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Welcome back to CAMBION QUEST, quite possibly the ONLY quest on the board where three-or-so years of near-daily updates in a D&D-esque setting has culminated in the problematic and typo-addled tale of a vaguely Jewish-coded shortstack having a midlife crisis while on a roadtrip with her psychotic intersex clone.

I mean, for whatever THAT's worth.

If you're just joining us, https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=reptoidqm has everything you need to know. Really, the last two threads are the only necessary ones, but the three quests prior have LORE if that's your jam.

Our current character art is courtesy of Story QM, of Downerquest and Versequest.

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…

You are Zith-Zi, though your present company know you as Zena Youngtree. Born a goblin, you underwent a ritual which transformed you inside and out, gifting you a new soul and body. Your sun-weathered green hide was dyed a pearlescent pink, your wrinkles smoothed and liver-spots rendered into pretty freckles. Your soulless goblin heart was implanted with magic—fairy magic, the ancient art of the elves—and made PRISMASTIC…

But what of your heart?

You sometimes wonder about that. If your body’s been transformed, and your soul is freshly-formed, why does your heart still carry the weight of your years of strife and struggle? Why do you still weep at night, sometimes, worried that you will never be worthy of anything better than a goblin’s lot—brutal, short, with an ugly end?

And if you DO deserve better, can DO better… What about your goblin companions, like An-Yii and Yeb-Uit?

What about Carazzi—or Cara-Zi, or just ‘Cara’ in this mixed company—the demon-spirited goblinoid who was cut from you like a cancer when you were made beautiful and whole?

You spent years of your life in the foothills of the Bloodrise Mountain, in a shanty-shack in new Goblintown, trying to make sense of that. You decided that you were done with whatever lingering responsibility you had to ‘your people’, then. As a ‘nilbog’, you were goblin no longer, and you took the most useful of the bunch—plus Khorine the Faun, an orphaned goat-girl you meta long the way—and set out to make your future and to PROVE your merit!

Together, and with the aid of some unlikely allies, you rooted out and routed a darkly-enchanted cave-drake turned fifty foot lake monster. Though you split the reward a great many ways, you ALSO earned an opportunity to make some proper coin mile away, aiding the dwarven corporation Treasuretrove incorporated—or, at least, their contracted adventured called ‘The Delvers’—in finding and fishing out of the ancient earth a lost treasure of their race’s fallen empire.

But… Why?

>>6159286
You’ve been beating your head against the proverbial stone over that, these last few weeks of walking, from one end of the Northlands to the other. Gods Above and Below know that James Efron—Jimmy, your paramour of many years—wishes you wouldn’t. Even after changing yourself so much, at least partly for the sake of your relationship, your refusal to settle down at live a ladylike life proved a fly in the ointment of your relationship. At first you explained away that restless urge by way of your commitment to resettle your—that is, to resettle the goblins. Then, it was about Cara—CZ—and finding her an outlet for her unholy urges. Lately, it’s been about the money—about making a big score, of the sort that can transform a nilbog’s life.

But if this is it—if this is the big one—will that be done and dusted? Will you be done, ready to settle done?

What will you even do with yourself, if you do leave this life?
>The money’s enough—if you could be rich, you’d retire in a heartbeat
>You want status—recognition, if not renown, and a position of power
>You want love—love is all you need, be it from Jimmy or from someone else who can properly appreciate you
>You’re in it for your shadow, your ‘sister’—until CZ is settled, too, you can’t stop
>You’re in it for adventure—you can lie to yourself, sometimes, but in the end the life itself is your one true love
>Write-in

>>6159283
Purple hag

>>6159288
>The money’s enough—if you could be rich, you’d retire in a heartbeat
Income that’s sustainable, at the least.
>You want love—love is all you need, be it from Jimmy or from someone else who can properly appreciate you
We cannot twist ourselves, trying be who we’re not to appease someone else. That’s not the basis of a good relationship. It’ll generate nothing more than regret and resentment.

