Inn Campaign Prelude: On The Road

[alexandraerin]

Note: This post is intended for the people who will be playing in the D&D game on Thursday nights. I'm leaving it (and subsequent posts) as a public post because some people have expressed interest in following these adventures.

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Before our collective story begins, your character is on the road. A sudden storm of one sort or another separates you from any companions you might have been traveling with (if you weren't alone in the first place) and forces you to seek shelter, and it's just your luck that you spot a large building... an immense, three story tavern and inn of very unusual and jumbled construction, with blue tiled roof, turreted towers, and thick glazed windows. There's no one outside, but a warm glow coming from the windows in a big boxy part of the structure. It might be in an unusual spot for such a large and modern structure, but you can't question your luck... you hurry inside.

That's when your individual story ends and the group story starts.

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Please write (as a comment below) a short description of how you come across the inn. It doesn't have to be a novel, it can be a short paragraph, or several paragraphs. Please try to hit on the following points:

• What time of day (or night) is it? What time of year is it? (Summer, winter, etc.)
  
• Why are you traveling? Are you going somewhere? Are you on a mission for someone? A personal quest? Are you getting away from something? Looking for someone?
  
• Where are you? What sort of land? Somewhere remote, or on a well-traveled trade route? Be as specific as you want to be.
  
• What kind of weather are you experiencing before the storm? What sort of storm is it?
  

Working some physical details of your character's description into your brief tale ("the short, rosey-cheeked, mousy-haired Dragonborn considered his options") is a plus. Please don't alter or ignore any of the details of the basic story. All comments on this post are going to be screened so that no one's story shows up until everybody's does. Also, if you are in communication with another player, please don't confer with each other when you write yours.

gamingdragon need not participate in this exercise. I have separate plans for her.

Mwahahahahahahahaha...

Comments

[moofable.livejournal.com]

After 38 days of his fruitless search for grand, noble, and knightly adventure in the hot and humid middle realm, young Harlan Vulpini was exhausted. Happily, and with every intent for a well deserved rest, he sat on a fallen log. But, alas, rest was not yet what the Fate Weaver had in store for Harlan.

Almost as soon as Harlan sighed in comfort and turned his wild face to the midday sun, the sky turned dark and a torrential rain poured out.

Struggling with his heavy pack, tripping over his glimmering armor, and dragging his giant sword along like a child leading a despondent friend, Harlan ran across the winding and hilly path, hoping to take shelter in a cave that he had passed.

But, unaccustomed to finding his way farther then the book shop, he did not find the cave. After wiping his drenched and unruly autumn colored hair from his face with a dusky walnut colored hand, his wide eyes fixed themselves upon an inn of haphazard design.

“This,” Harlan thought with a slight chuckle, “will more than do.”

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

With the wind and rain conspiring to plaster green leaves to his bulky frame, Carrog was having the time of his life. Which is not to say that he'd never had a better time nor would his life fail to eclipse this moment in the future. Rather, it was simply the case that he felt no pressing need to consider anything more than a few moments ago, nor stare too longingly into the future- and despite the limited options available to him he found the present to be perfectly to his liking indeed.

Striding forward through the early twilight that had been shuffled forth by the thickening clouds, all but the shine within Carrog's eyes was camouflaged amongst the deepening blue of his surroundings, offset now and again by the sharp flicker of lightning and the roar of thunder. A roar, were any woodland animals so concerned as to pay attention to, that Carrog did not fail to answer in kind, shouting to the sky as he waded through the wind towards the dimly-viewed house light.

"What Sooth! Is this an army I see before me, its serried ranks, its gleaming arms, arrayed with bold demeanor! Gleaned not terror from my countenance, yet upon this day they stand, these lands so rightly claimed! Such blood they spilt they seek again, to wring it from my grasp- yet hound and hunt they shall not find, nor tremor in my arms. For though pursued and driven forth, this fate yet is my own- for I am Lord Temeridus as none may yet unsee!"

By the time the words were finished his bold strides brought Carrog nearly to the doors. He erupted into bold laughter at his own performance, deeming the contest with the thunder to have been well-matched. And as he reached the doors he took a deep breath, ready to greet all those upon the other side, images of a grand crowd already in his mind, fit to be goaded into song and merriment. So with as much enthusiasm as everything else in his life, Carrog prepared to swing wide the doors and make such an entrance as was only befitting one of such demeanor.

[xaddom.livejournal.com]

After what had become a routine day of surviving in the wilderness, the twilight hours were finally upon Janus. The long haired druid set his mind to gathering supplies for his evening camp until he smelled the beginnings of a storm. Normally he would simply weather the storm in his wilderness shelter, but his senses warned of the storm's force. Not too long ago he lived in a house that would withstand any storm the region could conjure, but now he was without the buffer civilization provided against nature. He was exposed to the world and glad to be so; however his joy was tempered by the knowledge that he needed more substantial shelter from this storm.

