Blood Games
Grand Order of the Lion Field Report – Addendum to “The Return of an Extinct Lineage”
General Summary
Location:
Rylan Woods, two days march east of Frial
Operation:
Signed and Sealed,
Rylan Woods, two days march east of Frial
Operation:
- See Objectives and Muster Roll in Primary Report
- Nika – Thief involved in theft of Seagravia’s seed, suspected warlock with some magic capability. Being escorted back for punishment for said theft leading to endangerment of Highstone
Provost Marshall…
Please add the incident report I am about to relay to my earlier missive on the attack on Highstone during the reconnaissance and scout evaluation. As I was badly injured facing the perpetrators behind the assaults I am about to describe, I will have Corporal Arion make the full submission. Should you require my direct report after reading this, I will of course be immediately available. As noted in the main report, the heavy rainfall required us to take a detour to the south of Frial, differing from out original path towards Rylan. We were making good time and expected that there would be no further delay beyond the few days the storm cost us, even with a prisoner in tow. Nika unsurprisingly made many attempts during the two week journey to escape, from feigning sickness one night to attempting to take advantage of our scouts. Escaping would only mean that she had few places to run. Back the other direction was Highstone and Seagravia, she had little desire to return to the elven farmlands she claims to have come from, and our reach in Frial would make it difficult for her to hide unless she joined immediately with one of the less savory groups in the city. Additional, the half elf was distinctive in appearance. I didn’t quite understand what caused her to be so desperate to escape into the wild alone given the dangers that have been about of late. It would make much more sense to do so when Frial is within sight at least, but I digress. Arion has been vocal about the possible conflict having her as prisoner will bring, feelings that are well-founded given our recent experience in Highstone. We are on the 12th evening of our journey back to Frial. With the city limits very nearly within sight after maybe another day or two of marching and the weather having calmed down enough that we are able to navigate the southern wood without difficulty, we scout an area to make camp for the night as the moon has risen high in the sky. Jeffery and Blaze report back on having spotted fresh catoblepas tracks nearby. Such dangerous creatures were not uncommon in this area, and having no wish to confront one considering the tracks were very clearly made this evening, we plot a course that would take us wide of the tracks, which are heading in the direction we were going, and then decide to make camp for the night as well.“We caught her, we ran into a giant, maybe we can bring back some catoblepas eyeballs and really be heroes!”
“I think it would be best and prudent and I think we all agree if we just found a workaround. We’re already a couple days behind schedule anyway what’s one more night?”
“Jeffery’s got the right of it.”
-Blaze, Jeffery and Arion on whether to go catoblepas hunting
“If we came face to face with it, watch out for its flashing eyes. It can kill with a stare. It’s in the books. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one…I mean, you’re alive so clearly not but I’ve heard rumors.”In fairly deep into the bog, we push ahead slightly to find a rocky outcropping that would keep us dry. As we made preparations to secure the area, we heard a distant cry for help. Straining our ears, we are able to make out a clear voice around a quarter mile away deeper into the swamp. I get the scouts to attention as we are now compelled to investigate.
“All the more reason to avoid such a thing.”
-Pepperwell dropping some knowledge. Rioter didn’t need more convincing.
“Well, it looks like it came to us anyway.”With Arion watching the still bound and gagged Nika, I have the scouts in formation to approach silently from the flanks as I push further in towards the call. With the scouts still hidden, Arion and I find a young boy, no order than twelve or thirteen by my estimation, dressed in ragged clothing with his leg caught in some sort of snare. Though his accent is Frialian, he didn’t look like he lived in the city considering how rough he looked and sounded. He had at his side a survivalist pack, and he looked to be someone that lived in the wilds. Arion used his magic to create an illusory lantern, which he projected near to the boy. Noticing the light, he called out to see if anyone was here. Drawing my weapon, I signal to Arion that we would approach, handing Nika off to the scouts to watch while they covered our blind spots. As he sees us approach, he pushes himself up with one arm. The snare looks to be some sort of thick vine that has tangled up his leg.
