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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
 Posted - 21 Jul 2010 : 22:35:50
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Here is now the first part of the adventures of Tithulka the Hobgoblin.
In the Beginning I would like to say that my writing is by far not professional or anything similar, I just wanted to share the story which I have been working with for so long now peace by piece with fellow gamers, who might be interested in it, eventually even enjoying it.
It was a fresh and clear night when Tithulka and his warrior Friend Grusg stood on top of the mountains which housed the steel-tooth dwarf clan just a couple of days ago.
The smell of smoke and blood was still strong while he stood and enjoyed this victory.
After the battle of the crimson cave, without their leaders and most of their warriors gone, it was an easy task to finally dispatch the hated dwarves from their ancestral home. Many of them died in the taking of their home as even the youngsters put up arms against the warriors of the Blood drinkers tribe.
Still it was over pretty fast and the blood drinkers under their leader Kirtak had only lost slightly more than two dozen warriors in the fight. Many more where wounded, but his Comrades Tigikrar, the hobgoblin Cleric of Maglublyet as well as Lirkig, a surprisingly tough goblin priest of the big adjucator, were using their spells to heal the most lethal wounds. Most likely no more deads had to be expected.
It had worked out very well. The dwarves and their two Dragon allies had underestimated him and his elite troop, as he had expected, taking them for nothing much more than an ordinary warband of their kind. Foolish dwarves. Him, who had been fighting his way from the western slopes of the thunder peaks through the stonelands, the goblin marches, and now the sunset mounteins in their full stretch, under Human, Hobgoblin and other commanders, over almost ten years was not a foe to be underestimated.
They learned too late.
Their initial charge was devastating indeed, but due to the information given by Kirtak and his men he knew the dragons would be with the little ones. The clerics and Surkima, the proud wizardess off their team, together with Tirgiz, the goblin mage of the Foeslayers, the second task force he had called to live, had prepared a variety of scrolls and potions for him and his men to protect them from the rightly much feared breath of the dragons.
They charged right at the flanks of them, while in the center the dwarves advanced in a tight formation, over thirty well trained dwarven fighters with their sergeants and lieutenants.
The dragons then instantly saw the seven more Hobgoblins and goblins, all clad in either magic or at least masterwork armour, riding battle hardened worgs and dire wolves waiting in the shadows.
But it was too late, too late for them.
They breathed fire and cold right through his troops, still confident of their supremacy over mere goblinkind, he himself taking a frost-burned scar from the battle as the clinging cold of the dragons breath caught his lower right leg.
Without the preparations of their clerics and magicians for sure half of his troupe had been dead after these attacks.
As it had happened with several of their trusted mounts as it was not possible to protect them equally. The wolves caught by cold were dead pretty fast, but the ones who were bruned to dead by the golden ones fire screamed in a way not even the children of humans or elves made when they were burned.
Then his forces struck back. Tirgiz hit the silver one with a magic ray, greatly reducing the beasts dexterity, and then tithulka unleashed, for the firs time ever, the full power of the strong magic ring he had found in the treasure chest of Harg, the leader of the hill Giant tribe he and his men had wiped out almost nine months earlier. To gain control of their surrounding area in the eastern tip of the stonelands.
It was an astonishing sound when he saw the silver one totally engulfed in the magical flame protruding from the ring and falling to the ground, full body smoking and no more movement or life in the corpse.
Indikrarg later said, that in this moment he could even see a glimpse of fear in the eyes of the golden dragon hovering infront of him.
Then Surkima threw a fireball inmidst of the dwarven advance, but they as well had been protected by their Cleric, and not nearly as many of them dropped dead as he had expected.
Arshuun, one of the other fighters of his troupe used the open flank due to the dead dragon to charge right into the middle of the dwarving advance and with a big leap of his dire-wolf mount rammed his lance deep into the body of the dwarven mage. He had preferred to give the magic skin hardening spell to their leader Murathin.
The dwarven fighters now were close, and a pitched battle began.
Surkima threw a line of cold, not unlikely the breath of the silver beast at the golden dragon, and it roared in agony as the magic coldt hrusted through his magic resistance shred a part of his scales into pieces and froze the flesh beneath.
Bargisi the rogue appeared in the back of the dragon and hit his ankle with his magic dagger,
Indikrarg, under the effect of a divine power from maglublyet, hit the golden dragon twice with his axe. The size of the wounds even impressing tithulka. His clerics had been granted the insight to some very useful spells against huge foes like the dragon from their gods. It seemed the blade of his axe grew in size, the closer it got to the scales of the dragon.
