Well everyone pretty much blanks Iskalla's birthday which seems a bit harsh but what do I know?

Meanwhile the next event on the calendar is the beautifully named: Death Day (Windsday/Death Week/Storm Season). I am going to guess that no one has any interest in this as Humakt is not worshipped by any of the players and few of the clansmen and who’s that keen on Death?

Next up is Queen Day (Clayday/Fertility Week/Storm Season) nobody worships Ernalda directly although Mica and perhaps Ulf do so indirectly through her Spirit aspect the Earth Witch. However, Ernalda is one of your top two gods anyway so everyone tends to pitch up to her ceremonies because, well that’s just respectful. The goddess is paraded around Old Man Village and then brought to the clan assembly which she presides over. There is a great deal of dancing (stares pointedly at Mica), some feasting and general merrymaking and celebration of life. There’s no priestess of Ernalda at the moment within the clan so the initiates take it in turns to preside [OK bit of retconning here I forgot that Moganeth Whiteeye is the clan priestess whoops [https://kanka.io/en/campaign/39663/characters/269238) no harm done though!]. Decisions taken today have the force of Ernalda behind them, that said, not much has been decided other than the need to find a new priestess soon! A lot of the local Ernalda initiates head off to the Clearwine Earth temple for the really big party.

If anyone has anything special they’d like to do vis a vis the local Ernalda cult then let me know.

Next up: Freezeday/Stasis Week/Storm Season a troll caravan comes to visit! This is under the auspices of Sir Scissor (https://kanka.io/en/campaign/39663/characters/300338) possibly the strangest character you have ever met. Trolls are normally dressed in skins, their weird lead armour and the like, whereas Sir Scissor wears more human clothes but in bizarrely clashing colours. He also is often up and around during the day and wears some form of shades over his eyes and a parasol. Although trolls are an ancient enemy of humankind, during the Unity Council after the Dawn your clan formed an alliance with the trolls. You all know how to carry out a peace ritual which the trolls recognise. You can practice this on the members of the caravan who happily join in. You also know that the trolls call themselves Uz. They speak pretty good Sartarite, but will revert to Tradetalk (a kind of widely spoken pidgin language), if anyone knows Darktongue they can put the trolls completely at ease by speaking that instead. The caravan comprises giant insects as beasts of burden (mainly beetles) and is attended by half a dozen Dark Trolls as well as Sir Scissor and a difficult to count number of small trollkin (these seem to be better treated and more intelligent than normal trollkin). The caravan has some weird and wonderful goods to trade such as various items made from insect parts, odd lead items, odd foodstuffs, weird troll beer, items from the Holy Land (South of Sartar), charms and perhaps news too.

Let me know if anyone wants to trade or talk with the Uz.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:16, Wed 13 Jan 2021.

In reply to dashing (msg # 1):

Definitely going to go an perform the peace ritual,  and see what brings them here, and what the have to trade.  I feel like this may be an opportunity to find something that could be done that will further improve my image with my family, and so I will be asking them of any news that they have had in their travels?

You fall in with a male dark troll (they call themselves Uzko) called Bazaki. Apparently he is one of the traders but also is the main supervisor of the trollkin (Enlo). He tends to make jokes about eating some of them. At least you think they are jokes.

Apparently they come through here once per year. The Orlmarth are well known in Troll circles for their friendliness to trolls and even your attempts at Troll greetings and the like so Sir Scissor always plans to stay here for a few days at this time of year.

As for news: the caravan follows a circuitous route, leaving the Shadow Plateau to the South in the Holy Land at the beginning of Storm Season and working its way up through Beast Valley to Duckpoint then to Clearwine, Old Man Village, Runegate, across to Jonstown, up through Dangerford and past Alone through the Vale of Flowers to Spider Mountain (home of Cragspider the Firewitch!). The caravan stays around there for the better part of a season. The return journey comes down the eastern part of Sartar and passes through Boldhome (capital of Sartar), Wilmskirk, Whitewall and the Hendrikilands before returning to the Shadow Plateau.

The Hendrikilands are divided between Volsaxiland in the North under King Broyan of Whitewall and Heortland which is often used as the catchall for the whole area. King Broyan was acclaimed earlier this year and is immensely popular with his Orlanthi subjects being a follower of Vingkot. The Godless heathens amongst his subjects (Malkioni) can’t abide him though.

All of these areas and the rest of the Holy Country (Shadow Plateau, Esrolia and other more obscure areas) are in anarchy since the Pharaoh (curse his memory) was assassinated last year (1616ST). The lunars apparently killed the Pharaoh and he has failed to return during the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death. This brought to an end the Pharaoh’s 300 year rule.

As for trade goods: Bazaki has many odd troll items, many of which are completely obscure. The troll currency is the lead bolg, the only coinage known that also doubles as ammunition as they can be bitten and twisted into a sling bullet shape. That said they are happy to take Silver lunars and copper clacks. They are even more interested in trading for local produce. For a fair amount of expense they have simple charms for sale such as “extinguish fire” and similar darkness oriented items. Also lots of insect products from the fairly normal honey, to the completely bizarre giant beetle. Also weird and wonderful foodstuffs, a slave trollkin,

Sorry, I missed your birthday, Iskalla. May your future be bright and the Gods smile on you.

