I lost my last journal fleeing Ten Towns. Gods, what madness that was: the Captain's insane gibberings about the pain lady, Dog-face and all the other officers except Ari going along with it. Waking up to the mess.
I've seen things on the field, on campaign, all that. Not like this. Three hundred and nine man, all flayed and turned inside out. It's enough to make me shiver, and not much does anymore, does it?
Laugher's gone back to Luskan, which I imagine would be a short trip for him, being as it's right around the corner, and Whisper's going to Amn. All Whisper told us, in as much as he could be telling with his gestures and his writing, was that he'd seen enough and wanted to retire doing middling parlor magic for a rich merchant's family.
Can't say that I blame him.
I'm going to Baldur's Gate, on account of no reason but the fact that the first ship I could catch was going there. I want to get as far from this place as I can.
We made a pact that whatever bastard what did this is found, we're owed some death. Ours, theirs, doesn't matter. There's some killin' a-coming, and we're going to have it.
My previous field journal was a straight-forward piece of kit, detailing movements and observations. If anyone found it, they'd find code-words only the Companymen could understand.
This is more a remembrancing in plain language (though I've been told by higher-borns that my language always has been plain) of what's come to pass. Three hundred and nine dead, three live. Remembrance is all we have. So if I pass from this world, and I'm fitting to on account of the dyin were owed, then at least we haven't passed all in one night, or the tenday after it, or within the passing of the seasons.
We weren't good men or noble men or kind men, but we lived and died together, and if the world can remember the gods of murder and maiming, it can remember us. So do that much if you find this thing all battered half in the mud, fittin to make your way down the first page as it is, written in my hand.
You can call me Croaker, by the by. Not my name, but it is.
Croaker's journal, being the writings of the last Sergeant of a Company of Mercenaries
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Mooj
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:45 pm
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Mooj
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:45 pm
The Laugher
I figure I should start a remembrance with some of the personalities involved, seeing as they're the ones what's being remembered. These biographies will nothing short of a tribute, if you have no standards. The brothers would be proud.
I'll start with The Laugher.
Laugher was a Luskan tough who'd grown up (and this befitting a man from Luskan) in Luskan. He didn't talk much about his days there, except that he was a thiefing type who skulked about until one day he was caught and given a Luskan Grin. You know the one, the flick job with a razor or a dagger where they slit you lip-to-ear? It left Laugher with what looked like a permanent smile, so when the Company took him in, we saw fit to call him Laugher, and he saw fit to lose his true-born name (and the past carried with it) to time.
So he was a thin wisp of a man with a big mad grin he couldn't stop smiling whether he was genuinely smiling or weeping or raging. Big shag of brown hair that damn near drowned his head except for his moon-pale face and those white teeth, all big and bright.
Before long, Laugher's shadowy ways made him the corporal of my skirmisher's scouts. He'd just cover those pearly whites with a mask he'd fashioned out of mask-makin' material, and slip through the forests as easy as he'd slip through that city he once called his home, and off he'd go a-traipsing through the woods, leading his other scouts through the shadows, finding our foe. Or finding us a way through a sally port in some fortification while the van assaulted the main breaches and crossbows fired up and over the walls and Ari's sappers and engineers blasted holes through the walls.
A good man with a knife, which he was keen on, though he learned to use a light crossbow in Luskan, and was one of the hold outs and my attempt to atleast standardize the equipment, preferring not to adopt the heavier arbalests that let any man with aim draw and shoot nor the khopeshes I'd become enamoured with in Thay. A shield was right out of the question.
He set a bad example for the rest of the cohort.
Nevertheless, Laugher was damn fine with those stilettos, knowing how to find a fellas vitals and exercising the sense of defence that if he wasn't where you was swinging, he didn't need a shield on account of not getting hit.
Laugher's one of the ones what lived. He was with me in the privies we'd constructed around the latrines when we'd slipped into unconsciousness after a night of carousing, on account of it was my turn and their turn to have liberty. Three men off duty, and we were the ones that lived only because we'd slipped no further back into camp than the pots, and then only because Whisper was gesturing that it was decent that he vomit where we can soak it in raw spirits and set it ablaze.
Laugher was the one what woke up first and found the camp all asunder and the rest of the men all inside-out. He'd taken the skins for new tents that had cropped up until he got close enough to see through his headache and realized what it was he was looking at.
One sight of that and he turned around and woke us. He says without a home in the Company Luskan's the next best thing and his deeds -- whatever they were, for we never asked -- ought to be forgotten by now, as if anyone would be forgetting that face of his. Though it's a common enough mutilation that probably so.
If not he says he learned enough of stabbing and cutting men to be able to handle his self there. He said he'd listen for the whispers, being that he was farthest north of all of us, to see if anything was afoot in Icewind Dale, and he'd fetch for us in the Gate and Amn should it be so, to settle the old scores.
I'll start with The Laugher.
Laugher was a Luskan tough who'd grown up (and this befitting a man from Luskan) in Luskan. He didn't talk much about his days there, except that he was a thiefing type who skulked about until one day he was caught and given a Luskan Grin. You know the one, the flick job with a razor or a dagger where they slit you lip-to-ear? It left Laugher with what looked like a permanent smile, so when the Company took him in, we saw fit to call him Laugher, and he saw fit to lose his true-born name (and the past carried with it) to time.
So he was a thin wisp of a man with a big mad grin he couldn't stop smiling whether he was genuinely smiling or weeping or raging. Big shag of brown hair that damn near drowned his head except for his moon-pale face and those white teeth, all big and bright.
Before long, Laugher's shadowy ways made him the corporal of my skirmisher's scouts. He'd just cover those pearly whites with a mask he'd fashioned out of mask-makin' material, and slip through the forests as easy as he'd slip through that city he once called his home, and off he'd go a-traipsing through the woods, leading his other scouts through the shadows, finding our foe. Or finding us a way through a sally port in some fortification while the van assaulted the main breaches and crossbows fired up and over the walls and Ari's sappers and engineers blasted holes through the walls.