>>6159288
>You want love
>You’re in it for your shadow, your ‘sister’

I have not (yet) read the past threads, so you may disregard this vote as it is not that informed

>>6159288
>You want love—love is all you need, be it from Jimmy or from someone else who can properly appreciate you
>You’re in it for your shadow, your ‘sister’—until CZ is settled, too, you can’t stop
welcome back, OP.

>>6159288
>Write-in
>The truth is : you want to carve a place in that harsh word where goblins fit on a larger scale.
For this to work, money, status and love will be required.

>>6159288
>The money’s enough—if you could be rich, you’d retire in a heartbeat

>>6159288
>You’re in it for your shadow, your ‘sister’—until CZ is settled, too, you can’t stop

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>>6159295
>>6159296
>>6159305
>>6159456
>>6159570
>>6159688
You curse yourself, and then your curse yourself again—aloud, and loud enough to turn some of your fellow travelers’ heads. You shoot them a glare that turns them back around, and settle into stew properly upon the realization which ahs just rocked you to your core:

You really have gone soft.

You’ve been denying it a while now, but you can’t ignore the evidence in your very own nilbog heart: for all your talk of money, you’re set it aside repeatedly for the sake of such stupid humie obsessions as ‘friendship’ and ‘fairness’… And you haven’t even gotten laid for your trouble! You’ve instead been hung up on James Olsen’s absent ass to the previously-unthinkable point of extended celibacy. Meanwhile, in spite of your growing distant from all things ‘goblin’, you set aside your own needs to pen a letter to your old khoblis—that is to say, MAGE—buddy, Tips, al for you’re the sake of your demonic doppelganger. Just when did that parasitic partition of the bits and bobs which you abandoned become so precious to you?!

When did you ACTUALLY start to think of her as a sister?

Sisterly Bond increased; Zith-Zi now grants a -6 to the DC of <WANT> checks when present and assisting.

What you now realize, to your chagrin, is that you’ve been chasing something utterly unlike that which a young Zith-Zi would have pursued: the approval and happiness of others. Forsaking lust and luxury, you’ve been busting your hump for love—LOVE, of all things!—both familial and friendly… or more than friendly.

Zith-Zi’s seduction DCs are now reduced by 3, but she will look into romance routes faster than she would otherwise.

As you journey towards your distant destination, you find your thinking muddled by the implications of this revelation. You DO want to settle down, once CZ is similarly ‘settled’… But with Jimmy? Or with someone else? Occasionally you find yourself staring after the likes of Yeb-Uit (that grizzled old olive of a gob) or that tinkertoy soldier-boy Martyn Meadowgrass (hunky, fro a hobbit), until you catch yourself.

(A girl’s gotta’ have SOME dignity, after all… You’ve got a reputation as ‘Boss’ to think about!)

…

(But still…)

…

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>>6159905
…

You are Cara—or Carazzi, or CZ, or maybe just Zith-Zi of another colour—and you know EXACTLY what you motivates you: It’s <ENVY>.

Ever since you can remember—or remember CLEARLY, since you can technically remember right back to your occult conception—you have envied others. When you and ZZ were one and the same, you think you must have been the part of her that delighted to plunder the wealth of others. In New Goblintown, you envied even the other impoverished gobs, who could at least revel in one another’s company, enjoy one another in body and soul without invoking fear or initiated a frenzy.

You want that for yourself, and you want it BAD.

<WANT: 14>

While your prettier, pinker portion was making friends and influencing people in Sunset Lake, you’d pursued a different path: you’d taken up with the hellhound Maladoo, the mascot (and secret psychic ringleader) of the Maladoo Gang adventuring party. He taught you how to follow the ‘Rark Rath’, as he speech-impediment conveyed it, and you had learned occult secrets of The Dark God of Wisdom, by way of an eerie agent with an oversized eye. You’d learnef that you were a CAMBION …

And you deeply envy those who are not.