Tigikrar, one of the clerics from the foeslayers, spurred his Wolf and charged right at the dragon, but only scratching over the big scales while the Dragon took a good bite off his shoulder when he tried to underrun the reach of the beast. Urulka instantly cured the wound though.
Nirgaz shot arrows at the dragon, but only annoying the big beast with the hits, since the fiery arrows from his bow could not harm it.
The rest of his troup meanwhile attacked and kille many of the dwarven fighters and most of their sub-leaders.
The only one standing out was Murathin, their leader. Due to severe attacks by magic and steel, this dwarven fighter seemed to be not impressed and straightly went for tithulka.
Shortly before he reached the dwarven leader, tithulka saw how grusg, his trusted fighter, charged the dragon sidewards and managed to thrust his lance under the scales of the dragons belly. With a nasty crouch, the lance deeply sunk into the flesh and the dragon began to stagger and fell.
This freed bargisi of his direct foe and he moved sidewards towards murathin, to hit him with a sneaky hit with his dagger.
The dwarven warriors had other planes, as they recognized the goblin preparing to stab their beloved leader, several of them threw themselves on the goblin rogue and cut him down with their waraxes. Bargisi fell, clearly bleeding to a sure death.
Fortunately three of the troupe, including indikrarg charged the warriors and cut them down, so that indikrarg could close the most lethal wounds of the goblin.
Meanwhile Tithulka and Murathin fought one on one in the center of the battle. Surkima recognized the immense strength of the dwarf and threw a weakening ray of magic at the dwarven leader, greatly reducing the effectiveness of his swings with the axe.
With both Dragons lying on the ground and bleeding to death, many of the warriors dead or severely wounded, and their mage as well as most of the sub-commanders dead, the dwarven cleric sent out a call for support from the second half of the dwarven strikeforce, securing the cave entrance.
Tithulka had managed to unite the two strike forces in the cave without the dwarves recognizing the move.
Therefore, Jorrick shardcarver, the second in command and 30 more warriors of the clan waited for the foeslayers outside of the cave, to prevent them or the blood drinker-warbands roaming the area from cutting his leader off the retreat line.
When they finally rushed in, all they could see was their beloved leader being torn apart by steel, magic and fang.
To rescue him, they charged into the fray and fought like true warriors, this Tithulka had to admit. But the combined might of the two strike forces, including five of the best fighters of Tithulkas troops, two mages and four clerics as well as two rogues, was too much for the dwarves to win.
Arshuun, Tirgiz, Indikrarg and Bargisi went down unconscious during the battle, but after the last dwarf fell dead, they were immediately taken care of by the remaining members of The Foeslayers and red fist troupes.
It was one of the hardest fights Tithulka had fought so far, but in the end he was victorious again.
Resuming the strength of the Blood Drinkers as a clan, the lack of any magician of powerful priest in their ranks, left them in no position to confront the Dwarves directly.
After the battle, Tithulka tossed the severed heads of Dragons and dwarves to Kirtaks feet and proclaimed hi part of the pact as accomplished.
Now it Was Kirtak and the Blood Drinkers to show their strength in battle and get a hold of the remaining Dwarves in their homes.
Now, with the Blood drinkers Inhabiting the Dwarven stronghold in the mountains, he had gained another worthful ally in the region. The blood drinkers could field almost two hundred and sixty warriors, as well as nearly a dozen elite fighters of immense skill and of course Kirtak, their leader.
One of the strongest Hobgoblin Fighters he had seen so far, Tithulka was glad to have made him an ally by the deal they had struck. Kirtak had sworn, that if Tithulka and his Force could kill the two Dragons and the dwarven Spell-Wielders, then the Blood drinkers would storm the Dwarven Stronghold and agree to an alliance with the uprising red Legion under Tithulkas guidance.
The risk with this situation was, that Kirtak would most likely challenge him for leadership of the entire Troops sooner or Lesser. This would greatly weaken the Forces for either himself or Kirtak would then have to die in an open fight to death. Surka left no choice when a clan leader was challenged.
But this was still a bit ahead, since he knew that Kirtak would be busy to establish himself in the new Stronghold and to plan his uprise against him.
What worried him much more were the repeated reports about the Bahamut-Followers growing stronger and stronger in the Stonelands and surroundings.
The two Dragons they had slayn ahd also only recently joined the Dwarves against the Hobgoblins and it would not go unnoticed that they are dead for long.
