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<blockquote data-quote="Sic_Pixie" data-source="post: 5833765" data-attributes="member: 52403"><p><strong>The First Case</strong></p><p></p><p><strong>Morast</strong></p><p></p><p>The first crime the Beast is charged with is the killing of 10 people in Morast, a small hamlet in the Dippelmere Swamp about 8 miles east of Lepidstadt. A narrow trail leads from Lepidstadt to the village. Morast is a miserable collection of 20 or so wattle-and-daub hovels built on stilts above the swamp and connected by soggy wooden boardwalks. The villagers make their livings fishing and occasionally bringing in a blood caiman (a variety of crocodilian with a red-scaled head that is native to the north) to eat or sell. </p><p></p><p>The ride to Morast is short, only a little less than an hour; arriving in the swamp village of Morast. The swampers of Morast are a curious group. Local rumour claims that somewhere in their somewhat inbred ancestry, they mingled with strange swamp creatures, tainting their blood and marking them with queer countenances. No one knows how or why, but the people of Morast have legendary constitutions—sickness is rare among the swampers, and the villagers live long, healthy lives. While admired for this fact, they are also shunned for their strange appearance.</p><p></p><p>The villagers had problems with the Beast a year ago; with lone travellers going missing and it terrorizing their homes. When it got too much they organised a defence for the next time it arrived and they drove it off into the swamp with flaming torches and pitchforks. The one responsible for organizing this resistance is one Lazne the village elder.</p><p></p><p>The villagers only realized that the “Beast” had escaped when the village elder, Lazne, was called as a star witness by the prosecution for the Beast’s trial, since he led the mob that drove the Beast away. Lazne is a grizzled, middle-aged man with dirty gray hair and skin the colour of swamp mud. He chews on a foul-smelling swamp weed and punctuates most of his sentences by spitting weed-juice onto the ground. Lazne doesn’t much like “cityfolk and furriners” (by which he means anyone not from Morast, or, to a lesser extent, from Lepidstadt) He greets the party as they arrive squelching along the path to the hamlet; tying up the horses they approach and introduce themselves; Lazne greets them in a decidedly surly manner spitting his swamp weed in their general direction obviously not overly impressed to see them. They try convincing Lazne of their good intentions but he is not impressed until they produce cold hard currency of the gold type and then he becomes decidedly loquacious. </p><p></p><p>Lazne claims that at first the Beast only took lone villagers who were outside at night, but soon became bolder and began to attack houses. These attacks only ended when Lazne organized the villagers and set a trap for the Beast. He recalls that night well. The villagers were lying in wait for the Beast, who attacked just after nightfall. Armed with torches, the locals attacked and wounded the creature—a huge, hulking brute about 7 feet tall. The Beast took to the water, but the swampers gave chase in their boats, pursuing it to the village boneyard, where it was attacked by a blood caiman. Lazne grins as he recalls how the Beast yelled oaths and curses that even the worst whore in Lepidstadt would blush to say as the gator attacked it, and describes the deep bite wound the gator made on the Beast’s shoulder as it dragged the Beast under the water. Although the Beast’s blood tainted the villagers’ burial ground, forcing them to abandon it and build another, the swampers thought it a small price to pay for the thing’s death. Hearing that the Beast actually survived was all that Lazne needed to tell his story to the authorities, and he’s looking forward to seeing it burn.</p><p></p><p>The abandoned boneyard where the Beast was attacked can only be reached by boat. The swampers use small coracles to navigate the swamp, and will rent the tiny boats to the party for 5 gp per boat per day. Each boat will only take one boater and one passenger so they leave Kat to sit with the horses while they rent two boats and head to the Boneyard; The Boneyard is where the locals used to bury their dead up to a year ago; after the events they decided it was cursed and no longer fit to bury their dead so they found another swampy wet island on which to interne their dead. Arriving; a tiny, miserable island rises from the swamp, a tangle of trees covering its dour, reed-choked surface. Hundreds of fetishes hang from the trees—simple, roughly humanoid figures made of sticks and bound with twine. Larger fetishes are planted in the ground on various parts of the island, leaning drunkenly in the soft mud. A large nest built of sodden swamp wood sits high in the boughs of a trio of tangled trees on the northwest side of the isle. They beach the boats on the northwest side of the island and investigate the sodden heap; some 40 odd graves are here each with a simple wooden fetish to mark its location. They walk round to the south of the island keeping their eyes open to see what they can find; they soon find an old abandoned campfire which they identify as not having been used for roughly a year. Around a small firepit are a water skin (still half full of wine), the aged remnants of some trail rations, and a curious glass vial. The bottom of the vial contains the dried remains of a green substance that smells vaguely of carrots. Neither of them have any idea what this cold be so they pocket it for later investigation.