The Legend of Shang [ part 1 ]

 

Shang was the daughter of a long line of orc shogun. A mighty warrior, she was a hero to her people even at a young age, having defeated evil spirits terrorising a scared forest, a forest which grew the strongest oak for the largest warships of the orc fleet. When asked how she had driven back the Oni, she claimed that she had tapped into something dark within her, and in that moment of hot and blinding fury, she reached inwards to something that her people had long turned away from, out of fear, mistrust or perhaps wisdom. Her rage became manifest as an enormous war spear, searing her hands as it exploded into the material plane.

She fought for her Shogun for many years, and when she was of age, Shang fell madly in love with the son of one of her father’s admirals.  A handsome, strong tusked young orc, they protected their people side by side for years, their love deepening with the slow passage of the seasons.

Until one faithful night, Porta Verde was attack by dark skinned gilled creatures from the depths. The wicked deep ones tore babies from the arms of their mothers, and stopped only to gorge themselves on the fallen mid battle. Shang’s rage grew as she saw the injustice, the depravity and horrors of the battle, and taking a stand at the main bridge into the port, side by side with her lover , they held the line and met the assault with a storm of white steel. When the red mist cleared and the rage subsided, Shang stood atop a pile of corpses as tall as a ships mast. As she picked through the carnage her heart stopped, for among them, lay the body of her lover. Turning him over with the slow dread rising in the throat she saw the wound in his chest. Unmistakable. Chernobog.

Although celebrated as a hero that day Shang was driven to despair by the events and left her fleet, left the flotilla, and wandered Vaul alone, searching for … something. Vengeance perhaps, punishment maybe or just solace.

Truly is it a tragic and cautionary tale. Since the last century war the Orcs have broken free from the shackles of their rage, their culture has developed and grown into a sophisticated and nuanced admiralty. The legend of Shang is one such parable, illustrated the suffering that awaits those orcs who regress to a darker time.

( There is more to Shangs story, but this is less commonly known and may require somebody a little better read than a brewmaster to tell you)

Chernobog

Chernobog is a legacy weapon ( there are others) which levels up according to the wielders actions. the secrets to leveling them up are often features of their lore, backstory, the personality of the weapon etc.

for example, When initially Throkk Found Chernobog it was simply an enormous spear, its true potential inert and subdued ( admittedly 1d12 damage from shear size). However when Throkk flew into a rage with Chernobog the first time, a memory of the weapons past life awoke within it and it became a +1 spear plus the additional special effects. Who knows where the other legacy weapons/items are found, and what is required to level them up? Well.. I do I guess.

How Winey Got Shanghaied

The first thing he noticed was the smell. A putrid stench of rotting fish; slimy and bloody. Below it, subtle hints of salt and grain, a sharpness of dried sweat. Tying it all together, swimming around his eyes and cheeks, the hot, deep stench of alcohol. He carefully levered open one eye a crack and was inundated with a blast of light- a hot ray of sun directly into the retina. He squeezed the eye shut again but not fast enough. Now he was aware of the sun on his face, lighting his eyelids, bathing his pupils in red. Now the slow-motion, faraway hum of blood in his veins gave way to a buzz of industry. The noise of the marketplace, buyers haggling with sellers, carts and bells, children laughing and dogs barking rose steadily in his ears, reaching after a minute a terrible cacophony that reached inside his head and held his throbbing brain, scratching and pounding like the hooves of a warhorse.

 

Fighting the urge to scream, he raised his right hand to his face. Pressing his eyes, then shielding them with his filthy palm, he cracked open his eyes again, bracing against the light.

A tuft of grass. A small pile of vomit. An empty tankard lying on its side. Above him, three sturdy steps of hardwood leading up to a large bolted door. At his feet sat a dog and as his eyes began to focus, they followed a piece of string from the dogs neck, up to (or rather, across to) the hand of a Halfling boy, maybe 9 years old. Both the boy and the dog, he realized, were staring quite intently at him. He gasped and sat up suddenly, lashing his head off the wood.

‘Are you awake, mister?’