The talk with Indikrarg came to his mind again, when the Cleric had told him about a legend among the Hobgoblin tribes of the region. Down south in the orsraun Mountains, there was supposed to be the “throne of Maglublyet”, guarded by fierce Hobloblin Fighters deep in the underdark.
The Warlord being able to sit there and not being burned by divine fire was said to stand up as a blessed of Maglublyet and could force an earth shaking Force of Goblinoids to wreak havoc in the surrounding mountains and eventually forge a true Kingdom of the goblinoid races.
But it was a journey of more than 500 miles through hostile tribesland, Human nomadic tribes and much worse challenges.
Worse, he had then to think of a way to move the Hobgoblins and Goblins under his banner also down south with him, which was a nearly impossible task given the distance which had to be traveled.
He shook his head, turned towards grusg and said aloud: “enough thinking and plotting for today, let us go down in the great hall and celebrate our victory about the weaklings” much more quiet he said more to himself “the challenges will be there tomorrow, too”.
This was the first part of the series, if interest is there, I will also start posting the statblocks of the characters involved, and with time more and more of the background information.
I also would like to hear productive critics about the story as such. All the events in the writings have been diced out piece by piece and round by round and the intermediate has also been roleplayed intensely, to receive a story like this.
I hope it is not too groce and am looking forward to the replies.
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jul 2010 : 11:49:59
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well, expected some harsh critis here, but no reply at all is even worse than what I had expected.
Ok, no more of this in future. |
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 02 Mar 2011 : 11:03:55
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| same here, will do a bit more builtup on the story, to make this much more interesting for others |
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 18 Mar 2011 : 14:09:50
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“New wartroup has arrived, General”, was the short report from Grusg to His General, Batar the Slicer, Second in command in the Red Legion. “the Ettins's slaves I will personally bring to the workers huts, they are not much of warriors for now, and would die very soon in a battle or even run”
Grusg and his men had picked up the mixed wartroup of goblin and Hobgoblin warriors on their latest scouting array in the Stonelands.
It was a good troop, as they had found out only three days later, when a bunch of ettins tried to smash the patrolling force into the ground. Thanks to the help of the new warriors, they did not suffer a single dead, and merely 6 wounded, while five Ettins lay dead.
Grusg could not but give the power of battle magic and their effects in the skirmishes they had fought in the last months his respect.
Especially when it came to confrontations with the various Dragons of the region, the battle magic had saved all their lives repeatedly.
“bring them to Gerlhirk, for equipping them and attaching them to their new units.” He replied, “and do not forget to give them their share out of the loot from the ettins lair”.
The system was pretty simple, in each fight where rank and file troops took part, half the treasure in coin was divided instantly amongst the warriors ad the other treasure went into the treasury of the Legion, to further all their interests.
This fact, and the spreading reputation of Tithulka, himself and the other Elite members of the legion drew more and more small bands and wartroups of goblins and hobgoblins into the ranks of the legion.
Most of them were pretty untrained regarding the standards of the legion, but strong warriors they all were. Live in the stonelands or the goblin marshes was not easy at all, and the weak died pretty fast usually.
The best thing was to not bully the goblins too much, for the little guys could, if well trained, fulfill special tasks in the fighting troops very well. Especially as scouts and as light infantry or archers they were pretty useful. In a pitched fight though, they had a hard stand due to their size. Therefore the Legion trained them in swarmfighting tactics, so they could concentrate 3-4 goblin warriors against a single bigger foe.
News had reached him that tithulka had struck an alliance with a pretty big Hobgoblin tribe up in the sunset mountains and even killed or enslaved a complete, though small, dwarven clan in these mountains.
This increased the number of available warriors to the legion to over six hundred, with close to one hundred of them being retrained as specialists or veterans of the recent fighting and conquest the legion had taken on.
They were now ordered to establish a secure holding in the region, and build an appropriate base to hold 200 warriors and their equipment against all but the most determined attack.
The rest of them should prepare for moving, and start heading to the dwarven clanhold in groups of 30-50 warriors, not more as not to stir up too much recognition from the other groups in the are, as the Humans of the Black network, the Tun-Barbarians or even the residents of the two swamp-areas like the lizardmen or worse.
And most important, they should avoid any direct confrontation with Human forces from the behated cormyrian empire or the strange shadovar troupes that strolled through the countryside in increasing numbers.
