Lauren Christ
Stories from the Axe and Thistle is a bi-monthly serialization that details the exploits of a D&D 5e campaign as they troll their way through an open-world wilderness. Often outlandish and good for a laugh, these vignettes are told by the Dungeon Master of said campaign, because sometimes humor is the only way to cope with tragedy!
Click here to see the previous installment.
“Who else lives in Nevarnost besides us?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean, who else is out there?” you ask. “It can’t just be this big, endless wilderness with nobody living in it. You mentioned the ogres, but I mean, it seems like it wouldn’t just be all monsters out there. Aren’t there any other civilizations out there besides Varna?”
It’s another quiet night in the Axe and Thistle, and you look around the bar as you pose this question. There is a subdued atmosphere tonight; there are only a few patrons sitting at the tables. One man sits in the corner, strumming on a lute and singing softly.
Luddy the bartender tops off your glass as she says, “There’s lots of things out there that won’t kill you without at least having a civil conversation with you first.”
You lean your elbows against the bar, propping your chin in your hands. “Like what?”
Luddy thinks for a moment, then snorts a laugh. “You ever met a gnome?”
“Sure, lots of them.”
“Well, there’s gnomes here, too,” Luddy said, “And they’re friendly but very petty. They love to try and make order out of chaos almost as much as they love taking people’s gold. Of course, they don’t need the gold for anything, not anymore, but I guess they just like it,” She smirks as she says this, “Which I can respect.”
The lute player suddenly strikes a dissonant chord, and the both of you look over at him, startled for a moment. The musician smiles sheepishly at you both before returning to his song.
Luddy turns her attention back to you. “Anyway. Yeah, so, the closest colony of gnomes lives just to the east of here. They have this toll booth with a long, wooden arm that stretches between two giant trees.
Now, what you need to understand about the gate is that, even though there’s only one, it’s impossible not to run into this thing. The woods are, as you may know, enormous. Considering their territory is something like a three mile radius around this booth, you’d think that it’d be pretty easy to bypass the gate. It’s not, though. No matter how hard you try to skirt around it, you always run into it. I know, I’ve tried. It’s always there, and it’s always the same gnome running it.
He’s a friendly little guy as long as you pay him. If not, well, you’ll die but not quickly. Gnomes are small and weak, so they aren’t big on fighting, but when there’s a hell of a lot of them, they’re suddenly a much bigger problem. They wait up in the trees, and if someone doesn’t pay, they pelt them to death with rocks. Like I said, real friendly.”
“So, a couple of my adventurers run into this toll booth, right? And the gnomes are charging three gold per head to pass through the woods. They’re good people, so they pay the toll, but they decide they’re going to camp out for the night by the booth before they keep going. That decision puts them right in the front row seats to see a platoon of goblins and their leader come marching through, and they think they’re going to keep their money. The leader goes storming right through the gate, and the trees just come to life with gnomes. The goblins take off running as the rocks come flying down on them.
The gang decides they’re not going to stand idly by and watch this injustice be done to the gnomes. They give chase, but it’s only when they finally corner the goblins that they realize they’re in way over their heads. There’s six of them plus one really big guy wearing armour, and three adventurers go down before the cleric gets the bright idea to challenge the boss to one-on-one combat.
Well, he must have found the only goblin in the entire forest with a sense of honor because the guy accepts, and the cleric wins by the skin of his teeth. I don’t know if you remember, friend, but have I ever talked about the skinny little guy with the crossbow in his boot?”
“Yeah?”
“Something weird happened to that guy. He used to be kind of gangly and weird looking, but he came down into the bar that morning looking like some kind of bodybuilder, ranting about some god who is also his father and how he gave him new powers. That’s actually more common than you’d think, with adventurers, but I’ve never seen anyone grow a full beard in one night before.”
“So, did he defeat the goblin?”
Luddy nods. “Cut him down where he stood and saved the day.”
“And then what happened?”
“Well, the rest of the goblin platoon fled for their lives, and when the party headed back for town, they passed by the toll booth again and let the gnome running it know they’d brought the tax evaders to justice.” Luddy rolls her eyes. “The gnome was grateful, but he wasn’t so grateful he forgot to charge them for the return trip.”
To be continued…
Stay tuned as we upload a new chapter of the campaign every other week right here on DorkDaily.com!
