Manbearcat
Legend
Standing atop the high embankment, looking down at this possible place of rest, PRITCHARD asks his companion, “Do you think this might be the spot? Water. An ample bank at which to rest their weary bones, unaware of the coming conflagration.”
But TWYLL does not respond, though she scans the area in an apparent attempt to take in the scene as it would have been in an earlier time. Instead, she considers the baying that draws close. And another people whom she has encountered camping upon the tributary’s banks during her travels.
It’s been many years, but the baying seems definitively lupine. Could this be the location of a temporary camp of the Uthgardt who hunt the nearby forest?
She holds up a hand for Pritchard to be still.
—
—
—
But TWYLL does not respond, though she scans the area in an apparent attempt to take in the scene as it would have been in an earlier time. Instead, she considers the baying that draws close. And another people whom she has encountered camping upon the tributary’s banks during her travels.
It’s been many years, but the baying seems definitively lupine. Could this be the location of a temporary camp of the Uthgardt who hunt the nearby forest?
She holds up a hand for Pritchard to be still.
—
Twyll considers her past ventures trekking through this wilderness, and the people and creatures that call it home, to see if she can recognize the baying calls.
SPOUT LORE
When you consult your accumulated knowledge, roll +INT: on a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the topic at hand; on a 7-9, the GM will tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful; either way the GM might ask, “How do you know this?”
Twyll r6,4 +1 INT = 11.
Per Manbearcat
The first few howls are not terribly remarkable to her; typical timber wolves. They run in an average pack size of 6 or so, led by a powerful alpha. It is the territory in question and the depth, volume, and evolution of pitch of that last ferocious howl that confirms her suspicions. This is a pack of timber wolves led by a Werewolf; a terrible and violent Gray Wolf Uthgardt Barbarian who claims this area as territory.
This particular moon phase in question will put the alpha at the peak of its powers…but also at the peak of its weakness to silver or wolfsbane (of which the flowering plant can be found rarely within the bosom of red-needle fir trees on these slopes).
—
Twyll concurrently takes in the physical landscape for the details Pritchard points out, searching for some clue that would betray the place of ancient tragedy.
AID OR INTERFERE
When you help or hinder someone, roll+bond with them. On a 10+, they take +1 or -2 to their roll, your choice; on a 7-9, they still get a modifier, but you also expose yourself to danger, retribution, or cost.
Twyll r1,2 +2 Bond = 5. Twyll marks XP.
Per Manbearcat
- Twyll suffers a Wisdom Debility until she can (a) brew and imbibe a tea of wolfsbane and cardamom to soothe her nerves and then (b) ritualistically bloodlet (suffer 1d4 HP), thus relieving herself of the terrors of her experience as a youth.
Your findings of this situation haunt you as you look around the area. Worse than haunt, they invade you like a living thing; an attention-stealing parasite. Tell us what happened when you were young. What was that close scrape with lycanthropic curse that you narrowly escaped? And how did you learn the remedy above?
—
Pritchard compares the features of this site with what he knows of his ancestors’ tragic demise.
LOCATE THE CATACLYSM’S MASS GRAVE
When you search the mountainside north of Neverwinter for the location of your ancestor’s mass tragedy, roll +WIS.
Pritchard r5,4 -1 WIS = 8.
Per Manbearcat
All the telltale signs are correct. They rested here with intention to build structures to rest for the night, but something, not the eruption though, frightened them off. There are no bones here…no great and terrible ossuary. They watered their horses, foraged for supply and material, took momentary respite and then trekked fast and hard out of here, down the precarious path to the basin below.
As for you. Here, now, in this moment. Something stirs within the deep darkness of this copse of dead and living trees. Barren boughs quaver, soil shifts and earthen foliage heaves.
Birds fly off suddenly from the tops of the trees.
Another howl…a timber wolf…much closer.