“Yeah…”
“Could be the catoblepas, right?”
-Rioter, Arion and Tunley. If only it were, buddy.
“What happened?”
“The trap, the trap. Didn’t see it.”
“Are you with anybody else”
“Alone, I’m alone. Hunting for furs. Looking for beaver.”
-Arion taking in the boy’s story
“No parents? Friends?”Arion approaches the young boy while he speaks with him to get the situation from him, checking the ankle the snare has entangled. He tells us his name is Ebo Dob. I scan the area while Arion pulls a blade to cut him loose. Suddenly, the vine leaps to life, the round rumbling as more of it comes from the earth. It wraps itself around Arion’s neck, its thorns scrapping against his throat as it attempts to pull him into the mud. I draw a blade and rush to help free Arion from the mass of vines, cutting into it several times. Arion nimbly stabs at his fetters with his weapons, as Dob runs behind us. The scouts, seeing the struggle, fire their bows at the hostile plant, sinking arrows into it. The vines retaliate, striking out and drawing slight wounds on us as we hack at it. As we continue our battle with it, a noise like cracking branches behind cause us to turn. Dob is on all fours, growling as his bones snap and grow in size, tusks curving out of his mouth and his eyes yellow as he turns into an amalgam of boar and boy. We had fallen into the trap of a shapechanger. Glad that I had the scouts stay back under cover, we prepare for a difficult encounter.
“I work alone, so I get all the coin.”
“Risky, but possibly rewarding…”
My name’s Dob.”
-Rioter questioning Dob
“Dob hungry”I advance and my next cut severs many of the trunks of the vines from the plant, and it falls limply to the ground. I swing around to face the now transformed Dob, and after admitting that he was hunting us, I attack and draw blood. Owing to its cursed nature, the wounds we inflict begin to heal even as we deal them; without enchanted weapons we will be hard pressed to bring down a wereboar. I make the quick decision for Blaze to rearm Nika with her manacite and unbind her, hoping that she would assist instead of use the opportunity to escape.
-Dob during his change
“You would strike a child?”Dob attempts to gore me but I manage to move aside, and it merely grazes against my armor. Despite this, I can tell that even as a “child”, Dob’s wereform was very powerful. Arion takes advantage of his attention on my and stabs him in his hindquarters, his poisoned blade weakening him. The three other free scouts continue to pepper Dob with arrows, though they seem more an annoyance than truly serious in the face of his regenerating body. Nika casts a spell, enchanting several stones and throws one at Dob, landing a blow with the enhanced pebble against his side. Unlike our blows till now, this magically charged attack looked painful and lasting. Arion presses his advantage and swiftly cuts into him with his poisoned blades. Dob starts frantically looking for a way out of this conflict, and though I offer him surrender, he seems not to consider it. Nika’s next spell covers Dob in small flames, causing him to yelp in pain. I slash at his legs, almost severing one and plant a bolt into his chest to finally pin him down. I instruct the scouts that there may be others in the area so half needed take positions to keep watch over our perimeter while the other half search for any signs of other activity.
“I don’t see a child here, friend.”
“A child changing into a boar?!”
“If you just kept out of our way this wouldn’t have had to happen but you brought this on yourself.”
“I heard you coming and the first to find you too. I need your skulls!”
-Dob, Rioter and Arion on who jumped who, and something about skulls
“Well done.”
“Yeah, I know.”
-Rioter and Nika, who does not lack for self-confidence
“Does this earn me a not in shackles situation?”I tie up Dob, who is still alive and steadily regenerating his non-magically inflicted wounds. We relieve him of any items on him as well as he begins to turn back into human form. He awakens very soon after and we begin to interrogate him.
“Yes. Because this area is now officially dangerous. He’s talking about hunting people for skulls. If there’s anyone else out here doing this we want you to be able to defend yourself.”
“Everybody probably hunts people for skulls out here.”