A good man with a knife, which he was keen on, though he learned to use a light crossbow in Luskan, and was one of the hold outs and my attempt to atleast standardize the equipment, preferring not to adopt the heavier arbalests that let any man with aim draw and shoot nor the khopeshes I'd become enamoured with in Thay. A shield was right out of the question.
He set a bad example for the rest of the cohort.
Nevertheless, Laugher was damn fine with those stilettos, knowing how to find a fellas vitals and exercising the sense of defence that if he wasn't where you was swinging, he didn't need a shield on account of not getting hit.
Laugher's one of the ones what lived. He was with me in the privies we'd constructed around the latrines when we'd slipped into unconsciousness after a night of carousing, on account of it was my turn and their turn to have liberty. Three men off duty, and we were the ones that lived only because we'd slipped no further back into camp than the pots, and then only because Whisper was gesturing that it was decent that he vomit where we can soak it in raw spirits and set it ablaze.
Laugher was the one what woke up first and found the camp all asunder and the rest of the men all inside-out. He'd taken the skins for new tents that had cropped up until he got close enough to see through his headache and realized what it was he was looking at.
One sight of that and he turned around and woke us. He says without a home in the Company Luskan's the next best thing and his deeds -- whatever they were, for we never asked -- ought to be forgotten by now, as if anyone would be forgetting that face of his. Though it's a common enough mutilation that probably so.
If not he says he learned enough of stabbing and cutting men to be able to handle his self there. He said he'd listen for the whispers, being that he was farthest north of all of us, to see if anything was afoot in Icewind Dale, and he'd fetch for us in the Gate and Amn should it be so, to settle the old scores.
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Mooj
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:45 pm
First days in Baldur's Gate
I arrived in Baldur's Gate today. Or rather at Baldur's Gate, as making berth meant that the Flaming Pricks took one look at my dwarven hair style, and my considerable size, and likely confused me for the offspring of the holds-folk and a hill giant and ushered me right out the front gate.
I spent the night under a lean-to. Bench was comfortable, fire was warm. A dwarf showed up, and we chatted for a bit. Mostly me waxin' poetical about what a nice hat he had. Later a man showed up by the name of Kiran. He gave me his name, but I pretended not to understand so I could give him the nickname Mustache, on account of his Mustache, which reminded me of Whiskers, who was Big Brush's corporal of the kennels. I suppose I'll have to introduce them some later.
When I woke up, I went looking for work, which mostly meant flexin' my sword arm a little. There's a man outside the cemetery who says he's a sage and sends folk to retrieve body parts from the dead for his research.
But I know the score.
The inveterate reprobate's building his self a love dolly.
But on account of his paying a fair wage, and me being the honest-with-his-self mercenary that doesn't pretend I have much scruples about where my fighting wages come from (having campaigned for the tyrants of Thay, the fishing folk of Icewind Dale, merchants in Amn, and all in between), I took him up on his offer and went to the garden of good and evil to pick me some flowers, fresh though they were not.
Met a Sembian there who claims his name is Aksel, though he is incorrect. His name is Mustache, on account of his Mustache. Kiran will have to just surrender the name while I find another for him. The new Mustache's mustache is indicative of the the kind of man what visits places where they make you wash with fancy soaps tinged with lilacs before sending you to the backroom.
Good with locks, I like him. Reminds me of Laugher a little, only considerably prettier.
I spent the night under a lean-to. Bench was comfortable, fire was warm. A dwarf showed up, and we chatted for a bit. Mostly me waxin' poetical about what a nice hat he had. Later a man showed up by the name of Kiran. He gave me his name, but I pretended not to understand so I could give him the nickname Mustache, on account of his Mustache, which reminded me of Whiskers, who was Big Brush's corporal of the kennels. I suppose I'll have to introduce them some later.
When I woke up, I went looking for work, which mostly meant flexin' my sword arm a little. There's a man outside the cemetery who says he's a sage and sends folk to retrieve body parts from the dead for his research.
But I know the score.
The inveterate reprobate's building his self a love dolly.
But on account of his paying a fair wage, and me being the honest-with-his-self mercenary that doesn't pretend I have much scruples about where my fighting wages come from (having campaigned for the tyrants of Thay, the fishing folk of Icewind Dale, merchants in Amn, and all in between), I took him up on his offer and went to the garden of good and evil to pick me some flowers, fresh though they were not.
Met a Sembian there who claims his name is Aksel, though he is incorrect. His name is Mustache, on account of his Mustache. Kiran will have to just surrender the name while I find another for him. The new Mustache's mustache is indicative of the the kind of man what visits places where they make you wash with fancy soaps tinged with lilacs before sending you to the backroom.
Good with locks, I like him. Reminds me of Laugher a little, only considerably prettier.
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Mooj
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Note on eyes, et cetera
Must remember to make inquiries into why all sorts of folks around these parts seem to be missing an eye.
It's discomfiting, and I suspect they either play rough sports where the organ of vision is attacked, or they're all secretly performers each hoping to play the dashing rogue to sweep the lady-folk off their feet.
It's discomfiting, and I suspect they either play rough sports where the organ of vision is attacked, or they're all secretly performers each hoping to play the dashing rogue to sweep the lady-folk off their feet.
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Mooj
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Big Brush
Big Brush was, as mentioned, the lieutenant in charge of the beasts of war, both the kennels and the stables. Another one of the officers who went over to the Captain's fetish for pain and flaying in the last six days in the north.
But before that he was a jolly sort. We called him Big Brush on account of his artistic inclinations. While most of the sergeants and lieutenants and the Captain as well were are skilled with some artistry, being either through practice or talent, on account of the need to make sand tables for studies of elevation and orienteering or sketching the enemy's fortifications, Big Brush had no such direction.
