File: 1681195825683704.png (1.45 MB, 1240x1754)

1.45 MB PNG

>>5707978
Well, not ‘nothing’, exactly. In his efforts to rid the capital of demoniac and reptilian influences, Sir Heinrich Yosef had found a worthy ally in ‘Long Wang’, an exorcist from the mysterious Far East, and together they seemed to make short work of the cults and cabals plaguing Hawksong. Deepvein and a practically-outcast named Chase had insisted that their party—and the Paladin order of Hawksong itself—should next turn their attentions to the happenings in Bloodrise… But Sir Yosef and Long Wang disagreed, considering the matter an internal matter for the dwarves, and the connections spurious. This had culminated in a bloody clash between the adventurers, during which their elven sage uncovered evidence that Deepvein and Chase were compromised, possessed, and were acting to sabotage the city and slay the royal family in order to weaken Hawksong for conquest by demonists from the heretical mage-kings of the ever-more-aggressive Southlands.

All attention quickly turned towards this matter. The Crown Prince, Alexos, traveled South to attend to the brewing hostilities directly, and to find a path to peace. Prince Rufos, who had worked with Yosef and Long Wang to expose the plot, rose in prominence and assigned Yosef to manage the city’s internal security. Long Wang, having proven himself a master of arts martial and mystical and a stalwart ally of the royal family, was granted the hand of Princess Ekaterine—the Paladin King’s own precious and beloved daughter. Things even quieted in Bloodrise, following what Prince Rufos and his new favourite advisors have taken tor referring to as a ‘worker’s revolt’. Things seemed to be returning to normal… To those who didn’t know better.

Sir Ewald of the Paladin Order, however, knows better.

File: reptoidqm_3chars_finish_nobg.png (1.08 MB, 2000x2000)

1.08 MB PNG

>>5707981
Ewald knows that Prince Alexos has not returned correspondence in over two months, just as he knows that the Crown Prince has not checked in with any paladin safehouses or allies along the roads to or from his destination on the southern border for many weeks.

He knows that, even while Prince Rufos and his pet ‘Green Knight’ Yosef claim to be routing cultists throughout Hawksong, his own agents report suspicious disappearances and evidence of profane rites… All of which the Paladin order, shining star of the shining city that is Hawksong, have been forbidden to investigate directly since Chase’s ‘fall from grace’.

Meanwhile, the shapeshifting lizard said to have been in the custody is gone without a trace-said to have ‘died in custody’, but without a body ever having been produced. That unsettling witch of a woman who became Archmage years ago—Henzler—allegedly ahs it in her custody, but has refused the requests of Ewald’s order to participate in the examination of the corpse or discussion of the findings of earlier interrogations… And Rufos has empowered her to do so, despite the KNOWN infiltration of the Hawksong Mages’ Tower by demonists decades prior!

Ewald knows that, while Princess Ekaterine and her new, exotic princeling are allegedly cavorting in the royal family’s countryside ‘honeymoon palace’, no one has been seen entering or exiting since the a pair of cloaked, female figures were seen riding away from the place, around the same time communications were lost with Prince Alexos.

Now, as Ewald sits at his oaken desk and unfurls the scroll which the Paladin Order’s man in Redwell has delivered, he finally knows the full, terrible truth.

“You’re certain?” he asks the Redwell Paladin—a quiet but serious man called Sir Marzineo.

Marzineo nods.

File: 1679639803820637.jpg (36 KB, 508x676)

36 KB JPG

>>5707982
“My contacts confirm it,” reaffirms the Redwell Paladin. “Shortly after reports of mysterious happenings in the Bloodrise mountains subsided, there was an attack on the Barony of Blackpine. A watchtower collapsed in the battle, they say… And when I rode to the border, there it was, in ruins.”

“But Baron Blackpine says…?”

“An earthquake.”

Ewal purses his lips, before chewing n his greying beard slightly—an anxious habit from his youth, which he’d long thought overcome.

“And the rest?” Sir Ewald asks, quietly, hoping—praying—the serious young paladin before him might change his tale in the second telling.

“I have not laid eyes upon the ‘visiting nobility’ myself,” Marzineo admits, “but those who I have been able to contact confirmed one another’s stories: they arrived from the west, from the direction of the mountains, with a coterie of monsters. Their leader transformed, they say, into a dragon… Before reverting later to a man.”

“A shapeshifting lizardman,” Ewald murmurs.

“A ‘reptoid’,” agrees Marzineo, sneering at the neologism.

“And this ‘noblewoman’…” Ewald continues, unconsciously crumpling the scroll in his hands as he tensely re-rolls it.

“She, like her husband, is variously described as a visiting dignitary from the East or South, or as ‘King and Queen of Bloodrise’ by those who were there… Or, at least it is said this is how the reptoid introduced himself to Baron Blackpine, after strongarming his way into the baron’s own castle with a display of sorcery.”

“The East,” Ewald whispers with dread. “Red-orange hair, bronzey skin, green eyes.”

“The reptoid? Yes.”

“And the woman…”

“Seemingly human—seemingly—but with brown hair, green eyes, pale complexion, Northern features, and very recognizable to anyone who has attended a royal event in the last twenty years.”

File: Untitled.jpg (5 KB, 201x251)

5 KB JPG

>>5707984
The two Paladins stare at each other in silence. They both know who this description matches: the ‘Queen of Bloodrise, bride of this draconic invader from the monster-haunted mountains, is the spitting image of their own Princess Ekaterine, and her husband’s humanoid form a perfect match to her Easterling adventurer husband.

“Do you think it is here?” the young Redwell Paladin asks. “Or… A lizard in disguise?”

Ewald shakes his head, for he does not rightly know.

“What do we do, Sir Ewald?”

The elder paladin takes a deep breath, whispers a prayer for guidance, and decides…
>To privately confront Prince Rufos with these rumours, and with his suspicions, and to do what must be done if the Secondborn Prince will not act
>To take his Paladin Order in force to investigate Sir Yosef’s property—the one whereupon demoniac activity seems to be centred—and to uncover what is really going on in his city
>To take the best of his Paladins and ride for Blackpine—to determine the truth for himself, to rescue the Princess if possible, and to reveal and destroy the monstrous ‘nobility’ if not

[Welcome back! We're leading with an interlude again, as in the last quest, before we return to directly controlling the adventures of 'Long Wang', AKA 'King Theral of Bloodrise', AKA the Dragonborn Antipaladin! We'll touch on a few other characters and the initial outcomes of major policy decisions our protagonist made last thread, and then zoom back in on his rather tense trade negotiations in Blackpine.]

[If you're just joining us, the archives of this thread can be read at https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=reptoidqm, as well as the previous quest, though Reptilian Infiltrator isn't at all required reading.]

>>5707985
>To take the best of his Paladins and ride for Blackpine—to determine the truth for himself, to rescue the Princess if possible, and to reveal and destroy the monstrous ‘nobility’ if not

From the Paladin perspective, this makes most sense- the city's authorities cannot be trusted. For us, this is great- they will likely not be fast enough to reach us before we can ally with Blackpine, and we can deprive Hawksong of more good-hearted defenders.

>>5707985
Also, good to see you back RQM. Hope your vacation was enjoyable!

>>5707985
>To privately confront Prince Rufos with these rumours, and with his suspicions, and to do what must be done if the Secondborn Prince will not act

>>5707985
>To privately confront Prince Rufos with these rumours, and with his suspicions, and to do what must be done if the Secondborn Prince will not act

>>5707985
>To take his Paladin Order in force to investigate Sir Yosef’s property—the one whereupon demoniac activity seems to be centred—and to uncover what is really going on in his city
TREACHERY!! AVAST FOUL DEMONS THE LORDS OF LIGHT AND GRACE SHALL SMITE YE WITH IMPUDENCE

>>5707993
It was, and sorely needed.

>>5707985
>To privately confront Prince Rufos with these rumours, and with his suspicions, and to do what must be done if the Secondborn Prince will not act.

This option is the best i think since it tips Irinnile off as to what the paladin is planning.

The only bad result that could happen is the paladins might try to coup the Rufos. But even extreme actions like that could be taken advantage of.

>>5708089
>>5707978
That's some sick thread opening art work qm. I like theral drip.

File: DragonCharacter_final.jpg (6.4 MB, 4258x5881)

6.4 MB JPG

Rolled 4 (1d4)

>>5708334
[Thanks! Artist is Oliviayapliwey on Fiverr.]

[Writing, btw. Vote is locked! Rolling for one of four possible outcomes...]
Coup, disbanding of the order, civil war, or the exorcism of Prince Rufos

File: Screenshot 2023-07-10 061124.png (4 KB, 574x60)

4 KB PNG

>>5708370
“We must confront Prince Rufos directly,” decides Sir Ewald.

“But if he’s been compromised as well…”

Ewald puts up a hand to stop Marzineo.

“Then we will deal with that as it comes, with the grace of the Gods Above.”

He senses Marzineo’s displeasure, and so he explains himself more fully:

“We are the Paladin Order of Hawksong, founded by the first Paladin King to serve and protect his legacy: the Pax Ferrum, or Pax Argentum; the Great Peace of Iron and Silver. If we go against this central tenet, it must not be for expediency. We must TRY to keep our vows of fealty and loyalty, of law and of order, and put forth every effort to do so. It is at the HEART of what it means to be a true paladin.”

“Yes, sir!” exclaims young Sir Marzineo.

“Good man,” Sir Ewald says with a tight smile. “And anyway, we can always ask Paladin King Archos to step in. NO fiend can ever compromise the true heart of the Paladin King.”

---

“The King is dead.”

The words, spoken by Prince Rufos, hit Sir Ewald like a mace caving in his chestplate. The wind is knocked from his lungs. He cannot speak for a moment, even to explain the nature of his visit. It is good, then, that Sir Marzineo is there as well: he is quiet by choice, yes, but never speechless.

“My condolences, your majesty,” he says, and then after a moment: “Long live King Alexos.”

Ewald stares wide-eyed at Marzineo for a moment, but then narrows his eyes and allows his gaze to drift back to Prince Rufos, who has not yet replied, and who grips the edge of his desk white-knuckled, face pale.

“Yes, long live the king” Sir Ewald agrees softly. “Will he be returning to Hawksong for the funeral and coronation shortly, then? With everything that ahs been going on, we must display strength now, and unity.”

The Secondborn Prince says nothing. Colour returns to his complexion, his yes draw narrow as well, and he takes a deep breath through his nose.

“Perhaps, under the circumstances, it may be best to cut short the Princess’ extended honeymoon with Prince Long Wang, as well?”

Prince Rufos says nothing, but abruptly, slides open a drawer of his desk. Both paladins exchange a wordless look and move their hands towards their weapons… But there is no need, it seems. Not yet. The Prince of Hawksong produces a glass and decanter, full of a rich yellow-gold alcohol.

“Will you partake, gentlemen?”

“A paladin keeps his mind sound, and body safe,” Sir Ewald declines. “To better resist corruptions, from within and without.”

“I hope you’ll forgive me a little corruption, then,” Prince Rufos says dryly, “under the circumstances.”

Ewald does not nod, nor does Marzineo, but Rufos pours and drinks of the spirit regardless.

“A father’s death is a hard thing to reconcile with,” Sir Ewald acknowledges. “My own passed when I was just a lad.”

“Not just a father’s."

File: ffff-1.jpg (190 KB, 1920x1080)

190 KB JPG

>>5708442

There is a pregnant pause, as the paladins await Rufos’ explanation, and he first imbibes additional inebriant.

“I am afraid it will not be possible for my brother or sister to attend the funeral,” Prince Rufos says dully. “Prince Alexos, too, is dead.”

This time, Ewald is not bowled over by the revelation. He is girded against it, having prepared in mind in spirit.

“How?”

“We don’t know,” Rufos admits. “Brigands? Southern assassins? Accident or act of the gods?”

“Then you’ve found no body,” Sir Marzineo notes.

“No.”

“Then how do you know he is dead?” Ewald demands. “We should be looking for him, seeking him—”

“No!”

Prince Rufos slams his fist, holding his glass, upon his heavy, aged wooden desk.

“Do you think me a fool? I have been RUNNING this kingdom for years, in effect and in action if not by title. I KNOW how to send out messengers, and scouts. I KNOW how to arrange for relays and communications along a charted path. Do you really think that the PALADIN PRINCE OF HAWKSONG could just be wandering around my own countryside without me knowing, or being able to locate him? If he’s nowhere to be found, it is because he is dead and buried! Gone!”

“Could it be the reptilian race?” Marzineo asks then. “The subterranean shapeshifters?”

The Prince snorts, and waves the notion away.

“Southern demonists are our concern,” he asserts. “There are no more ‘reptoids’ in Hawksong, or any of our lands. Good Sir Yosef, Sage Nenaias, and of course our new Prince Long Wang have seen to that. Do not let them trouble you, or distract you.”

“As you command,” says Sir Marzineo, “Paladin King Rufos.”

The Prince—no, KING—of Hawksong says nothing.

“And Princess Ekaterine?” you ask. “Has she been informed? She will need to be summoned, with her husband, correct?”

King Rufos nods slowly, but the gesture turns into the shaking of his head.

“No, no,” he says. “My sister is of a delicate constitution, and this news… She will be in no state for a coronation once she has learned of father’s death. It will serve no purpose to alert her now. It would only spoil her happiness with Prince Long Wang. Perhaps for the formal public coronation, later, but for now… Well, as you said, we must show strength, and act swiftly. Hawksong cannot be without a king.”

“I suppose it WOULD take a while to summon the two of them from the Barony of Blackpine.”

King Rufos does not react to Ewald’s offhanded comment, not immediately, simply staring at the paladin knight.

“They are in my family’s countryside estate,” he states, “not the western baronies.”

“This is not what my intelligence reports,” Sir Ewald replies.

>>5708445
“YOUR intelligence?” King Rufos demands. “You and your order are not permitted to investigate matters without outside collaboration from one of my assigned aides, as you OUGHT to well know, Sir Paladin.”

“An aide such as Sir Yosef?” Ewald presses.

“Well, yes, as one such example,” the new King of Hawksong sputters. “And it is LORD Yosef, now. He is formally the inheritor of his family’s titles, with the tragic death of his relations and his commitment to remaining in Hawksong. Following my coronation, he will be formally instated as the inheritor to the family’s fortune and holdings. As such, you SHOULD be more careful to afford the man your respect, sir.

“That will complicate matters,” Ewald notes, “since my intelligence indicates that he, too, is embroiled in this matter.”

“W-what?” the King balks. “In WHAT matter?”

“On the matter that brought us to see you,” Sir Ewald explain, and gestures subtly to his junior knight, who nods almost0imeprceptibly and begins to shift in stance and position, closer to their mutual king.

“The matter of the festering corruption which has afflicted this city as of late,” Ewald explains, beginning to raise his voice. “Of the evil that has claimed your brother’s life, and the lives of good men—adventurers, yes, but one a true and loyal paladin—and has cost them their reputation in death. Of the rot which has taken hold in Hawksong, and has been allowed to spread, here and throughout the realms we are tasked to defend.”

“If I didn’t know better,” begins Rufos with dangerous tone, “I would think you were parroting the talking points of the very demon-addled Paladin who recently undermined and humiliated your order by his failure and fall. But of course, that can’t be true, because that would mean defying your Paladin King.”

“Sir Chase was a good man,” Sir Ewald almost growls. “A flawed paladin, but a paladin nevertheless.”

At Ewald’s signal, Marzineo silently surges forward, grabbing hold of the King of Hawksong by back of his neck and by his wrist.

“What?” he cries out. “You dare?! Get your hands off of me! Guards! Help, I am being—”

“And you,” Ewald interrupts, voice booming and drowning out that of his so-called sovereign, “are NO Paladin!”
Sirs Ewald and Marzineo move swiftly, then—as they know they must. The private guards are unlikely to be close at hand for a meeting with two loyal members of the old king’s own private order, but if the Prince-turned-King continues to shout out to them, royal guards from outside the order—or those from WITHIN the order who do not yet see the truth—will be upon them.

“This is treason!” King Rufos snarls, from where his face is being pressed down against his desk, arm behind his back.

File: Untitled.jpg (11 KB, 193x262)

11 KB JPG

>>5708449
“Not treason,” Ewald states firmly. “Never. You may not be a member of our order, but you ARE the eldest son of paladin King Archos. You may not be a PERFECT man, but I do not believe you are an evil man—just a man, flawed as all men, and one to whom I owe my allegiance. That you would be party to all this… To demonic corruption, inhuman subversion, the assassination of your brother, the selling of your sister to be wed to a beast… No, I do not believe that Prince Rufos would do such a thing.”

Ewald nods to Marzineo, who releases the king’s head. Before he can struggle free or cry out again, Ewald takes hold of his face in one gauntleted hand, and forces him to meet his own eyes—eyes now alight with the heavenly glow of a <Detect Evil> spell.

“But you, deep inside the Prince… Yes, I see you, little worm… You WOULD, wouldn’t you? Prince Rufos can be redeemed, but you…”

The paladin knight draws his holy sword, and Rufos—or whatever puppets Rufos, and so corrupts him—stares at it in trembling terror.

“YOU must be destroyed.”

File: hqdefault.jpg (26 KB, 336x188)

26 KB JPG

>>5708451
A few short miles away from the palace, but still well within the wealthy and well-established areas of town, a young couple is moving into their wedding home. Well, at least, that is how Irinnile the Succubus chooses to frame it. In actuality, the Greater Demon of Lust is walking the half-asleep Sir Heinrich Yosef—soon LORD Heinrich Yosef—into the home of his great uncle, Lord Isaac Yosef.

“Woo, would ya’ look at this place, Ricky?” the succubus whispers to the demon-doped, delirious vestiges of Heinrich’s consciousness, inside the demon-warped body their presently share. “Better than that dump where me an’ Lisspy found ya’ and your daddy all those years ago, amirite? Jeez, your side of the family really got fucked out of the best part a’ the inheritance, eh?”

Irinnile allows herself the luxury of a girlish twirl and a giggle, despite how incongruous it is with the rugged, handsome features of her beloved’s body, which she puppets about.

“Well don’t you worry: we killed that old coot! Now all this is YOURS! See, I told ya’ I only had your best interests at heart! From wandering knight with only a bunch of weird incel losers for friends to famous Lord Knight, with his own goddamn PARTY PALACE!”

Irinnile gets no response, of course. She expected none—unfortunately, allowing her Ricky-poo to really awaken enough to chat with is still a risky play. His bog, strong, manly will—one of the things she loves about him, of course—means that she ahs to keep his consciousness suppressed or risk a war for their body. Even if he only wins for a moment, her boytoy is still the sort of sourpuss to do something silly and blow their whole demon-lizard conspiracy wide open—or at least cause Irinnile and her partners-in-crime a whole lot of unnecessary hassle. Hells Below, he might even HURT himself!

“Just lookin’ out for ya’,” Irinnile murmurs aloud, in her beloved’s voice. “Honest, babe.”

