So I rolled a couple of dwarf ladies on Moon Guard because I miss dwarves and I miss roleplaying. I may add a character page for each of them on this blog and retool the layout a bit.
A dwarf warrior lady for Finish it Friday, wherein I try to finish a thing before the weekend sets in. It’s just nice to finish stuff, even if it’s simple! In the future I may dig into my archives of old art and finish stuff just for fun/practice.
I may be on a RP break, but in the meantime I've been digging up some of Aegrid's old stuff. This is an IC Field Guide that she wrote back during Cataclysm, I had it as a GHI book with a bunch of custom formatting on the title page. I'm looking forward to having the time to recreate it now that GHI has new and updated tools for item creation!
Tombs, Traps & Other Troubles
A Field Guide to Practical Archeology and the dangers faced by the Modern Explorer.
Introduction
Wearing the badge of an Explorer's League Prospector isn’t an act that is usually taken up by people who enjoy any sort of consistency in life. A Prospector's job requires that they be alert at all times, skilled in a variety of tasks, immune to the throes of common sense, and in possession of an uncanny ability to avoid being eaten, crushed, drowned, burnt, cursed, or otherwise killed in a most horrible and permanent fashion.
As my mentor, Makers rest him, used to say, “Prospecting is the second-best way to secure yourself an interesting eulogy - right behind Goblin engineered munitions.”
With so much new blood in the Prospecting field these days I figure the priests must be up to their stuffy shirt collars in damned interesting eulogies. If these wet-behind-the-ears greenhorns don’t take heed of this book I figure I’ll have a good enough retirement as a coffin maker sooner than you can say Harrison Jones.
Assuming we can find the pieces.
--A.S.
Chapter One: Tombs
Though many greenhorns go out into the field hoping, or even expecting, to stumble across some precious relic every other step I’m here to tell you that they’re more likely to win a kiss from an Ogre than they are to find Archeology an easy job. There’s a reason the craft was created and perfected by the dwarves - the rest of the namby-pamby races would sooner mess their britches than find a way to make even more work for themselves. Also, there’s rather a lot of digging involved.
Now, if there’s one thing that any dwarf knows from the time they’re but a wee beardling it’s how to dig a hole that’s not going to collapse faster than a goblin charity. We know the earth proper-like, but the rest of you lot are fair well screwed unless you pay attention.
Rock slides, cave ins, and collapsed embankments are real dangers to any Prospector out in the field and don’t you think otherwise! These are best avoided by not being a blithering idiot and taking proper precautions when digging something you plan to stand inside. Even a small hole can collapse in on unwary Prospectors and crush or suffocate them like my Great-Aunt Gurtence’s bosomy hugs.
Digging Tips!
Use plenty of bracing to keep walls of earth in place.
Never, never, never excavate UNDER A BOLDER.
Mind your soil moisture content - earth that’s too wet or too dry likes to shift suddenly.
Fill in what you dig - if I fall in your diggings you’ll be sorry.
Now, many folk might disregard the above advice when they find themselves kicking about in some bloody ruins with walls and pillars and great mucking statues. “Why they’re safe as houses,” I can hear you greenhorns wailing already. Safe as houses full of ideas on how to KILL YOU, says I. We call them ruins for a reason, lads, and don’t ye forget it. Any rules that apply to digging holes goes equally for exploring holes someone else dug, probably double - see chapter two for more details.
The last thing you’ve gotta look out for, and the easiest to miss, is bad air. There’s half a hundred reasons air can go bad underground - mineral dust, leaking gasses, flat-out lack of air, ancient buried Trogg farts. Point is, they’ll addle your brain or kill you outright, some just by breathing and others by being more explosive than an Winter Veil toy tonk. Best thing you can do is avoid them all together, there’s lots of ways to do it but the best way is to buy an all purpose air analyzer. You can buy them mail order from a form in the back of this book.
Chapter Two: Traps
A big problem with ruins, or any dig really, is the fact that there’s bound to be traps just laying around waiting to find someone’s arse they can be a pain in. You do not want that arse to be yours. If the thought of a hole having it in for you made you piss yourself in fear you may want to put this book down now and find a safer career, like knitting, smithing, or assembling bombs.
Pit traps are a perennial favorite of every tomb designer this side of Outlands (and probably that side too). The premise is simple, dig a hole, put something icky at the bottom, and wait for some wit-addled greenhorn to step in it. Avoid these by testing the ground in front of you with a stout stick, roping yourself to your companions (put the hefty ones in back then), and employing feather fall or other levitation enchantments.
