Topic: (SG) Gnoll Chieftess (Read 12130 times)

Mlamlah · « **Reply #30 on:** January 08, 2017, 12:24:58 pm »

I'm in favour of consolidating our resources to give us more to work with immediately. Agree to hand over three of the elves in exchange for the 800 silver. We already expect to get a slightly poor price for our quarry, and more liquid currency will be helpful if we either find a need to bribe a goblin patrol or an opportunity for barter.
I'd also like to Agree to Glowshines suggestion of familial bonding. It's a reasonable request, and a good opportunity to encourage devotion to us.

Also, allow Rickshaw to amputate if he decides it nececcary, but oversee.. Better not to risk further injury to our pet by causing it more pain than nececcary. Besides, such an injury is delightfully hideous.

I'd also like to tell the third pilgrim we are agreeable to providing the druid bride. If the goblin rebels are more likely to be friendly it may be helpful further down the line if we begin to build ties now. It's a risk, but i feel that the potential payoff is good.

Otherwise, i'm inclined not to push our travelling companions too hard. Though perhaps we should use our barter with both Rickshaw and the pilgrims as leverage to encourage them to help us keep a close eye on our prisoners.

Weirdsound · « **Reply #31 on:** January 10, 2017, 04:08:17 am »

Chieftess Venomclaw of the Wicked Song:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You would trust Slowdeath with your life under ordinary circumstances, but Rickshaw is not you, and surgery is far from ordinary. You tell Rickshaw that you will take him up on his offer, and instruct him to wait until his patient is properly restrained. You pick a good spot and tie off each of your beast's pinchers to nearby boulders and his deadly tail to a rock pillar, before summoning the doctor.

Rickshaw is fairly certain that there is no salvaging the impaled mouthpart, so the first step is to amputate. Too tiny to do the deed quick and clean himself, the Kobold medic summons his one-armed orc, who cuts the offending bodypart loose with a single swipe of her bronze sword. Slowdeath flinches, and briefly struggles against its bindings, but you are quick to calm it by complimenting its delightfully hideous new look.

The next step is to pull the sword, and the now amputated mouthpart it is pinning, out of Slowdeath's face. Rickshaw recomends yanking it out quick, and again notes that he is too small to preform the job himself. This time you volunteer, gripping and removing the dead dwarf's weapon with a mighty tug. Trusting in its master, the beast hardly reacts to the removal of the blade at all, but as ichor begins to spurt from the wound, you know the hard bit is just around the corner.

Approaching with a lit torch, Rickshaw begins to cauterize the wound, causing Slowdeath to emit screams of sheer agony and struggle hard against its bonds as its flesh is seared. You can tell it is trying to grab and crush the doctor with its three remaining mouthparts, but Rickshaw is able to stay just out of reach until, satisfied with his work, he hastily retreats.

Once Slowdeath is sufficiently calmed, you free the creature from its restraints and sit on the ground next to it, examining the weapon that did the damage. It is a simple short sword, but the craftswork is good and the metal itself seems to be high grade dwarven steel. Despite being of inferior quality and material, your weapon is better suited for mounted combat, but there is no reason why you couldn't keep the blade as a gruesome keepsake or to aid in any hand to hand battles you find yourself in. Of course, you could always use it to make one of your males more dangerous as well.

---

Flanked by your beta females, you singlehandedly drag the 'lucky' elf selected to join you for dinner some distance up the path until you find a private spot. Once the party arrives, you hold the meal still while your friends disrobe her, at which point the games begin. Having borrowed the four least effective looking wooden weapons owned by the pack, the first fifteen minutes are spent chasing and prodding at the elf, until she is too injured and exausted to continue. A few minutes are then devoted to taunting an teasing; Glowshine speaks to the elf in its own language, while you and the other two lick her wounds and groom her hair as if she was a close friend. Eventually, however, hunger becomes too great, and the games give way to the meal.

Traditionally this would start with the largest gnoll (you) tearing right into the meal's body cavity, but Cra-Crawler helpfully foresees that the guest of honor is a bit squeamish, so you instead hold her steady again while the young prophet carefully removes the screaming elf's eyes so that she will not pass out at the sight of her own guts. Then you climb on top of her, and gesture for the others to grab the arms and legs before you turn your powerful jaws against the victim's flesh. At once the familiar copper taste of fresh blood tickles your toung, prompting you to burry your snout in the wound to root around for her entrails. Once you get hold of the elf's intestines, you begin to pull them carefully from her body while keeping them as intact as possible. As the wound widens and the meal weakens, the other three join you in this task, pressing their blood soaked muzzles against yours so that all can fit inside.

