Weird Bones

Something a bit different: Skeletons are one of my favourite types of enemy to throw at players in an RPG. I thought it would be fun to think about a few different takes on the skeleton, so roll a D6 and see what rises from the crypt!

Crisóstomo Martínez, CC by 4.0
from lookandlearn.com

D6 Weird Bones

1. Blood Bones - a thirst for violence that did not end in death. Their frenzy is contagious: Those who fight them might find themselves unburdened of any compulsion to observe the traditional cessation of hostilities that typically follows the defeat of an enemy.

2. Muddle Bones - there is an excitable curiosity sometimes found amongst academics that leads to a blurring of the lines between experimentation and just messing about. The study of necromancy is no exception: If a student bone-shaper were to swap the skulls of a wolf and a sheep skeleton for what they deemed a laugh, or replace the arms of a human skeleton with an additional set of legs and be delighted by their cartwheeling creation, they would be neither the first nor the last. 

3. Dry Bones - bodyguards and priests of powerful mages, bound by oaths or curses to protect their masters for eternity. The job is mostly lying around in an unassuming pile until a foolish adventurer trips over you.

4. Moss Bones - we’ve all pondered the thought experiment about the mop: If you replace the handle and then later replace the head, is it the same mop? But what about if you, as a sentient being, come into contact with that rare type of moss that grows on your skin, gradually eating away at it, replacing it with more moss? What if over time it eats all of your skin and organs, until eventually you are a skeleton covered in thinking moss? Are you still the same sentient being?

5. Frost Bones - those who clung to life against the bitter cold, enough to impress The Cold Ones themselves and be given a second chance. They no longer have empathy in their hearts for the living, but they do have jagged shards of ice that crystallize around their shoulders and forearms, which can be cast off like projectiles.

6. Iron Bones - it is almost impossible to destroy a skeleton made of iron. With so much time on their hands, existential ennui is their greatest enemy. So Iron Bones tend to go one of two ways: Either they find meaning in an unusual hobby; or they embrace nihilism (as much as one can) and become sellswords.

Till next time!

Building a Kingdom of Alba

I've been working on a guide for referees to build their own Kingdom of Alba, which is now in a state that I can share it here! Check it out and discover how to go about Building The Kingdom for a game of Legends of Alba.

There's a couple of dependant documents which I've not written up properly yet (the pages for Crossings and Cairns refer to separate guidelines for creating an Otherworld Realm and a Barrowdeep Delve - I have some WIP for creating Otherworld Realms but haven't covered the Barrowdeeps yet) but there's enough to produce the map and background details.

Here are the results I came up with following the procedure myself. This is the player facing map for The Storm Isles (since we've got full Character Creation and Legends for that Kingdom)!

The player-facing map shows just the terrain and Settlements (the numbered towers). The ref's map shows the locations of Legends and Features

Here's some accompanying notes for the keyed locations:

Settlements

1: Fort Stormbreak, the Capital, held by Clan Wavesplitter
2: Reivers' Return, stronghold of Clan Seawolf

3: Deepharbour, stronghold of Clan Darkwater
4: Dun Firinn, smallholding, held by Clan Arrowmender
5: Mirthall, smallholding, held by Clan Greenmoor
6: Windvale, smallholding, held Clan Thunderhawk

Legends

(Marked in Red)

L1: The Fire Fish

L2: The Grey Neighbours

L3: The Master Wyrm

L4: The Mound Dweller

L5: The Seal Hunter

L6: The Silver Tower

Strangers

(Marked in Blue)

    Hags

    H1: The Ossuary, home to The Bright Shell Hag

    H2: Grave of Whispers, home to The Doom Spear Hag

    H3: The Crystal Hollows, home to The Silver Horn Hag

    Abhainn

    A1: The Cold One's waterfall

    A2: The Nourishing One's shore

    A3: The Salmon River delta

    Shellcoats

    S1: Eyecoat, collector of heart whelks

    S2: Shinycoat, adorned with painted periwinkles

    S3: Smoothcoat, connoiseur of purple urchins

Sites

(Marked in Green)

    Crossings

    X1: Unicorn Falls

    X2: The Warrior's Stack

    X3: The Giant's Ford

    Cairns

    C1: Cairn of The Gloom Lord

    C2: Cairn of The Red Champion

    C3: Cairn of The Kelp Prophet

    Wasteland

    (Lands spoiled by the Blight of the dreaded Nuckelavee)

    W1: Reclaimed tower where mortals are stricken by The Hollowing Blight

    W2: Dead forest where trees have fallen to The Liquefying Blight

    W3: Dismantled bridge where the soil is tainted by The Blackening Blight

That's it for this one, We might take a look at expanding some of these basic notes next time!

