In wild places, the world grows thin. Gnawed, eroded by misty seepage and queer creatures; the annexing forces of an otherworldly ecosystem.

They are battlegrounds. Not literal, violent ones, unlike the Northern war against the Other, but battlegrounds nonetheless. Here, every acre of planted seed and whorly bough is land taken. Every axed thicket and tamed grove: A defender's victory.

The forces of the world are everyday folk, barely conscious of their contribution against invaders. † To them, to tame the wilds is mere necessity. Trees must be felled to make homes and fires. Ground must be broken and planted to feed families. Dark woods and misty moors must be hated, for they are full of monsters.

Wherever the Other shows its influence, spriggans are present. These furry laborers make an industry of promoting the wilds. They plant seeds, spread saplings, and nibble and prune their environments to optimal, fairy standards. They are integral to the spreading ecosystem of the Other.

A spriggan is like no natural inhabitant of the Coast. At a glance, their sharp faces may seem catlike, but are betrayed by other features. Elbowy limbs and humanlike hands sprout from the corners of grey-black, hunched, sacklike bodies. Dark blotches surround shiny black eyes. ††

It is for their tails that spriggans' are best known. Any hunter, woodsman, or wilderland cutter worth their salt will display a fluffy, black-and-grey-ringed spriggan tail upon their hat or belt.

Spriggans are not easy to catch, and they rarely venture from wild and dim cover in the day. In the night, they emerge, bearing saplings and seeds††† in their deft paws, to plant and make mischief.

After planting their cargo, a spriggan will go about sabotaging any nearby Littoran property they can get at. Gates will be opened, feed will be gobbled, and worrying things will be drawn on the faces of sleeping children. ‡ Dustbins will be upended, chimneys will be filled with chaff, and gourd plants will be replaced with mandrakes. Though a single night of sabotage shan't cause overt harm, rather than annoyance, months-long torment by multiple spriggans is sufficient to degrade the sanity and wellbeing of any wilderness town. Thus, spriggans are pursued gladly by hunters and their hounds.

If ever a shot or captured spriggan is found to be clad in woven reeds and grass pouches, folk begin to worry. They know such a spriggan can only have been dressed and accoutered by ælves. The presence of greater fairies can only bring greater irritation and doom upon a stead. ‡‡ 

From where the spriggans come, all know. They crawl from the hollows of old trees, from the green and drippy passages in low hills. These are passages to the land of mist. Wild places, where the worn world grows thin, and the victorious otherworld creeps without.

The spriggans are here. They've eaten the barley and graffitied the baby. 

†† Trolls, ælves, and all know creatures of the Other possess black eyes devoid of separate pupils and whites. These eyes match the creatures' inky blood.  

††† Seeds carried by spriggans are often of an otherworldly variety. To catch one with cargo is to score both a tail and a load of seeds valuable to stranger connoisseurs of flora.

‡‡ Certain Firlish traditions, those based on the appeasement of ælves, will take such a spriggan as a sign to put out an extra saucer of milk, for there's a new breed of fairy in town.

Grubby fingers pressed to the windowpane, followed by a snub nose. Stoat marveled at the darkening mountain view, all sharpened peaks and black-green valleys. 

"Stoat" decried a high voice from the woman's shoulder. A mouse perched there, clung to oddly-white locks. "Get your filthy mitts off the glass. You're leaving marks the size of oranges."

Stoat rolled her eyes, pulled away from the floor-length glass. "Is this what I get for giving your little pork-arse*** a ride, eh?" she said. The mouse harrumphed. "She's a menace, Lilé."

"Let a lass marvel, Nils" said Lilé, near the hearth. She lay upon a chaise lounge, stretched her gangly, green silk-wrapped limbs. She fixed Stoat with amused, bloodshot eyes nestled in cloth.

"Quite a benefit, this place"said Stoat. "I've rare seen such glass, outside of the Isles." She looked about, took in the peaked pine ceiling, the velvet furnishings, the beds and their pressed sheets. "Nor such finery. And so high up. How do you think they lifted it all up to the shallot?"

"Chalet" corrected Lilé. "Belviriners† are quite used to building in the mountains, mon amour."

"Really, Stoat" said the mouse, wriggling his nose. "For a would-be sophisticate, your class falls quite short, outside of Firlund."

Stoat patted the mouse. He cringed. "Now, now, Nils. I've got no want to be a snob. I just like snobby things."

Nils huffed pitchily. "That might explain why you're wearing bloody leathers in a Teljor resort." 