Once the intestines are removed, you note the elf is almost gone and decide to take matters into your own jaws, ripping through her breast and ribs to reach the heart, which you tear free and swallow almost whole. With the elf dead, the group turns to other entertainment, and begins to wrestle over the intestines; Your size gives you a huge advantage, but you hold back so as to keep the game interesting. The frail and unassertive Echo winds up scoring a shocking victory here, grabbing the largest piece and flying to an outcrop that none of the others can reach. After finishing the intestines, the next hour and a half is spent tearing apart the corpse, rolling around in the mess, and licking each other clean. By the time you are finished, all of the meat and over half of the bone is consumed. The four of you return to camp and all fall asleep together on your sleeping skins.

---

Today you conduct your business while you ride.

Cruelaxe, one of the pilgrims shows you a signed document which declares the owner is owed 800 silver by stables of Camp Decay. It is written in Goblin, so you can't quite understand all the words, but Glowshine verifies that everything is in order. Cruelaxe agrees to give it to you in exchange for three of the remaining elves when you part ways.

The second goblin you do business with is Thumbscrews, who seems to be the defacto leader of the pilgrim group. Thumbscrews is more than willing to travel with the pack, and help you both find and negotiate with the seeder in exchange for a quarter of whatever you make selling him the elves. Like the others, he is clad only in unprotective travelers clothes, but he does wield a sling and demonstaits the ability to fire off both rocks and lead sling bullets with decent accuracy, so he should be able to pull some of his own weight on the road. He agrees to allow you to stop at Camp Decay before embarking down the Saurian Shaft, so that you may resupply the pack and hopefully find your gift brother.

---

The rest of the trip through the canyon is largely uneventful. Your riding partner, more often than not, is the tiny and gimpy male Bloodcoat, who seems to do everything in his power to please you and win your attention. You are almost positive that his intention is to win your favor and mate with you behind Zit's back when you go into heat, but in spite of his transparency you find him fairly charming nonetheless.

He is one of the older males in the pack, pushing middle age, which considering his size and injury is a pretty impressive feat. A bit of a wanderer, Bloodcoat has been part of many packs, usually moving along when times get rough and he is unable to compete with other males for food and mates. He tells you he was part of the Alpha Trumpet's pack while she was nursing Wildbone, the previous alpha female to hail from your nurse's teat, and picked up a bit of insect training and beast riding. He also knows how to safely handle and detonate dwarven powder, but cannot say how the terrifying weapon is made other than it has something to do with the yellow rocks in the Brimstone Broadtunnels.

On your third day of riding with Bloodcoat, he admits why he tells you why he is being such a suck-up. His limp, as it turns out, is not a birth defect but an injury he received three weeks before joining the pack. The Kobold doctor he saw thinks that it might get a bit better, but is unlikely to heal completely. The small male worries that he might no longer be able to fend for himself if things with this pack get rough, and hopes that you will protect him. You choose to confront his other intentions now as well, and he does sheepishly admit that he does hope to make a mate out of you and a fool out of Zit if he can get away with it, but earning your protection is of higher importance to him.

Glowshine seems to have gotten her wish. Between the shared meal and the shared blood of their mates, she and Echo are beginning to become close friends. They are usually found near the front of the pack with their mates while traveling. Dingo has managed to bully Great-Bruise out of the fallen dwarf's armor, and although he typically dosn't wear it while traveling, you have to assume his new steel skin makes him the most dangerous thing in the pack behind only the massive Slowdeath and perhaps the magical Zit. Bone-Saw-Saw does is best to hide it, but you can tell his concussion is proving slow to heal. Dingo seems to have picked up on this as well, and now seems a bit worried for and protective of the gnoll who is typically his heated rival.

---

After five and a half travel days, the large party makes it to the Joker Road Turnoff. Setting up camp, you know that tomorrow you will take your leave of Rickshaw before making the somewhat risky quarter-day journey down the well patrolled Joker Road until you reach Decay Tunnel, at which point all of the Goblins, save for Thumbscrews, will leave you as well. It might be prudent to make some sort of plan to meet up with Rickshaw in the future and collect the gold he owes you for the elfish mounts, and tackles any other final busniess you might have with his party or the pilgrims before going to bed tonight. If all goes well, after tomorrow Camp Decay should be one long day or two short ones away.

So far the prisoners have behaved, and you don't expect them to make trouble tonight with all the extra manpower around; A band of nine pilgrims heading the opposite direction has wound up joining the pack to make camp for the night.