Fightin' Talk!

 I've had some time off which has allowed me to:

• Take a relaxing holiday
• Grow older
• Make some progress with Legends of Alba

One of the things I've been meaning to try out on my own before taking the rules for a test-spin with players is combat. In the rules as they stand just now (which you can find here) combat is very simple. Like any other Test in the game it's a modified D20 Roll vs a Target number (Challenge). If you pass you deal a Wound, if you fail you suffer a Wound. So enemies don't roll, the Character's Test covers both sides of the conflict. The aim is to make combat fast and decisive so we have plenty of time in our sessions for other things to happen.

Combat Playtest

I thought I'd write up my notes from a very short Combat playtest. In this scenario we have 2 Characters, Thorfinn Seawolf and Sigrid Darkwater. They are travelling by land in the Storm Isles when they get attacked by 4 Muck Bogles! 

Muck Bogles are not too threatening a foe, so their Challenge is 10 (C10). I imagine they'd split their attacks between hurling dirt clods at Range, and good old fashioned fist-punching in Melee. Thorfinn and Sigrid ready themselves and leap into action!

Thorfinn & Sigrid vs The Muck Bogles

• Round 1: Sigrid tightens her grip on her runic staff and strikes down one of the Bogles! Thorfinn doesn't fair so well, his barbed spear getting lodged in the Bogles mucky body, allowing it to strike back at him and deal a Minor Wound.
• Round 2: Grumbling Thundine curses, Thorfinn frees his spear and takes out the Bogle that Wounded him. Sigrid's staff whistles through the air to take down a third.
• Round 3: With a voice like thunder, Sigrid calls on the Might of Teran, God of Storms, to Help Thorfinn take down the final Bogle.

Victory for the Characters! They take a moment to let Thorfinn catch his breath, recovering from his Minor Wound before pressing on.

The following day they come across an alarming scene: The Crystal Wyrm attacking a crofting hamlet! Its huge form hangs in the air, pale and scaleless, embedded with glittering purple crystals. In its paranoia, it has come to believe these crofters have been conspiring against it. This is a desperate situation, The Crystal Wyrm is easily capable of delivering on this threat and worse, its Challenge is 25 (C25). Still, Thorfinn and Sigrid have heard the Covens' Call to answer The Legends - they have to do something. So here they go.

Thorfinn & Sigrid vs The Crystal Wyrm

• Round 1: Thorfinn dives at the Wyrm's claw with his spear, only for it pull back and score a deep gash that opens his forearm - gah! A Major Wound! Sigrid gathers her strength and tries to shove the sharp end of her staff into the Wyrm's pale skin. This goes disastrously wrong, as the Wyrm blocks the attack with its crystalline tail, skewering Sigrid straight through the gut with one of its spines. A Mortal Wound: Sigrid is dying.
• Round 2:  The situation has become dire - Thorfinn & Sigrid need to get out of there. They choose to Flee, leaving the crofters to their grim fate.

With Sigrid carrying a Mortal Wound she needs treatment or she will die. Thorfinn served the Seawolf Clan as a Healer but is in bad shape himself and this Wound is beyond his skill. They are currently two days' travel from Windvale, home of The Thunderhawk Clan. Its the nearest Settlement and so they make their way there in search of an expert healer. Thorfinn keeps Sigrid's Wound clean and dressed on the way, while she offers her homespun shawl to bind his arm. Together they make it to Windvale where they find care and rest.

Thoughts

Even though this was a very staged, hand-wavey test of the combat, it was immensely helpful. It was fast to resolve and still left plenty of room to paint a mental picture of the action based on the results of the dice rolls. I wanted to test both ends of the extreme in terms of Challenge and got pretty much the results I was expecting. The Characters easily bested the Bogles, whereas they were lucky to escape with their lives against The Wyrm. It also highlighted a few things to work on as well:

• I had to add Rules on the fly for how to handle Mortal Wounds. The Character is dying, but what does that mean? Mechanically, I ruled that if you go to sleep with a Mortal Wound, you might not wake up. If anyone in the party is Mortally Wounded, healing should be their top priority.
• It's my intention to add some random tables for Wounds so you can be specific. Thorfinn took a Major Wound to his forearm, which I just described for flavour. It might have been a Hindrance if he'd kept fighting though - whereas if he'd hurt his leg, that might have Hindered movement (arguably worse!)
• I still need to add Rules for Fleeing combat. In my D&D games I've offered it as a party option which can be performed at the start of the Round if everyone agrees. The party get away, no Roll required, but suffer a narrative loss. I think it works just great!