File: 06cdc77848bad38050c84ab16(...).jpg (36 KB, 500x500)

36 KB JPG

>>5708454
'Irinnile ben Yosef' steps daintily up the staircase to a familiar office—that of the last lord Yosef, whom she’d once had a hand in assassinating, alongside her last lover—a half-human Reptilian Infiltrator and, ironically, descendant of the Yosefs. Much of the furnishings have been packed away, but she still takes a moment to admire the beautifully-made stained glass window at the back of the dead nobleman’s dusty one-time base -of-operations. It depicts in grandiose detail a war wages between armies of man, elf, and dwarf against the Great Green Dragon and his forces. It’s the war which, by helping to finance and fight, made the House of Yosef a noble household in Hawksong for centuries thereafter.

“Hey, lookie there,” Irinnile says, “it matches our armour, babe, with all the dead dragon carvings an’ shit! The perfect little love-nest for the Green Knight and his Emerald Enchantress, amirite?~”

By Irinnile’s will, Yosef’s hand drifts down towards stiffening member.

“Why don’t we pop off this codpiece and give our new bedroom its inaugural bang? Summon one of our little fuckpuppets, huh? I mean, we ain’t got no bed yet, but no reason you can’t plow ‘em on the floor—frankly, it’s kinda’ hotter if ya’ do!”

Against his will, almost without his knowledge, the Green Knight and Lord of the House of Yosef begins to stroke his hellishly-engorged manhood in the office of his long-dead predecessor. It is an obscene desecration, of his ancestors, of his body, and of his mission. Both Lords Yosef were enemies of evil, of demons and of their Reptilian collaborators, and yet it is by demonic manipulation and under Reptilian stewardship that they have been destroyed and restored. Before a mural of their conquest of a dragon, a dragon’s agent now makes sport of Lord Yosef’s body and soul.

“Ooo, those were some poetic laments, babe!” Irinnile coos at the flickering embers of outrage which erupt from the suppressed spirit of Heinrich Yosef. “Say, you like the blonde cultist, right? With the tight little…”

Before the succubus can finish the thought—or bring her unwilling ‘husband’ to further twisted pleasure—she is interrupted. In reaching out across her network of ectoplasm-infected stooges and supplicants, she senses a grave and troubling disturbance.

“Wait, what’s goin’ on over there?” she mutters, removing Yosef’s hand from his shaft and hastily replacing his codpiece as she directs her dispersed intelligence to focus upon one distant packet of her essence. “Who is that, and why can’t I feel ‘em properly no more?”

File: 76baer4o4g351.jpg (56 KB, 500x672)

56 KB JPG

>>5708455
Heinrich & Irinnile’s shared eyes widen as her sixth sense finally focuses fully upon the distant disruption in her demonic network. The demoness shrieks in agony at the sudden spark of pain which alights her consciousness as she tries to take direct control of the puppet in question, and finds herself blasted back by divine intervention—holy energy, engaged in active exorcism!

“…Wait, what?” the succubus whispers. “but an exorcism means… An’ that wasn’t just some random schmuck, that was…”

Realization dawns upon the ditzy Greater Demon, whose increased power and influence ahs come with at least SOME measure of enhanced intelligence and understanding. It’s enough to quickly comprehend the disastrous implications of what ahs just happened: Prince Rufos—soon KING Rufos, and thus EASILY Irinnile’s most highly-placed and important pawn in this whole damn city—has just been freed from her control by holy magic.

“MOTHER. FUCKING. PALADINS!!”

With suddenly-manifested claws and uncontrollable impulsiveness, the succubus gouges the wall of Yosef’s—of HER—new budoir-to-be.

“Fuck,” she then hisses as instinctive terror supplants impotent rage, “fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck. Okay. Think, Iri baby, THINK. What would Lisspy have done, at a time like this?”

What should she do now?
>Kidnap and hold hostage King Rufos’ family—after all, she knows where they are, and if she has THEM she still has leverage and control over the big boss, right?
>Alert her cult to go to ground, and hide out in one of the Hawksong safehouses—hunker down with some high-quality whores and wait for this to all blow over
>Reach out to the Reptilians—they’re real hardasses, but they’re her best bet to fix this before shit geos, like, TOTALLY sideways
>Get the fuck out of dodge—Hawksong’s a bust, and her and Ricky are as good as outed, but if she gets the Green Knight’s tight ass out of town then they can still be together—if alone—somewhere safe from the paladins
>Write-in

>>5708456
oh god, I don't know Iri well enough to pick what she'd do

>Get the fuck out of dodge—Hawksong’s a bust, and her and Ricky are as good as outed, but if she gets the Green Knight’s tight ass out of town then they can still be together—if alone—somewhere safe from the paladins

>>5708491
All the default options are things she would reasonably do based on how I've been writing her and the decisions anons have picked in this quest and the previous one

I can probably work with just about any write-in, as well, to be honest, because she's Chaotic Evil, emphasis on 'Chaotic'

This is more about the effect it will have on your plans as Theral moving forward, and some options open up distinct sequel quest possibilities

>>5708456
>Get the fuck out of dodge—Hawksong’s a bust, and her and Ricky are as good as outed, but if she gets the Green Knight’s tight ass out of town then they can still be together—if alone—somewhere safe from the paladins

Theral isn’t here right now.

Nice to see you again.

>>5708456
>Kidnap and hold hostage King Rufos’ family—after all, she knows where they are, and if she has THEM she still has leverage and control over the big boss, right?

Irr just needs to stall for time right now. Taking Rufos wife and daughter hostage is ideal, since those are the next in line for regency and succession respectively should Rufos die.

Running sacrifices the underground demon network the incubus built up and irr stole. If she leaves the paladins could very well turn hawksong into an impenetrable fortress. Which would spell long term doom since then they would control the pax and mobilize it to attack us.

>>5708456
>Kidnap and hold hostage King Rufos’ family—after all, she knows where they are, and if she has THEM she still has leverage and control over the big boss, right?

>Have the cult's members strike at the Paladin order while they're away

They've got most of their remaining big shots with Rufos, I imagine, and aren't much of a match for the royal guards if they do resort to coup.

>>5708456
>Get the fuck out of dodge—Hawksong’s a bust, and her and Ricky are as good as outed, but if she gets the Green Knight’s tight ass out of town then they can still be together—if alone—somewhere safe from the paladins

File: Padlock-symbol.png (55 KB, 692x692)

55 KB PNG

>>5708491
>>5708495
>>5708629
>>5708616
>>5708503
[Locked! Writing.]

File: road-trip-1500x750.jpg (328 KB, 1500x750)

328 KB JPG

>>5708691
In the end, the choice to skip town is the obvious one. A being like Irinnile—that is to say, like, a SUPERIOR one, obvs—is not the sort to get all torn up over losing a bit of temporary temporal power. Sure, having a cult full of sexy little suckers to suck on is nice and all, and playing Lord ‘n Lady Yosef would have been hilarious, but when its curtain call, show’s over.

“Ain’t that right, Lisspy?” Irinnile asks the empty air.

No response comes, of course. Her first true love is long dead.

“Well, let’s signal Nenny-kins ta’ meet us outside town,” the succubus mutters, this time to her current (begrudging) lover. “Have him bring the good shit from our hideouts, enough ta’ buy what needs buyin’, grease a few palms, that shit. We’re back on the road, Ricky. Just like old times!”

Irinnile giggles a little bit.

“Well, apart from, like, your friends that Big Boy went ‘n killed. Oops! Tell ya’ what: when we’re free an’ clear, I’ll see about leavin’ your body, to make it up to you. One you’re all bound ‘n gagged, natch!”

And with that, it’s easy come, and easy go.

Rolled 79 (1d100)

>>5708738
What do you MEAN you can’t find Yosef?!”

Sir Marzineo regards the King of Hawksong dispassionately. Unlike Sir Ewald, the younger paladin feels no special loyalty to this… Man. He’s his sovereign, yes, and heir to the title, but as Sir Ewald said: he’s no PALADIN, and thus no PALADIN KING in Marzineo’s eyes. He respects Ewald, though, and so he deigns to explain himself to the middle-aged man beneath the ill-fitting crown.

“Exactly what it sounds like, Your Majesty,” Marzineo says. “We sent our Paladins to arrest Sir Yosef in his family residence, but found it looted of what valuables remained there. Our next locations to investigate were, of course, those quarters where he has most recently been spotted. We found signs of… Debauchery… and of decadence, and of other rites far more foul… But Sir Yosef was not there.”

“What about the other cultists?”

“Cultists?” asks Sir Marzineo. “Or victims, like yourself, Your Majesty?”

That gives the monarch pause, forcing him onto the back foot. Marzineo hides a small smile—not difficult, even in spite of his enjoyment of seeing this pretender-king play defence, given the news he must now deliver.

“Many were dead—by their own hand or that of others, or poisoned. This resembles accounts of the Tower demonist infestation twenty years ago: murders and ‘suicides’ to prevent exorcism or interrogation.”

“Monstrous,” matters the king, steepling his fingers and staring down at his desk.

It’s the same desk, still in use, as if he fears to sit upon the throne and hold counsel there just yet. Good—he has the good sense to be ashamed. Though the King of Hawksong had insisted under confession that he had only acted under duress and possession, Rufos had still allowed his sister to be married off to a monster, had aided in the assassination of his father and abetted the death of a paladin, among other crimes.

“That isn’t the worst of it,” Marzineo continues grimly. “Our forces were then attacked and ambushed by those more loyal to the demon-cult.”

King Rufos pales at the news, then laments: “This is why my security forces should have been utilized as well!”

“Who do you think was attacking us?”

That shuts him up. Sir Marzineo wishes he could take more pleasure in that.

“You could have told us your ‘benefactor’ had you installing cult loyalists in the security forces.”

“I didn’t know!” he groans, clutching his head. “My memories are still… It’s so unclear! You don’t know what it’s like, to have your will dominated, to be forced to act against your own interest and nature—for years!”

“No,” Marzineo agrees, “I don’t.”

Uncomfortable silence falls.

>>5708739

“We bested them,” Marzineo supplies, easing the tension. “They’re all dead, though. None survived. Those we captured died in custody before we could purge the ectoplasm which did the deed with exorcism. Their master knew they were done for.”

“The Paladins…?”

“A few died, though more were injured. Our effectiveness is... Reduced. It was a parting shot, to weaken us even as they covered their escape... That of the Green Knight And that of the elven sage who you said had also become possessed."

The only good news? The city is, for the moment, as secure as it can get while still playing host to a nest of disguised vipers.

“What now?” asks the King.

“I believe it is YOUR job to determine that, Your Majesty” Sir Marzineo notes, “but I think we still have some housecleaning to do, before winter."

File: Screenshot 2023-07-10 151305.png (512 KB, 607x770)

512 KB PNG

Rolled 47, 1 = 48 (2d100)

>>5708740
“What NOW?” hisses the Chaplain of the Northern Forward Base.

The Silkscale in the doorway—a Reptilian Infiltrator, hesitates, and eventually the Chaplain sighs and beckons him in, where he kneels in dutiful supplication to his resident and ranking Serpent Priest.

“It is Hawksong,” the Infiltrator states. “The situation there is… In flux. The surface-scum have become aware of us again, and have begun to act against us openly.”

The Chaplain regards the Silkscale coolly, suppressing his shock and fear and instead calculating rapidly.

“How much do they know?”

“Few specifics, Superior One, or so it seems. They have not targeted individual operatives, but rather a Paladin-led effort is underway to root out, identify, and detain those SUSPECTED of being of the Master Race.”

“…So the Green Knight is not with them?” the Chaplain notes, recalling the Copper Dragonborn’s report of the magical bane-weapon that human carried—a demonic sword which glowed in the presence of Reptilians, even those wearing Amulets of Disguise or hidden by other such spellcraft.

“No, Superior One.”

“And yet the Succubus does not assist us, either?”

“…No, Holy One.”

Troubling… So the demon and its host were dead, or otherwise out of the equation. Hawksong would purge itself, strengthen its defences, before too long. It would be as it was before the Dragonborn arrived in Hawksong and captured its leadership and infrastructure. The Chaplin’s tail lashed, just once, at the frustration of it all. This hybrid… So like his mother in some ways, and yet his work—more dramatic, more impactful—was also sloppier, the effects shorter-lived! And where was he when he was needed to rectify it? Playing ‘little dictator’ in some kobold warren!

“Still, an opportunity remains.”

>>5708742
>>5708742
The Infiltrator looks up, curiosity overcoming fearful submissiveness.

“The Dragonborns—OUR—plan is still in motion. The filth-brown ape-men of the south and the sickly-pink ape-men of the north hate one another, and the Southlands are effectively our to direct. We could begin the war in earnest—before they can prepare. Maybe even cripple them in advance, with an assassin!”

“…Is this conversation meant for my reply, Oh Sueprior and Holy One?”

“No,” the Chaplain says, “of course not. Leave, Infiltrator.”

“Yes, Oh Chaplain of the Northern Forward-Base!”

The lithe little Silkscale—‘Halle’ or something was her human alias, the Chaplain believes—scurries away. At least, the century-old Serpent Priest is alone, to reflect upon his thoughts… And his fears. There had been no word back from the Serpent Priest sent to govern the Copper Dragonborn’s so-called ‘kingdom’ in the Bloodrise mountains… And there should have been, if not from he himself than from the Translator who had pledged to let the Priesthood know if the Copper Dragonborn arrived alone.

…Nor from the Chaplain’s own daughter, the Novice Fleshweaver, who had accompanied them.

Some might take this as a sign that they had fallen prey to some terrible fate on route, but not he—not a Serpent Priest capable of advanced Divination magicks! He, and his Superiors in the Priestly Caste, had divined the truth: it was treason most foul! The particulars were lost upon them, the status of their favoured male unknown, but the Copper Dragonborn had turned against them and their Grand Design, and thrown all the world into chaos JUST as they were on the brink of Dark Victory!

“Fool,” he hissed to himself, and wondered if his daughter knew—if she lived, and in what condition, and if she too had betrayed him—her own sire, her better! And for the mad plan of a quarter-mammalian MONGREL, rather than some proper scheme or ambition! Insanity!

Of course, the Chaplain never fully trusted either of them. A true Reptilian, wise to the ways of True Politics, knew never to trust ANYONE, not even one’s own flesh and blood or the monsters of one’s own making and rearing…

>47, 1

...Which is why he had been waiting, and carefully watching, for the next betrayal.

File: Screenshot 2023-07-10 152512.png (42 KB, 409x194)

42 KB PNG

>>5708749
The flow of information and supplies along the so-called ‘silk road’ of the greatworms. These creatures were members of the ‘Dark Alliance’ which the Copper Dragonborn had set up, used to ferry goods and services along the routes to and from the Bloodrise mountains, and past the territory of the ‘Drow’ dark elves and ‘Bogbarri’ goblinoids.

Thus, the Chaplain was well aware of the Copper Dragonborn’s pathetic attempt at subversion.

The young male had spent every visit home since he first departed engaging in grandiose speechcraft to rile up Degenerate hybrids and those of lower breeding and social standing. As the one who raised and trained the Copper Dragonborn, the Chaplain was well aware of what he was doing: building a powerbase while he weakened that of the Priesthood, creating or deepening class divides and political factionalism. It was almost cute how transparent it all was… Or it would be, if it wasn’t working.

However, this newest effort: a brazen attempt to encourage the dissatisfied to defect, and to follow a sort of ‘underground roadway’ to join him in Bloodrise… It presented an opportunity as well.

Yes, there was much to consider… To bring down the maul of the Persecutor, or to wield the subtle art of the Beholder?

How should the Serpent Priesthood move against Hawksong?
>Subtly
>Overtly

How should they move against Bloodrise?
>Subtly
>Overtly

[Please note: you CANNOT choose the same option for both kingdoms]

>>5708751
>Subtly against Hawksong
>Overtly against Bloodrise

Ahh, shit. This won't end well.

>>5708751
>Subtly Hawksong
>Overtly Bloodrise
This is gonna be a wild thread

>>5708751
>>Overtly against Hawksong

>>Subtly against Bloodrise.

>>5708773
>>5708768
What are you two voting for, overtly against bloodrise? WE are going to have fight the serpent priest's main reptilian army, whilst the paladins are undoubtedly planning on going on their own offensive if that option wins.

Obviously causing the southern humans to attack at this juncture hawksong. Will help prevent the paladin order from regaining their footing, plotting their own attack and rooting out the rest of the reptilian agents in hawksong. And thus is the correct play.

>>5708795
Not every Reptillian they could throw against us is a eunuch, and resources are thin for the Master Race as is, whereas Bloodrise is on the upswing. I'd expect we may have to kill some Reptillians, but we know the tunnels better than they do and have a well-drilled warfighting machine

As for Hawksong, I'm not super worried about them right now. I'd prefer we not get ideologically subverted at home, or stricken by plague, etc.

>>5708751
>subtly against Hawksong
>overly against Bloodrise
This is the most sensible decision for the priests imo because bloodrise is more familiar with the master race.

>>5708751
>Overtly against Hawksong
(I assume this means sending the South to wage war.)
>Subtly against Bloodrise.
Surely the Serpent priests would think themselves superior in the art of subversion. Probably would spend in spies and loyalists through the railroad.

File: Screenshot 2023-07-11 073719.png (653 KB, 928x925)

653 KB PNG

>>5708870
>>5708844
>>5708795
>>5708773
>>5708768
In the end, the Chaplain’s instincts and decades of training are in accord: the stars are not yet right to openly invade the lands above, whatever that insolent little whelp of a False Dragonborn might believe. Until such time—until the cosmic tapestry of the Grand Design is woven properly so as not to unravel at the slightest tug—any attempt to create a New Age of Darkness is doomed.

The Chaplain sighs as he concludes this, despite himself. Privately, only privately, he can admit the truth: hearing his living weapon speak, seeing what he’d achieved, he’d actually allowed himself to BELIEVE some of the rhetoric for a time. It was an absurd flight of fantasy, of course—a Young One’s hairbrained delusion. Still, to imagine himself upon the surface, lording over a realm of plenty, for the century to come…

No.

He shakes his head. The Master Race cannot field an army sufficient to crush those of the realms above, and even the Southmen will not bend the knee to open Reptilian rule without putting up a fight. The conflict between North and South will continue, as planned, but no Reptilian reinforcements will come to save the day and assert their ownership of the victory. However, nor will the Chaplain pull all his operatives from Hawksong’s allies and vassals. Rather, their work shall be more… Subtle.

The secret weapon, which he had thought to wield in this war, will instead be turned with the full force of a breaking hammer upon the intransigent False Prophet of Bloodrise and his barely-born ‘kingdom’.

Like a father asserting discipline, it is time for the Chaplain to remind this Young One why elders are to be respected!

The Chaplain leaves his personal quarters—a space for prayer, reflection, and torpor, and strides past the blooded dais of the Stone of Judgement, where he periodically takes his confessions. He slithers through tunnels dug in eras immemorial by the hands of the Truly Faithful, in keeping with the wise dictates of the Master of the Insightful Eye, and maintained by the stringent discipline of the Lawgiver. He passes the shrine of the first, offering a bow and a prayer, and makes for the second: an altar to a high-horned figure with bowed back, wideset shoulders, and gripping a great maul in one hand and a trailing chain in the other.

