Sleep did not come easy. He was surrounded by people he did not yet trust and sleep was when you were most vulnerable. He was asleep when they had betrayed him. He seems to have a new group now - will history repeat itself? His dreams were fragments of that night. Waking to a sharp pain, the items ripped from his grasp, his power being stolen... Even as a memory it hurt. A gaping wound on his soul, re-opened, seeping. He so missed it. The power. Even after so many years he feels that loss keenly. Being so weak, so useless, to have been unable to save her. He remembered that morning. Stumbling - still weak - his wounds reopening, but when he checked on her, to find her in her bed, cold, lifeless...
"Mo-" he begins, startling awake - a bead of cold sweat under his hood. He looks to the group, stays quiet. He felt something. He observed his own hands, as if he could see something more to them. "It's back," he whispers. It was just a piece. That comforting well of raw power that those like him - conduits of magic - could use to cast more than one's normal limits or eventually alter the function of magic and casting. It had been years since he felt it. Not alone, another connection had returned - a new spell. Or, more specifically, an old spell he could now cast again.
He watches Tark work and when Tark modifies a bag to hold more than it should it surprised him. Did he... Did he just make a bag of holding? Oh how he missed his bag of holding. And his portable hole. And the day he lost both in an accident - but, that became a fun adventure in the Astral Plane so it was kinda worth it. Still, even dyed black this bulky backpack of his was just awful for his aesthetic. How could his cloak billow menacingly like a shadow when it's held down by a bag strapped to his back?
He listened to the others. "I also have rope. So we're at a little shy of 150 feet. Would that be enough?"
"It should be..." replies Rasen "I hope we don't really now how deep was the hole and didn't have the time to buy some supplies... but let's go there and take a look"
With that the immprontu party gets ready and start walk throught the forest, guided by the human that they found half-dead.
They had walked about an hour or so when, suddenly, the sound of broken branches and a heavy rustling coming from their right, alert them of something big coming their way. Just half a second later a big, imposing deer jumps from the bushes towards them. The animal seems as surprised as them and recoils. He is a majestic beast, standing near seven foot tall to its shoulder, powerful neck and the ostament raising to the sky. His fur is golden, reflecting the sun rays that pierce from the canopy above in a beautiful way.
The beast almost inmediatly jumps away trying to reach the other side of their path and continue its pretended way.
Stoney raises his hands to begin spell casting, but then hesitates.
Explaining to the others: "I was thinking of making a Bonfire, so we can add to our food stores, but this might be another one of those lion-growling fire-proof deer that can turn invisible. I'll wait for instructions from one of you that understands nature better."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Beegred Thornpost - Lvl 8 Halfling Ranger - Out of the Abyss by Kerrec Drusk - Lvl 8 Half-Orc Life Cleric - The Long Road: Dragon Heist by Mingofaust (player & current DM) Hunferho Aelorothi - Lvl 5 Half-Elf Bard/Rogue - Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (by Pokepaladdy) DM - Frontier City of Nunkreet (ended)
The goblins meander along, uncharacteristically enjoying the sunlight, keeping close together where they can watch each other's backs in an unconscious tribal loyalty likely ingrained from the time they were very young. Grrzark feels on top of the world, sure that meal of fish would keep him going down every hole, tunnel, and cave, nothing standing in his way. Phodoxia glowers quietly, appraising herself as the more practical one, her frustration with her companion seething out at times in snide comments.
Both of them stop in their tracks as the golden deer leaps out of the brush in front of them.
Visions of venison steaks dance around both goblins' heads, and Grrzark, swiftly unsheathing his battleaxe that's nearly as big as he is, hurtles forward to try and hamstring the deer before it can flee. "FOOD!" he cries out, with the childlike joy felt only by one who has been running and fighting on an empty stomach for days.
Phodoxia, though, stands stunned, her mouth open, as if something roots her to the spot, some un-goblin-like awe--not me, it's not me, please, come on, I'm hungry--but all her inner protestation falls flat against the reverie of the woodland that once spared her life and the majesty of the creatures it cares for.
"Leave it be," Shadowheart says aloud. "Hunting right now would take time and energy we don't have. I have rations we can share, anyway, even if we cannot secure something later. Let's stay on task."
Besides, he thought to himself, something is off about that deer and things are often not what they seem. Better to be cautious.
A dagger flies from the foliage, directly through the space that the deer's eye would have been had it not stopped suddenly upon seeing the party. A moment after the blade buries itself in the trunk of a tree on the other side of the trail, a strange figure lopes into view and skids to a stop as the deer had.
The goblin male is perhaps a few inches taller than Phodoxia, and a bit slimmer than Grrzark, with some similar facial features, but otherwise nothing alike.
