Session VIII - Scene III (of V)

Once the evening is over, Dion gathers the heroes together to split the treasure. Artemisia suggests they also finally split the treasure they had previously acquired, while Sharag mentions that her and Hector want only the part of the treasure from the liberation of Castellios. As Hector is off looking for the other potential surviving centaur, she will take care of his share of the treasure for him.

Artemisia uses her knowledge of money to divide everything out. Each member of the group receives 8 pieces of platinum, 4 of gold, 4 of silver, and 8 of copper. In addition, everyone but the centaurs also receives 112 pieces of silver from their previous treasury holdings.

Everyone wonders what to do with their treasure as hauling it around on adventures is cumbersome. Chrysostomos immediately has an idea for his – he wants a set of fine new robes befitting his higher priestly station. The priest heads over to a tailor and pays a 10 gold premium to ensure that the robes will be complete in only two days.

Meanwhile, everyone else elects to meet with the local moneylender. They find an old man still in his shop that evening. When they enter the shop, he greets them with a Levyriantian greeting and they can see he is neither Hellasian nor Xersian, but of the Levyriantian ethnicity.

The man is kind and gregarious, and introduces himself as Mordecai. Artemisia is first, asking to exchange her silver and gold coins for platinum. The old man mentions that platinum is hard to come by, and he will need to charge her more than his usual 10% fee. She agrees to the exchange and he produces the coins.

Sharag is next. Rather than exchanging her coins, she inquires about banking them. Mordecai proudly proclaims no one ever robs from him and that he charges a modest weekly fee of 1% to cover expenses. As Sharag contemplates, he offers her one month of storage for free, gently kidding that she is robbing him. She agrees and hands him over her money in exchange for a receipt.

Chrysostomos then wishes to exchange his silver and gold for platinum. The banker notes that platinum is getting rarer by the minute, and uses his abacus to do some calculations. In the end, he agrees to exchange a sizable amount of silver and gold for a couple of platinum pieces, but Chrysostomos can't help but notice he got much more of a transaction fee than Artemisia.

After Dion exchanges his silver for a couple of platinum and Gayloria trades hers for gold, they inquire about possibly selling the jewelry to him. Mordecai mentions he does often take jewelry as collateral for his loans and is thus familiar with it. After examining the necklace and earrings, he offers a price of 500 gold for both. The group declines, as they are certain the pieces are worth more.

Done with their dealings with the sly old man, Dion suggests he thirsts for wine and beckons the others to join him in revelry at the local inn. When they arrive, he has the bartender provide two bottles of wine and move a table and benches outside for them so that Sharag can be comfortable.

As they drink, Gayloria asks Sharag about centaurs and what they do for entertainment. She mentions athletic contests involving weapons, such as spear hurling, as centaurs like their entertainment to double as training for combat. Gayloria notes that combat is the ultimate game, which upsets the centaur as she feels the fighter is being too blasé about something that resulted in the death of her tribe.

Dion tries to change the subject by bringing up the beast in the hills. He wants to go hunt it down as soon as possible. The others agree it should be their next task, and that they should head off in search of the beast in the morning.

Session VIII - Scene IV (of V)

The next morning, everyone meets together to head out to hunt the beast. Dion notes that Gayloria and Chrysostomos, in their heavy armor, move too slowly to cover a long distance of ground in a day. To be effective, they will need mounts.

Marching up to the fortress, the heroes find Lochagos Artemisios greeting them. When they ask about borrowing horses, the soldier tells them they have very few left after the battle and most are in use by scouts in the hills. He can offer them two horses, but Dion declines the offer. The mighty barbarian knows the horses will be at risk and does not want them killed by the beast.

Instead, the group has Artemisios get them four mules to ride. They then speak to the farmers bringing in goods to town and discover the beast has been mostly attacking in the areas northeast of Castellios.

The next several hours are spent with the heroes riding their mules out to the furthest farm in the area to the northeast. The farmer there is glad to see them wanting to help. He explains the beast attacks in the middle of the night, usually in different directions and attacks different livestock. One farm nearby even had a child attacked.

Chrysostomos suggests luring the beast into a trap. The heroes buy a pair of chickens from the farmer, Dion paying the man far more than he asks. They leave the mules at the farm and head out a half mile away.

