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Messages - JDodger

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61
Roleplaying / Re: Tales from the Bizarre Reappearance of House Dodger
« on: June 17, 2020, 03:19:35 AM »
6. Shadow of Malice

Roleplay:

The hubbub caused by the appearance of the creature known as Kilhorn Dodger - and especially his merciless slaughter of his own brother, the former Imperator-King Kellan - had died down quickly, as it seemed as though the hooded shadow of malice had arrived, sent a bunch of seemingly disjointed letters, killed a few people in the streets of Aix, and then simply disappeared.

But those who had paid attention at the new King's coronation may well have noticed a cloaked figure, half-hidden by shadow, standing still and silent against one of the pillars in the back. And if they had taken the time to look closer, they would have seen in the flickering torchlight the flash of sharpened teeth in a savage grimace, and a clawed, rough-skinned hand convulsively gripping upon the hilt of a longknife.

No one had paid enough attention to notice this figure's disappearance or to where it had disappeared.

Some days later, mangled and dismembered bodies begin to appear on the road between Perdan and Perdan Mines, their limbs and smaller appendages arranged in grotesque but geometrically precise patterns, and the rumors begin again...

62
Roleplaying / Re: Tales from the Bizarre Reappearance of House Dodger
« on: June 17, 2020, 01:39:32 AM »
5: Kilhorn (or is it Jonn?) Plays Politics, or: The Secret World of House Dodger, Part 2

Roleplay (Perdan):

The nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine diabhalin are cast down to the seventh earth

Jonn's hat is repopulated by other creations

Kilhorn cries and not for the last time



Message sent to all nobles of Perdan (43 recipients) - 2020-06-02 14:05:18

Did you not receive word that Kellan is dead killer

He was famous once

But I am more famous

Kilhorn

63
Roleplaying / Re: Tales from the Bizarre Reappearance of House Dodger
« on: June 17, 2020, 01:25:34 AM »
4: The Secret World of House Dodger, Part 1
(these are interwoven RPs across multiple characters)

Kilhorn: Message sent to all nobles of Perdan (43 recipients) - 2020-06-02 05:04:54

The nine diabhalin guard the entrance to Kilhorn's mind, and they are the ones in control, or so they think.

Jonn: Message sent to all nobles of Sandalak (25 recipients) - 2020-06-02 05:05:49

Jonn guards the 3imaad with a sword of light

Jonn Shintuk:Message sent to all nobles of Avernus (12 recipients) - 2020-06-02 05:06:51

The shadowless sword is a sword with no shadow

Jonn:Message sent to all nobles of Sandalak (25 recipients) - 2020-06-02 05:12:17

The brim of his hat is wide, and the nine diabhalin sit in anger upon it, and within Kilhorn lies torn and bleeding, but he bleeds upon himself alone

Kilhorn:Message sent to all nobles of Perdan (43 recipients) - 2020-06-02 05:13:19

In Aix, Kilhorn's eyes leak blood in tiny drops unseen by any but himself

JS: Message sent to all nobles of Avernus (12 recipients) - 2020-06-02 05:13:56

Jonn walks with his sons though they see him not except in dream

Message sent to all nobles of Avernus (12 recipients) - 2020-06-02 05:15:34

The Fellish camel is more properly a Cathayan camel, originally used in the high and hot places, but used now to the high and cold.

Glossary:

Diabhalin: Darkish (Dark Isle of FEI native) word for "devils"

3imaad: (Transliterated) Arabic for "pillars (3 or more)"

Shadowless Sword: Ultimate sword style of the Khalkar, the pinnacle of achievement in swordsmanship in the Darkish tradition

64
Roleplaying / Re: Tales from the Bizarre Reappearance of House Dodger
« on: June 17, 2020, 12:53:47 AM »
3: The Fallen Warleader's Loyal Captain (re-enter Heimar)

Public Letters

Message sent to all nobles of Sandalak (25 recipients) - 2020-06-01 19:24:06

Greetings, nobles of SAndalake

my master is inDisposed so be patient with me

I am merely a servant writing on behalf of a wounded and comtoes man

Heimar on behalf of

Jonn Dodger
Knight of Dwamon

Message sent to all nobles of Sandalak (25 recipients) - 2020-06-01 19:24:46

We will fllow orders as best as abel please instruckt

Heimar on behalf of

Jonn Dodger
Knight of Dwamon

(These letters are written by Captain Heimar who served both Jonn and Kilhorn previously. What is going on with Jonn will be explained somewhat in future RPs, but to all appearances he has reappeared as a much younger man, wounded and in a coma, attended by Heimar and some healers and guarded by Revenants - Kilhorn's strange and ghoulish servants and most lethal killers)

