal whose Lawful Good alignment would impede their ability to see the pragmatic logic behind my murder and arson.  I remain sure that if this farmer is willing to set in his own filth and worship a goat's head smeared with who knows who's blood on his fireplace, that we are going to have to end up fighting him later.  With my knife and wand, I kill the guy while he prays to his goat-head, take out a worshipper Orcus wouldn't care about anyway and burn a message to the rest of the farmers who have taken up infernal religion."Don't be a jack-@$$," would be my message.But my Bluff score isn't so hot and I really didn't want tensions to be high before we even got into town.Mercifully and regretfully, I left the farmer and his home just as I found it, filled with death and sin.  If we have to fight that guy later, I'm going to tell Petal and Kendrick just where they can stick their alignments.  Bok would understand, us Unaligned see the world with clear eyes.</blockquote>

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