Once they reach a spot with a tree and decent visibility, they kill one of the chickens, smearing the blood around. The second chicken is tied up as bait. They hope the blood smell from the chicken will lure the beast in.

Session VIII - Scene V (of V)

Night falls over the hills. Dion curses the partially cloudy, half-moon night as a bad omen. He uses mud from the ground as camouflage. In the opposite direction, Sharag waits with her bow. In the middle is a tree with a chicken tied to it. Gayloria lies in wait under the tree while Chrysostomos and Artemisia hide up top in the branches.

Hours pass in the darkness. Something is bothering Sharag in the back of her mind, but she can't quite place what is upsetting her. She starts to pace around, hoping to draw the creature out.

Dion wonders what is the matter. She notes that something doesn't feel right. He tenses up, ready for battle. But Sharag notes it is more a matter of her feeling she has forgotten something...

Just then, Dion hears noise off in the distance, coming from the direction of the farm. Sharag then realizes what has been bothering her – in the stories she heard of the beast, it was intelligent. Everyone quickly realizes the beast has tricked them instead.

The heroes begin running back to the farm. Far faster than the humans, Sharag arrives there first. It still takes her quite some time to reach it; and by then, it is all over. The farmer and his family are all dead, their carcasses strewn about the ground. Likewise the mules and most of the livestock save a couple of chickens.

Not wanting to wait for the others to catch up, she looks around and follows the blood smeared tracks of the beast. She carefully places an arrow pointing in the direction she is planning to take and begins running after the beast, arrow at the ready.

As she runs along, she uses a stick to carefully leave a track for the others to follow. Several minutes later, Dion and Artemisia reach the farm and discover the abattoir it has become. They decide to follow after Sharag rather than wait for Chrysostomos and Gayloria, who are a great deal slower.

Meanwhile, Sharag notices the beast's tracks suddenly take a sharp turn. Realizing she is in danger, she immediately moves to turn around and head back. A growl sounds out as the beast emerges from hiding, ready to pounce on her.

She runs at full speed while firing her bow at the beast behind her. He shots go wild and the beast is able to keep up. One of its legs hits hers, causing her to momentarily stumble. It then tries to move in with a bite but misses.

Sharag fires an arrow into the beast. She resumes running and fires another that strikes home. As the beast charges after her, she hits it with a third. But the beast's great jaws find her, and tear viciously into her leg.

Just as it is about to finish her off, Dion and Artemisia get within striking distance. Artemisia blasts the creature with a magic missile while Dion cuts into it with his mighty sword. As it strikes, he gets a general idea of how enchanted the sword is.

The beast bites Dion in return, but Artemisia fires an arrow straight into its head in response. The creature collapses, dead.

Fifteen minutes after the battle is over, Chrysostomos and Gayloria finally arrive. The cleric heals Sharag's wounds using a prayer to the gods, and they fashion a way to haul the beast back to the farm.

Once back at the farm, the heroes dig a grave for the remains of the farmer and his family then burn the remains of the mules and livestock.

Gayloria wants to keep the beast as a trophy, and the heroes agree they should bring the head back. They spend the night sleeping at the farm then spend the next day walking back to Castellios.

Session VIII - Translation Notes by Prof. Barker

Over the years, the hunt for the beast of Castellios is often cited as something of a cautionary tale. While the heroes do ultimately kill it, it is clearly something of a pyrrhic victory. I've always felt the point is to keep the heroes grounded in humanity; presenting them as making mistakes and causing collateral damage in the same way that often happens in real life.

As I've noted before, some of these stories are often abbreviated or told out of order. Some translations put this chapter before the siege of the city (cutting out the feast) while others left it after the siege but removed the feast. However, I felt the character interaction added an important dimension to the story; it is important we understand these myths are not intended to be just a few action pieces connected together; rather, they are the stories of the heroes' lives and travels that happen to contain some stories of action and adventure.

In the past, the character of Mordecai has been presented in several different ways. In some translations, his ethnicity was not mentioned at all (particularly during the Goodhope translation) while others used a heavy stereotypical presentation that can be seen as offensive racist caricatures due to the values dissonance over time. I have tried to present him in a neutral light; he is clearly still a "stock character" but I have tried to play down any negative stereotypes associated with the character and focus on him as an individual merchant.

