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Tariq of the Kaldun Ma­jid Chris Wal­trip cwal­trip@g­mail.­com

Fight­er, Cousin of Djinn

Kaldun Majid:

This mil­i­taris­tic clan has been heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by Fist. Many of their mem­bers have moved to Qa­trun cities. Their war­riors serve as scouts and mer­cha­nar amoung the armies of Fist. They live by hunt­ing, herd­ing, and raid­ing oth­er clan­s.

Their trib­al garb in­cludes a red tur­ban with black trim.

Pregame:

Trav­eled with cousin west through the Ma’Basht mtn pass to the trade city of Kah­ta(­many Babrem, Hu­mans of the Old King­dom, oth­er peo­ples. It was once a province/­colony of the Old King­dom). From there got pas­sage with a “fleet” of three Dar­sian trade ships go­ing south along the coast to Pa­trae and Beroea(both Pelosian Em­pire con­trolled).

Along the way one of the ships was lost to Ut­bah(or­c) pi­rate raider­s. Your and your cous­in’s bows great­ly aid­ed the es­cape of the oth­er two ves­sel­s. In thanks cap­tain, Ti­ta Vopis­ca, of your ship, the “Laugh­ing Siren”, said that to find the beasts you hunt as well as ad­ven­ture and fame you must “get to the fron­tier”. These days Scu­pi province(a colony of Pe­ols Mi­nor) is the place to go. On­ly trad­ing North-­South be­tween Dar­sis and Beroea she could­n’t take you there. In­stead she helped you find a ship in Beroea go­ing that way(which is un­com­mon) and con­vince the Pelosian cap­tain/crew that there are ad­van­tages to hav­ing bar­bar­ians from the Dune Seas on board.

Killing time wait­ing for the ship to be load­ed you run in­to a Babrem from the Thukiri tribe(­guardians of the oa­sis­es across the Dune Seas). Stunned and hap­py to find some­one from “home” you tell him of your trip and plans to con­tin­ue to­wards Scu­pi. He asks to to come along and it would be an in­sult to refuse. He spends much time med­i­tat­ing or pray­ing and in­ter­acts rarely with any­one.

The trip was un­event­ful. Af­ter ar­riv­ing you wast­ed no time leav­ing the claus­tro­pho­bic caves of Scu­pi. Tar­ry­ing on­ly long enough to buy camel­s, sup­plies and find a car­a­van head­ing east to Sil­ver­town. Around cook­ing fires the first cou­ple days you heard old min­er’s tales of a ter­ri­ble beast that lives in stone and eats met­als and gem­s. Al­so de­scrip­tions of crea­tures nev­er hunt­ed or even heard of in the Dune Seas; Ash­wor­m, Gi­ant Desert Tor­tois­es, and the fa­bled Sphinx. The last caused ridicule of the the Ka’im who men­tioned it as the oth­ers know it’s noth­ing but a myth used to scare chil­dren in­to be­hav­ing.

1st session “Deadly Desert part1”

The car­a­van is es­cort­ed by nine Pelosian sol­diers on hors­es who are dressed in black with sandy yel­low cloaks and black and yel­low crest­ed hel­met­s. You are more com­fort­able around the Ka’im(orc­s) la­bor­ers than the elit­ist and sneer­ing Pelosian­s. Still you and your cousin keep most­ly to your­selves.

Trav­el is fast at first along a road of stone the likes of which you have nev­er seen. Ear­ly the 4th night you pass a large crew of Pelosian and Ka’im build­ing the road. Be­yond this the bare­ly vis­i­ble track is rough and filled with stones. The car­a­van’s speed is cut in half. Late on the 7th night the car­a­van is am­bushed by ??? You nev­er see the at­tack­er­s.

You are tracked and at­tacked by “sand hunter­s”, some sort of pack car­ni­vore. Vi­cious on the at­tack but eas­i­ly killed or driv­en away. The Thukiri (Qazir) plucks out one of their eye­balls and eats it.

2nd session “Deadly Desert part2”

You stum­ble on a “forest” of limb­less, leaf­less, trees made of stone. Many of which are top­pled and bro­ken. You did­n’t have time to fig­ure out if they had been carved or were the re­sult of some sor­cery be­fore be­ing am­bushed by hye­na men. You are bad­ly in­jured and ex­pect to be re­claimed by the sand­s.

Then you have a bizarre dream. All the peo­ple you’ve been lead­ing across the wasts are there, in some sort of oa­sis. The ground is cov­ered with green grass and sur­round­ed by tall leafy wood­s. The oa­sis was crawl­ing with Pelosian­s, fly­ing, ap­pear­ing out of nowhere, and per­form­ing oth­er foul ar­cane act­s(­Fist/Babrem are slight­ly against ar­cane mag­ic). Stranger still were the many mag­i­cal beasts and con­structs fly­ing, crawl­ing, rolling and walk­ing ev­ery­where.

In­ex­plic­i­ty you can now read the words carved in­to the pil­lars of this build­ing. Al­though lit­tle of it is more than non­sense. Af­ter solv­ing the rid­dles a hu­man(a Pelosian?) dressed in un­usu­al green cloths (like noth­ing you have heard of, pants, shirt, many pock­et­s) ap­pears*, looks at each of you and then says “Don’t open the Flakarg, argh! The seal, don’t open the seal.” Then looks over his shoul­der and dis­ap­pears. [* he does­n’t ac­tu­al­ly ap­pear, he’s sort of glow­ing and a bit trans­par­en­t. It’s what you al­ways thought the Stat­ue of Light that the Fist and your cousin are al­ways talk­ing about would look like. Hlark god of Fist ap­peared long ago as a stat­ue of light and told the Qa­trun the law,­science,etc of Hlark]

You awake to find your­self ful­ly healed but sur­round­ed by Pelosian sol­diers dressed like the car­a­van guard­s. They de­mand your sur­ren­der. The man­a­cles the clamp on your wrists are en­chant­ed to pre­vent you from talk­ing or see­ing, but you can hear. Trans­port­ed on horse back for two and half days to some camp or town. Af­ter spend­ing the night the next day you trav­el by wag­on to what sounds like a large town.

<to be con­tin­ued>