“Oh Forger of Chains and Breaker of Spirits! Oh you who crafted Law, who built order and protected it, who are the font of ALL AUTHORITY! Oh you who teach the strong to subjugate the weak, that the weak will not swallow up the world and drown it in their mediocrity! Oh Persecutor, Lawgiver, Dark God of the Pattern Unbroken! Here me, your humble and stalwart servant, and help me to reassert your rightful dominance!”

The Chaplain gets his response. He knows what to do.

File: Green-Dragon-Young.jpg (37 KB, 320x400)

37 KB JPG

>>5709245
The Great Green Dragonborn was once simply called ‘Dragonborn’, or ‘Great One’. These days, however, the full title or some variation of it is required. He was the first Dragonborn, created by the cruel and terrible Head Chimericist of the Hawksong Mages’ Tower, but thanks to the female who rescued him from that place, he was not the last.

The first attempt by the Reptilians to replicate him was his ‘little brother’, the Lesser Dragonborn—not TRULY the heir to much dragonblood at all, but the Green Dragonborn had never cared. He was flesh-and-blood of his first and best friend, the half-human hybrid who had freed him and kept him safe, and allowed him to DESTROY and who had given him wings. This was enough and, in their time together, the Green Dragonborn had found a second true friend, and had even helped the Young One transcend his heritage to achieve a true Dragon Soul!

(Well, that is how the Copper Dragonborn described the process and their achievement. The Green Dragonborn had just liked his company.)

Now, of course, the Copper Dragonborn was Copper Dragon KING in some distant place called ‘Bloodrise’. One day, the Green Dragonborn hoped to see it. His little brother told him that it was a beautiful place, where dragons could fly free. The Green Dragonborn had never flown—not very far, not PROEPRLY, not soaring over sovereign lands all his own, seizing prey in his claws and burning anything that offends him to ash, as a dragon ought to do. For now, though, he remained in the ‘northern forward base’ of the little Reptilians, while his brother worked busily to make this dream a reality.

And yet, still, the Great Green One was not the only Dragonborn here.

Now, there were seven more—seven eggs, created by the Fleshweavers from the eggs of Dragonblooded Reptilians, the heartblood of the Great Green Dragon who (they say) provided the material to make the Great One himself, and bound together by blood harvested from captured humans. Each of them had been gestated in one of the Silkscale females of his harem—lithe, beautiful little things, even if they were too small to be proper mates—until they were ready to be laid. They’d been anointed with more blood, prayed over, sunk into casks of magically-treated fluids until they swelled and grew too large for any living Reptilian female to safely carry or lay… And after two decades of work, they hatched.

"EEYAAAH!"

…And made his life, if less monotonous, far more exhausting.

File: Screenshot 2023-07-11 074008.png (847 KB, 574x886)

847 KB PNG

>>5709248
Hearing a scream, the Green Dragonborn grumbles, opening his eyes from a meditative half-torpor to peer around his expansive private cavern. There, he spots one of the so-called Red Dragonborn (really more of a ruddy brown) terrorizing one of the harem-mates he had assigned to their feeding. It seems the Young One has decided that SHE would make a better snack… Or at least, that’s the impression he’s creating, with his snapping jaws and the way he bounds to cage and corner her. One of his sisters looks on with obvious amusement, snickering.

“Ee-nuff!” bellows the Green Dragonborn, rising and spitting a gout of crimson-red fire at the ceiling above them.

All three Reptilians flinch at this, but the Silkscale is first to move, scampering away and towards her Great Master while the two young Red Dragonborn bow their heads in sulky, half-hearted submission. Tehya re not yet old enough for speech, but they understand the (admittedly still broken and poorly-enunciated) speech of their Big Brother.

Every day, that speech—and the thought behind it—grows clearer, sharper. This, like the company of the Red Dragonborn as dragons in truth capable of understanding ANYTHING rather than animalistic biological weapons—is a gift of the Copper Dragonborn. He made them each whole, by meditation and by magical artefact. The silver diadem upon the Great One’s brow brings him <CLARITY> such as he has never had before. It is only by its workings that he can properly reflect on the life he has lived, the responsibilities and opportunities of his daily life, and properly dream of the future ahead: a New Age of Dragons!

The Red Dragonborn whom he chastised now approach him and butt their heads against him. He wrestles with them—gently, they are still small compared to his great mass!—and eventually they join him for torpor. One of the females in particular has taken a liking to him. When she is old enough to have her first heat… Hmm. Well, maybe there will be many more Great Green Dragonborn, and he will need a new name yet again?

“Great One.”

The Great green Dragonborn grumbles again, nictitating membrane of one eye sliding open AGAIN at the sound of the familiar voice—that of the Chaplain.

“Arise.”

The Serpent priest orders him about like any of his other Lesser Ones, despite the Green Dragonborn’s station by birth. It is, the Green Dragonborn ahs come to realize, quite unpleasant and inappropriate. Perhaps it is because of the other males behind and beside him—a dozen, Serpent Priests and Steeltalons—that he puts on this dominance display?

“Whut doo yoo wahnt, Littuhl Puhreest?” he mumbles, rather than rise and address him more formally.

“The time has come for you to leave this place,” the Chaplain says. “To travel to Bloodrise.”

Well, THAT is worth rising for.

File: Screenshot 2023-07-11 074314.png (26 KB, 152x164)

26 KB PNG

>>5709252
“Hmmm?” he asks, pressing for more details.

The Chaplain steps back and the males around him step forward, producing what looks to be… Armour. An entire set of armour, green like he himself, and sized for him as well!

“You are going to war,” the Chaplain explains.

The great green Dragonborn squints slightly, the diadem granting him enough understanding to ask:

“Iz my Littuhl Bruhthur in trubbuhl?”

“Something like that,” the Chaplain says smoothly. “Don this armour—we will help—and make ready to leave.”

More Reptilians—more than the Great Green Dragonborn ahs ever seen at once, since he first arrived and Little Ones came to gawk at him and offer praise and supplication!—then enter the cave, carrying smaller suits of armour—sized more appropriately for his Little Brothers and Little Sisters.

“Yoo need thuh Yuhng Wuns, too?” he asks, tilting his head slightly.

“All of you,” the Chaplain asserts.

“Hmmm.”

“And you will need to remove the circlet upon your brow,” the Chaplain then adds, “to fit the helm, which has enchantments of its own.”

The Green Dragon born touches the diadem upon his brow again, as the Little Ones produce the helm in question, a great and terrible thing, resembling his own fearsome face, but wrought from emerald metal, and…

“No eye-uhs?”

There are no eyes on the helm—rather, a solid band of metal, inscribed with the serpentine scrawlings of Reptilian True Script, rests upon the snout and half-encircled the space where such eye-holes would normally be, like some incomplete human lancer’s visor.

“It is enchanted,” is all the Chaplain says. "You will not have trouble navigating."

“Hrmm…”

The Red Dragonborn begin to be outfitted with their armour, even as the Great One rolls over and rises to his full towering height. Were it not for the <CLARITY> brought on by the circlet he now wears, perhaps he would not sense it, but he does: the Little Ones, including the Serpent Priest Chaplain, are… Uneasy. So too, then, is he. There is more to this than meets the eye. He remembers, not with the vagueness of past recollections but with the clarity which that same diadem allows, the way that his creators would lure him to specific spaces to be caged and experimented on in decades past, using promises of food or ‘outside time’.

What will he do?
>Don the armour without protest, because your Little Brother needs you!
>DESTROY! This is a trap! Rage, and make to escape!
>Create an opening and command the red Dragonborn and his harem-mates to flee!

>>5709260
>DESTROY! This is a trap! Rage, and make to escape!

party time!

>>5709260
>DESTROY! This is a trap! Rage, and make to escape!

Yeah, even Big Green can sense a mind control trap. Persecute this dick.

>>5709260
>DESTROY! This is a trap! Rage, and make to escape!
Our whole plan was to make each of the Dragonborn fully autonomous specifically in case of this, Big green aint broken anymore and the others are all under his leadership

>>5709260
>DESTROY! This is a trap! Rage, and make to escape!

Monkeypost made me anxious. I feel in my gut that the critfail bringed us in "choose the way I'll hurt you".
I prefer have slowbro die fighting Chaplain than Theral

Or I can be really wrong and the 1 means the Chaplain fails comically and we get a gang of Dragon on our side (sucks to be reptilian in full force when your troop betrayed you)

>>5709248
>Now, there were seven more—seven eggs, created by the Fleshweavers from the eggs of Dragonblooded Reptilians.

I thought their was nine red dragonborn?

>Create an opening and command the red Dragonborn and his harem-mates to flee!

>>5709735
>I thought their was nine red dragonborn?
[You're right, of course. I did this with the wyrmlings, too. it's like a persistent mental block, where I am somehow certain "seven" should proceed "sons". That damn penchant for alliteration!]

>>5709636
>Monkeypost made me anxious.
[It was part of the game of Distortion in Thread 1]

>>5709344
>>5709580
>>5709620
>>5709636
>>5709735
[Locked and writing!]

File: Screenshot 2023-07-11 191550.png (571 KB, 795x470)

571 KB PNG

Rolled 4, 98, 88 = 190 (3d100)

>>5709906
The Green Dragonborn might have once been too dull and even docile to understand and resist such a trap as this. His genesis and mental development were those of a trapped laboratory animal, and alchemical experiment beaten into tortured subservience… But those days are gone. Even before the diadem, two decades of cultivating a Dragon Soul with the Copper Dragonborn has awoken in him the deeply-ingrained soul-instincts of True Dragon. Now with the <CALIRTY> to see what is happening—the sheer, brazen IMPUDENCE of it!—one draconic instinct rises to the surface:

“DUHSTUHROOOOOOOY!”

“Wait, what are you—”

A gout of dragonfire engulfs a half-dozen members of the Master race before anything else can be said or done. Quickly, the remaining Serpent priests make to form protective sigils—to defend themselves with barriers or hide themselves with illusions. The SIlkscales of the harem scream. The Red Dragonborn squawk and screech in the pre-vocal enthusiasm of young hatchlings beholding a delightful light show… And, perhaps, find something awakening in them as well.

None of them are the Great Green Dragonborn’s concern, though. For decades—a century!—he has longed to do what he does now. Not since his great escape ahs he been given such opportunity to let loose! With the diadem upon his brow he does not lose himself, not completely, but nor can he bring himself to worry about some tiny, scrawny females or silly children right now.

“HUH HUH HUUUUH, YAAAAS! DUHSTROY YOU ALL! LIHTUHL WEEK WUNS!”

“Stop him, you fools! Wait, no—the hatchlings! Don’t let them get away!”

Two dice for the Green Dragonborn's rampage, DC 30/50/70; One die for the nine hatchlings' escape, DC 50/70/90

>>5709935
The carnage is terrible—a terrible carnage that, on some level, the Great One knows his ‘hosts’ among the Reptilian Master Race cannot afford to suffer. But ‘hosts’ have become ‘captors’, and if there is one thing he cannot tolerate—WILL not tolerate—it is to become a prisoner beneath the earth ever, EVER again. The cost is immaterial, and it is not his to pay.

>98

Smoke fill the tunnels, choking and blinding Reptilians. His roars of fury and delight deafen those who hear them for miles. A plan for a methodical civil war in a distant mountain become a fight for survival against an immediate and unexpected insurrection in the northern forward base. The complex shakes as if it was struck by an earthquake. The swell of ten Fearsome Presences—a demigod awoken to his full power, and his nine younger siblings exuberant to join his rise—is even more oppressive than the shaking of the stone. Even those on the surface must surely feel it.

The Chaplain certainly does.

File: 61TIQMkGv3L._AC_UL600_SR6(...).jpg (27 KB, 600x600)

27 KB JPG

>>5709940

He lays there, dying, contemplating how it all went wrong. His barrier was broken like gossamer, popped like a bubble in a stew of smoke and blood by the fury of the fire. It is a miracle that endured long enough to spare him immediate death, but his nerves are burned away, his charred bones exposed on his useless extremities. He cannot even feel the pain in his hands—all feeling has been consumed by the fire. Those who turned to illusion to obscure and save them were no luckier, he notices—the damned diadem, gift of that prodigal ‘son’ of his, empowered the Green Dragonborn to locate and eliminate them, which he did with glee and gusto.

>88

The young ones—the nine Red Dragonborn hatchlings—joined him in tearing them apart and devouring them in a cannibalistic feast. Only the Silkscales of the harem were spared, but none of them so much as spared the Chaplain a downward glance as they fled after their mate-and-master, hoping to escape in his wake.

Is this how it ends? Not the slow death of an ancient empire in decline, not a final confrontation with the Gods of Light and their accursed spawn, but swallowed up by an Age of Darkness—an Age of Dragons—which he helped create, but can no longer even recognize? Must the new always destroy the old, to be born?

“You… Sseztlussth… And ‘Theral’, or whoever you are… If you fail, if our race perishes in yoru care… May your souls be consigned to oblivion.”

The Chaplain of the Northern Forward Base of the Reptilian Master Race—faithful servant of the Dark Gods for over a hundred years, exhales his final breath.

“Do not fail.”

He passes into a deeper darkness, far beyond the reach of light, deeper and further than ever he has known.

>>5709954
As the Chaplain dies, the Dragonborn run rampant. The northern forward base is all but destroyed. Its chambers fill with flame, or collapse to rubble with the passage of the Great green Dragonborn through halls that were never meant to fit him but can no longer slow or stop him. In his wake travel the smaller, but still fearsome and fiery, hatchlings. Reptilians scatter before them, amusing the young with their cries. The initial violence of the explosive rebellion has died in their hearts, and they now run, and leap, and flap their growing wings in ineffectual attempts to fly, and follow their Big brother for the sheer joy of it. They chase the fleeing prey without killing—much—and with their stomachs full they pay little heed to the many dead bodies they trod upon.

The Great One, however, has a mind made whole and clear. His own fury has cooled as all resistance is obliterated and the base rapidly abandoned by its scaly citizenry. He looks around the great central chamber—once host to strategy meetings and prayers, now home to floating motes of ash and little else—and to the statues of the Dark Gods, whom he half-recognizes as a hatchling might intuitively recognize the scent or sight of a parent. He looks up and sees the smoke-stained chamber which, studded with gemstones, mimics a sky he has not seen in decades.

He must make a choice—perhaps the first REAL choice he has ever made, in over a century of life on earth, he realizes with startlement.

What now?
>He travels down, to conquer the Reptilian Master Race and become its master
>He travels to the surface, to soar the skies, raze the lands, and build a kingdom there

>>5709971
>He travels to the surface, to soar the skies, raze the lands, and build a kingdom there

A Dragon's destiny is to fly. Our people have been below the earth for too long.


I am definitely not biased or motivated by the desire to see two draconic brother kingdoms. Shhh.

>>5709971
>He travels to the surface, to soar the skies, raze the lands, and build a kingdom there
Big bro would take the little homies and find them refuge, I doubt he knows where we are but he knows about bloodrise, Ssezty will be the first to receive them and will hear about Chaplain firsthand and who knows how that will go, our harem is going to be a mess with Eka likely to go bananas after the news of Archos and Alexos on top of Rufos being free from Irri, EXCITING PLOT DEVELOPING AND I AM EXCITED TO USE THE OTHER DRAGONBORNS FOR WAR

>>5709971
>He travels to the surface, to soar the skies, raze the lands, and build a kingdom there

he was just griping about being too beneath the earth

>>5709971
>He travels down, to conquer the Reptilian Master Race and become its master
The green dragon of darkness

>>5709971
>>He travels to the surface, to soar the skies, raze the lands, and build a kingdom there
I just hope it won't cause irremediable problems.

>>5709971
>He travels to the surface, to soar the skies, raze the lands, and build a kingdom there
Go brother go!

>>5709971
>travel to the surface
oh wow the priest died quicker than i expected

lol

backlink>>5708495

File: 5097096.jpg (855 KB, 2560x1920)

855 KB JPG

>>5709976
>>5709994
>>5710021
>>5710033
>>5710105
>>5710178
>>5710208
The stars… He remembers the stars. The Green Dragonborn rumbles with happiness, at the thought of those days: of the cool air on his scales, the stars above, the scent of woodlands and of human civilization in the distance. The female who rescued him had been there, and the grumpy one she bred with, and that funny owlbear and dog-thing with the tentacles, and the little feathery one… And if the creator of he and the other chimeras had ALSO been there, well, it is a testament how fond he is of those memories that he is able to largely forget about that foul fact.

Yes, he would like to see the skies again.

“Cuhm wu-w-WITH… Mee”

He sounds out his speech, ever more cognizant of the proper pronunciations. As he and his excitable kindred ascend through smog-filled tunnels towards the scent of fresh, clean air, his own mind seems to grow clearer, too. He understands that this is what he has wanted for years and, in following the goal of his Dragon Soul, it awakens more fully. His mind and spirit follow the beacon on his circlet’s central gem in the same way that the first, faint glimpse of light from above spurs him to rise with yet greater speed. Something like a true awakening of the self is the result: the real HIM rises from wherever it has been held down, and bursts forth… Just as he, too, bursts forth upon the land, smashing open the once-subtle entrance into the underdark realm of the Reptilian Master Race.

There are no stars, alas. To his surprise, it is daytime, not night. Belowground, how is one to ever know? But as he explodes forth from the hillside, his disappointment cannot last, for beneath the full light of the sun he can see a panoply of colours. On the faint breeze he can smell life—trees, grasses, birds, beasts, men, and all manner of other things. And up above, if there are no stars, there is still the beauteous expanse of the open sky—blue and white, tinged golden where the clouds are caressed by a sun he has seen but rarely.

Yes, THIS is right. THIS is good. THIS is what he wanted!

Rolled 84, 47, 73, 69 = 273 (4d100)

>>5710365
The Green Dragonborn flaps his wings once, twice, then again and again. With childlike joy, he barrels down the hill, beating his wings. The little Dragonborn hatchlings follow him, imitating him… But unlike them, he begins to ascend still further He rises, and rises, until he is among the clouds, and he can survey all the farms and villages and woodlands below at once.

His new realm, to rule and ravage, as dragons do.

He enjoys his time in the air for a while, and the experience of really thinking—meaningfully PLANNING—the future ahead. It all feels as open as the skies.

And then, hearing cries of alarm from below and espying one particular settlement which seems replete with delicious pigs and cattle, he descends once more upon it.

“D-DUH… DESTROOOOY!”

This, this is freedom!

Below and behind him, the little Dragonborn watch him with envy and awe, and beat their own wings, beginning to practice to join him. They pay no heed to the Silkscale females who had attended to them these first few months of their life, and who now watch with fearful anticipation—and the beginnings of excitement themselves—as they wonder what this all means for their kind.

Rolling two dice at lower DCs for the 'underground railroad' plans, 1d100 for Bogbarri settlement and 1d100, and 1d100 for the food production research

File: Screenshot 2023-07-12 080303.png (1000 KB, 1512x978)

1000 KB PNG

>>5710366
In different hills and mountains, in a different et of caves and caverns, toils a female of the same race as the Chaplain—of his own get, in fact. She does not know of her father’s death, and anyone who knows her would have good reason to suspect she might not particularly care, even as he had so defined her birth and youth, her identity, such that one of her titles was Chaplain’s Daughter.