He has apparently been running through the forest for several minutes if not longer, presumably chasing the deer, and though he seems quite fit, he is clearly tired now. His deeply browned skin contrasts vividly with his washed-out looking garb, as if both have been wrung out and dried in the sun after being soaked in seawater for days. Taken aback at the sight of the party, he makes an instinctive motion to reach for something around his throat which is no longer there, then puts his hand on the slim cutlass at his belt, wavering slightly. The platonic ideal of uncertainty.
It is not that he is alarmed at seeing humans and gnomes per se as some goblins might be. In fact, he seems to take that in stride quite matter of factly. It is just that there is one of him and several of you and he does not know your intentions. He eyes the deer and croaks (in Common), his weathered voice sounding as if it has not been used in a week. "Avast, that's my dinner sailing a reach away from me. Procan knows my belly needs it, and..."
And it is at that moment that his gaze drops to the goblins. A strange, almost comically befuddled expression comes across the interloper's face, as if trying and mostly failing to remember something from long ago. Buried deep.
"Didn't I just say-" Shadowheart starts when the blade is thrown and the deer flees. He then notices the new goblin. "Oh." He falls silent and then the new goblin starts speaking a different language to the other goblins, Shadowheart just raises and eyebrow and waits - although his expression is as neutral as ever, he still gives off a vibe mixing impatience with curiosity.
Grrzark, startled by the dagger and the sudden appearance of a new threat, leaps nimbly to one side, spinning to face the new arrival, raising his axe threateningly. And stops. Looking over the bedraggled new goblin, he screws his face up in a look of puzzlement and disdain. "No, that was our dinner," he says. Appraising the other goblin for a minute, but apparently deciding he's not much of a threat, he shrugs, and turns to Shadowheart, resting the pole of his axe on the ground, looking the shadowy cloaked man all over, as if trying to figure out which pocket he keeps the rations in.
Phodoxia, staring after the deer, takes a minute longer to pull her attention to the newcomer. Not disdainful as her companion is, she looks merely shocked, and then slightly hopeful, even relieved, to see another face of her own kind. "What a day!" she says, switching into Goblin herself. "Who are you? You're Mud? I knew a Mud once. I'm Phodoxia." Already dropping into a friendly smile that barely shows the pointed tips of her teeth, cocking her head to one side. But as she continues to look the newcomer over, her smile starts to fade, her brow furrowing. He's a goblin, and that's great, but there's something weird about him...
The shoe drops in Mud's exhausted mind. The remembered voice from his mostly-forgotten childhood with the Mawtooth.
Get back, you dummy! You're out in the open. Anyone can see you. The day he had found the bronze locket.
Mud blinks once and looks wistfully after the departing deer as he retrieves his thrown dagger. He switches to Common out of courtesy to the others.
"Phodoxia! Procan protect. What.. what are you doing? You never wanted to run away, Dox. I thought you'd be back with the Mawtooth riding a warg or something. And... Grrzark? Okay, maybe you, I figured would end up somewhere else because... well, you know... you'reZark." He pauses philosophically as if the bigger goblin's name is enough of an explanation on its own. "But both away? Together?"
Mud begins to relax and draws himself up to make a small, flourishing bow. Somehow obviously a sailor's bow, involving both his cutlass and his compact, driftwood shield with the sigil of a red and gold trident piercing a cresting wave upon it. Procan's sigil.
"My name is Almudiz, once of the Mawtooth, but until a few days ago, of the privateer cutter Dragonfly out of Nyrond. But everyone calls me Mud. Even Procan. Only by his wild favor do I live. Pirates or... slavers or... somebody blasted apart our ship, and my crewmates are likely stabbed or drowned. The Dragonfly rests at the bottom of the Azure Sea or floating in splinters at the surface. That locket..."
He looks at Phodoxia once more meaningfully. "Do you remember, Dox? The shiny bronze locket. Saved my life, by Procan. Without it, there is no fog and no leeward current, and I would never have washed ashore alive." Which makes no apparent sense, not least because there is no bronze locket visible on Mud's person, but he continues, turning back to everyone else and continuing in his somewhat un-goblin-like way.
"You all owe me... well, nothing. I'd been chasing that deer for half an hour. If Procan had intended me to catch it, I would have. I am hungry, though."
"If I had to take a shot every time you mentioned Procan I'd have liver failure by now." Shadowheart then sighs. "So look, we're in the middle of a mission - find some peep, sneak into a mine, probably break some laws. For some coins, or something. Anyway, this reunion is all cute like a blue button on a puppy but we're burnin' daylight here, so how about we walk 'n' talk this shit?" He pauses for a moment, somewhat awkwardly. "This would be where I turn around and walk off all dramatically to emphasize my point but I, uh, dunno where we goin'. We're following this guy," with a thumb and head tilt he gestures to Rasen. He shrugs, waiting, hopefully, for the group to start moving.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Grrzark squints at Mud, and a flicker of recognition crosses his eyes, quickly chased out by dismissal. He shrugs. "Whoever you are, you've gone off and lost your mind. And our dinner." He slings his battleaxe back across his back, shooting an annoyed glance at Shadowheart's flippant comments. Who's that human to talk to gobs that way, anyway, like he's better than us? The glance turns furtive as Grrzark makes as if to walk past Shadowheart, while trying to surreptitiously snitch a ration out of his pack.