Careful readers will notice some transitions of the heroes at this point in the tales. Dion becomes more contemplative and less rash, likely due to his experiences. He also begins using a weapon (though he may have always used a weapon and this point in the stories is simply where the storytellers stopped bothering to describe him as always fighting bare-handed).

A much more minor note in that this is the last tale mentioning rutabagas. Whether this is because the Swabian version of the tales ended at this point or because the storytellers simply tired of rutabaga jokes is still a mystery.

Session VIII - Session Notes

This session was planned to provide some character interaction and start opening up the sandbox a bit. To that end, it went really well.

I had set up a table of rumors (true and false) ahead of time and the group recieved a certain number of random rumors depending on how long they interacted with people.

The rumors are there to set up potential plot hooks and get them interested in the island. I also shared with them a brief handout I had previously given to the centaur characters (since they lived on the island).

I had determined the treasure ahead of time by rolling for each Xersian and taking half of the sum as well as dividing out some of the merchant's valuables. I thought it made for an interesting idea to give them the choice of which magical item to go with, and the decision did take a fair amount of discussion during the session.

One question did come up about being to appraise the jewels (since the jeweler himself is in exile). For the moment, we decided none of the PCs had a background that made sense to be able to evaluate the jewels. I do now wish I would have included some kind of secondary skill system that would give the PCs some idea of what kind of non-adventuring tasks they could do. I have been working on one for my AD&D Revised rules and may introduce it (the general idea being that they get X points to buy background skills with; anyone with the background skill can perform an action related to that skill automatically - no rolling needed).

After that came dividing up the treasure between them. As is usual, several of the players like to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out exactly what they should do with it. The fact I'm using encumbrance rules has exascerbated the situation somewhat. I was really pleased with the Chrysostomos player using his money to purchase something relatively useless in-game but nontheless something his character would do.

The journey out to the farmlands was funny because here was another case where speed was a real issue. There was some complaining about it not being "realistic" that Gayloria and Chrysostomos can only travel 12 miles a day because of their heavy armor. My response was simply that armor isn't intended to be worn for long trips and the point is to suit up before the battle. Naturally, they are too paranoid to do that.

So, they wanted mounts. As usual, they expected to get free mounts. I thought it made sense that horses would be scarce but they would be OK to borrow some mules (and since they got them killed off, they had to pay back the town when they got back).

I'm torn over how the beast situation went down. On the one hand, I like that they had a plan. On the other hand, the plan wasn't exactly a great one even if the beast was mindless (they were all way too close to the bait) and since it was intelligent I figured it made sense for them to get screwed over. But, I do like that they planned and want them to continue to plan so I'll have to be careful the next time they have one.

I'll just note again how encumbrance made a huge difference in the way things went down. I never used to bother with encumbrance, believing it was an unnecessary complication. And yet, it really gives a good way to give a downside to wearing heavy armor so I'm enjoying using it this time.

Session IX - Cast of Characters

Dion, the crude barbarian
Chrysostomos, the stoic cleric
Artemisia, the magic-user and scholar
Gayloria, the sapphic fighter
Sharag, the centaur archeress
Hector, the centaur marauder

And introducing...

Duanos, the centaur tactician

From the Epic Poem, as translated by Prof. Arty Barker, Ph.D.

Session IX - Scene I (of VI)

With the foul leucrotta dead, the heroes spend a day resting back in Castellios while planning their next move. Rumors continue to spread throughout the city, with tales of lost messengers to the city of Asylopolis who never returned and are feared victims of the Xersians, to tales of the Xersians heading into the swamplands to ally with the reptilians.

The next day, Hector finally returns from his sojourn into the Beastland Hills. With him is a grizzled old centaur who announces his name as Duanos. Having heard nothing more than a brief mention of this centaur's existence before, the group nonetheless is unfazed by his sudden appearance and barely takes notice enough to acknowledge him (causing Duanos a fair bit of confusion).

Instead, the heroes are more concerned with their next move. Hector wishes to follow a lead that will get the group more treasure, but Duanos makes it clear he believes the pursuit of wealth is meaningless. He craves battle, and agrees with the suggestion of Chrysostomos to follow up on the lead with the Xersians allying with the brigands of the forest. Dion agrees as well, and the rest of the heroes defer to their plan.

