A tale from Snospdamon, the Past Planes
Islas Pulleyonions (did you know that neither "public" nor "opinion" are in the DF dictionary? A shame) was a human born in 222, and began wandering the wilds in late summer of 250. Repeatedly asking about the surroundings of his home hamlet of Sprayedfuture, he heard a tale of a Dinocroc in a cave roughly a day to the south. Thinking that sounded like a better idea than getting shot to death by bandits like a normal adventurer, Islas set off across the Worthy Steppe.
The first thing Islas killed on his trip was a weasel, followed shortly by a pack of wolves. He ate the wolves and dog-paddled his way repeatedly across a small pool nearby in order to cross rivers with confidence. He spent the night at the fortress of Trimmedstasis, where a hammerman regaled Islas with tales of the giant mantises living in the surrounding forest.
Moving on to the Ageless Mire, Islas discovered that the place was full of freakish bugs. Accidentally killing a thrips man before he realized that it wasn't something he'd be able to eat, he avoided a pack of grasshopper people but eventually found and butchered a giant louse. The giant louse took a positively ridiculous number of axe blows to the face before eventually bleeding to death. While progressing south, Islas was attacked by a long-nosed gar in a river, but happily avoided an anti-climactic drowning.
Islas found the Dinocroc in its cave, Blotecho, standing over the mutilated corpse of its victim. The two engaged in mighty combat, with the ancient reptile sustaining almost as many blows to the head as the giant louse had, but eventually succumbing. Islas butchered it for meat and raided its nest, taking the eggs with him in his pack. It turned out that he couldn't eat the eggs. A nicely decorated dwarf-sized cape and chain shirt were taken as spoils of war. Islas stopped back at Trimmedstasis to report to his hammerman buddy his success.
Islas moved on to the nearest hamlet, where they were being harassed by at least two different varieties of werebeast, one with a vulnerability to steel and the other to bismuth bronze. However, it was the new moon, so there was no glory to be had in the place, and Islas quickly moved on to the capital city of Chaincrab.
On the way, Islas was mauled by an alligator, losing the ability to move his left arm and forced to use some kind of crazy awkward grip to wield his great axe and shield in the same hand. He dined that night on fisher berries plundered from an abandoned house, and spent the night with a dwarf and his two elven roommates. Not wanting too much to do with that scene, Islas spent the night on the roof. He fast-traveled away in the morning, rather than jumping off the roof like a crazy person.
Notable town facts: The Mysterious Temple is so mysterious that it is actually a broken ruin. The town's other temple, The Poisoned Sanctum, has a boatload of images of the founding of the town in year 1 but no depictions of whatever god it's dedicated to. Turns out they were both dedicated to Radir, the human god of lies.
Islas, looking to possibly upgrade his weapon, stopped into the general imported goods store in town. "Good silver arrow there," said the shopkeeper, but it wasn't apparent which silver arrow he meant because the shop contained nothing but silver arrows and bolts. Every imported goods shop in town contained nothing but ammunition, except one elf-run shop which contained nothing at all. Obviously black-listed by the Bolt Council. When Islas stopped by the Poisoned Sanctum, he received a warmer reception than he expected. Turns out he had somehow gained credit for killing Mudung Braidhabits and Istra Powerbrush, neither of whom he had ever met.
This merited investigation. The break in the case came when Islas visited the keep and found the corpse of Istra on the floor with the murder weapon lying on top of the body, "Property of Thakom Camphammers" written boldly on the side. Deepening the mystery was the massive pile of jewelry crafted from bits of humans and dwarves next to the body. One murder solved, one to go. The next big clue came in the top room of the keep, where the vampire reptile man chief Snori Hareforests, or as Snori said it, Ssssnori Hareforessstsss, took credit for killing Mudung. Mystery solved! Snori was pretty beat up from the unseen previous fight, and doubtless weighed down by a seemingly infinite number of grotesque trinkets, and so quickly fell under Islas's axe. Islas took Snori's masterwork silver great axe as a trophy, and got rich off the coin purses of the corpses of the vampire hunters whose work Islas finished. While taking a closer look at the coins he was picking up, Islas came to the startling realization that he had just killed his own civilization's leader. Islas pieced together a suit of very nice armor from Snori's hoard, but it turns out that people seemed pretty happy to be out from under the iron fist of their reptilian vampire overlord.
Despite now being too famous to get quests from normal people, Islas was one notable kill short of a title. Heading west to the fortress of Boyshingles, the lord there gave Islas the task of killing a local minotaur. Taking two soldiers from the fortress (apparently the entire soldier population), Islas headed for the subterranean labyrinth of the Apogee of Competing.
Wandering around the maze, the taunts of the minotaur eventually gave way to the screams of one of the soldiers as the minotaur, Ori Singedmaw the Scab of Harvesting, burst from the darkness and began gouging out eyes. Despite Islas's masterful axe, the party's lasher got the killing blow. Still without a title, Islas made his way to the bottom of the labyrinth where he raided the minotaur's treasure horde (mostly coins and body parts). Seeing how quickly a minotaur could crush your head if you got unlucky, Islas headed for the nearby hamlet of Kissedfins and retired, content with being rich and alive rather than famous.
I didn't even know minotaur labyrinths had treasure rooms at the bottom.