He put the thoughts aside, and moved on to oversee the training of the first goblin special unit - the former sergants and leaders of small warbands were being formed into an elite unit of goblin archers, who were able to find their targets even inmidst a pitched battle without hurting allied troops.
The legion was taking more and more form, and the secret empire of the red eye would soon be making him one of the most influental, and therefore powerful, Hobgoblin chieftain in the whole region.
Grusg smiled as we walked to the traing grounds. |
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GRYPHON
Senior Scribe
USA
527 Posts |
Posted - 19 Mar 2011 : 14:23:22
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| Interesting... |
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 26 Jun 2012 : 23:20:40
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Anyone interested inme continuing this? If so i have bout thirty more entries like this
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Thauranil
Master of Realmslore
India
1591 Posts |
Posted - 27 Jun 2012 : 12:03:38
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| please share more. its interesting stuff |
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 08 Dec 2012 : 18:03:31
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Hi everybody, just dug out another short text about Tithulka, this time a very early one, depicting his first raid and serious combat experience.
4th Mirtul, 1356, Year of the Worm.
It was early dawn, the sun was about to rise in the next hour, when the Hobgoblin warband emerged from the rough terrain north of the farmstead. It was built in the shadow of the sunrise mountains, still protected by regular patrols of the Purple dragons.
Sarrkul, the leader of the Warband had led the nineteen warriors of his troupe far away from their tribal grounds. He intended to make himself warleader of the tribe of the Splintered Ear tribe in the Stonelands, and therefore had to accomplish something.
The farmstead before them would do exactly that. They had scouted the terrain for two days, and found filled grain storages, a stable with at least eight horses and more livestock to take away.
The humans living there would be no match for the warriors of his band. Only two of them, Tithulka and Batar, were inexperienced and did the raid to be accepted as warriors. The rest of them were all seasoned warriors, having done dozens of raids versus all kinds of opponents.
If the raid went well, they could take more supplies than his whole wartroup and their families needed to get over the coming winter, and he could bargain for support of the tribal leader by supplying him a big portion of the loot. Any raiding party had to give a certain share to the leader, but the bigger the better. Arraskar, the tribal leader, appreciated a big share of either coin or supplies, and knew how to handle good Warleaders, and how to get rid of unpleasant or unskilled ones.
Samuel left the house while it was still dark, but the all too human need to relieve himself left him no choice. He left through the back door of the building, walking, still half asleep, to the privy behind the house.
He didn’ even recognize the three javelins being thrown at him before they struck him down. While he was sinking down, his vision slowly fading, he could make out at least half a dozen bestial warriors emerging from the dark, weapons drawn moving towards the house where his family was still asleep. When the desperate man tried to shout and warn the others, one of the creatures sprang forward with a big leap, and cleanly severed his head from his shoulders with a forceful blow of his heavy blade.
Sarrkul had issued orders not to approach the farmstead in any direction where the livestock could pickup their scent and warn off the inhabitants.
What they could not avoid were the two big dogs of the humans taking up their scent, and sense their presence. Once Samuel went down behind the house, both of the two big Wolfhounds started barking like mad inside and when the maid opened the back door, they both rushed out to attack the intruders ferociously.
One of them sank his teeth deeply into the lower arm of Grusg, a seasoned warrior with a big scar on the right side of his skull – a reminder not to underestimate the fastness of an ogre in rage, before the other warriors could cut it down. The second dog did not even reach them when three of the remaining warriors let loose their ready held javelins and hit it. It went down with a last sigh.
Tithulka had been ordered with the second group of warriors, advancing straight to the main entrance of the human main house.
They were seen other warriors with him, and the eight of them had weapons drawn and javelins and bows ready, when the first humans emerged from the house.
It was more than obvious that these were no warriors. Half asleep, armed with stools and some farming tools they emerged to check what the dogs had been barking at.
They stood no chance.
Sarrkul looked over the scenery and was furious. The wretched humans had lit a signal fire, pouring black smoke into the morning sky before they could stop them from doing, and now his warriors were fiercely trying to put it out, meanwhile they were gathering as much of the loot as possible.
They got the horses out of the stables, packed them with grain and other food, slaughtered some of the smaller animals and were pulling three of the humans to the middle of the place between the buildings.
Upon a sign from him, the warriors cut them down fast. Not a single human had been left alive to warn others or to tell which direction they had taken after they left. Not even the children.
Suddenly there was a sound of alarm.
