Brohm, went off on his own, followed by the White Wargs. By the time the others found them, they had brought down two elk and a wild boar. Everyone helped carry the meat back to the village, though they made sure Brohm took the lead position.

They return to the village as the fallen are being burned in a bonfire outside the gates, as prayers are spoken (by Boneclaw, if he wishes) They are greeted with cheers, and helped bringing the meat into a large hut (for goblins, anyway,) where teams of goblins set about skinning, butchering and seasoning the meat, and putting on spits to roast over the firepit in the center of town, with a trough underneath to catch the drippings. In the trough are also some mushrooms and various root vegetables, as well as the boar's neckbone, as well as some water to make some soup.

Tidelan enjoys his portion of the meal (which is probably larger than the goblins') while spending time encouraging raucous conversation with the goblins that will be joining him back at Smith's Gambit.

Boneclaw had helped the clans prepare the dead for their long journey to the court of Kelemvor. He had explained that Kelemvor was a just god, merciful in his judgment and that even those that did not live up to his judgment found purpose in maintaining the great wall that kept he universe save from the depredations of Things Better Left Unnamed, and so death served a greater purpose in the cycle of life. He had called forth the survivors to speak a few words on behalf of their fallen and then fires had been lit. He personally preferred burials, letting the earth reclaim what it had brought forth but that choice was up to those left behind and even forest fires made the earth bountiful again.

The goblins listened to Boneclaw, and while some seemed incredulous, none interrupted him. He got the impression that most simply believed in Kelemvor under another name, but it was clear that all respected death and the dead, even the dead among their enemies were given due reverence.

Afterwards, the feast began, around the firepit in the center of the village. There is plenty of food to go around, but a notable lack of bread. Not surprising given the complete lack of farmland in the forest. They share a strong wine made from a sweet root vegetable. There is music, some dancing, and a lot of loud talking. Nef asks Tidelan and the dwarves a lot of questions about their people, and makes notes in a small book he carries with him. Tidelan realizes he is the first goblin to call him a 'blue man' rather than a 'blue spirit.' The goblins don't say much to Lukas, and none sit near him (though that is partly because the adventures take up the majority of the only table big enough to comfortable seat medium-sized creatures, which had been dragged out of the barracks and placed next to the firepit,) but they do serve him plenty of food and wine. The slayers of Muzzrink are toasted first, then the White Wargs, and finally, to a future where the many peoples of the Rimewood no longer live in fear of the Redfoot.

Verbannt sat with his companions, his eyes bright in the firelight as he watched this strange new warpact take shape.  In truth, the Bugbear was having to reevaluate much that he had thought he had known.  He had always thought of Goblins as pathetic creatures, weak and cruel.  He had pitied them, and pitied the horrors that many tribes had inflicted on them. Yet he had never thought of them as fully equals. Quarrelsome children, perhaps, but not the same as he saw Dwarves, Bugbears, Hobgoblins, or even Water Genasi now.  He had come here to seek to bind the Redfoot, forcing them to sue for peace.  He had not been expecting to take the first steps towards forming an alliance with a nation of Goblins.  Yet here he was, feasting with them as if they were brothers and sisters of the Hunt.  Sitting with Dwarves, no less.

He had much to ponder.

"This has been a strange day."

He mumbled, just loud enough that those sitting next to him could hear him.

Brohm had assisted with the skinning land preparing if the animals.  While the meat was cooking he cleaned his weapons, and tools.  Meticulous in their care as he tended to them.  Their wine, while different was passable, and being a Dwarf, had nearly no effect on him.  Still, he kept himself carefully sober.
   As they ate, he talked with Meg, exchanging cultural information.  He gave no secrets of his people away, but was careful to give sufficient accurate information to conduct trade peacefully.  In exchange, he asked many questions about the Goblins society here, his voice like a subdued landslide when he spoke.  Seeking the same information he had given, and any other information that they would provide.

"Strange?". Brohm rumbles.  "You are a Bugbear working with Dwarves.  How is this different?"

Tidelan answered questions about 'his people' cryptically, repeatedly lowballing their relevance to the goblins. He didn't seem offended by the questions, but he seemed almost... fearful... of those who would be considered 'his own'.

