Stones of a Feather?

[Roh]

For many years lived a tribe of heavily-built shamanic barbarians in the valleys of Ilshenar. For many years, they had enjoyed a peaceful existence. But after those years, the tribal people soon noticed that things were changing in their valleys.
A strange keep had appeared, full of strange men and stranger mechanical creations bent on destruction. The neighboring Savage tribes, once peaceful, now attacked any other humanoid on sight (except the lizardmen, oddly enough

For many years, the shamanic barbarians of the Stone tribe had tried to ignore these changes, hoping that life would remain calm.

But the Stone warriors soon exhausted their weapons caches on the threats they fought.

A brave chieftan took his best Fist-Warriors to the city of Gargoyles, seeking to strike a deal for their great weapons of steel. But the once-populous gargoyles seemed to also have fallen on hard times - their city constantly besieged by new threats of the desert. The gargoyles quickly bartered their steel for agricultural goods gathered seasonally by the Stone tribe, and the chieftan returned to his camp triumphant, knowing that with such a bountiful harvest of various foods during every season, he had not only made a great ally of the gargoyles but had possibly saved his tribe from certain doom.

But as the first scouts of the small Fist-Warrior company sighted the camp, they were horrified. Their families, their nomadic brethren, had been scattered by a focussed attack from the forces of Blackthorne. Large clockwork creatures noisily and jerkily stalked the valley, crushing tents and kicking livestock. Occasionally a woman or child would emerge from a hiding place in the rocks only to be crushed violently to oblivion.

The Fist-Warriors were not a unit trained in the ways of blood rage, but upon seeing their families murdered, the Fist-Warriors donned their new steel arms and charged the forces of Blackthorne with a communal scream that shook distant mountain peaks.

The chieftan simply stood, stunned, next to a wagon full of the remaining steel weapons and armor. For a time he could only watch in awe as his acquaintances and cousins died at the hands of the merciless golems and their foul controllers.

Soon he came to realize the struggle taking place and the losses already accrued, and the chieftan quickly produced a spirtual talisman depicting a bull. Letting his anger and fury fill his every thought, he focussed on the full until the talisman glowed and he suddenly found himself in a small cave with an even smaller old man, whose gaunt frame was only covered with a battered skirt.

The chieftan kneeled, still breathing hard. "Shaman, you must help. Our people are dying, and I have no power to save them. You must help me."

The old man took up a gnarled wooden staff from a pile of trinkets and hobbled to the chieftan's side, placing a hand upon the large man's bronzed shoulder. "You will return to the gargoyles and look for their greatest magic-user. In exchange for your bull totem, he will grant the Stone people survival."

At first, the chieftan could not nothing but stare at the shaman, his huge muscles tensed, beads of sweat occasionally falling to the cavern floor. "Without my bull totem, I will be nothing! Shaman, you cannot expect me to give up my chieftan status-"

"Would you sacrifice your people for your pride?" the shaman interrupted.

Unable to speak, the chieftan's glance darted about as his adrenaline-fueled mind fought to fathom what he was being asked to do. But the chieftan stood and nodded solemnly. "I'll do it, Shaman. But if this doesn't work-"

"If it doesn't work, you won't need your totem anyway. Your only choice will be to fight to the grisly end - or be a dishonored hermit, like me."

The chieftan held his talisman before him as the shaman sprinkled a fine metallic dust upon it. "Go, and remember," he said, his voice fading away as the chieftan's surroundings turned black, then blossomed into the marbled surroundings of the Gargoyle City.

Quickly, the chieftan spotted a very colorfully decorated tower and charged through the streets - startling weary gargoyles who had spent their days protecting their precious crafts from the forces of chaos.

Upon entering the building, the chieftan charged past the receptionist and several angry mages, using his bull's strength for the last time.

Entering the highest chamber, the chieftan slowed to make careful footsteps in a room with no light. Dark cloth covered every surface - and treasures littered the floor. The chieftan leapt 180 degrees when he heard a deep, commanding voice behind him. "Welcome to my domain, Stone Wielder. I know why you're here. I've monitored the fall of your tribe... magically, of course."

The chieftan angrily shoved a nearby table (which bore a crystal ball) on its side and did not wince when a sickening crash released a magical flash and a blue cloud of smoke. "Do not simply witness our fall! Help me to save them!" Gathering himself calmly, the chieftain continued, "Help me to save my people... please... I give to you the blessing of the bull spirit." The strange gargoyle wizard took the talisman from the chieftain and put on a pair of glass spectacles with his other hand, his wings drawing back.