Her true name was Sseztlussth, but there were few who called her that—a True Name is a sacred and secret thing, among the Master Race. More frequently she has been called the Novice Fleshweaver. It was a more accurate name, one she was more proud of, even if ‘Novice’ isn’t truly an accurate description for one such as her, with all her brilliance and mastery, no matter her age. She rather prefers her current title: Serpent Queen of Bloodrise!

She even likes it enough to put up with the cloying sappy way her hairbrained mate calls her ‘Beloved One’, if they two must come as a package deal.

Ah, yes, her bumbling, ever-distractable ‘husband’—variously called the Copper Dragon King, the Dragonborn Antipaladin, Theral of Blood Rise, Prince Long Wang of Hawksong (and, in her three-chambered heart, ‘Degenerateborn’). He had left on another of his gallivants across the world, to tour the neighbouring human baronies and—ha!—make friends with the pitiful ape-men. It was absurd, by her reckoning…

But then, the Degenerateborn DID have an uncanny knack for taking the absurd and actualizing it. Her stupid childhood friend, who she used to mercilessly bully until he bawled and whined to her father or ran and hid to cower next to the Great Green Dragonborn for shelter… He had really grown into himself, no?

The Serpent Queen shakes her head to clear it of this infectious sentimentality, and chalks it up the effect of the pregnancy hormones resulting from her gestating egg—the Degenerate Dragonborn King’s child, growing within her. It weighs heavily within her, ready soon to be laid, and reminds her of its sire, and his absence.

Ugh.

>>5710397
The Serpent Queen goes to work, to distract herself from these matters. She first reflects upon the most pressing matter: the alchemical-geological researches into food production. This is one of the burgeoning Bloodrise Kingdom’s biggest obstacles to growth, and greatest threat with the advent of winter. When game grows scarce in the hills and mountains, food becomes a sticking point for many of the disparate racial communities unified under the ever-so-dopily-optimistic Dragon King… Most especially those, like her own or like the Bogbarri ‘bugbears’, who would gladly feast upon the others.

>73

Lucky for them and for her absentee husband, the Serpent Queen is a genius. Oh, her researches may be in the early stages yet, but they had great promise… More than promise, results! With the aid of a captured dwarven geologist and his daughter (she’d never bothered to learn their names, referring to them simply as The Geologist and The Engineer) as well as some dotty old swarf skilled at sniffing out specific mineral deposits (‘Stonesniffer’ seemed to be the name by which even other DWARVES knew him, so she used it as well), the Serpent Queen had discovered a means to mine not for veins of metal or clusters of gems, but rather to seek out and identify those seemingly-useless rocks which would break most easily. With these patches of porous and fragile rock identified, their research group had then set about breaking them up with the use of great rock-tilling machines. Then, the Serpent Queen had gone to work finding—and by her mystical arts as a prodigy of biological manipulation, modifying—mosses and mushrooms to break down the component minerals within, and restructuring them into edible plantae and fungi. While apparently unappetizing, early research suggested that these materials were edible and sufficiently-nutritious to sustain (albeit rather unhappily, and perhaps not indefinitely) a population of herbivores or omnivores… Like elves, dwarves, and bugbears. If they could but find the right livestock (since her soft-hearted husband would not permit them to simply use the emasculated and enslaved ‘svirfneblin’ slave class among the dwarven race for this purpose), they would be able to sue this material as feed, and form their own rudimentary farming economy in the darkness beneath Bloodrise—limited, but with room for growth, and sufficient to survive a siege or trade-embargo.

And self-sufficiency, it seemed, was more important now than ever before.

File: Screenshot 2023-07-12 080624.png (319 KB, 639x923)

319 KB PNG

>>5710399
While she does not know EXACTLY what has transpired in the northern forward base, she knows well enough to know how it will affect her, here, and the kingdom which her so-often-silly mate has wisely placed her in charge of. She knows of the death and destruction at the northern forward base, where she hatched and was raised. She knows this by way of the network of ‘greatworms’—great, swollen glowworms, directed like a dispersed intelligence by Glowie, her fellow queen and another ‘wife’ of her philandering, lust-addled ‘king’.

There will be no more food or material aid from her father and his fellows.

The Worm Queen and her mother have long served as a courier service for supplies and information between the Serpent Queen’s birthplace and her current residence, and lately have served as a means to transport living cargo as well: members of the Reptilian Master Race, especially its lower echelons such as the hybrid Degenerates and the casteless, disaffected, lowborn, and unaccomplished. Dregs, essentially, but thus those most willing to forsake the Grand Design where her own caste—the Serpent Priests—had long laboured to realize through conspiracy and subterfuge.

>84

Now, that trickle of immigrants has become a torrent. With the fall of the northern forward base—apparently the Green Dragonborn staged some sort of rampage or rebellion?—there are no patrols of Lawgiver-loyal enforcers to dodge back home. The Reptilian rabble flow freely, following the glowwrom-lit paths through deepest darkness west, to Bloodrise, where they shave heard there is sanctuary. It is not just the lower tier of her old society who come, either: now, there are more highly-born beings among them as well, fearful of human retaliation to the Great Green Dragonborn’s apparently rather dramatic and destructive ‘coming out’ to the surface world. At first. The Serpent Queen had wondered why they did not travel DOWN, rather than west, and find their safety among the Serpent Priesthood, but her brief interviews with a few of them exposes the shameful truth: their faith in his subrace, long the stewards of her people, has been broken.

She rattles with laughter at the irony, that they now come to HER for help… But then, racial and class loyalty ahs always come second to the Serpent Queen to personal ambition and opportunity. Thus is the way of the Serpent Priesthood’s most triumphant and ascendants sons and daughters. This is an opportunity to truly entrench her own position, and to make Bloodrise a beacon and bastion of the Master Race forevermore, fashioned in HER beauteous image!

Although…

File: hp8zoAio.jpg large.jpg (199 KB, 1536x2048)

199 KB JPG

>>5710401
>69

The abundance of racial types in Bloodrise—the various Reptilian subraces including slavish and semi-feral kobolds, the ‘Drow’ dark elves with their fey eccentricities, the grumbling and stubborn ‘Duergar’ and ‘Svirfneblin’ dwarves, and ESPECIALLY the blasted bugbears—has made for complicated and tenuous alliance to preside over. The Bogbarri are only just getting settled, with their so-called ‘Bugbear Boss’ summoning small troops of the shaggy goblinoids from who-knows-where in the deep darkness. They number almost a hundred now: mostly females and offspring, hairy things without protective sikes, with broad, long noses and too many teeth, squawking and squeaking and just BARELY learning sit still and be sedentary and civilized. Integrating all these races—teaching them to share a language and some measure of a culture, or even simply to not kill each other—has been difficult. The surplus of resources from the recent conquests and expansion of the Bloodrise Kingdom have seen its hodgepodge population through the winter thus far, but these stores are very likely to be depleted by spring. The food production project is in it infancy, far away from producing full crop yields, let alone meat production.

All these refugees, while increasing military capability and specifically strengthening HER race and HER position, will strain resources to the breaking point. If the Degenerateborn does not return—SOON, and with tangible SUCCESS in his efforts to normalize relations and establish trade with the likes of Blackpine, Redwell, and Sunset lake’s baronies--The Serpent Queen’s rule will be challenged. And if tehre are other highly-born Reptilians present… Well, that challenge will have teeth.


What will she do?
>Accept all the refugees, and help settle them in Bloodrise
>Accept only the lowborn and surbordinate
>Accept only the highborn and powerful
>Turn them all away—Bloodrise is full
>Write-in

>>5710402
>>Accept all the refugees, and help settle them in Bloodrise

>Plot to get most scheming highborns and least practical skills lowborn to pluck on the Svirfneblin to feed
>Betray them and put them in public light, killing the race-peace breaker

This reduce the amont of mouth to feed while still acting like Degenerateborn would like.

>>5710402
>Accept all the refugees, and help settle them in Bloodrise.

We need all the people we can get, and 8 do believe our effort's to trade for food in black pine will be successful.

>>5710402
>Accept all the refugees, and help settle them in Bloodrise

Yeah, Bloodrise is steadily becoming the true home of the Master Race. We can't turn them away without compromising everything we've worked for.

That said, I think they'll find that their previous status means very little. We will not tolerate any rank-based bullying of those who've proven themselves to the new order.

>>5710409
Supporting

Practical and ruthless - exactly like the Novice

>>5710402
>Accept all the refugees, and help settle them in Bloodrise
>Prepare for war- just in case

>>5710402
>Accept all the refugees, and help settle them in Bloodrise

>>5710409
>-1

Pissing off both the Slave dwarves and the refugees all in one swoop is retarded

File: 51Do6bz6m1L.jpg (37 KB, 375x500)

37 KB JPG

>>5710409
>>5710419
>>5710508
>>5710627
>>5710747
>>5710757
The Serpent Queen immediately recognizes that she cannot pass this opportunity by. Bloodrise becoming the new centre for Reptilian activity in the north of the known world? This is an unbelievable windfall. If the upper echelons of the Priesthood do not come here, nor the hidden secret circles of the great houses of the other castes, that is no great loss—they cannot reveal their own bases of operation without compromising their own precious veil of secrecy. Nobody really knows how many Reptilians are alive in the world today—TRUE Reptilians, undegraded, of the Master race—but among her learned cadre it is estimated that there are as few as ten thousand, with less than a third in or below the Northlands; if hundreds are dead, and hundreds more come to the Serpent Queen’s kingdom, it will be a major shift in the balance of power!

And yet she cannot stop scheming against them.

Even as she plans to invite these Reptilians in, the one-time Novice Fleshweaver cannot help but plot how to turn them to her advantage—to cull the useless eaters among the dwarven population that her mate—led astray by his pathetic new human pet—would not. Maybe she could bait her greatest rivals into coming to Blodorise and bringing their followers with them, only to feed them flesh of dwarves, expose them publicly, and let the angry mob assert the oppressive regime of ‘racial tolerance’ which the king has proclaimed? It would reduce the number of mouths to feed AND eliminate opposition!

…

Gods Below and Beyond damnit all, she can’t.

>>5710807
There are practical concerns, she tells herself: it could be linked to her, it could spark unified racial enmity against Reptilian elites (herself included!). But the truth is that she is possessed of a brilliant and cunning mind, and has no doubt she could twist the truth to suit her, and to thus cling to power or even entrench herself as favoured Queen of Bloodrise among the people.

But then what? What about when the Dragonborn returns? What about when ‘Theral’ (ugh, that NAME) discovers what she has done?

…has she gone soft, as well?

Her claws dance across her slightly-bulging abdomen, where new life grows—one-eighth mammalian, as likely as not to have that dumb brute’s stupid hair if his genes prove as dominant as they did with the Worm Queen’s hybrid offspring. Is this what is weakening her?

“Bah. You will be out of me soon. Thank the Gods for the good sense to allow real people to lay eggs, rather than be forced to hold you cursed children inside us for nine whole months!”

For now, whatever her reason, the Serpent Queen gives the order: the Reptilian refugees shall be welcomed with pen arms, no strings attached, and without any secret plots set in motion against them.

“Make sure they are sufficiently grateful,” she commands the kobolds servants whom she sends forth to spread the word. “let them know that it is to the Serpent Queen of Bloodrise that they owe their lives!”

It will have to do. The stupid Degenerateborn had better appreciate this…

File: Screenshot 2023-07-12 194010.png (544 KB, 718x989)

544 KB PNG

>>5710809
Your father-in-law and adoptive father perish. Your brother-in-law moves against you. Your ‘aunt’ and enemy are driven away, and depart for lands unknown. Your brother escapes, and rises into his full glory. Your kingdom grows, and so does your childhood beloved’s heart. ..

And you are unaware of any of it. You are the DRAGONBORN ANTIPALADIN, Dark Prophet of the Coming Age, Prince of Love and Prince of Hawksong, Champion of the Master Race, Knight Ascendant of the Dark God of Glorious Bloodshed, Copper Dragon King of Bloodrise. Some call you ‘Theral’, while others ‘Long Wang’.

(Your one wife calls you many choice names, sometimes in public, but she cannot help it and you love her anyway)

These last few months, you have been in Blackpine, a barony apart from the world, lost in a sea of trees. Oh, news finds its way in and out, sometimes—you have no doubt your own spectacular entrance has been heard of AT LEAST as far as Sunset Lake and Redwell, for how do you keep such a thing a secret?

In a towering <Dragonshape>, resplendent with the searing, blistering radiance of a long-dead sun and the glory of the Winged Serpent God who devoured it, words carrying the weight of the <Voice of the Metatron>, you entered the halls of Baron Brunus of Blackpine. Trailing behind you were a parade of horrors—or surely it must seem such, to mere men. There was Olu the Archer, Degenerate half-human Infiltrator with his south-dark skin, and beautiful-but-deadly Azonia the Drow Duelist, with skin even blacker, hair as white as snow, and her purple eyes ablaze with excitement to draw her dual swords. There were your Reptilians-all now in their true forms, following your own lead: the Occultist with her dragon-red hide and proud draconic chin; the Translator, tall and lithe yet strong, like the musculature of a snake, and bristling with dark magic; the Thief, Silkscale Infiltrator, wearing his enchanted Mask of Face-changing but presently wearing his nature unhidden and proudly on display. Holding your hand: your bride, Ekaterine of Hawksong, unmistakable daughter of Paladin King Archos, forcing her chin high, trying not to bow to your Fearsome Presence or to her twinges of shame—shame you can feel, though you can only guess at the full source and scope of. At your other side: Natvodosk the Unknowable, a trailing and scuttling horror on too many legs, with the head of a dragon, the four unblinking insect-eyes of his Worm Queen mother, and the fiery-red mane of his father.

File: Screenshot 2023-07-12 194155.png (1.11 MB, 927x927)

1.11 MB PNG

>>5710826
To the credit of Blackpine’s Baron, Brunus stood strong in the face of this. It would be a lie to say he did not flinch or recoil, but he did not forsake his seat upon the high-backed, intricately-carved, wooden throne which bore his weight. He did not cry out, and he reached for his sword-of-state, sheathed in a notch in the wood, and drew forth the ceremonial-looking weapon in legitimate defence of his wife, seated beside him in a slightly-humbler seat than that of her lord-husband.

“Isss thiss how you welcome guessstss?” you had demanded, a boastful and (you know by now) bestially menacing to mankind) grin upon your lizard lips.

It took the Baron a moment to register your words—he seemed shocked that a creature like you could even speak—and a moment longer to piece together their meaning.

“Then you are the...” the brown-bearded, broad-shouldered Huntslord of Blackpine paused, to assess your appearance. “The ‘nobleman’ who comes from faraway lands, uninvited, topples my towers, butchers my men, and demands an audience with me to discuss ‘peace and trade’? What terrible guest is this, strange MONSTER who invades my land and my home in this way and demands my hospitality as a reward?”

Outrageous! Brass-fronted impudence! His men attacked you first… Albeit, in part due to your own effort to avoid formally explaining yourself to them. Still, one of your own died, too—the North-Merchant, your much-needed and appreciated trade expert! Then, despite your attempts to save his own men and the kindness with which you escorted the survivors of the accidental attack, this furry-faced whelp dgave your no quarter, would not hear your piece, and in fact tried to clap you in irons like some common criminal! As a proud conquering dragon, you would have gladly turned this man and his laughable, flammable seat of office to cinder and smoke with a single breath…

But then Queen Ekaterine, your Beloved One, would have been cross with you.

File: level 8.png (1.01 MB, 1969x980)

1.01 MB PNG

>>5710828
Anyway, you DO want this man to be your friend—it is why you came here, after all. You need his resources, the fruits of his ample farmland and woodland, or perhaps access to the land itself, and to the trade of his villages. Bloodrise, your beloved kingdom, is a new realm, and a land apart, and its stony hills bear little life and virtually no trade routes. Your own race’s leadership is soon to turn against you—inevitably, as you knew when you made the decision to kill your appointed governor and assert your own kingly authority there. Humanity, who surround you on four sides, hate and fear you. Food and much else is scarce, and you have great NEED of friends.

How did you go about your first meeting with Baron Blackpine, those months ago , when you first saw the man?
>Offered up your remaining treasure as a gift, and reparations, and asked for mutual forgiveness and an end to reprisals—you truly do come in peace, and in the spirit of humble reconciliation
>Challenged him to a duel—nonlethal, of course—to settle things between the two of your as men of honour do, and let the victor set the terms of what happens next
>Appealed to his better nature, should he have one—talk of your noble, of the New Age you wish to herald, and of all the suffering both your people might endure without peace
>Let Ekaterine speak—this is her realm in a way, and she has met this man before and knows the ways of human hearts and minds better than you
>Write-in

>>5710829
>Let Ekaterine speak—this is her realm in a way, and she has met this man before and knows the ways of human hearts and minds better than you
We tried our way. She wanted this method so Iet her shoot her shot I say.

>>5710829
>>Let Ekaterine speak—this is her realm in a way, and she has met this man before and knows the ways of human hearts and minds better than you

>>5710829
>Write-in: Challenge the baron to a great hunt, whomever can bag the most fearsome beast in this baroney will set the terms.

Hunting was a common means of socialization amongst nobility, and the baron was noted to enjoy going on hunting trips. A hunting trip will undoubtedly lighten the current tense mood in these negotiations.

>>5710978
He will try to hunt us and take it as a duel

>>5710829
>Let Ekaterine speak—this is her realm in a way, and she has met this man before and knows the ways of human hearts and minds better than you

>>5710829
>Let Ekaterine speak—this is her realm in a way, and she has met this man before and knows the ways of human hearts and minds better than you

If she fails, go with the duel

Sorry anons -- I'd hoped to do a before-work and after-work update moving forward, to make up for my vacation, but I fear I cannot maintain that pace. It's amazing how quickly work drains you, eh? I'll write the next post this evening.

Ok

>>5711160
Take care of yourself above all RQM

>>5710829
>Appealed to his better nature, should he have one—talk of your noble, of the New Age you wish to herald, and of all the suffering both your people might endure without peace

File: MV5BNmZlM2I1YWItZGZmOC00M(...).jpg (108 KB, 592x841)

108 KB JPG

>>5711180
>>5710978
>>5711036
>>5711018
>>5710972
>>5710841
You had sized up the man upon the throne. He was large for a human but, in your current form, you could easily have towered over him and asserted your terms by force… if you had wanted only the temporary peace of threatened force. You didn’t, though, and don’t. You came to Blackpine because you wanted something that would last, enduring and protecting your people. But how do you extract such a thing from a human? Though your grandfather was one of them, though you are married to one and have lived among them for several months, you were forced to admit it then: you still don’t know their heart. Would the Baron of Blackpine respond better to a friendly challenge? To a moral appeal on behalf of your struggling subjects? Can a man even feel altruism or camaraderie for that which he regards as a ‘monster’?

“Eka.”

Your queen looked up at you, blinking in surprise. Your direct address had snapped her out of her curious and troubling malaise, which had seemed to grip her ever since she witnessed the crushed bodies pulled from beneath that toppled watchtower.

“I do not wish for any further blood to be shed,” you told her truthfully. “Help me make thisss right.”