</p><p></p><p>Walking to the east Sayuri discovers a Coracle hidden in the trees and brush along the southwest shore of the island. Dried blood can be noticed in the bottom of the boat. The coracle contains an oar, a mouldy leather travel bag with a damp artisan’s outfit (a shirt, breeches, shoes, and a cloth apron) inside, and a vile object—what appears to be a detached human face. In addition, a length of rope stretches from the boat into the waters below. Grembor grips the rope and hauls with all his strength pulling it up onto the land. The rope is attached to a heavy sack; the sack is very large and has dried blood soaked into its fabric. The sack holds some rope, a gag, a rusted lantern, a trio of heavy knives, and a rusted shovel. Scouting round the rest of the area Sayuri notices a suspicious lump in the reeds that when brushed aside reveals a leather-bound case filled with fine tools, made of silver with amethyst handles, lost in the undergrowth nearby. They deduce that this is a surgical tool set used by physicians and chirurgeons and is very expensive and probably quite unique; Sayuri finds also upon inspection that they all have a small symbol on the handle depicting a raven. Should make tracking down the owner easier ….</p><p></p><p>Searching the rest of the island they find a large nest like structure spread between three of the trees; Grembor climbs up to investigate and discovers a dead body of a dwarf in there. Searching the body finds several interesting items but nothing that is tied to the Beast; after searching Grembor scans around and notices a large creature winging towards them with murder in its eyes. Banking as sharply as a clumsy large flying thing can it flicks it’s tail forward unleashing a hail of iron like barbs at the pair; thankfully they have cover and they strike only the protective trees under which they are cowering. Grembor shimmies down the tree landing next to Sayuri while she casts some balls of force at the creature which unerringly flit though the branches and batter the poor defenceless Manticore. The creature sweeps in a low slow circle round the pair; lobbing tail spikes at them both; most of them hit the cover while one slips through striking Grembor in the leg; Grembor responds by shooting an arrow up at the creature missing it by several feet. Sayuri starts summoning a critter to assist while the Manticore fires another volley; two strike Grembor in the chest and blood bubbles up through his lips from a pierced lung as he drops to his knees. Sayuri looks on as she completes her summoning and rips a rent to the plane of air and brings forth an air elemental which starts pummelling the creature. Looking down on Grembor’s predicament she launches into another summoning; Grembor looks down at the spikes piercing his chest and plucks at them feebly. Digging a potion out of his pouch he swallows the contents and the two spines work their way out dropping to the floor at his feet. He scrambles weakly to his feet and scoops up his bow from the ground just in time to meet another volley of spikes one of which impales itself deep in his neck amid a spurt of blood. Sayuri looks on and completes her summoning even though she takes a substantial hit; practically screaming out the last syllables and almost dropping the spell but thankfully another rent in the plane is forms dragging through another air elemental which leaps on the Manticore ripping into its wings. Sayuri digs out a healing potion and manages to get most of it down the throat of Grembor and the healing energies ripple through his body repairing the worst of the injuries to his neck and forcing the expulsion of the iron hard spine. Leaping to his feet he heroically scoops up his bow once again stringing an arrow and letting it fly directly towards the low flying creature; it hits at the wing joint causing the creature to loose some altitude before swooping low over the swamp. The second arrow is nocked and sighting along the arrow letting it fly low across the water; is streaks out with a low whine from the fletching which pulls the arrow to one side only narrowly missing one of the air elementals and completely missing the Manticore. Landing the creature figures to try mauling these impudent humans with it’s claws and bite but some serious damage from the pair of elementals soon stops thoughts of vengeance and starts the thoughts for survival; the creature turns and with a lumbering run gains the air and ponderously flaps away followed by some hasty arrows from Grembor. </p><p></p><p>They dig out some more potions and heal themselves up a bit more before finishing off exploring the island. The only other thing they find of significant note is that six of the graves look different to the others and they seem to have had the bodies removed as the surface of the plot has sunk.</p><p></p><p>They return to the coracles and discuss the turn of events with Lazne who exclaims when he sees the dried up face they found in the coracle; little more than a ragged mask, it is tricky to identify, but Lazne identifies it as the face of Nan Klebem, a poacher who used to visit Morast about once a month, but who has not been seen in the village for about a year, since the time of the Beast’s attacks in fact.</p><p></p><p>It seems there is more to the attacks than realised, it was difficult to tell but they did not recall seeing the scars on the Beast from the bite of a blood caiman. Though if there was one then it was covered by the ragged strips of clothing and dirt.