You’d tried to make friends. You’d even tried to make OUT, with this thicc dwarf chick named Svanhilda Pearl, but you’d made a mess of it. As a cambion, the spawn of a succubus, driven by unwholesome instincts to feed of souls soaked in lust and terror, you have found yourself making stupid mistakes which invariably drive others away.

Still, you persevere!

Armed with the enhanced shapeshifting abilities which allow you to hide your inner ugliness behind the mask of a petite quasi-elven edifice, you’ve made strides which even the non-fiendish goblinoids in your party cannot. The Delvers seem to like you, and ~Martyn Meadowgrass~ even calls you ‘Mermaid’, having encountered you during an underwater expedition!

(‘Course, he doesn’t know about the ‘secret weapon’ between your knees…)

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>>6159908
These last couple weeks have started to wear on you, though. For the last couple years, you kept yourself in check by cowering beneath mortal notice, suppressing your presence and cloaking your deformed body in oversized clothes. Now that you can be beautiful-on-demand, and people actually seem to like you, you’re getting a lot more attention…

And you’re so envious of those who can act on it, without constantly being worried about what will happen if they let their guard down.

You've withdrawn again, starting to nervously laugh your way through conversations and to take any excuse to go hunting or scouting alone. You KNOW you're doing it, and that you promised yourself you wouldn't. But what else is a demogoblin—or CAMBION—to do?? You don't want to fuck up, to embarrass yourself or hurt anyone else... But you ALSO made a commitment to open up to others and to live something like a normal life! The only question is: who?

>You got off on a bad hoof with the goat-girl, Khorine, but she’s been more sympathetic since you spared and cared for that beast you captured at the base of the Bloodrise…
>An-Yii has been wary of you ever since you gave into temptation and perched upon her to spy upon her dreams, but maybe you can mend that bridge?
>Yeb-Uit has always been pretty nice to you, and that whole strong-and-silent thig he’s got going is kinda’ cool…
>Can you even pick anyone OTHER than ~Martyn Meadowgrass~, who calls you ~Mermaid~? Then again… You’re pretty tightly-wound, and he is so very ~tempting~
>Write-in

[Isolation isn’t an option, due to choices made towards the end of last thread]

>>6159909
>You got off on a bad hoof with the goat-girl, Khorine, but she’s been more sympathetic since you spared and cared for that beast you captured at the base of the Bloodrise…
she's the only one we're not attracted to nor had a weird thing going on and her connection to the exoteric might help her understand us.

>>6159909
>Can you even pick anyone OTHER than ~Martyn Meadowgrass~, who calls you ~Mermaid~? Then again… You’re pretty tightly-wound, and he is so very ~tempting~
How can we not, it says it right in the option

>>6159909
>Can you even pick anyone OTHER than ~Martyn Meadowgrass~, who calls you ~Mermaid~? Then again… You’re pretty tightly-wound, and he is so very ~tempting~
He cool

>>6159909
>Yeb-Uit has always been pretty nice to you, and that whole strong-and-silent thig he’s got going is kinda’ cool…

Would choose Martin, but don't want to lose control around another pretty face, whereas we're pretty good keeping things professional with Yeb

>>6159909
>>Can you even pick anyone OTHER than ~Martyn Meadowgrass~, who calls you ~Mermaid~? Then again… You’re pretty tightly-wound, and he is so very ~tempting~

>>6159909
>You got off on a bad hoof with the goat-girl, Khorine, but she’s been more sympathetic since you spared and cared for that beast you captured at the base of the Bloodrise…
>An-Yii has been wary of you ever since you gave into temptation and perched upon her to spy upon her dreams, but maybe you can mend that bridge?
Would like to build bridges before we expand on other relationships

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>>6160630
>>6160133
>>6160042
>>6160005
>>6159962
>>6159937
[Locked and writing!]