The seven heroes head out of town, following the road. Duanos quickly establishes himself as the group's tactician, convincing Gayloria and Chrysostomos to stow their armor until battle so as to maximize movement.

The old centaur also takes the time to speak to the farmers living near the road on the outskirts of town. One tells of plague victims further off in the hills, spotted wandering around with dazed looks, rotting wounds, and stumbling movement. Dion and Chrysostomos become wary of these tales and believe the hills are inhabited with the chthonic entities of the ptomanathos – the walking dead. Still wary of getting too far from the others, Gayloria and Chrysostomos keep their armor off despite the farmer's story.

Session IX - Scene II (of VI)

Sometime after the heroes reach a distance of four leagues from Castellios, Hector spots the shambling men descending from the hills. The chthonic creatures catch sight of the group and begin to moan. Chrysostomos now how no doubt – these are definitely not plague victims, but the ptomanathos of Hades.

The creatures begin to close in, descending from the hills down on to the road where the heroes are. They number one and a dozen. Hector quickly dispatches the closest by hurling his spear into the vile creature's chest.

Gayloria decides the time has arrived to don her armor. As she does so, the nearby Duanos attempts to fire a bow at one of the lumbering brutes, but misses.

The mighty Dion holds himself back from charging in. He can tell his companions are concerned he will win all of the glory for himself. Because of this, he has recently adopted the use of a bow. But the weapon is unfamiliar to him, and his shot is no better than when he tries to throw rocks. In his fury, he breaks the bow over his knee.

The strange Artemisia conjures up an arrow of her own, using a spell. It rushes forward and slams into one of the ptomanathos, but is not powerful enough to take it down. Sharag tries to finish it off with an arrow of her own, but her shot goes wide.

Holding out his holy symbol, Chrysostomos calls for the chthons to retreat. Four of the creatures respond, moving away as fast as their emaciated bodies can take them.

Knowing he needs no bow, Dion hurls an arrow by hand. It lodges itself into the chest of a nearby creature. Hector fires his own shot into the monster, but still it stands. Duanos finishes it off with a third shot directly into its brain.

Gayloria, now armored, attempts to help by hurling one of her javelins, but the missile misses. Artemesia decides to hold back until the creatures are closer. Chrysostomos holds back as well, taking time to don his armor.

The vile ptomanathos move in to attack. Hector and Gayloria each fight off two of the creatures while Dion takes on three. One of them slams the barbarian with a powerful hit, nearly knocking him over. The creatures continue their assault, unable to land a blow on Hector or Gayloria but further injuring Dion.

Dion responds by drawing his sword and chopping off the head of one of his attackers. Hector smashes in the skull of another with a powerful kick, as does Duanos.

Gayloria tries to stab at one of the creatures attacking her, but is unable to land the blow. Artemesia moves in to assist, striking it with her staff. Sharag tries to finish off the chthon with a kick, but misses.

Chrysostomos moves over to the ptomanathos attacking Hector, striking down one with his mace. The other creature responds by striking the centaur.

Dion fights back the creatures attacking him. After dodging a blow, he stabs out with his sword but is unable to down the monster.

Hector rears up and crushes another skull with his hooves as Gayloria spears another through the head. Sharag and Chrysostomos are equally effective with their hooves and mace, respectively, dispatching the last of the creatures.

Session IX - Scene III (of VI)

Looking around the battlefield, the heroes manage to salvage a single arrow. Hector is also able to recover his spear and Gayloria her javelin.

The bodies appear to be Hellasian militia of some type, clearly cursed by the gods for some reason unknown to the heroes. Duanos is disappointed to find nothing of use or value on the bodies themselves.

Chrysostomos says a prayer to the gods for the dead and uses his new magical powers to heal Dion's wounds. After taking a few moments to rest, the group heads back out.

No more plague victims are sighted before the heroes reach the point where they must leave the road where it turns north. They decide to head into the light wooded hills to the southeast to start looking for the rumored forest brigands.

Gayloria laments the lack of a good, accurate map of the area but Dion only laughs at what civilized people consider essential. He proclaims that as a barbarian, he would never have a use for a map.

Duanos is disappointed as well, but for the lack of easily-identifiable paths in the area rather than a map. Regardless, he and Dion decide the best course of action is to move a small distance into the woods before making camp.

