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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daztur" data-source="post: 6089472" data-attributes="member: 55680">The Dust MenAdditional information about Hex 40.20 Much to the annoyance of the city fathers, Hyfalls is currently host to a large band of Dust Men. They have already covered the petrified centaurs in blasphemous images and forced several merchants to swallow the contents of their purses and it is feared that there is worse to come. However, it is proving hard to drive them out as they are able to step from shadow to shadow and are very popular with the rough sailors and caravan hands that gather in Hyfalls. The Dust Men are a sect of the monastic brothers and sisters of Pilgrim’s Spire (25.31). They teach that this world is an illusion and that only dreams are real and that if you master their arts you will one day wake up from this shrouded land, leave the prison of your body and live eternally in pleasant dream. Until that time, the Dust Men feel that it is their duty to teach the world the good news that everything that exists is nothing but dust. The Dust Men’s favorite way of doing this by stealing large sums of money. They then do things like dump bags of coins into shark-infested waters or hire an entire troupe of Shadowed Ballet dancers (briefly mentioned at 50.11) to dance naked through the streets of Shuttered for a week. They feel that this provides the unenlightened with a useful lesson in the worthlessness of material things and airily dismiss those who call them nothing but a pack of high living thieves. The Dust Men also take assassination commissions (as long as they are judged to be “interesting”) but rarely kill anyone. For example they forced Wortimer the Scrivener (26.20.01) to make amends for some of his misdeeds after he found chocolate cookies appearing at his bedside each and every morning despite all of his security measures. Of course, every so often Dust Men return to Pilgrim’s Spire, where their less colorful brothers and sisters tolerate them, if just barely. There are some concerns that the Dust Men freely teach the order’s martial arts to every thief and blackguard they come across, but as the Dust Men feel it is their duty to teach the whole world they are difficult to dissuade from doing so. A number of burglars have certainly made good use of the Pilgrim’s Way. It is very useful to be able to jump at will from one shadow to another. The Dust Men explain this art by saying that distance is but an illusion and all places are proximate in dream, so that a man or woman who can dream with their eyes open can take very long strides indeed. Dust Men are a bit vague about why this only works with shadows and tend to spout jargon about “liminality” if questioned closely.  One weakness the Dust Men have is that they cannot jump from shadow to shadow if a gnoll is howling nearby. They say that they are able to dream with their eyes wide open but that gnollish singing is enough to shake a man out of any dream, no matter how deep. This may explain the fact that gnolls have been able to sack Pilgrim’s Spire several times. Hooks:-Tell me about some interesting stunts that Dust Men have pulled?-How many Dust Men actually take the sect’s ideology seriously?-Tell me more about the Shadowed Ballet dancers.-What did Wortimer make amends for? How?-Why can they only step from shadow to shadow?-So, gnollish singing can break a Dust Man’s concentration. Can they do the same to a wizard or cleric?</blockquote>

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