#aefrix

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: The Master of the House

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For generations, folk of the hinterlands have whispered about Goodman Malvrind; a cruel, callous Hagga who ensnares the lost and the desperate, forcing them to become servants in his filthy, decaying house.

Adventure Hooks:

The party stumble into the final act of a dreadful fable when they encounter a young girl walking into the wilderness, tears streaming quietly down her face. Her name is Jass the millers' daughter, and she goes to complete the final part of a bargain she struck with the Goodman, eternal service in exchange for a potion that would cure an illness that befell her loving parents. Jass is brave beyond her years but resigned from her fate, if she tries to go anywhere but the Hagga's distant home, the path bends and twists, disaster befalling her. The heroes will meet a smilar fate if they attempt to help her, but that's not going to stop them now is it?

The Party may encounter the hagga on their own, whether out of desperate need or because they have become lost in the woods.  Malvrind will present himself as a most gracious host, deferring any huisness and inviting them to take in the many comforts of his home (all of which will trap and entangle).  Soon enough the party will realize both the Goodman and the door are both missing, forcing them to engage in a high stakes game of hide and seek through an increasingly labyrinthine home.

Roleplay Notes: Existing in a strange intersection between hospitality traditions and "my house, my rules" thinking, Malvrind takes the form of a man of minor privilege, specifically the sort of privilege that is defined by having people beneath you to order around. If his home is filthy (and it is ALWAYS filthy) it is only because he's either lacking enough servants to do the work or hasn't beaten them enough to instill the required dedication.

The Goodman knows that people only come to see him when they're at the end of their rope, and he takes a particular pleasure in making them squirm and debase themselves, forgoing the charm and guile many other bargaining fey employ to push through their deals.

Like many Hagga, Malvrind considers out-and-out combat beneath him. If tensions escalate, he'll summon some servants or animate the furnature to take care of it for him before walking out a door and teleporting elsewhere in the house.

Challenges & Complications:

Those forced to serve the Goodman inevitably find themselves denigrated and worn away into something lesser. The lucky ones are transmogrified into goblins, allowed to keep enough of their faculties to complete complex chores while staving out of sight. It's not uncommon to find a hollowed undead dusting the fixtures or scrubbing the floor, cycling through the same tasks over and over once they gave up hope. Perhaps most horrifying are the lad and lass, two of Malvrind's oldest (or perhaps first) victims: The lass loved the lad, and the lad ignored her for other prettier girls. The lass begs the Goodman to make her beautiful, to make the lad love her , and to make him forever loyal. Malvrind transformed the lass into a tree, and set the now singlemindedly adoring lad to the task of cultivating and harvesting her wood to feed his hearth . Through their long years of torment the two of them know many of the wicked fey's secrets, though getting information out of them will prove challenging. The lass is seldom alone or lucid long enough to give coherent answers, and the lad will jealously interpret any attention to her as an invitation to turn the party into mulch.

Though he has many magical treasures hoarded away, Malvrind's most prized possession is a small golden ring resembling a crown that he wears at all times. The ring IS in fact a crown, belonging to the king of all songbirds, who the Goodman captured some time ago and keeps in the uppermost attic of his house. The local birds serve him for fear of the harm he might do their sovereign, though a few might be brave enough to aid the party in the hopes of staging a rescue.

Given his fondness for enslaving others, it's no surprise that the Goodman is an acolyte of Aefrix, god of snares and bonds. The territory surrounding his home is filled with all kinds of vicious traps made to hobble those who stumble into them, only for the fey to "happen by" and offer to help them free in exchange for a small favour.

Slaying Malvrind isn't an end to the threat he poses. With no master to hold it or servant's suffering to feed off of, the Goodman's house will get up and start stalking the wilderness for it's own sustenance. This makes a great excuse to return to the region after a few levels and check up on some plotlines the party influenced earlier in the campaign.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Faction: The Tally of Talons

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Any adventurer can tell you that there's coin to be made in the bloody business of hunting monsters, especially if you've got a strong stomach and not many scruples. While real heroes may risk life and limb chasing down the most dangerous realm threatening beasts, others make good trade by trapping, anything that they can sell.

Such is the case with the Talons, a guild of poachers hunters who specialize in supplying rare beasts to nobles and alchemists, whether they be destined for a menagerie, a banquet table, or a carving bench. They're brutal as they are effective, and their connections to the upper rungs of society mean that their trespasses, transgressions, and occasional murder go unpunished.

