First Adventure: The Hunt for The Night Thing

Bracus, Two-Axe's medicine man, chides himself for being gone during all this and will gladly pledge himself to killing the Night Thing for the clan.

When Skarma's word reaches him Wotan pledges himself to kill The Other Thing going bump in the night.

As the Day-Star sets in the west, the colors of the sky erupt in a wash of bright and beautiful colors. The star goes down...down...down, and as it descends, the sky becomes darker and darker, and then stars streak upward from the edges of horizon. Many, many, many stars streak upward, and start to move into patterns in the night sky.

As you all approach the clanfire of the Two-Axe clan (some of you are familiar with the clan, a few of you are not), putting your weapons outside of firelight, per the pact of guestright, this clan has been beaten down. Those of you familiar with the Two-Axe clan remember them to be excited, eager, happy people. This people is down-trodden, sullen, wounded, and sad.

Nearest the bonfire is the dwarven chieftain herself, Skarna Two-Axe, wearing a traditional stone mask, signifying her grief, hiding her tears from her clansfolk.

Sad chants and songs are sung by the clan of varied kinships. It is a night of mourning for the son of Skarna, Brakar Two-Axe. The shaman, an ancient and crooked godmarked with a single curving horn in the middle of his red forehead, lowers his knotty hands, and the wailing clan goes silent. They have been mourning the chieftain’s slain son for three nights.

"Thank you, everyone, for your reverence, your honor, your respect, as we honor our fallen family, especially Brakar. Honor dictated that we mourn his loss for three nights, and tonight completes that rite. Go in peace, Brakar. Hunt the great spirits of beyond."

The dying clanfire snaps at the sky as the stars swirl above. It’s autumn, and it’s almost dawn. They say Skarna hasn’t spoken in days, except to send out messengers to bring back hunters to track down the Night Thing, a beast which injured her daughter and killed her son. The ceremony is drawing to an end—soon it will be time to begin the hunt.

It wasn't his Hearth to tend so Wotan stood in the dark watching in quiet the events. He listened carefully to tales about the creature in the whispers of the frightful and lamenting clan members. One might think of Wotan as Death Itself, the gaunt and pale human perfectly still as he observed with Silent Vigil.

He paid respects as long as he could tolerate being idle, but then began to patrol the perimeter of the fire, his eyes twin flames of blue cold fire in the darkness. His undead flesh smelled of camphor, eucalyptus, and the sacred embalming oils. It tended to keep pest of the bestial and human variety at bay.

Wotan busily peered on the outskirts of the village searching for any sign of incursion. Trying to ascertain the nature of this predator. He doubted it was a monster, though he had seen many strange things in his centuries long existence he had never seen a monster. It was either a rival tribe, or an apex predator. Wotan hated the idea of a God other than himself. If there was a monster he considered it a threat to his own, deserved supremacy.

Wotan himself would have made for a very strange character for those who saw him in the dark. He had shiny shells all over him, jewelry crafted into cunning patterns a shirt of shells and woven red hair. It was too fine for him, it didn't match the rest of his attire which was tatters of clothing made of leather straps and strips, it existed purely for modesty not covering much of his flesh nor any of the hundreds of scars that covered him head to toes.

What stood out first was the enormous grass hat he had made for himself. Weaving it with his abundance of free time roaming. He was obscured from light, rain, snow, and hail by the thick byweave of grass. The hat and Wotan's face had a matching scar. Something had cut out one of his eyes. It was not an easy face to look at.

He wore wood on his foot, two thin strips of fragrant tree wood. His foot bound in the sewn head of a thylacine. Toes left exposed but craftily the lower jaw had been glued to the wood and small square pegs had been driven through to hold it in place. It would certainly displace much of his weight if he was standing on snow. Dragging behind him, a sled with the rest of his possessions. Many old furs and hides stacked on his sled of reindeer bones.

He stopped and tugged his beard laughing with his characteristic laughter. "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Half Mad Wotan had wandered nearly 100ft from the light of the fire. "Brakar... Berkanan... Birch..." Immediately after he forgot what he was looking for and sought a birch tree.

Bracus was beside himself as he sat at the fireside. He is the only Dragonborn there and probably be the only ever. His race isn't commonly found around and even less a clansman.

The firelight gleamers off his green to blue-green scales and his golden eyes seem to watch everything in his quite self. He is there among all fireside but is alone still as no one sits close to either side of him. It is known he does appreciate close company at all. He is totally quiet the whole evening and seems to just take in everything.

It is already known that he will hunt and is ready even as he sits on the fireside to do so. It is strange to see him in leather armor and not have "Bushmac" at his side, but he is rather keen on the customs of the tribe.

Medheyg sat at a comfortable distance from the fire, having found a conveniently located stone to wait upon. It was a shame about the dead family, she thought. True, these were not her people, but it's hardly fair for anyone to get gobbled up by some horrible creature from the dark night - for a second she considered doing an offer to the spirits of the dead in the style of the Goat Clan, with an offering of good drink to numb the pain of the departed.

She lifted a loose skin, the last of the drink she had brewed some time ago. A mediocre little wine made from odds and ends gathered here and there. Such a drink was a waste of her talents, but it was the only drink she still had. She looks carefully at the glumly people gathered around the fire, and then back at the sad little wineskin.

She loosens the skin only slightly and carefully pours three drops of wine into the soil before taking a good swig herself.

"A shame it was", she thinks, "But not that much of a shame."