By the fire, Lilé rolled her eyes. "Lads, let's not squabble now" she mumbled. †† They ignored her.

"Mark of our trade, mate. Wear them with pride" said Stoat.

"'Mark of our trade'" scoffed the mouse. "The mark of our trade is a remarkably short life expectancy, Stoat."

"And a good deal of benefits, if you get good at it" said Stoat, gesturing about. 

"So, you're saying we're on a luxury holiday because we got good?" A wicked glitter entered Nils' red eyes. "Whereas Gar is dead because he didn't?" 

At this, Stoat's face fell. By the hearth, Lilé flinched. She watched the two uncertainty. 

"Come off it, Nils. You know I wouldn't mean that" said Stoat, softly. Nils hunched on her shoulder, quiet, furry face inscrutable. Breath flickered in his round body. His long whiskers twitched.

Eventually, he clapped a conciliatory paw on her other shoulder. "Of course not. Cruel of me. Nor would I." He gave a sigh. "We've all known the risks."

Stoat nodded, smiled thinly. "Aye."

Lilé rose, crossed to the pair. She placed a wrapped hand on Stoat's free shoulder. "Come" she said. "Let's forget for a while."

"Aye" said Stoat. "Let's just see what end of benefits we can find."

Standing

The above T&F table serves as the base of my own venture progression tables. Any changes at all are fully well acceptable, if the reader deems appropriate. I am loth to put too much of the banks' arcane bureaucracy down in print, anyway, lest it lose a believable aura of terrible complexity. I will likely fill out the benefits more, as I recall ideas.

When making decisions for bank rules, it is, I find (above all else and always) appropriate to make it all up (so long as it's consistent, later.)

* Folk from Lothrheim are apt to greet each other with variations of "top of the morn to you," instead of "good day." "Top of it," "top to you," or simply "top" are most common variants. One should traditionally respond with "and the rest of the day yourself," "the rest yourself," or "yourself."
** A raid is the largest, deadliest variety of venture administrated by banks. These are often multi-month delves into complexes of exceptional depth and horror.
*** A pork is a small, soft-bodied rodent, somewhat like a small mouse. To compare a mouse to a pork is highly insulting.

† Belvirine is a smallish, mountain country situated northeast of Maples. Its lodges and slopes are a popular aerial getaway for the rich.
†† While it is by no means universally true, mice are known for a sort of volatile anxiety. In some,
this manifests as defensive argumentativeness.
††† In order to prevent folk from merely wandering off with the gold inside a tomb or ruin, banks
buy (or claim to have bought) the land where it resides.

‡ Given that few cutters live long enough to see greater rewards, banks suffer little expense of matter when treating those who do. The prospect of generous benefits is also useful in the recruitment of new cutters.
‡‡ Other firms will be detailed in later writing. T&F's example is sufficient to inspire the others, in
any case.
‡‡‡ This is, cleverly, precisely the cost of a venturing license.

§ Coastal banks usually charge cutters interest at a monthly rate.
§§ Cuts vary depending on a given venture. Figures given with standing raises are mere estimates. Nevertheless, the increase is felt. Cuts usually increase commensurately with fatalities. A .2% share becomes much more appealing after a few fellows have died. Despite this, a venture which only yields a few crowns or so remains disappointing for cutters and bank.
§§§ Banks are eager to show off their most successful cutters to partners. Attempts to clean up a hard-worn cutter for a formal event can often be half-successful. Attempts to conceal the accompanying laudanum addiction, less so.

Officially, there is no Inquisition. 

Not since Parousia,† some years ago, when it was officially dissolved in celebration of the Lord's return to her people. That the disbanding of a group supposedly in service to the people should be deemed a celebratory gift says much of that group's reputation.

Firlund's Office of Secrets classifies the group as terrorists, militants fed by the shadowy depths of the Alagórian state. The State itself insists they are disbanded. The Church of Aveth mimics the State's sentiment, yet continues to laud the group's deadly achievements.

The people of Alagór are of divided mind concerning the Inquisition. To many, the public assassination and covert disappearance of apostates†† and heretics is a terrible fact of faith. To others, it is a cornerstone.

The hunting Inquisitor, of shining greatsword and flowing chiaroscuro robe, is a supremely evocative image. It is one from the formative lore of Aveth. While most call it Inquisitor, Executioner, Terrorist, the truly pious know it by another name: Angel.

Angels

Since its inception by the Church some centuries ago, the faithful Inquisition has made a mission to attain this holy authority. Since no angel yet walks the world, Inquisitors believe it falls to them to assume the holy aspect; becoming, momently, angelic executioners.

