So... Maybe in order to distract us all from the awful stuff that's happening, I have more Kingdom Death: Monster stories to share!
The Third Year...
The Founding Team leaves once more into the darkness, hunting another Lion, quickly, they located a horrible totem crafted in meticulous detail by this lion... Metal, Bone, Fingers, hung off the icon, tied with string.
Disturbed greatly, the group leaves, finding the field where they had been ambushed before... But this time, with the knowledge from before, they pick up the lions tracks... Ambushing it inside the grass.
They found it among the plains, laying next to a massive tree, the same trinkets hanging from it as before, but this time including skulls... And half eaten bodies...
Now with their experience, they used the tree to their advantage, ducking around it and through the grass, whittling it down with strikes. Betty's arrows pierced it's hide, Drayce's Axe carved flesh, despite his arm, Jay struck true with his dagger, and Mina slashed it to ribbons with her blade.
And as fast as the last, it fell dead on the ground...
When they returned they were met with a shadowy trader, sitting in a palenquin pulled by slaves, hocking sketchy wares. The group purchased a glowing stone, only to discover it was merely a painted, sharpened rock... Still good for throwing though...
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Our main team went out once more, being the most experienced, to find the source of the Screaming they had heard... A Screaming Antelope.
It wasn't far from their home when they heard a terrible rumbling, a massive herd of the creatures they were hunting stormed towards them, rather than face the heard, they quickly hid. They were unharmed, but their prey moved farther from them in that time.
As they continued further, Drayce fell behind the group some, suddenly, an inexplicable wave of loneliness hit him, filling him mind with painful memories... But... He continued on, catching up with the others.
Days afterward, they came upon a pile of rotting, festering, vomited up meat. Betty, Jay, and Mina decide to search the pile for anything useful, the Fly and Mina couldn't stomach the smell, vomiting and refusing to keep searching. Jay however, found a Horn from another Antelope in the slime, cannibalism, he thought? He pondered this briefly before taking it and moving on.
Coming upon the Antelope, it was a long, drawn out fight, the creatures screams and the skidding of it's teeth upon the ground drove Drayce and Jay near to Madness, however, thanks to their natural slipperyness and a few pecision strikes to the beast, it could hardly mount more than a few weak attacks on the group. With Betty utilizing high ground to land easier shots, as well as the others striking from out of the range of it's lethal back legs, the Antelope fell, the abomination laying still for good.
But as soon as they returned... One Joe Andrews and Magdalene Annahsvere warned that they spotted a ten foot tall, savage looking man duel-wielding two cleavers following in the distance behind our party. And was now at our door...