Arshuun had spotted a cloud of dust advancing rapidly towards them. Sarrkul cursed and started barking orders. It could only be a cormyrian patrol of these behated purple dragons who they had to fight again and again also in the Stonelands.
He gave orders, and the warriors spread and hid themselves in the stable and the main house, but left the three dead were they had fallen.
Tithulka sprang behind the door of the main house and waited together with the majority of the other warriors and Sarrkul. He was not happy. Sarrkul had not seen the prepared signal fire, and even now, he had not taken care that the prepared loot was hidden from sight when anyone entered the open space between the buildings. “Soon” tithulka thought, “soon I am going to be a full warrior of the tribe, and then I will challenge Sarrkul to take command of his warband.”
Then everything began to move. They could hear the riders approaching the space, and a few moments later they could see them, riding their fine horses in their fine equipment, all shining steel weapons helmets and armors. Soon some of this would be his, he thought.
They hurried into the space, eager to help their fellow humans lying on the ground. Stupid them, no Hobgoblin wouldhave entered a narrow space with the full force of a mounted patrol like this – the commander clearly gave away most of the strength of the horses with cramping them between the buildings. He could hear them bark orders, and two of the riders, eleven altogether they were, dismounted and started checking the wounds of the three bodies on the ground.
That was enough for Sarrkul. He shouted in his guttural voice “Splintered ears, Chaaarge!!” and hell broke lose.
The warriors sprang out of the stable and house and threw their javelins at horses and riders, Indikrarg, the priest of maglubiyet made a prayer to their god and suddenly also Tithulka felt much more confident.
The javelin rain fell three of the humans instantly before they knew what happened, screaming or silent they fell from their horses. Then the melee came.
Melee, this was what Tithulka lived for. Since a very young age he had been much bigger and stronger than all of the warriors in his tribe at that time. And now, almost full grown he stood over seven feet tall, all bone and muscles, trained by the probably hardest trainers in the Stonelands if someone asked him, jumping into the fray.
The poor Soldier tried to block his blow with his sword, but the mace Tithulka wielded in his left hand came down with such force, that it rammed the blade almost an inch deep into the mans face before crushing his skull with a nasty sound. Turningby the force of the blow, he swung his battleaxe and cut off the lower leg of a second soldier, even sinking the axe into the flesh of the horses belly.
All around him the fierce warriors of the splintered ear fought their foes, and it was obvious that with the momentum of surprise they had, the humans stood no chance.
But the humans were no wimps, and good trained soldiers as well. Tithulka saw at least three of his brothers go down by the blades and spears of the humans.
Their leader, a middle aged human with quite a belly, was fighting sarrkul and two warriors from his obviously trained warhorse and holding them off.
He was bleeding from several smaller wounds, but had disabled a hobgoblin warriors with his fine sword and wounded Sarrkul on the right side of his chest.
Tithulka saw his chance.
He leaped onto the body of a dead horse and sprang, both weapons held high to strike in hands, at the human commander.
Sergeant Woldraw had been fighting humanoids, Orcs, goblins and also the wretched hobgoblins for the last ten years. He had no repect for them. Usually his men and him just rode them down on open ground with no big challenge.
But not today. He had made a bitter mistake, giving up the mobility of his force and was now seriously being punished for it. But when he saw the bodies of the two women and the child, he just rushed in to help. Hinral, his trusted warhorse, and him could easily care for themselves, but he saw one after the other of his men, mostly fresh recruits, go down by the blades and blows from the beasts. He intended to kill their leader to break their morale, and pressed that Brute hardly when he suddenly felt a shadow behind him.
He rushed around, raising shield and sword in defensive stance, but it was too late. The onflying Hobgoblin, the largest specimen he had seen so far, came in in an ankle too high for him to counter in time, and so the crude and nasty spiked mace threw away his shield with such force that it dislogded his shoulder. The Sergeant did not even see the battleaxe coming in which hit him that hard it nearly cut his chest in half, ending his life in an instant of bloody gore.
Tithulka had sunk his weapons deeply into the human leader, and he and his victim both fell off the horse by the speed of his jump and crushed to the ground. When he rose up, a silence fell on the place, only disturbed by the sounds of the wounded and dying. Sarrkul turned the back towards Tithulka, not appreciating what he did – robbing him of the kill of the opposing commander – and gave orders to kill the wounded soldiers, loot them and get ready to depart.