The combined effort of all thirteen goblins is finally enough to get Cra-Crawler to give a sermon for tonight's entertainment. She gives her speech in Goblin, so few in the pack can understand it, but you and the others who do translate to the best of your abilities. The main topic is the merit of dying a good and properly gory death, but Cra-Crawler also spends a good deal of time defending the pratices of the traditional gnollish pack as being in line with the teachings of a Goblin death deity called Hammerhood. The entire assembly erupts in applause when she concludes, as even most of those who could not understand were drawn in by her confidence, fiery tone, and poetic meter.

IronyOwl · « **Reply #32 on:** January 10, 2017, 08:37:33 am »

Oh man, that's that good stuff. Really nice writing, Weirdsound.

Quote from: Weirdsound on January 10, 2017, 04:08:17 am

Rickshaw is fairly certain that there is no salvaging the impaled mouthpart, so the first step is to amputate. Too tiny to do the deed quick and clean himself, the Kobold medic summons his one-armed orc, who cuts the offending bodypart loose with a single swipe of her bronze sword. Slowdeath flinches, and briefly struggles against its bindings, but you are quick to calm it by complimenting its delightfully hideous new look.

I was entirely opposed to amputating, but now I see that was the wrong answer. Slowdeath's not maimed, he's hideously battle-scarred!

Quote from: Weirdsound on January 10, 2017, 04:08:17 am

After finishing the intestines, the next hour and a half is spent tearing apart the corpse, rolling around in the mess, and licking each other clean.

I'm sorry but this still came off as kind of cute. :3

Steel Shortsword
We should probably hand it off to a male, where it'll do some ~~good~~ damage. Maybe Dingo for complete overkill, but I'm thinking Bone-Saw-Saw to properly divvy up the dwarf between the brothers would be best. Plus, he's already pretty tough, severe concussion notwithstanding.

Final Business
We probably should arrange a meeting or something with Rickshaw. The problem is that neither of us probably has a good idea of where we're going to be at any particular point in the future, so...

Swinging around to meet us at our ~~obsidian mine~~ aquatic ranch is probably the safest bet. We should have some presence there even if our pack is personally out and about, and I think it's close enough to civilization (meaning kobolds, not actually civilized people) to be mostly safe? We can arrange something else if Rickshaw doesn't like getting that close to a dwarven outpost. Either way, I see no reason to be picky about time, so whatever works for Rickshaw. For that matter, we can probably come to him if necessary, but I just know we'd have to make a difficult decision to abandon another opportunity at that point.

I don't think we have any further business with the goblins.

Elves
I want a pet elf. Yes, they're useless and hideously pretty, but there are few things more depraved than owning a feral sapient. We should spend some of the trip prodding through the elves to see if any of them would make a workable novelty beast.

Mlamlah · « **Reply #33 on:** January 10, 2017, 09:12:40 am »

I do think that for now we should plan to swing back around to Blackpool shaft once we've had our dealings with the goblin seeder. I'm thinking our goals with the goblin rebels should be in establishing a rapport and making initial contact, rather than committing to anything. Do some rough calculations on how long the trip through the Saurian path and then back again towards Blackpool shaft will take at a slow pace, then add a month on top of that for the purposes of a margin of error and both scouting and settling in at Blackpool shaft. The final date we come out with will be the earliest we plan to meet with Rickshaw, with some flexibility based on his own schedule. He may not be able to make the trip to our mine safely, so we should be willing to be flexible on a location too.

See if we can find someone to tend to our pair of wounded males. If we can't find anyone at Camp Decay who has some level of competence we'll just have to wait until Rusty Screw village. Unless we want to take a detour to toadcotton plantation. I also suggest that we keep our nose sniffing for opportunities to bargain our credit at Camp Decay. I'm inclined to get at least some of it in coin though.

Quote from: IronyOwl on January 10, 2017, 08:37:33 am

Steel Shortsword
We should probably hand it off to a male, where it'll do some ~~good~~ damage. Maybe Dingo for complete overkill, but I'm thinking Bone-Saw-Saw to properly divvy up the dwarf between the brothers would be best. Plus, he's already pretty tough, severe concussion notwithstanding.

Elves
I want a pet elf. Yes, they're useless and hideously pretty, but there are few things more depraved than owning a feral sapient. We should spend some of the trip prodding through the elves to see if any of them would make a workable novelty beast.

I'll +1 on the shortsword. I'm not sure how i feel about setting aside an elf pet just now though. We don't have much manpower, and we might be about to get some more pack animals. It might be easier to just consolidate our resources, and then if we want purchase a more cooperative slave further down the line.

