Description
His skin is the color of curdled milk, and his right eye remains
fixed in his head while the left eye moves about in its socket.
Occasionally the tip of his tongue slips out between his lips,
but whether he is thinking or tasting the air cannot be easily determined.
Twin braids of hair keeps the rest of the wiry black shock away
from his face, leathery and thin like a discarded sun-bleached
moccasin.
You can't help but notice that in addition to protective wear,
this fellow has begun to augment his apparel with garish yellow,
blue, and green strips of cloth. One boot sports a bell upon
its toe, and he has replaced a standard codpiece with something
that would make a giantess blush. Dangling from his belt
is a string of corks carved into crude likenesses of the
various divine tattoos.
His nose is of grand proportion, and the touch of color
he has added to his cheeks has made it more remarkable.
It protudes out and hangs down like a gourd on the vine,
partially obscuring his mouth and flirting with touching
his pointed chin in his more animated moments. As a
seeming point of pride, he has pierced his left nostril
and hung a gold wire and a small charm of a star.
Role
Snake Oil and Hope
Added Thu Mar 17 01:58:55 2022 at level 41:
In his dreams he goes back in time, and he sees a young ill-shaped child
riding buckboard on his father's wagon. An ill-mannered burro pulled
along, and as the wagon bounced over cobblestones and fought through
ruts placards shook under the canvas top and glass bottles rattled
in the sidewall cabinets. Jorah Hillsplitter, a dashing if diminutive
figure held the reins in one hand as he waved his top hat at passersby,
and when he got to the edge of town, he flicked the reins to drive the
burro faster.
'Always leave when they are still happy, and always leave them wanting
a little more,' he had offered me as his motto. 'You see, son, we don't
sell them medicines, but we do sell them a cure. We sell them hope.'
Then he cracked the reins, the burro brayed, and the three of them rattled
off into the darkness.
Kredge woke with a cry still unspoken on his lips. Sweat pooled on his
forehead, and he realized his fingers were clenched into the sheets.
He went over to the basin and splashed his face before toweling off.
After placing a carved wooden box on the table, he removed the glass
makeup bottles and began applying his paints.
The fates had not blessed Kredge with his father's appearance, but
he had learned something of being a showman, and he did believe that
his performances could make the world a better place. The medicine
Kredge offered was the hope that comes with wisdom, and if he had
to be deceptive to help people, he could play the part of the fool.
It was time to go. He had an 'accidental encounter' in a well-known
inn planned for today.
Forks and Signposts.
Added Thu Mar 17 12:06:57 2022 at level 43:
The roads of parishes and metropolises rolled under their wagon,
and nearly everywhere people pushed coins into Jorah's hands and Kredge
handed back bottles stuffed with mint leaves or cinnamon bark or juniper berries,
all steeping in a homemade rotgut distilled in the copper vats and tubes
the pair would unpack every evening. It was a life filled with the open air,
including warm sunshine and freezing rains, bird song and howling winds.
One evening, camped in a veil overlooked by the Shadow peaks, Kredge was seasoning
a pot of rabbit stew when he heard a twig snap outside the glow of the campfire.
"Coyotes," he called to Jorah, who was carefully connecting the parts of
his still together. Kredge's father quietly put down a copper fitting and
rested his hand on his thigh, close to his knife.
It was like the first bolt of lightning on a dark night. The camp suddenly
teamed with men armed with pitchforks and scythes, hammers, staves, and
their screams urging each other on. Jorah was knocked into the campfire,
spilling the stew and setting his clothes aflame as they called for justice.
Kredge was knocked over, so he kept on rolling right under the wagon
and out of sight as he watched his father suffer.
The villagers doused the flames, but they left him to suffer or die from
his injuries.
Freefolk, whips, and civilization
Added Sat Mar 19 06:05:23 2022 at level 48:
"Since you ast, I will tells you as I told Gwen on the day I met her.
I spent some several years livin among them savages up north learnin
how to catch fishes out of the river with me bare hands and wrassle
wolves that come out o the forest at night. I worked off an on with
a warrior priestess, a mean-tempered wretch with shadowed eyes and
rheumy joints, and when I warnt fetchin her water I was skinnin game
and dodgin her curses. She war a mean ol varmint, and I misses her
sometimes when me life is too easy."
Kredge pulled a drink from his tankard and stared at the creature before
him. "From there I fell in with a bunch of under gnomes, and I found work
herding rothe." He leaned toward the wight so his desicated
ears could better hear the lowered tones, "I got fired from there as
I was better even than the rothe skinner. I could swat a cave gnat
from the ear of a rothe with me whip without so much as kissing
that ear with me leather."
The undead asked in a whispered rasp, "Why did you leave the freemen?"
"Oh, that? Well, see, there was this incident with the bear that was
the last straw. I was setting my trap line along the river for foxes
and beaver, and this bear bowls out of the wood and fixes to make me
his dinner. I knew I couldna take more of that life, and so I left."
"It wassth too dangerousth for you?"
"Thats not the right of it as yer meaning. Sure, that awful wench was
always making me hands cramp up with her spells an the like, but I knew
after the bear that I couldna spend no more time wearin a loin cloth
livin up north."
"It wasssth too cold for you then."
"Nah, it warnt the cold. When that bear lit after me, I was runnin so
fast every bit war movin like a barrel of bolts rolling down a mountain.
A week later my knees were STILL hurting.
"No more loin cloths were in me future, as I learnt from the bear I needed
proper clothes to keep me tender bits from bruising up the inside
of me knees."