{{Ome's post is exactly what I had in mind. A paragraph or two, an image if you have one, then put your character sheet as an attachment}}<br/><br/>{{I'm glad to see you all have your dice ready, but the bit with the listen check in the first post was just me playing around to show you the different brackets. It wasn't truly IC yet, except in that it resembles dreams that all of you have been having (except Grai, who doesn't dream)}}<br/><br/>For most of recorded history, the Orev Valley where your characters now live was a lawless wasteland. Monsters roamed freely, feeding on anything they could catch. Except for a handful of burrowing or flying species, there was no civilization. Even though the land was dripping with natural resources, people from other regions stayed far away if they could help it, or else they traveled in heavily armed groups and left as quickly as possible.<br/><br/>This changed a century ago, when a circle of powerful druids arrived and took up residence in the valley. Though they did not exterminate the native monsters outright (As druids, they were interested in preserving balance, and had no inherent bias towards either predator or prey) they did weave potent enchantments that ensured that the monster ecosystem would remain at a managable level. Almost immediately, prey settlers arrived to take advantage of the virgin resources, and civilization flourished. The druids dissapeared from the valley, but not before making a Pact with the settlers that they would live in peace with each other and in harmony with nature, and giving them magic talismans to maintain the enchantments that had been woven. And so the Orev Valley was a place of peace and prosperity for a hundred years.<br/><br/>But nothing good lasts forever...<br/><br/><br/><br/><span style="color: red">	Fenae cannot help but stare lustfully. Twenty-seven human bodies, the entire population of Alimtar which minutes ago were living individuals with hopes and dreams have now been reduced to so much meat. There is nothing more than a small distension below her master's rib cage to show that they ever existed. The dragon takes a moment to simply savor the sensation of being full, then spreads his wings and lowers himself onto four limbs, pushing his forelimbs ahead and stretching luxuriously. Seventeen tons of draconic muscle flex and glide beneath the ivory scales; the bulge dissapears momentarily as abdominal muscles tighten to steel-like hardness, causing the compressed organs within to complain with sloppy gurgling noises. The sorceress goes weak in the knees.<br/>	The dragon belches, then settles back on his haunches and speaks in rumbling baritone draconic. "The spoils?"<br/>	The succubus snaps back to reality. "Pretty wretched. Just a few bags of coin, mostly silver and copper--but the necklace from the statue in the shrine has the aura of the Elders in it, just as the human promised." the fox-devil grins proudly, "...oath-sworn to protect it's secret, but how quickly men forget such trifling details when offered the right...motivation." she runs a clawed hand down her side, tracing her sensuous curves. Her grin broadens into a sultry, fanged smile. "It's all ours now." She pats the bag of holding tied to her belt.<br/>	"Excellent" rumbles Gyriax, recalling the feeble old man who had gone down whole. "The vermin chose well to cooperate. For too long have we fasted while these insects grew fat, hiding behind the Elder's spells. The end of their age is nigh...and our Feast begins."<br/><br/>	Pendor knows he does not have much time left. The hot, foul-smelling soup that drenches him has already disintigrated his mundane clothing, and his enchanted cloak is in tatters. The darkness is so absolute that even if he could disentangle his hand from muck and hold it in front of his face, he would not see it. The incantation for his illumination spell comes to mind, but he decides not to even try to cast it--not being able to see is probably what has allowed him to avoid panic for this long. He recalls the incantations to a communication spell and tries to ignore his surroundings, as impossible as that is, just long enough to cast it. He has to get a warning out to the rest of the valley: one of the talisman has been taken, the Pact is in danger!<br/>	Suddenly, he feels a shift in inertia; the dragon is moving. The slimy surface in front of him becomes the slimy surface below him, and the pile of frothing, squirming meat which had been accumulating behind him now comes loose and slides onto his back. It is followed by a hot wave of gastric sime that rushes to fill the empty spaces. Something sharp jabs him in the back of the head--a shattered femur, or a rib cage? It's simply too much; he screams involuntarily, though he immediately regrets it as the scorching liquid fills his mouth. The taste is nauseating: a blend of raw (human!) meat and scorching bitterness, worse than the hardest dwarven whiskey. (he fails a DC 20 concentration check) The half-cast spell is lost, its energies wasted.<br/>	Naked, battered, and pinned in the hellish darkness under a mound of kicking survivors, fizzing skeletons, and bodies of every intermediate state, Pendor almost loses hope. The beast's massive heart is so close now he could reach out and touch it were the gut wall were not in the way. The pumping noise reverberates through his skull so loudly he can barely hear his own thoughts over it. His mind begins to collapse: there was no possible way to escape, he should just give up, surrender all of himself to the superior being. It was pointless to try to resist. Suddenly, the stomach compacts with bone-crunching force. The flaps of the cardiac sphincter part, and the bubble of foul but breathable air which had sustained the survivors hisses out into the esophagus.