-Nika and Rioter on this being a most dangerous game scenario now
“You’d cripple a boy? I’m cursed, I’m cursed!”Our search of his belongings produces several rusted daggers, a couple manacite pieces and the severed heads of two men dripping with fresh blood. The creature’s hunt was serious, and here we had victims already. Dob attempts to engender sympathy for his “cursed condition”, but we are adamant about bringing him back to Frial to face justice for his crimes here, as well as to bring the heads with on the chance we could locate next of kin. Arion and I discuss how we are going to transport him as he is nearly healed from his battle with us. My knowledge of shapechanger weaknesses and Arion’s expertise in herbology and poisons allow us to concoct a mixture from wolves bane and local swamp vegetation that we have the scouts gather on their return that will halt his regeneration and put him under. Transporting him back to Frial will be far easier in this way.
“Oh we know what you are now.”
“You seem to revel in the curse if you are.”
-Dob, Arion and Rioter on not showing sympathy for his condition
“You can use my shackles since I’m not going to be using them anymore.”Once our herbal mixture is complete, we force feed it to an unwilling Dob. He hacks and coughs and complains, but it eventually takes effect and points him under. Before this happen, we question him further on the “game” that he says he was playing collecting skulls.
“For the time being.”
“C’mon, I’m one of you guys now! We just fought a werekid!”
“A werekid implies that it’s something that turns into a kid.”
“We don’t know that it’s not!”
-Nika and Rioter debate her limited freedom and terminology
-Dob coughing-
“That’s how you know it’s working.”
“I’m dying, I’m dying!”
“That’s also how you know it’s working.”
-Arion and Dob on taking the medicine
“Who else is out here participating in your sick game?”
“Curse this game, I’m innocent! Dob is innocent!”
-Arion begins fabricating more of the wolf’s bane poison in front of Dob-
“The…the Hungry Games is tonight!”
“What is it, this Hungry Games? And why did it cost the lives of two innocents?”
“Reveks the Swarm Boss, he’s putting it on! He has…well, he HAD a good prize. It’s out there somewhere now.”
“Did you say Swarm Boss? Torment Singers, how many?”
“Oh, you know ‘em! You’re worldly.”
“I’ve traveled. Talk!”
“I don’t know, they’ve brought in reinforcements, we’re looking for the good meat! He still has a couple plus a prize for whoever brings back the most skulls but it could’ve been a unicorn.”
“A unicorn? You expect me to believe there’s a unicorn here?”
“What was that thing that your other self laid a trap with?”
“My untrustworthy, evil cursed self? Uh, we’re druids! You ever heard of The Savage?”
“I believe he’s part of some kind of nature cultists that hang outside of town and they have the powers to influence nature.”
-Rioter, Dob and Arion on a bunch of insane stuff that’s happening in this neck of the woods tonight
“The two of you DO have something in common.”Dob has become talkative, possibly in an attempt to ward off the effects of the poison. We learn a great deal about what he calls the “Hungry Games,” which are organized by the Swarm Lord Reveks, whom we heard of briefly from Swarm Master Kraglin in our encounter in Highstone. It appears that in addition to raiding settlements for supplies, they also host sadistic games hunting people for their skulls. Dob’s strange tale continues as he details that Reveks and his Swarm host claims to have a unicorn that they can offer as a prize to whoever can deliver the most skulls of the nine or so victims they are hunting tonight. Additionally, at Arion’s urging, we discover that Dob is both a were-boar and a druid, which accounts for the vine creature under his control during our battle. He belongs to a group known as The Savage, and though my knowledge of the magic circles of Frial are thin beyond their general troublesome activities, Arion puts in that they are indeed a group of magic users with powers over nature that live right outside Frial in the wilderness. I prod for information on the other game participants. Dob lists off some sort of woman, a funny accented man with a large alligator under his control and a troll. Likely, if Dob is any indication, there were possibly more magic users among these hunters as well. The scouts report that the area is secured for now though they uncovered signs of activity nearby.
“What we’re going to stand trial for something stupid that we didn’t do?”
“So you didn’t steal Seagravia’s seed? And he didn’t murder two people and stuff them into a sack?”