He had chosen to live in the wild to connect with the world, and to try to dissolve the boundaries, which seemed so tangible in the city, between man and nature. Philosophy aside, Janus still needed a robust dwelling for the night so he headed quickly in the direction of some caves he remembered. On the path of what should have been a shortcut he instead found a building, an inn to be precise. The structure seemed sound and that was enough for Janus, as he reasoned civilization is only bad when it blinds us to our place in the world not when it provides a warm hearth and a roof over one's head. So with thoughts of his good fortune on his mind he entered the inn.

Scarlet's Prelude

[amethyst83.livejournal.com]

Snow crunched under Lady Scarlet's boots as she made her way south from Ashwood to her clan's lodge in the Giant's Fall Valley. She hated being asked to leave her city, but when the clans were called, you answered. She just wasn't trained for exploring and hunting in the wilderness. Ashwood's shadows and alleys were her territory. Though, she mused to herself, nothing could beat the view of the stars once you were away from the smokey lamps and mystical lights of the city.

After a while, the skies darkened and snow started falling around her. She pulled her crimson hood over her tawny hair before pulling her cloak tight to her body. The temperature started dropping as the light snows turned into a whirling, freezing storm of ice. Shards of ice, like crystal daggers, bit at her face and eyes. Fear was starting to creep into Scarlet's heart when she turned a corner of the road and lights caught her vision. She hurried forward and reminded herself of any port in a storm. As she approached, she noted that the lights were coming from a curious looking inn. Taking a deep breath, she rushed forward and opened the door...

[kynn.livejournal.com]

I'll work on this in the next day or two. is there a deadline for our homework?

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

It would be great to have it this week, but the world won't come crashing to a halt if it's not. The only real deadline is before next Thursday.

[josol.livejournal.com]

It is an early spring day, a dusting of snow stubbornly clinging to the first green grass of the year. A light breeze blows steadily from the north. The full moon shines brightly; sunrise won't be for another three hours.

A man with moss for hair, gray and green bark-like skin, and a cloak of dull orange leaves is traveling to Gjorgton, hoping to make it before the market opens. "If I'm not there early," thinks Dunbar, "all the workable iron will be gone or overpriced. Master Laskis would be making this trip with me if he hadn't been injured. Of course, he wouldn't be injured if he hadn't been drunk and thought he could piss out the forge fire. So much for the wisdom of aged elves."

Dunbar has been on this trip many times with Master Laskis, and a few times without. Winter came in hard and blocked off all prospects of making the fifteen mile trip safely for anyone not a plant-man, also known as a wilden.

There are just some things not available in the little village the feywild refugees built for themselves. Metal, wool, grain, luxury items. So far the refugees have survived on hunting and gathering, but their numbers have swelled in the late summer and all through fall. Hunting and gathering won't be able to support the people this year. "I should be trading for grains and vegetable seeds, not chunks of inedible metal," mumbles the plant-like wilden. His voice is the sound of leaves rustling.

A sudden gust of strong wind hits the traveler from the south. Looking in that direction he sees red, blue, and green lightning playing across clouds that were not there a few minutes ago.

He quickens his pace across the rolling plains, too far from the fey village to turn back, too far from Gjorgton to hope for shelter there. All he can do is trudge on and hope he survives this fast approaching storm.

The air is rapidly getting warmer. Snow is turning to slush, and fat raindrops plop all around. Steam begins to rise from the snow and rain soaked ground.

Fire-glow can be seen a little ways to the west. "Someone must be camping there," he thinks, "I might be able to weather this out with whoever they are." Getting closer to the glow, Dunbar can hear the sounds of music and merrymaking. That's when he realizes that all the lightning he's seen hasn't produced any thunder.

The source of fire-glow and music is a large building, apparently constructed haphazardly. Very little resembles what Dunbar has seen before in Gjorgton. A very bright flash of red light behind him reveals an entrance to the building. The rain turns into a downpour, and he jogs through the grasping, muddy ground to the door.

He opens the door and steps inside....

I accidentally the whole novel

[imaginedechoes.livejournal.com]

Spectre hated storms, so when he heard the first, distant rumble he quickened his pace. He knew it was irrational. He was a day's walk from the refugee camp, and another day from Starilaskur. If the storm was blowing his way, he would have to weather it, and if it wasn't, there was no outrunning it.

Still, there were hamlets along this road, and farms. He doubted any of the farmers would offer their hearth and home to someone six feet tall with a face of metal, but the barns could offer shelter. Spectre looked up at the vast grey wall of clouds advancing across the mid-afternoon sky. It was definitely coming closer, carried by a hot summer wind. He hated storms.

