#alfarell

Challenge #04627-L243: Money With Menaces

The Drunken Horns was a tongue in cheek name for an excellent eatery run by a family of Hellkin. And when members of the watch tried to harass them, the local royals, all human, happened to be there having dinner. It was their favorite place to unwind. Needless to say, the local watch soon learn that these royals do NOT like such behavior at all. -- Anon Guest

This is the restaurant Dzak built. This is the chef with the crumpled horn who married the maiden who needs to be shorn, and brews all the beers from dusk to dawn, all in the place that Dzak built.

It's a very nice place. Lovely decor. Many who come there are very surprised to see that it was run entirely by Hellkin.

The greeter and waitstaff are Hellkin. The head chef is the very Dzak that established it. Their most obvious feature being one horn bent very much out of shape and shrivelled, compared to its healthier companion. The matching scar, near the crumpled horn, spoke of lucky survival and old, speciesist prejudices.

Challenge #04640-L256: Fall of the Empire

Within the parliament of the lavish Elven city a human commander grits her teeth in disgust. 18 months of fighting the black tide, watching her comrades fall, cutting down children and the elderly that had fallen to the corruption, and for what? Slammed doors and a spit on the face from these so called “higher races”.

The commander nearly shatter her communication crystal in her hate filled grip as she spoke: “All units, [Code: Black] negotiation has fallen. Grab every civilian and resources you can and abandon post. I repeat, [Code: Black].” -- Anon Guest

The curse was spreading, and those on high refused to acknowledge it existed. Commander Emilka Dawnshild had been called away from protecting the people to report to the isolated highborn Elves in their damned sacred council. She hadn't bothered to bathe, nor cleanse the battle grime off herself or her armour. She was tired and she smelled bad, and all she wanted to do was sleep, but what she needed to do was get back to saving the civilians.

The council, glittering with gold, gems, and shining with silk and satin, sneered at her as a paige offered a bowl to wash her hands in. She pointedly drank it in one go.

"You may report," sneered the Highest King of Kings.

Challenge #04935-M186: Legal Rites

Invited to a dwarven wedding, and you’re not sure if this is a joining ceremony or a courtroom proceeding. Either way, you hope you brought the right gift. -- Weirdlet

The ceremony was in a beautiful cavern, where stalactites and stalagmites were decorated with glowing crystals and fungi. The surface world had its traditions. Flowers. Manner of dress. Vows. On the surface, the marrying partners met each other in the middle and there were portents regarding how quickly they did it.

Here in the D'varuv portions of the Everdark, the marrying partners came with lawyers. All dressed to the best of their ability. The would-be matrimonial participants were wearing their wealth on their bodies, while the rest were merely wearing their best clothing. Each parent or guardian argued their reasons why their child should remain in their family, before each child argued why they should wed.

All of it was in formal D'varuk, so Espial was completely lost. He was the only Hellkin and the only outsider, invited there by Reinwulyn, and feeling like the only petunia in the onion patch. Or rather, the tallest poppy in the field.

Challenge #04915-M166: As You Wish

A traveler comes upon an incredible find, a Djinn’s bottle! The traveler eagerly rubs the enchanted vessel, only to discover that the bottle is empty. Good news, the vessel is accepting new entrants with all the powers that implies. Bad news, the vessel is in the middle of nowhere and not very large on the inside… -- Deathshead419

Something had turned a once-great city into ruins, but the drifting sands and bones of the buildings gave no clues. The plants that still thrived had conquered many streets, and had dominated the palace. Wildlife hunted each other where markets had once thrived.

This was the exact kind of place that Hazoreth Smith loved to investigate.

If anywhere was going to house a dangerous magical artifact that desperately needed to be kept away from the forces of malice, it was this place. Of course, such a thing would be at the other end of a set of ingenious and mysteriously functional traps. The biggest mystery being how they could remain efficacious after centuries of neglect.

Challenge #04913-M164: Life Like a Nursery Tale

A powerful spirit, yet fairly young, is similar to Mistress Dark in ability. Instead of challenging her, however, it asks to be educated instead. -- Anon Guest

Everyone knows Greatfather Langeven stops by every house with a child to deliver gifts on Midwinterfeast Eve. A lot of people had been learning that Kinderfreund and Helpmeet come for the Unwelcome children to gift them what they truly need.

Sometimes, even though they are childhood gods, they come too late.

The little match girl's body was a sad pile of rags and skinny limbs, curled up in the alley out of the wind. The snow dusted her like some obscene confection, and the last of her tiny fire hissed out of existence with one fat flake.

Challenge #04545-L161: Prejudice's Shadow

They did not speak, childhood illness stole their voice. But the Harukh village didn't care. This human had always been kind to them, helping them when illnesses or injuries came their way. They also made it clear to so-called "heros", this human who could not speak was not going to be mistreated. The human, for their part, kept trying to make it clear, wordlessly, they didn't NEED "saving". -- Anon Guest

[AN: Harukh are mostly nomadic, so this place is a statistical outlier]

The Harukh steppe lands are cruel and harsh. Life there is hard. The plants that eke out an existence there take years to grow to the point where they're useful. The animals were tough, armoured, and armed. Even the herbivores have tusks, claws, or horns to defend themselves.

That doesn't mean that the Harukh always share the same qualities.

Their reputation for being violent raiders is due entirely to people moving in to their territories and 'civilising' the land that the Harukh had been farming in their own way for generations. Which is roughly equivalent to returning from a holiday to discover that someone has built and sold out an apartment complex where your home used to be. You would also get violent under such circumstances.

Challenge #04910-M161: Follow Instructions

Deep in the heart of windswept plains is a temple with a great hoard of gold. All who enter may take a single coin from the supposed Goddess’s shrine. A woeful fate is said to befall any who take more than their fair share. What is the woeful fate? As the supposed Goddess statue is actually Eris, the answer may surprise everyone involved. -- Deathshead419

There are gods you pray to for their mercy. There are those you do not speak their name, lest you gain their attention. Sometimes, one god is both. That is the goddess of havoc and chaos - Eris.

She has a lot of altars in chaotic establishments, and very few temples.

The most noted one is a temple on the Harukh'ai plainlands, once a scene of many battles. And because it's a temple to the goddess of chaos, it's made out of monoliths carefully balanced against one another in such a way as to look like they could all fall down in a strong wind.

Challenge #04845-M096: Mineral Health

They found a dragon who made a deal with them. Scrub my scales and you can keep whatever loose scales fall off. The family was shocked at such a boon. Now, four generations later, they had a full service spa for dragons of ALL sizes. Loose scales scrubbed, claws polished and trimmed, wings massaged, oils rubbed in to help with loose skin, the works. Loose scales that fell? Those were kept, polished, and made into jewelry and sold in a gift shop for adventurers that came out this way. -- Anon Guest

The family Clayfield had been potters before their clay quarry turned up a veritable trove of hard quartz. Not the kind anyone would trade for gold, nor in any kind of amount that could be traded by the sackload. So they wound up with an old barrow full of the stuff as they turned baskets of clay into slip just to sift them from their work materials.

Then the Dragon lit in the nearby meadow.

Coral Clayfield, muddy with slip up to her elbows, ventured out to meet them. She was old and had little else to worry about, and thus showed no fear in approaching a creature who could have rained fire down on her. "We don't have gold, our roof is tile and the house is brick. The rocks we have are nowhere near precious, but if you want to take the barrow, we'd like it back empty."