Weirdsound · « **Reply #34 on:** January 10, 2017, 07:23:07 pm »

Before meeting with Rickshaw to arrange the payment of his debt, you consider your route moving forward. Thumbscrews refuses to tell you how far you will be traveling down Saurian Path to reach the seeder. The route stays near the surface, even opening up in a few places, for the first week or so of travel past Camp Decay, before it intersects with the top of Iron Canyon. If your busniess with the goblins is completed by then, or shortly after, the safest, fasted, and most flexible route would be to take the Canyon back down to kobold country, and chart a course to either Rusty Screw Village or Blackpool Shaft from there.

Beyond the top of the canyon, Saurian Path dips downward and goes on further than any traveler has been able to chart, winding back and forth as it goes deeper into the earth. About a month's travel down from the canyon intersection, the road intersects with the Mandible Tunnels, and a day up the Mandible Tunnels from that intersection sits an ancient Forerunner Ruin within which has been largely reclaimed by gremlins - Rusty Screw Village. If the Gremlins have an available tram-car big enough for your pack, the trip to Blackpool Shaft from there will be three or four days tops, otherwise you will have to hike a week and a half through the Mandible Tunnels to reach dwarven territory, a prospect that both excites and frightens you. The Mandible Tunnels are the stomping grounds of The Alpha Trumpet, your old nurse. You grew up there, and know the land better than anybody, but it is likely that your old pack will have left for the surface by the time you return, which means gnoll packs much larger and better established than yours will be waging open war over the territory it held.

Unable to reach a conclusion on where you want to meet Rickshaw, you sit the Kobold down for a frank discussion on the matter. Luckily, it turns out Rickshaw makes his home at Parchment Chapel, a Kobold settlement only three days from Blackpool Shaft. If your pack does not have a representative at the mines by the time he gets there, he will leave any coin he has for you at his house under the care of his son-in-law. You find this agreeable enough, and shake the little dragonkin's hand to seal the deal.

After concluding your meeting you track down Bone-Saw-Saw, and present him with the steel weapon. The concussed gnoll thanks your profusely, speech still slurred. You are going to have to get him looked at once you reach Camp Decay.

Before going to bed, you decide to check on the elves to see if any might make a decent pet. Sadly none of them speak gnoll, and only one speaks Kobold. The Kobold speaker refuses to say much, but you do pick up that her name is Aligie, and that she makes her living as a scribe; Hardly somebody with the skill set to keep up with a gnoll pack even if you are able to break her.

---

You split off from Rickshaw's merchants in the morning, and from the canyon back into the proper Darklands of Joker Road. The trip is largely uneventful. Thirty minutes in you encounter a small patrol of five armored goblins, but the Pilgrims vouch for your pack, and the soldiers either buy the explanation or choose not to pick a fight while that badly outnumbered.

After a few hours on the road, you exit into Decay Tunnel, taking your leave of all the pilgrims save for Thumbscrews, who will guide you to the seeder. The tunnels get their name from the fungal slime that grows in the nearby pools, which smells of rotten corpses; Sweet to the gnollish nose. Moral is high by the time the party stops to make camp.

One of the elves manages to slip free of her bindings and makes a run for it during camp setup when somehow the concussed Bone-Saw-Saw winds up as the sole prisoner guard for a spell. She gets a good head start, but has no real chance at sustained freedom. Zit deploys a few of the other males to hunt her down, and with their superior endurance and tracking ability, they have her back within an hour. Zit has the escaped prisoner throughly beaten by a gang of males, to the point where you suspect she will be unable to walk on her own tomorrow.

Zit then tries to punish Bone-Saw-Saw with the same beating for letting the escape occur, but Dingo puts a stop to that by stating that anybody who lays a hand on his brother will have to answer to him. This leads to a staredown between your two largest males, and for a moment you are afraid. Fights involving an Alpha Male and a rival large enough to threaten his position are usually to the death, and you can ill afford to lose either at this point. Luckily for you, Glowshine and Echo step in and hurry their mates away from the crowd, preventing Dingo from further escalating the situation and protecting Bone-Saw-Saw from Zit's proposed punishment. You are glad you will be reuniting with your larger Gift Brother soon; Gorgtooth stands two inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than you, and should have no issue keeping both Zit and Dingo in line should tempers flare again.

---

Deciding you want to see Gorgtooth sooner rather than later, you decide to push the pack for an extra two hours, and make it to Camp Decay by day's end. The injured prisoner who tried to escape yesterday winds up riding Slowdeath with you, as she is likely suffering a broken leg. You have Glowshine ride along and translate to see if this one might make a decent pet - she is already damaged merchandise.

This one calls herself Evermane, and turns out to be the breeder responsible for the Pegasus and Unicorns you sold to Rickshaw. She has some survival skills, and has had her share of adventures in her youth, but she spent the last decade as a spoiled and pampered concubine to the bride. Evermane outright tells you she would rather be your meal than your pet, and spends most of the ride trying to spit on you or Glowshine. Eventually your beta female gets fed up with this, and smacks the elf's injured leg with the broadside of her steel axe, causing Evermane to pass out from pain.