Queen Ekaterine’s eyes widened a little. It was as if she was seeing you again, as you are beneath all the fire and boast, the swollen muscle of alchemically-enhanced <Dragonshape> and imposing force of your god-augmented <Fearsome Presence>. She saw the man she married, and your shared mission to make a better world. Seeing this, could not help but help.

“Baron Blackpine,” she ahd addressed him, stepping forward. “Brunus.”

“So it is you,” he’d replied, narrowing his eyes and leaning back, a judgemental scowl creasing his features. “Princess Ekaterine.”

“Yes,” she’d said quietly.

“A member of the royal household of Hawksong graces our lands for the first time in years, and it is on the arm of a monster,” he scoffed. “What happened, to bring this to pass?”

She had shaken her head slightly, and spoken in your defence: “Not a monster, Sir Baron. A man… A good man.”

“He has SLAIN good men, Your Majesty!” he had bellowed then, leaning forward on his throne so he was half-standing. “ Are you under his… his POWER, Princess? I can feel it… I imagine it’s why my bannermen stand around waggling their pikes about like this is some stageplay, where they are meant to look menacing, rather than defending their lord!”

Rolled 10, 17, 12 = 39 (3d20)

>>5711472
His accusation seemed to snap some of the soldiery in question from their trance, and a few even dared to shuffle forward… but if they could bear your <fearsome presence>, your wife’s flashing emerald eyes were enough to pin them back in place.

“King Theral’s, ah, whatever-it-is, it has no effect on me,” she said, and you couldn’t rightly tell if she was bluffing or overstating things—she was uniquely, the only human you had seen able to resist the similar ‘presence’ of her Paladin king father on your wedding day, and it had even paralyze YOU for a moment!

“I am here because I believe in him, and in what he has come here to do, she had continued.

“To slaughter humans like pigs? To storm my castle and threaten myself and my wife?!”

“To help his PEOPLE,” she’d retorted, her own uncertainties forgotten as she engaged in debate-one of her personal passions. “In noble revolutions, in great wars for great causes… It is a tragic thing, but good men die, do they not?”

“In wars,” the Baron had agreed swiftly, as if springing a trap. “Not in peace negotiations, which is what this… This ‘good man’ of yours proposes he is here for!”

“We were attacked first,” she said simply.

“Sneaking into my lands, making for my castle like badnits ro asssins!”

“had he approached openly,” she asks plainly, “what would have been the result? If his, his KIND didn’t wear false faces… Hide in shadows… Lurk about in hiding and secrecy, play their games of subterfuge… Would we humans of the pax Argentum offer them clemency, mercy, understanding/ Where is the place for kobolds, for lizardmen, for THIS—”

She paused to gesture grandly to you, and you weren’t sure whether to be flattered or offended.

“—in our diplomatic proceedings?”

The Baron had pause,d cosndiering her words.

“Even so…” he’d begun.

“He was trying to AVOID conflict! To SPARE their lives, and to preserve the lives of many more—of his people, AND of ours! I’ve seen him go to great pains to avoid unnecessary deaths, to protect and preserve even his enemies and prisoners!”

The Baron then feel silent, and looked searchingly to his raven-haired, heavy-gowned wife, in her willow crown, who looked back with carefully neutral expression. You couldn’t deduce the emotion in her eyes if you tried, not even with your heightened empathic sense in this form.

“Please,” your Eka had pled on your behalf, “hear what King Theral has to say.”

3d20, but DC is lower 10/12/15

File: 35297359.jpg (216 KB, 1400x2113)

216 KB JPG

>>5711474
The Baroness nodded, and this seemed to break her husband’s indecision. The Lord of Blackpine rose, and regarded first Ekaterien, and then you.

>17

“Fine,” he’d said.

He spat the word like a curse—not against you, or Eka, but against himself for giving in. But he DID give in.

“I’ll hear what you have to say, oh ‘King of Bloodrise’,” he’s acquiesced at last, “but you’re NOT entering my whiskey-tasting room while you’re still… On fire.”

“It isss more of a ssspiritual flame,” you’d noted.

“Even so.”

You’d glanced at Ekaterine, who nodded and smile a small, hopeful smile.

“Fine,” you had agreed, for it was a small compromise to make, and one that could buy you and your people—maybe ALL people—a New Age of Darkness.

The next two months had passed in short order, as autumn verged on winter. Your Beloved One’s passionate words had secured your company of Reptilians and renegade elves quarters, though nobody seemed quite certain where to place Natvodosk the Unknowable—not even Nat himself, who had a bad habit of ripping apart feather-filled mattresses and patching them together into a more suitable, silk-and-saliva-swathed nest appropriate for his size, shape, and sleeping posture. Eventually, he had been moved to the stables (and at your insistence, the other animals moved out and the area made off-limits to small creatures such as children). He seemed comfortable enough.

How did you choose to go about solidifying your bond with the Baron of Blackpine during this time?
>Dinner dates and ethical debates, husbands and wives both in attendance
>Hunting trips, with fathers and sons, displaying valorous ability and telling tales
>Try your hand at trade negotiations—though coin-counting isn’t your forte, your North-Merchant is dead and gone
>Impress the man with your wealth and knowledge, and offer to share both with him for his allegiance
>Write-in

What is it you seek?
>Minerals and relics for food, drink, and livestock to bring back home—a one-off transaction, to perhaps be pursued later
>A clandestine back-and-forth of trade—no need to bring this affair into the light or comrpomsie allegiances
>An ongoing and open trade relationship between Bloodrise and Blackpine
>The use of his outlying, undeveloped lands—under a lease—for farming, and agriculture, and limited settlement
>You want Blackpine to join your Dark Alliance—an open ally with mutual military aid
>Write-in

Is there anything else you want from the Baron or his Barony, or anything else you wish to offer him to sweeten the pot?
>Write-in

>>5711487
>Hunting trips, with fathers and sons, displaying valorous ability and telling tales.

Or


>Dinner dates and ethical debates, husbands and wives both in attendance

Either of these options would work for us, we are a great speaker and proselytizer but we are also a successful monster hunter as well.

>An ongoing and open trade relationship between Bloodrise and Blackpine.

We came here to rectify bloodrise longterm food insecurity so its population can grow and sustain itself. We shouldn't try to push for more than that and rise the subsequent dc's.

>>5711487
>Dinner dates and ethical debates, husbands and wives both in attendance
>Hunting trips, with fathers and sons, displaying valorous ability and telling tales

Both, if we can fit em in.


>An ongoing and open trade relationship between Bloodrise and Blackpine.

We need to rectify the food situation first- we can always help Blackpine overcome its stronger neighbors through use of monsters, our well trained army and the tunnels.

Backlink >>5711018 is me

>>5711531
Supporting this

>>5711487
>Dinner dates and ethical debates, husbands and wives both in attendance
Eka please continue to save us thx

>An ongoing and open trade relationship between Bloodrise and Blackpine

>>5710841
+1
let her cook

>>5710208

>>5711487

>>5711622
nvm it didnt load for me for some reason

>Dinner dates and ethical debates, husbands and wives both in attendance

>An ongoing and open trade relationship between Bloodrise and Blackpine

>>5711487
>Brag about how big our dragon cock is and start viciously breeding Ektarine in front of him
>Try your hand at trade negotiations—though coin-counting isn’t your forte, your North-Merchant is dead and gone

>A clandestine back-and-forth of trade—no need to bring this affair into the light or comrpomsie allegiances

>>5711487
>>Dinner dates and ethical debates, husbands and wives both in attendance
Good thing to shatter the monster image he still have
>An ongoing and open trade relationship between Bloodrise and Blackpine

File: Untitled72_20230714144943.png (424 KB, 2048x1536)

424 KB PNG

>>5710809
>the Serpent Queen gives the order: the Reptilian refugees shall be welcomed with pen arms, no strings attached

minor spelling mistake

>>5711487
>Dinner dates and ethical debates, husbands and wives both in attendance

>The use of his outlying, undeveloped lands—under a lease—for farming, and agriculture, and limited settlement
>You want Blackpine to join your Dark Alliance—an open ally with mutual military aid

>>5711487
>Dinner dates and ethical debates, husbands and wives both in attendance
>Hunting trips, with fathers and sons, displaying valorous ability and telling tales
Both. We know the Baron likes hunting, and dinners, with Eka's help, will make him see we are not always a monster.

>An ongoing and open trade relationship between Bloodrise and Blackpine
Open trade and a slowly improving relationship, nothing more and nothing less.

>>5711650
If I knew it would get me rad fanart, I'd lament my typographical errors a lot less

File: Screenshot 2023-07-14 185226.png (15 KB, 756x180)

15 KB PNG

>>5711804
>>5711669
>>5711645
>>5711629
>>5711626
>>5711622
>>5711576
>>5711536
>>5711531
>>5711526
[Locked and writing!]

Rolled 4, 12, 18, 3 = 37 (4d20)

>>5712239
The Baron’s love of hunting had a certain appeal to you, as a prestigious and prodigious hunter of monsters yourself. However, your queen’s early success had swayed you. Her continued presence in these negotiations, you reasoned, could only help. Once the two of you were allies—and you were confident he wouldn’t try to ‘hunt’ you with an arrow in the back—you could celebrate the signing of your first trade-treaty with such a hunt, perhaps! In the meantime, you waged your war of words across the expanse of the baron’s well-furnished and heavy-set oaken dinner-table.

The Baron’s dinners were private affairs, almost lonesome for one sued to eating encamped with your men and your mates. The size of the table was rather opulent, hinting at grander feasts in the past, but perhaps fear of you kept others away… or the sensitive nature of your conversation precluded the presence of others. You respected his wishes and reciprocated the gesture, such that for the final repast of each evening, you four rulers dined alone: you, Queen Ekaterine, Baron Brunus, and Baroness Dafne.

The Baroness was quiet woman, not given to injecting herself overmuch into conversation. When you or Ekaterine would address her with a question, she would answer, promptly and politely, but in short. Was she from here? “No.” Where did she hail from, then? “Hawksong.” Why didn’t Ekaterine recognize her? “She studied abroad.” Where? “The countryside to the east.” Did she like it? “Somewhat.”

You had hoped your conversation with the Baron would bear more fruit. You wished for one thing, plainly and openly: an open and honest trade relationship, lasting and mutually amenable. The particular eluded you—you were no trader or financier. You knew you needed food, and that had mineral wealth to bring to bear.

“All well and good,” the Baron of Blackpine had sniffed, “but what will the Paladin King say when he hears I’ve taken up trade with… Well…”

You had taken to attending these dinners in your ‘Long Wang’ form, and attired in your fine wedding-wear, while Ekaterine had limited changes of clothes and most often wore her regnal armour with the horned crown removed.

“I am the ssson-in-law of the Paladin King,” you had noted wryly. “It isss hisss daughter’sss kingdom, too. How can he object?”

Still, you took his meaning.

“Father… Father will understand,” Ekaterine had insisted. “Or my brothers will. Prince Rufos has always been very ah, AWARE of political realities.”

“Rufos? What happened to Prince Alexos?” he’d asked, and you’d carefully kept your face placid. “Anyway, you speak of realities. What of the reality that I would be feeding, and swelling the population, of a rival empire on the edge of his own?”

>>5712265
“They—we—don’t NEED to be rivals,” Ekaterine had insisted, as you allowed her to take the lead. “We aren’t so different. We are all just PEOPLE, children of…”

She’d trailed off then, cringing a little. The Baroness had caught the slip up, exchanging a look with her lord-husband.

“Which gods DO you worship?” she’d asked quietly.

It was then that you and Ekaterine exchanged a glance.

“I… Am sssworn to sspeak truly on thisss matter,” you’d said, holding your head high. “I am a Knight Assscendant of the Feather Ssserpent, the God of…”

(Glorious Bloodshed. Prideful Conquest. The Slaughtering Soldier.)

“…Triumph, and War, and Honour.”

“Hm,” the Baron had sniffed, though his wife’s face returned to careful—maybe even TOO careful—a calm. “And yet you come begging peace?”

“Not begging,” you’d noted sharply. “Offering. Freely. Generoussssly, one might ssay.”

>18

“…Right,” he’d said then, uncomfortably, and the four of you had eaten in silence for a time.

It was several more such dinners—sometimes punctuated by fiery debates about personhood between your wife and the Baron, sometimes characterized by your floundering attempts to keep up with talk of specific numerical values—kilograms of orichalcum for heads of sheep and such—but progress was made. In stops, in starts, in spurts, you found your common ground.

This was not ALL you engaged in, though. You had ample downtime, between dinners. Having forgone any hunting expeditions, how do you spend your autumn evenings?
>Training to dual-wield swords, with the aid of the Duelist
>Joining your son for demonology and theology lessons with the Occultist
>Gleaning a better understanding of human culture from the Translator
>Broing out and building your alcohol tolerance with the Archer
>Investigating reports from home—and the surrounding baronies and Hawksong—with the aid of the Thief’s expertise
>Write-in

>>5712280
>Investigating reports from home—and the surrounding baronies and Hawksong—with the aid of the Thief’s expertise

i think were good in terms of combat

but we are a monarch not a fencer alone

>>5711626

>>5712280
>Investigating reports from home—and the surrounding baronies and Hawksong—with the aid of the Thief’s expertise

>>5712280
>>Joining your son for demonology and theology lessons with the Occultist.

Theral needs more mystical abilities, Time and time again we have used magic to bail us out of jams. But then neglected to train and refine said skills. If it weren't for the diadem of clarity irr would have drained us of our magic and lifeforce, due to the fact that we were utterly lacking in demonological knowledge.

Also we need to skills to rebuild the hawksong demon network now that irr has bailed out.

>>5712280
>Training to dual-wield swords, with the aid of the Duelist
Always wanted to duel-wield our magic swords- hopefully we get Sloggy back eventually.
>Joining your son for demonology and theology lessons with the Occultist
For Iri, mainly.

>>5712280
>Investigating reports from home—and the surrounding baronies and Hawksong—with the aid of the Thief’s expertise

>>5712280
>Investigating reports from home—and the surrounding baronies and Hawksong—with the aid of the Thief’s expertise
grind ruler levels

>>5712280
>Investigating reports from home—and the surrounding baronies and Hawksong—with the aid of the Thief’s expertise

>Railing Eka every night

>>5713170
I'll support this addition too

File: Screenshot 2023-07-15 175706.png (7 KB, 662x83)

7 KB PNG

>>5713206
>>5713170
>>5712934
>>5712526
>>5712392
>>5712338
>>5712311
>>5712291
If diplomacy can be called ‘war by other means’, then you have spent this last season pursuing a tertiary form of war-and-diplomacy in your evenings. While Natvodosk expands his mind under the surprisingly-patient tutelage of the Occultist—out in the stables, where no humans will catch them engaged in demonological lessons, naturally—you study the humans. Each day, you assign the Thief to don his mask of Many Faces and to slip unnoticed into the populace. Each evening—or most evenings, for sometimes he travels further—he returns to tell you of what he is learned. He tells you of the moderately-populous village a half-day’s travel from the baronial keep which is your temporary residence.

“Several hundred humans dwell there, and a smattering of the so-called ‘halflings’,” he tells you. “Few are war-worthy. The halflings… They resemble simply slimmer dwarves. We saw similar creatures in the Eastlands, during my time there. They were… Hairier, though. More primitive in their technology. ‘Orang pedak’, I believe the locals referred to them . These ones are more like dwarves—specifically, rather like the Throat-singer. Perhaps they have admixed with the dwarves, or the humans, or both?”

The local economy seems to be as you suspected—it is largely self-contained and just above subsistence, though, the general health of the population is better than one might expect, owing largely to local religious organizations. The petty priesthood of the local agricultural and forest gods dole out minor miracles—divine magic, like that of the Paladin Order of the sword-god Moroth in Hawksong—and also run charitable organizations to give and take food in some socialist redistribution scheme.

“They are not nearly so deadly a foe as a paladin, however,” the Thief notes brightly.

“Good,” you say, though you aren’t exactly certain that armed conflict with the clergy is on the table just yet.

File: Screenshot 2023-07-15 184051.png (96 KB, 187x268)

96 KB PNG

>>5713337
“Indeed,” the Thief notes with a hint of warning, ‘for word of our… Arrival… has reached the common folk. The scum has heard of a man—or a dragon, or a man riding a dragon, depending on the teller—who has come to stay with the baron. The religious leadership has expressed concern.”

When you have learned all that you need to of the Blackpine population—or at least those who have ‘urbanized’ to any degree—you turn the Thief towards the neighbouring baronies. First he gathers insight from nearby, for many baronies have extended families which cross the borders of Redwell and Sunset Lake.

“Blackpine’s lumber and furs are most valuable to Redwell,” he notes, “but Sunset Lake is more prosperous, and thus pays better and buys more. They then sell some of it to Redwell. To take Sunset lake would be to seize the area, but Redwell’s army would surely move to stop you… if they could feed and clothe their troops.”

You note this information with a silent nod, still considering options.

“They have heard of you as well,” the Thief notes. “Which means the information has flowed to Hawksong. Though there is a information lag due to travel times, and apparently especially in the winter, they exchange information and goods with some regularity between Sunset Lake and the capital.”

You hiss a little and lash your tail. So Paladin King Archos may well have heard of your presence here, and your true nature? Troubling…

“That may not be such a serious problem, Superior One.”

You look questioningly to your spymaster, and the Thief tells you something of the news which has filtered back from Hawksong to here—or, at least, to Sunset Lake.

“Does everyone know of this?” you ask sharply.

He shakes his head, and tells you that the news of such matters is reserved for those highly-placed.

“I was impersonating a member of the baronial guard at the time,” the Thief notes. “I was attempting to glean what little the ape-men know of our activities in Bloodrise. Apparently the officials have acknowledged—or been forced to acknowledge—that tehre is something more than a kobold presence in the mountains, and more than a dwarven rebellion… But no formal action has been taken, nor orders issued, from Hawksong. Not yet.”

“Well,” you note, “they must have bigger issues to deal with, just now.”

File: 41JL3aWU0FL._AC_UF1000,10(...).jpg (44 KB, 666x1000)

44 KB JPG

>>5713338
That night, as with almost every night, you take your dinner and your wine with the Baron and Baroness of Blackpine, and with your Human Queen. The wine is enjoyed sparingly in your case, which the Baron chides you for and seems to take curious umbrage with. Ekaterine, too, can only enjoy herself to a certain extent—her pregnancy is beginning to show, expanding her stomach in a curious way. You take a moment to trail your fingers over that same swelling that evening, as she abashedly turns her reddened face from the sight.

“Queen Glowie’s stomach didn’t do this, then?” she’d asked, a touch jealously.

“She laid eggsss,” you note. “And I wass away.”

“Ah.”

She shivers a little under your fascinated caress, and squeaks cutely as your hands find the other location which ahs swelled: the part of her for which her whole clade of life is named, her bosom, engorged with hormones and readying to produce food-secretions.

“I think I’ll take a tasste firssst,” you tease with a grin.

“I’m not making milk y—Ah!” she whines, even as her back arches at your mouth’s interruption. “Careful! They’re—nn!—sensitive, too!”