As night falls, a proper spot is chosen. Duanos describes his plan to the others – creating a visible fake camp to lure out the brigands. He goes to work setting up the bedrolls and campfire for his subterfuge.

Dion moves a distance away to hide behind a tree as darkness falls. He is dismayed to find the others insist on staying near him instead of taking their own positions in a circle around the camp. And yet, he knows they do so because they are afraid of the brigands and need him to protect them.

Session IX - Scene IV (of VI)

In the darkness of night, Dion can hear their plan is working. The sound of many hooves approaching fills the air and the heroes ready themselves.

Nine horses and their riders emerge from the darkness. The men quickly charge in and stab at the bedrolls with their spears. When one utters his remark of surprise that he is stabbing nothing but padding, Dion calls out to attack.

The barbarian himself hurls an arrow through the throat of the surprised attacker. Hector and Sharag find their marks as well, quickly downing two others before the brigands realize what is happening.

Chrysostomos and Artemisia decide to hold back as they are more adept at melee combat. Gayloria attempts to hurl a spear, but misses. She is relieved to also miss the campfire.

Thinking quickly, Duanos quickly rushes in and grabs the reins from one of the loose horses. A brigand approaches to stab him but is taken down by another of Dion's arrows.

Hector downs another brigand himself. Sharag hits a third with her bow, but in the shoulder. Gayloria attempts to assist with a javelin but misses yet again.

Faced with such powerful enemies, the brigands retreat. Two of them try to stab at Duanos as he grabs a second horse, but he fights them off and even manages to grab a third horse. The other two loose horses rush off into the darkness while the surviving four brigands head in another direction.

Duanos instructs the others to put out the fire while he checks over the horses. They appear to be in decent shape, likely stolen from travelers at some point. He then has the group salvage what they can (a few spears and copper pieces from the brigand's bodies) and they move some distance away until they can find a safe location for the night.

Session IX - Scene V (of VI)

The next morning, Duanos has the group return to the battle location and dispose of the brigand's bodies. He also wants to find the horses that ran off, as the group could move much faster if they had four of them instead of three.

Dion attempts to follow the tracks of the spooked horses, but loses the trace of them in the hills. They spend a couple of hours attempting to pick the trail back up, but have no luck.

Duanos suggests the group abandon the attempt and resume heading east into the forest. They slowly move through the forested hills and eventually come upon a large stream with an old wooden bridge. Dion notes it doesn't appear to have been used in some time.

The grizzled old centaur finds the bridge suspicious, as there is no trail around. He carefully looks up and down the stream bank to make sure there is no ambush.

Once he feels the area is safe, Hector travels across the bridge. On the other side, he spots the remains of an old trail, now badly overgrown and barely visible.

The heroes decide to follow the old path to see where it leads. Along the way, they spot an old wheel rotting in the foliage by the side of the trail. Duanos advises against getting a closer look.

Eventually the path leads to an old shack. The shack is badly overgrown and the wood is weakening, causing the building to lean. Moss grows along the side and roof.

Gayloria and Dion decide to investigate the shack. Dion circumnavigates the building, finding only a single door and a chimney. He checks the chimney stones and confirms they are cold to the touch. He tries to peek through one of the windows, but the shutters are stuck in place by the overgrown bushes.

Meanwhile, Gayloria puts her shoulder into it and finally forces the old door open. Inside is a simple, one-room shack with a dirt floor. The remains of a table and chair sit in one corner as well as the rotting remains of an old burlap sack that appeared to once contain food.

Dion heads inside as well, carefully checking the floor for trap doors buried beneath the earth. He finds none, but does notice a suspiciously shiny, if tarnished, sling bullet. Picking it up, he sees that it is made from silver.

He shows the others, but as no one uses a sling it is nothing more than a curiosity and he pockets it. As they get ready to leave, he notices the back of the door has a large, long set of claw marks on it. It seems to be an ominous warning, but no one is sure of what.

Session IX - Scene VI (of VI)

The heroes do not tally at the shack and resume their travels. Hector gets uncomfortable once or twice as they move along, but never spots anything.

Fearing an ambush, Dion directs the group to avoid heading further into the forest and instead skirt around the heavy forest areas by heading to the northeast.

Eventually, the sun begins to set and the group looks for a place to camp. Duanos wants a very particular type of defendable location with hills to either side for protection.

