[PBEM News] The Chronicles of Mystara

From: steven.f.carter@gmail-dot-com.no-spam.invalid (CelticHeretic)

Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:55:24 +0000

Details, details:
1) 3.0e or 3.5e characters created with PCGen using SRD. It's free and
its easy.
2) Core classes and races only.
3) Halfings must be Tolkien-esque, not suicidally inquisitive Kender
(shudders at flashbacks) or benignly obnoxious Realms halflings.
4) No drow.  Ever. (damn flashbacks!)
5) Have 2 experienced players from IRL campaigns. Need 1 player.  Can
take up to 4.
6) Reply to steven[dot]f[dot]carter[at]gmail[dot]com with your old
school experience.
7) This is a house-modified setting. 99% true to published matter.
Don't be offended when the GM strays from canonicity.
8) Violence and language on a par with network TV.

By way of introduction here's the opening scene.

It is on this warm spring afternoon that a solemn column marches
through town.  One of the Traladar forestmen at the table comments
under his breath, "The Company'll be a lookin' fer new blood to
replace thems they lost."

More than twenty heavily armed and armoured knights bearing the
standard and device of what the little town of Threshold calls the
Company march slowly down the street.  The knights are accompanied by
skirmishers, irregulars an assortment of shield bearers, footmen and
squires. Amongst their number are humans, dwarves, elves, a single
gnome, two or three halflings and one unfortunate with a clearly
humanoid burdensome heritage.

"My son! My son! Thyatian trash, where is my son?"  The wails of
dismay come from a frumpy goodwife as she shuffles hurriedly from the
baker's stall up the street from your table at the Thyatian-style inn.
 The woman's tear-filled eyes are locked on the bodies slung across
the backs of the knights' horses.

With great care and consideration a muscular man dressed in green and
brown lifts a slight body from a mount.  A lovely, fair-haired maiden
in a clerical cowl kneels before the woman and begins to chant a
prayer as the mother falls to her own knees shrieking in despair.

Three men of the town and a monk of the Five Patrons of the Church
move out of the crowd to gather the body.  The beautiful holy sister
reaches out to lift the despairing mother from the cobbles. Suddenly
the old woman turns on her screaming, "Whore! Whore! Whore!"
fingernails scratching three bloody lines down the sister's left
cheek before being dragged away sobbing by the menfolk.  The blond
cleric ignores the bleeding gouges and passes a purse to the monk.
They bow slightly and she turns to her company, tears streaking the
dirt on her face.

"By the Immortals," begins the hue and cry.  "What gives you the right
to take our children, our young brothers and sons, and cast them into
the lion's dens in which you ply your bloody trade?"

Another calls out, "No more innocent blood!"

The two warriors at the head of the column, knight-commanders by their
devices and old veterans of many campaigns well into their 40s  scowl
darkly at the crowds.  Across the street from your table a knot of
children begin to pick up pebbles from the cobble.

"Well," cries a different, half-mocking voice.  The man, black hair,
mustachios, goatee and clothing, the very image of a Thyatian rake,
stands perched atop a hitching post with arms crossed. "What do you
have to show for it?  What have you bought with the blood of our
youth?"

Pointing he indicates the train of wagons in their convoy.  "They are
obviously loaded with treasure for the baron's and duke's coffers and
likely to swell your own purses as well. Why else would the dead be
tied across the backs of your mounts." Turning on the post he speaks
now to the crowd.  "I suppose we can only count ourselves fortunate
enough that you were gentlemen enough that you didn't force them to
walk back themselves in an... unnatural manner."

"How dare you?" Roaring from his perch atop the second wagon a dwarf
in full armour and the pentagram symbol of The Five rejoins the oily
Thyatian.  "How dare any of you cast aspersions on the Company.  Why
all of us have seen the Other Side," he says emphasizing their
experience with death and the crowd collectively, as if on cue, make
signs against death or clutch at holy or lucky symbols. "And we have
been there to save your ungrateful hides."

"Hold, hold," another, this time lilting, feminine voice calls above
the current of anger and outrage.  The auburn haired lass, the small
lute is quickly put down... did she play anything... you're not
certain... addresses the crowd, her voice carrying clearly.  "Noone,
not our friends", she gestures at the smirking Thyatian rake, "Not
these good citizens who have lost much as have we all," her arms
spread wide, "and not any of this company are interested in mere
words."

A murmur of agreement goes through the crowd as they wait
expectantly.

Triumphantly she cries, "What you want to see is this!" She hoists
aloft on the end of a long spear the leering, bloody head of a
giant.

Cheers erupt from the crowd as one by one members of the party erect
several other heads on spears and pikes, then the hacked and burned
remains of a great spherical beast with gaping maw and staring
cyclopic eye is revealed from beneath a bloody canvas.  Finally, to
the cheers of the crowd three lances erect the severed head of no
less than a great wyrm - a dragon.

The crowd roars in approval and the critics melt away into the teeming
throng.  The grizzled knights are less than pleased with the spectacle
let alone the handshakes, praise and congratulations. The man atop the
post leaps down and speaks with another member of the Company, an elf
bedecked in robes, but avoids the knights.

As the company begins to move again as if from nowhere a slender, pale
arm reaches between shoulders at your table and deposits eight
gleaming bronze tokens each bearing the standard worn by the
Company.

"We are the company of the Shield," speaks the hauntingly serene
alabaster face and cherry lips from beneath midnight black hair and a
summery orange-and-yellow silk cowl.  "Fortune, glory and a painful,
untimely end are on our path.  Come to us on the morrow's eve.  We
must rest, honour our own and prepare for whatever the Immortals have
in store for us next.  If you would seek, we have need."

She waits a moment, as though to invite a question.
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