Adventure (Seed) - The Pool of the Beregyna

The Pool of the Beregyna

Since the Battle of the Opicum the Rovers of the Barrens have retreated to their most secure fields and distant hunting grounds. Some places are long disused and have not seen a Rover in generations. It was with some surprise that they rediscovered the Beregyna inhabiting the streams and pools of their old abandoned lands.

The Beregyna, water spirits always in the form of beautiful women, are more wild and dangerous than Rover legends speak of. No longer do the simple ceremonies and symbolic sacrifices taught from shaman to shaman down the years appease the Beregyna; they demand lives not reeds shaped as men and women. Their pools and homes along riverbanks have become deadly places where Rovers are lured to their deaths in a watery embrace.

The Vodianoi, the male appearing water spirits are rarely seen and never at the river's edge, but they too take the lives of any who come near to their lairs found only in deep waters of pools and lakes.

Of old the Rover shamans used to worship Beregyna and Vodianoi, but the ancient rites are forgotten and the Rovers now hate and fear these ancient spirits, so much so that they would welcome and reward any who could rid the waters of them.

Historical - Vlek Col Vlekzed 430cy

Historical - Vlek Col Vlekzed 430cy

Vlek was a bastard. He was born a bastard and most people acknowledged he was a bastard all his life with many an adjective attached; charming, cheating, cunning, etc... 

The Rovers of the Barrens lead a hard and unforgiving life but have an incredibly strong sense of family as well as a connection to tribe and warband and nation. Unfortunately those like Vlek born without a strong link to family or orphaned by the destruction of family or tribe are on the outskirts of Rover society. Vlek, though, was unusual. 

As a child Vlek was strong and quick, cunning and charming (Charming for a Rover  and among Rovers at least). While he was often beaten in his youth he grew quickly and was a natural leader. Soon he lead a band of outcasts and the beatings stopped. His young group passed into adulthood together and raided together. But Vlek would steal from anyone including fellow Rovers and one day the tribal leaders had enough. Before anything dire could happen Vlek was warned and he and all the outcasts of the Rovers from young to old disappeared in the night along with anything they could steal. Vlek considered it their inheritance and small recompense for past maltreatment.

Afterwards Vlek and his band stayed clear of other Rovers but instead raided the surrounding lands slowly growing in size in strength through captives and the attraction of other bandits  and malcontents. With his band grown prodigiously large and unwieldy he raided in Tenh. His losses were great but mostly among the weak and unskilled rabble he'd attracted and his winnowed band was the stronger for their loss. From Tenh he swung down to the Bandit Kingdoms and engaged in a battle against a small holding as well as absorbing several bands of bandits and brigands. 

With the larger kingdoms turning their attention to Vlek he turned back the way he'd come and surprised a force of Tenhas sent to bring him to justice. Vlek was perhaps even more surprised initially  than the Tenha force but his growing army had been on the alert for reprisals from the Bandit Kingdoms and hadcome upon the small army unawares. In the rough terrain Vlek's wild band was well suited for ambush and the fight became a slaughter.

After the battle Vlek's scouts warned him of an approaching Bandit Kingdom force that would not likely  be taken unawares so Vlek turned north and back through the Barrens that  had once been his home. Throughout this flight Vlek was dogged by massed forces of Rovers and pushed further and further north and east. Neither side wished for war kin against kin, though for Vlek's part his consideration was simply a matter of the overwhelming numbers of Rovers that would decimate his band, grown in size and strength though it had.

Finally Vlek was pushed so far east and north that he entered the lands of the Colten Feodality, a small confederation of Flan tribes which had lived in this inhospitable clime for time out of mind, since the Suel Emperor was in short trousers, as the saying went.

Vlek easily overwhelmed several small settlements and gathered all supplies he could lay his hands upon. In one last push he conquered what passed for a town in the north. A largish one as fate would have it, already walled an ditched and at little cost in life to Vlek's warriors though a terrible slaughter once again to the forces opposed to Vlek. Quickly he began strengthening the fortifications and laying in stores, though not for siege. Winter would soon be upon them and most of his band were men and women from the warmer lands of the Bandit Kingdoms and Tenh.

Here  is where the cunning and guile of Vlek shined. Instead of sacking the town Vlek married the chieftains daughter, becoming Vlek Col Vlekzed, renaming the town Vlekstaad and suing for peace among the Feodality. Much to his surprise the leaders of Colten's agreed to meet with him. Vlek gathered his forces, leaving behind only a skeleton garrison in Vlekstaad and set out for the meeting site.