-Rioter and Nika on presumed guilt
“Gentlemen, we have something that would qualify as interfering with a local problem on our hands.”
“They got travelers that need help, and are using them as some kind of bloodsport? That’s got our name written all over it! I mean, not the bloodsport obviously, the saving people from it.”
“Good, I was about to correct you about the bloodsport part of the situation.”
“The only reason I’d participate in a bloodsport is if I was helping out a righteous situation.”
-Rioter and Blaze on blood sport enthusiasts
“The books say that a troll…I mean, that’s catoblepas territory.”I assess the situation and brief Arion and the scouts on our objective; discern the threats involved in the Hungry Games to the best of our ability, numbers, capabilities, etc., rescue and victims of the Game we are able to and take any prisoners for questioning back to Frial. I did not like the situation. Unlike Highstone, Seagravia proved not to be immediately threatening, and the culprit in Brom was eliminated swiftly. Here, we had forces not far from Frial and a Swarm that we did not realize was operating this close waylaying travelers and murdering them for sport.
“Agreed. It is indeed that territory.”
-Pepperwell and Rioter on threat rankings
“Third option we can cut off the kid’s head, then we’d be winning with three.”
-Arion secretly grins-
-Nika’s rather ghoulish suggestion
“Are you familiar with any spells that could work against a troll if we came across it?”Arion administers enough of the poison that Dob will remain inactive through the night. With the shapechanger manacled, I personally took to carrying him back the remaining way to Frial. In the meantime, we allow Nika to be unrestrained and armed with manacite we found on Dob. If we faced any of the other hunters, including something as formidable as a troll, we would need her help. After Arion shares what he knows of troll physiology, the six of us set to work in scouring the immediate area where Dob had set his trap for flammable material to mix with our lantern oil to attach to our arrow and bolt heads. Not knowing the true nature of the other participants, we could at least anticipate the troll’s weakness to fire against its regeneration. After we are properly equipped, we begin our march deeper into the wood to search for any surviving captives. Tunley speaks up, suggesting we split up to better hide our approach. Dangerous as it was, I decided it was worth the risk and going through the signals and assigned direction, have Arion lead Pepperwell and Nika while I take the other three scouts around.
“Maaaybe. What’s your position on this helpful person still being a prisoner if we take down this troll?”
“My position is that whatever Rioter says when we get back to town is going to go, but this would be a mark for your help. A feather in your cap, as it were.”
-Arion and Nika on magical assistance
“Do you think we should split up?”Arion and his group very shortly come across a clearing that is covered in a myriad of tracks and goblin corpses. The confusing scene takes a moment for them to sort through; the tracks suggest numerous types of animals, a bear, a wolf potentially, crocodiles, a few humanoid. The dead goblins are well equipped and armed in red striped armor, and are certainly of the same affiliation as the Swarm scouts we encounter in Highstone. There are around a dozen of them in this makeshift, now abandoned, campsite. A fire pit smoldered nearby, signs that whatever battle took place was very recent. A deep pond nearby is indicative of the flooding the storms have caused in this swamp.
“I don’t like the idea but we may very well have to.”
“I guess also for the sake of sneaking, they’re not gonna know from a distance we’re not lookin’ for their skulls so they might see a big group coming and run from us.”
“Also true. Also harder to keep our presence hidden in general. All right, we stick to the normal signals we would give each other to alert anybody nearby of what we find.”