The humans would come, and even in much bigger numbers than he and hs force could handle. Three lay dead, and four more were wounded. Not a good start to head back into their tribal lands. But now they all had horses to ride, and if they did not waste time, they could cover many miles today and tomorrow, and then be out of the range of other patrols.
Tithulkas blood was pumping, damn Sarrkul he thought, not only he killed all the slaves they could have taken back into the Stonelands and nearly risked their extinction by missing the signal fire, now he also denied Tithulka the honouring of his frist kill in battle. If he did not move now, none of the warriors would ever respect him and he had to stay below Sarrkul for years.
He straightened up, “Sarrkul” he growled, “Surrka!! I challenge you”
Two of the seasoned warriors, Kirinvar and Ilkun, sprng towards him instantly, to kill him for this disobeying behavior – after all he would only be an accepted member of the warriors caste after their return to the tribal grounds and the necessary ritual.
Tithulka felt Batar, the other young warrior, rushing beside him, and Grusg, a brutish looking warrior, also positioned himself on his side with a scowl, “yes, whelp, show what you are made off” he grinned.
“enough!” Sarrkul shouted, and all the eyes went on him. “let me all show you what happens to warriors who disobey my command.”
With this words, he drew his two handed sword from his back and pushed his two warriors aside.
“I will kill you for this” he said “ you know it”
With a big leap he swung the two handed sword to severe Tithulkas Head from his shoulders – with a speed the young warrior never had expected, he tried to block and dodge the blow but was a bit too slow. The Massive sword slipped over his blocking battleaxe and bit deeply into his right arm. The shock of pain and the power of the blow made Tithulka drop his battleaxe with a scowl as he dogded away finally.
Springing back to his feet he faced Sarrkul. The two circled each other several minutes exchanging swings, but none of them could score another decisive hit, before Sarrkul made another massive overhead swing. But this time Tithulka reacted right. He swung his mace upward, breaking the bones of both lower arms of Sarrkul with a nasty, cracking, sound. At the same time he blocked one of Sarrkuls legs with his own and the Group leader fell backwards to the ground. With a massive jump, still blocking the sword of his opponent with his mace, Tithulka smashed his fist with all the might he could into sarrkuls face. The Blow was so strong that Sarrkuls head erode in a spray of blood, gore and bone.
Everything was silent. Then, Grusg stepped forward.”According to the tribal law of the Splintered ear, Tithulka is now the righteous leader of this warband” His warrior name shall be “the red Fist – you all see why” Tithulkas fist with which he had smashed the skull was all dark red and gory, dripping bits of bone, brain and blood to the ground.
Indikrarg, who had watched all the time from behind the lines stepped forward. “Maglubiyet has guided your blade and fist, you are favored. Strength rules, weakness and stupidity is doomed”, he pointed towards Sarrkuls body”
“Tithulka is the righteous leader until we reach tribal council, Arraskar Wolfbiter has the last word, as the tribal chieftain. But until then, we all shall follow you, Tithulka Redfist.”
This left no further dispute. Although not commanding the warbands, the tribal clerics had no one opposing them as long as the tribal chieftain was not there.
Indikrarg even put his hand on the grim wound on Tithulkas arm and worked a spell to stop the bleeding and an infection.
He wasted no time, giving orders to speed up their departure, not forgetting to strip the human soldiers off their equipment, tithulka and the fourteen other Hobgoblins got ready quickly to depart into the sunrise mountains and towards their tribal homelands.
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 05 May 2013 : 11:59:05
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Hello again, here a short timeline of the happenings recorded in 1356.
Taking place directly after the above decpicted Battle.
14th mirtul
Tithulkas warband reached their tribal camp, loaded with loot.
Arraskar did hear what happened, and as punishment claimed all the loot instead just a part from tithulka.
He either had to accept this, or leave with npthing more he owns and be exiled, never to return to his tribe.
Eight of the warriors, as well as Indikrarg and Urulka chose to follow tithulka, out of the loyalty and honor codex inheriting them to follow their warleader.
21st mirtul
Tithulka and his group joined the big warparty of the orcs raiding the area around high horn. Wen the human riders approached, tithulka saved his men and a lot of orcs and hobgoblins from being overrun by organizing a defensive line.
3rd flamerule
Tired of the internal squabble in the humanoid raidng party, he and his men leave the remaining bands and wander off, back deeper into the Stonelands area.
12th flamerule
They encounter a small band of orcs ( five ), and being provoked Tithulka uses the chance to slay the orcs and get some fresh resources for his troupe.
Here he invents the system of shared loot, 50% going into the troupes treasury, the rest shared equally between the warriors.