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>>6160721
In the end, you hardly feel as if you even had a choice, and what choice. You did, but in your heart, you know that it was a choice between HIM, and anyone else. ~Martyn Meadowgrass~ is just too tempting, though, which is both which you were looking for an excuse to join anyone else… And also why, in the end, you find yourself gravitating to his proximity. It’s a game of inches, the pull of his presence equal parts slow and inexorable. The worst part is, he doesn’t even know he’s doing it! He just goes about his day. Striking those subtly-heroic poses as he stands astride the Delvers’ cart with shock-spear in hand, or squinting with such deep and thoughtful expression over his charcoal-and-parchment scrawlings.

“Oh, Cara!” he greets you, while he finally notices you. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Heh heh… Uhh… Not long,” you lie, wiping your mouth a little with the back of your hand. “Whatcha’ doin’? More writin’ in yer diary, or what?”

“It’s not a diary,” he protests, then chuckles embarrassedly. “Well, I admit it’s not so different. More of a… Travelogue. Are you familiar with the concept?”

You’re not, really. You’ve never been much of a reader, not as Zith-Zi, and not as Cara-Zi either. You
Ve heard the word, though, and you can puzzle it out from context.

“Like a log, of yer travels… Right?”

Martyn laughs, a spritely sound that sparks something in your heart and provokes a smile of your own. You just hope he’s not laughing AT you.

“That’s right,” he replies graciously. “It’s meant to be published, though, for sale and study.”

“Ooooh! Oh, shit!” you say, smile spreading itnoa grin. “I do know them! They sell ‘em in Hawksong. The Grey Press—”

“The Grey Press is a charnel house for the truth, where good authorship goes to die,” Martyn interrupts with a scowl. Then, seeing your distress, he sighs and sheepishly admits: “But they won’t publish just anything. They, um, called my last work too dry, and too niche.”

“What was it about?” you ask.

“The ‘little folk’ of the Southlands,” he says. “The Abatwa. It was something of an ethnography. The problem was, they wanted tall tails of vast armies of inch-tall black men with poisoned arrows, riding astride ants and devouring men whole while they still live! Can you imagine?”

You laugh again and nod, then seeing Martyn’s perplexed expression, scyou change that nod to a shake.

“Abatwa ain’t like that, then?”

“Abatwa are just another clan of kin, like Bwbachod, Dwerrow, or Gnomus.”

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>>6160739
You recognize the old-timey, foreign-type names for halflings and dwarves, and you are smart enough to puzzle out that ‘Gnomus’ means ‘gnomes’, and so you nod along, and listen as Martyn describes with a certain reverence the appearance and lifeways of the similarly-small folk whom he met in a journey down South, beyond the borders of the dry and dusty, yellow-orange mountains which separate it from the Northlands. He describes a people who live in piled-high clay structures resembling anthills or termite mounds at a distance, but really more like little pyramids up-close. Black-brown in the palette of a human ‘Southman’, with a faintly reddish hue and smooth, hairless skin, they do not ride insects but farm them and eat them—and not other little folk or humans—and file their teeth to sharp points for beauty’s sake rather than for feasting on flesh.

“They think pointy teeth’re beautiful?”

“No girl who will be wed would dream of attending her wedding with flat teeth,” he answers, “and they and the men alike both dress in these TRULY fabulous ensembles of feathers and leaves, with these clay patterns all across their skin, when there’s a wedding…”

You try to imagine these savage-sounding little dagger-mouthed, black-skinned hobbits. Never having been down that way, you find yourself picturing the closest thing you do know: goblins. You lick your own teeth, all flat and nicely lined-up in this form you wear, and wonder if they—if Martyn Meadwograss—might find Carazzi’s sharp little teeth pretty, too?

“Anyway,” Martyn concludes with a huff, “I wrote many, many pages on that journey, but those… Those so-and-so’s, at The Grey Press, they said it was too long, and too detailed, and didn’t have enough action or excitement to make the money back for printing it.”

“Fuck ‘em!” you shout, though you have to admit that if it weren’t for the lilting flow of Martyn’s musical voice, you probably would have retained very little of what he said, and there’s no WAY you’d read a whole book of it.