That's it for now, till next time!

Legends of The Storm Isles

This is quite an exciting post as it marks a big step towards being able to run games of Legends of Alba using the rules and tools I've been working on through this blog!

My aim is to have a ruleset that will allow players and a GM to run games set in The Storm Isles. This is Northernmost Kingdom of Alba, inspired predominantly by the geography and folklore of The Orkney Isles, but with an eye further North to Shetland and South to Caithness as well. If the rules work for The Storm Isles, I'll then look at fleshing out the other Kingdoms of Alba.

The Character Creation preview allows players to create characters from The Storm Isles. The Legends meanwhile are the GM's primary tool for bringing the game to life. Each Legend is centred around a folk tale or mythical creature, and contains a set of encounters (called Augurs) for the players to discover as they explore the Kingdom, which they must resolve in answer to The Covens' Call. I'll be sharing the procedure for this in another post but it's pretty much the same as for encountering Omens of the Myths from Mythic Bastionland.

You can read the first draft of The Legends of The Storm Isles here! Keep reading for some summary notes on the tales that inspired them.

A Shetland Fishing Boat in Stormy Weather North of the Orkney Islands,
Anton Melbye 1842, public domain from Picryl

The Fire Fish - inspired by The Marool from Shetland, this was a giant many eyed fish with flaming fins, feared for its hunting of ships during stormy weather. I thought it would be interesting for my take on it to have this sea-monster pitted against an angler, obsessed with landing it, and see what the players make of it.

The Grey Neighbours - The Trow are faerie-folk that feature prominently in Orcadian folklore. They're known for their love of music, and were attributed as sources of inspiration for musicians. I wanted this one to be a less adversarial Legend, but not without teeth. Could there be some unforeseen consequences to The Otherworldly inspiration of The Trow? The sleepless poet in this Legend might think so.

The Master Wyrm - Asipattle and The Stoor Wyrm is one of the most famous Orkney tales. Here I've put the Mester Stoor Wyrm as the first of the Ancient Great Wyrms (the Legends of Alba versions of dragons) and Asipattle is only hinted at as a dimly recalled ancestor of The Cindersift Clan.

The Mound Dweller - A take on the hog-boon by way of the film It Follows. The Mound Dwellers could be kindly spirits, but they were also guardians of the mounds they tended. Little kindness to be found here: Woe betide the witless thief that steals from a cairn protected by Haugbui!

The Seal Hunter - The actual story of The Seal Hunter ends quite amicably after a seal hunter unwittingly wounds the Queen of The Selkies. I wondered what it might look like if she wasn't quite so cool with it. There's also a gang of Orca in here (since Killer Whales are excellent seal hunters!) based on the story of the Law of The Tongue. That story is actually from Australia but it's too good not to include.

The Silver Tower - This started off as my take on the Finfolk. They were Storm Wizards who paddled around the seas in sealskin boats. I got an uncomfortable sense from the tales however that they originated from xenophobia towards the actual Fins and/or the Sami people. So stepping swiftly off that, I took the bare fiction as a jumping off point and now this is a weird Legend about metamorphosis. Enjoy!

The Storm Kelpies - For each of The Kingdoms I want to feature a big overarching Legend that will play out over the top of the others, a "Big Bad" as opposed to a "Monster of The Week". For The Storm Isles this had to be The Nuckelavee, the skinless cyclopean sea centaurs, truly nightmarish creatures! As the players encounter the damage wrought by these horrors from the depths, they'll also encounter a Dark Prince of the Sith on a bizarre quest of his own to try and control the abyssal beasts. The resolution of this Legend will reveal The One Who Dreams of Storms. The one who, it is said, will be able to control the dreaded Nuckelavee...

That's it for now, till next time!