The Coltens had brought  forces of their own, but once again Vlek's scouts proved the better and in a lightning strike Vlek once again proved victorious. The battle was costly but Vlek decimated the Colten warriors and killed their leaders, every one. The surviving Colten's bowed their head to Vlek, now calling  himself Stonefist and before the coming of that first winter Vlek had won himself  a kingdom.

NPC - Yermak Vedkrenbo of the Boyvasadok - Rover Hero

NPC - Yermak Vedkrenbo of the Boyvasadok - Rover Hero

After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Opicum the Bespled Uday (Rovers in common) tribes withdrew to their furthest and most secure hunting grounds. While the adult population of the tribe was whittled down there remained the very old, the young and pregnant or nursing mothers. Each year more of the young ascend to adulthood and Bhodan Vedkrenbo Chief of the Boyvasadoks (Wardogs) and leader of all Rover tribes has ordered the tribes to draw back to safety and breed more kindred to replace their losses.

Yermak (Bhodan's younger brother) is troublesome and ignores his brother's. He and a small band of Rovers still raid, especially against the Horned Society but there aren't more than 50 adults and 50 or so young men of age fourteen or younger (adulthood is proven among the Rovers by passing challenges rather than just passing time so the age of adulthood varies).

He is an expert horseman and archer. His bow is called the Demonbow and is carved from the bones of a demon killed by a Rover ancestor of the Vedkrenbo clan. It is an intelligent and powerful and changes any shaft fired from it into a flaming bolt of bone with a point of some Hellish metal that is particularly lethal to creatures from the more dark and nefarious planes. To oerthly creatures its arrows can strike and creature needing an enchanted weapon to hit it and is useful in piercing armor. One of these bolts can cause fire damage and excruciating pain which can stun a person or creature for a few moments when struck except for those who can summon the requisite fortitude to overcome such pain.

Adventure (Seed) - Rovers Across the Border

Adventure - Rovers Across the Border

A Knight of Tenh clashing with a raiding party of Rovers of the Barrens.

As winter of 579cy comes to the north the Rovers drive south and raid the warmer lands before retiing to their winter enclaves that are hidden among the Barrens.  Scouts are sent out weeks earlier to find the weakest most unpatrolled spots along the borders before they ride in force and raid and rampage in lightning quick attacks. Many an expedition has been sent by Furyondy, Tenh and the Pale anf even the Horned Society to find these encampments but those few expeditions who return have never been successful.

It was hoped that after the Battle of the Opicm River the Rovers' depredations would be halted, and for a few years they were while the surviving warriors and the remnant clans withdrew to their furthest and most secure hunting grounds. But under the leadership of the young chieftain of Wardogs, Bohadan Opensky, all the surviving clans are united for the first time since the days of the great khans. While great numbers of Rover warriors perished the children and young mothers of the clan survived as well as those too old to have joined in the great battle. With each passing season young women and men join the hunt and seek to bloody their swords and spears and prove their worthiness on raids.

It may take a generation to refill the saddles of all the dead but more children have been born to the tribes than ever before and the day will come when the Rovers will blacken the steppes and fields with their numbers once again. For now, as 579cy comes to an end, small raiding parties of Rovers are once again appearing in the southern lands and the scouts and border guards of many nations are the first to encounter them.

NPC - Bohdan Opensky Chief of Wardogs Rovers of the Barrens

NPC - Bohdan Opensky Chief of Wardogs Rovers of the Barrens

The Bespled Uday as the Rover's call themselves have never seen a less tenacious leader than Bohdan Vedkrenbo (Opensky in the common tongue) leader of the Boyvasodak (Wardogs). Though great were their losses after the Battle of the Opicm they have proven to still be a formidable force. Too many are old warrior men and women brought back to the lance and bow and too many are young women and men who have just earned their first sword of adulthood with no enemy blood having slicked their blades.

Bohdan is young to be not only a chief but the Ataman of the Standards, the bloody red flag, but his elders died at Opicm as did the greater number of the Rover host. He is not a tall man, or big across the shoulders and chest as some Rovers, but he is like a spring made of steel and as wild and strong as a tiger in combat. He loves humor and he is most often smiling and laughing. His people adore him. Under his leadership the Rovers have pulled back to their most secure hunting grounds. He has vowed that the Rovers will gather strength again and if not in his lifetime then with some future generation they will have vengeance upon this incarnation of the Horned Society and upon its traitor founder, the Rover Shaman-Chief Toszar Khan.