As with virtually every night these past few months, sometimes as ‘Long Wnag’ and sometimes in yoru own natural shape, you end it explosively, deep inside your Beloved One. You are no less attracted to her for her pregnancy—perhaps moreso, in fact, for how it reminds you of the bond of family which now entwined your two fates and futures. For all the diplomatic delicacy that fills your days, the subterfuge which fills your nights, it is this brief window of time when you are coiled like mated serpents—rutting, then resting—that you treasure most of all.

“I think we’re making real progress with Baron Brunus,” she tells you, for such is the common pillow-talk of your human mate. “The cultural barriers are still there, but he sees the economic opportunities and—more importantly—I think he’s really starting to see your folk as, ah, well… As PEOPLE, you understand?”

“Good,” you say, and you hope she is right. “Winter isss coming ssoon. The Thief tellsss me he… Overheard talk of thiss from ssome humansss.”

Best to seal the deal before then, you reason. Snow will fall shortly, and—from what you hear—that will make a return to Bloodrise most difficult… ESPECIALLY for your largely cold-blooded retinue. They could easily fall into a torpor in such cold, unable to generate sufficient body heat of their own, and fall ill or die.

…

File: Screenshot 2023-07-15 184356.png (221 KB, 378x379)

221 KB PNG

>>5713344
Your gaze settles on Eka uneasily at that though, of illness and death. Your three-chambered heart beats a little faster, and she seems to notice, laying her head upon your chest as she is.

“Theral?” she asks. “Is something the matter?”

IS something the matter? Well, that depends on how you feel about the news you earlier received: King Archos of Hawksong is ill, dying, perhaps even DEAD given the information lag. Eka and her father have not been so clos, these last few years, but she still loves him dearly—you know that much. The bond between the two is such that he kept her like a treasured artwork—a reminder of his lost wife—in the gilded cage of his palatial estate. Their bond was such that when she committed to marry you, an adventuring stranger and a foreigner (albeit ‘merely’ an easterly human, to their knowledge at the time), he silenced his own nobility’s opposition and defended your union out of love for his daughter and trust in her judgement.

Will you tell Ekaterine?
>Yes
>No

>>5713347
>Yes
It's better if she learned this from us.

>>5713347
>Yes

We are partners and she deserves to know

>>5713347
>Yes
tell her that he's dead, though, not just dying
otherwise she might insist on a return to hawksong

>>5713347
>Yes

>>5712291

File: the parents.png (1.45 MB, 1800x2400)

1.45 MB PNG

>>5713353
>>5713535
>>5713559
>>5713640
The risk of telling your Queen of Men abut her king-father’s condition is obvious: what if is distracts her form the mission at hand? That would be terrible, obviously, as she’s become the backbone of your negotiations—the bridge between two unlike worlds. She’s aware of that too, though. Would she really just… Abandon her duty?

You try to put yourself in her place, but it’s hard for you. Reptilians of the Master Race rarely know their parents as more than a genealogical footnote, and feel no bond to them—not unless, like your Serpent Queen, they were selected and groomed for a position of importance due to talent or an especially attractive array of features. You try to imagine how you would react if ‘Roth’, the Dragonblood in Hawksong who supplied half your genetics, were to perish… But you only even learned of him months ago, and your relationship has been characterized by his resentment of you. Your mother, well, you feel a sort of kinship-bond with her… But you never knew her when she lived, for she laid your egg and then left, to die a year or two thereafter at the hands of the Green Knight. Your only encounters with her were glimpses beyond Death’s veil.

The Chaplain, maybe? He is… LIKE a father to you, in some ways. If he were to die, would you feel as Ekaterine might? How would you react if you heard that he was unwell?

You sigh. Queen Ekaterine is your partner in this endeavor—and in life, for that matter—and deserves to know the truth, whatever her reaction. You will handle it when it comes.

“Eka,” you say, “there iss sssomething elsse that you should know… Ssomething that the Thief hass dissscovered.”

Her reaction is, well… Very human, and very female, as you understand it. There are tears—a wasteful expulsion of water from the eyes which makes you distressed to see it, not least one which because nothing you say seems to stem the tide. Water, ever your bane, is also your foe in this realm. She wails, and sobs; you run out of words, and simply hold her, eventually donning the shape of ‘Long Wang’ again simply so you have more soft surfaces and fewer spikes and scutes that she might cute or abrase herself upon. Eventually, she seems to calm.

“I must see him,” she says.

…Or so it seems.

>>5713921
“You are needed here,” you note.

“Theral, my brothers are not… Prince Rufos and Prince Alexos are good men, and I do not subscribe to the toxic notion that a man CANnot be tender… Obviously…”

She squeezes you closer, as you continue to hold her. You smile, but reflect on Prince Alexos (slain, by you, and his corpse hidden in a cave) and Rufos (brainwashed by a demon to do your bidding).

“…But Father has always been most open, most comfortable, with me. If he is ill… He NEEDS me.”

Ekaterine doesn’t know just how right she is: he brothers truly re incapable of rendering any such comfort as they are. And yet, you cannot let her go.

“Eka,” you say, attempting to be delicate in tone as you cannot be in word, “it may already be too late, anyway. The information delay is sssuch that—”

“I must TRY, Theral,” Queen Ekaterine asserts. “If there is a chance that I could… That he needs me and that I COULD have been there… And I didn’t…”

You stay awake for some time, later than you normally are, debating the issue. It seems that this once, however, your Human Queen’s appetite for debate is sated: she is adamant, and will not be dissuaded. Over the next week, your evenings of lovemaking are replaced by a war of words.

But, well… Eka is small, and physically weak, and sheltered such that she can read a map for political purposes or historical ones, but not use it to navigate geography or topography. If you forbid it, what is she to do?

This thought, and the knowledge that winter is coming soon to the Bloodrise mountains and the surrounding baronies, weighs upon you. You must settle matters here, of course, and you’ve made good progress… But you still need more time. But what of your mountain home, your kingdom? How has it fared without your guidance? What has your Childhood Love, coldblooded and conniving creature that she is, made of your newborn empire? How are Glowie and your other sons doing, and your Dwarf and Kobold Regents?

Is… Is THIS maybe how Ekaterine feels, thinking of Hawksong and her father? This pang of longing, this ache of absence?

Where will you spend the winter?
>Here in Blackpine
>In Hawksong
>Back in Bloodrise

And what of Ekaterine?
>She stays with you
>You will send her—with an escort, obviously—elsewhere [where?]

>>5713922
>Back in Bloodrise

>You will send her—with an escort, obviously—elsewhere [where?]
Hawksong

I have the distinct, unpleasant feeling we won't see her again if we let her go now, but I'm really unsure on what to do about it.

>>5714022
[Write-ins are, as is usually the case, permitted]

>>5713922
>In Hawksong
>She stays with you
We told her she isn't a prisoner, she will resent us forever if we force her to stay. I feel we'll never see her again if we let her go alone. Going with her, while absurdly dangerous, seems like the only chance of reaching the kind of happy ending we wanted.

>>5714047
I wish I could think of something better and will switch if someone does.

>>5713922
>In Hawksong
>She stays with you

>>5714086
Supporting.

But we need the Thief to do some advanced scouting to ascertain the situation. He should also try and get in contact with Iri

We can then decide who should come with us

File: Family-First_Logo_A-1_PMS-213.jpg (112 KB, 1200x1200)

112 KB JPG

>>5713930
>>5714056
>>5714086
>>5714198
Your obligation niggle at your conscience, but you already know form the moment the debates begin what will happen. You have promised Eka that she is not your prisoner, and you won’t make a liar of yourself—not on this count, at least. But to send her alone… Well, that isn’t going to happen. Not when she’s many months pregnant with your cosmically-important demigod spawn, certainly. While the capital might be safe territory under the auspices of Irinnile the Succubus and his princely patsy, there are still paladins, mages, and all manner of other threats there.

Something deep inside you fears that, fi you let her go alone, you will never see Ekaterine again.

The premonition is an irrational one, coming upon you like a nightmare form an otherwise-dreamless torpor. You have long learned to heed such omens, though. You dreamt of silk-spinning worm before you ever met Glowie. You dreamt of the Green Knight before you learned of Heinrich Yosef, or his history with your mother and his dark designs upon your people. You even dreamt or Irinnile, prior to discovering the true nature of his word. Dreams, you conclude, have power.

Thus, that night, you tell your Beloved One: “I will go with you, to Hawksssong, to ssee your father.”

Ekaterine is pleased, insofar as she can be under the circumstances. You can tell she is appreciative of your support, and grateful that you are done fighting her on this, and yet you ARE still making this trip because of the ailment and approaching mortality of his beloved father.

“And what about the negotiations? And your people, back home?”

“OUR people,” you correct her, ‘will be fine. I will ssee to it, asss will the Sserpent Queen.”

>>5714306
“Teharissa…” Ekaterine mumbles the pseudonym of your Childhood Beloved. “Didn’t you… Um…”

She blushes a little bit, and her hand rests upon her slightly-distended abdomen.

“Yess,” you acknowledge, for you take her meaning. You did, indeed, impregnate the Serpent Queen before you departed-at her rather aggressive insistence.

“I… I feel bad, taking all your attention like this,” Ekaterine notes. “She’s attending to the administration of the kingdom, carrying a child… It is quite a lot for one woman.”

“She is more than capable,” you note, reflecting on the one-time-Novice. “She alwaysss hasss been.”

“It must be nice,” Ekaterine notes, a little sadly. “meanwhile, I can’t even make my way home on my own.”

You take her hands in yours, and tell the Human Queen truthfully: “I could not have done all thisss, here, without you. You have your own ssstrengthsss. It isss why I love you.”

This, and your continued commitment to her, seems to mollify her somewhat. However, that’s same commitment raises a umber of questions. Chiefmost among them: what will you do about Blackpine, and your ongoing bargaining and bridgebuilding, if you are to leave?
>Attempt to hurriedly seal the deal—at least to have food and furs sent to Bloodrise for this winter, to see your people through—and polish up the fine details next season
>Present your proposed trade deal—now, in full—and demand that the Baron acquiesce to your very reasonable terms; you have waited long enough
>Leave matters as is for now, and trust in your Serpent Queen to see Bloodrise through the winter, and instruct those who you leave behind here to subvert and pervert the local culture to make conditions more favoruable upon your return
>Ask the Occultist to summon a demon to addled an deceive the Baron into compliance
>Write-in

Who will you take with you and Eka back to Hawksong?
>Olu the Archer
>Azonia the Duelist
>The Thief
>The Occultist
>The Translator
>Natvodosk the Unknowable One

[Please note: anyone you don’t take will remain here; anyone you take with you cannot help subvert the local barony; options such as demonic subversion are ONLY available if you leave someone like The Occultist or Translator behind to oversee and control the demon(s)]

>>5714198
>But we need the Thief to do some advanced scouting to ascertain the situation
[The travel time is such that this would be a nonstarter with Ekaterine. He'd have to get there, possibly get stranded (and you folks in Blackpine likewise) by snowfall, and then be unable to make it back to report until it's too late. Even if Archos was still alive when the Theif left Hawksong, he could be dead by the time he returns to Blackpine.]

>>5714309
>Attempt to hurriedly seal the deal—at least to have food and furs sent to Bloodrise for this winter, to see your people through—and polish up the fine details next season

>The Thief
>The Occultist
>Natvodosk the Unknowable One

>>5714309
>Attempt to hurriedly seal the deal—at least to have food and furs sent to Bloodrise for this winter, to see your people through—and polish up the fine details next season

they'll understand. family affairs. we could tell them about it if we must.
>Olu
>The Thief

I dont think nat will be accepted by hawksong at the moment

>>5714369


>>5713640

>>5714306
>Irinnile the Succubus and his princely patsy
*her
Though I guess Irinnile can really be whatever based on her summoner and her mood, so it hardly matters

>>5714309
>Present your proposed trade deal—now, in full—and demand that the Baron acquiesce to your very reasonable terms; you have waited long enough
>Ask the Occultist to summon a demon to addled an deceive the Baron into compliance
We have new mouths to feed, we can’t afford to play nice.

>Olu the Archer
>Azonia the Duelist
>The Thief
>The Occultist
>The Translator
I want a robust team if we’re heading back into a hostile Hawksong

>>5714309
>anyone you don’t take will remain here
Can we not send them back home?

>>5714309
>>Present your proposed trade deal—now, in full—and demand that the Baron acquiesce to your very reasonable terms; you have waited long enough

>>5714369
Supporting this

File: pending.png (15 KB, 579x221)

15 KB PNG

>>5714483
[An option as well, though that would mean leaving Blackpine unattended.]

>>5714449
[Likewise, remember that if you take the occultist and Tarnslator, AND summon a demon, the only one elft to manage that demon would be... Natvodosk, who is clever and deadly for a toddler but is still less than two years old. He IS capable of minor demon-wrangling now, though, thanks to his lessons with the Occultist.]

>>5714558
>>5714496
>>5714483
>>5714449
>>5714369
>>5714333
[It's a close vote and I think grHzeKzN still needs to cast a ballot, so I'll leave this open for now. I'm checking out an art exhibition today, so there may be only one or two updates this Monday.]

>>5714309
>Present your proposed trade deal—now, in full—and demand that the Baron acquiesce to your very reasonable terms; you have waited long enough
We always meant to conclude the deal by winter

>Olu the Archer
>Azonia the Duelist
>The Thief
>Send the rest back home

>>5714309
>Present your proposed trade deal—now, in full—and demand that the Baron acquiesce to your very reasonable terms; you have waited long enough

>Olu
>Thief

File: final.png (14 KB, 663x222)

14 KB PNG

>>5714713
>>5714692
>>5714558
>>5714496
>>5714449
>>5714369
>>5714333
[Alright, caught me before I headed out. Let's write an update!]

>>5714719
While a deal for one winter’s supplies is nothing to scoff at—not when you approached as a relative unknown, from a hostile and terrifying race, personally resembling a tyrant king out of legend—it is not enough. You need a lasting trade relationship—security for your people, forevermore, or at least for the foreseeable future! The creeping dread in the pit of your stomach presses you to seal that deal here and now, not to wait. Something is waiting for your in Hawksong, something ominous.

“Baron Blackpine,” you address the human leader, that day. “I thank you for your hossspitality—”

“We both do,” Ekaterine adds, ever the ‘feminist’.

“—but we musst depart. I am afraid that… Family matterss have arisen, which require our urgent attentionsss.”

“Family matters?” the Baron asks, with the hint of a mocking smile on his lips as he glances to Ekaterine—whose clothes, after all, his tailors have had to adjust or replace twice over the course of your visit, to accommodate the life growing within her. “She looks a ways off yet. Unless she’s to lay an egg any day now, and I just don’t understand the emahcnisms.”

The baroness of Blackpine swats at her husbands arm—a rare show of direct intercession on her part, and he grimaces as he realizes he has likely overstepped. This, in itself, is a good sign—when you’d first arrived, he’d have thought nothing at all of insulting you, or any woman who bore your offspring. Ekaterine is right: he ahs come to see you as, in some way, a real person rather than some demon-made-flesh or alien invader.

“It iss of a lesss pleassant ssort,” you admit, “and it takes usss not to Bloodrise, but to Hawksssong.”

Barona and Baroness exchange another look at this, but they do not press you—instea,d the Baron asks of Ekaterine:

“Is everything quite alright?”

Ekaterine’s forehead scrunches and her lips pucker slightly—she is a terrible liar, one of her weaknesses you find charming and comforting, for it means she cannot easily deceive you or hide away her fears and resentments where you cannot address them—and she nods. The Baron is obviously unconvinced, for he can see her obvious tells just as you can. Before he can inquire further, though, you interject:

“Thusss, we mussst conclude our bussinessss.”

The Baron straightens a little, regarding you with narrowed eyes.

“We’ve seen little but the, hrm, SAMPLES of wealth you brought with you,” he notes. “We haven’t even seen that Bloodrise is as you say it is—replete with wealth, wholly under your control.”

“You doubt me?” you ask.

“I know that a man inflates ever measure, when making a first impression,” he notes with some humour. “Perhaps it is the same for a dragon-man. How should I know? You certainly appeared much larger the first time we met than today—a forward face, hm?”

File: 2020.02.17-Why-Handshake-(...).png (212 KB, 1600x1100)

212 KB PNG

>>5714735
When you do not rise to his bait, he sighs, and shrugs.

“In the spring, perhaps—”

“No,” you say. “My people need food and furs now, to sssee usss through the winter.”

“Then your negotiating position is rather weak, hm?”

You resist the urge to hiss. It tends to unsettle humanoids when you do it, regardless of your outward appearance—no, perhaps ESPECIALLY in human form, when the unnatural sound makes a lie of your disguise.

“I am not a monster,” the Baron notes, perhaps sensing your simmering irritation. “No offence meant to monsters, naturally. I do not wish to extort you or your… People. But you are asking me to send MY people into the lion’s den—no, the dragon’s!—loaded with valuable trade goods, in exchange for gold, jewels, ore, and more which MIGHT be there… And which we MIGHT see arrive, IF they return and this isn’t a trap.”

“I will sssend my retinue with them, ssave for my persssonal retainers who shall come with me” you tell him, “with insstructionsss to ssee that you are paid. I did not go to all thisss trouble, sspend all thisss time with you and your wife, ssimply to engineer an ambush. You musst realize that by now. PEACCCE, and lasting trade, iss our objective.”

The man nods readily, accepting your logic and seemingly your intentions.

“Very well,” he says, and steps forward. You are on guard for only a moment, but then he extends his hand.

“Here are my terms… We can let the bookworms and abacus-fondlers knock out the particulars later, but we’re both men, or man-shaped things of our word, yeah? I will send you the goods you request: meat, vegetables, fur, livestock, perhaps some other trade goods if you have something in mind and it’s reasonable or your people want to pay more, personally. We will bring back goods—of our choosing, from among those you have offered—of equivalent weight. We will do this once per season, four times a year, for the next five years.”

File: c772aec1fca17621013c1bd69(...).jpg (115 KB, 751x1063)

115 KB JPG

>>5714736
You squint. You aren’t entirely sure it is a fair deal, actually. Fur and food are very necessary, especially until you can produce your own, but even with the vague additions of ‘livestock’ and ‘perhaps some other trade goods’, the orichalcum, gold, and gems must surely be worth more by weight. It seems that, if the Baron respects you more as a person, he has also come to fear you less as a creature. You look to Ekaterine, but she looks back helplessly; she is well-read in the so-called 'humanities', and a very intelligent creature, but she is not an economist. You dearly miss the North-Merchant.

“In addition,” the Baron interrupts your thoughts, “we will swear to whatever gods might be hearing either of our prayers that we will not betray one another, steal from one another, invade or plunder one another, or attack one another’s people, so long as our deal remains in place. We will, in short, be good and friendly neighbours. Peace, as requested.”

The deal is straight-forward, to be sure, if its terms are hazy and favour the Baron. Then again, his barony (though a tributary state of Hawksong, on the fringes of human civilization) outnumbers your kingdom in citizens, is much larger geographically, and if your military might is greater then you ALSO lack anything akin to the Pax Ferrum-Pax Argentum arrangement which Blackpine has with its neighbours and with the Paladin King’s throne. The Dark Alliance simply isn’t there yet… But perhaps this agreement could be the beginning of such a rival organization of states?