Martyn smiles, though, and you smile wider to see him happy with you.

<WANT: 15>

>>6160740
“Unfortunately, with the troubles down South, I don’t think I’ll be returning anytime soon…”

You sense the mood souring, and scramble to keep the conversation—and his kind, clever, silky-smooth words—flowing.

What do you talk about? [Please pick only one or two, for pacing’s sake]

>Ask Martyn his opinion on goblins, and if he’s ever met them, and what he thought of them ‘ethnographically’?
>Ask Martyn about the demonists down in the south—there’s supposed to be a lot of them down that way, right?
>Ask what he thinks about this whole ‘war’ situation between the North and South—who does he think will win if it really kicks off?
>Ask him about the people where you're going—mongrel elves, border-orcs, and woodsy-humans?
>Ask about the hidden treasure in these dwarven ruins—what does he think you'll find there? What does he HOPE to find?
>Ask him about what he finds beautiful—like, what’s his idea of ‘pretty’? Does it, um, involve sharp teeth, or ~mermaids~, or what?
>Write-in

Do you attempt to flirt?
>Yes, a little...
>Yes, a lot!
>No, keep it easy and breezy...
>Actually, you'll quit while your'e ahead [incompatible with any of the above topics, abruptly ends convo with Martyn]

>>6160741
>Ask him about the people where you're going—mongrel elves, border-orcs, and woodsy-humans?
>Ask him about what he finds beautiful—like, what’s his idea of ‘pretty’? Does it, um, involve sharp teeth, or ~mermaids~, or what?

>No, keep it easy and breezy...

>>6160741
>Ask what he thinks about this whole ‘war’ situation between the North and South—who does he think will win if it really kicks off?
>Ask him about the people where you're going—mongrel elves, border-orcs, and woodsy-humans?

>Yes, a little...

>>6160741
>Ask Martyn his opinion on goblins, and if he’s ever met them, and what he thought of them ‘ethnographically’?
>Ask him about what he finds beautiful—like, what’s his idea of ‘pretty’? Does it, um, involve sharp teeth, or ~mermaids~, or what?

>Flirt a little

>>6160741
>Ask Martyn about the demonists down in the south—there’s supposed to be a lot of them down that way, right?
>Ask him about the people where you're going—mongrel elves, border-orcs, and woodsy-humans?
>Yes, a little...

>>6160741
>Ask Martyn about the demonists down in the south—there’s supposed to be a lot of them down that way, right?
>Ask him about the people where you're going—mongrel elves, border-orcs, and woodsy-humans?

>Yes, a little…

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>>6160947
>>6160908
>>6160883
>>6160766
>>6160748
[Locked!]

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>>6161294

“Hey, uh, while you were down South, did ya’ see any, like… Demonists?”

Martyn blinks a couple times, and then crooks a brown as his lip twitches in amusement.

“Demonists? That’s quite the segue, Cara…”

“Well, ya’ know, everyone says there’s tons of ‘em down there!?” you say, suddenly self-conscious. “Like, they say that’s why it’s so hot down there, an’ why everyone’s all black… They’re closer ta the Hells, ‘n the fire burns ‘em an’ warms the whole place up!”

Martyn laughs aloud at that, and you laugh with him. You know THAT much is bullshit, after all—you know a mage who does all kinds of extraplanar travel, and that it’s not a matter of how near or far you are to any physical location on or under) the Earth! Plus, cheering Martyn back up cheers You up, so why not laugh?

(And it’s not like you don’t have legitimate cause to be interested in a land of weird-looking people who are maybe a little more okay with demons and occult practices…)

“I spent most of my time with the Abatwa, I must admit,” Martyn confesses. “Our people—that is, those ‘demihumans’ or ‘little folk’ most closely related to we Bwbachod and Gnomus—have always been near and dear to me… Our old cultrues, especially. So many of them are disappearing into the culture of the big folk around us… I guess I just wanted someone to document them.”