Instead he was a painterly sort, who couldn't cart around a canvas and wood on account of having nowhere to store it with the Company luggage and in oft-hostile climes. So the son-of-a-bitch, mad in the way that only a soldier can be, took to working around the issue by every morning making sure he was clean shaven and then, when he had the opportunity to do so, fixing his gaze on a polished silver mirror and painting his face. Not with woad or madder the way some warriors do.
No, entire landscapes painted on his own face.
"It's how I pass the time," he'd say.
Well, what could we argue? That we'd kick him out of the Company? Who'd feed and water the horses and hounds? Who would we promote, Whiskers?
But before that he was a jolly sort. We called him Big Brush on account of his artistic inclinations. While most of the sergeants and lieutenants and the Captain as well were are skilled with some artistry, being either through practice or talent, on account of the need to make sand tables for studies of elevation and orienteering or sketching the enemy's fortifications, Big Brush had no such direction.
Instead he was a painterly sort, who couldn't cart around a canvas and wood on account of having nowhere to store it with the Company luggage and in oft-hostile climes. So the son-of-a-bitch, mad in the way that only a soldier can be, took to working around the issue by every morning making sure he was clean shaven and then, when he had the opportunity to do so, fixing his gaze on a polished silver mirror and painting his face. Not with woad or madder the way some warriors do.
No, entire landscapes painted on his own face.
"It's how I pass the time," he'd say.
Well, what could we argue? That we'd kick him out of the Company? Who'd feed and water the horses and hounds? Who would we promote, Whiskers?
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Mooj
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:45 pm
The Plague Druid
Folks are whispering of a plague druid about, acting like he's public enemy number one, scared on account of a greensleeves in the clutches of Talona sounds no good to them.
The greensleeves are a special sort of god-botherer, prone to letting the wild do its thing, and I suppose the dysenteries and colicks of bogs and forests are a wilding sort of themselves, but I'm not so sure that the druidic were ever quite all there to begin with, and one of their sort running around jabbering madness about being down with the sickness is of no sorts to me unless I'm being paid to lead a field against him.
A one-eyed tiefling -- and gods are there a lot of tieflings in this town, too, as if Baldur's Gate is composed entirely of blind folk with horns and tails -- said he took the diseased greensleeves' head and turned it into the city patrols, but they didn't want his head and the druids of the circle claimed his body and stitched it all back together.
Now what was interesting was I met this plague fella on the road north and stopped to chat about the bounty on his head, on account of I recognized his general description. He got all tough, started talking about how many had tried and failed to take his head.
Funny how druids never see death as being natural.
Anyway, I told him the story I'd heard from the half-blind half-fiend, about how it sounded like one had succeeded, and he told me his truth, being that he had slipped between worlds and had lost his head to some Drow she-god, and the tiefling walked off with in it a sack, being nothing more than a passive witness and a profiteer of sorts.
Well, that got me real interested, which I should write about next, that bit about walking between worlds.
Long story made short, the plague druid's now a client.
The greensleeves are a special sort of god-botherer, prone to letting the wild do its thing, and I suppose the dysenteries and colicks of bogs and forests are a wilding sort of themselves, but I'm not so sure that the druidic were ever quite all there to begin with, and one of their sort running around jabbering madness about being down with the sickness is of no sorts to me unless I'm being paid to lead a field against him.
A one-eyed tiefling -- and gods are there a lot of tieflings in this town, too, as if Baldur's Gate is composed entirely of blind folk with horns and tails -- said he took the diseased greensleeves' head and turned it into the city patrols, but they didn't want his head and the druids of the circle claimed his body and stitched it all back together.
Now what was interesting was I met this plague fella on the road north and stopped to chat about the bounty on his head, on account of I recognized his general description. He got all tough, started talking about how many had tried and failed to take his head.
Funny how druids never see death as being natural.
Anyway, I told him the story I'd heard from the half-blind half-fiend, about how it sounded like one had succeeded, and he told me his truth, being that he had slipped between worlds and had lost his head to some Drow she-god, and the tiefling walked off with in it a sack, being nothing more than a passive witness and a profiteer of sorts.
Well, that got me real interested, which I should write about next, that bit about walking between worlds.
Long story made short, the plague druid's now a client.
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Mooj
- Posts: 41
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One-eye, or Patch
Was hollering at one of the horses outside the Arm that it looked like my ex-wife. Amn serving girl.
Caught the attention of a one-eyed tiefling (again?) what froths at the mouth when upset. Ragey sort. Not a bad fella.
Caught the attention of a one-eyed tiefling (again?) what froths at the mouth when upset. Ragey sort. Not a bad fella.
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Mooj
- Posts: 41
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Red
Was going south along the trade road when a little goblin bastard took my foot out from under me. Three of 'em run out of the bushes and start whackin' at my head like they're personally charged with breaking Croaker's skull open in the great goblin moot.
Knocked around something fierce, and the next thing I know is, I wake up with a fierce headache next to a pretty girl, standing in front of a god-botherer at an altar, wondering if I got married again.
No, turns out she dragged me to Beregost for patching up. She saved one of the little goblins for me to take care of. Gave me a potion of invisibility to slip by the the little gobbos, and it's not like Whisper's concoction that was just his way of sayin you'd only be invisible if you took off all your clothes, just to laugh quietly at you walking through camp starkers.
Said her name was Ruby, but Red seems to work fine by her.
Knocked around something fierce, and the next thing I know is, I wake up with a fierce headache next to a pretty girl, standing in front of a god-botherer at an altar, wondering if I got married again.
No, turns out she dragged me to Beregost for patching up. She saved one of the little goblins for me to take care of. Gave me a potion of invisibility to slip by the the little gobbos, and it's not like Whisper's concoction that was just his way of sayin you'd only be invisible if you took off all your clothes, just to laugh quietly at you walking through camp starkers.
Said her name was Ruby, but Red seems to work fine by her.
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Mooj
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On the possibility of starting a new Company
One-eye is discussing the possibility of starting a mercenary Company, looking for early adopters to lend strong arms to caravaneers or some such. Merchants aren't a bad lot to work for in times of war, seeing as how those are a seller's market, but peace-times is more lean and meager, turning them into skinflints.