---

Camp Decay sits in a large subterranian clearing, well lit by various Glowshrooms. In the middle of this clearing sits Castle Decay, an abandoned goblin fortification that houses the camp's most important bandit lords and their armies. As you enter the clearing, you spot and smell a larger gnoll pack camping on the far side. If you linger too long, they might siphon some of your males, and to make matters worse, you smell that they have some girlchilds. You will go into heat if you spend more than a few days here, and your pack is far from ready for that.

You order Zit to set up a tight-nit camp on the edge of the settlement, and forbid the males from wandering, before closing your eyes and tuning into the smell of your gift brother. It dosn't take long for you to pick up Gorgtooth's scent, which you follow until you reach a large tent on the outskirts, only three hundred or so yards from where your own pack is setting up. Upon entering, you find yourself held at spearpoint by a pair of goblins dressed in leather and bronze military uniforms, likely some of the rebels who operate on the nearby Saurian Path.

Their leader is a strange creature, likely custom made by some ambitious druid; She appears to have the frame and build of a drow, the leathery skin of a goblin, and the frills and feathers belonging to some of the more showy reptiles found on Saurian Path. At either side of her throne sits a lieutenant, the first is a buggbear, a member of the orc-sized goblin uppercaste know for its strength and capacity for dark magic. The second is Gorgtooth, who waves the guards off, whispers something to the strange woman in charge, and beckons you forward.

Your gift brother appears more fearsome than ever. He now wears a full suit of Ant's Iron, a lesser grade of steel but steel nonetheless, and bears several new charming scars on his face. At his feet rest three of his gnollish mastiffs, well trained yet ill tempered red ants the size of large dogs. Judging by the set of four mandible daggers hanging from his belt, Gorgtooth's other two ants must have met their end somehow. As you approach, he pulls you in for a hug. Simply happy to be reunited, you let him hold you in silence for what seems to be several minutes before he gets down to business.

"Sister, the rebel goblins of Saurian Path wish to expand into the Mandible Tunnels. The wish to help us grow our pack, so that we in turn may help them size Mastiff Nest and drive out the gnolls who would oppose the incursion. Does this sound good?"

The offer indeed sounds decent. You are not entirely thrilled with the thought of handing over the land and den where you grew up to goblins, but the support of the rebellion could be valuable indeed.

IronyOwl · « **Reply #35 on:** January 10, 2017, 08:01:46 pm »

Rebel Scum
Interesting. I think we should take their offer and become proper lapdogs to an evil organization with a bit more vision than us. Not that we need vision, but it's a convenient way to get paid for meaningless conflict.

Also, it'd make stealing their lieutenant cleaner.

Elven Scum
A scribe has some very theoretical posh applications, but is mostly useless to us. I like the idea of a fancy horse breeder who'd rather die than serve us, though. They all say that at first!

If we're continuing to the seeder as planned we have plenty of time to consider it, though.

Route
I assume our interactions with the goblins will affect our travel plans, so I don't see any particular need to figure out whether we're backtracking or following the void to get where we want to go. That said, I'd generally favor the quicker path, as we have a lot of destinations we'd like to tap.

Weirdsound · « **Reply #36 on:** January 11, 2017, 09:29:17 pm »

Chieftess Venomclaw of the Wicked Song:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You consider Gorgtooth's offer for a few seconds, before giving him a nod and stating you will gladly hunt in the name of the rebel cause if the goblins agree to support you. This brings a sadistic smile to the face of the strange female commander, who displays teeth as sharp as any Saurian beast. "Vvvveeeeery good to hear, mighty Venomclaw." She replies with a silky and almost elf like voice, "The rebellion looks forward to a long and frrrrrruitful relationship with Wicked Song. May you grow mighty in our service."

Something about her voice, alongside the fact that you hadn't spoken your name or pack name yet, makes you shudder. The unusual woman disregards this and continues. "It will be some time before rrrrrrebellion is ready to march into your homeland, so you will be frrrrrrree to do as you wish for now. In the meantime, if you would like to help the cause, in exxxxxchange for suitable payment of course, you can seek the rebellion out."

The speaker steps down from her throne, and pats you lightly on the shoulder. Her skin is cool to the touch. "Prince Crazyscrews, who reigns out of Cold Egg Keep on the Saurian Path specializes in planning raids agaiiiiiiiinst the hated oppressors. I'm sure he would let you liberate any gnollish slaves you encounter while working for him to join your pack. My mother, the Drow Silentkiss, handles most of the rebellion's non military affairrrrrrs out of Dinofang, and is always looking for muscle to help her out with small things that the rebel military is too busy to help with. Lastly High Priest Spike-Driver, our spiritual leader, can be found at the Saurian Circles and should have work for you... I hearrrrr you are good with beasts, correct?"