-Tunley and Rioter on splitting the party
“It seems uh, teeth? A lot of teeth killed them?”Separating out some of the tracks, Arion finds a set to follow that leads them deeper into the marsh. Deciding to follow those tracks are many others scattered in different directions, he signals with the appropriate bird call. Arion and the others come quickly upon a copse of trees, upon which, hanging from several branches ten feet up is what appears to be one of the caravaners. The man is injured and has one of the signature Torment Singer’s stinger in his shoulder, but he yet lived. Searching around briefly, Pepperwell then clambers up to help the man down. Too late, as he reaches him do they realize their folly as the trap is sprung and Pepperwell is caught in a hail of arrows, a few of which pierce him causing him to tumble to the ground unconscious. A rare miss by Arion for the placement of the caravaner to lure out more of his fellows, torment singers with two goblins on each back swarm out, with one in particular dressed in rusty looking golden armor wearing a crown of stingers. The Swarm Lord, no doubt. They move in to attack. Acting quickly, Arion, who had earlier interrogated Nika on her abilities, orders her to cast magic on Pepperwell to save his life, which she complies. A white glow covers Pepperwell, and his wounds close enough to allow him back to consciousness. Shocked to action at Arion’s harsh urging, they bolt back the direction they came, putting trees between them to slow the chasing goblins down.
-Pepperwell on the fate of these goblins
“Ananna, help us…”
-Nika’s intonation to whatever it is she has a pact with
“Where are ya going? Slow down, slow down, we mean only to talk!”Most of them miss thanks to the cover afforded by their environment. An arrow nicks Arion in the shoulder, but he shrugs it off and gives the emergency bird call as they flee. Upset over having to leave the victim used as bait, they lose their pursuers in the dense underbrush for the moment. Meanwhile, I had taken the other three scouts towards the outskirts of the former campsite, following what we believed to be the troll tracks leaving the area. It is not long before we head snapping branches, the earth rumbling slightly as the troll, unlike his compatriots in this sick game, lumbers noisily. A cry pierces the air close to the noise the troll is making some hundred paces from our position, two voices pleading as they try to escape it sounded like. I signal the scouts to approach silently through the brush as to take the troll by surprise, Blaze and Tunley circling around while I have Jeffery with me to approach directly, and we move in quickly and quietly towards the scene. A woman and girl were cornered by the troll, who was attempting to reach at their hiding space, breaking any of the vegetation in his way. I give a birdcall and the scouts notch their fire arrows. From the side and behind, we stick numerous fire arrows into this troll’s hide. His attention now is firmly on us, and he expresses delight at having better targets for his Hungry Games score. Ordering the survivors to run, which they do using the marsh as cover, we ready ourselves as the troll charges us. We loose another volley of arrows and bolts into its torso, and through several were our prepared fire arrows, it hardly slows as it reaches our position. Having taken a closer position to intercept the brunt of its attacks, I weather several of its club strikes, moving aside just enough to keep from getting smashed to a pulp. The troll is as expected a powerful creature, and skilled enough that I only barely survived its onslaught. In the middle of our battle comes Arion’s warning birdcall being made as he flees Reveks and his pursuing goblins. It is some distance from us, but we had to finish the battle quickly to go to his aid. I instruct the scouts to go towards Arion’s signal if I fall in battle. Tunley moves from his position on the troll’s flank to scoop the two survivors and escort them to our group. Firing arrows as they move towards the cover of the trees, I throw a flask of lantern oil over the troll and cast a spell to spark it alight, causing him to cry in pain as it covers him in flames. The troll approaches and, through the pain as the fire licks at his tough hide, swings wildly at me as I move back, missing wide with each attack. Blaze finally plants an arrow in his eye and, along with the oil fire ravaging his body, he slumps forward into the marsh water. The scouts, including Tunley who had gathered the two caravaners up, approach carefully. Tunley reminds me that Arion’s call had gone up moments earlier, so I order them to stay and carve this beast to pieces and burn the remains, secure the survivors and go to the rendezvous point while make my way to Arion’s call. The scouts take to work as I run towards the birdcall. In the meantime, Arion and his group have been staying ahead of the Swarm searching for them by silently hiding, though it is a close thing as they seemed to know the woods as well as he. Nika proposes a radical idea to Arion; ambush one of the Singers from a treetop and take control of one to ride to safety. Her claims of expertise in animal handling, especially these monstrous hornets are highly dubious, but Arion seemed open in this desperate situation.