Phodoxia stares open-mouthed for a minute at this specter from the past, coming in a wrung-out, sunburned, nonsense-spouting form. After a minute of listening to Mud's questions, she closes her mouth, and narrows her eyes. "I was," she snaps, also in Common. "A warg rider, that is, with no inkling to run off. Why would I want to do a stupid thing like that? But I had to make a deal to save my life. And I couldn't stay after that. Sounds like something similar happened to you. Who's Procan?" Her tone is suspicious, but turns regretful as she continues. "Mawtooth, they're too sensible to take any of us back. Besides... Zark's better than nobody. So are you, I guess. We're hungry too." She shoots an annoyed glance at Grrzark, and looks back at Mud.
Then she smiles, adding, in Goblin, "Won't you join us? We can't take handouts from humans forever, but it'll do for now."
"If I had to take a shot every time you mentioned Procan I'd have liver failure by now."
Mud appears concerned. "Why? What's wrong with your liver?" He fails utterly to make the connection between alcohol abuse and liver issues, plowing ahead with gusto. "Speaking of Procan, did I mention that his favor extends to curing all manner of diseases? Mosquito-disease, rat-disease, scurvy if your cargo hold is out of fruit. Maybe liver failure too!" He waggles his fingers theatrically as if to demonstrate how he cures such illnesses.
Turning back to the goblins, he ignores Grrzark for the moment as the oaf seems to be distracted doing something else at the moment. "I guess it was stupid of me to run away, Dox." Mud looks sheepish. "I just wanted to see the world, you know? Chase the horizon. Sail the seas. But maybe you had a better reason than me for leaving. Deal to save your life? Well maybe that's what I did too... just recently... I don't know. Procan is..."
He trails off again, realizing that the human had been impatient already, and now might not be the proper time for a sermon. He is ready to walk and talk.
"I'll join you all if you'll have me, and you have food of course. What's one more goblin, eh?" (It's the kind of self-deprecating phrase no goblin would utter unless they have spent the last several years among mostly non-goblins). "A... mission? That I can get behind, though the last mission I was in didn't end so well. A mine, you say? Laws don't bother me too much, but just so I get it, the plan is to waltz in and steal from a bunch of random miners?"
Mud looks like he is putting up a good front of maybe objecting on moral grounds, which is heresy for most Mawtooth goblins, but what he is really looking for is an excuse. "Any chance those who run this mine are not so nice? Slavers maybe? Or pirates! I'm always up for messing up some pirates..."
Phodoxia, waiting intently with ears perked for Mud's answer to her question, sighs in disappointment as his momentum shifts instead towards the job they're all supposed to be doing. "Well, tell me about it sometime. And maybe they're slavers or pirates. That's what we're going to find out, I think."
Grrzark is still striding away, past Shadowheart, munching away on something, his back to the group. "Yeah, come along," he says. "We've got plenty of food. Or we will once we conquer this mine."
The thought of food and the long-missed presence of goblins pulls Mud along, though he remains puzzled as to the group's mission.
Looking a little sheepish, he allows, "Captain Himo, waves guide his soul to rest, always told me the less explaining the better when it came to my thick skull. So I'm sorry to ask this again, but... we're going to 'conquer' some mine that might be run by slavers or pirates or not, but either way, we're going to part them from their coin so we can buy food or blue buttons and puppies like the human said... makes me wonder if we are the pirates here."
Mud rubs his eyes, finally starting to catch his breath from his long chase of the deer. Puppy Pirates and Gobbling Goblins. Every crew needs a name.
He turns to Rasen, who seems to be leading the group. "How about you, navigator, you savvy to what's in the mine and why we're setting course there?"
Rasen almost drop to his butt when the deer stepped between them and the dagger flew a few inches from his face to feel comfortable. But when the goblins seems to recognize each other and start talking he rolls his eyes.
When Shadowheart suggests to talk and walk he is about to say something but he just stands and follow them, and when Phodoxia offers Mud to stay he looks towards the human and the gnome before answering.