As they look around to find such a spot, Hector notices a pair of mountain lions off in the nearby hills. Everyone stops to watch, seeing the mountain lions slowly circling the group and moving in closer.

Dion knows the beasts mean to attack. He has everyone ready their bows and fire. Dion and Hector score hits while Sharag and Duanos miss.

But these are no ordinary pair of cougars. The beasts take their injuries in stride, as if the arrows did not injure them at all.

Then, as they pounce, they turn into half-cougar, half-humanoid creatures. And the heroes realize they face lycanthropes.

Sharag is savagely clawed by one of the beasts, as is Dion. Dion strikes back with his magic sword, assisted by Artemesia. Both attacks injure the creature, but are not enough to stop it.

Meanwhile, Hector and Sharag learn their kicks will not injure the were-beasts. Nor does Chrysostomos' mace or Duanos' axe. Seeing the futility of attacking with normal weapons, Gayloria takes out her shield and locks it against Chrysostomos to form a protective phalanx.

The beast attacking Sharag rips into her with both claws, sending her to the ground in a pool of blood. Dion strikes out at the were-cat attacking him with his sword, driving it back enough to give Artemisia room to administer a healing potion to the comatose centaur.

Hector fights defensively, trying to hold off the beast with his spear, but it isn't very effective. From the ground, Sharag draws out one of the magical arrows from her quiver and drives it into the beast. The arrow breaks, but the beast still howls in pair.

Chrysostomos and Gayloria move their phalanx over to protect Sharag. The cleric uses a healing spell to allow the centaur to recover more.

Across the way, Dion suffers a set of terrible claw attacks as he drives his sword into the were-puma's chest, killing it. The other beast satisfies itself by slashing into Hector.

Duanos tries to attack the beast by kicking the lodged arrowhead in further. He misses but Hector succeeds. As the beast roars, Sharag stabs it with a second arrow like a dagger. This time, the arrow holds.

While Gayloria and Chrysostomos hold their phalanx, Duanos attempts to knock the creature down but fails. It strikes back at Sharag, but misses.

With the beast's attention turned, Dion moves in from behind and strikes with his sword. Sharag attempts to stab again with the arrow but misses and falls, breaking the arrow. Duanos attempts to grab the arrowhead to attack the beast, but the creature knocks it out of his hand and it flies off into the foliage.

Just then, the mighty Dion gives out a barbarian roar and chops the were-cougar's head off.

With the two beasts dead, their bodies turn back into that of a human male and female. The badly wounded heroes leave the bodies to rot and go off in search of a place to rest.

Session IX - Translation Notes by Prof. Barker

This chapter of the story finally brings together a larger group of heroes who head out in search of the unknown much in the vein of many stories of mythology and fantasy.

The character of Duanos has always been a controversial one. First, there is the name; like Gaylord, the name of Duanos is not of Hellasian origin. As near as I've been able to research, it appears to be a Hellasianified version of the Irish name Duane. Also like Gaylord, this was probably a change that occurred during the Hundred Years War era when some names in famous tales were changed to honor specific individuals of the time (likely named Dwyane or Devine at the time).

Apart from the name there is the quick manner of Duanos' introduction. Some editions introduce the character far earlier, back with the other centaurs. Others leave him out all together. I have tried to keep him in the story at the point it made the most sense (for there are few versions of the tale where Hector fights the leucrotta), but I admit it may have been intended for him to appear earlier in the tale (particularly since it does not make much sense why the heroes did not talk with him more when he appeared if they had not yet met him).

Another disputed section of this tale concerns the "ptomanathos", which crudely translates from ancient Hellasian to "the walking dead" (though some claim the word itself is badly translated and nothing more than pidgin gibberish). Clearly these creatures are intended to be zombies, but the myth of zombies is not typically found in Hellasian mythology. There was an expanded version of the tale that explained the creatures were Hellasian soldiers who cowardly retreated from battle when the Xersians invaded and were thus cursed by the gods. However, the tale was clearly added later as an expansionary tale and not part of the original myths so I have avoided including it here.

Similarly, I'm never quite sure what to call the creatures the group encounters in the forest. Because of the generality of ancient Hellasian, it is unclear exactly what type of creature the heroes encountered. It is clearly a were-beast of some type of large cat, but the exact species is questionable.