“So you didn’t learn nothin’ ‘bout the humies down there?” you press.

“I wouldn’t say NOTHING,” Martyn says with a smile, and you scoot closer, eager as a little gobling.

(Gods, he even SMELLS like a meadow… What is that, perfume? Just how he naturally smells?)

“The first thing you need to understand, to understand the Men of the Southlands, is that there is no ‘Southlands’.”

“…Huh?”
Martyn nods, as if apprehending your confusion, and clarifies quickly and without condescension:

“The Northlands and the humans here… They haven’t always been unified, under Hawksong and the paladins. Even three-hundred, four-hundred years ago, they were largely independent polities, connected by trade routes but with their own borders, their own armies, their own kings. As the Paladin King’s power overtook the others’, he and his descendants brought everyone else into the fold, and unified the kingdoms into something like an empire, with a common tongue, and shared understanding of the Gods and spirits… And demons… And how to relate to them all.”

“An’ that never happened down South?” you intuit.

Martyn grins at that, and you feel your heart flutter, eager to be the dutiful pupil.

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>>6161325
“That’s exactly right, Cara! Instead, every sultan, chieftain, headman, emir, or warlord is a polity all his—or her—own. The traditions vary greatly, and alliances, borders, and the boundaries of faiths are all… Fluid.” The halfling frowns a little as he continues. “Some DO worship demons, but many more despise and destroy them. And others… Others CONTROL them, or claim to. Some of the largest trading confederations trade in slaves, including enslaved demons. In some places, sorcerer-kings purposefully summon and bind them as tools—spies, servants, labourers, warriors, advisors in the arcane arts. There simply isn’t the taboo against dealing with demons down there, like there is here.”

You listen, wide-eyed and with mixed emotions. A lack of stigma sounds refreshing, but it sounds like, unless you got REAL lucky, a trip down South would just mean risking slavery or something! While you supposed it beats being slain or banished, like a Paladin would do if he caught you, it still makes your skin crawl. Recalling those vivid flashes of Zith-Zi memory, you already have vague memories of stints in debt slavery. Some were pleasurable, some painful, some even both at once in a weird way… But you don’t want to repeat the experience anytime soon.

A gentle hand rests on your wrist, snapping you out of your anxious contemplation. You look up into those beautiful blue-grey eyes, worried for you. You stare back, and after a long moment—long and LINEGRING—you gently extract yourself from that hand and those eyes. You don’t pull away, though, but rather scoot closer.

“What about the STEELWOOD?” You hastily change the subject, trying not to think about the double entendre this time. “That’s, uh, that’s the travelogue yer writin’ now, ain’t it?”

Martyn nods, and you breathe easier as his gaze turns from you and back to his notes. You follow his eyes, as he returns to professorial-lecture-mode.

“The Steelwood is a little like the Southlands, or like the Northwest before the Pax Argentum of the Paladin King. Rather than barons, they have dukes, princes, chieftains… All sorts of hierarchies, only loosely connected to the ones we’re more familiar with.”

“Dukes bein’ humies, princes bein’ knife-ears, and chieftains bein’ piggies?” you guess, meaning: humans, elves, and orcs respectively.

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Rolled 15, 17 = 32 (2d20)

>>6161326
“Not always,” Martyn replies excitedly. “The people there have been there for a long time, or migrated in and out of the area… In some cases, they have ancestors who lived there before the first paladin King ever reigned! And, of course, where humans are present… Interbreeding occurs. Though there are orcs and elves there, I think you’d be hard pressed to find one who wasn’t a LITTLE human that far from the centres of their racial power, and while there are PROBABLY more pureblooded humans, many families have strains of other bloodlines among them.”

“Wow, they must look super fuckin’ WEIRD!” you exclaim.