Magic stuff being found will be handled and given to members in the way to best serve the whole of them.
Some more rules are invented:
- Each member has to swear an oath when entering the Red Fists, the ritual is watched by Indikrarg and Urulka, who check the devotion of any applicant / recruit, they enter for live, to break their rules or betray them means death or slavery.
- Looting: 50% To the troops fighting in the encounter, and 50% to the troops coffers
- Rank is given by skill, effectivenss counts above all
- Ranking system invented, including formed units, officers titles, special tasks etc.
- No war against other hobgoblins, except being attacked first
- Acceptance of all the humanoid races, using them by “instinct and talent”
- Threatening a member of the troupe, brings down wrath of all the unit, giving one warning, then striking with no mercy.
- No senseless slaying – too much attention, and every slayn foe is a slave less to sell.
- If Tithulka is absent, Grusg, the veteran following him since the first day is in command
- Indikrarg and Urulka are outside chain of command, equal in rank to Grusg.
11th Elesias
The red Fists make their first encounter with the Black network in the Stonelands. After initial negotiations, Tithulka has them hired to protect their black road though the Stonelands. Until late Uktar, he and his men stay in one of the cavern camps of the Zhents, fighting off monsters, smaller bands of orcs or other humanoids not working with or for the Zhentarim or patrolling around it.
During this time, he and his men collect as much information as possible about the “political map” of the Stonelands, especially noting down the tribal camps and lairs of the hobgoblin and goblin tribes, as well as the seemingly countless warbands and clans, living nomadic or semi-nomadic.
Tithulka learns very fast, that he can forge a mighty army out of the tribes, if he can just make them follow him.
But he also bitterly senses how easily his people and other humanoids, especially the gnolls and orcs are used by the Zhentarim, either playing them against each other, or using them as cannon fodder or similar dishonorful tasks.
He also learns to honor the art of mining, as well as the whole system of trade the Zhentarim have built, earning huge amounts of money – money which every commander needs to suatain an army.
A big plan and a goal for his efforts forms even more detailed in Tithulkas mind….
Grusg, Indikrarg, Surkima and Urulka all share his visions about uniting the tribes, and Indikrarg sometimes even hints back to the times of Hlundadim, when they had a mighty empire.
During their stay in the Camp, these four become a trusted team, not necessary for friendship, but for utterly having the same goals, and seeing Tithulka able to eventually make some big gains – from which they all profit in their own ways. And also the other warriors of the band become trusted allies, as Tithulka sees them now as the backbone and future officers in his “red Legion” band.
16th Uktar
Upon some strange happenings in and around their base, Tithulka and his men are ordered to Guard a Zhent Caravan back to their mighty fortress home – Zhentil keep, far in the north.
For tithulka a welcomed opportunity to gain more and more knowledge about the humans, their habits, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as possibly finding more recruits for his warband.
Important characters of the Band, as in late 1356:
Surkima:
Surkima is the archetype of a hobgoblin sneak. Grown up as the son of a lesser warrior, which only stood chance to mate once, before his wife fell to another warrior in ritual fist-fighting, he had to fight for everything in his life. He quickly learned that it is much easier to steal than to fight for everything, as long as he is doing it from the right people. Being just two years older than Tithulka, he knew him also quite good already, when they set out for the wild.
Tithulka was always appreciating the valuable information given by scouts in raids, and knows after the time in the Zhent camp even more how to honor the ability to gather information. In this, Surkima excels. He plays the role of the dumb humanoids well for the humans and other humanoids, but is always walking with open ears and eyes. Surkima has made plans with Tithulka to form a kind of information brokering agency, delivering all kinds of information mainly to himself and Tithulka to maintain their seats of power. He knows he can only do so when he has the backup of a strong leader, who is also intelligent enough to use it to their advantage.
During the time in the Zhent camp, he and Tithulka put a lot of time and effort into mapping the Stonelands politically, and to scout as much as possible about the Humanoids in Zhent service.
He loves to kill with poison, as this makes the whole job such a lot easier…..
He also has a strong interest in arcane magic, and is trying hard to understand its basic principles. But without a teacher, or someone to “nick” information from, his attempts have not fruited too much so far.
Surkima stands just about six feet tall, having a strong but sinewy figure. He wears a padded leather armor, and visibly only carries two nastily curved daggers on his belt and a Longsword on the left side. Usually he has his shortbow strung to his back, as well as a full quiver of arrows.
