Tweet
IT ALL STARTED...
"So, yar might be asking, what's a Madbeard like ol' Kel doing in these parts"
"Well I say, if you're buying then that's a tale I can be telling, for as long as the rounds keep coming. I've got stories that'll shave an inch off your beard. And each one truer than the last, or my name ain't Kel"
"So it came down to this fateful trip, the last voyage of the good-enough longship 'Old Grimey Guts'. Sorry, some of me kin aren't really for flowery talk. Very literal folk, yer typical Madbeard."
"It was a dark and stormy night, let me tell yar. Waves taller than old Mard's tales. And let me tell yar, that's pretty tall indeed. Wind that'd strip the very salt from the beard. And then the lookout spies a creature upon the deep. And what a creature it was. tentacles thicker than a mast, and claws as big as a cutlasses. It was on us quicker than a goblin with the runs.""
"All night long we fought that brute. Back to back, and side to side. Good dwarves lost, never to be seen again."
"But at the end, oh at the end, there was Plunder to be had. And what Plunder it was! A great swirly pearl of a thing dragged up from it's gullet. Glowing green light everywhere. And words! Oh the words it would speak. Darkest curses of the something great demon something, I wasn't really paying attention. But any Madbeard worth his beer knows that talking magics get a fine price indeed. An artifact of legend that some staff-waving demon botherer would pay a hefty price for."
"So we's that was left were happy. And we patched up Old Grimey Guts with bits of hide and fat and claw, worked well enough as nails they did. And we kept sailing on."
"Only then the Captain of our sorry lot, that would be ol' Krin, he got to listening to the Pearl, and we even spied him talking back a time or two. Never a good sign, when yar Captain starts talking to pearls, let me tell yar. He started getting notions of keeping the damned thing. And the thing about magical pearls is that they are very very singular. As-in not really something that splits a dozen ways. So we worked out right quick that we were going to get sod-all of nothing as Plunder. Which went down about as well as Elven Wine down a sick Orc."
"We'd have had him too, only he started spouting all sorts of landlubberly guff about destiny and fate or something and started glowing just like the pearl. He took a dagger right in the kidney and just stood there and laughed. And we knews we were into a fight. The fight of our lives, or most of our lives. After ol' Nort bought it, I decided it was time to revise my opinion on the whole fighting to the death thing most of my kin run with, and and I legged it faster than a sea-centipede after a crippled crab."
"I'll spare you the torrid details of my weeks on a raft I made myself with naught but a plank of wood and a handy shark. But I made it ashore. Half-dead and twice as ugly."
"Now the key thing, the really key thing, about raising a ruckus with a Captain, is that you'd better win, or he'll be back on shore telling everyone and anyone his tale. It wasn't my fault, we had the numbers and the plan! How was I to know he was going to throw in with some talking pearl. Blast that. If I ever meet that demon it's getting stabbed right in the kidneys, let me tell yar."
"And so there I was, a Madbeard without a ship or a crew. But, t'was just a temporary inconvenience. For I had a plan..."
"So, yar might be asking, what's a Madbeard like ol' Kel doing in these parts"
"Well I say, if you're buying then that's a tale I can be telling, for as long as the rounds keep coming. I've got stories that'll shave an inch off your beard. And each one truer than the last, or my name ain't Kel"
"So it came down to this fateful trip, the last voyage of the good-enough longship 'Old Grimey Guts'. Sorry, some of me kin aren't really for flowery talk. Very literal folk, yer typical Madbeard."
"It was a dark and stormy night, let me tell yar. Waves taller than old Mard's tales. And let me tell yar, that's pretty tall indeed. Wind that'd strip the very salt from the beard. And then the lookout spies a creature upon the deep. And what a creature it was. tentacles thicker than a mast, and claws as big as a cutlasses. It was on us quicker than a goblin with the runs.""
"All night long we fought that brute. Back to back, and side to side. Good dwarves lost, never to be seen again."
"But at the end, oh at the end, there was Plunder to be had. And what Plunder it was! A great swirly pearl of a thing dragged up from it's gullet. Glowing green light everywhere. And words! Oh the words it would speak. Darkest curses of the something great demon something, I wasn't really paying attention. But any Madbeard worth his beer knows that talking magics get a fine price indeed. An artifact of legend that some staff-waving demon botherer would pay a hefty price for."
"So we's that was left were happy. And we patched up Old Grimey Guts with bits of hide and fat and claw, worked well enough as nails they did. And we kept sailing on."
"Only then the Captain of our sorry lot, that would be ol' Krin, he got to listening to the Pearl, and we even spied him talking back a time or two. Never a good sign, when yar Captain starts talking to pearls, let me tell yar. He started getting notions of keeping the damned thing. And the thing about magical pearls is that they are very very singular. As-in not really something that splits a dozen ways. So we worked out right quick that we were going to get sod-all of nothing as Plunder. Which went down about as well as Elven Wine down a sick Orc."
"We'd have had him too, only he started spouting all sorts of landlubberly guff about destiny and fate or something and started glowing just like the pearl. He took a dagger right in the kidney and just stood there and laughed. And we knews we were into a fight. The fight of our lives, or most of our lives. After ol' Nort bought it, I decided it was time to revise my opinion on the whole fighting to the death thing most of my kin run with, and and I legged it faster than a sea-centipede after a crippled crab."
"I'll spare you the torrid details of my weeks on a raft I made myself with naught but a plank of wood and a handy shark. But I made it ashore. Half-dead and twice as ugly."
"Now the key thing, the really key thing, about raising a ruckus with a Captain, is that you'd better win, or he'll be back on shore telling everyone and anyone his tale. It wasn't my fault, we had the numbers and the plan! How was I to know he was going to throw in with some talking pearl. Blast that. If I ever meet that demon it's getting stabbed right in the kidneys, let me tell yar."
"And so there I was, a Madbeard without a ship or a crew. But, t'was just a temporary inconvenience. For I had a plan..."