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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreyOne" data-source="post: 1101691" data-attributes="member: 858">-An excerpt from The Follies of KingsThe marshes of Narlann roil and bubble with terrible memories, memories that hearken back through countless centuries, even to a time before the Great Dispersal.  The history of the Hollow Lands is replete with dire stories spawned from its reaches.  Abominations sired from the darkest necromancies, and blood lore, inhabit many of these tales.  And there is truth to them…-Being an excerpt from the Chronicle of Graves, by GhanoOne must take the events purported to have occurred on the voyage down the Janak by Preda’s armsmen with an upraised eyebrow.  Surely the tale’s abominations of which Nado regaled the folk in Eastfair were not but the crazed hallucinations of a sun-kissed rogue?Suffice to say, the four companions drove away the pack of marshwolves and made their way towards the gate of bones.  Here it is said that Nado engaged in a test of wits with the animated skulls atop its crest.  Had not the wily Hannathri rogue guessed correctly the riddles posed by the gate, they would have been struck blind by the gate’s sorcery.  Nado’s role in this event was perhaps exaggerated or perhaps this part of the tale was simply a fabrication.  A’Kana Nadolis had a penchant for tall tales……Of the foes they vanquished in the rescuing of the two villagers, perhaps the hardest to give credence to is the hag.   Certainly in the collected folklore of Narlann, hags play a role.  Their depravations and depravities are well known to storytellers.  Yet little scholarly evidence exists to support their survival into the present age.  Doubtlessly, the hag that the companions defeated in the bogs was but a mad woman, of sorcerous skill, yes, but unnatural origin?  Some have layed the later slaughter of the lordling, Leet (son of Rodvolo of Eastfair) and his armsmen on the road to Askarl, at the feet of this same hag.  The half-mad ramblings of the sole surviving guard described her terrible wrath and appearance well enough.  By and by, the truth of the matter is hard to establish, but the wonderful dance of chance into which the major players of this tale meet again and again, and often tragically (or justly!) is worthy of the greatest talespinner’s repertoire…</blockquote>

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