"Well, where there's food for two..." he says " Welcome to the team... it seems... we are going to investigate the mine. We just know there is something amiss on it, not sure what yet. We are trying to infiltrate it, investigate what's going on and try to find one person who was sent to do the same mission before but is now missing... we... I " he corrects himself" I was inside before, trying to reach it from a web of caverns that must connect with it, by the river " he gestures towards the general direction of the nearby river " but my previous team was ambusehd by some giant frogs and troglodytes and I barely escaped... do you guys..." he hesitates for a moment " Do you guys eat giant frog? Because if we need to go that way maybe your hunger problems could be solved..."
He keeps guiding the group among the trees... he stops and looks around, trying to get oriented, for he has lost the map they had and is trying to recognize any landmarks to get them there.
When Mud asked him 'what's wrong with your liver' Shadowheart just stared at the goblin in disbelief. It sort of made him question everything - these goblins seem a bit too clueless and way too focused on food. And then there's Tark who doesn't know how to read a map. He felt somewhat doomed. He snapped out of it when Rasen spoke up. He then noticed Gzzark was munching on something - where did he get that food from?
(Rasen) keeps guiding the group among the trees... he stops and looks around, trying to get oriented, for he has lost the map they had and is trying to recognize any landmarks to get them there.
Stoney to Rasen: "If you are getting disoriented, maybe I should do the tracking and guiding for you."
(If Shadowheart is behind Tark and mouthing the words "By the gods, don't do it!", Tark will only be paying attention to Rasen in front of him.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Beegred Thornpost - Lvl 8 Halfling Ranger - Out of the Abyss by Kerrec Drusk - Lvl 8 Half-Orc Life Cleric - The Long Road: Dragon Heist by Mingofaust (player & current DM) Hunferho Aelorothi - Lvl 5 Half-Elf Bard/Rogue - Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (by Pokepaladdy) DM - Frontier City of Nunkreet (ended)
Phodoxia slaps Mud on the shoulder as soon as he stops asking questions about the moral plausibility of the task Rasen is taking them on. "Don't worry about all that. Sure there's things I can't do but those are obvious in the moment, I'd go crazy if I tried to plan for them ahead of time. It's not our problem," she observes. "I can run on the fish I ate last night for two more days, and then I'll need something else." Absently she tightens her belt from which a pair of daggers hang in leather sheaves. It's so hard to think straight when there's no food for days.
She too then eyes Grrzark, as she picks up her pace to catch up with him, wondering just where he got something to eat. "Hey, what are you eating? Not gonna share? Where'd you get that?"
"I saved it," he mumbles, through a mouthful of dried meat, and then shoves a piece of hardtack into Phodoxia's hands. "Here."
Phodoxia wrinkles her nose in disgust looking at it... then turns and hands it to Mud.
(Rasen) keeps guiding the group among the trees... he stops and looks around, trying to get oriented, for he has lost the map they had and is trying to recognize any landmarks to get them there.
Stoney to Rasen: "If you are getting disoriented, maybe I should do the tracking and guiding for you."
(If Shadowheart is behind Tark and mouthing the words "By the gods, don't do it!", Tark will only be paying attention to Rasen in front of him.)
He would absolutely be doing this, with a panicked look in his eyes
Sleep did not come easy. He was surrounded by people he did not yet trust and sleep was when you were most vulnerable. He was asleep when they had betrayed him. He seems to have a new group now - will history repeat itself? His dreams were fragments of that night. Waking to a sharp pain, the items ripped from his grasp, his power being stolen... Even as a memory it hurt. A gaping wound on his soul, re-opened, seeping. He so missed it. The power. Even after so many years he feels that loss keenly. Being so weak, so useless, to have been unable to save her. He remembered that morning. Stumbling - still weak - his wounds reopening, but when he checked on her, to find her in her bed, cold, lifeless...
"Mo-" he begins, startling awake - a bead of cold sweat under his hood. He looks to the group, stays quiet. He felt something. He observed his own hands, as if he could see something more to them. "It's back," he whispers. It was just a piece. That comforting well of raw power that those like him - conduits of magic - could use to cast more than one's normal limits or eventually alter the function of magic and casting. It had been years since he felt it. Not alone, another connection had returned - a new spell. Or, more specifically, an old spell he could now cast again.
He watches Tark work and when Tark modifies a bag to hold more than it should it surprised him. Did he... Did he just make a bag of holding? Oh how he missed his bag of holding. And his portable hole. And the day he lost both in an accident - but, that became a fun adventure in the Astral Plane so it was kinda worth it. Still, even dyed black this bulky backpack of his was just awful for his aesthetic. How could his cloak billow menacingly like a shadow when it's held down by a bag strapped to his back?
He listened to the others. "I also have rope. So we're at a little shy of 150 feet. Would that be enough?"
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
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"It should be..." replies Rasen "I hope we don't really now how deep was the hole and didn't have the time to buy some supplies... but let's go there and take a look"
With that the immprontu party gets ready and start walk throught the forest, guided by the human that they found half-dead.