He sees me and Mustache and Red as prospective buy-ins for his ventures, and I'm considering it. War being my trade and all, I'm looking for business.
Have the contract with the other one to consider, though. Maybe I'll bring them on board. Don't rightly know how many would want to work for the diseased man though, on account of the fear.
Feh.
War and disease walk hand in hand, cuddling each other at night for warmth.
He sees me and Mustache and Red as prospective buy-ins for his ventures, and I'm considering it. War being my trade and all, I'm looking for business.
Have the contract with the other one to consider, though. Maybe I'll bring them on board. Don't rightly know how many would want to work for the diseased man though, on account of the fear.
Feh.
War and disease walk hand in hand, cuddling each other at night for warmth.
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Mooj
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:45 pm
Introducing myself, my Company, and more on the plague-man and my motivations for conducting trade with him
I suppose I should be fitting to introduce myself, on account of you're reading my journal, and I on account of I promised to speak more of my dealings with the diseased greensleeves.
My name's not important, being the one my ma and dad gave me in the village. Most folk call me Croaker, and I'm not even sure those that don't are still breathing. Haven't seen the blood family in decades.
I was born in a fen on the outskirts of Rethild. If you don't know where that is, being westerners most likely to fish these pistles to myself out of the dirt, find yourself the Sea of Fallen Stars and head straight south until you hit the external waters of the Great Sea. If you find yourself sinking in swamp water surrounded by lizard-folk, you've found The "Great" Swamp of Rethild, though I'm not fit to know what's so great about it, beyond its size.
The human-folk -- and me being one of them -- had a cold but cordial alliance of sorts with the lizards. Being that they were the populace of majority in the swamp, it was natural to exist in symbiosis with them. They assisted us with food in lean and hungry times (which, if you know lizard-folk, is saying much on account of how they covet their gullets and what goes in them) and in the security of our persons in general. In trade, which was much for them on account of the size of the swamp given them a nation within a nation, we assisted back, and their leaders saw this as a good arrangement, given that the baubles they found were much useless to them, but of interest to what folk might wander over from Dambrath or Halruaa -- Halruaa being a touch closer but impeded by mountains. Arcanists and other mystical sorts were particularly taken with artefacts what got preserved in the peat over the passing of the years, and those baubles were less than useless to the lizards, useless to the men-folk of the village, but of intense interest to the scholarly sort.
And so the arrangements were good.
Now, my dad, you would think he had been bit by something rabid, which was difficult on account of how rabies doesn't effect the cold-blooded that call the swamp home. He was a violent man, though not prone to drink or dice. Just a mean streak to him. He raised his voice and his fists to me and my brothers and my ma, until he did it one time to many and my ma raised a crossbow in kind.
He was given to the peat, and nobody in the village much mourned him, on account of small places have big talk, and they knew the man that brought three boys into the world, and that the three of us was better men than him, and my ma a finer woman.
But it showed me that living with the fen-folk for the rest of my days was something I might be fit to be allergic to, and that allergy set my feet to itch.
Now the lizards, they had a fine Company of mercenaries: The Servants of the Royal Egg. They were owned and operated by Ghassis, the Lizard King of Rethild, and the one that kept the lizard-folk treating with us in trade, on account of the same mercantile mind that had him send his scaled kin campaigning. Rumours have it that Lizard Kings are part fiend, in the way pit-folk mate with skin-folk, they might also mate with scale-folk, and that sent the fiend part of Ghassis' mind to thinking of greater things than foraging and hunting in the swamp.
They had a fine reputation too, the Servants, on account of folk would come back to buy them every time.
Now, I wasn't fit to be joining them, but it did set me up that if I found a similar Company of warm-blooded folk, I might get out of the swamp. And on account of fen-folk being as hard-skinned as we are warm-blooded, I might also fit right in.
And so on the topic of the temperature of blood, if I might afford myself the digression: Folk are scared of the cold-blooded lizards on account of them looking draconic, but that cold blood means they aren't fit, as I mentioned, to be rabid. Curl up next to them at night or cuss them out and they won't anger, but touch their dinner and they'll take your head off and go back to eating as if nothing happened.
The Servants didn't see fit to take me in, but they also didn't see fit to shoo me away when they marched out with I in their luggage-train, on account of that laconic temperament.
I being to young to remember our direction, and never much of an orienteer before my time with the Company, could not tell you which direction we originally headed, but when we arrived in some-place-or-other (being that my mind, then soft as the peat I was raised with, also did not know my maps), I found that the regal lot what had hired the Servants had also hired another company, this one of men and elves and dwarves.
They called themselves The Foundling Company, on account of each person what signed up took on a new name and let go of their old one and their past, as if orphaned babes found under the cypress trees, to be suckled at Tempus' teat.
Such a mentality attracted a rough lot of people feeling hard-scrabble lives or the sentences of horrendous crimes. They told me the Foundling Company was not the original name of their band, but that the true name and the deeds which was associated with it were lost to time. Which is fit and appropriate, I suppose.
I signed on not out of any particular choice of reputation of theirs above another's, but on account of riding with the luggage would only take me so far.
They called me Croaker, given that things in the swamp croak. The name stuck on account of it turned out I was pretty handy at making men croak, too. And by that I mean die.
I learned then my orienteering, and my drill, and the discipline that my dad's home never quite had, given that tyrants like he are often mummers putting on a play, dressing their chaos up in costumes and calling it order. I learned to navigate by stars and by land, and took to the constellations and maps and the sand tables. I was given a helmet and a breast plate and a crossbow, on account of crossbows being popular in the fen and me not needing to learn it. I could have easily gone into the halberd formation, though I did not.
Over the passing of seasons, I distinguished myself, and it was shown by my actions that fen-folk are adept at moving quick, travelling light, and being adaptable, and so I was made not only a corporal, but pulled off the crossbowmen and given over to the skirmisher's cohort. They were an irregular lot -- and still were when I was their Sergeant -- that would harass the enemy before the main force engaged, the van and the center and the flanks and the crossbows and the engines and the gods-damned wizards raining hellfire from above.