The boy, without much sense of irony it seemed. Alistair groaned and rubbed his crown, the dull ache joining the scratchy throat, pounding headache, aching shoulders and burning forearm. He was in pretty bad shape.

‘What time is it?’

His voice surprised him. Huskier than usual. He sounded like a sexy Throkk.

‘Time for you to pay up, mister. 5 gold pieces, as you promised. My Papa told me to come and get you’.

That mage was powerful, it seemed. To transport him to another dimension in the middle of a battle was one thing. To inflict this much damage was another but to make him pay for the privilege?

 

Alastair crawled inelegantly out from under the steps and swaying, got to his feet. He peered imperiously down at the Halfling boy, who stared back with a strange mixture of curiosity and impatience. The dog barked.

‘He told me you might need this’, said the boy, holding out a brown, weathered wineskin. ‘It’s water’, he added, sympathetically.

Alistair took the carafe and after a quick sniff, drank deeply, feeling a sense of relief in his throat and shoulders (although his head still throbbed and his arm still burned). Looking around he became aware of the hustle and bustle of the market. The townsfolk ambled easily by, casting their eyes over the vegetables, pots and pans, barrels and tools. From the sheer amounts of fresh fish and meats, the patter of the merchants and the way the sun hit the fluttering pendants above the stalls, he judged it was still early in the morning and the market was but a few hours old.

 

‘Did you find your goat?’ The boy seemed to be getting restless now. Alistair sensed that he thought he might have better things to be doing on a market day than delivering water to a strange half-elf.

‘My Goat?’ Alistair revved his brain for a second but nothing clicked and the effort seemed to increase his headache so he relaxed again. ‘My goat. No, I didn’t unfortunately but I’m sure he’ll show up. Thank you for the water. Now, What did you say, two gold pieces, is it?’

‘Five.’ The Halfling boy, not missing a beat. He shifted the string in his hand and the dog barked again.

The dog, on further inspection, did not look like the sort of dog that liked to be petted. Alistair sighed internally. It was an unusually discombobulating and annoying start to the day.

‘My dad said to come get you now because you still have time to get to the ship before she leaves if you need to get the fee off your friend’.

‘My friend?’

‘The drunk guy with the hat’

‘The hat, right.’

‘The one who makes the beer you like. The one you got the job on the big galleon. I don’t know how you did that by the way. Captain Ashakina has never hired a brewer before. You’d think that having someone in a 31 man crew whose only job is to brew a beer is a wast-‘

‘Hold that thought, lad’. Alistair’s mind, usually so tuned, was beginning to float to the top of a pool of booze. He revved it again and it spluttered. He rubbed his forearm and winced.

‘Was my friend with me when I met your father last night?’

The boy shrugged, ‘I don’t know mister, It was pretty late. My papa doesn’t usually do drunk people but you were pretty insistent. And between the five gold and you waking up mum with your goat shout, I think he pretty much thought it would be easier to just do it. ‘

Alistair’s stomach flipped and he glanced again at the vomit and the tankard on the ground.

‘Lad, what does you father do?

The Halfling boy looked confused and tightened his grip on the dog again. He looked questioningly at Alastair, the look that sane people give mad people, pity and incomprehension. Then he looked at Alistair’s sleeve.

With a splutter, the half-elf’s mind roared into action and instantly flooded with images. Clinking tankards in a dimly lit bar, the slap of gold on a counter, a hearty handshake with a swarthy sea captain (a genuine wooden leg! You don’t see that too often). Winey slumped over a table, drooling grog into his red beard. Dancing on top of a table. THE BEER IN HERE IS THE BEST DAMN BEER, THE NEAREST BEER COMES NOWHERE NEAR. Down to the docks with a bottle of rum. A Halfling laughing his head off. I’M FUCKING SERIOUS MAN! Down the alley, sun rising. Flowers in the little garden. Mind your head. MY APOLOGIES MRS PRINTWELL, I MADE YOUR HUSBAND AN OFFER HE COULDN’T REFUSE. The solid oak table. Probably won’t feel it anyway. The Halfling woman, baby crying in her arms. GREATEST OF ALL TIME! Her eyes flashing with anger, Get him out of here, Martin! You can collect the money in the morning if he has any, you fucking drunken fool!. The end of the tankard. Don’t feel so well. Under the steps. Sleep it off.