The woman pauses for a second. "Gorgtooth is already a captain in the rebellion. So I shall let him keep his rank and men while he travels with you. This should allow you to move through rebel territory unhindered."

Although you still need to get to Rusty Screw Village, and likely Blackpool Shaft as well, at some point in the near future, your new alliance has already opened up doors for you. Cold Egg Keep sits at the intersection of the Decay Tunnel and the Saurian Path, only a day's travel from your current location. The Saurian Circles are much further, At least a month and a half of travel if you just took Saurian Path straight down, but is said to be a place of great magical power and mighty beasts. Dinofang is a major goblin city and the rebel capital, the kind of place a gnoll pack wouldn't be allowed to visit under normal circumstances. It sits at the very top of Saurian Path, about five days from Camp Decay.

---

Gorgtooth leaves the tent with you, and agrees to show you about the camp. The first stop is a drinking tent, where he rounds up his troops to provide an escort. Gorgtooth's goblins are six strong, and fight under the name 'mandible squad'. They wear mail, helms, and swords of bronze, but the rest of their gear is leather; A step above the average member of your pack, to be sure, but not as well equipped as members of the regular goblin army. You are fairly sure most of them are actually half gnoll, but it is tough to tell; Gnollblins are functionally particularly savage goblins if male.

Once 'the boys' are gathered, you ask to be shown to the stables, as you have a debt to collect. Your gift brother nods, grins, and cracks his knuckles. Gorgtooth is a rather dull and hateful creature, even by Gnollish standards, and possesses only a handful of redeeming qualities: He is good at getting smaller creatures to obey him through threats and force, he has a knack for training animals (particularly insects), he is a large motherfucker (even by non-gnollish standards to an extent), and is completely devoted to you. In short, debt collecting suits him.

At first the stablemaster, an ancient human, denies the debt he owes you. He quickly changes his tune when Gorgtooth threatens to eat his wife alive, and offers the one hundred silver that he currently has, only an eighth of the debt owed. "Not good enough. My sister will be taking the rest of the payment one way or another..."

Gorgtooth leads you past the area where the stable-master puts up the mounts of various paying guests, to a small area within the stables where every pen has a pricetag on it.

The only cheap mounts for sale are the Saurian Kangaroos, large bipedal lizards that hop around on powerful hind legs and are large enough to give rides to the smaller races. Although far from harmless, their kicks are less impressive than the teeth of a frogshark, but on the plus side, they are slightly larger, stronger, and better balanced than your amphibians. Any member of your pack, save for yourself, Zit, Dingo, or Great-Bruse (the largest), could easily ride a Saurian Kangaroo with a bit of practice. There are eight for sale, six males for 60 silver each, and two females for 80.

Also available are trolls, large humanoids that can serve as pack-animals or fighters, but are improperly shaped to make good mounts. Two green seven-foot common trolls sell for 150 silver a piece. Three adolescent shaggy trolls, which are presently about your size and might grow another half foot, sell for the same price; Although smaller, shaggy trolls can be harvested for their thick wool. A single eight footer with skin of stone and claws of rusted iron, the feared deep troll, is offered for 650 Silver.

Also available are a few amphibians. One pen contains dozens of Dartsharks, the smaller, brightly colored, cousin of your frogsharks. Although too small to ride, they can still be trained as war animals, and their poisonous skin would give you a leg up against other gnoll packs that lead carnivores into battle. As their 15 silver a pop price tag indicates, they are also easy to breed. On the opposite end of both the price and size spectrum, the stablemaster is selling a single horse sized white frogshark and a three headed fire breathing bull sized Cerberus Toad for 500 silver each.

Lastly, you note three sentient oddities, too bestial for the standard slave market, on sale. A male assling (to hafling and donkey what a centaur is to man and horse) tries to seduce you into buying him with crude jokes about his equine sized manhood, and seems quite put out when you inform him you are not in heat. He seems skinny, and you suspect it is the fact that his current owner is mistreating him that has rendered him desperate enough to try and bed something as hideous as a gnoll. The note on his cell reads '150 silver for the lazy good 'fur nothing'.