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sic_Pixie, post: 5833765, member: 52403"] [b]The First Case[/b] [B]Morast[/B] The first crime the Beast is charged with is the killing of 10 people in Morast, a small hamlet in the Dippelmere Swamp about 8 miles east of Lepidstadt. A narrow trail leads from Lepidstadt to the village. Morast is a miserable collection of 20 or so wattle-and-daub hovels built on stilts above the swamp and connected by soggy wooden boardwalks. The villagers make their livings fishing and occasionally bringing in a blood caiman (a variety of crocodilian with a red-scaled head that is native to the north) to eat or sell. The ride to Morast is short, only a little less than an hour; arriving in the swamp village of Morast. The swampers of Morast are a curious group. Local rumour claims that somewhere in their somewhat inbred ancestry, they mingled with strange swamp creatures, tainting their blood and marking them with queer countenances. No one knows how or why, but the people of Morast have legendary constitutions—sickness is rare among the swampers, and the villagers live long, healthy lives. While admired for this fact, they are also shunned for their strange appearance. The villagers had problems with the Beast a year ago; with lone travellers going missing and it terrorizing their homes. When it got too much they organised a defence for the next time it arrived and they drove it off into the swamp with flaming torches and pitchforks. The one responsible for organizing this resistance is one Lazne the village elder. The villagers only realized that the “Beast” had escaped when the village elder, Lazne, was called as a star witness by the prosecution for the Beast’s trial, since he led the mob that drove the Beast away. Lazne is a grizzled, middle-aged man with dirty gray hair and skin the colour of swamp mud. He chews on a foul-smelling swamp weed and punctuates most of his sentences by spitting weed-juice onto the ground. Lazne doesn’t much like “cityfolk and furriners” (by which he means anyone not from Morast, or, to a lesser extent, from Lepidstadt) He greets the party as they arrive squelching along the path to the hamlet; tying up the horses they approach and introduce themselves; Lazne greets them in a decidedly surly manner spitting his swamp weed in their general direction obviously not overly impressed to see them. They try convincing Lazne of their good intentions but he is not impressed until they produce cold hard currency of the gold type and then he becomes decidedly loquacious. Lazne claims that at first the Beast only took lone villagers who were outside at night, but soon became bolder and began to attack houses. These attacks only ended when Lazne organized the villagers and set a trap for the Beast. He recalls that night well. The villagers were lying in wait for the Beast, who attacked just after nightfall. Armed with torches, the locals attacked and wounded the creature—a huge, hulking brute about 7 feet tall. The Beast took to the water, but the swampers gave chase in their boats, pursuing it to the village boneyard, where it was attacked by a blood caiman. Lazne grins as he recalls how the Beast yelled oaths and curses that even the worst whore in Lepidstadt would blush to say as the gator attacked it, and describes the deep bite wound the gator made on the Beast’s shoulder as it dragged the Beast under the water. Although the Beast’s blood tainted the villagers’ burial ground, forcing them to abandon it and build another, the swampers thought it a small price to pay for the thing’s death. Hearing that the Beast actually survived was all that Lazne needed to tell his story to the authorities, and he’s looking forward to seeing it burn. The abandoned boneyard where the Beast was attacked can only be reached by boat. The swampers use small coracles to navigate the swamp, and will rent the tiny boats to the party for 5 gp per boat per day. Each boat will only take one boater and one passenger so they leave Kat to sit with the horses while they rent two boats and head to the Boneyard; The Boneyard is where the locals used to bury their dead up to a year ago; after the events they decided it was cursed and no longer fit to bury their dead so they found another swampy wet island on which to interne their dead. Arriving; a tiny, miserable island rises from the swamp, a tangle of trees covering its dour, reed-choked surface. Hundreds of fetishes hang from the trees—simple, roughly humanoid figures made of sticks and bound with twine. Larger fetishes are planted in the ground on various parts of the island, leaning drunkenly in the soft mud. A large nest built of sodden swamp wood sits high in the boughs of a trio of tangled trees on the northwest side of the isle. They beach the boats on the northwest side of the island and investigate the sodden heap; some 40 odd graves are here each with a simple wooden fetish to mark its location. They walk round to the south of the island keeping their eyes open to see what they can find; they soon find an old abandoned campfire which they identify as not having been used for roughly a year. Around a small firepit are a water skin (still half full of wine), the aged remnants of some trail rations, and a curious glass vial. The bottom of the vial contains the dried remains of a green substance that smells vaguely of carrots. Neither of them have any idea what this cold be so they pocket it for