“Well?” the Baron blusters, seemingly nervous or annoyed at your delay to take his proffered hand. “Yay or nay, King Theral?”

You are a Knight Ascendant of the Feathered Serpent God. A vow you make, such as a handshake deal, is religiously and mystically binding to one such as you, for your patron deity regards deception and false promises as a tool of those too weak to enforce their will by fire and steel and extract their toll in blood. To go back on your word isn't impossible, but would cost you dearly.

What will you do?
>Take the deal
>Modify the deal [how? terms will affect the DC of a Diplomacy roll]
>Reject the deal and leave—you will discuss this more upon your return [Results in roll for how Bloodrise fares this winter]
>Reject the deal and challenge him—you will duel him to impose your own terms, if he has honour
>Reject the deal and attack him, here and now—you will swear no oath to this man [Initiates combat]
>Write-in

>>5714738
>Take the deal
It's honestly not that bad. Every single one of our objectives is accomplished by it. If Blackpine becomes richer by it, that's not really a problem. That's how trade is, both benefit. The renegotiation five years from now will be much, much easier.

>>5714738
>Modify the deal [how? terms will affect the DC of a Diplomacy roll]

A yearly meeting to readjust terms and celebrate cooperation, where representatives of both factions must accede to a new compact, even if it's exactly the same as the previous one.

>>5714738
>Attempt modification, if needed?
What if he tries to send us something super heavy to take back a ton of gold for it? Unless he's only sending exactly what we request every time, we need the right to reject the goods we don't need, and remove their weight from that trade.

>>5714738
>>Modify the deal [how? terms will affect the DC of a Diplomacy roll]
Food is mostly made of water. One quarter of the weight is already really generous.

>>5714738
Bloodrise of full of mineral wealth yes, but the baron's deal is straight out highway robbery. a cow weigh's about 2,000 pounds but commonly in the medieval era it was only worth 175 GRAMS of silver. The baron is surge charging us in this trade deal by more than hundreds of times over. And is expecting us to be too dumb to tell the difference.

And his mussing that he has the better negotiating hand is also questionable. How much weigh does to pax-ferrum hold when the current long reigning king is dying (and the natural instability that comes with it.) And war looms between hawksong and the southlands. When the south-land hawksong war does break out can the baron can the baron even expect any reinforcements to come his way, in a timely manner?


>>Modify the deal [how? terms will affect the DC of a Diplomacy roll]
>Goods from bloodrise will be sold at a discount of 75% off their normal northern-land market value. Goods from bloodpine will then be exchanged at 2x their normal/average northern market value.

This deal grants to baron the trade advantage he wants, whilst not robbing our kingdom blind of mineral wealth.

>>5714832
Switching to this. that grant a nice 8x instead of 1000x;
>>5714769
that too

>>5714738
>>5714832
I'll switch to this as well, I hadn't realized just how lopsided the deal was.

>>5714832
based anon googling medieval cow prices

File: maxresdefault.jpg (110 KB, 1280x720)

110 KB JPG

>>5714849
>>5714839
>>5714832
>>5714784
>>5714769
You might not be an economist or trader, but you have a keen sense for people, and for negotiations, cultivated in your two years of travel and dealmaking. The Baron’s nervousness belies his own awareness that the deal isn’t fair. You think hard on the matter, considering what you know: gold and silver, gems… these are stores of value. Even keeping in mind your relatively unequal bargaining positions, there is simply no weigh that a cow’s value in any precious metal should weigh as much as the cow itself—otherwise, people would simply transport the cow directly and dispense with the middle-men altogether!

You point this out, but the Baron merely frowns, hand lowering slightly.

“Have you considered the position you’re putting me in with the authorities in Hawksong?” he asks. “This is to help pay for THAT as well.”

“Have you consssidered that food—and lievsstock-are largely composssed of water?” you counter.

“What, lizards—and dwarves, and elves—suddenly don’t need water?” the Baron barks. “Or, what, you have some magical method to remove the watee from food without ruining it? Or from live cows and chickens?”

“We have underground sstreamss,” you note, suppressing a shudder at your rather unfortunate memories associated with those water-sources. “An even exchange in weight isss unreassonable. I am not a fool, Brunusss… Do not play me for one. We can come to more equitable termss, termsss which take into account your ‘inconveienccesss’, and you will SSTILL be a rich man.”

Ekaterine, who has been squinting in deep concern nitration, suddenly blurts out: “The going rate of a head of cattle… I think I read that it was two hundred cows… No, well, two hundred animals, cows and bulls together, maybe? I think it was… 3500 gold pieces?”

File: 3Florence bank1.jpg (351 KB, 1082x722)

351 KB JPG

Rolled 3, 15, 7, 17 = 42 (4d20)

>>5714888
You both look at her in surprise, and she blushes.

“I might, um, well, the exact figures are… it isn’t my SPECIFIC interest, but it was in a report on trade with the Southlands that also had, um, ethnographic elements which I…”

You could kiss her, the strange little monkey-woman that she is, with her idiosyncratic mind and uncanny memory.

“That isss less than 100 poundss of gold, yess? For four hundred THOUSSSAND poundss of meat?”

“Well…” the Baron pauses, a little flushes as well. You can see he mind racing, and you wonder if he even knew how bad a deal he was offering—he has a certain disdain for crunching numbers, evidently. “The transport costs, and feeding, and…”

“Feel free to double-check Eka—Queen Ekaterine—on her numbersss,” you say smugly, “but she isss rarely wrong on a fact or figure, in my experience.”

You place your arm around her, and she glows with pride at your praise, and your confidence in her.

“I will offer you eight timesss the going rate,” you say. “Five hundred poundsss of food, furs, and livestock for one pound of gold, with ssilver, copper, and orichalcum to be negotiated independently, and any other trade goodss haggled ass our ‘abacusss-fondlerss’ see fit.”

“I—” the Baron begins.

“And ANNUAL renegotiationsss, whereby our representatives will dissscuss our ongoing relationship, and reaffirm our commitmentsss. All your other termsss are amenable to me—including, of coursse, nonaggressssion.”

The Baron scowls, but you can see uncertainty in his eyes. He looks to his own wife, whose expression only he can read, and back to you.

[DC lowered to 10/12/14 from 15/18/20, for a good write-in and research.]

File: maxresdefault.jpg (180 KB, 1280x720)

180 KB JPG

>>5714890
>17 v 14
The Baron groans, and takes your hand in a firm grip, giving it a single hard shake and then pulling it away—not in disgust, but almost in shame.

“I can’t believe I’ve been made to look like the greedy miser in an exchange with a DRAGON,” he mutters.

“You did it yourself, dear,” the Baroness whispers, and he cringes.

“Dragonsss are ssimply better at greed than humansss,” you say cheerfully, with a grin to let him know you are joking—the expression, as usual, goes over better in your less-toothy ‘Long Wang’ visage. “You can attempt to get the better of me in our nexxxt negotiation, between more experienced misers than we two.”

“We four,” Ekaterine notes.

“Of courssse,” you say, giving her a squeeze.

You two males size each other up with an increased mutual respect, sealed by a pact, while your wives embrace and mime cheek-kisses. You understand this to be some form of gendered tradition, and are simply grateful the same is not expected of you and Brunus.

“Safe travels,” he bids you gruffly. “All things considered, you haven’t been my worst guest.”

“And you have been a mossst hospitable hossst,” you agree, “all things consssidered.”

He laughs at that, and you part ways—he to draw up paperwork and arrange men to move a train of wagons up into the mountains before first snowfall, and you to tell your own coterie of followers about your plans.

“What?” Azonia pouts. “You mean I won’t get to see Hawksong? Can I at least spend longer in town on the way back? The market—”

“They will be bringing trade goodsss back to Bloodrise,” you note. “You can trade for fabricsss and other ssuch frivolitiesss at that time.”

“’Frivolities’, you say, mister ‘commissions new clothes every season’?” the dark elf Duelist teases you, poking you in the chest.

You have no real retort, so fall back on the tried and true technique of stern silence, which seems to eventually break—or bore—the elf.

“Archer, Thief,” you address the half-human and the Silkscale, “you will accompany uss to Hawkssong.”

You resist the urge to tell them to be on-guard. Despite your vague feeling of dread, you have no reason to suspect anything is amiss in Hawksong—well, save the things you deliberately engineered TO be amiss, all to your benefit. And anyway, Oluwadamilare is a reliable companion, and the Thief a seasoned and properly-paranoid Reptilian Infiltrator and spymaster. You have no reason to fear either shall be anything but vigilant. Instead, you simply tell them to pack up your things, and you do likewise.

“Thank you again for this,” Ekaterine says, as you help her pack her bags, and she gives your hand a squeeze.

Is there anything you wish to attend to before you leave Blackpine and part ways with your companions? Anything you wish to do along the road to Hawksong?
>Yes [what?]
>No [I’ll roll for random encounter chance, and then move on to Hawksong]

>>5714895
>Yes [what?]
Spend a little time with our son, tell him we're proud of him, it's not his fault we're not taking him with us and he should continue behaving well on the way back.

>>5714895
>>5714901
also tell him he's our little pogchamp and should keep studying hard

>>5714906
>>5714901
+1 ok thats kinda based

>>5714369

>>5714901
+1 to this. Just a day or two, but a day or two spent just with Nat.

File: EyZTlAhWYAMtPlP.jpg (73 KB, 762x1200)

73 KB JPG

>>5714901
>>5714906
>>5715028
>>5715078
Between gathering and applying intelligence, this trade deal has dominated all your time in Blackpine. A part of you had hoped to go hunting, or to take in the sights. The surface world really is such a wondrous place—including its nature—and yet it occurs to you that you’ve seen precious little of it. Before you go, you want to change that, and there is one particular individual with whom you would spend this time.

“May I interrupt this lesson? I wish to borrow The Unknowable One.”

“Of course, Superior One!”

You have been impressed by the occultist’s patience with your son. If Natvodosk the Unknowable is your least rambunctious child (so FAR, one hopes), he is still a handful. How could he not be? He is an apex predator, a natural born soldier, nearly as large as your <Dragonshape> and with all the restraint one would expect of a hatchling. He is especially dangerous for one who does not have a <Fearsome Presence> to keep him in check. A part of you expected to find your demon-expert cocooned and half-eaten when you instructed her to tutor your wyrmling spawn, but each time you checked in on the, you found your quietly-unsettling insectoid offspring watching and listening to her explanations of planar theory and demonic hierarchies attentively.

“Is he retaining much?” you ask the occultist, once Nat has skitter-slithered outside. “He is very young…”

“This is true, Oh Dragon King,” the Occultist reflects. “We normally begin such tutelage only when a hatchling is three or five years old, depending upon caste and aptitude. And it IS true that the Unknowable One struggles with the fine motor skills and precision necessary to form a truly SECURE summoning circle… But for a Young One of only two summers, he retains much more than I would expect! I think this one ahs the makings of a fine occultist… If you and the Queen would permit such, of course.”

You tell her you will think it over, and thank the young Dragonblood for her service, mentallya didng her to the shortlist of servants with whom you can safely leave your wyrm princes… or at least this one. She seems over the moon to be thanked directly by the Dragon King. Apparently even after all this travel together, your celebrity status has not yet worn away with her. You suppose that, unlike the Thief and Translator, or even your Archer, she never knew you as a ‘mere’ Dragonborn Champion, but always as Conqueror of Bloodrise and Dark Prophet of the Coming Age.

File: 1641167976.armundy_scorpios.png (149 KB, 500x500)

149 KB PNG

>>5715120
“Have you been enjoying your lessons, Unknowable One?” you ask Nat, as you step outside the stables, where he is waiting.

He chitters and chirps happily—a bit more expressive than you’re used to from this quietest of Glowie’s children—and begins to sign to you in the peculiar silent hand-language of the dark elf soldier-class, taught to him by his OTHER minder back home.

‘I like this one,’ he signs. ‘Her scales are shiny and her voice is nice.’

…Ah. A childhood crush, is it? You rattle a little with laughter, provoking a tilt of the head and a withdrawal of your son’s hand-talons towards his chitinous carapace.

“No, no, it is nothing,” you reassure him, signing back ‘no problem’ as well. “I am glad to hear you have been behaving well.”

‘If I eat her,’ he notes sagely, ‘I cannot listen to her voice.’

“This is true,” you agree, beckoning for him to follow you. “And you are learning much?”

‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘Mother says that a hive is important to get things done, but by summoning enough demons you can make a hive, then just get rid of it.’

“Hm?” you consider this. “It’s a possibility, but remember that demons are duplicitous things.”

‘What does that mean?’ he asks.

“They lie, and scheme,” you clarify. “They aren’t like a hive, or a family, or a community. Theya re all out only for themselves, and if you summon a hive’s worth of them, you will struggle to mind them all. If you aren’t keeping an eye on your demons, they will soon cease to be YOUR demons.”

Nat hisses and chitters thoughtfully, drawing frightened looks from some humans whom you pass—servants of the Baron, alarmed to see your objectively-terrifying offspring out of his comfortable containment.

“Keep learning,” you instruct him. “Never stop improving yourself. This is the central tenet of the Serpent Ascendant. It is what I do and what I want for you and for my other spawn.”

‘Yes, Father,’ he signs back.

On impulse you reach out to ruffle his hair—so like yours, a mane of red fuzz framing his four-eyed, split-jawed, crocodilian face. He chirps and leans into the affection, surprising you a little. A young Reptilian—like the Serpent Queen’s child, perhaps—has little need for such affirming touch, but it is something you always desired. Like you, like their mother, it seems even this spookiest of your bug-children shares this language of love. It warms your heart a little, though you wonder if he might one day grow out of it.

Yes, it is good to spend time with children while they are young, you decide. It is an unconventional conclusion to come to, for a male of the Master Race.

File: XYVnNkp.jpg (1.93 MB, 4038x4321)

1.93 MB JPG

>>5715122
The two of you arrive at your destination—the top of a high-lightly-forested hill which you have spied from your guest bedroom’s window.

‘Why are we here?’ Natvodosk asks you.

“That is one of life’s great mysteries,” you rely.

‘Father,’ he signs back, seemingly annoyed, ‘that is not what I meant.’

You laugh, the augh deepening as you shed the false face of Long Wang and assumed <Dragonshape IV>, complete with your majestic wings.

“Today,” you say, “you will learn something new. Flight, Young One!”

Natvodosk shakes his strange, membranous wings a few times, as if stretching, and then spreads them wide. Theya re still rather small to carry his weight.

‘I cannot fly,’ he signs.

“Maybe not,” you acknowledge, “but your wings are still growing. When I was your age—even now, in my true form—I HAVE no wings. I gained mine through the Serpent Queen’s magic, and this…”

You hold up your Amulet of the Dragon.

“…Which contains the blood of the Red Dragon King. This is the same blood which she infused you and your brothers with. When you are older, by biology or by magic, you may have wings as well. When that day comes, it will hep if you know the proper technique to make the most of them.”

‘Okay,’ he signs, and you sense he’s unconvinced.

“Come,” you instruct him, spreading your wings wide and looking down over the hill. “Do as I do!”

The remainder of the afternoon is spent in blissful respite from your greater responsibilities. Together, father and son, you run down the hill and jog back up the hill—again and again—flapping your wings, spreading them out, and occasionally taking flight or gliding. At first Natvodosk merely runs and hops after you, but soon the Unknowable One is screeching with predatory glee as he glides short distances, from hilltop to valley below, and hurried running back the other way. It is good to see the ‘bookworm’ (to borrow the Blackpine Baron’s curiously-appropriate human aphorism) engaged in some healthy physical activity that isn’t directly related to killing and eating someone.

Alas, it can’t last forever.

“I’m going to be going away for a while,” you tell him. “Somewhere you can’t follow, unfortunately.”

The Unknowable Oen regards you curiously, not complaining or even questioning why he cannot come. Instead he asks:

‘I am going back to Bloodrise?’

“Yes.”

‘With my teacher?’ he adds, hopefully.

You laugh, and nod, then tell him: “I wan you to know that it is not any fault of yours that you are not coming with me. You are simply too fearsome for humans at this point in time. Eventually, they will learn to understand and accept you.”

‘Or I will be so big they cannot stop me,’ he suggests.

“This is also possible,” you agree.

>>5715124
Then, he asks something that catches you by surprise:

‘Why did you bring me, and not my siblings, Father?’

You consider your answer, eventually concluding…
>It is because he is your favoured successor, at this juncture
>It is because he is the most sinister, and you worried what he would get up to
>It is because you mean to groom him into a diplomat or spy
>It is because he is the most mysterious and quiet, and you wanted to get to know him better
>Write-in

I hope you'll forgive a somewhat indulgent update, anons/

>>5715125
>It is because he is the most mysterious and quiet, and you wanted to get to know him better
We’ll get together with your brothers to do some proper family bonding later, probably during winter.

>>5715125
>It is because he is the most mysterious and quiet, and you wanted to get to know him better
Nat is an odd one and also shows a higher degree of understanding compared to his siblings with his grasp on demonology and rapid drow signing, iirc OP said something about Nats biology being more dexterous if I recall so that makes me think he has like 2 sets of humanoid arms just pumping out rapid elvish headcanon though, all in all we knew if shit went down hed be more on the side of curiosity rather than ferocity, ie. Farmers daughter hot glued to the ceiling

>>5715125
>>It is because he is the most mysterious and quiet, and you wanted to get to know him better

>I had enough time to only deal with one of you while travelling and negociating. I choose you as the better at communication and most able to understand teachings.

>>5715125
>>It is because he is the most mysterious and quiet, and you wanted to get to know him better

>>5715028

>>5715125
>It is because he is the most mysterious and quiet, and you wanted to get to know him better.
>It is also because he seemed the most mature and thoughtful as well and we thought he would get the most out of the experience.

>Self indulgent update.
Tbh RQM these are the updates that make quests worth reading. Where our actions and decisions inform character growth and interactions. Where there's no life and death rolls, where story happens, and characters we're invested in have room to breathe, to live — spread their wings...so to speak.
Keep up the good work :)

>>5715125
>>5715190
Support everything in this post. There's not hing to forgive, this self-indulgent update is what we asked for.

>>5715190
+1 to the votes and the sentiment. This kind of characterization is so fun to read.

File: Screenshot 2023-07-18 190701.png (278 KB, 721x541)

278 KB PNG

>>5715133
>>5715166
>>5715171
>>5715179
>>5715190
>>5715228
>>5715289
“I only had time to deal with one of you while traveling and negotiating,” you explain. “ You seem… Most adept at communication, the most mature and thoughtful, despite being the youngest of your clutch.”

Your strange son seems to accept this praise implicitly, though he hums happily.

“But also,” you add, “you seemed… Distant. Closed off, mysterious, and quiet. I wished to understand you better.”

‘Because I am the smartest and best?’ Nat asks.

You laugh quietly, and pat his head again.

“I will not play favourites, Young One. You are the first of your siblings who I have had time to get to know, but I will spend some quality time with each of your brothers before I start grading you.”

He hisses quietly at that, but nods in acceptance. You take it for his version of a pout, but Natvodosk is a creature of muted passions—his affinity for the Occultist aside—and so you the subtle tantrum pass, and it is tamed before you need to do enforce formal discipline.