<br/>	This is it, he realizes with a surge of adrenaline. The breath in his lungs is the last one he will ever have. He shamefully allowed himself to break his oath and be seduced by that furry harlot, and now one of the sacred artifacts was in evil's possession. This is his one chance to redeem himself. Drawing on a reserve of strength he never knew he had, he pulls his face from the bubbling much and shouts the incantation. The energies of a spell connect, and he feels the telepathic conduit open. It was too late to save Alimtar, but the other Orev towns would not be taken by surprise...there was hope. He clings to this final thought as his eyes start to melt out of their sockets and death closes in on him. There was...hope.</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Cold and Hungry</span></span><br/><br/>The previous year had brought an unusually good harvest for the Orev Valley, your home. The granaries of every town were filled, and the people of the Pact Nation were in high spirits. For the harvest festival of the autumnal equinox, citizens of every size and shape gathered to meet, trade, and enjoy the fruits of peace.<br/>Then came the winter. It was early by several months, and wasted no time in coating everything with layer upon layer of snow, ice and sleet. Urban life was forced indoors, while in the countryside families survived on their harvests. The people of the valley remained in high spirits; the weather was still a novelty to them, the subject of jokes and games. But as the snow piled higher, transportation and even communication between states became difficult.<br/>One day, the mountain village of Alimtar stops sending messengers. Rumors spread of dragon sightings, but the neighboring states do not send anyone to investigate. After all, large wild predators haven't been seen in the valley in a hundred years!<br/>By the turn of the year, the people have had their fun and are ready for spring. But the winter does not stop. It only gets colder. The snow, already present in drifts large enough to bury houses in some places, continues to fall. The spring equinox comes and goes without a single bud forming on any branch.<br/>The real worry kicks in when the summer solstice comes and goes without a proper solar festival. In the history of the valley, the solar festival has always been the most important day of the year, a strong symbol of the pact nation’s prosperity. Even during war, soldiers on both sides would lay down their arms to observe it. But how can there be a solar festival if the sun had not been seen for months? The winter is no longer a joke. No sun means no agriculture, no agriculture means no food.<br/>Tensions begin to build between races, escalated by cabin fever and lack of food. When there is no food, herbivores go hungry. But carnivores—even civilized carnivores—are never truly without food. Inside each is a scale with hunger on one side and conscience on the other. Some have enough self-control to remember that their smaller neighbors were citizens, not food. Others do not.<br/>The Equinox comes. There is no harvest, no harvest festival. The scholars of the valley each have their own theory to explain the weather. A volcanic has erupted somewhere. A wind current has changed directions. The sun has suddenly cooled. But none of the scholars have any idea how to end the winter, or how to feed the population. Crime rates skyrocket. Pact forces are stretched thin in their efforts to feed the populace while at the same time keeping the populace from feeding on each other. In the grip of famine with no end in sight, civilization begins to break down; the laws of the food chain begin to reassert themselves.<br/>A rabbit from Jejuna, the southern neighbor of Alimtar, is discovered wandering down the mountain wearing nothing but rags, so shaken that he can barely speak. When he recovers he tells a harrowing tale of a city gone mad. A fight that had started in Jejuna’s slums among the lower class predators had quickly grown into a full blown riot. All prey became fair game—hearing this, the Pact-loyal listeners’ blood runs cold. The rabbit’s own warren had been broken into, his parents and siblings devoured while he escaped through pure luck. The last thing he saw before fleeing into the woods was the church and government buildings engulfed in flames.<br/>Winter Solstice. It has been now been snowing for a solid year. All contact is lost with Jejuna; those sent to investigate do not return. Just to the south of Jejuna, the city of Boryg, your current home, has had empty granaries for 4 months, and has very little livestock left. The surrounding wilderness has long since been stripped clean of everything edible, you’ve survived so far on small shipments of food sent from the port city of Gluca to the east. But they are not enough to feed everyone. Tensions have reached a breaking point and crime is rampant. To make matters worse, hundreds of refugees have migrated to Boryg from nearby rural areas hoping to find food, and now crowd the slums of the already unstable city.<br/><br/>First to fall was Alimtar, and then Jejuna …is Boryg next? Will famine and anarchy continue spreading south until there is no civilization left in the Orev Valley? In times of great crisis, when chaos and death seem to be closing in, those known as heroes emerge to maintain hope.<br/><br/>Eight heroes are present in Boryg. Grai the Quick and Takal Jimeronin, two masters of unarmed combat; Tyr the rabbitfolk and Geno the dragonfolk, apex predators of the top of the food chain; Tern, a stealthy feline swashbuckler; Mowler, a spirited tribal lizardfolk; Lilandra, a hundred-limbed native of the underdark, and Sashi, a feisty bunnyfolk warrior. Some were born in Boryg, others have migrated. Some are famous, others go unseen. Some are human, others are beyond human. All are made of stronger stuff than the common man; and are prepared to meet a dangerous world with force of their own.<br/><br/>But what sort of evil has emerged in the northern mountains? Will eight heroes be enough to make a difference? Will spring ever return to the Orev Valley?<br/><br/>{{That’s up to you}}