In so far as skirmishing went, that was only half our duties, and we took the name of skirmishers only because when the battle was joined, we would do all we could to find the weak parts and harass them until a rout was achieved. But in so far as our other duties, on campaign we ranged, scouted, harassed outside the battle, infiltrated, and generally took to the notion that wars are best won when they're won strategically, tactically, and logistically, bringing all three together for the fight. And so we'd slip away from camp in the night, our scouts taking us to the grain stores of the enemy, by way of example, and we'd have small scale battles and then sabotage their food, and if the going got too rough our wizards might conjure an illusion of a bigger fighting force to frighten off the defences.
When Gem, the old Sergeant, bit it (in bed, no less, on account of some sickness), the Captain and the lieutenants saw that I'd learned my letters and figures, and had taken to the common tongues of dwarves and elves as readily as that of men, and that I'd had a certain inspiration for my men in the field, and put forward my name for promotion.
The way promotion worked is, the officers would select you for one, but unlike in the Regulars, the others could dispute this. So there was no nominating the lower-ranked favourites (on account of them not necessarily being able to recognize what merited promotion), but there was no putting in charge somebody the men felt no confidence in, either. But there were no disputations, and the men trusted me, so I became Sergeant Croaker of the Company's skirmisher cohort.
That was right around the time Laugher joined us; we were in Amn.
Over time we campaigned in Amn, and Thay for the tyrants there (and where I fell enamoured with the khopesh and its versatility, being a slashing, hooking, and bludgeoning weapon that lent us flexibility while lightening our load), and Icewind Dale, and countless others.
We fought for whoever would pay. People would call us villainous, on account of our dealings with places like Thay, but the questions of goodness and law always came down to, "Whose goodness? Whose law?" We kept order, and even when we campaigned internally for the Red ones, we were civil, and the servile populace was kept in check as much for their own well-being as for those of the tyrants what called them chattel. Were they free? No. But they were alive. And I've seen strong-backed slaves what wished for the freedom of the starving farmer and the starving farmer what wished for the full belly of a strong-backed slave kept strong for work.
Folk'll always want what they don't have and ignore when their needs is filled, be it choice or food or goods, but they lived, and survived, and kept casualties to a minimum, for the kind that pillage and loot don't fit well in a Company as disciplined and orderly as ours, and whether in garrison or campaign, we weren't the sort to meddle with women that didn't want to be meddled with or leave old men lying in the gutter for sport. We had jobs to do, and we did them.
It was in Icewind Dale that a change came over the Captain, where he started talking of flaying and the pain lady what would make even experienced campaigners feel light in the head and queasy in the stomach, and most of us did, excepting five other officers: Our elven quartermaster, Dog-face, and four lieutenants, Castle of the vanguard, Hog Back from the left flank, Tall Yon from the crossbows, and Widow from the wizards.
It was only over the course of days, but the change that came over the camp was palpable. We figured the Captain might be taking the piss at first, or adopting strange northern customs in a way so's to win hearts and minds, but when it continued, it was clear that something was off and frightful infectious.
When we awoke from our drunken revelries, me and Laugher and Whisper, and found the camp, it was sights unseen even in war. No soldier deserved to die like that. Hells, not even the most cowardly swayback man like my father deserved to go like that.
And so we come back right round to the present, nearly.
For when I was making my ways south, I moved my jaw frequently -- more so than normal -- on account of not talking about it set my teeth to chattering, and made me question my own mind. When I spoke of pain and flaying, most folks thought the Six had gone over to Loviatar, but something never stuck right in my craw about that, given that they were never fixing to be mutilating themselves like the Loviatans do, no self-flagellation or walking on ground glass. Just an obsession with it, to a strange degree.
And I happened upon this elderly wizarding sort, who was touched in the way where magics and age is the ingredients for that recipe (you know the kind), who told me of a different pain lady. She lives in the in-between of the in-between, some place of doors where all the other places meet, and has dominion in that place, and the things that didn't make sense about the Captain going over to the Whip finally clicked into place. Some other mistress of pain, maybe? But I couldn't make much sense of the words falling out of his mouth, on account of the age and the wizardry.
So when that greensleeves what's given over his service in favour of pestilence started talking about going to a different place to face that Drow she-god, in so far as there's any truth to that and his mind isn't as riddled with disease as his body, slipping out of the in-betweens, it got me to thinking. I didn't do it for the diamond, shiny and paid-up-front though it was.
With a little work for him soldiering, scouting the ruins of Triel as he asked, could I get the fella to drop be off in the in-between of in-betweens, that place of doors, and find the pain bitch and get the dying I'm owed?
Plague man's going to do what he does, spreading pox where he goes, suppurating where his touch graces. Of that I've no control. If I've no hand in turning Triel to suffering, somebody else will, with or without me, and those folks will molder from sickness either way.
But if I control it, well then I can manage the Company special of minimizing casualties, and eventually turn the pay away from gemstones and trinkets in turn for information and other valuables, like a lift to another side.
On the whole, I'd say I'd still be balancing the scales for the better, despite what the folk around the Gate would think, though their slurs against my character on account of my dubious alliance are slim difference from the calumnies I've endured on account of my other dealings with those who have the mind to make war and have famine and disease walk with it.
So if I fall in this, then remember that my ways weren't wholly backwards, but motivated by things greater than myself, being loyalty to my adopted family.
My name's not important, being the one my ma and dad gave me in the village. Most folk call me Croaker, and I'm not even sure those that don't are still breathing. Haven't seen the blood family in decades.
I was born in a fen on the outskirts of Rethild. If you don't know where that is, being westerners most likely to fish these pistles to myself out of the dirt, find yourself the Sea of Fallen Stars and head straight south until you hit the external waters of the Great Sea. If you find yourself sinking in swamp water surrounded by lizard-folk, you've found The "Great" Swamp of Rethild, though I'm not fit to know what's so great about it, beyond its size.