-Reveks lying his ass off
“I have a plan.”Arion and Pepperwell hide and distract the hunting party with their continued calls while Nika gets into position on a thick branch. Both prepare to ambush the rider. Eventually, two goblins astride a singer buzzes by and they fire at the rider, their arrows forcing him off the creature. He is dead before hitting the ground. His partner is distracted from the bow fire from below as Nika then leaps onto the hornet, slipping and nearly falling. She clings desperately from it while the other goblin prepares to attack her. Nika is having a difficult time holding on; I’m told she nearly falls several times but somehow luck is on her side enough to spare her that fate. She eventually swings atop on the saddle, where a goblin’s shortsword finds her thigh. She manages to hold on through the pain while the goblin continues swinging wildly.
“Ok..”
“If we get up high into a tree, maybe when one of those wasps go by, we can jump on the wasp and take it. I’m really good with animals.”
“Do you have…”
“The guts to do it? Yes, I do.”
-Nika idea to Arion to wrangle a Singer
“Get off ma bee!”While the goblin is focusing on Nika, Arion takes aim and fires an arrow into his back, killing him instantly. Nika throws him off the singer and grabs the reigns, successfully wrangling the thing to the ground. Arion and Pepperwell approach warily to get on, hoping that the single singer can support their weight. It does so with some difficulty but they are able to take to the air. They go in the direction of the answering call we gave earlier.
“It’s not a bee!”
-Swarmer and Nika
“I am terrible with animals.”As all this is happening, I am still making my way through the marsh towards where I heard Arion’s alarm. Out of the darkness, a dart fired from a hidden position manages to somehow bypass my armor. Though I fend through the wave of fatigue from its poison, I am unable to take and precautions to ward against a second one finding a similar opening and put me unconscious. I’d be impressed at the skill it took to catch me unaware and actually get through armor with so small a weapon if the situation weren’t so dangerous. I would guess I had been unconscious roughly twenty minutes based on the night sky when I regain my senses. A young woman, the one that poisoned me, I gathered, sat atop my chest. I discovered that I was paralyzed from the neck down, though I could still speak and move my head. She had removed enough of my armor to expose part of my arm. As well, she had disarmed me. She begins speaking to me, in a tone that was without malice or inclination of serious thought towards the Hungry Games, trying to convince me that she had no intention of killing anyone and was after a “unicorn.”
“It looks like it’s working! Go, go!”
-Nika surprising no one, least of all Arion
“I’m not a bad person, I was here for the unicorn meat. That’s not happening right now, I wanted to make sure that that didn’t kill you, because that was a lot of dose in you. That’s why I woke you up, and you seem ok. Too much can kill you.”In her hands is an odd dagger shaped like a sharp tooth, black and distinctive. I realized looking at my shoulder only now as I could not feel anything that she had carefully carved into it deeply enough to expose bone. She is wearing plain clothes, so I bite her leg as deeply as I can before given the alarm call. Reacting unexpectedly to the attack , she seems to not feel the pain even slightly, and uses her knife to easily carve out a piece of shoulder bone. I am as distressed at the ease of her weapon’s capability to do so as the actual harm to my person. She bites through the bone she cut out of me as easily as I would chew hard tack.
-Bailey Peach talking half to herself honestly
“You are amazing.”Arion, thinking fast on hearing the call, maneuvers the captured singer through the trees to further throw off their pursuers as he closes in on my position. They spot my attacker and me, and decide to ram the singer into her from above.
-Bailey eating people bone and flesh
“We should be careful because THAT is a cannibal and that is NOT in my books anywhere! I don’t know what a cannibal is capable of!”They succeed, throwing her into a tree. As Arion and the others dismount, she drops her dagger, which disappears before it hits the ground. Clearly, a powerful artifact of some kind.
“Continuing to eat him, yes.”
“What if it’s got powers?”
