Dwarves and Calibans
Posted: Mon May 16, 2005 6:42 pm
Here's an in-character justification as to why dwarves get a bonus when attacking calibans. In my campaign, the bonus also applies to mongrelmen and broken ones. I turned the +4 AC against giants to a +1 Dodge bonus against medium and larger creatures.
Why do you not want to train, child? Does the practise dummy frighten you? Yes, it is malformed, but so are the minions of the Pale Queen.
You don't know the story of the Pale Queen, do you? Come closer then, and listen well.
Long ago, before my great-great-great-great-grandfather was so much as a twinkle in his mother's eye, we were a prosperous people. We lived in the valley's and plains of this land, kings of an empire that stretched out as far as the eye could see. No one went hungry and everyone worked for the good of the Clan. We were happy, content, and at peace. We had allowed our swords to rust and our axes to hang over the hearth, for we saw nothing that warrented our fear.
Then they came, carried in boats from across the sea. Hideous beings dressed in rags. They were misshapen souls, lost and hungry. Cautiously, we took them in, and gave them food and comfort. We asked where they had come from, and they sent to us their queen.
Unlike her subjects, she was possessed of an unnatural beauty, with skin as pale as the feather of a dove and movement as graceful as a bird in flight. She went to the council of the seven lords, and with her words she did ask for succor for her people. Her plea touched the heart of the lords, and they granted her people their boon.
Within a few short years, there were many of the beasts. They breed like vermin, each generation more repulsive than the last. Like locusts, they devoured our crops and pushed us from our lands. Yet the seven lords did nothing, bewtiched as they were by the Pale Queen.
Finally, famine struck the land, and the Pale Queen's subjects turned on us for food. Dying of hunger, pushed back to the mountains and away from our fields, we refused to be slaughtered as sheep. As those we had helped turned on us as a ravening hoarde, we did prepare to fight. The mountains became our fortress and home. We reforged our swords and sharpened our axes, and there on mountain did we make our stand!
For a full generation did we fight, all ready to fight the beast-like men. As their strength began to fall, the Pale Queen saw that we would not weaken and she called the retreat. As her people boarded their ships, she turned and proclaimed in a voice that all heard,
'You have won the day, noble dwarves, but we shall return. We are patience born of suffering, and will watch you from the darkness. When you have forgotten the lessons of this day, you will find us waiting, and not even the stones of the earth will save you from our wrath.'
Since that day, we have lived in the mountains and trained since birth, ever prepared for the Pale Queen's return. So attack the dummy with all of your rage, and remember it well. Her minions wait and watch, even now, and you must be ready to prove to her servants that the dwarves will always remember."
Also, as a treat:
The Pale Queen
Symbol: A broken mask
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Domains: Destruction, Protection, Trickery, War
Prefered Weapon: Dagger (Clerics with the War domain use scimitars)
Portfolio: Outcasts, the Deformed
The Pale Queen is a legendary figure among calibans and other outcasts. According to the stories, she was horrifically beautiful caliban who was left to die in the forest by her parents (a King and Queen). Years later, she came back and destroyed the kingdom with an army made of the deformed them all. In the years that followed, the Pale Queen's army ravaged the land, destroying the societies that had cast them out and those that did not give them acceptance. No one knows what happened to the army, only that they passed away across the sea.
Years later, calibans began to appear proclaiming the message of The Pale Queen. Some of them claimed that She had come to them personally. Others insisted that they had been part of her unstoppable army and had seen her ascend to godhood. No matter the source, the message is always the same.
The Pale Queen protects and lends aid to those that are shunned by the shame known as society. She encourages her followers to repay their oppressors with violence and to undermine them and their position. When the time is right, she will lead another holy war and retake the world for her flock.
Why do you not want to train, child? Does the practise dummy frighten you? Yes, it is malformed, but so are the minions of the Pale Queen.
You don't know the story of the Pale Queen, do you? Come closer then, and listen well.
Long ago, before my great-great-great-great-grandfather was so much as a twinkle in his mother's eye, we were a prosperous people. We lived in the valley's and plains of this land, kings of an empire that stretched out as far as the eye could see. No one went hungry and everyone worked for the good of the Clan. We were happy, content, and at peace. We had allowed our swords to rust and our axes to hang over the hearth, for we saw nothing that warrented our fear.
Then they came, carried in boats from across the sea. Hideous beings dressed in rags. They were misshapen souls, lost and hungry. Cautiously, we took them in, and gave them food and comfort. We asked where they had come from, and they sent to us their queen.
Unlike her subjects, she was possessed of an unnatural beauty, with skin as pale as the feather of a dove and movement as graceful as a bird in flight. She went to the council of the seven lords, and with her words she did ask for succor for her people. Her plea touched the heart of the lords, and they granted her people their boon.
Within a few short years, there were many of the beasts. They breed like vermin, each generation more repulsive than the last. Like locusts, they devoured our crops and pushed us from our lands. Yet the seven lords did nothing, bewtiched as they were by the Pale Queen.
Finally, famine struck the land, and the Pale Queen's subjects turned on us for food. Dying of hunger, pushed back to the mountains and away from our fields, we refused to be slaughtered as sheep. As those we had helped turned on us as a ravening hoarde, we did prepare to fight. The mountains became our fortress and home. We reforged our swords and sharpened our axes, and there on mountain did we make our stand!
For a full generation did we fight, all ready to fight the beast-like men. As their strength began to fall, the Pale Queen saw that we would not weaken and she called the retreat. As her people boarded their ships, she turned and proclaimed in a voice that all heard,
'You have won the day, noble dwarves, but we shall return. We are patience born of suffering, and will watch you from the darkness. When you have forgotten the lessons of this day, you will find us waiting, and not even the stones of the earth will save you from our wrath.'
Since that day, we have lived in the mountains and trained since birth, ever prepared for the Pale Queen's return. So attack the dummy with all of your rage, and remember it well. Her minions wait and watch, even now, and you must be ready to prove to her servants that the dwarves will always remember."
Also, as a treat:
The Pale Queen
Symbol: A broken mask
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Domains: Destruction, Protection, Trickery, War
Prefered Weapon: Dagger (Clerics with the War domain use scimitars)
Portfolio: Outcasts, the Deformed
The Pale Queen is a legendary figure among calibans and other outcasts. According to the stories, she was horrifically beautiful caliban who was left to die in the forest by her parents (a King and Queen). Years later, she came back and destroyed the kingdom with an army made of the deformed them all. In the years that followed, the Pale Queen's army ravaged the land, destroying the societies that had cast them out and those that did not give them acceptance. No one knows what happened to the army, only that they passed away across the sea.
Years later, calibans began to appear proclaiming the message of The Pale Queen. Some of them claimed that She had come to them personally. Others insisted that they had been part of her unstoppable army and had seen her ascend to godhood. No matter the source, the message is always the same.
The Pale Queen protects and lends aid to those that are shunned by the shame known as society. She encourages her followers to repay their oppressors with violence and to undermine them and their position. When the time is right, she will lead another holy war and retake the world for her flock.