“Maybe, in some cases,” Martyn admits. “In some cases.. Well, sometimes a subtle bit of strangeness can be an accent, I think. Traveling the world, with a scientific curiosity, you start to see that there are many types of beauty beyond the basic sort most people think of.”

(W-wait, does he mean… Oh shit, oh fuck, he’s looking right at you. Is he trying to say you’re… Strange? Beautiful? BOTH?? Oh fucking SHIIIT, your heart can’t take it!)

<WANT: 16>

Rolling Occultism for self control, DC equal to WANT, less 4 for keeping it to light flirtation...

>>6161328
“Yer, uh, plenty strange, too, ya’ know?” you say, turning your head down and willing your tusks to stay shapeshifted away, and your heart to stop hammering the inside of your ribs.

“Oh?”

“Not a lotta’ people, like… Uh… Look at weirdos the way you do.”

“An open mind is the most important weapon of the natural philosopher’s arsenal,” Martyn rplies, with the air of someone quoting someone else.

“Wow,” you gush. “You know so much shit!”

Martyn raises an eyebrow, replying: “I can only imagine you’ve seen your fair chair of ‘shit’, too, Cara… I can tell. I bet some of it is fascinating, too… If you ever want to share it”

(Holy fucking shit, do you EVER want to ‘share’ with him… But you rein yourself in, and resist the urge to pounce upon this smart, solid, strange little guy.)

“S-so it’s gonna’ be a real wild ‘ethno-go-raph-y’, huh?”

Martyn laughs again. You wince a little, knowing you fucked up that word (which you DID just learn today, after all), but then he ruffles your hair and your fears abate as you lean less-than-subtly into the touch.

Relationship progress has advanced...

“It is,” he confirms. “And it’s going to open up a lot of opportunities, too.”

You blink, lost again and looking to Martyn Meadowgrass for explanation. He nods, understanding your unspoken inquiry, and goes onto explain further, as you practically press yourself to his side to follow along with his written speculations (which you don’t really understand) and to take in his scent and his warmth (which you very, very much do ‘get’).

…

>>6161334

…

“So,” you say slowly, “you’re saying we’ve got no one there to receive us? No base? Nothing?”

Iorund Copperbelt, the round-bellied dwarf with a prematurely-receding hairline and spectacles and surprisingly broad arms who leads the Delvers, seems miffed by your phrasing, but he doesn’t deny the meat or merit of your accusation.

“We’re adventurers,” he says instead. “Surely you’re no stranger to making allies where you find them, Youngtree?”

“I got this gig, didn’t I?” you snap back, sneering a little and puffing your chest. “Not tpo mention the Maladoo Gang. And you think Khorine popped outta’ me or something?”

“I say, I’d never—!”

“And I’M saying,” you quickly interject, “we can’t just go into a fuckin’ warzone half-cocked.”

“It’s not REALLY a ‘war-zone’, Zena,” Copperbelt tries to weasel his way out of it. “The fighting is at a really quite subdued level in the region, by historical standards, with ceasefires holding among all the largest polities.”

“For NOW,” you point out, slapping your palm loudly upon the map spread out in his little tent. “You think every fucking ‘polity’ there ain’t watching every other? And that if a bunch of outsiders scoot their asses in and start snooping around in the hills, they won’t all be on us like flies on shit?”

“Or honey?” suggests the halfling alchemist called Cherry.

“That’s bees,” you correct her, and before she can try to correct your correction, you continue on: “Look, I get keeping a low profil, but how long can we keep that up? And we have… Six of you, ten with our crew?”

Hershy, your pet chimeric drake, fluffs out his feathers and croaks loudly.

“Right, sorry, thirteen with pets ‘n summons ‘n shit.”

“Flies like honey too, a-actually…” mumbles Cherry. “anything with sugar is quite appealing to m-most arthropods.”

You point at her, and she jumps back, but you don’t correct the frumpy hobbit’s half-assed bug-knowledge, instead keeping your eyes on her fat, balding boss.

