Knights of the Cardboard Castle

In the beginning of 1335, our exploration team from the previous year returns with a powerful artefact: Humakt’s Raven Banner. It is a legendary banner from the First Age which guarantees victory in any battle, but always kill the bearer. We choose to keep the treasure. We may never actually put it to use, but the fact that we possess it should add to our prestige. The rest of the year goes by with no great events of note. We sacrifice to the gods and learn the Morale blessing from Humakt, the god of War and Death, and the Friend of Yinkin blessing from Odayla, the god of hunting.

Towards the end of the year, the Woodpecker clan approaches us to hire our weaponthanes for an attack against the clan ring of the Orladnast clan. Both of these clans are neutral to us and are far enough away that they are unlikely to be part of any tribe we might form in the future. We agree and the attack is successful. Our clan is rewarded and the blame goes to the Woodpecker since Orlanthi custom teaches that mercenaries are neutral. As usual we send out an exploring team in the Storm season but fail to hear back from them before the end of the year.

As 1336 begins, we decide to attempt the heroquest known as The Making of the Storm Tribe. This was when Orlanth gathered the various clans into a single tribe and will be needed before we are able to form a tribe of our own. Accordingly we allocate our clan magic to this effect. But then calamity strikes. Our clan leader Orlkanth dies of old age and we are forced to elevate another elderly worshipper of Orlanth to the position. We simply do not possess any nobles who are followers of Orlanth and who can be good leaders.

Nevertheless as we have already invested our magic, we proceed with the heroquest. In a somewhat unusual move, Ferena, a female worshipper of Vinga, is chosen as the quester. This normally is not allowed but as Vinga is the daughter of Orlanth and as she is the goddess of adventurers, her female worshippers may perform heroquests as if they were male worshippers of Orlanth. As usual, the heroquest is difficult but we have carefully studied the myth and Ferena is a great warrior, so we succeed.

Events later that year include hosting a group of priestesses of Uralda who wish to bless our cows. We offer them generous gifts in return for this service, both to win their goodwill and to cement our clan’s reputation in Dragon Pass. We also help the other clans deal with a common problem. The Isolting, who we are on good terms with, have started rearing dogs. But dogs are the natural enemies of the alynxes, who are the beloved creatures of Yinkin, a friend of Orlanth. By custom, all Orlanthi clans must therefore reject dogs and kill them wherever they are found.

Due to our reputation and our generosity with gifts, we are able to convince the Isoltings to give up their dogs peacefully and the other clans in Dragon Pass are duly grateful to us. Finally at the end of year we still receive no news of the exploration team we had sent out a year ago. We must presume that the entire team is dead. This is grievous loss. We are rich enough to recruit new weaponthanes but the team’s leader was Darrold, the second best warrior in the clan and an Orlanthi worshipper with decent leadership skills. Since he was only middle-aged, he could have been trained to one day take over as clan leader.

Our clan is now relatively rich and quite highly regarded but without a solid leader, it will be difficult to form and lead a tribe, even with the blessing of the gods.