May 9, 2012

Bizarre Safari: A Traveler's Guide to Goblin Land, Pt.3

The Focus of my Fear

My first journey beyond the portal to Goblin Land was most disagreeable.  The strangeness of the place turned my dungeoneering instincts into paranoia.  Danger is no stranger of the strange, and so I know to be wary of weirdness.  But here, everything is an oddity.  Each look I took fed my fear and tension.  I was jumping at shadows, and raising my shield at the buzzering clicky-clucks of the buggybirds.

Artwork by Sjemenka

As it turns out, I needn't have worried so much.  I hope these written accounts of mine might help set your mind to ease.  The dangers of Goblin Land are similar to those of England.  To get a sense of it, just replace the desperate bandits with burrowing death worms who have toothy mouths at both ends, and instead of vicious soldiers there are four armed red men flying on pterodactyls who will drain the fluids from your living decapitated head to fuel their strange machines.  On second thought, "similar" might be the wrong word. 

What I mean to say is that the dangerous things tend to be obvious.  I haven't seen a tree or rock eat anyone yet.  I'll grant you that it's not an idyllic place, but at least there are no kings and queens to scrape and bow to before you're caught in the middle of their stupid war and die.  We make our own way here.


~
Excerpts from a strange travel book left at the Abbey of St. Emmet within Jeff Rients' Wessex campaign "A Surfeit of Lampreys", as written by my character, Vithujin the Elf.

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