“See how she just flinched? We have thirteen people, but, what seven or eight of us can fight? I ain’t saying me and my Regiment ain’t good, Copperbelt, but we ain’t ‘fight off a warband of roving orcs’ good, you get what I’m saying? And I KNOW you nerds—you DELVERS—ain’t, either.”

>>6161348
Iorund Copperbelt rolls your arguments around in his head like a rock-tumbler, and you can practically hearing the rattling.

“As I understand it, the local orcs are not wholly hostile,” he says. “A large amount of human blood has found its way into the local milieu, calming their famously fiery temperaments.”

“Elves or humans would be easier,” points out Taito, Copperbelt’s gnomish scholar.

“But they’re better informed and better connected with the outside world,” Aarre, his samey-looking cousin points out shrewdly. “They could share details of our find… Which could be awkward, since…”

He trails off, but you immediately understand: this expedition isn’t on-the-books, and any outside involvement risks people claiming eminent domain over whatever you find in ‘their’ hills, even if it is old dwarfy shit. Elves, especially, since knife-ears have a keen eye for old magic, which you gather is what’s on offer here. Plus, these elves are suppose to be mutts, too, right?

(Not that it ever held Tips back none…)

What do you propose, as the senior, seaosned adventurer here?
>Stick to the Delvers’ plan—go in as a group, establish a camp, and hope for the best
>If you can make common cause with some local orcs, you can get dumb muscle for the dungeon-delve and avoid attacks by hostile locals
>Elves keen eyes are an asset, not just a liability, and you’re practically an elf yourself, these days! You want to approach them
>Humies are what you’re most familiar with these days, and they don’t have any of the hostility of orcs, and less ego than elves, so it’s worth approaching them
>Going in with a smaller squad, all stealthy-like, allows you to avoid scrutiny more easily… Though you’ll need to decide who to take and who should hang back
>Write-in

Sorry for the long post. Hopefully the lore drops are entertaining, at least?

>>6161349
>If you can make common cause with some local orcs, you can get dumb muscle for the dungeon-delve and avoid attacks by hostile locals
I’ll bite. Unusual long post but it was interesting.

>>6161359
>interesting
[I'm glad!]

>>6161349
[I also belatedly realized I perhaps didn't spell out the 'factions' as well as I could have given you took the 'local loredump' option. I'll make up fro that a bit now.]

>Orcs
Extremely tough, a bit dim, unconnected to any other larger faction, most hostile by default but not irrationally aggressive; huge feud with elves

>Elves
Magically-adept, closer to nature and not very tech-savvy, a bit more egotistical, more 'claim' on the land; benefit from ZZ's 'humanoid empathy' trait and would get on well with Khorine; huge feud with orcs

>Humans
A middle ground, more peaceable with orcs and elves than either are with each other; more tech-savvy than orcs, less magical than elves; benefit from ZZ's 'humanoid empathy'; more closely connected to human trade routes, more likely to get word out to the wider world

>>6161349
>If you can make common cause with some local orcs, you can get dumb muscle for the dungeon-delve and avoid attacks by hostile locals
Plan acquire meatshields is a go

I do appreciate the lore drops
Also that want is getting worryingly high, can we like uh safely vent it by hunting and tearing something apart before we ruin a friendship?

>>6161349
>Stick to the Delvers’ plan—go in as a group, establish a camp, and hope for the best

Hopefully the camp can be in the dungeon itself

>>6161349
>Stick to the Delvers’ plan—go in as a group, establish a camp, and hope for the best
Keep watch for now. Maybe establish alliances if prompted or if questioned.

>>6161887
am >>6160908

>>6161887
>>6161820
>>6161362
>>6161359
[We have ourselves a tie game. I'll roll or intention-meld tomorrow morning if we don't have a tie-breaker by then. I am going to take a night off, most likely, unless that vote comes in quick enough.]

>If you can make common cause with some local orcs, you can get dumb muscle for the dungeon-delve and avoid attacks by hostile locals
ORCS ORCS ORCS