-Pepperwell and Arion on cannibals in their habitat
“I surrender I surrender I surrender I surrender!”On my order, Arion knocks the woman unconscious, which is not difficult as she had surrendered. Whoever this was, she was not normal and though she spoke with a politeness very unlike the troll we just fought, there was an uneasiness I detected about her presence, accentuated, of course, by my flesh that she seemed eager to consume. Arion briefs me on the Swarm lord having attacked them, nearly killing Pepperwell, and their forced abandonment of the caravaner they were using as bait. I guide them to the other scouts that are finishing the job on the troll while watching the still unconscious Ebo Dob. Arion ties me to the back of the torment singer’s saddle, and through the weight is too great for it to fly effectively now, it is able to hover above the ground and keep at pace with the others on the ground. Arion searches the woman’s’ belongings and finds more medical equipment. We discuss the hunters of the Hungry Games, the victims of which may have been captured or killed already outside of the two we saved from the troll, and whomever attacked the Swarm’s camp in the clearing that left all those animal tracks. We eventually meet with the other three halfway, to which they provide confirmation of the completion of their duty. They have hauled Dob along with, with the two caravaners following close behind them. According to them, there were seven of them held captive from the caravan, and a group of mostly unseen attackers with a band of conjured animals launched a surprise attack on the game contenders for reasons that were unknown to all involved. This gave them the opening they needed and they scattered into the marsh during the melee. This woman and her daughter, along with the victim Arion found being used as bait and the two heads Dob had collected meant that two more were still out there, either fleeing still or worse (one of whom apparently is a Tengu trader). We shamefully could do little for them in my condition, and as weighed down we were by our three prisoners (though Nika has proven her worth thus far).
-Bailey
“They keep saying something about a unicorn, did you see a unicorn?”On Arion’s inquiry into the unicorn, the caravaner tells us that they saw among the animals that attacked the goblins a horse with a horn, which of course is a shallow way of describing a supposedly long extinct species. Though, given our run-in with Seagravia, nothing was surprising to me the last few weeks anymore. They report the “unicorn” slaying many of the goblins before running to the south. The mystery of their benefactors would have to remain so. On the corporal’s recommendation, we made for Frial, though at an exceptionally slower and more careful pace to keep our presence hidden from the Swarm and any other hunters. Once again, you will forgive the delay in returning to Frial from our primary mission that resulted in contact with Seagravia, as this detour was unavoidable given the circumstances, as well as the lateness of this addition to my main report. That such deadly and abhorrent activity has occurred so close to the trade routes in and out of Frial is cause for concern, as is the encroaching of this Swarm and their unknown number of torment singers and their leader, Reveks.
“We seen a horse with a horn, so…”
-Arion and the caravaner on reports of this mythical creature
Signed and Sealed,
Knight-Captain Rioter Lockruckt
Missions/Quests Completed
Operational Outcomes:
Confirmation of Swarm Activity near Frial: Verified
Rescue of kidnapped Caravaners: Incomplete; two rescued, the remains of two obtained, three unknown status
Hungry Games Intelligence: A sadistic game that was seemingly organized and hosted by Reveks and his “Swarm”. Promise of prizes of unknown nature to those that could hunt down the most victims. Rumor of unicorn and attempts to capture it as one of the prizes. Existence of Unicorn is based on the accounts of the two prisoners captured and the two caravaners rescued.
Known Hungry Games Competitors
- Ebo Dob: Boy of 10 to 12, alleged member of The Savage, a gang that camps close to Frial. Shapechanger capable of turning into a vicious boar, strong regenerative capabilities and resistance to non-magical attacks
- Bailey Peach: Voluntarily offered her name; from the Trentpool district of Frial. Cannibal, though she would not reveal the nature of her abilities and hunger. Summonable magical tools, strange physical attributes of unknown origins.
- Barbaric backwoodsman that had a pet alligator 20-25 feet long. Wielded a weapon that, from description was likely a rare dwarven rifle.
- Troll encountered by myself and the scouts
- Reveks the Swarmlord and his host of goblins and torment singers
Timeframe: Nisaba’s Guild 14th-28th
This report covers the 2nd session involving the Hungry Games, from a different POV
Report Date
06 Jan 2022
Primary Location
Secondary Location
Related Characters
Bailey Peach Bloody Version by Steven Bellshaw
by Steve Bellshaw