The next sentient also has the lower body of a beast, a big cat, but the upper body of a sickeningly pretty fey female. Sphinx like the one before you are known for their size, cunning, savagery, and magical proficiency. You doubt this specimen is a caster, there are no magical restraints of any sort on her body, but she is already nearly as large as Slowdeath and still an adolescent; She could likely end up two to three times as large as she is now. The sign on her stall says she only speaks Fey, Elfish, and Druidic, so to the best of your knowledge, only Zit and Glowshine would be able to speak with her out of the entirety of your pack. She is listed at a sale price of 900 Silver, so to claim her you would have to bully the stablemaster and giving more than is owed.

Also a bit out of your price range, sitting at a cool 1200 silver, is an alluringly creepy ruby-red Sorcerer Scorpion. The cat-sized bug is sealed in a rune-laden terrarium; Although various races and cultures argue on weather or not a bug can be sentient, nobody can deny that the Sorcerer Scorpion is a dangerous and cunning caster. Its lethal sting is nothing to sneeze at either. Most attempts to tame a Sorcerer Scorpion end with the arachnid escaping and/or killing its master, but if anybody is capable of the feat, it is you. You can't tell for sure, but you a pretty sure the specimen before you is male, which would make it 1/2 of the formula required to breed your own titanic mule scorpions.

Beyond the animals, the stablemaster keeps various hunting and trapping supplies; If you took some of your payment in ropes, traps, nets, and throwing javalins, you should be able to capture and tame beasts of your own. You also note slimy mageblankets for sale; For eighty silver you could buy enough to ensure your three current amphibious beasts can safely make a one way trip through the brutally dry Redstalks; the quickest route back to Kobold Country.

---

Following your trip to the stables, you introduce your brother and his squad to your pack, and tensions are high right away. Never one to be diplomatic, Gorgtooth calls Zit a sorry excuse for an Alpha Male and unworthy of his respect. Gnolls, expecially large gnolls like Gorgtooth, are fairly magic resistant, so you can't imagine any showdown between the two parties ending well for Zit who fights with magic and claw. Zit for his part seems to know this, and now seems very worried for his safety.

Neither Cra-Crawler nor Glowshine are thrilled that you are throwing your lot in with the goblin rebels. Glowshine explains that many of her good business contacts are aligned with the goblin crown, but agrees to suck it up and do what is best for the pack. Cra-Crawler, when pressed, simply states that her religious views are much closer to those of the crown than those of the rebels, so she will never be entirely comfortable with the arrangement, but that she didn't warn you against taking the rebel side as she knows the union will be more profitable for the pack.

The six goblin soldiers fit in better than you had expected; Gnoll packs are controlled by family ties, friendship, and sexual supply and demand. Goblin squadrons are condrolled by pride and fear. These dynamics don't always gel smoothly with one another, but over the first few hours you see no trouble between the gnolls of The Wicked Song and the Goblins of Mandible Squad save for the tension between Zit and Gorgtooth.

Thumbscrews looks worried, and you can tell he knows that you might no longer need him. It is likely the rebellion knows where to find the same seeder he agreed to lead you to, and now that you have access to Dinofang City you might not even need to go that far to find a good price for your captives.

You eventually send Glowshine out to fetch a doctor for Bone-Saw-Saw and Bloodcoat. The medic she finds, Doc Hiccup, looks more like a bandit than a doctor, but he preforms his job admirably. He quickly perscribes an herb for Bone-Saw-Saw's concussion, before moving to the smaller gnoll's leg. After a brief examination, he informs you that fixing Bloodcoat's injury entirely is likely impossible, but surgery could greatly help improve his condition. The procedure would entail rebreaking and resetting, and would take a few months to recuperate without expensive magical assistance. You are pretty sure who want to be settled down at Blackpool Shaft or some other base of opperations before you intentionally put one of your gnolls on the self like that. Glowshine pays for the consult, and for Bone-Saw-Saw's medicine.

Chevaleresse · « **Reply #37 on:** January 12, 2017, 01:22:22 am »

IronyOwl · « **Reply #38 on:** January 12, 2017, 01:22:55 am »

Stables Debt
I want every single thing in the stables, send help.

However, the most fitting choice would probably be the sphinx, seeing as we're technically trading elves for it. She'd make a nice heavy hitter/beast wrangler, and could maybe add some cunning to our pack while she's at it. We could make up the remaining silver by ~~throwing another elf into the deal (take it or leave it) or~~ ~~reminding him he's getting a really good bargain by getting to keep his deliciously crunchy hands after trying to cheat us~~ REVOLUTIONARY IDEA: Taking out an IOU for it. We'd want to have our translators interview her first for compatibility, but I'm sure we'd pick up enough of each others' language to make pack communication a relative nonissue fairly quickly.