He did enjoy listening to all the information that was being spread around the grand multiracial table, though he didn't take much time to lock it into his mind... In fact, Tidelan relied more heavily on his instincts of a situation to guide him than he did for his knowledge to be at all viable. But, this information would possibly drive his subconscious mind to make wiser decisions, he was hopeful.

Tidelan spent most of his time in the night reflecting on all the odd people he had met since leaving the forest he had taken shelter in for such a long while, and how he had-- against all odds -- gotten along with all of them, and even quietly befriended a few.

Lukas, the bugbear was a beast of a man. Almost eight feet tall. Tidelan had considered himself fairly tall amongst his people, though he wasn't even six feet, but standing next to this man, he couldn't help but feel small. He normally kept a distance from people whom he couldn't make level eye contact with, but with Lukas he found that he didn't mind looking up to meet his eyes.

Most interestingly, was how quickly he had accepted the man. Where he came from, raids from the Far Tribes of the West were common enough and had lasted for so long that nearly all citizens of Varna held a deep prejudice and even hatred against various goblinoid, wildborn and beastfolk races.

Boneclaw, an odd raven-folk fellow. Tidelan didn't know exactly what to make of him, though he guessed he was a bit of a zealot. That didn't really bother him, it was close enough to his 'druidic' roots. He also seemed unable to speak except in mimicry, this was disconcerting, but Tidelan still felt like he could grasp at a personality that was barely budding from beneath the thick layers of necessary lies. Perhaps this creature was diseased, cursed, or insane. But, Tidelan was getting the sense that it was his kind himself who communicated in such an absurd way... He had never known one of this race before arrival in this... part of the world.

Spark, whom was not with them at the moment was almost more alien than Boneclaw, from Tidelan's perception. Yet, he had grown accustomed to it more quickly. Perhaps it was the automaton's kindness, or it's strong ability to communicate. Nevertheless, Tidelan really though of 'it' as a 'he'... The genasi was convinced the man had a soul, though it went against a lot of what he felt he knew of Gaea's will.

Finally, there was Brohm the dwarf. Tidelan had seen a few dwarves before, they had usually come for trading during his brief time in Porter's Respite with his first true friend. There hadn't really been any dwarves in his homeland, but they weren't unknown of. It seemed odd to him that they would be common everywhere except the land where had the misfortune to be born into. It was surely not his place to question Gaea's will, though.

The man had a deep, gravelly voice, which was different from the ones he had actually been around... They had been incredibly flamboyant fellows, and wore many-colored silks, and rode in luxurious ships, that somehow also doubled as cargo vessels. They charged outrageous prices, but they never lost a contract. Tidelan hadn't actually seen one be made, but everyone in the port town had held anything from reverence to spite for the expert traders. Even though Porter's Respite was the greatest, and really only, port in all of Varna, it was rare to get business from anywhere, since Farrad was such an isolated continent. He reckoned most common people hadn't even heard of his homeland... why did that bother him so much?

The most odd of all things that Tidelan had experienced since arrival here was how nearly all people seemed to refer to him as 'Druid'. Where he came from, he would be known as 'Shaman'. His kind's lot in life was as traditional leaders and healers of small towns. In Timberloft, they had actually been run by a Marquis. An ugly, weak-willed man placed in charge by those from Varna's capital, Varnados. Most 'shamans' were not as he, however. Those whom he had met had been practiced healers of some kind, or even totemcrafters.

He had taken a different path. The path of the wilds' fury. Though he felt even more connected to Gaea, the world soul, the nature mother than the others, his path was not one fit for leadership. He didn't know what would have become of him had he realized his truth before fleeing all of the world he had ever known.

Somedays he was sure that he had sailed off the edge of the world, or into a dimensional rift as he had crossed the Terminus Sea... perhaps as he had slept, he had died in a storm, and this was his afterlife. Anything would be easier to believe than the fact that he had truly shared a world between his two lives.

Nef explained that, long ago, most of the region's goblin tribes would expand, taking the resources they needed with no regard for such concepts as property, and would be quick to respond to violence in kind. This led to many goblin deaths before the goblins learned to understand the concepts of property, and trade.