The human-folk -- and me being one of them -- had a cold but cordial alliance of sorts with the lizards. Being that they were the populace of majority in the swamp, it was natural to exist in symbiosis with them. They assisted us with food in lean and hungry times (which, if you know lizard-folk, is saying much on account of how they covet their gullets and what goes in them) and in the security of our persons in general. In trade, which was much for them on account of the size of the swamp given them a nation within a nation, we assisted back, and their leaders saw this as a good arrangement, given that the baubles they found were much useless to them, but of interest to what folk might wander over from Dambrath or Halruaa -- Halruaa being a touch closer but impeded by mountains. Arcanists and other mystical sorts were particularly taken with artefacts what got preserved in the peat over the passing of the years, and those baubles were less than useless to the lizards, useless to the men-folk of the village, but of intense interest to the scholarly sort.
And so the arrangements were good.
Now, my dad, you would think he had been bit by something rabid, which was difficult on account of how rabies doesn't effect the cold-blooded that call the swamp home. He was a violent man, though not prone to drink or dice. Just a mean streak to him. He raised his voice and his fists to me and my brothers and my ma, until he did it one time to many and my ma raised a crossbow in kind.
He was given to the peat, and nobody in the village much mourned him, on account of small places have big talk, and they knew the man that brought three boys into the world, and that the three of us was better men than him, and my ma a finer woman.
But it showed me that living with the fen-folk for the rest of my days was something I might be fit to be allergic to, and that allergy set my feet to itch.
Now the lizards, they had a fine Company of mercenaries: The Servants of the Royal Egg. They were owned and operated by Ghassis, the Lizard King of Rethild, and the one that kept the lizard-folk treating with us in trade, on account of the same mercantile mind that had him send his scaled kin campaigning. Rumours have it that Lizard Kings are part fiend, in the way pit-folk mate with skin-folk, they might also mate with scale-folk, and that sent the fiend part of Ghassis' mind to thinking of greater things than foraging and hunting in the swamp.
They had a fine reputation too, the Servants, on account of folk would come back to buy them every time.
Now, I wasn't fit to be joining them, but it did set me up that if I found a similar Company of warm-blooded folk, I might get out of the swamp. And on account of fen-folk being as hard-skinned as we are warm-blooded, I might also fit right in.
And so on the topic of the temperature of blood, if I might afford myself the digression: Folk are scared of the cold-blooded lizards on account of them looking draconic, but that cold blood means they aren't fit, as I mentioned, to be rabid. Curl up next to them at night or cuss them out and they won't anger, but touch their dinner and they'll take your head off and go back to eating as if nothing happened.
The Servants didn't see fit to take me in, but they also didn't see fit to shoo me away when they marched out with I in their luggage-train, on account of that laconic temperament.
I being to young to remember our direction, and never much of an orienteer before my time with the Company, could not tell you which direction we originally headed, but when we arrived in some-place-or-other (being that my mind, then soft as the peat I was raised with, also did not know my maps), I found that the regal lot what had hired the Servants had also hired another company, this one of men and elves and dwarves.
They called themselves The Foundling Company, on account of each person what signed up took on a new name and let go of their old one and their past, as if orphaned babes found under the cypress trees, to be suckled at Tempus' teat.
Such a mentality attracted a rough lot of people feeling hard-scrabble lives or the sentences of horrendous crimes. They told me the Foundling Company was not the original name of their band, but that the true name and the deeds which was associated with it were lost to time. Which is fit and appropriate, I suppose.
I signed on not out of any particular choice of reputation of theirs above another's, but on account of riding with the luggage would only take me so far.
They called me Croaker, given that things in the swamp croak. The name stuck on account of it turned out I was pretty handy at making men croak, too. And by that I mean die.
I learned then my orienteering, and my drill, and the discipline that my dad's home never quite had, given that tyrants like he are often mummers putting on a play, dressing their chaos up in costumes and calling it order. I learned to navigate by stars and by land, and took to the constellations and maps and the sand tables. I was given a helmet and a breast plate and a crossbow, on account of crossbows being popular in the fen and me not needing to learn it. I could have easily gone into the halberd formation, though I did not.
Over the passing of seasons, I distinguished myself, and it was shown by my actions that fen-folk are adept at moving quick, travelling light, and being adaptable, and so I was made not only a corporal, but pulled off the crossbowmen and given over to the skirmisher's cohort. They were an irregular lot -- and still were when I was their Sergeant -- that would harass the enemy before the main force engaged, the van and the center and the flanks and the crossbows and the engines and the gods-damned wizards raining hellfire from above.
In so far as skirmishing went, that was only half our duties, and we took the name of skirmishers only because when the battle was joined, we would do all we could to find the weak parts and harass them until a rout was achieved. But in so far as our other duties, on campaign we ranged, scouted, harassed outside the battle, infiltrated, and generally took to the notion that wars are best won when they're won strategically, tactically, and logistically, bringing all three together for the fight. And so we'd slip away from camp in the night, our scouts taking us to the grain stores of the enemy, by way of example, and we'd have small scale battles and then sabotage their food, and if the going got too rough our wizards might conjure an illusion of a bigger fighting force to frighten off the defences.
When Gem, the old Sergeant, bit it (in bed, no less, on account of some sickness), the Captain and the lieutenants saw that I'd learned my letters and figures, and had taken to the common tongues of dwarves and elves as readily as that of men, and that I'd had a certain inspiration for my men in the field, and put forward my name for promotion.
The way promotion worked is, the officers would select you for one, but unlike in the Regulars, the others could dispute this. So there was no nominating the lower-ranked favourites (on account of them not necessarily being able to recognize what merited promotion), but there was no putting in charge somebody the men felt no confidence in, either. But there were no disputations, and the men trusted me, so I became Sergeant Croaker of the Company's skirmisher cohort.
That was right around the time Laugher joined us; we were in Amn.