Adventure Hooks:

It's likely the party will encounter the Talons while out on a hunt, aiming for the same quarry while using less than scrupulous means. The party might stumble feet first into one of their traps, or find local wildlife poisoned by bait they set out. Alternatively the encounter may be troublingly friendly, a fellow hunter offering to share fire and food in exchange for information. Can the party trust someone who kills so recklessly, even if it'll bring them closer to their goal?

The Talons usually have a stall set up in the town's marketplace, happy to buy or sell monsterbits while swapping hunting stories. Apparently the guild is looking for some fresh meat recruits after their last hunt went a little bad. What's a little pelt farming if it'll give the party access to the poacher's custom gear: high quality game firearms and thorned armour designed to resist being grappled could be too tempting to pass up.

Alternatively, an urban encounter may involve the talons moving a cage cart with a dangerous beast inside through heavy traffic. The beast is sedated (for now) but the packed streets and noisy crowds are threatening to wake it up. Fastest way to prevent it from escaping is to help the Talons clear a path.. even if they have to browbeat some innocent bystanders.

The poachers have little qualms about what they hunt, aside from whether or not someone will pay them to hunt it. Though many realms ban the trade and enslavement of sapient creatures the Talons are willing to conveniently forget these laws for a premium discretionary fee. This sometimes gets them in hot water though, as a contingent of them have captured a mischievous puck, who's been having great fun ensorceling his captors to one by one become rampaging beasts and chase each other through the forest.

While the guild is all too happy to court patrons of dubious morality, one of their most unexpected benefactors is a near forgotten god of pain and snares. The talons don't know they're a cult yet, or that the creatures they gut are taken as sacrifices by a by a sinister force. Clashes with the party may change that however, as the most receptive poachers may start receiving dreams and visitations, bestowed with blessings of strength and savagery to continue the snaregod's hunt.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Ally: Embry & Asher of the Royal Commission

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It's a lonely life being a cartographer in service to the crown, but Embry Mharkos wouldn't trade it for anything. Tasked with sketching out the region's peaks, river systems, and outlying settlements, he'll gladly join the party for a chance to see the sights. In addition to picking up the bill for provisions and pointing them towards points of gossip,  Embry will take over the logistics of running the party’s camp and use his geographical knowledge to help plan routes through the wilds.

Before you ask, yes, the dog has guild accreditation. What are you going to do about it? In reality, Embry used to travel with a man named Ashar, a senior surveyor and rather unplesant drunk who fudged his findings and took a rather predictable fall off a cliff after failing to secure his belaying line. Embry was just going to report his death to the commission field office when a random stray began following him through town. Thinking about all the provisions TWO paychecks could provide, he claimed to be taking over paperwork for his old partner and started forging Ashar's already illegible signature. He doesn't really think of it as lying, Asher's been with him far longer than the old man was, and he makes for a much better conversation.

Adventure Hooks:

Knowing the party for the dungeon delving thrillseekers they are, one of the first places the cartographer is going to point them towards one of the most impressive local delves: The skeleton of an ancient dragon half impaled on the peaks of a nearby mountain.

There's an isolated settlement of orcs Embry has wanted to make contact with for a while, since they've had decades to map the territory's outermost wilderness. Sadly last time he got close he made a rather bad impression on one of their hunting parties, who thought his scouting the precursor to some kind of attack on their territory. Perhaps the party can help him smooth things out, maybe by making some kind of gift to the village elders?

One night Asher starts barking and making a general racket, going as far as to drag one of the party out of their tent by the sleeping bag before running off into the darkness. The source of his distress? The distant cries of a fellow traveller bound to the trunk of a tree, left to die of exposure by a cult operating out of a nearby village. Asher was nearly sacrificed by the cult when he was a pup, and has gained a sixth sense when it comes to detecting their influence.

After the party have gotten to know him a bit (or gotten nosey with the coded letters he's always writing in addition to his usual map sketches), he'll reveal to them that he's been on a secret mission the entire time they've known him: In addition to his duties as a surveyor, Embry is an agent of the local marquess, who's convinced her husband is involved in some kind of scheme and sent him along with a few others to investigate. More than a few of the rumours he's had them check out were pretenses to this spycraft,

[dailyadventureprompts]

Bit of a grotesque one, but- a striking image that needs a proper villainous being behind it. Apparently not-infrequently, grappling stags will end up inextricably tangled by the antlers, and one or the other will die and- if the other doesn't starve to death- end up as a gory decapitated trophy caught in the other's horns. This anon needs some kinda monster coming out of that image- something about eternal counsel with one's greatest enemy, unable to see beyond your foe.