"You know what you sacrifice, and you know that the gift of survival may not always be a blessing," the wizard said in a questioning tone.

"Yes... anything to save my people. Please!" he exclaimed, kneeling and fighting back tears.

The wizard swirled his hand above the kneeling barbarian and smoke began to gather around them in the darkness. The gargoyle uttered strange, arcane words that filled the chieftain with dread, but as he looked up into those strange, reflective eyes... they faded away and the chieftain knew he was travelling magically, again.


Ooooooo, cliffhangers. I love them.
Next time, we'll see what this 'blessing' is all about.
And we'll get to see the birth of a new culture...
Oooooooo, foreshadowing, I love it.

[Roh]

I'm going to try to write new additions to this one weekly, around the middle of the week (between Tuesday and Thursday), for those interested enough to keep reading. Yes, this character is one of my favorite um... side characters. And I do have most of his story already laid out and decided.



The emotionally-exhausted Stone chieftain became aware of his surroundings again once more, and he knew he was standing in the center of his tribe's ruined camp. Quickly, he spotted several of the iron constructs chasing fleeing nomads.
Anger welled up inside him, but this time, there was no feeling of futility. He knew he could do something about it.
A sneaking suspicion in the corner of his mind told him, But what would you do? But it quickly vanished.
The tall and powerful barbarian charged the nearest golem and surprisingly, he completely tackled it onto its side. He took hold of one of the golem's limbs and pulled, tearing it off with piercing metal screams.
The golem, a mechanized death machine that doesn't feel pain, reached around with one arm and bashed the chieftain in the head. The barbarian fell to the ground and saw stars but he quickly shook it off, noticing the golem starting to stand up again.
Rushing to stand before the golem, the chieftain's mind was suddenly filled with the echoes of the gargoyle wizard's chants, which slowly gave way to speech. "Gather your people - if you want them to have a greater chance of survival, they may also sacrifice their totems for my gift."
The raging barbarian shook the haunting and confusing words out of his head. Why would they also need to sacrifice their totem spirits? Did I not sacrifice mine to save my tribe? he skepticised.
But his mind cleared as the golem reached full height again, towering over the chieftain. But the chieftain didn't dwell on the size difference, and made a standing dropkick to the golem's midsection, completely tearing the golem in half, leaving chunks of clockwork everywhere.

With one golem disabled, the chieftain didn't stop to dwell on his ability to destroy the steel creatures. Spotting a woman sheltering two children under a nearby wreckage, the chieftain ran to them. "Have you seen any others?" he called as he came to a stop.
The children, already distressed, looked up at the chieftain and screamed, burying their faces in their mother's gown. The woman, who was vaguely familiar to the chieftain as one of the few seamstresses of the tribe, stared coldly at her chieftain for several moments before saying, "Your talisman, it's no more?"
The chieftain looked down at his chest, visible through his torn vest, and felt the absence of the cold metal on his sternum. "Yes, it is no more, but-"
"Your skin, what've you done to your skin?"
Gaping, the chieftain looked down at himself once more, this time realizing that something was different. In the light of the nearby fires, he looked down each arm slowly. His muscles were shaped the same, but his arm seemed thicker. Longer, too. And the ground seemed farther below him than before.
The sun suddenly shone on the valley as a cloud passed by overhead, and the chieftain's change became apparent. Survivors crawled out of nearby holes and wreckages to surround the chieftain and gawk in wonder. The golems had spread out away from the camp, their controllers bent on chasing down the nomads who ran.
Standing taller than his comrades, holding his great hands before him, the barbarian chieftain's skin had turned to stone.


Will he ever get a name? Yes, soon.

