D&D
Just thought it might be fun to have a little flavor area for the pick-up campaign- these are just a couple tiny tiny vignettes I’ve been sitting on for a while concerning Paperwing’s backstory. More than anything, I just thought it might be fun to see into each other’s characters a little more deeply.
- – -
One Response
leave one →
There was a fell wind blowing from the east that day, a dark and unsteady one that would swell and dwindle like a fickle love. Conveyed on that breeze, a seagull of ill repute (and even iller visage) trundled alongside its slightly less deteriorated flock. Their dark shadows coated the fields of corpulent wheat, heaving with the weight of their long forgot load. A veritable harvest of grain.
The seagulls were days away from the nearest body of water, but their mission was one of wickedness. Of sorrow.
Below them, another dark shadow was cast by another avian form. Unhappily racing along a path that snaked and wove through the field, it drew sharp breaths of the putrid, fecal air. Two dark taloned feet pit-pattered across the sandy ground, as layers of algal-green and moth-corpse-white cloth rustled as the legs beneath it churned.
It would become apparent to any observer (only a short gnomic thief’s corpse strung up to act as a scarecrow, about five miles ahead of their route) that the air and ground borne fowl were working in conjunction, the curdled-cream of the seagulls so slightly matching the bird-man’s black-ink-toned plummage.
The lead seagull (of ill repute, you’ll recall) cawwed meekly to the running bird below. After a minute more, presumably in response (or perhaps simply at random) that figure drew a wad of meat out of its pack, glistening with the white of the blind and unhappy maggots that swarmed accross its crusted, wrinkled surface. The walking bird’s face (if such a thing could be distinguished behind its velvet-lined dark hood) sneered in disgust, as with a black feathered arm he hurled it to the flock, and the sun scored sky.
“Bugger them.” Thought the bird-man, before taking that metaphor a step too far. The pink tear ducts at the central corners of his eyes contracting with the image.
- – -
Paperwing stepped out of the shadow in the corner of the dismal apartment. The light from the nightwatch patrol below swept across the ceiling of the second story bedroom, glinting only briefly against the back of the robed assassin. As if following the light like a starved moth, a short blade snickered out of his sleeve before disappearing beneath his dark-feathered hands.
Another crow-man lay in heap of paper detritus and straw, gently crooning opposite the windows. A massive emerald-set amulet clutched to his chest. In the adjoining room, the corpse of some traveling salesman hung, gutted, and oozing into a porcelain bed-pan.
The Caucus was only one more week away, and three of the contenders remained alive. Two of them now bearing the artifacts they were returning with to be judged. Two of them moving from hidey-hole to secret nest. Two of them avoiding the third. Two of whom would both be dead by the next day’s end.
Next day’s end. Has a nice ring to it, thought the awake bird, as he slid the knife into the sleeper.
- – -
The Caucus is traditionally a time of celebration, when the next Crow-King is chosen from the filching contenders. Each one has set out, at great risk to themselves, to acquire some rare artifact to return to the coffers of the roost. Each one was judged by the elder crows, as tales of trial and tribulation were recounted to the preening, molting, croaking assembly; the roost.
Amidst the dusty bracelets, the hats, the crowns, the tarnishing gold, the goblets, the gowns, the roost would gather to hear the crows explain why they were the craftiest of all.
Wells had been stopped by stones, princesses taken under wing, dragons and sphinxes tricked by tests they’d gone on to use themselves. Puzzles were solved, traps evaded, family homes searched while reunions and parties filled the halls and rooms. Children paid to fall into pits, foxes sent to raid hen boxes, merchants that had to be killed, then impersonated at a human market for days until that particular adventurer came along with that particular set of coded words.
Some crow-men died, but they’d never before just been killed.
- – -