Deity: Aefrix, God of Snares and Bonds

Hold on though your teeth may chip and your nails rip from their beds, hold on though the binds may cut your flesh and your name be cursed, hold on and though your suffering may be eternal, you will never be alone. 

Setup:  An ancient deity of the wilds that has persisted into the modern day mainly through unwitting folk ritual, Aefrix has been much diminished by long history, enduring innumerable metaphysical wounds while being theologically twisted into something small and hateful. 

In the original tellings,  Aefrix was a god of the hunt symbolizing the unique relationship between predator and prey, the ritualized pursuit that would determine the victor, and the duality of death either in the starvation of the hunter or the devouring of the hunted.   At some point this duality collapsed in on itself, rendering Aefrix a god that was both alive and dead, starving and devouring and sated and being eaten all at once. Some druidic elders tell the tale of how Aefrix was cursed by a rival to hunt his own shadow, while others insist that it was a wicked shape-shifter he stalked, who took on the gods’ form for their final clash mirroring his every movement as they battled to the death. 

Regardless of the accuracy of these tales, Aefrix and his worship changed after that point: no longer blessing persuit, he became a god that oversaw the unending capture, whether it be oaths, punishments, magical wards, or traps. Passed over by hunters, he became a patron of those who would give everything not to let go of what they treasured, be it love or life or honor, even if it meant their own destruction. 

When manifested, Aefrix appears as a pair of animals locked in some deadly embrace, one dead, the other doomed: a stag with the severed head of another dangling from his horns, a serpent traped in the talons of a rictus hawk. When he appears as a humanoid, it is always as a haggard and bloodsmeared hunter with a corpse twined about his form, both heads sheltered beneath the same hood. When Aefrix speaks, the living head is gruff and dismissive, while the dead head speaks in a lofty and archaic tone. 

Adventure Hooks: 

As an ancient god Aefrix cares little for morality when bestowing his blessings, only sacrifice, and prefers living creatures to be left on his altar bound to waste away,  fall victim to the wilds, or struggle free on their own. While most supplicants get away with a mouse bound in twine, those who ask great deeds of the god of snares are tasked with constructing traps that can capture great beasts or people. The party may inadvertantly learn that there’s an adherent of the old ways in their vicinity when they stumble into such a trap, a pit or snare made to hold the victim to the point of death, with the twined god’s symbol in clear view. For greater blessings these traps must be constructed ( and fed) regularly, creating a wilderness minefield that preys on travelers and hunters alike. 

Forced into a marriage with a member of the country gentry, a woman writes to the party for aid: Her brute of a husband has taken an unexpected tumble down the stairs, and though she finds herself the inheritor of his title, she finds herself unable to leave the grounds: a dark presence hunts her from the thick forest surrounding their her manor house, transforming the estate into a gilded cage from which she cannot escape. As it turns out, the lord was an adherent of Aefrix and asked his god to ensure his pretty young wife didn’t escape, never planning on her ability to resist in any other way.  Investigating the house and the surrounding wilderness may provide a way of breaking the curse, but the now departed lord has crammed both full of traps. 

While traveling through the wilderness, a pained voice begins calling to the party in their minds, just as they detect a whiff of blood on the air. Pushing through the underbrush the party finds a unicorn caught in a trap of barbed spears that have closed around the glimmering beast’s frame like a blasphemous beartrap. Immortal and unwilling to die, the unicorn has been here for days, the ground below muddy with its silver blood, and pleads with the party to help free it before its life is fully bled away. As the party works it free, they will be assaulted by a pack of undead wolves, harbingers of a mad druid who haunts the wilderness and devises new and terrible ways to pay tribute to her patron. Upset at the loss of this prize sacrifice, he’ll toss a curse on the party from afar, further hampering their journey. 

Titles: The Twined god, Caller of the Hunt, Tithe of Teeth and pain, Snaremaker

Signs: The growth of strangling vines, the remains of creatures caught in traps natural or otherwise, Scattered horns/teeth dug in where they should not be. The appearance of not-deer

Symbols: Clashing deer,  Statues with two heads/faces (one dead, one alive), a hunter murdered by their captured prey, teethmarks, bloodsoaked horns/fangs. 

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