65
Roleplaying / Re: Tales from the Bizarre Reappearance of House Dodger
« on: June 17, 2020, 12:47:29 AM »
2: The Sons of the Prodigal Warleader

Public letters

Message sent to all nobles of Avernus (12 recipients) - 2020-06-01 12:09:28

I am here brothers, I swear myself to the Khalkar in my father's name, I have been ever so sworn. My palms are scarred and my sword is ours.

Jonn Shintuk Dodger
Knight of Nifelheim

Message sent to all nobles of Avernus (12 recipients) - 2020-06-02 04:52:43

Travel is slow, where may I pay allegiance to my liege and swear the Steel Oath with him? I will make haste to recruit scouts and meet at a guildhouse of the Khalkar.

Jonn Shintuk Dodger
Knight of Nifelheim

(I won't include replies to these letters, but they would indicate that JS' father Jonn was once Warleader of the Khalkar and is well known to some of the Avernian nobles)

Roleplay
(re-enter Karl-Jagutu)

Strange to be in Avernus after all these years, JS thought as he wended his way toward Nifel.

Karl-Jagutu swaggered even on camelback, and he seemed to like the big two humped Fellish breed, which was really a Cathayan breed Jonn had brought over.

And of course Karl-Jagutu smoked and sang, and JS did not, but the Udorians liked them both.

And they were ready for war, whether there was war to be had or not.

Notes:

JS is Jonn Shintuk's preferred nickname.

Cathay was a realm on the Far East Island that Jonn led to victory in the Last War of the Far East over the forces of Sorraine, Myern, and the Grand Duchy of the Dragon. JS was an infant when FEI sank and Jonn returned to Dwilight, bringing Cathayan camels with him to Swordfell.

Udorians are natives of Garuck Udor, more properly known as 'Udur. Please see http://battlemaster.org/testing/RegionDetails.php?ID=143

66
Roleplaying / Re: Tales from the Bizarre Reappearance of House Dodger
« on: June 17, 2020, 12:29:51 AM »
1: The Death of the Imperator-King and the Rise of Kilhorn

Roleplay (Perdan):

A black sailed ship, ragged beyond belief, limps into the port of Aix.

Such a ship inevitably draws more attention than most.

A ghost ship, or so it seems. Old superstitions abound in the Golden City, and priests of all kinds emerge from their dens.

A crowd gathers and chants are heard, same old same old but different.

A new fervor. Bells toll. Bridges are raised. Guards and militia in the street. Looting in the poorer quarters, efficiently sequestered from the golder parts of the city.

The ship is allowed to dock against all regulations. Riots feared. Duke's orders or so they say.

The crowd numbers a thousand or more. Expectant and rabidly poor. They hiss and yowl like alley cats in the torchlit gloom before dawn.

Then from those in the good places a shout of jubilation. A hero's welcome.

Kellan Dodger emerges from the forecastle. Alive and well after all these years. The word goes up. The once lord, duke, king, imperator-king.

His eyes are wild and dark, his unkempt hair swinging behind him in the breeze. He calls out, "There is no God but the All-Creator -"

His throat opens, pouring blood. From behind him steps a shadow of malice. Yellow eyes set deep in barky brown skin, sharpened teeth bared for all to see.

The Imperator King is dead. The crowd melts in rancorous grief. The looting ceases. Fear laces the air from the water to the inner quarters.

Kilhorn and his killers walk the streets.

Public letters
(should be noted that the King of Perdan, Kay Peregrine, had just died)

Message sent to all nobles of Perdan (43 recipients) - 2020-06-01 09:19:01

The kings are dead

So is Perdan

Kilhorn

67
Roleplaying / Tales from the Bizarre Reappearance of House Dodger
« on: June 17, 2020, 12:29:15 AM »
Greetings again, I return for the are pee. This thread will compile (hopefully) all my RPs from the new iteration of my account.