They had walked about an hour or so when, suddenly, the sound of broken branches and a heavy rustling coming from their right, alert them of something big coming their way. Just half a second later a big, imposing deer jumps from the bushes towards them. The animal seems as surprised as them and recoils. He is a majestic beast, standing near seven foot tall to its shoulder, powerful neck and the ostament raising to the sky. His fur is golden, reflecting the sun rays that pierce from the canopy above in a beautiful way.
The beast almost inmediatly jumps away trying to reach the other side of their path and continue its pretended way.
PbP Character: A few ;)
Stoney raises his hands to begin spell casting, but then hesitates.
Explaining to the others: "I was thinking of making a Bonfire, so we can add to our food stores, but this might be another one of those lion-growling fire-proof deer that can turn invisible.
I'll wait for instructions from one of you that understands nature better."
Beegred Thornpost - Lvl 8 Halfling Ranger - Out of the Abyss by Kerrec
Drusk - Lvl 8 Half-Orc Life Cleric - The Long Road: Dragon Heist by Mingofaust (player & current DM)
Hunferho Aelorothi - Lvl 5 Half-Elf Bard/Rogue - Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (by Pokepaladdy)
DM - Frontier City of Nunkreet (ended)
The goblins meander along, uncharacteristically enjoying the sunlight, keeping close together where they can watch each other's backs in an unconscious tribal loyalty likely ingrained from the time they were very young. Grrzark feels on top of the world, sure that meal of fish would keep him going down every hole, tunnel, and cave, nothing standing in his way. Phodoxia glowers quietly, appraising herself as the more practical one, her frustration with her companion seething out at times in snide comments.
Both of them stop in their tracks as the golden deer leaps out of the brush in front of them.
Visions of venison steaks dance around both goblins' heads, and Grrzark, swiftly unsheathing his battleaxe that's nearly as big as he is, hurtles forward to try and hamstring the deer before it can flee. "FOOD!" he cries out, with the childlike joy felt only by one who has been running and fighting on an empty stomach for days.
Phodoxia, though, stands stunned, her mouth open, as if something roots her to the spot, some un-goblin-like awe--not me, it's not me, please, come on, I'm hungry--but all her inner protestation falls flat against the reverie of the woodland that once spared her life and the majesty of the creatures it cares for.
"Leave it be," Shadowheart says aloud. "Hunting right now would take time and energy we don't have. I have rations we can share, anyway, even if we cannot secure something later. Let's stay on task."
Besides, he thought to himself, something is off about that deer and things are often not what they seem. Better to be cautious.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
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A dagger flies from the foliage, directly through the space that the deer's eye would have been had it not stopped suddenly upon seeing the party. A moment after the blade buries itself in the trunk of a tree on the other side of the trail, a strange figure lopes into view and skids to a stop as the deer had.
The goblin male is perhaps a few inches taller than Phodoxia, and a bit slimmer than Grrzark, with some similar facial features, but otherwise nothing alike.
He has apparently been running through the forest for several minutes if not longer, presumably chasing the deer, and though he seems quite fit, he is clearly tired now. His deeply browned skin contrasts vividly with his washed-out looking garb, as if both have been wrung out and dried in the sun after being soaked in seawater for days. Taken aback at the sight of the party, he makes an instinctive motion to reach for something around his throat which is no longer there, then puts his hand on the slim cutlass at his belt, wavering slightly. The platonic ideal of uncertainty.
It is not that he is alarmed at seeing humans and gnomes per se as some goblins might be. In fact, he seems to take that in stride quite matter of factly. It is just that there is one of him and several of you and he does not know your intentions. He eyes the deer and croaks (in Common), his weathered voice sounding as if it has not been used in a week. "Avast, that's my dinner sailing a reach away from me. Procan knows my belly needs it, and..."
And it is at that moment that his gaze drops to the goblins. A strange, almost comically befuddled expression comes across the interloper's face, as if trying and mostly failing to remember something from long ago. Buried deep.
(In Goblin) "You... I... My name is Mud."