 

The Dog barked. Alistair winced and looked at the boy, then down at his burning forearm.

‘Have you got the money, mister? My papa told me not to come back without it.’

‘Yeah, I have the money, lad, let me just check the work’.

Wincing, Alistair rolled up his sleeve and look at his new tattoo. A quick job, sure, and the artist was certainly inebriated. But you could certainly tell it was a bottle of beer and though it was hard to see with all the caked-on blood, it definitely said ‘Red Setter’ on the label. Well, ‘Red Seter’.

Not the worst tattoo, not the best tattoo. Unless you counted the large, gothic text underneath the bottle.

G.O.A.T.

Alistair counted out 5 gold in silver and handed it to the boy.

‘Are the rest of the band are staying nearby?’

‘It’s on the way mister, but do you not want to say goodbye to your friend? The Whooping Carp is heading for TamsHaven and she won’t be back for a half year.’

Alistair smiled wistfully. ‘Lad, you make a lot of friends in a port town. You see them when you see them. You don’t have to say goodbye.’

The Halfling boy looked up at him and Alistair realized that he was a bit thick.

‘Never mind, kid. Let’s go get some eggs. Hoohah!

 

  • Alastair

 

 

 

Tarot revisited

Tulip

The Moon

A dark portent indeed. The moons of Vaul are a symbol of our gods, and the eternal waltz. To be bound to these cards, to be the destroyer of moons, is to court doom surely. A sinister omen young elf.

Celeste

The Sun

Glory, power, pride, Present for us every morning, but yet small, distant and unspeaking. Pitiless and paradoxically cold yet burning those who stray too close. To feel the warmth, the sun needs to keep you at a distance. The Sun chooses not its path, shines without kindness , a prisoner of its own cyclical destiny.

Ernodal

Lovers 

Though beautiful, this card does not always mean love, sometimes it means, intimacy, closeness, binding. Sometimes it is unwanted – the lovers consume each other, they cannot both survive the embrace.

Gritgoz

The Fool

The Fool the fool wears the mask to better see behind our own, to understand the court. Yet see how when stares at himself, and sees nothing behind his own mask. The fool is always in servitude, and never on the throne, a grave injustice….

Throkk

The Bather ( ironic)

… covered in urine, nobody read the card.

 

 

Nobody drew the wild card, who did it represent? On the card, you see a winged , fire-breathing creature up high, surround by flame. It wears a single key around its neck, a symbol of locked treasures, hidden secrets and those who hunt them. Perhaps a sign of future encounters? Perhaps its just a coincidence.

Play the hand

“I don’t see it to be perfectly honest with you Tarnik”

“I didn’t fucking ask for your opinion Shaaknish you bilious shit-smear”

Tarnik fumed and shuffled the grubby playing cards in his claws peering through the thick cigar smoke that swam languidly around the table. The lilac haze was sickly heavy sweet smoke, and yet the dark, brittle smell of brimstone and char wafted under the door to fuse into pungent cloud. His eyes watered slightly.

Nobody met his gaze, even Furnuz averted his thousand eyes and stared at everyone’s whiskey.

“So …anyway.. before the golem made of eyes grabbed you he, uh… he wanted to use you to channel some sort of.. electric shock through your hands?”

Tarnik started to deal the cards to the other imps. Slowly working his way around the table trying to forget the feeling of having his skull turned into mush as he was slammed against the entry way to the marble tower. He touched his forehead thoughtfully. Still rigid and encasing as the day he was spawned.

“Look, give him a break. It wasn’t his best idea, but then, neither was storming in the front door of a tower of no return you know? Hes not big on the tactics or survival side of things. I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t have picked him for this project if I had the choice. But these are the cards we are dealt.”

