Quarok DM Fri Feb 10, 2012 10:02 pm
Kogan-
The patrons are still hesitant to speak up since all the uproar that has happened, but eventually an elderly fellow with a salt and pepper beard stands up slowly as though all the ages of the world were weighing on him and he beckons you over. He slumps back down and begins telling you more than you may have expected to hear.
"This sort of thing has been happening more and more often these days. It's always under the guise of being for our own protection, but it is getting harder and harder to make a living with all the new guidelines that are being imposed on us. That bully who was talking to the little halfling is Cleric Augustine, and he is the acting magistrate of this town and has put it in a sort of state of martial law since his arrival. Nothing extreme mind you, just little things like imposing a curfew due to supposed increasing goblin attacks. Now I ain't sayin' that I have love of goblins, but this far north they are a way of life and they been here longer than people and they ain't been any more of a nuisance now than they were twenty years ago. Cleric Augustine isn't even the real problem in my opinion, it's the man who appointed him. Governor Odious of Cragstone. He's a rising political player, trying to make a name for himself in the northern capital, while using his land owning status to appoint his pawns to their own seats of power under his control."
He pauses and takes a deep breath.
"It feels really good to get this all out in the open. I know I can trust you because both Governor Odious and Cleric Augustine have a powerful hatred of you orcs. I ain't got nothin' against you, in fact, many years ago I was in charge of a feeding and assisting a well known orc gladiator named Brucinda deep in the A'mun desert. We became friends as well as I can figure, though one day he up and left town and no one ever heard from him again. A real shame really. He was quite talented."
He stares intently at you for a second.
"I don't know why I told you all this, and I don't expect you to do anything with it. I just needed to tell someone, and since you seemed to want to know a little about the political tide of Holtburg, I guess it all just came spilling out. My advice to you, orc friend, is to keep as low a profile as you can around Cleric Augustine and make some friends who might question if you were to go missing. People seem to go missing quite a bit since Governor Odious put that cleric in charge."
His eyes dart to the door.
"You had better get moving, it won't do either of us any good to be seen together here so close to curfew, and you might want to stay clear of the goblin ambush they have planned outside. Those guards tend to shoot at anything they see, goblin or not."
----------
Take 250xp