Mud(Paladin2):Frandal's Scourge/Inge(Barbarian1):Krayveneer's After the Fall/Seri(Cleric1/Sorcerer1):Uhtred's Windward Isles/Shin(Wizard2):Dimir_MTG's Surviving
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric3):Vos' Beyond the Veil/Soren(Druid4):Bartjeebus' Ravenloft/Nivi(Rogue3):Raiketsu's CoS/Lyra(Warlock2/Bard2):BlameItOnWinter's Will of the Ancients
Joren(Fighter5):NotDrizzt's Simple Request/Quyen(Adept1):Constance's Nentir Vale/Rel(Warlock2):Uhtred's Phandelver/Xarian(Fighter1/Wizard1):ShieldHero's Drakkenheim
"Didn't I just say-" Shadowheart starts when the blade is thrown and the deer flees. He then notices the new goblin. "Oh." He falls silent and then the new goblin starts speaking a different language to the other goblins, Shadowheart just raises and eyebrow and waits - although his expression is as neutral as ever, he still gives off a vibe mixing impatience with curiosity.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
Grrzark, startled by the dagger and the sudden appearance of a new threat, leaps nimbly to one side, spinning to face the new arrival, raising his axe threateningly. And stops. Looking over the bedraggled new goblin, he screws his face up in a look of puzzlement and disdain. "No, that was our dinner," he says. Appraising the other goblin for a minute, but apparently deciding he's not much of a threat, he shrugs, and turns to Shadowheart, resting the pole of his axe on the ground, looking the shadowy cloaked man all over, as if trying to figure out which pocket he keeps the rations in.
Phodoxia, staring after the deer, takes a minute longer to pull her attention to the newcomer. Not disdainful as her companion is, she looks merely shocked, and then slightly hopeful, even relieved, to see another face of her own kind. "What a day!" she says, switching into Goblin herself. "Who are you? You're Mud? I knew a Mud once. I'm Phodoxia." Already dropping into a friendly smile that barely shows the pointed tips of her teeth, cocking her head to one side. But as she continues to look the newcomer over, her smile starts to fade, her brow furrowing. He's a goblin, and that's great, but there's something weird about him...
The shoe drops in Mud's exhausted mind. The remembered voice from his mostly-forgotten childhood with the Mawtooth.
Get back, you dummy! You're out in the open. Anyone can see you. The day he had found the bronze locket.
Mud blinks once and looks wistfully after the departing deer as he retrieves his thrown dagger. He switches to Common out of courtesy to the others.
"Phodoxia! Procan protect. What.. what are you doing? You never wanted to run away, Dox. I thought you'd be back with the Mawtooth riding a warg or something. And... Grrzark? Okay, maybe you, I figured would end up somewhere else because... well, you know... you're Zark." He pauses philosophically as if the bigger goblin's name is enough of an explanation on its own. "But both away? Together?"
Mud begins to relax and draws himself up to make a small, flourishing bow. Somehow obviously a sailor's bow, involving both his cutlass and his compact, driftwood shield with the sigil of a red and gold trident piercing a cresting wave upon it. Procan's sigil.
"My name is Almudiz, once of the Mawtooth, but until a few days ago, of the privateer cutter Dragonfly out of Nyrond. But everyone calls me Mud. Even Procan. Only by his wild favor do I live. Pirates or... slavers or... somebody blasted apart our ship, and my crewmates are likely stabbed or drowned. The Dragonfly rests at the bottom of the Azure Sea or floating in splinters at the surface. That locket..."
He looks at Phodoxia once more meaningfully. "Do you remember, Dox? The shiny bronze locket. Saved my life, by Procan. Without it, there is no fog and no leeward current, and I would never have washed ashore alive." Which makes no apparent sense, not least because there is no bronze locket visible on Mud's person, but he continues, turning back to everyone else and continuing in his somewhat un-goblin-like way.
"You all owe me... well, nothing. I'd been chasing that deer for half an hour. If Procan had intended me to catch it, I would have. I am hungry, though."
Mud(Paladin2):Frandal's Scourge/Inge(Barbarian1):Krayveneer's After the Fall/Seri(Cleric1/Sorcerer1):Uhtred's Windward Isles/Shin(Wizard2):Dimir_MTG's Surviving
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric3):Vos' Beyond the Veil/Soren(Druid4):Bartjeebus' Ravenloft/Nivi(Rogue3):Raiketsu's CoS/Lyra(Warlock2/Bard2):BlameItOnWinter's Will of the Ancients
Joren(Fighter5):NotDrizzt's Simple Request/Quyen(Adept1):Constance's Nentir Vale/Rel(Warlock2):Uhtred's Phandelver/Xarian(Fighter1/Wizard1):ShieldHero's Drakkenheim
"If I had to take a shot every time you mentioned Procan I'd have liver failure by now." Shadowheart then sighs. "So look, we're in the middle of a mission - find some peep, sneak into a mine, probably break some laws. For some coins, or something. Anyway, this reunion is all cute like a blue button on a puppy but we're burnin' daylight here, so how about we walk 'n' talk this shit?" He pauses for a moment, somewhat awkwardly. "This would be where I turn around and walk off all dramatically to emphasize my point but I, uh, dunno where we goin'. We're following this guy," with a thumb and head tilt he gestures to Rasen. He shrugs, waiting, hopefully, for the group to start moving.