He smiled at his pun. Gritgoz probably would have liked that one, the treasure hording, corpse raiding degenerate.

“He was like.. super into baking too.”

“Whats baking?”

“You grind up wheat into flour and mix it with…”

Tarnik stopped talking and looked at his companions. They blinked back patiently, waiting for his sermon on baking. He had seen more brains on the end of Ernie’s spear. Questions like that is why Imps were bottom of the food chain around here. This is why every acne ridden teenage apprentice fucking wizard managed to rip them from their homes at a moments notice and bind them as servants to do their fucking laundry and spy on the local wench. Questions like that, reminded Tarnik why every demonic army ever raised had imps as a meatshield for the slovenly overlords, or had them manning the burning catapults of doom ( which almost never worked by the way). This was why the knight in shining armour galloping into the frey wiped imps from his shield hours later back in the tavern,  like the inconsequential deamon-stains they were as they splatted again him like insects.

“Tarnik you’re … doing that thing again. You’re frothing too..”

Tarnik snapped back to the table to find his companions staring at him, looks of consternation and amusement across their faces (in some case, across all their faces)

“Sorry guys, been a long few weeks”

“You could always terminate the contract Tarnik, find a new one. This guy sounds like a liability”

Tarnik shook his head.

“No can do. Sure he makes me climb through human faeces on a semi regular basis, has a deathwish and seems to have fallen in with the most simultaneously incompetent and successful campaigners I’ve ever had the misfortune to follow around, and oh did I mention they cant even solve puzzles? Like they just get this big guy Throkk to smash through everything but… but… Hes a good kid you know? And besides, he needs my help. He has literally a snowballs chance in hell without me”

He chuckled again. Man, he was on a role with the puns.

He stared at his cards. He had nothing. zero. worse than zero, the hand was almost completely unsalvageable.  By the twins. He glanced up at the other imps and made a quick assessment of them. Morons.

He met the raises as they slowly worked their betting around the table and played their way towards the flop.

“so what now? Is he dead? Will he summon you back? You gonna tell us what you really wanted with him?”

“Nah, he aint dead boys. I can feel it. I think Ill be back in the game before too long”

He met the increasingly frantic raises now and locked eyes with a few of Furnuz’s. He held the stare. At least he thought he did, it was hard to tell with Furnuz.

“I dunno Tarnik, this is gonna end like that last one. Remember him? Killed by a vampire!”

“No, Ernie’s special, Im telling you”

The pot was massive now. He glanced at his cards. Absolutely nothing.

Time to pull an Ernie.

He pushed the mound of coins, clay tablets and ancient blood parchment onto the table. Every coin, every spell and the rights to human soul he had. The others physically reacted to the overwhelming display, Some shooting up from the table, another fainted, others licking their lips in a sickly moist snap.

“All in you Imp fucks”

“ Tarnik, that’s a lot of souls there. And that’s … thats  your contract with Ernie. All your talk about how special he is and your putting that on the line over a game of cards”

“I don’t fuck around fellas”

Tarniks eyes pierced into each player like the point of a knife. He slowly made the round of the table, daring each player to match his ludicrous bet. He imagined Ernie’s cloak billowing behind him in defiance, and he twirled the shattered shaft of his imaginary spear.

One by one they folded, each staring wistfully at the pot as they did.

“Hahaha, oh baby.” Tarnik pulled the haul towards him.

A gasp broke his laughter as the imps stepped back. Tarnik held his claws up to his face to see them bathed in a dark purple flame, emitting no heat, but already starting to char and burn through his flesh. Nice… VIP treatment. This resummoning was coming straight from the top. Excellent.  Things were starting to fall into place already. He waved at the amazed daemons as chunks of his flesh began to crumble away.

“Told you he was ok, ill see you fuckers around.”

“Wait.. Show us your cards!”

With his last seconds on the plane, he triumphantly flipped the cards over on the table.

A royal flush.

“That’s pulling an Ernie, your blackblooded assholes” he thought as he stuffed his original cards under the mantle of the table before crumbling into a pile of smoking ash on the floor.