What a good boy!

Grateful though you are to have had this time together, you part soon thereafter. Natvodosk watches you leave in silence, conspicuously close to his teacher, who stands alongside the Translator. The Baroness sees you off as well—her husband being busy with some matter of state, possibly discussing the provisions he has promised your people. His lady-wife, however, proffers your own spouse a thick coat fo fine white fur.

“Lagopus,” she says.

Queen Ekaterine gasps, and runs her fingers over the fabric.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“What isss a lagopuss?” you ask, unfamiliar with the animal but inferring the garment is something to be prized.

“It’s this… Well, somewhere between a bird and a rabbit, but the fur and down-feathers are INCREDIBLY warm and soft!” Ekaterine explains.

You try to picture the thing she is describing. It is... Bizarre, even by the standards of all you have seen.

File: main-qimg-803d21425b8db07(...).jpg (10 KB, 300x225)

10 KB JPG

>>5715926
“You are traveling on foot, and with child,” the Baroness notes softly, and looks at you a touch judgementally. “And your child… I understand the father’s kind is not acclimated to our winters.”

“Dragonfire will keep us warm,” you assert.

“Even so,” says the Baroness.

Not long after, you depart. You travel with Eka, of course, but also with Olu the Archer and with the Thief—the latter once more in a human guise. Knowing that your own human guise and bespoke Drowcraft attire is exotic enough to draw undue attention, you avoid the major settlements and keep to the desire-paths of woodsmen and adventurers. True to your assertion, to you light each night against the cold and the dark with dragonfire, to preserve your shivering companions.

Then, the first true cold-snap comes, and the first snowfall shortly thereafter. You of the cold-blooded Master Race all bundle up in your thinner, summer-autumn jackets, and crowd around the flame. You assume <Dragonshape> and, with your inetrnal flame and your elemental resistances, stave off the cold... But the Archer and ESPECIALLY the pure-blooded Thief are not so lucky. This, THIS is the reason your people have always favoured the Southlands and the jungles of the south-east.

Ekaterine, true to her own nature, offers repeatedly to share her fine lagopus-fur coat—a gesture that the Thief and Archer, both cognizant of her status in relation to theirs, her pregnancy, and your watchful eye, refuse on principle.

What do you do?
>Insist that they share in the coat
>Tacitly signal for them to continue refusing the coat—Ekaterine’s safety, and the baby’s, is paramount
>Invoke the <Radiant Aura> to warm them [compromises your sleep, increases the likelihood of the random encounter roll summoning something fearsome]
>Write-in [always down for a clever solution]

>>5715927
>Construct a squat Wall-Of-Stone hut for your cold-blooded companions nightly, thick and insulated from the chill and snow

>>5715956
Supporting this

>>5715927
>>5715956
not sure how good pure stone is at heat retention, might be better to use packed soil instead

>>5715981
I don't know either but from a quick look at google, it's pretty good. Especially soapstone and basalt it seems.

>>5715927
>>Invoke the <Radiant Aura> to warm them [compromises your sleep, increases the likelihood of the random encounter roll summoning something fearsome].

>>5715956
+1

File: cave-icon-stone-shelter-e(...).jpg (119 KB, 1920x1920)

119 KB JPG

Rolled 21 (1d100)

>>5715956
>>5715963
>>5715981
>>5715985
>>5715987
>>5715989
You aren’t exactly an architect, but you struck a good deal despite being not-exactly-a-merchant a few days ago. How hard can it be, you reason, to erect a shelter? Your simple tents have served you well until now, but their time is at an end. It’s time for a New Age of Warmth and Comfort! Beside,s you know just the tool for the job.

You have the others stand back, regarding you with curiosity as you shift your stance and summon your life-force from within—and that of your Red Dragon King ancestor. There is cold-hardened , root-filled soil beneath you, but as you focus your mystical might upon your brow you are able to divine the rock below it—and not far below, for this region is mountainous even as you skirt its boundaries and descend into the fertile plains about the Paladin King’s capital. With your elementalism, you summon it up, and up, and up, until spikes and spires of stone pierce the ground, rising like sprouting plaints and shoving aside the softer earth above. You gesture with your hands, murmuring words of power in many tongues as you guide the stone together into a crude, rocky teepee around the bonfire your breath-weapon had previously created.

“Pack it with soil,” you command the other males present. “The rock alone will shield us from the wind, but not the cold.”

They obey, and as your subordinates toil, you take a rest, and guide Eka inside to do the same.

“You didn’t need to do all that for me,” she whispers, though she is plainly flattered and awed.

“Of courssse I did,” you reply in her tongue. “And not JUSSST for you. Only one of thosse malesss could wear your coat at a time…”

The Thief and Archer, dutiful though they may be, make excuses and adjust they work patterns to stay on the wide of the stone which best shields them from the wintery breeze, and keeps them closest to your flame.

“Ssee?”

Ekaterine regards them, and nods, scooting closer to you and leaning against you. You remain like that for a time, until the other two travelers in your party come to rest, to share in those fresh and preserved rations taken with you from Blackpine, and eventually to rest themselves. You take first watch, and let your Human Queen take her own torpor—or, you suppose, ‘true’ dreaming sleep. You watch her face, and wonder what exactly she might be dreaming about. Funny how humans almost always seem to dream, and yet she rarely seems to vividly remember them as you remember those few dreams YOU have…

File: Screenshot 2023-07-18 223414.png (596 KB, 587x670)

596 KB PNG

>>5716026
You encounter no trouble for most of your watch, to such a dull extent that you begin to wonder if a watch is necessary a all. Surely your <Presence> is such to frighten away mundane animals, and you have no reason to believe that anything more <Fearsome> than you dwells in these woods.

>21

You are just about to take your place in your bedroll beside your Beloved One. When the first of the small animals—rodents, birds, a deer—sprint past you. The first couple, you think nothing of. As more and more them hurtle past you, though, you notice they are all traveling in the same direct. You hear the commotion of leaves and branches rustling, as if by a great and uneven wind, and yet the breeze ahs not picked up into any such gale to explain it; more animals, then, in the trees! Small still, but your <Danger Sense> alerts you just in time to leap back—metal flashing as you draw one of your weapons in the same motion—in time to avoid a great black bear.

“What is going on?” whispers Oluwadamilare, the Archer suddenly at your side with bow drawn.

“I do not know,” you respond, uneasy.

The bear pays you and your Archer no more heed than its smaller compatriots, and no more great woodland behemoths join the queer parade. Instead, you both stand stock still as a luminous, faintly bipedal-looking creature floats along the course by which the mundane mammals and avians passed. Upon its face is a mask: that of a lagomorph, a rabbit or hare. You have never encountered on in the flesh before, but both you and the Archer recognize it:

“Aziza,” whispers Olu—a word from some Southern Human-tongue, which you do not know and yet recognize.

“Fairy,” you hiss. “True Fey.”

If Dragonkind are the true and chosen sons and daughters of the Dark Gods, the True Fey are the equivalent for the Gods of Light—or, at least, for the subset of them which birthed the races of elves and dwarves, but possibly goblins as well. They are creatures rarely seen in settled lands, you are told, and you’ve certainly never encountered one yourself. You know precious little of them, in fact, save that they are the enemy—and an unpredictable, capricious sort of enemy, like a demon but with a natural animosity to Children of Darkness like yourselves and with far fewer rules and laws than those denizens of the Hellish Realms. Most are weak and tricksy things, or so the stories go, but a rare few are akin to earthly demigods.

What will you do?
>Snuff the fire, erect a barrier of <Shadow>, and wait for it to pass
>Greet it openly, and ask it why it and the animals have passed this way in such a panic
>Draw your bow and use <Guidance> to strike it dead—or try
>Approach and threaten it, telling it to move along
>Write-in

>>5716034
>>Greet it openly, and ask it why it and the animals have passed this way in such a panic

>>5716034
>>Greet it openly, and ask it why it and the animals have passed this way in such a panic

We have nowhere to run if things go wrong. Lets hope the diplomatic approach works.

>>5716034
>Greet it openly, and ask it why it and the animals have passed this way in such a panic

I'd say there's a fair chance that they're running from Big Green.

>>5716034
>Draw your bow and use <Guidance> to strike it dead—or try

>>5716034
>>Approach and threaten it, telling it to move along

File: rabbit_and_spirit_rabbit_(...).jpg (75 KB, 800x554)

75 KB JPG

Rolled 11, 9, 16, 9 = 45 (4d20)

>>5716539
>>5716404
>>5716117
>>5716113
>>5716050
What dragon is afraid of a rabbit? If some fairies are semi-divine, this does not look to be one of them: small, slight, wispy and barely tangible. You could rend it asunder with a breath, with a wave of your hand!... Well, probably. But then, need it be an enemy? You have made many odd friends and allies in your journeys—men, but also fellow fey-derived creatures such as the black elves of Wevenore or the hairy, spiky ‘Bogbarri’ goblinkin. What is one more curious conversational partner?

The Archer looks on in mortified terror, teeth gritted in a mirthless grin, as you step forwards and sheathe your sword.

“Hello,” you greet the True Fey in True Speech, before switching to Dark Elventongue just in case it might be more intelligible, “and greetings!”

The ephemeral entity’s eyes—or the hollow of its mask, which seems placed upon a featureless face made of greenish firelight—snap to you in what you take for surprise and shock.

[DC 17/19 diplomacy, due to ancestral enmity and the fact that your physically-similar brother is its enemy

File: Screenshot 2023-07-19 184002.png (539 KB, 451x690)

539 KB PNG

>>5716686
For a moment, neither of you move. Then, the strange sprite screams—not a mere cry of prey-terror, but a banshee-shriek that stuns you, shaking you to your core and disrupting the very flow of your life energy. You imagine the whole camp is awake now—how could they not be?—and yet you cannot hear them. In fact, you can’t hear anything—you’re deafened, as well as disoriented.

“Damn you, you cowardly—” you say, or THINK you say, though as you fumble for your blade and try to assume a combative stance, you are troubled that you cannot even hear your own voice.

>SPELLCASTING EMPORARILY DISABLED
>STUNNED FOR ONE ROUND

Before you can get your bearings, the rabbit-fairy is upon you. The Archer looses no arrow—he, too, must have been discombobulated by the dissonant dirge of the agitated True Fey. A flash of bright light hit you in the face, and then a physical impact which does little damage but successfully knocks you onto your ass. When the blinding light clears, you are gazing not into a cutesy wooden rabbit mask, but some perverse, bone-white facsimile of a rabbit skull—albeit still with the soft tissue of ears, oddly enough. Small-but-sharp claws rake at you, ripping away scales and spider-silk garb to bloody you, though not able to penetrate your armour so easily.

What will you do?
>Kill it with fire! DRAGONfire! [Close range penalties, but you know that it will work…]
>Grapple it with superior size and strength! [It’s immaterial, but no penalties]
>Try to draw a blade and strike! [Moonblade? Khopesh? Assassin’s Dagger? Elven Longsword? Each has its own properties that will play into how well this works… Choose wisely!]
>Try to disengage and group up with your allies, to plan a defence or a retreat
>Try to reason with it
>Write-in

>>5716686
> the fact that your physically-similar brother is its enemy.
racist fey - racist fey

>>5716699
>Kill it with fire! DRAGONfire! [Close range penalties, but you know that it will work…]

>>5716699
I remember the khopesh can negate magic but what do the other weapons do again?

>>5716699
>Kill it with fire! DRAGONfire! [Close range penalties, but you know that it will work…]

Tried and true!

>>5716699
>Try to draw a blade and strike!
>Khopesh

When we battled the paladins they had anti-fire blessings to call upon. It's not the this fey might have similar blessings or magic to call upon or it might doge our attack.

On the other hand we know that the Kopesh blade can cancel dangerous magic and enchantments.

>>5716710
[Your weapons are:
>The Moonblade of Endymion: a scimitar-like weapon of white stone and gold, said to be a blade of a legendary elven demigod-king, which can channel radiant energies and produce faint light; it has greater powers base don the phase of the moon which is currently full
>The Serpent Khopesh: an axe-sword weapon forged by reptilian hands and blessed by the Serpent Priesthood to break or penetrate enchantments
>Elven Longsword: a fine weapon of living wood and elegant metalwork made by surface-elves, unmagical but effective and expendable; the weapon you've held onto the longest
>Assassin's Blade: a non-magical Reptilian weapon, traditional sidearm of Reptilian Infiltrators and Silkscale housecarls, especially useful when in very close quarters due to its smaller size
Plus your elvencraft bow and arrows, your Ring of Elemental Command (which only hosts an ice-spirit now), your ring of protection, and... Well, a scroll-case]

>>5716722
I’ll go with the khopesh then
>Try to draw a blade and strike

>Serpent Khopesh
>Assassin Blade as Sidearm

>>5716722
>The Moonblade of Endymion: a scimitar-like weapon of white stone and gold, said to be a blade of a legendary elven demigod-king, which can channel radiant energies and produce faint light; it has greater powers base don the phase of the moon which is currently full
Yall are ignoring the use of the moonblade in this situation as its quite literally a fey artifact and may even give us answers on seeing the blade

>>5716722
>try the kopesh

>>5716699
>Try to draw a blade and strike! Moonblade
Full moon, fey artifact, this is either the ideal situation for it or a horrible idea due to using it against its own. I'll choose to gamble

>>5716954
Eh. The moon is full so its stronger but like he says >>5716975 its a big gamble

>>5717005
The Khopesh is definitely the safer choice.

>>5715228
Backlinking

>>5709994
Backlink

>>5716699
>>5716713

Eh, you know what, I'll switch my vote to

>Use the kopesh

To make tallying easier.

File: εικόνα_2022-09-06_195135778.png (119 KB, 800x800)

119 KB PNG

Rolled 16, 7, 20, 17, 15 = 75 (5d20)

>>5716707
>>5716714
>>5716773
>>5716855
>>5716954
>>5716965
>>5716975
>>5717107
[Writing!] DC 16 in close quarters while disoriented, but 'super-effective' at neutralizing the foe

File: 5e2b767be683a78954f0081e3(...).jpg (57 KB, 480x640)

57 KB JPG

>>5717353
Fighting a foe made of magical energies—or so your enemy appears, at least—you reason that there can be no better tool than an implement meant to penetrate glamour and magical defence. Unfortunately, the only such weapon at hand is, of course, the Serpent Khopesh of your would-be-successor. The weapon is well-weighted and deadly, but not ideal for such close quarters as you currently are embroiled in. You consider using your assassin’s blade in your off-hand but—curses!—you never DID get any real tutelage from the Drow Duelist Azonia in such technique, and now of all times is far from the ideal situation to learn. You’ll have to make do…

>16

Luckily, you are still an accomplished swordsman—a SWORD AMSTER, in fact, and a wielder of the Hexblade’s art… And one of the key facets of being a Hexbalde or n Antipaladin is fighting with all you have, even if it is ignoble or inelegant. In this case, this means a pommel-smash into the masked face of the floating, luminescent menace.

The lagomorph roils back , disoriented. It doesn’t fall to the ground, though; rather, the True Fey tries to float away. You grin, blinking away the sunspot-like artefacts in your vision as, even half-blind, you spy an opportunity.

“I don’t think so, spirit,” you snarl in accented elventongue.

>17

You twist the khopesh around, and lash out, snagging the fleeing creature with the hooked end of your khopesh. You catch the back of its knee. The point at the back of the hook sinks in, blade secure in spectral fey-flesh just as it would be in the more tangible sort of which you and your fellow mortals are composed.

“Iron!” it cries. “It has iron! Cold iron! Dark and hateful IRON!”

“Not quite,” you remark, wrenching back and pulling the fey-thing into your clawed clutches, “but near enough, Child of the False Gods!”

The hare-fairy cries out. It is an awful sound, like a warren of rabbits—a dozen warrens—being murdered more foully. Your companions cry out, and you feel your own soul quiver and quake…

“ENOUGH!” you roar.

You are a True Dragon—in soul, at least—and you will not be cowed! Summoning up the full might of your iron will, you drag the fairy down to earth., slamming it in place. It has no air in its lungs to knock out—maybe no lungs—but when you lift your sickle-sword high and bring it down to split its mask, it geos silent sure enough. It has no retort but a single, tortured squeak that verges on death rattle…

File: caught_leprechaun_by_rcat(...).jpg (139 KB, 1024x913)

139 KB JPG

>>5717366
>20

But it does not die. The mask split, glamour broken, you reveal a small and sprightly thing. Its flesh is almost plant-like, but its features are faintly elven—like that of an elven child, but wrinkled such as even an elder elf never seems to wrinkle, with a truly advanced age. It trembles, and clutches pitifully at your larger hands with fingers like brittle twigs.

Your Archer and Thief gather near, weapons at the ready. Ekaterine, more fearful and less battle-ready, looks over their shoulders and brings hands to her mouth with a quiet gasp—in horror or sympathy for your ugly little fairy-foe, you do not know, though you know her soft heart is loath to see creature suffer, and she has special pity for the weak and sniveling things of this world. As champion of the outcast and dispossessed, the half-breed and degenerate, you suppose you can share that sympathy…

But for THIS thing?

“Please no killing!” it whines in its queer elf-dialect-an ancient tongue, or a priestly one, maybe? “It doesn’t kill little me, please, fearsome dragon! It is a kind dragon, a dragon-like-a-man, a dragon-on-two-legs, with a good heart! It does not kill me!”

Your Archer whispers to you as you consider, telling you: “The Aziza are said to grant wishes to those who capture and spare them—gold, or fey magic, or knowledge.”

“With a price,” notes the Thief darkly. “Yokai, sometimes they are called in the East. Their gifts can be curses, especially when angered. They are no friends of ours.”

“Poor thing,” Eka murmurs, predictably sweet in her sentiment. “It’s frightened, don’t you see?”

What do you do?
>Demand something for the True Fey’s freedom [specify if you wish knowledge, wealth, or magic]
>Interrogate it [what do you ask?]
>Slay it—you have wealth aplenty, divination magic of your own, and Dragon Magic is better than Feycraft
>Free it, magnanimously—it is a pitiful thing
>Attempt to bind it to your service [Spellcraft, high DC]
>Write-in

File: SwordHamster.jpg (58 KB, 512x512)

58 KB JPG

>>5717366
>Sword Hamster

>>5717367
>>Demand something for the True Fey’s freedom [specify if you wish knowledge, wealth, or magic]
Wish for the Shoggoth-sword back.

File: Spoiler Image (488 KB, 1438x1847)

488 KB JPG

>>5717404
For the dark glory of the 'Amster Race!

>>5717367
>tell it to leave

>"grant wishes with a price"
>"their gifts can be curses"

we dont really need any more complications

>>5717367
>Interrogate it [what do you ask?]
What it was running from. Theral doesn't know about dragon bro getting his freedom. Then
>Free it, magnanimously—it is a pitiful thing
Yeah, we don't need more complications

>>5717445
+1, yeah. Word spreads quick in the Faerie world, I'm sure.

>>5717445
+1 sounds like a good idea

Switching from>>5717428 to this

>>5717367
>Interrogate it [what do you ask?]
>what u running from
>why u attack me