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Grrzark squints at Mud, and a flicker of recognition crosses his eyes, quickly chased out by dismissal. He shrugs. "Whoever you are, you've gone off and lost your mind. And our dinner." He slings his battleaxe back across his back, shooting an annoyed glance at Shadowheart's flippant comments. Who's that human to talk to gobs that way, anyway, like he's better than us? The glance turns furtive as Grrzark makes as if to walk past Shadowheart, while trying to surreptitiously snitch a ration out of his pack.
Sleight of Hand: 10
Phodoxia stares open-mouthed for a minute at this specter from the past, coming in a wrung-out, sunburned, nonsense-spouting form. After a minute of listening to Mud's questions, she closes her mouth, and narrows her eyes. "I was," she snaps, also in Common. "A warg rider, that is, with no inkling to run off. Why would I want to do a stupid thing like that? But I had to make a deal to save my life. And I couldn't stay after that. Sounds like something similar happened to you. Who's Procan?" Her tone is suspicious, but turns regretful as she continues. "Mawtooth, they're too sensible to take any of us back. Besides... Zark's better than nobody. So are you, I guess. We're hungry too." She shoots an annoyed glance at Grrzark, and looks back at Mud.
Then she smiles, adding, in Goblin, "Won't you join us? We can't take handouts from humans forever, but it'll do for now."
Mud appears concerned. "Why? What's wrong with your liver?" He fails utterly to make the connection between alcohol abuse and liver issues, plowing ahead with gusto. "Speaking of Procan, did I mention that his favor extends to curing all manner of diseases? Mosquito-disease, rat-disease, scurvy if your cargo hold is out of fruit. Maybe liver failure too!" He waggles his fingers theatrically as if to demonstrate how he cures such illnesses.
Turning back to the goblins, he ignores Grrzark for the moment as the oaf seems to be distracted doing something else at the moment. "I guess it was stupid of me to run away, Dox." Mud looks sheepish. "I just wanted to see the world, you know? Chase the horizon. Sail the seas. But maybe you had a better reason than me for leaving. Deal to save your life? Well maybe that's what I did too... just recently... I don't know. Procan is..."
He trails off again, realizing that the human had been impatient already, and now might not be the proper time for a sermon. He is ready to walk and talk.
"I'll join you all if you'll have me, and you have food of course. What's one more goblin, eh?" (It's the kind of self-deprecating phrase no goblin would utter unless they have spent the last several years among mostly non-goblins). "A... mission? That I can get behind, though the last mission I was in didn't end so well. A mine, you say? Laws don't bother me too much, but just so I get it, the plan is to waltz in and steal from a bunch of random miners?"
Mud looks like he is putting up a good front of maybe objecting on moral grounds, which is heresy for most Mawtooth goblins, but what he is really looking for is an excuse. "Any chance those who run this mine are not so nice? Slavers maybe? Or pirates! I'm always up for messing up some pirates..."
Mud(Paladin2):Frandal's Scourge/Inge(Barbarian1):Krayveneer's After the Fall/Seri(Cleric1/Sorcerer1):Uhtred's Windward Isles/Shin(Wizard2):Dimir_MTG's Surviving
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric3):Vos' Beyond the Veil/Soren(Druid4):Bartjeebus' Ravenloft/Nivi(Rogue3):Raiketsu's CoS/Lyra(Warlock2/Bard2):BlameItOnWinter's Will of the Ancients
Joren(Fighter5):NotDrizzt's Simple Request/Quyen(Adept1):Constance's Nentir Vale/Rel(Warlock2):Uhtred's Phandelver/Xarian(Fighter1/Wizard1):ShieldHero's Drakkenheim
Phodoxia, waiting intently with ears perked for Mud's answer to her question, sighs in disappointment as his momentum shifts instead towards the job they're all supposed to be doing. "Well, tell me about it sometime. And maybe they're slavers or pirates. That's what we're going to find out, I think."
Grrzark is still striding away, past Shadowheart, munching away on something, his back to the group. "Yeah, come along," he says. "We've got plenty of food. Or we will once we conquer this mine."
The thought of food and the long-missed presence of goblins pulls Mud along, though he remains puzzled as to the group's mission.
Looking a little sheepish, he allows, "Captain Himo, waves guide his soul to rest, always told me the less explaining the better when it came to my thick skull. So I'm sorry to ask this again, but... we're going to 'conquer' some mine that might be run by slavers or pirates or not, but either way, we're going to part them from their coin so we can buy food or blue buttons and puppies like the human said... makes me wonder if we are the pirates here."
Mud rubs his eyes, finally starting to catch his breath from his long chase of the deer. Puppy Pirates and Gobbling Goblins. Every crew needs a name.
He turns to Rasen, who seems to be leading the group. "How about you, navigator, you savvy to what's in the mine and why we're setting course there?"