Similar in popularity to pit traps are what Old Welgrin used to call “Sharp, pointy bits that’d like to poke you in the squashy places and make you leak.” There’s all manner of different flavors to these, spikes in floors or walls, razor edged blades swinging out of the darkness, darts or arrows shot out of hidden nooks. The best way to get around having your liver perforated by a grumpy troll corpse is to not be at the front of the line - or to have very good reflexes.
If you manage to avoid falling to your doom or getting opened up like a can full of beans you run the risk of getting so turned around you can’t find your way back out. There’s nothing more embrassing than having to die of hunger because you can’t stop to ask for directions, except possibly having to dance in public. A good piece of chalk will save you this terrible fate and merciless posthumous teasing. Simply mark your passage on any available surface, but remember to make them clear and easy to read if you’ve got to run for your life later on.
This last kind of trap makes all those other ones look like frisky kittens that want to frolic about in the sunshine and daisies in comparison. I’m talking about curses, hexes, spells, or any other mystic booby trap. There’s no common denominator with these, and they’re as nasty as they come. Trolls are particularly fond of them, but some Highborne ruins are near as bad. Best preparation for this is to get the blessings of a holy man and to make sure you’ve got a few sturdy talismans to ward off evil magics. If you think you’ve been cursed be prepared to pay through the nose for an exorcism or other cleansing ritual. If those don’t work for you then I’m afraid you’re more screwed than a pregnant gnoll. Good luck.
Chapter Three: Troubles
The previous chapters cover dangers that are specific to Prospectors that have gone out and found themselves a place to scrounge around in. That doesn’t mean you’re in the clear just because you’re stuck surveying like a first year Prospector on the ass end of the totem pole. No, it means you’ve got a whole set of other problems to worry about, many of them as nasty as the incidents in the previous two chapters, and all of them equally as annoying.
Natives are the most troublesome sort to figure out. On rare, rare occasion they prove helpful, and a if you can hire one as a guide without blowing your budget I’d recommend doing so straight away. Generally you won’t have to worry about that because you'll be too busy running for your life. In my experience the best way to deal with hostile natives is to find more hostile natives. I know this sounds as mad as a knocked over beehive but there’s sound logic to it; namely, the natives generally hate each other way more than they hate you. I’ve made many an escape while the trolls on my heels were busy chucking axes at their neighbors.
Before you even get to worry about the natives you’ve got to worry about the terrain. Azeroth’s a big place full of jungles, deserts, tundras, fjords, mountains, and swamps. All of which will gladly eat you before breakfast. This issue is best handled by having the proper equipment on hand and by spending half an hour in one of the Royal Libraries. Only an addle-brained jackhole sets out on an adventure without doing a little research first. If that’s you, well, you probably deserve what’s coming to you.
I would talk about weather, but it’s pretty much the same deal as terrain. Do your research, take the proper equipment, don’t be a jackhole. Simple.
Critters and beasties are a whole other kettle of fish, or rats, or venomous snakes from the very pit of creation. No matter where you are or what kind of excavation you’re leading there will be at least some critters and beasties to deal with. Now, no offense to the idiots over at D.H.E.T.A. but your best bet here is to kill the little suckers stone dead before they decide to get the jump on you. These aren’t some cute little buggers to take home, these are things capable of wrecking more face than a goblin shredder in a barber shop - and don’t you forget it! Sometimes plans fall into this category too, the same goes for them, maybe doubly so. You don’t want that interesting eulogy to involve you having your arse kicked by an overeager eggplant. That’s just plain embarrassing to the profession.
Last of all you should be on the look out for your fellow Archeologists. Like natives they can occasionally be helpful, and teaming up to tackle a large scale expedition can be right handy. That’s assuming the ones you run into are the sane, capable sort. With so many other greenhorns running around you’re bound to find a few wee, incompetant lambs out there just waiting for the slaughter. Whatever you do, don’t team up with them! They’ll drag you down into a pit trap infested with snakes faster than you can say ‘Bugger me sideways!’. Instead carry around a few extra copies of Tombs, Traps & Other Troubles so you can hand them one and then run as fast as possible in the other direction.
As for the crazy sorts, well, best just to run away and hope they don’t follow you.
Occasionally you’ll run into Prospectors, mostly members of that newfangled Reliquary Society, that don’t much care for you honing in on their territory. Be extra careful around these guys, and whatever you do, don’t eat their food. Very bad dates indeed.
Conclusion
Over the course of your career there’s no way you’ll manage to avoid all of these problems, but hopefully this tome will keep you from having to get your limbs reattached too often. But I don’t guarantee it.
So in the spirit of adventure, go forth brave greenhorns and remember, in Titan Ironaya is spelled with an “J”.