[Roh]

It wasn't for many days after the Stone chieftain single-handedly drove away Blackthorn's invading forces that the tribe's elders formed a new council of the survivors and analyzed what the chieftain had become.
The oldest surviving member of the former council, Trebok, walked to the center of the newly rebuilt chamber and unrolled a long and decaying scroll of some obscure creature's hide. "In a time of new and strange foes, a leader will sacrifice a mighty totem spirit to an alien ally in exchange for the spirit of the tribe," he read aloud. "It doesn't say what the spirit of the tribe is, but it's not hard to see the spirit of stone in our leader."
The chieftain stood by a support beam in a dark corner, beyond the circle of the council's seats. Wind blew eerily in the closed doorflap and occasionally the chieftain would tic nervously as he heard people outside speculating on the outcome of the council meeting.
"Trebok, the prophecized outcome could be anything. It's very vague and probably written by a fool from a generation of gullible idiots," piped a skeptic, Mortar, from a seat across the room from where the chieftain stood.
"The scroll was kept with our most sacred scrolls - it can only be a prophecy passed down to us from an ancient divining spirit," Trebok defended, clutching the now-furled scroll to his aged chest and torn tigerhide tunic.
"Can you prove that? Our last shaman with a divine totem was killed during the attacks and the bloodline is now extinct - the chances of poor Nurik passing the spirit on to his offspring were slim, even if the old vagabond had a mate." Mortar was sure of himself. As he sat back down, he rubbed his amulet absently and grinned.
A younger council member stood up. His name was Pteph, son of Tepon. Pteph's father was the leader of the council before the battles and Pteph joined the council in his place, though rather young. But no new council leader had been decided yet. "Mortar, the prophecies all require faith from us - if we didn't believe in the prophecies, they would turn against us and the destruction within the tribe would be catastrophic. Didn't you ever hear the tale of Warnos, the chieftain to disbelieved? The tribe was devastated for ten centuries after the wrath of the spirits!"
Mortar started to yell an angry reply but Trebok interrupted him. "Mortar, where were you during the attacks? Did you aid the tribe in any way?"
Trebok's question caught Mortar off guard. He sat back down, slowly, and after a moment of consideration he answered, "I was with my family in the north. When the metal men filled the valley, I was teaching my son to hunt. And though I defeated three of the machines and their controllers, an assassin cut the throats of my family. When I found their lifeless bodies, I swore revenge and performed the retribution rite with their amulets, but when I ran back to the tribe, a machine shook the earth and I fell into what can only be described as a gravel pit. By the time I climbed out, I saw only dwindling fires and smoke on every horizon. It wasn't until our chief found me wandering that I joined the survivors."
Trebok fell silent and looked down in shame. The retribution rite was among the most serious vows, sacred and held over most tribal laws.
The young Pteph stood but turned to watch Mortar walk out infuriatedly. Members of the council whispered to one another but Trebok called for silence. "We must come to agree on our current situation and what to do about it." The warrior glanced to the chieftain briefly before continuing, "And I think we can all agree that our leader's blessing is not evil. If he's strong as ten bulls, it won't matter that he can't call on the bull to gain the strength of two. His totem is our tribe's common totem - the spirit of stone. Let him stand strong during our reconstruction efforts as our chieftain for decades to come."
Many members of the council shouted their agreement. Shouting over the commotion, Trebok declared, "Step forward, Blessed One, to receive your totem." The room fell silent - totem reassignment was a grave affair, usually performed only as a method of punishment or as a mark of incompetence.
The chieftain strode slowly across the room to stand before Trebok. He occasionally ducked under rafters that held up the thatched roof. Still towering over everyone, he kneeled and bowed his head.
Trebok put the scroll away and produced a rock. A common stone, somewhat rounded, good for throwing. He set it on a stool and produced a small pouch, from which he pulled several herbs and dusts. Sprinkling them on the stone, he chanted in a low tone that could only be heard by the chieftain, who remained completely still. Rising to a different pitch, Trebok's amulet came out of his tunic in his hand to touch the stone on the stool. As they touched, the stone glistened. Putting his amulet back in his shirt, Trebok dusted the stone with sparkling blue and grey powder. It changed color to a mix of the grey and blue and Trebok smiled. A pungeant earthy odor, like that of fresh rain on a fertile mountainside, filled the air, but the council remained silent, watching. Each member felt excitement but a profound calm as the stone was placed in a pouch hanging from the chieftain's neck.
"You are granted the Cairn, Stone chieftain," Trebok declared clearly.
As the giant stood, Trebok took a step back. A feeling of awe swept away his awareness and he found himself staring open mouthed as the chieftain put his right arm in front of him, clenching a huge fist. "Then I shall be known as the Cairn, the standing stone of the tribe. The age of dynamic progress has arrived - and I will lead our people to paradise."

Members of the council rejoiced and praised the spirits. Silently, Trebok begged his Ash Tree to bless the Cairn.