Monstrous Capitalism

I've had a setting brewing in the back of my mind for a while which is kind of Industrial Fantasy, maybe more about it another time, but I've been thinking about how some 'D&D' style monster types would fit into that sort of vibe. Ideas that came early on were for a Rakshasa who talks like Jeremy Irons and runs an Oil Refinery, a neurotic Beholder in charge of the Rail Network, a Dragon that owns a casino... what about an Treant? Or a coven of hags? I started writing up some stuff for some monstrous characters who would be big players in this world, oligarchs essentially, so here's a few of them:

Rail Master Shroder

Early in their career as Rail Master, Shroder's great fear was that the trains simply could not run on time without their oversight. Pursuing this neurosis to its natural conclusion, Shroder began to question whether an unobserved train could even exist, let alone reach it's destination on schedule.  This precipitated the appointment of the Rail Witnesses, now aboard every service. Under total superveillance, not only do the trains remain extant across appropriate realities, they run on time.

The Lendies

In ancient times, a Hag's value lay in her knowledge of The Truth. What place is there for such a creature in a world in which the only truth that matters is how much money you have? A hag might point out that money is not really a truth but more of a promise. She might add, however, that promises have pasts, presents and futures, themselves truths and thus known to her and her sisters. She might ask if there is value in knowing how money was acquired? In knowing where money might end up? She might then offer you a cup of tea while you peruse her consultation fees.

Mister Mulch

If a tree falls in the woods and there's nobody around, what is it worth? To whom is it worth whatever it is worth? If If a tree belongs to anyone, surely it belongs to the forest? Is it not reasonable, then, for the forest to be compensated if it's dead are repurposed for timber or firewood? Are not reparations due if tree murder is perpetrated purposefully, on an industrial scale? This was the general thrust of the argument put before the Big Log Firm by the Ambulant Pines of the ancient woods. Being the first discussion of any sort between these two parties, the thing most clearly brought to light was how poorly prepared for one another they were: The Lumberjacks and -Jills awed by the expressive limbs, creaking baritones and questing roots of the Ambulant Pines; the Pines themselves bedazzled by the champagne lifestyle of The Big Log Execs. Such meetings have a tendency to create an excitable and unstable energy, with the potential for outcomes as innovative as they are regrettable. It's exactly the sort of scenario that can result in a sentient tree, such as the Ambulant Pine who would later come to be known as Mister Mulch, getting the office with the big windows and the drinks cabinet and the fitted humidor, as Operations Director of the Big Log Firm.

That's it for this one, till next time!

Tae The Legends!

It's Robert Burns day! About a year ago, I was putting together a players guide to start running some D&D games set in my Scotland-inspired setting, Legends of Alba. It wouldn't have been complete without a nod to the bard.

I wrote this poem as a sort of 'in-world' tribute to the titular Legends, the irregular phenomena that sweep through mythic Alba, waves of Otherworld chaos, changing both land and folk. I don't really write poetry so was looking for a framework to hang these ideas off of, and came across The Burns Stanza. I think this form gives it a bit of gravity, with some added "Scottishness" since it was so heavily used by Burns. I also can't vouch for the authenticity of the pseudo-Auld-Scots words, I followed my mind's ear. Besides, who knows how they spoke in this version of Alba?

Anyway, coming back to this wee poem a year later I still like it. I was going for a feeling of a wild land suffused with magic, and a hint of confrontations unseen but lurking and inevitable. The Legends have come before, have now come again, a force outside the player characters, so it's up to them how they make their mark in this time of upheaval. So it's supposed to be a bit of a call to action, and it actually puts more focus on the hubris of the clans than I remembered (which is good because that's turned out to be a big theme in the game as we've played!). Anyway here it is, with thanks and apologies to Rabbie Burns.

Tae The Legends

Auld Winter's bones begin tae thaw

An' maid-fire springs fae haggard claw

Come wolf, come deer, come hoodie craw

And listen well

Come them that ken the ancients' law

Tae seal the spell

From highland broch, the chiefs rule firm

Nae sleepin' giant nor cowerin' wyrm

Wuid tempt a dandy laird's concern

From guarded hill

They hae the mettle to return

And so they will

As river's run, cuts thro' the ben,

Fae cragged stack o'er peatland fen

'Neath merry dance a' nimble men

The augurs bide

Now see The Legends come again

Tae answer pride

Creating an Otherworld Realm

One of my Legends of Alba groups has just started their second foray into one of the realms of The Otherworld. I’ve been refining my process for creating these realms since their first one, so I’ve recently had the opportunity to put the latest version to use. I quite like where it has ended up, so thought I’d share it here, and walk through the process to create a brand new realm in this very post!