The sky had been clear yesterday morning, shortly after dawn when the farmer's market had set up, and still as blue as robin shells when, at noon, the vendors began to pack their wares. He had approached one of them, the ropemaker, and asked if he could ride with him to Starilaskur. The man had given him a hard look, eying the mace that hung from a hook at his waist. Spectre had wished, not for the first time, that he could smile. After a half dozen bakers, a cooper, a seamstress, and a bookseller, Spectre still lacked a ride. The seamstress had been the one to suggest it.

"You could walk," she had said, with a shrug, after apologizing that he was too heavy and likely to tire out the horses.

Yes, he could walk. His legs had escaped the war unscathed.

The wind was blowing harder now, the few trees that dotted the rolling hills began to sway, their branches bending beneath its breath. The crack of thunder drew closer.

Two years he had lived in the camps, helping in any way he could. Times of crisis brought people together, and this was no less true of his countrymen. They wove themselves together into a tapestry, a tale of survival and strength. And yet amongst them Spectre had felt separate, a loose thread left dangling. Warforged would pass through the camps from time to time, never staying: finding religion, or other wars, and moving on.

His reasons for leaving were selfish, which had made it that much harder. They had argued with increasing frequency over the two years in the camp. Every time he would tell her that it was time to move on, and every time she would ask him, what could be more important that this? Even now he couldn't explain to her why he was leaving her people behind, the people he had been built to protect.

He crested a hill. The wide, gravel road carried on down the slope and then up another gentle hill to disappear beyond its peak. Down at the bottom he could see a structure. It wasn't a barn, though perhaps part of it might have once been. The building was a chimera of architectural styles: part farmhouse, part castle, part inn- It might be an inn, Spectre thought, that would be a relief. Or perhaps the abode of a mad wizard, but Spectre did not dwell on that. An edge of darkness was moving across the fields, and soon it would reach the road. A bolt of lightning forked out to touch a distant tree, like the burning hands of a god. The sound of it split the air. Spectre began to run.

The rain hit half-way down the hill, hard enough that Spectre could feel it through his leather skin. He looked up to see that it was above him now, that ugly, grey, tumultuous form, tinged red from the dust of fallow fields.

(continued)

Spectre's Introduction, Part 2

[imaginedechoes.livejournal.com]

(the continuation)

Spectre was afraid of storms.

It had happened two years ago, standing on a rocky hilltop, near the border, a month after he had been called on to serve Queen and country. A strange storm had blanketed everything to the east, great clouds that burned from within with a terrible fire. There had been a tremendous roar, like nothing he had ever heard before, and after that, everything had been silent.

After the tempest of fire had ended, only a dead grey mist remained. Spectre had been among the first to walk the blasted waste where his homeland once had been, before it had even been deemed safe enough for people of flesh. He had been burdened with bringing back the first reports. He had brought back more.

The inn, if inn it was, was just ahead now, and looking more inviting with every stride, its windows glowing in the gloom. With each passing moment, the weather became more fierce. The wind howled and screamed, and in its voice he could hear words, he could hear stories he didn't want to hear, didn't want to know. It was probably just his imagination, but it was so hard to tell these days.

At last he had the iron handle of the large, weather-beaten door in hand, he pressed the latch and flung it open, but he did not enter, not yet. Standing on the threshold, Spectre turned to face the gale one more time. He stepped carefully to one side of the doorway, his mouth unhinged, and he spoke. His words were all but lost in the wail of the wind, but if someone had been standing very close, they might have heard:

"After you, your majesty."

The Gift of a Storm

[luke-licens.livejournal.com]

His mirror like eyes reflecting the starlit sky, Toben Brausen considered the choice he had made. Leaving the Court of the Winds so soon, less than a decade after his arrival, was a rudeness bordering on insult. The Queens would be upset, the Queen of the North Wind and the Queen of the East Wind were likely furious. It was they that drove him to leave, subtly but inexorably tugging him into their intrigues. The wrath of those queens might prove deadly, but being bound forever in the Court of the Winds would be a fate worse than death.

A sudden gust tugged his long white hair, whipping his robes of blue and grey around his wiry frame. As he turned to the South, a smile crossed his weather worn face. At least one of the queens was not too put out with him. A great thunderhead was rising on the plains ahead, bright flashes crawling up it and gentle rolls of thunder following behind. He hefted his ridged bone staff capped with its brightly glowing crystal and began descending the hill. It was a lovely parting gift and he intended to enjoy it as he returned to the world of men.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

It'd been a long campaign that was now finally over, and the mercenary woman couldn't be any more happy about that. Stretching into the dog days of summer, this skirmish war -- between an elven kingdom and an orc warband -- seemed to go on forever. Fortunately, the orcs paid well enough, even though the conflict was ultimately insignificant. No kings would be deposed, no hordes crushed by taking out this one tree-topping fortress, but that didn't matter; Optima Brand had been hired to fight, and fight she did.