Many tribes began to take advantage of their numbers to acquire vast resources to trade with, only to find that more powerful tribes often killed them and took their resources. The first Void-drinker chieftain, Anyo the Wise, realized there was one thing that could be traded but was difficult to steal from the dead: knowledge. He encouraged his tribe to learn reading and writing, and developed a secret language to make their books worthless to outsiders.

Another tribe, whose name is lost even to the Void-drinkers, used an unknown means to create bigger, stronger goblins: first the hobgoblins, and then the bugbears. The hobgoblins saw themselves as goblins, and naturally rose to leadership of many tribes. The bugbears, while acknowledging themselves to be related to goblins tended to think of themselves as a new race, and form tribes of their own, though naturally, some chose to remain in the tribes with goblins (though they rarely got along with Hobgoblins.)

With hobgoblins to keep them safe, the goblins became prolific traders, which is why most denizens of the Rimewood speak the trade language (Common, which is easier for most races to speak than Goblin is. It is still unknown how the language spread to the region, as there are no records of outside contact with people in the Rimewood predating Amelekia opening the border.)

A few months ago, in a tribe to the north, a Hobgoblin named Largath overthrew his chieftain, and renamed his tribe Redfoot, symbolizing that he would stand on the bloody corpses of all who would not submit to his rule. He believed that Hobgoblins deserved to rule over all, and drew many like-minded followers, with whom he began expanding by conquest. Hobgoblins could join or die. Goblins could serve or die. Other races could simply die, the Redfoot tribe had no need for them.

Santio didn't sit at the 'heroes table'.   It seemed that it was a place for warrior types and bloodletters.
He guessed that few here even noticed him; the quiet, unbrutal human.

So instead, he again sat with the younglings of the tribes.  If he wasn't entertaining them with flute, or teaching them to play flute themselves, he was juggling for them, or doing something acrobatic.   The kind of thing that the kids liked; but was nothing compared to the warfeats of the hardened, muscle-bound warriors, in the eyes of their elders.

"And I feared you and Solva would put an axe in my spine when I named you Clanless before this tribe, yet here I sit."

Verbannt said with a strange tone that might have been bemusement.

"I am pleased that you did not, and it is my hope that you understand what it was I was trying to achieve.  We are a strange village, under the banner of Smith. In weeks I was forced to learn and adapt to many new things. The anger of the Water Genasi, creatures more earth and stone than man. Yet I adapted. This?"

He gestured at the Goblins, and particularly Santio sitting with the welps.

"This is stranger still."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:45, Thu 26 Nov 2020.

Brohm had not forgotten the insult, nor forgiven it.  And it showed very clearly on his face for a brief moment, before his face became neutral again.  He put the success of his task first in his mind, there would be time to deal with that later.  We will deal with that insult after our mission is complete.". He said to Lukas.  His deep, gravely voice firm, and grating with suppressed anger.  Then he continues, in a carefully controlled, neutral voice.  They have not had to compete against our people.  Countless deaths and warfare have not occured with them.  They are a different people."

Verbannt nodded.

"I will face that day when it comes."

His deep basso rumbled.

"Where is the seat of Largath, and the center of Redfoot power?". Brohm asked Nef, in a gravelly, deep voice.  His eyes thoughtful as he considered possibilities.

Nef said, "Not exactly sure, but its somewhere far to the north, near where the Rimewood meets the mountains. I've been told the reason he claims he wants to unite the hobgoblins is so he can lead an army into the mountains to wipe out the frost giants. Redfoot don't like there being anything stronger than hobgoblins around. That's why you don't see many ogres around anymore, and those you see are desperate."

"Ogres .. desperate", Boneclaw repeated in Nef's voice as he spoke to the others gathered. And then in Brohm's voice:"Not .. compete against our people". He strung together a sentence with Brohm and Nef's voice to finish:"Unite ogres, lead an army into the mountains to wipe out Redfoot, deal with Largath".

"Dangerous, but maybe.  I have killed one of the Ogres already myself."

Verbannt grunted, and it wasn't clear if it was a boast or not.

"It threatened my pack, and I had no choice but to take it down."

He certainly didn't sound like he was lying, though what he meant by "my pack" was anyone's guess.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:46, Wed 02 Dec 2020.

Tidelan paled visibly at the mention of ogres. At the mention of frost giants he nearly spit out his drink.