~~We should look into capturing gear as well, but for our paltry opals and/or Glowsilver.~~

EDIT: The city will have capturing gear available, no need to get it here. Accordingly, ~~the Gorgtooth Discount~~ PROMISING TO PAY HIM LATER WHEN WE RETURN TO BUY MORE STUFF should cover the remaining 100 silver nicely.

Path
Is there an advantage to going to a seeder over a regular slave market? I say we go to Dinofang City now that it's available, but offer to cut Thumbscrews in for 10% of what the elves go for in exchange for his services as a guide. Quite a drop from 25%, but better than nothing, and having a more civilized goblin on hand might come in handy.

The only reasons I could see going to the seeder, other than if caster/noble elves are worth more to a seeder than to a slave market, would be for information; specifically, where it is if we need it later, and potentially learning more about the process of breaking down humanoids into different humanoids.

Internal
We should take some time to reassure Zit. It's hard to give goodies to a caster, and it's a little unfair that he's getting bullied for being poorly matched against other gnolls.

Eric Blank · « **Reply #39 on:** January 12, 2017, 02:14:47 am »

I agree with buying the sphinx. Negotiate a deal for the debt and an elf. Offer another elf for some of the hunting and trapping supplies, at their value. May be smarter to treat the sphynx more as a friend and companion rather than a slave, knowing she could potentially triple in size and is certainly quite intelligent. If she becomes friends with zit and/or glowshine, she could well be a valuable ally, and become a friend of ours as well.

Take the remaining elves to the seeder. Even if the pay in the short term isn't as great, a stronger alliance with the goblin rebels could be of huge importance in the future. If were helping their cause directly by supplying troops, even if at a slow trickle, that's another reason to appreciate us.

IronyOwl · « **Reply #40 on:** January 12, 2017, 08:15:06 am »

It's worth noting that the value of these elves is probably around 300-400 silver apiece, since Glowshine said 3 for 800 silver was "a bit low." The difficulty is that the human is a stable master, not a slaver, so in theory he has no use for them. It's a bit like trying to pay a restaurant with suits of full steel plate: the value is good, but it's not really their area of business. Accordingly, he's likely to give us a poor offer if we neutrally bargain with him.

On that note, we can probably find capturing gear just fine at the city, so I guess we should hold off on that until we see the haul and alternative uses for it anyway. Which means I think I'd rather just bully him out of the 100 silver as a "debt what debt oh that debt" tax.

I'll also point out that the seeder's allegiance, if any, is unknown, while the city is literally the rebel capital. If our goal was to suck up to or empower the rebels, the city's about as good as we're going to get short of just gifting some elves to one of the rebel leaders.

You're probably right about the sphinx, but that's loosely true of everything; we'll need to hear specifics on what she's like before we know the best way to treat her.

escaped lurker · « **Reply #41 on:** January 12, 2017, 10:22:05 am »

I'd rather have a debt of the additional 100 silver to him, than get on bad terms with someone who seemingly has a nice supply of animals. Animals, which we always might find a use for. (If such stable masters are a dime a dozen in the nearby goblin territory though, don't bother)
Else, get him to agree on a debt, and we get back to shopping at his at another time (or send out some of our people to do so)

Gamerlord · « **Reply #42 on:** January 13, 2017, 02:04:48 am »

What are the odds we could knick the scorpion? I mean, how large is that wasp? Could Cra-Crawler get it to retrieve the cage it's in?

IronyOwl · « **Reply #43 on:** January 13, 2017, 02:20:48 am »

Quote from: escaped lurker on January 12, 2017, 10:22:05 am

I'd rather have a debt of the additional 100 silver to him, than get on bad terms with someone who seemingly has a nice supply of animals. Animals, which we always might find a use for. (If such stable masters are a dime a dozen in the nearby goblin territory though, don't bother)
Else, get him to agree on a debt, and we get back to shopping at his at another time (or send out some of our people to do so)

This is a good point. I do want to come back for that scorpion...

Quote from: Gamerlord on January 13, 2017, 02:04:48 am

What are the odds we could knick the scorpion? I mean, how large is that wasp? Could Cra-Crawler get it to retrieve the cage it's in?

Depends on how you mean knick. If you mean steal, 100%: Our gift-brother is larger than the stable owner. If you mean steal without being caught, I'm guessing 0%: The wasp and scorpion are both cat-sized, I think, so it probably can't carry the cage. Even if it could, I'm guessing the scorpion going missing just after a beastmistress gnoll pack left would result in a pretty obvious conclusion, and it's not exactly a subtle piece of merchandise.

Mlamlah · « **Reply #44 on:** January 13, 2017, 10:37:05 am »

I'd actually be on board with getting a few adolescent trolls, we could use additional able bodied fighters, but it seems like the collective has more or less made up its mind.

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