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| Art by Windfall Design |
The people of Woodbrook can inform the players that before these attacks started there were wolves in the woods, but they were never this aggressive, and they never attacked so close to the village before. One particularly fearful villager, an aged hunter, seems to believe the wolves are getting closer and closer to attacking the town each day.
The Mayor, or Elder if that's more your style, of Woodbrook, Abilar, will hire willing adventurers to head into the woods and discover what is causing this disturbance in the local fauna, offering them 10 gold for every pelt they can bring back, and 100 gold when the wolves stop harassing the town once and for all.
Finding the wolves is not the hard part, as they are led by an intelligent Winter Wolf named Snow Runner who is willing to speak to adventurers who will listen to his sad tale. As such, he has ordered that the Wolves on the outskirts of town will lead the adventurers back to him.
Snow Runner's tale is a sad one, his earliest memories are as a pet to a kind old wizard who lived in a tall tower on the farthest edge of the Northern Realms. Snow Runner, and his sister White Wind, lived comfortably with this old wizard, they were well fed, they ran free across the open plains of the Tundra, and they were slowly taught to speak by the Wizard. With no one else to keep him company, he would often spend his time speaking with his pets, and Snow Runner, while not being a genius by human definition, is very intelligent for a Wolf.
But all would not remain so happy. After some time, one of the petty barbarian kings of the north came to the tower and demanded the help of the Wizard in expanding his domain. The wizard kindly refused, and the king left in a rage. Snow Runner thought that would be the end of it, but one day as he was running free with his sister, he saw a large force of men approaching the tower. This was the army of the barbarian king, who had returned to demand the wizard's assistance or exact his punishment on him. The Wizard knew this was his end, but he loosed his pets and bade them run, they would stand no chance against the army arrayed before them.
As Snow Runner and White Wind ran far and ran fast, the wizard locked himself in mortal combat with the king. In the end, no one got what the wanted, the wizard and the king were killed in the process. But that's not important.
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| Art by Windfall Designs |
The two wolves were lost and alone, and had to fend for themselves. The Tundra is no easy place to survive, even for creatures made to live there. They headed south, and found lush green forests where they began to live, and hunt in, and run free through. But this wouldn't last either. As one day a band of hunters would come into the forest and track White Wind to their den where she lay sleeping as her brother was out hunting. They killed the sleeping creature and took her pelt to sell for a few coins. Snow Runner returned as they skinned his sister alive, and took his vengeance upon the hunters.
All but one of the hunters was killed that day. The final one escaping in the chaos with the pelt of White Wind and running for his life. Eventually, that hunter would settle in Woodbrook and put up his bow, taking instead to drinking in the tavern and, as of recently, warning of wolves attacking the village itself.
If the player will listen to his whole tale, Snow Runner will offer them the valuables his pack has acquired in return for them drawing the old hunter out of town so that he may have his revenge.
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| Art by David Lewis Johnson |
As always, I hope you can get some use out of this in your own game and feel free to leave a comment telling me your thoughts on it!
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