later investigation. Walking to the east Sayuri discovers a Coracle hidden in the trees and brush along the southwest shore of the island. Dried blood can be noticed in the bottom of the boat. The coracle contains an oar, a mouldy leather travel bag with a damp artisan’s outfit (a shirt, breeches, shoes, and a cloth apron) inside, and a vile object—what appears to be a detached human face. In addition, a length of rope stretches from the boat into the waters below. Grembor grips the rope and hauls with all his strength pulling it up onto the land. The rope is attached to a heavy sack; the sack is very large and has dried blood soaked into its fabric. The sack holds some rope, a gag, a rusted lantern, a trio of heavy knives, and a rusted shovel. Scouting round the rest of the area Sayuri notices a suspicious lump in the reeds that when brushed aside reveals a leather-bound case filled with fine tools, made of silver with amethyst handles, lost in the undergrowth nearby. They deduce that this is a surgical tool set used by physicians and chirurgeons and is very expensive and probably quite unique; Sayuri finds also upon inspection that they all have a small symbol on the handle depicting a raven. Should make tracking down the owner easier …. Searching the rest of the island they find a large nest like structure spread between three of the trees; Grembor climbs up to investigate and discovers a dead body of a dwarf in there. Searching the body finds several interesting items but nothing that is tied to the Beast; after searching Grembor scans around and notices a large creature winging towards them with murder in its eyes. Banking as sharply as a clumsy large flying thing can it flicks it’s tail forward unleashing a hail of iron like barbs at the pair; thankfully they have cover and they strike only the protective trees under which they are cowering. Grembor shimmies down the tree landing next to Sayuri while she casts some balls of force at the creature which unerringly flit though the branches and batter the poor defenceless Manticore. The creature sweeps in a low slow circle round the pair; lobbing tail spikes at them both; most of them hit the cover while one slips through striking Grembor in the leg; Grembor responds by shooting an arrow up at the creature missing it by several feet. Sayuri starts summoning a critter to assist while the Manticore fires another volley; two strike Grembor in the chest and blood bubbles up through his lips from a pierced lung as he drops to his knees. Sayuri looks on as she completes her summoning and rips a rent to the plane of air and brings forth an air elemental which starts pummelling the creature. Looking down on Grembor’s predicament she launches into another summoning; Grembor looks down at the spikes piercing his chest and plucks at them feebly. Digging a potion out of his pouch he swallows the contents and the two spines work their way out dropping to the floor at his feet. He scrambles weakly to his feet and scoops up his bow from the ground just in time to meet another volley of spikes one of which impales itself deep in his neck amid a spurt of blood. Sayuri looks on and completes her summoning even though she takes a substantial hit; practically screaming out the last syllables and almost dropping the spell but thankfully another rent in the plane is forms dragging through another air elemental which leaps on the Manticore ripping into its wings. Sayuri digs out a healing potion and manages to get most of it down the throat of Grembor and the healing energies ripple through his body repairing the worst of the injuries to his neck and forcing the expulsion of the iron hard spine. Leaping to his feet he heroically scoops up his bow once again stringing an arrow and letting it fly directly towards the low flying creature; it hits at the wing joint causing the creature to loose some altitude before swooping low over the swamp. The second arrow is nocked and sighting along the arrow letting it fly low across the water; is streaks out with a low whine from the fletching which pulls the arrow to one side only narrowly missing one of the air elementals and completely missing the Manticore. Landing the creature figures to try mauling these impudent humans with it’s claws and bite but some serious damage from the pair of elementals soon stops thoughts of vengeance and starts the thoughts for survival; the creature turns and with a lumbering run gains the air and ponderously flaps away followed by some hasty arrows from Grembor. They dig out some more potions and heal themselves up a bit more before finishing off exploring the island. The only other thing they find of significant note is that six of the graves look different to the others and they seem to have had the bodies removed as the surface of the plot has sunk. They return to the coracles and discuss the turn of events with Lazne who exclaims when he sees the dried up face they found in the coracle; little more than a ragged mask, it is tricky to identify, but Lazne identifies it as the face of Nan Klebem, a poacher who used to visit Morast about once a month, but who has not been seen in the village for about a year, since the time of the Beast’s attacks in fact. It seems there is more to the attacks than realised, it was difficult to tell but they did not recall seeing the scars on the Beast from the bite of a blood caiman. Though if there was one then it was covered by the ragged strips of clothing and dirt. [/QUOTE]
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