Over time we campaigned in Amn, and Thay for the tyrants there (and where I fell enamoured with the khopesh and its versatility, being a slashing, hooking, and bludgeoning weapon that lent us flexibility while lightening our load), and Icewind Dale, and countless others.
We fought for whoever would pay. People would call us villainous, on account of our dealings with places like Thay, but the questions of goodness and law always came down to, "Whose goodness? Whose law?" We kept order, and even when we campaigned internally for the Red ones, we were civil, and the servile populace was kept in check as much for their own well-being as for those of the tyrants what called them chattel. Were they free? No. But they were alive. And I've seen strong-backed slaves what wished for the freedom of the starving farmer and the starving farmer what wished for the full belly of a strong-backed slave kept strong for work.
Folk'll always want what they don't have and ignore when their needs is filled, be it choice or food or goods, but they lived, and survived, and kept casualties to a minimum, for the kind that pillage and loot don't fit well in a Company as disciplined and orderly as ours, and whether in garrison or campaign, we weren't the sort to meddle with women that didn't want to be meddled with or leave old men lying in the gutter for sport. We had jobs to do, and we did them.
It was in Icewind Dale that a change came over the Captain, where he started talking of flaying and the pain lady what would make even experienced campaigners feel light in the head and queasy in the stomach, and most of us did, excepting five other officers: Our elven quartermaster, Dog-face, and four lieutenants, Castle of the vanguard, Hog Back from the left flank, Tall Yon from the crossbows, and Widow from the wizards.
It was only over the course of days, but the change that came over the camp was palpable. We figured the Captain might be taking the piss at first, or adopting strange northern customs in a way so's to win hearts and minds, but when it continued, it was clear that something was off and frightful infectious.
When we awoke from our drunken revelries, me and Laugher and Whisper, and found the camp, it was sights unseen even in war. No soldier deserved to die like that. Hells, not even the most cowardly swayback man like my father deserved to go like that.
And so we come back right round to the present, nearly.
For when I was making my ways south, I moved my jaw frequently -- more so than normal -- on account of not talking about it set my teeth to chattering, and made me question my own mind. When I spoke of pain and flaying, most folks thought the Six had gone over to Loviatar, but something never stuck right in my craw about that, given that they were never fixing to be mutilating themselves like the Loviatans do, no self-flagellation or walking on ground glass. Just an obsession with it, to a strange degree.
And I happened upon this elderly wizarding sort, who was touched in the way where magics and age is the ingredients for that recipe (you know the kind), who told me of a different pain lady. She lives in the in-between of the in-between, some place of doors where all the other places meet, and has dominion in that place, and the things that didn't make sense about the Captain going over to the Whip finally clicked into place. Some other mistress of pain, maybe? But I couldn't make much sense of the words falling out of his mouth, on account of the age and the wizardry.
So when that greensleeves what's given over his service in favour of pestilence started talking about going to a different place to face that Drow she-god, in so far as there's any truth to that and his mind isn't as riddled with disease as his body, slipping out of the in-betweens, it got me to thinking. I didn't do it for the diamond, shiny and paid-up-front though it was.
With a little work for him soldiering, scouting the ruins of Triel as he asked, could I get the fella to drop be off in the in-between of in-betweens, that place of doors, and find the pain bitch and get the dying I'm owed?
Plague man's going to do what he does, spreading pox where he goes, suppurating where his touch graces. Of that I've no control. If I've no hand in turning Triel to suffering, somebody else will, with or without me, and those folks will molder from sickness either way.
But if I control it, well then I can manage the Company special of minimizing casualties, and eventually turn the pay away from gemstones and trinkets in turn for information and other valuables, like a lift to another side.
On the whole, I'd say I'd still be balancing the scales for the better, despite what the folk around the Gate would think, though their slurs against my character on account of my dubious alliance are slim difference from the calumnies I've endured on account of my other dealings with those who have the mind to make war and have famine and disease walk with it.
So if I fall in this, then remember that my ways weren't wholly backwards, but motivated by things greater than myself, being loyalty to my adopted family.
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Mooj
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:45 pm
On Patch and the druid and an ornery tavern-owner
I made propositions to Patch to assist me in the endeavours around Triel, seeing as how he spoke of warring for mercantile ends before.
He seems to fancy his self a Paladin, on account of going all frothy at the mere suggestion of actually making money off of fighting, you know, being what he proposed doing.
I saw fit to remind him that the god-botherers will never forget the tail no matter how hard he tries, and mercenary folk don't do well fixing to be saints at the same time.
I tried to make this proposition in what I assumed was a den of prostitution at the harbour, given its trappings and airs of pageantry, being the kind of place Mustache might see fit to lighten his load. Those that make soft whisperings into the pillow know to keep secrets, on account of what's often murmured in the throes of passion.
It turns the place is owned by one Fingal Darius, who saw me shouting at the bard in the street who's there day and night, playing the same song, to get a real job. Fingal says he might move up to playing inns, which would be a real job, wouldn't it? Except the man's moving nowhere except to pivot around his empty bucket, on account of nobody's going to pay you to play the same songs again and again.
I shouted at him that I'd been kicked out of better places, and worse ones too, and that he should sink so low to call his den of iniquity a fine establishment offends the mind.
He seems to fancy his self a Paladin, on account of going all frothy at the mere suggestion of actually making money off of fighting, you know, being what he proposed doing.
I saw fit to remind him that the god-botherers will never forget the tail no matter how hard he tries, and mercenary folk don't do well fixing to be saints at the same time.
I tried to make this proposition in what I assumed was a den of prostitution at the harbour, given its trappings and airs of pageantry, being the kind of place Mustache might see fit to lighten his load. Those that make soft whisperings into the pillow know to keep secrets, on account of what's often murmured in the throes of passion.
It turns the place is owned by one Fingal Darius, who saw me shouting at the bard in the street who's there day and night, playing the same song, to get a real job. Fingal says he might move up to playing inns, which would be a real job, wouldn't it? Except the man's moving nowhere except to pivot around his empty bucket, on account of nobody's going to pay you to play the same songs again and again.
