"So he reaches in for the diamond, but as soon as he does, a giant ax blade slams down, and chops his hand clean off."
Arn tried to get the attention of the newcomer, but she was too caught up in the story. She wore the robes of a wizard, but the rumors said she was really a warlock. Her arrival had touched off a marathon of gruesome stories from the other adventurers.
"He starts screaming and bleeding all over the place. There were still monsters wandering the place, you know. Eventually, the cleric gets his stump patched up. I asked him, 'So what now?'"
"He tells me, 'I'm gonna get that diamond!' and before we can stop him, he reaches in with his other hand."
The adventurers at the table groaned, knowing what would happen next. One of them had a girl in his lap. Edith, the Svenson's daughter. Arn scowled. She must be ten years younger than him. No, wait, he had pointed ears. More like 80 years younger, perhaps.
"The blade comes down again, and there goes his other hand."
The whole group burst out laughing. What sort of people could laugh at such a dreadful story? There was a reason why there were no one but adventurers left in the common room. All the regulars had been driven off.
"The cleric gets pissed at him. 'I healed you once and you wasted it! I ought to let you bleed out in this hellhole!'
The woman finally noticed Arn. "Excuse me, miss, but about your bill. I know you just got here today, but all the others paid in advance."
"Oh, you're the innkeep, then? I don't usually carry coins. Red keeps all our petty cash. No one'll rob him."
"Red?"
"You haven't met him? He went straight to the temple as soon as he got here. He must still be there."
"You do know there's only one room left."
"We're bunking down together. He can pay for it. Go to the temple, you can't miss him." The supposed wizard turned back to the table of miscreants. "Ok, I've got one. Have any of you dealt with green slime?"
Arn headed for the town's only temple, leaving the inn in the care of his wife. An adventurer with no money? The rest of them spent silver like water. And now there was one more than Arn had figured. At least this one was a pious sort, rather than the terrifying people drinking in his inn. Then again, what sort of godly man would travel with that group, killing monsters for a living?
In in entryway of the temple, there was a sword hanging from a peg, as if it were just a wet cloak left to dry. Apparently this Red person had the good taste not to bring a weapon into a temple. The hilt glittered with gemstones and covered with complex glyphs and symbols. Arn was no wizard, but this was obviously a magic sword. Such a sword could easily be worth more than the whole village put together.
But who would steal it? No one in the village could use a sword, and you'd have to walk a long way to find anyone wealthy enough to buy it from you. You'd have to outrun an angry group of very dangerous people to get there, and any buyer could easily kill you and take it.
There's a reason there were no magic shops. Such things were more often taken by force than traded for.
Evening services were well underway. From within the temple, the familiar cadences of sacred song emerged. Pastor Brown could deliver a barn-burner of a sermon. Arn was not a terribly devout man, and it seemed rude to walk in the middle of services.
"…for even in the darkest night, will the light of the gods still shine!"
There were noises of approval and excitement from the parishioners.
"For those that keep faith, no burden is too heavy to bear, no darkness too terrible to face!"
The noise grew to a clamor, and there were shouts of approval. The Pastor was in rare form tonight.
"Do you have the faith! Do you believe in the Liberation?"
"I BELIEVE!"
What a voice! It drowned out the whole shouting congregation. You could have heard it back at the inn. This devout, red-haired swordsman must be a giant. A feeling of trepidation came over Arn, as he stood there, waiting in the entryway for services to end.
Soon, the inner doors opened, and the crowd of churchgoers passed though, talking excitedly to one another. Maybe energized by the sermon, or maybe just gossiping about the stranger who had joined them.
The familiar crowd passed though, with no sign of any hulking stranger. Arn took a deep breath, and opened the door to the temple proper, only to find himself staring into a polished steel breastplate. He looked up to see the fearsome red face of a dragon looking down at him.
This was a shock Arn couldn't have anticipated. He'd heard of such things, but dismissed them as just stories, like talking wombats or dark elves. Meeting a dragonkin in the flesh was enough of a shock to render him speechless.
Pastor Brown was at the warrior's side. He laid a familiar hand on the dragonkin's arm. "Good evening, Arn. Have you meet Brother Red? He's here to help us with our giant wasp problem."
Brother Red? Arn shook off his befuddlement, and stammered though his reasons for being at the temple.
Red sighed, exhaling a wisp of smoke. "I don't know why she does these things. She takes such delight in these petty acts of selfishness." He took a few coins from his belt purse, and asked if it was sufficient.
Arn nodded, and took the gold coins from Red's claw, wondering if the adventurers were planning on staying the whole year. He also considered the Pastor's sudden friendship with the stranger, and cynically imagined a fistful of gold in the collection plate.
Red belted on his sword and stepped out. Arn followed him, a score of questions running though his mind. Would it be rude to ask if his mother really was a 100 foot long engine of destruction? What exactly was his relationship with the magic user he'd be sharing a room with? How does he manage to talk with that huge, toothy mouth?
Eventually, he settled on one. He caught up to the towering adventurer and asked, "Why do you do it?"
"Pardon?"
"Why do you travel with… those people?" He gestured vaguely towards the inn. "They aren't exactly the gods-fearing type."
"The world needs us, for now." said Red in a philosophical tone. "There is bloody work to be done before the Emperor's evil can finally be laid to rest. The great heroes of the liberation cast down the tyrant, and burned the imperial city to the ground, but the work they started is not yet complete."
He fixed Arn with an intense gaze, and continued, "Someday rough people like me and my companions will no longer be needed. Until then, I will do everything in my power hasten that day. It may not come in my lifetime, but I have faith that it will. I believe in the Liberation."
Arriving back at the inn, Red was greeted by a chorus of loud greetings, invitations to have a drink, and to join the next round of cards. He politely excused himself, and asked Arn's wife to show him to his room.
The adventurers laughed at his prudishness, and went back to their drinking, gambling, and stomach-churning stories. Under his breath, Arn whispered, "I believe in the Liberation."
Author's Notes:
The gruesome story that the unnamed adventurer tells is directly lifted from a Knights of the Dinner Table strip. If Jolly Blackburn is reading this, I hope he doesn't mind. None of the stories from my own gaming history had quite the impact that I was looking for. I wanted to echo the often-bloody stories that gamers tell each other for laughs. Player Characters have such a cavalier attitude about pain and death.
I decided early in my brainstorming that my game world needed bad ass preachers. Pastor Brown is named for James Brown, whose role in The Blues Brothers inspired the idea. Trying to evoke that voice was fun.
Red is a paladin, in case it isn't obvious. I decided that if I wanted to have dragon-people in Cursed World, they should extremely rare and exotic. Naturally, he was inspired by fourth edition's dragonborn. His name came from when I needed a name for a game, and thought a color nickname would be cool for a dragonborn.