Early on, it was generally assumed the creatures were members of the now-extinct Caspian Tiger (Panthera Tigris Virgata) subspecies, because the beast was found in the upper areas of the Xersian Empire. However, the warmer Mediterranean climate of the island would seem to make this unlikely. Others argue it would make more sense to be an Asiatic Lion (Panthera Leo Persica) which were common in that area of the Caucus, or perhaps more likely the European Lion (Panthera Leo Europaea) which was found in the lands of the Hellasians themselves, as well as the Balyriian Tribes of the Balkans.

However, the heroes seem to be not quite sure what the creature is from the description. And the way the tales describe it, the creatures were not nearly as large or powerful as a full tiger or lion would be. As a compromise, I have decided to use the Cousins' method of Americanizing it to be a cougar (Puma Concolor), also known as a puma, mountain lion, or mountain cat. While not remotely scientifically correct (as the species is only found in the New World), I feel it gives the reader a better sense of what is going on in the story. I am certain I will be judged less than charitably for this by future historians, but I remain resolute in the matter.

I should also note that we are only vaguely aware of the back story for the lycanthropes. Some say it involved a cursed forester and his wife whom he later attacked and infected. Others have suggested that a forester was attacked by a random woman (in a sort of succubus role) wandering in the forest that he tried to help. Versions of the story that have the group stumble on the creature's cave filled with treasure offers little clarification.

Because of this, some have left the story out of their translations, but I felt it was important to include it not only because it makes for an interesting battle, but also because of the later story arc with the now-infected heroes and how they try to remove their curse.

Session IX - Session Notes

This session was an old-fashioned hex crawl. I had previously designed a hex map of the island with a few planned encounters (such as the actual location of the brigand camp). I built my map using the freeware version of Hexcrawler, which I find to be a tool that is both simple and versatile enough for my needs (I've seen fancier software out there, but that cost money and are harder to use IMO).

The group can have a real on-again, off-again desire to get into detailed role-playing. Sometimes they really get into small details and discussions, other times they get very "complete the mission!" focused. This session was more mission focused.

I was disappointed no one felt the need to interact much with Duanos when he arrived. The player is always a favorite of mine (though a bit lazy at times with characterization; his name comes from me jokingly Greek-ifying his real name).

Part of the problem was the Artemisia player and her lack of other social outlets that lead to her on-again, off-again personal issues infecting the game. On the one hand, I'm genuinely sorry she has personal issues and no better outlet to deal with them. On the other, she can be quite attention-seeking and narcisistic about it and it can be quite disruptive to the game; also, not all of us are close friends with her so it can be awkward for several of us.

Still, the session overall was pretty fun, if a bit challenging at times because of differing expectations. I'm not sure why, but the Dion and Duanos players seem to think getting lost in the wilderness is quite difficult and there should be trails everywhere. I think they may be confusing the highly-used wilderness hunting lands of modern day with the way relatively unexplored wilderness works.

The zombie encounter (or ptomanathos, as my hideous pseudo-Greek pidgin calls them) was a random encounter I rolled. Since they were talking to farmers along the way, it gave me a chance to introduce the possibility early on which I liked.

The brigand encounter wasn't planned, but since they went to the effort of setting up another trap (and this one was decent enough) I figured I'd let it work. It would make sense, after all, for the brigands to attack anyone spotted camping in the woods. But next time they'll find out the other brigands are a bit tougher and won't make the same mistake twice.

The were-creatures were another encounter. By the dice, it was rolled as a were-tiger encounter but I adjusted it slightly to make it less deadly. I didn't introduce the creature right away. Instead, I had the PCs make a couple of rolls to detect them following the party (they kept failing) and had them spot the shack with some clues. Sadly, the party didn't fully interpret the clues correctly, largely because of a stupid side argument between two players over whether wolves have four or five claws (once again, the Dion player taking a side comment I made to add color to be some kind of clue).

Session X - Cast of Characters

Dion, the crude barbarian
Chrysostomos, the stoic cleric
Artemisia, the magic-user and scholar
Gayloria, the sapphic fighter
Sharag, the centaur archeress
Hector, the centaur marauder
Duanos, the centaur tactician
 
And introducing...
 
Argus, the cunning thief