Here is the Otherworld Creation process I’m following.  Let’s get started!

Step 1. Name and Describe the Realm

Results: Hope, Decay*, Whispering, River

OK this is quite interesting. I like having hope and decay both in there, those are quite contrasting ideas. Is this place the River of Whispering Hope? Maybe the Whispering River of Decay? I think I’m going to go with The Whispering River of Hope. Though it runs through a dying land, those souls who have lost hope might seek the river to hear a whisper of the truth, so their journey may continue.

* I originally rolled Roots for the nature element, but chose to re-roll this result because the realm I’ve just created for my players is called The Heath of Hateful Roots. I'd like to have something with a different natural element. It’s totally fine to re-roll or ignore results from these tables in pursuit of a spark of inspiration.

Step 2: Create Locations

Results: The Reaper’s Table, Mossy Stairs, Afflicted Tunnel, Infested Tower, Speaker’s Court, Pristine Barracks

The Reaper’s Table - how sinister! A place for a gathering or a feast? A rotten banquet laid out on this table would certainly emphasise the decay aspect! Perhaps the Reaper is willing to impart information to anyone who joins them in their disgusting feast.

The Mossy Stairs - I’d change the name to The Green Stair, but keep the fact that they are covered in moss. That suggests they are very old and seldom trod, so it’d be a challenge to climb them and claim the treasure that lies at the top.

Afflicted Tunnel - Probably a dangerous place, maybe the source of the affliction is a real problem in this realm?

Infested Tower - Another dangerous one I'd say! Is the owner of the tower still around? Maybe they are stuck inside, or they could even be the cause of the infestation.

Speaker’s Court - A source of power in the realm. What sort of proclamations does this Speaker make? Being known as a Speaker contrasts nicely with the river being said to whisper.

Pristine Barracks - This is a decaying land, so the presence of an order of warriors at a pristine barracks is interesting. Why are they pristine? Is it a mark of strict discipline? Are they magically so? Or perhaps they’ve never actually seen combat… I think these are good candidates for a wildcard faction, so whether they're enemies or allies would be up to the characters.

Step 3: Populate the Realm

Results:

• Beast - jaded goose
• Fuath - lizard, loch, laughter, strangling roots
• Sith - merry princess, stardust, must marry a mortal

Jaded Goose - I normally think of geese as being noisy and aggressive, so the idea of a fed up, sulking goose plays against this expectation. A couple of things to think about though - like why are they so jaded? And is this one goose or a flock?

The Loch Lizard - Fuaths make great adversaries because they are driven by hatred, so they can be manipulated by the characters, or fought without inviting too much of a moral quandary. This giant reptile has scales like sodden bark, and claws that are gnarled and twisted like tree roots. It lives in a loch, perhaps a corrupted offshoot of the River that runs through this realm. If it hears so much of a hint of merriment it attacks the source, choking the life of it with its strangling root claws.

The Merry Princess - I’ll admit I had to have a little think about this one. ‘The merry princess’ gives a clear description of a character but sounds lame as a title. I googled the etymology of merry, which led me to the old English word ‘myrige’, which sounded like it could be a name. So this character is instead known as Princess Myrige, The Unburdened Heart. Her skin is as the night sky glittering with starlight, and she seeks a mortal spouse.

4) Create Magic Items

Results: Vagabond’s, barbed, bow, wisdom

Mashing these around I came up with: 

The Barbed Bow  - arrows fired from this bow sprout barbed vines to entangle their target; and

Vagabond’s Wisdom - bottle of strong, magic liquor, consume it to get drunk but you are guaranteed to find your way to a warm bed tonight.

I made another round of rolls to get a third item:

Results: Thief’s, whispering, flute, sight. 

That led me to:

The Flute of Whispering Insight - appears to make no sound, no matter how hard you blow. But play it somewhere you’ve never been before to have it whisper a truth about your surroundings that only you can hear.