Lilla'martu stood in the crowd, near enough to the clanfire that she could feel the radiance of its heat on her skin despite the evening chill. She stood still, but as she blinked a tear rolled down her cheek to join a few others that had already been shed. These people were not of Lilla's kin nor clan, but their sorrow was still genuine and their funerary rites still deeply moving. She had not known Brakar Two-Axe in life, but Lilla considered it a great honour to have been accepted round the hearth.

When Skarna finished speaking, Lilla fished inside her pouch for a small utility knife. Someone towards the back of the crowd was laughing. Lilla found it jarring to hear laughter at such an occasion, but perhaps that was the custom of Clan Two-Axe. As was the custom of her clan, Lilla'martu twisted the tip of the knife into the pad of her left index finger, drawing a drop of blood. She daubed the blood onto a birch twig and carried it reverently towards the fire.

"Brakar," she whispered, and tossed the twig gently onto the clanfire. Immediately the leaves began to shrivel and burn. The birch bark burned brightly for a brief time before fading away and soon the twig was consumed. Lilla retreated back into the crowd.

Wotan chanted in the old tongue. Adding a deep and dark cacophonic verse to the chanter from the dark of the trees. The deep guttural growl had with it the quality of a hiss from the shadows, though the additional sillibance did not effect his enunciation of the words. The overall effect was achieved to remind the mortals of the ever present nature of Death. Emphasizing that even the dead wish joy to the living.

Shortly afterwards Overcome with Inspiration Wotan began to rave along with the ritual. Culminating in his frenzy cutting his own throat over a bowl and fighting a frenzied battle for his existence for a spell. Bleeding profusely into the earthen vessel. He died for a few seconds, then his body began to heal itself. After a moment he looked unharmed.

Shortly after this he approached Suuru with a gift, a bowl full of human blood. "Sacrifice of the Great for the Great." Trusting Suuru would understand the power and the value of such a gift.

Death fixed his eyes on the mourning mask, but compelled by the ancient curse found he could not address the entity in it. He could not see what it was, but quickly averted his gaze. Bowing Wotan crept away back to the comfort of the ice cold shadows.

"Thank you, sir, for your offering to Gwehrsus."

He takes the bowl filled with blood, and raises it high into the air. He says, "As the night ends, Gwehrsus, we honor thee with tribute from this specter from The Infinite Necropolis."

At that moment, the grieving Skarna says, "Wait! Here, bless his axe, that Gwehrsus will honor he who avenges us."

Suuru nods, at the request of his chieftain, and says, "Who else will risk life and limb to bring honor back to our clan? Those who will, come forward now and place your main instrument onto this altar of stone, and receive the blessings of the Giant Boar!"

Medheyg stands up somewhat brusquely and goes to fetch her weapon, Horn. A simple spear of decent make, the point is made with the sharpened horn of a great mountain goat and bound carefully with pitch and rope. The Ascetic walks to the altar and raises it for those present to see.

"I am Medheyg of the Goat Clan, and this is Horn, my spear. Never has it failed me. Should it receive the blessings of the Boar, I swear that it will drink of the Thing's blood."

She lays it reverently upon the altar.

Lilla'martu stared into the clanfire as Suuru spoke, and the call to the hunt resonated within her. The traitor she hunted wasn't here among the Two-Axe clan, so why linger? Moreover helping these people avenge their losses seemed the decent thing to do. A huntress is no stranger to peril; this would be a hunt like any other, Lilla was sure.

Another woman from the crowd stepped forward and announced herself as Medheyg. Lilla gazed up at the stars looking for guidance but found none. Rousing herself, she wiped the remnants of tears from her cheek and stepped forward also.

"I am called Lilla'martu," she said. "Of the Red Cedar Clan. I will answer the call."

From its place tucked into her tunic Lilla withdrew a large talon. Taken from a bird of prey, it measured nearly the length of Lilla's hand. She placed it delicately on the altar next to Medheyg's spear.

And indeed the time for vengeance had come, as the shaman was preparing the blessing ritual for hunting the beast that caused so much grief to the clan.
<I shall join the hunt too> proclaimed Stekko, speaking to the familiar faces of his clan <so that the story of his fall may reach all your ears and be remembered in times to come>. Then, turning to Skarna, he added: <and so that our blood may be avenged>.
Saying this, he placed his weapon, a simple fire-hardened pointed stick, on the altar to receive the blessing.

Wotan drew his Blade of Grass, and upon dropping it upon the altar it became an ordinary bamboo stick.

Bracus rose and strides over to the side to retrieve his scimitar. The firelight glistens off it as Bracus doesn't sheeve it as he approaches the alter. As he places it there, "I pledge my life to bring honor back to Two-Axes.". After that he stands near the others as the ritual continues.

Slowly Wotan extends his hand, acknowledging the burden of the axe. He picked it up and swore an oath. "I swear upon my immortality. I will lay this at your feet my child, drenched in the blood of what took Brakar from you." Wotan's evil eye glowed orange as he took on the tribes vengeance as his own. "It will never be said, that the All-Father turns a blind eye to the suffering of his children." After making his oath he waited for Skarna to acknowledge this. But the flame in his eye returned to that rimefire blue. "You need but say so my child."

There is no reason for Stekko to claim the axe. He was never that skilled of a warrior, and his greates weapons are his wit and his tongue. <So be it> he would declare after the words of his chief, and then he would speak to his new companions: <On the road we will devise a plan to kill this thing... but first we have to find it. Were should we go?>.