Assumption of the aspect is the Inquisition's most cherished ritual. It is a solemn arming ceremony. A worthy Inquisitor is first bathed in holy water, smudged with sacred vapors, then dressed in the livery of their task. This sacred armor, fixed with prayer slips sealed with wax, is then draped in the voluminous black and white of angels. ‡ A sacred blade is retrieved from its cloister, taken to hand. The Inquisitor, thus armed, is unleashed. In pursuit and execution of their target, they are as the angels. Few will recall the experience. ‡‡

These angelic assassins are widely known as Inquisitorial Executioners. Sightings of their holy violence‡‡‡ inform most folk's image of the Inquisition. Even in the faithless, they can instill an awful, stunned reverence. These killers are far from the Inquisition's only operatives, however. 

The appearance of an Inquisitorial Investigador inspires near the same holy dread as an angelic assassin. These sly and eloquent detectives perform the inquiry for which their group is named.

Before the group's political dissolution, an Inquisition Investigador would make no subtlety in their work. Often, they'd introduce themselves from the church pulpit, towering Executor in tow. Such an introduction would often yield fearful answers and finger-pointing, even before inquiry commenced.

Nowadays, investigations are more covert. The name of the Inquisition is no longer bandied about. It is used in a measured manor, if only to inform an appropriate level of fear. Fear is warranted, for, after an inquiry concludes, an Executioner's blade is never far behind.

Parousia

Since its official dissolution following the return of Aveth, the Inquisition has, rather than going to ground, merely become more vicious. While public executions have become more infrequent in the streets of Alagór, covert and broader Coastal operations have increased aggressively.

Nary a week passes without a brutal assassination claimed by the Inquisition. The targets are mainly extranational: A Firlish magician slain, her hands severed. §  An Emperoussin theologist, fed lye. A Belvirinian philanthropist, starved to death in his own locked cupboard.

Rumors say the Inquisition's recent aggression is a product of direct guidance by the returned Lord. Others rebuke this. They point out that the Lord has not descended from her mile-high minaret since her return. Instead, they say, these extranational brutalities exist to draw focus from a more subtle, more insidious plot within Alagór.

Rumors of such a plot are spoken only to trusted ears. They say the Inquisition has engendered a plot to remove Aveth from her minaret cloister. Not to depose her, but rather to free her; for they believe the Lord is a prisoner of her own people.  

To do so, the Inquisition will rely not on the brutality for which it is known, but the inquiring secrecy for which it is named.

Author's Note

"I'll write a short something on the Inquisition, maybe 1.5k words," said the author. Nary did he known the magnitude of this lie.

In my games, the Inquisition came about as a reaction to players desiring a "cleric" class. Since, it has been a formative faction. There was once a months-long affair devoted to serpents and strange Inquisitorial missions which culminated in Parousia. These days, I sometimes set up Dishonored-style assassination missions for a team of Inquisitor characters. Makes a weird campaign type nicely removed from venturing. Might make a related campaign for the Office of Secrets, too (maybe some spy-versus-spy affair in opposition to the Inquisition.)

* In her lifetime, genius inventor Adalace Guillotine created both the gunspring and the like-named guillotine, the machine which is today the Coast's chief deliverer of capital punishment.
** Frankincense, among its roles in Aveth mysticism, is thought to drive away ælves.
*** Certain folkloric tales describe the touch of an ælf as being ice cold. These are inaccurate. The touch of an ælf merely tingles, such as to induce "chills." Their black blood reacts with the iron of human flesh, even by limited exposure.

† Parousia is the Second Coming of Aveth. Aveth is the faith and Lord of most humans within Alagór, the Coast's Southernmost nation of great scale.
†† Fortunately for the faithless, it takes a large and politicized act of apostasy to attract the ire of the Inquisition. Many non-Avethans live in Alagór. Only those who would challenge others' faith make targets of themselves.

‡ Avethan lore holds that angels hid their wings within cloaks and robes of black and white.

§ Practical magicians typically house the bulk of their powers in the transplanted bones of their hands.  

In recent years, a peculiar ague has struck the Coast. Its symptoms appear in the young, the different, and the restless. It has them fleeing civilization en masse, tempted by some sweet possibility in the dreadful wilds. This possibility, while fatally illusive, is no illusion. The cause of this fever is entirely real: Ancient gold.

Any given countryside will host its share of ruins. These are small pickings. They have long ago been plucked clean or deemed unworthy of attention. 