Gazing down from a platform in the upper branches of the giant fortress-tree, her eyes wandered over the battlefields of the last four months. That hill down there, where Claybourne had died. The branch half-way up, where Optima had been knocked down to the unrelentingly hard ground below, breaking her ribs and taking her out of the fight for a month. The elven bodies still dangling in the boughs where she'd left them, one nearly chopped in two by her battle-axe, another skewered by her longspear.

"Good work there," grunted the burly orc captain as he trudged up beside her and peered down at her bloody handiwork. "Extra pay for you, sure."

Optima shrugged, put on her fake smile of indifference, and raised her muscular arms above her freckled face in a diffident stretch of ambivalence. "All in a day's work, or a season's," she said, her back popping. Then she winced, a short breath escaping from between her teeth, as her ribs reminded her of their recent tumble out of the trees. "...ow."

"Heh, now I rub for you, help you feel good," said the captain, rubbing his hands together. He'd wanted the tall, strong redhead since he'd first met her, and Optima had spent far too much time fighting off his clumsy, grotesque advances. She and Claybourne had shot down his demands for a threesome, and when the archer died, Grun'druk had just reintensified his efforts to get Optima alone.

She looked around the pathways and platforms on the other branches; neither the orcs nor their hired swords were paying any attention to her and Grun'druk, busy with their own looting, pillaging, celebrating, or mourning.

Optima slipped away from his grasping hands, moving back up against the opposite side of the railed elven lookout-post. She made herself look thoughtful. "You know, you have been awful patient all these months," she replied, loosening the straps on the front of her scale armor. "So why don't you come over here and you'll... get what you have coming." She let the front of her armor hang open, offering tantalizing promises of her cloth-wrapped chest; Optima spread her arms open wide, hands bare. Her best attempt at a saucy smile as she leaned against the railing.

On anyone less stupid than Grun'druk, anyone with a better grasp of the subtleties of the common tongue, it surely wouldn't have worked. But Grun'drak was not known for his intelligence nor his facility with subtlety. He gave a throaty roar of lust and charged toward her, hands outstretched toward her chest. "Yes!" he bellowed.

By his first step she'd stood up from the rail. By his third, her new mace -- taken as a trophy from a slain eladrin war-priest -- was in her hand. By Grun'druk's fourth step, he was starting to realize that something was wrong here, but it was too late to stop. By his fifth step -- a sidestep of her own, a smack with the mace on the orc's meaty back to knock him off balance, and his roar of outrage. Step six took him over the edge in a tumble.

"Oopsie," said Optima. She cocked her head, listening, as she hung her mace back on her belt.

The crunch came sooner than she'd expected. She looked over the edge, and saw Grun'drak halfway down the massive tree, impaled on a smaller branch, a large shaft of wood jutting up through the middle of his bulky corpse. She smirked with wry amusement, then stepped back, hands over her mouth in mock horror. "Oh no!" she yelled loudly. "Captain Grun'druk slipped and fell off the tree!" A few orcs and their hirelings paused to look down.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

One orc lieutenant smiled broadly; he'd be promoted now and didn't have to do the dirty work himself. Branley, the halfling merc who did get to enjoy a threesome one chilly night, raised his thumb up in a pleased salute from a higher branch. Everyone else shrugged and carried on with what they were doing.

The next morning, Optima Brand collected her bonus pay from the orc quartermaster in the form of a captured elven warhorse; said her goodbyes to Branley, to Yearson, to En'tu'ak; and rode out away from the rugged forest where she'd spent the last four months. The gold in her saddlebags meant she'd be able to take a few months off, and she was looking forward to being back in a city.

The storm was unseasonally strong when it struck.

The trail Optima rode along was an old Nerathi road, overgrown here and there, but oddly empty. No other travellers ventured out along it, nor were there beasts or sounds of beasts. Only the sound of thunder, the flashes of lightning, the pelting rain and hail of a monsoonal downpour. In an area that wasn't supposed to get monsoons.

Thunder erupted all around Optima and she swore as her elven horse bucked and bolted, tossing her into the wet mud. Half her weapons were gone with that damn horse, and her gold as well -- she'd have to track it when the storm lifted. For now, she was being assaulted by forceful rain and pellets of ice, and shelter was the first priority. Hopefully the horse would either find shelter itself, or barring that, at least have the courtesy to die somewhere nearby so she wouldn't have to hunt it too far.

The thick clouds made it seem more like night than day, and Optima squinted through the darkness, hand over her eyes as she struggled through the storm's onslaught. Was that a flickering light in a window ahead? Maybe a homesteader, who she could persuade -- at swordpoint if necessary -- to let her wait out the storm? Surely, not an inn; there are no inns this far out from civilization...