Mud(Paladin2):Frandal's Scourge/Inge(Barbarian1):Krayveneer's After the Fall/Seri(Cleric1/Sorcerer1):Uhtred's Windward Isles/Shin(Wizard2):Dimir_MTG's Surviving
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric3):Vos' Beyond the Veil/Soren(Druid4):Bartjeebus' Ravenloft/Nivi(Rogue3):Raiketsu's CoS/Lyra(Warlock2/Bard2):BlameItOnWinter's Will of the Ancients
Joren(Fighter5):NotDrizzt's Simple Request/Quyen(Adept1):Constance's Nentir Vale/Rel(Warlock2):Uhtred's Phandelver/Xarian(Fighter1/Wizard1):ShieldHero's Drakkenheim
Rasen almost drop to his butt when the deer stepped between them and the dagger flew a few inches from his face to feel comfortable. But when the goblins seems to recognize each other and start talking he rolls his eyes.
When Shadowheart suggests to talk and walk he is about to say something but he just stands and follow them, and when Phodoxia offers Mud to stay he looks towards the human and the gnome before answering.
"Well, where there's food for two..." he says " Welcome to the team... it seems... we are going to investigate the mine. We just know there is something amiss on it, not sure what yet. We are trying to infiltrate it, investigate what's going on and try to find one person who was sent to do the same mission before but is now missing... we... I " he corrects himself" I was inside before, trying to reach it from a web of caverns that must connect with it, by the river " he gestures towards the general direction of the nearby river " but my previous team was ambusehd by some giant frogs and troglodytes and I barely escaped... do you guys..." he hesitates for a moment " Do you guys eat giant frog? Because if we need to go that way maybe your hunger problems could be solved..."
He keeps guiding the group among the trees... he stops and looks around, trying to get oriented, for he has lost the map they had and is trying to recognize any landmarks to get them there.
PbP Character: A few ;)
Mud subsides in his questioning as Rasen speaks up. With one last wistful look in the direction the deer ran, he sighs and falls in line.
"Aye, something amiss," he nods. "Procan guide our course then. Never tried Giant Frog but there's a first for everything!"
Mud(Paladin2):Frandal's Scourge/Inge(Barbarian1):Krayveneer's After the Fall/Seri(Cleric1/Sorcerer1):Uhtred's Windward Isles/Shin(Wizard2):Dimir_MTG's Surviving
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric3):Vos' Beyond the Veil/Soren(Druid4):Bartjeebus' Ravenloft/Nivi(Rogue3):Raiketsu's CoS/Lyra(Warlock2/Bard2):BlameItOnWinter's Will of the Ancients
Joren(Fighter5):NotDrizzt's Simple Request/Quyen(Adept1):Constance's Nentir Vale/Rel(Warlock2):Uhtred's Phandelver/Xarian(Fighter1/Wizard1):ShieldHero's Drakkenheim
When Mud asked him 'what's wrong with your liver' Shadowheart just stared at the goblin in disbelief. It sort of made him question everything - these goblins seem a bit too clueless and way too focused on food. And then there's Tark who doesn't know how to read a map. He felt somewhat doomed. He snapped out of it when Rasen spoke up. He then noticed Gzzark was munching on something - where did he get that food from?
He followed Rasen in silence, brooding as usual.
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Stoney to Rasen: "If you are getting disoriented, maybe I should do the tracking and guiding for you."
(If Shadowheart is behind Tark and mouthing the words "By the gods, don't do it!", Tark will only be paying attention to Rasen in front of him.)
Beegred Thornpost - Lvl 8 Halfling Ranger - Out of the Abyss by Kerrec
Drusk - Lvl 8 Half-Orc Life Cleric - The Long Road: Dragon Heist by Mingofaust (player & current DM)
Hunferho Aelorothi - Lvl 5 Half-Elf Bard/Rogue - Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (by Pokepaladdy)
DM - Frontier City of Nunkreet (ended)
Phodoxia slaps Mud on the shoulder as soon as he stops asking questions about the moral plausibility of the task Rasen is taking them on. "Don't worry about all that. Sure there's things I can't do but those are obvious in the moment, I'd go crazy if I tried to plan for them ahead of time. It's not our problem," she observes. "I can run on the fish I ate last night for two more days, and then I'll need something else." Absently she tightens her belt from which a pair of daggers hang in leather sheaves. It's so hard to think straight when there's no food for days.
She too then eyes Grrzark, as she picks up her pace to catch up with him, wondering just where he got something to eat. "Hey, what are you eating? Not gonna share? Where'd you get that?"
"I saved it," he mumbles, through a mouthful of dried meat, and then shoves a piece of hardtack into Phodoxia's hands. "Here."
Phodoxia wrinkles her nose in disgust looking at it... then turns and hands it to Mud.
He would absolutely be doing this, with a panicked look in his eyes
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
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