After listening to the rest of the exchange, Tidelan guffawed at the assembled peoples.

"Your hobgoblin tribe wants to kill many frost giants? Very impossible! Their hundreds are not all archmages, no? Doomed punjos"

The blue man looked at Lukas to his mention of taking out an ogre with a look of complete disbelief and even disappointment bordering on loss of respect, but the druid said nothing.

He waited for others to offer any words before continuing to speak, "Any of the ways, we do not need to go more, yet. We should first go back to Erret Smith and... errh..." the foreigner struggled for the last word, "report".

Meanwhile, Santio had moved on to teaching the kids a game he'd played long ago, when he was a kid.

Everyone in the group spreads out a little, then stays 'stuck' to the spot.  The person that is 'It', then must leap close enough to another kid, to tag them.  'It' then becomes stuck to the ground again (they get one leap), and the new 'It' gets to leap at another ... to tag, and pass the leaping from kid to kid to kid via leaps.
The game ends when the kids are all so spread out that one 'It' cannot reach another.

Nef says, "Whether they can take on the giants isn't the point, Tidelan. Before it comes to that, every goblin in the Rimewood will be with them, or..." he looks at Boneclaw, trying to recall what he had called his god "or with Kelemvor. Unless we stop them, first!"

At the suggestion of teaming up with the ogres, "If you can find an ogre, and get them to listen to reason, they could make useful shock troops. Good luck with that though. Most are lazy brutes, barely capable of speech, let alone thinking about the future. Better to avoid them, entirely. Lukas is far from the first 'left with no choice' but to kill one of them. It would be easier to count the numbers of people to leave an encounter with an ogre without bloodshed. I'd love to be the first to record such an occasion, but I fear the attempt would lead to having to move ogres from the 'Extant Peoples of Rimewood' books, to the "Natural History of Rimewood" books, if you understand my meaning."

At first, the goblin children took offense when Santio called one of them "it," (goblins are used to being called that by people who aren't very friendly, usually before something was thrown at them) but when they saw him apply the title to himself, they decided to instead call the person whose turn it is "the Santio," and they took great pried in being picked to be "the Santio," and getting to pick who would be next. They were also very impressed by how far the human Santio could jump, and tried to mimic his technique, and all would laugh when one would topple off balance in the attempt.

Brohm considers Nefs' words, stroking his beard with one strong hand.  His eyes gazing off into the distance.  "How far away are the mountains?". He asks, His belly full from the feast, and his body warm from the fire, he takes in the scene around him ask they talk.

".. I can work with dead ogres if need be ..", Boneclaw wrote on his chalkboard.

Nef says, "About a week's travel, for a small group, I think. An army of course would take much longer."
He looks at Boneclaw's chalkboard, "Look, I'm not a big fan of ogres myself, but they have their place in nature just like the rest of us. It might not be as good as it seems if they all died out. I'm just saying, maybe don't go out of your way to encounter them? If you stumble upon one, of course, do what you must."

"Kelemvor deeply respect both life and death", Boneclaw recited from what he was taught in his mentor's voice:"He still gives us the power to animate the dead but these must be understood to be temporary tools, used to protect the balance of life and death. They are animated corpses who do the will of the servant of Kelemvor. The corpse's soul is already judged by Kelemvor. After these undead servants are destroyed they cannot be animated again. Therein lies the balance. Intelligent undead, those who cling to life by their own will and who deny Kelemvor's judgment must be put to rest for good".

All religions have branches who disagree on the exact interpretation of their god's will.
"Die with dignity, neither raging nor seeking to embrace undeath". An undead raised by spell doesn't embrace undeath, its soul is not tarnished by seeking undeath.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:57, Sun 06 Dec 2020.

As the evening wore on, and the goblin kids were forcibly encouraged towards their huts, Santio found himself somewhere comfortable near the talking circle ... and, in that dark corner, began whittling a long straight piece of wood he'd found into an arrow shaft.

If Verbannt noticed Tidelan's displeasure at his boast, he said nothing of it.

"We will return to our village tomorrow, to report what has happened here.  Send your emissaries when you will, I will make sure they receive a warm welcome."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:46, Thu 10 Dec 2020.