His face is quite slim for a hobgoblin, and his eyes seem to be scanning and moving all the times. The same for his ears – like a dog or cat trying to hear something, they seem to be constantly moving, which is quite irritating for most of the people all the time.
His hair is short cut and deeply black in and his eyes gleem with a dark yellow, almost orange colour.
Grusg Scarjaw
Grusg is a seasoned warrior and has seen both Tithulka and Surkima rise. He was impressed with the young warrior’s fierce pride and sense of honor. He feels deeply loyal to him, for he spoke out what many of his tribe, as well as himself thought a long time: why let themselves be used by humans at all? They are weak. No human can stand before a hobgoblin warrior one to one. Not even talking about the fierce bugbears, and even the cowardy goblins canbe formed into nasty surprise and ambush units by a strong leader…
When the decision was to make, he chose to try his luck with Tithulka, and acted like a senior advisor to the Young leader in many ways so far.
It is paid back in the way that he has control over the band in the absence of Tithulka.
Grusg dreams about coming back to the Stonelands with an army of his fellow goblin kind, and to stomp the Stonegrinder’s tribe of ogres into the ground for smashing his skull and face back in those days…..
He always enjoys good feasting and drinking, but is reliable to a point not to drink into unconscoiusness.
Grusg is roughly 6”5’ tall, but nearly as “wide as tall” - Surkima can hide completely behind his massive body. He has almost the same amount of fat on his ribs as he has muscles on his arms and his massive back.
The most obvious feature about him is the badly smashed and scarred lower left side of his face, where the club of an ogre hit him a couple of years ago. The jaw healed in a slightly wrong ankle, so when Grusg talks or drinks, there is always something drooling out of a small gap in the jaw he can’t close with muscle contaction anymore…. Usually he just wipes it off with his lower arm, which makes them quite dirty and also smelling a bit strange for civilized noses.
He wears a padded leather armor, which has visibly been re-sized several times and carries a wickedly serrated spear as his main weapon, most of the time in his right hand, and a big wooden shield strung to his back. Additionally he has four javelins strung on his back, as well as a battleaxe and a handaxe stuck into his girdle.
He has his skull shaved completely, as the hair on his forehead would not grow anymore anyway…. But his eyes, glowing in a dark red tone are always active and searching.
Indikrarg
This Hobgoblin just strikes fear into the heart of common man, and even seasoned warriors feel a chill when he enters the room. Indikrarg has mastedered the art of intimidation, be it verbally or by force or direct threat.
He had been one of the priests for the splintered ears for quite a while, when he watched the young Tithulka emerge from the tribe’s young.
He instantly saw the huge young warrior as a divine sign from his Patron, Maglubiyet, and followed his way since then, guiding and also protecting the young brute not only once.
It was his deed, and of his assistant Urulka, that Tithulka and Grusg were in the same raiding party and that things worked out as they did. Although his plans aimed to lift Tithulka into a position of power in the tribe instantly, which did not work out well, he is still overly confident that this now young Leader will go great things in the name of Maglubiyet.
Indikrarg dreams of nothing less than a re-formed empire of the stonelands like to Hlundadim’s time, with the church of Maglubiyet strongly increased and the major church of a whole empire of Goblins, Hobgoblins and Bugbears. Other humanoids will be strong allies, or simple inhabitants awed by the might of the goblin gods.
But he also knows that this is a long and difficult task, since none of the other tribal cheiftains, and only few of the clerics, witch doctors and shamans will support a young uprising leader, even less when they have to swaer fealthy to him, unless this leader has obviously been blessed by the gods.
He wants to recruit as many of the goblins and other “humanoid” troops to their cause as Tithulka, but also knows that they have to keep a very low profile, or will be dead in no time.
He is of an average figure for a hobgoblin, and standing six foot three inches high, also of quite average size. As the only hobgoblin in the troupe so far he wears finely kept splint mail and carries a steel shield and a battleaxe into battle. Kept in his belt there is also a short sword.
He wears a cloak of Ram-fur over the splint mail, which is covered in some runes, written with blood of enemies, as well as a metal helmet to which also some horns of a ram have been attached, so that the tips of them protrude left and right to his chin.
His eyes glow bright red whenever he speaksloudly or gets angered, since he is in Zhentil keep, rumor has spread that he can make them glow by simple concentration. He has long black hair, as long as to fall down between his shoulders blades on his back.
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The Battle of the Crimson Cave - Adventure rep.