A land of plenty is another matter. A wilderness rife with tombs and ancient complexes draws the attention of banks, who in turn lure settlers and veritable armies of cutters to delve the earth. Once gold begins to flow,††† rumors of profit draw a crowd. A nowhere settlement becomes a venturing town. A town becomes a destination. A venture rush begins. 

Draum

To many, the venture rush is synonymous with a particular frontier: The rolling wilderland of Draum. ‡ This vast and knobbly plain, spotted with odd copses, granite outcroppings, and black bogs, was once the heartland of an ancient race of sorcerers.

Draum is a land rich in ruin. Every square mile of mundane scrub holds antiquity in abundance. Any old hill may be a barrow. Any standing boulder a portal tomb. Any hollow oak a hidden climb, a  deep gate into passages unknown for ages.

Many a ruin is yet alive, despite the mortal ages. The sorcerers‡ who once ruled Draum, the ancient Idrans, were both awful and ingenious in their art. Kept functional by churning gut-engines and hundreds of generations of purpose-made beast-men, Idran complexes are still guarded and alive. 

These non-ruins, still stuffed with dead sorcerers' wealth, are as valuable as they are fortified. A veritable army of cutters is often required to breach and clear the larger complexes. ‡‡ Only by the quick and fatal employment turnover generated by these large-scale raids can banks accept the massive, daily influx of cutters to Draumic venturing towns.

Parnock

Author's Note

††† Blood will necessarily flow, as well. Venturing is a ludicrously dangerous mode of employ.

‡ Sorcery is an art chiefly concerned with the recombination of flesh. Different ages of sorcerers manifested the art in different forms. The sorcerers of old Draum were partial to organic engines and human-animal chimeras. These expressions of sorcery are especially hard-wearing, and many are yet active some two thousand years later.
‡‡ Such large-scale ventures are known as raids. They are, even for cutters, an especially fatal form of employ. Only the temptation of profit shares inflated by massive casualties can tempt a cutter to sign onto a raid.
‡‡‡ Notably, vastly more folk enter the place than leave. The employment found at Parnock is often of a terminal variety.

§ Patronizing such establishments is a major activity in a usual cutter's life. A craving for utmost luxury and fine service strikes hard after a bloody venture.
§§ It is necessary to burn the dead, to prevent plague. If Parnock is ever to die before the tombs run dry, it will be by plague outbreak due to mishandled corpses.

Far over town stood an austere, hilltop tower. Ivy and wasps' nests blotted the black eyes of its windows. Creepers cracked the greening brick, nearly covered the narrow door. Bats peeped and flittered about the craggy roof.

Three figures climbed the tree-spotted path which wound to that tower. One, trailing cigarette smoke, spoke. 

"Hork," she said, flourished a commanding palm. "Pass it, mate."

The bespectacled Hork tucked away a sweaty lock, jiggled a squat whiskey bottle. "S'pose." She passed it over.

"Horkheimer, you're putting that down like spice tonic"* said the third, a lank-haired boy swinging a half-brick in a sock. He grimaced. "I worked for those pence."

"Listen" said Hork." "If you can't call me Yselde, you certainly can't use my last name."

"What Hork is saying" said the first, wiping her mouth. "Is that she despises her family name."

Hork rolled her eyes. "Where'd you nick those pence, anyway, Jan?"

"Who says I nicked them?" said the boy.

"You nicked them" said a puff of smoke, handing away the bottle.

"So little trust, Dere" grinned Jan, taking it. "But, yes, I nicked them from Professor Ottleston's desk."

"Ottleston keeps coin in her desk?"

"In the faculty building."

"Seems like a trap."  

"Doesn't seem to have been a bad idea to me" said Jan, tipping back the bottle. Brown liquid sloshed in the neck. 

"You know what's a jolly bad idea?" said Hork. She pointed up the hill. "This shite."

"Horky Dearest, if we're to run off to Draum** and be cutters, we need to find some monsters" said Dere. She puffed, frowned at some doxbells fleeing her dart. "Or, at least, some danger. So we don't go into it fresh."

"Hey, remember, I've killed a monster" said Jan, gesturing with his sock-flail.

Hork rolled her eyes again. "Bludgeoning a topple with a broom doesn't count, dolt." ***

"It had old Grandmother Twee. Swear it was going to eat her."

"Grandmother Twee" said Hork. "Is a mouse, and even she could have killed it with less effort."

Jan scowled as they crested the hill. "Not like either of you have seen a monster" he muttered.

"Hey, we may yet, tonight" said Dere.