I would like to trade for some honey - are they interested in any mutton, as it appears we have some spare after the raid...?

They like that deal, they don't seem to value honey that highly so you end up with something close to a year's supply for a pretty small amount of mutton!

In reply to dashing (msg # 5):

Excellent, thanks.

In reply to dashing (msg # 3):

How much are the charms, and the Slave trollkin too?  I think that I am inclined to release them from slavery, but dont really know what they are like, and if they are likely to be vicious if not under tight control.

And are there any interesting looking items within the 'obscure troll items' - is there anything that is showing good craftmanship.

(guessing I probably need to go an read some background material on trolls really)

In reply to dashing (msg # 1):

Haven't been paying attention to this cos of work and other things, sorry.

Mica sneaks off to the woods and conducts a private Goose Dance for Ernalda.

Then she picks some mushrooms and goes to visit Angara

[A quick digression about finances. Basically you can afford anything commensurate with your standard of living and availability, BUT, anything that changes your character sheet you will have to cement with an HP. So if you want to buy Angara’s Chainmail shirt then go ahead if you are at least a thane in prosperity, BUT it will cost you 1 HP to add “Chainmail shirt 13” to your character sheet. Also I regard this exercise as being collaborative: if you can come up with something that might have a good story hook then I’ll be more inclined to look favourably upon it ].

The trolls have lots of things for sale, from all over Sartar and nearby lands. They primarily have troll products so charms relating to darkness, insects etc. lead items which are holy to trolls but basically worthless to normal folk and so on. I’ve opened up details on them here: https://kanka.io/en/campaign/39663/races/106518 and there are some external links to more information from that page.

So bearing in mind the above let me know what you’d like to acquire, if anything.

On trollkin (the trolls call them Enlo) they are the product of a curse back in the first age when Gbaji (curse him!) fought the trolls and basically damaged their fertility so that they tend to throw litters of these runty creatures instead of proper Uz. Trollkin are frankly subhuman and more akin to highly intelligent rats rather than real people. They’ll eat almost anything, are afraid of almost everything and are usually regarded as a pest by most right thinking people. As with people everywhere that is the general case, there are above average trollkin who are really just undersized Uz and there are creatures who really should be just eaten. The former will be highly valuable, the latter will be the cost of a good pig and treated much the same.

Good craftsmanship? That’s an interesting question: is a highly magic item good craftsmanship? Or are we interested in good workmanship? The trolls are a strong race and work a lot of materials by hand (which often means biting for finer detail). A really finely crafted piece of troll jewellery will have obvious teeth marks in it!

[Don’t sweat it, this is not a game to get worked up over if you can’t respond. As I’ve said several times I am doing this to distract myself from the frankly giant amounts of work in the office. Nigel’s only posted about twice and it’s done Iskalla no harm. If we get to a stage where people aren’t posting or are telling me they don’t want to continue then I’ll drop it cos life is too short, but right now I am doing this because I enjoy it. Don’t ever feel you HAVE to do this. It’s supposed to be fun for all of us.]

Ernalda and goose dancing: you can have a lingering benefit of +3 on anything to do with birds or fertility for the next few weeks until Sea Season.

Angara and Mica have a lovely meal together. He is a very nice man the death of his wife knocked him for six and he’s been mooching about his stead basically letting it go to rack and ruin and failing to show up to help with his clan duties. It bespeaks well of him that Chief Gordangar (https://kanka.io/en/campaign/39663/characters/269093) has not reprimanded him over this dereliction. He does seem to be coming out of himself under your attentions.

In reply to dashing (msg # 9):

I think that anything that would be highly magic is unlikely to be there, but I am just going to dig through the pile looking for anything that is magic,  you never know.  If it is there,  I would be interested.  If there is only the charms,  maybe something to help me find my way in the dark or see better in the dark would be of interest?

This is a high magic world, everyone has a few charms or knows a few spells or even just is innately magical. Low powered magic items (charms in particular) are very common. A "See in Dark 13" charm is perhaps not as common as you would expect [Uz have, in fact, a form of sonar,  as well as their rather poor eyesight, so don't care that much about sight], but you can easily find one. Oddly a "Locate lost item in the Dark 13" charm is probably easier to secure as the Uz lose stuff as often as the rest of us.

Remember that for non-spiritists (i.e. everyone except Mica, Ulf and Helga) a charm just acts as an augment i.e. a +3 to some other ability.

1HP secures sir this magnificent charm...

In reply to dashing (msg # 12):

I think I will take that please sir.  You never know when it may be useful

Done, character sheet updated 1HP remains.

Iskalla, as a lay member of Ernalda, took a respectful part in her ceremonies. In some ways, Ernalda represents her feelings of duty to the tribe, conflicting with her more Vingan desire for adventure.

She browsed through the trade goods on the troll caravan, curious to see what they had but not really interested in buying anything - even for her birthday.

I am liking the existential angst. Howevver, this is a polytheistic society, she's only an initiate of Vinga so everyone is more than happy for her to show up at Ernalda ceremonies.

See earlier comment - lots of weird trollish stuff, some items from nearby kingdoms etc.