I shouted at him that I'd been kicked out of better places, and worse ones too, and that he should sink so low to call his den of iniquity a fine establishment offends the mind.
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Mooj
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:45 pm
On a wizard so-named Bubbles
I was practicing my skills on Wyverns in the company of Red, the wizard Bubbles (on account of the bubble he wraps himself in to magically shield his self), and Dog (on account of the fact he was like a dog with a bone on going to the mines outside Nashkel, the one where the Duergar call home, and which Red felt was distinctly unsafe).
Bubbles was asking questions of pasts, as the mystics do, given their natural proclivities for all curiosities arcane and mundane. And first he asked Red as we sat 'round the campfire, and there she shared some of the story of her past, and what brought her to call the Sword Coast home.
Eventually his attentions turned to me, and he asked his questions, starting with the most obvious ("by adopting the style of hair of Ari Thrice-Redeemed, a dwarf I served with," I told him in answer) to those less so ("on account of coming from a fen, and then by way of making men croak," was the next answer), until eventually the questions turned to those not readily apparent to the eye or ear, and he asked of my past.
And so I shared the story of the campaign in Icewind Dale, and its gruesome end, and my Captain's love of the pain lady, and Bubbles went an ashen colour, all silent and still, and offered to speak more of it with me, but at a later date, and not in present company.
And so we conferred later in Nashkel, having leased a room at the inn for the night, where he told me of the City of Doors and the Lady of Pain what rules it. Once I heard Sigil, I knew then this was the information I sought, for the old daft wizard what I discussed the issue with on my way south to Baldur's Gate made mention of the same word, and I thought it was nothing but reference to a mark or seal that one might identify companies mercantile or mercenary with, and not to a place, and certainly not to a place not of this place.
Regardless of such scraps of information that take the churning of time to click into place, I have confidence that he speaks the truth, for I'd heard that name before (though not realized it), and told him nothing of what the old mad wizard had rambled about, yet they were of two minds and their details coincided, the one with the other.
And so I listened to Bubbles' theory on the origin of my Captain's dementations on suffering, his theory being that this place what is the in-between of in-betweens attracts all sorts, for the heavens and the hells, the celestials and the pits, and some cruel fiend, peeking from here to there, saw fit to show my Captain visions of this place and its strange empress, driving him mad with invitations.
Such a place, though I did not say, would appeal to the office of the Captaincy, for from there a man of a mind for war could campaign wherever he pleased, opening a door to assault our world, or the world next-over, and become quite the band of mercenaries for it.
But the Captain likely did not know this, for Bubbles said that finding a way to such a place, or from that place, was trickier than one would think, being all doors and portals. But Bubbles was of a mind to, since he was from there (whether native or passing through, he did not elaborate), and sought his own answers, and I told him we were of a singular mind, then, and our goals were aligned. He said it was dangerous, but I said I was owed a dying, either there or in the effort, and to that mutual purpose we should steel ourselves, and besides which if it's more dangerous than this place of wyverns and duergar and one-eyed tieflings flitting about, why make the effort of returning, to which he had no answer but deferral to my reasoning, and the compact between us was made.
And for that I may have no further use of the plague man, and the threat he may pose to the folks what have taken a tired, old war-dog into their fold.
Bubbles was asking questions of pasts, as the mystics do, given their natural proclivities for all curiosities arcane and mundane. And first he asked Red as we sat 'round the campfire, and there she shared some of the story of her past, and what brought her to call the Sword Coast home.
Eventually his attentions turned to me, and he asked his questions, starting with the most obvious ("by adopting the style of hair of Ari Thrice-Redeemed, a dwarf I served with," I told him in answer) to those less so ("on account of coming from a fen, and then by way of making men croak," was the next answer), until eventually the questions turned to those not readily apparent to the eye or ear, and he asked of my past.
And so I shared the story of the campaign in Icewind Dale, and its gruesome end, and my Captain's love of the pain lady, and Bubbles went an ashen colour, all silent and still, and offered to speak more of it with me, but at a later date, and not in present company.
And so we conferred later in Nashkel, having leased a room at the inn for the night, where he told me of the City of Doors and the Lady of Pain what rules it. Once I heard Sigil, I knew then this was the information I sought, for the old daft wizard what I discussed the issue with on my way south to Baldur's Gate made mention of the same word, and I thought it was nothing but reference to a mark or seal that one might identify companies mercantile or mercenary with, and not to a place, and certainly not to a place not of this place.
Regardless of such scraps of information that take the churning of time to click into place, I have confidence that he speaks the truth, for I'd heard that name before (though not realized it), and told him nothing of what the old mad wizard had rambled about, yet they were of two minds and their details coincided, the one with the other.
And so I listened to Bubbles' theory on the origin of my Captain's dementations on suffering, his theory being that this place what is the in-between of in-betweens attracts all sorts, for the heavens and the hells, the celestials and the pits, and some cruel fiend, peeking from here to there, saw fit to show my Captain visions of this place and its strange empress, driving him mad with invitations.
Such a place, though I did not say, would appeal to the office of the Captaincy, for from there a man of a mind for war could campaign wherever he pleased, opening a door to assault our world, or the world next-over, and become quite the band of mercenaries for it.
But the Captain likely did not know this, for Bubbles said that finding a way to such a place, or from that place, was trickier than one would think, being all doors and portals. But Bubbles was of a mind to, since he was from there (whether native or passing through, he did not elaborate), and sought his own answers, and I told him we were of a singular mind, then, and our goals were aligned. He said it was dangerous, but I said I was owed a dying, either there or in the effort, and to that mutual purpose we should steel ourselves, and besides which if it's more dangerous than this place of wyverns and duergar and one-eyed tieflings flitting about, why make the effort of returning, to which he had no answer but deferral to my reasoning, and the compact between us was made.
And for that I may have no further use of the plague man, and the threat he may pose to the folks what have taken a tired, old war-dog into their fold.