5) Make Connections

This is the “Draw the rest of the f***ing owl” step of the process where everything magically fits together. I like to start by writing a heading for the realm. Then the locations beneath it. Then I can start placing inhabitants and magic items in the locations based on a combination of idea fragments, intuition and (if all else fails) randomness. So I get something like this:

The Whispering River of Hope

• The Speaker’s Court
• Jaded Goose - why not have a goose in charge?
• The Pristine Barracks
• The Tunnel of the Afflicted
• Princess Myrige, The Unburdened Heart - maybe the afflicted are sort of a cult that worships her?
• The Infested Tower
• The Loch Lizard - this is a tower on an island in the middle of the loch
• The Barbed Bow - the barbs sort of tie in with the Lizard's strangling roots
• The Green Stair
• The Flute of Whispering Insight - not sure what this is doing here but I'll think of something
• The Reaper’s Table
• Vagabond’s Wisdom - it's liquor, so goes with the feast

From here it gets a bit harder to walk through the process. I jump around between locations, characters, factions, zoom in and out to consider locales and the realm as a whole. The aim is to get to the point where the realm ‘emerges’. I should be able to picture it clearly when I think about it. Everywhere should at the very least have something interesting going on for the player characters to get involved with. You should feel free to make changes to your results, discard results or generate extra ones to help you reach something you can imagine more clearly.

Here's where it got to when I decided to call it done.

The Whispering River of Hope

A wide, deep river runs through a stinking bog. Folk cower in waterlogged shanties, half-sunken amongst rotten trees and spongy moss. The river itself is clear and pure, and said to whisper truths that inspire hope in those who need it most.

The Speaker’s Court

Once a power in this realm, the old goose has gone deaf. Many years have passed since she last heard the river. Much of her time is given to silent sulking, indifferent to the tawdry depths of scandal and intrigue into which her once-proud court has sunk.

• Her Eloquence The Speaker, jaded giant goose, wants to be left alone.
• Vapid goose courtiers, want to know what everyone else is up to.

The Immaculate Barracks

A fortress of white stone. Knights in white plate mail practise archery and swordplay. They await orders from The Speaker. They have been waiting for some time.

• The Immaculate Knight-Captain Arnol, forgetful, wants the best for his Knights
• Immaculate Knights, constantly fussing over their weapons and armour, want to be in a real fight
• Erudite squires, not enough to do, convinced this will change when they finally become knights

The Tunnel of the Afflicted

The Afflicted are those blessed by Princess Myrige, whose beautiful laughter issues from the bowels of her dank tunnel city. Her subjects are immortal beyond the bounds of flesh, their rotting bodies host to myriad invertebrate life and mycelia.

• Princess Myrige, The Unburdened Heart. Her skin is as the night sky glittering with starlight. Light hearted, laughs easily and often. Refused her coronation and never looked back, wants to bless as many as she can so others can share in her freedom.
• The Afflicted. Content in their loyal service, tenacious in their search for a mortal spouse for their beloved Princess.

The Infested Tower

Long ago the island sanctum of a forgotten druid was swallowed by the loch that once protected it. Now it is the lair of The Loch Lizard, infested with its filth. The vile Fuath offers The Barbed Bow to whoever puts an end to the Princesses insufferable mirth.

• The Loch Lizard, Strangleclaw. Scales of sodden bark, claws gnarled and twisted like tree roots. Hates the sound of laughter.
• The Lizard’s Filth, reeking mud clumps, vaguely sentient, hungry for mortal flesh.
• The Barbed Bow - arrows fired from this bow sprout barbed vines that entangle the target.

The Green Stair

These stone steps once led to the seat of coronation, where the Kings and Queens of the realm were crowned. Forgotten by most and engulfed by moss, the seat at its peak lies empty, a strange flute is all that remains of the crown jewels.

• Engulfing moss - deadly hazard to anyone climbing the stair
• The Flute of Whispering Insight - appears to make no sound, no matter how hard you blow. Play it somewhere you’ve never been before to have it whisper a truth about your surroundings that only you can hear.

The Reapers’ Table

A spoiled banquet moulders on a great rectangular table. There are some empty seats, the rest filled by Reapers. Stymied by the longevity of The Afflicted, they recoup what they can from the souls of the bog folk. They offer a bottle of Vagabond’s Wisdom if their gratitude is earned.

• Reapers, tall crow-headed soul collectors. Having grown tired of one another, the only thing they love more than their rancid grub is sharing it with good company. 
• Vagabond’s Wisdom - strong, magic liquor, consume to get drunk but you are guaranteed to find your way to a warm bed tonight.