"Not likely, I say" said Hork, craning a glance at the tower. They were within the building's shadow, now. Nettles and the remnants of garden beds roughened the ground. "Asylum shut down a hundred years back" she said, kicked a tuft of spiny grass.

"We know, Dear. But everyone in town hears the screams. They shut it down with the afflicted still inside."

"'The screams'" exclaimed Hork, exaggeratedly. "Are a wildcat getting shagged in the hills."

"So this isn't a bad idea, then, naysayer?"

Hork pursed her lips, looked at the tower's shadowed eyes. "Well, it can't hurt to be cautious."

Jan perked up. "You know what people say about their lifespan." He pulled to the head of the group. The tower was a few strides away. Ivy nearly obscured the cracked stoop, the pitted door, the heavy bar set from the outside. Jan set down his bottle and weapon, set to work trying to lift that girded beam. He strained, groaned. "Help?" he pronounced, indignant.

Dere flicked her cigarette away, joined him. She looked expectantly at Hork. The last girl made a show of cleaning her glasses before helping. Together, they lifted. Ivy snapped, slithered away. The beam creaked, shifted, tumbled to the ground.

"Ick, it's left me splinters" said Dere. 

Hork frowned at the beam where it lay. "Someone's replaced it. That can't be a hundred years old."

"Means there's shite inside" said an eager Jan. He gave the door a kick. It shuddered, skidded inward a few inches. Jan peered through the crack. "Shite, lads, it's the King of Mildew."

Dere scoffed. "Come on, Jan. Kick it in like a real cutter."

"Right." Jan wound up, gave the door another heel, staggered back. "Bloody stuck." He set a shoulder against it, pushed. The hinges shrieked. "Finally."

Jan stepped back, picked up his rude flail, gestured to the door. "Pearls before porks" he said, looking to the girls. † Dere scowled at him, likewise extended a hand. "Brawn before beauty."

Jan shrugged, pulled a candle from his pocket. A match snapped. The tallow sputtered. "Here we come, monsters" said Jan. He raised his sock, slipped through the doorframe. Dere paused behind, lit a new cigarette. She glanced at Hork, raised a brow. Doxbells floated over her eyes. "Future cutter?"

Hork adjusted her glasses. "You two have fun."

"Suit yourself." Dere disappeared into the tower.

Hork idled about, kicked at some nettles. She looked out over town, watched candles flickering in windows, smoke beginning to rise from the bakery chimney. She looked up at the tower, watched bats flit about the windows. 

From inside, Jan called energetically. "Shite, Hork, there's bloodstains! You've got to see this."

"My hayfever and I are perfectly fine outside the King of Mildew's Castle" yelled Hork.

"Fine."

Squinting, Hork peered through the rotted brick doorframe. Some wooden structures were bare visible in the dark. She neared closer, put her head in the frame. Some weird scaffold lay on its side, just meters in the door. Manacles hung there, lay from lengths of chain. Some browned stain spotted the floor. Hork huffed, grimaced, moved to slip inside.

Within the tower, there was a small shriek, Jan's voice. Then, a wet, heaving scream. It rippled in the night air; a forced, elongated bark. Hork stumbled back, clutched at her ears, fell. A crash and thumping footsteps emanated inside the tower. They neared. Dere appeared in the doorway. 

Hork screwed up her face. "I told you! I told you this place was…" she trailed off, staring at Dere.

The girl was spattered face to knees in dripping, clotty red. 

"Banshee" she muttered, promptly fainted.

Kin of the Hills

Author's Note

Footnotes

* Spice tonic is a drink brewed from bark cinnamon and grey salt. Popular among young Firls.

** Draum is a frontier renowned for its venturing towns, many of which have seen great gains from the raiding of sorcerer's ruins. A romantic ideal for would-be cutters. A nightmare for those who are really there.
*** Topples are the destructive, adult form of doxbells; the tiny dust-creatures which hatch from pepperelle smoke.

† Porks are small, soft bodied rodents. They team in the gutters of Coastal cities. Southerners consider them disgusting, dirty-footed pests. Northerners do as well, but they also fry them on sticks and eat them.
†† Typical banshee tales originate from the sparsely-forested, hilly regions near Lothrhaim.
††† For the most part, it is passed. There are certainly villages where the myth of the baen sídhe has not yet been converted into fact.

‡ For whatever reason, banshees are supposed to be more comfortable, more sedate at higher altitude.

‡‡ Though it is typical, austerity is by no means the absolute rule in asylum construction. Some larger mountain facilities were particularly opulent. Some still accept patients, today.