To look by daylight upon the town of Cold Rock--to see its streets, shops, buildings, and farms, one would not think anything amiss.  The population is a little shy of a thousand souls, almost all human with a little elven mixed in around the edges, here and there.  The fields are fertile.  The nearby river produces livelihood for four score of fishermen.  Two mines produce iron ore and a little gold.<br/><br/>But as the afternoon fades toward evening, as the shadows grow long, one sees a different side of Cold Rock.  People go indoors.  Doors and gates are bolted shut.  Cattle are brought into barns.  As the sun sets, the fear begins.  Fear of things that move in the night.  For the people of Cold Rock no longer own the night.  The days when the Risling Empire's legions held back the beasts is over, the Empire folded up, gone back across the mountains.  The town is on its own.  And on its own, it cannot stand against the thousands of orcs, gnolls, and other even fouler things that called the forest home before the Empire came, and which now dare to call it home again.  Especially when the night falls, and they are unopposed.<br/><br/>About ten years ago, the conquest of Cold Rock began.  A farmstead was raided and burned.  Then another.  In each case, the men were put to the sword, the women abducted.  The town was powerless to stop the attacks.  The Empire it had relied on for protection was gone, faltering under its own weight, with its own battles to fight.  So the town had to find its own answer.  And it did...<br/><br/>One night, a band of orcs and gnolls went to destroy a third farm.  It was near the two that had been burned two nights before.  The farmers had seen the torches of the raiders from a distance, and had prepared.  When the party got to the field of the farmer, they found a cow, two pigs...and the farmer's wife, wearing only a cloak.  As the five orcs approached, weapons drawn, the woman dropped the cloak, revealing herself.  She was not an overly attractive woman, not the type who would turn heads or draw whistles, but she was not old or ugly either.  "Please," she said, "spare our farm.  You can take these animals...and..."  A tear came to her eye.  "You can take me for the night.  Okay?"<br/><br/>The leader stepped forward, a fearsome-looking orc a foot and a half taller than her.  His leather armor bore sigils indicating he was a captain.  He smiled a toothy grin.  "What is to stop us...from taking you and burning your farm, human," he half-said, half-snarled.<br/><br/>She looked down at the ground for a moment, then at him.  "Nothing," she said, sighing, shivering a little.  "We are but human farmers, you are orc warriors.  You can do anything you want to me.  To us.  But if you let me return to help run the farm...and spare it...then we can breed more animals, grow more food.  And...and...when your...youngling is born," she patted her stomach with a blank look on her face, "I will bring it to the edge of the farm after dark, so you can raise it."  She looked the leader in the eye.<br/><br/>"You have courage, human.  Though your kind are weak."  He laughed.  "I think I will breed you myself.  Every month on the full moon, you will come out when the sun goes down.  Agreed?"<br/><br/>The woman could only nod.  And, though her moans and cries filled the night air, smoke from a burning farm did not.  As daylight gathered in the east, the orcs carried her, too weary to walk, and dropped her at the front of the homestead, laughing.  Her daughter came to the door, pulled her inside, tending to her.  She was bruised some, but not seriously hurt.  The family did not speak of it, though when the full moon came in two weeks, she went outside at sundown, going to the same place...where the orc leader and three warriors waited.  "I did not think you would come," he said, chuckling, even as he disrobed...<br/><br/>And she came during the next full moon.  Her monthly cycle had stopped.  Each time, her belly grew a little larger, until by the eighth month after that first night, it was large indeed.  Her breasts were swollen.  When she went for the orc leader, he patted her stomach.  "You are too far along," he said.  "Tonight, bring me your eldest daughter."<br/><br/>The woman could only nod meekly.  She waddled back to the farmstead, shaking her eldest, a young woman of nineteen years, awake.  "You are needed," she said to her daughter.  The daughter wordlessly got up, putting on her cloak.  "You must be brave," her mother said.  Her eyes went down to her protruding belly.  So did her daughter's eyes...before the young lady looked down at herself.  Then, the daughter went out into the night...<br/><br/>The next day, the daughter came back.  Like her mother, she, too, had been released.  And about the time the mother gave birth to an orcling, her daughter missed her monthly cycle, too.<br/><br/>Over the next couple years, burnings of farms and other attacks on the town became less common.  The farmers on that homestead had not been the only ones to arrive at that...accomodation.  Word had gotten out...at first the farm family found themselves pariahs, but others would come to them, confessing they, too, had given the orcs, gnolls, and ogres "tribute" as well.  And there were other incidents.  One night, a boisterous group of fifteen orcs descended on the town tavern, buying drinks and taking advantage of both barmaids and the innkeeper's wife and daughter.<br/><br/>Cold Rock remained a town...but now the birthrate has gone down...about a third of all births in the town are nonhumans born to human women, over a hundred since the first farmstead offered up its matriarch.  Most of the babies are given to the horde living throughout the forest.  In a couple years, the first ones will come of age.  Fewer human children than one might expect play in the yards and streets of the town.<br/><br/>Now, for the mechanics.  This is freeform.  You can play monsters or townspeople.  If you want to turn it into a more classical RPG adventure, we can use D&D 2.0 rules for those threads.  You can RP with other players, or me, or both.  It's all up to you.  Note that characters will be the equivalent of third-level AD&D characters...no super powers, changelings, half-dragons, vampires, etc.<br/><br/>If you're interested, reply here.