To catch yourself up on Dodger lore across the various iterations of my account (started in '07, restarted in '14 and again in '20 - ffs), please visit my original wiki at: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Dodger_Family (this includes outdated information on current locations and other things that have since been retconned, and leaves out many things that have occurred since it was last updated - ie. much that is "non-canonical")

And the forum thread "Wolves of War: House Dodger" at https://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,7263.0.html ("canon")

As well as "The Continued Adventures of House Dodger" at https://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,8716.0.html ("canon")

Dramatis personae: (to be added later)

68
Roleplaying / Re: The Continued Adventures of House Dodger
« on: August 01, 2019, 07:15:03 AM »
Roleplay from Kellan Dodger
Message sent to all allied nobles in Meuse (28 recipients) - 3 hours, 40 minutes ago

Kellan smiled as he set out for Winkamus, he and his Khalkar warriors winding through the great gnarled old trees of the Meusen woods.

Of all the places in the Westland, for so the East Continent was called among Kellan's people, the forests of Meuse and Mulhouse most reminded Kellan of home.

The trees were ancient and strong, some of the expansive roots crawling out of the carpet of fallen leaves so high one needed to ride around them rather than over. In the summer months the rainstorms that blew in from the not so distant coast filled the low places with a mucky bog.

In many ways, so like the Mistwood of Mnalor, where Kellan had grown up.

He hummed a Darkish marching song as they went, and soon his men caught up the tune. Some laughed, for it was a song for homeward marches, usually not sung before battle. But after Kellan had sung the first chorus, he reflected that perhaps for him, battle was the closest thing to home...

(You can just barely hear Kellan and his men singing through the trees. It sounds something like this: https://youtu.be/lQFKMar4x-w )


69
Development / Re: Command Staff Settings - Help Make Them better
« on: July 09, 2019, 10:58:26 PM »
They do get used some, unfortunately mostly in cases where the marshal doesn't trust their army to line up properly or just doesnt understand line settings. Given how few of them are even semi-useful, this is too bad for those armies. Marshals should take more time to work on custom settings and communicate with their armies. Once they get used to being expected to line up themselves instead of being treated like bots, they tend to do well. Repetition and consistency is key.

That being said, new marshal settings, especially in regards to ones that change unit behavior, would be useful. I will put some thought into it.

70
Roleplaying / Re: The Continued Adventures of House Dodger
« on: April 19, 2019, 09:39:38 AM »
Kellan rolled up a smoke.

He could watch the whole camp up here, just sitting on a mat on top of this little rise in the land.

It was a good spot for drifting off into thought, this little rise that, while only a few feet really, seemed to boost one so much closer to the clouds.

He lit the smoke and drew a deep breath.

He thought of the Dark Isle where he'd grown up. The way the towering thunderheads rolled out along the coast to pelt the earth with great teardrops from the sky. The way the dense salt fogs of the Mistwood drifted dreamily among the rough and gnarled trees, hung with creeping mosses. The way the darkish lights skipped airily over the little bogs that collected in the low-lying areas in the wet months, which were many and most.

His land. His father's land and the land of their ancestors. Won from the dark elves known as the Remnant in a war that never really ended, that waxed and waned in intensity over the centuries as the Remnant waxed and waned in magical powers, as the Darkish waxed and waned in singularity of purpose.

With nothing but steel and grit and bound by their Khalkar oath, the men of the Isle defended her from threats within and without for centuries. But Kellan was not born in those times. Kellan was born in the dark days of a foreign empire known as Arcaea taking dominion over the Isle and installing their foreign lords, first the Arcachoni and then the Coralynthi, over her inhabitants.

The Dodgers were always known as the worst kind of Darkish insurgents, the ones that lived off in the bogs down paths only they knew, the kind that talked like aristocrats and lived like brigands. Always the Dodgers, the Gegs, and the Shadow Clans giving the Arcaeans fits. Banditry, piracy, extortion, and murder for hire - all in the name of freedom.

All in the name of the Khalkar.

Kellan exhaled and looked down at his hands, the palms blackened and scarred from the taking of the Steel Oath, not once but twice. On his seventeenth birthday he'd stood with old Merrit the steward, who'd helped raise him after his father's murder by a Remnant lichlord. He and Merrit and Grathe Geg and a fresh-forged sword, still red-hot from the blacksmith's fire.

A year or two later he and Grathe stood with Lord Jonn, just the day before Jonn's victory in the tournament at Enlod, and took it again, to bind themselves to the Oath through the noble line of passage.

Ever since he'd come of age he'd been at the center of it all, from his accidental win at a tournament that got him a marshalship at 17. The last wars of the Far East, keeping the Dark Isle and Cathay alive with Lord Jonn until all their enemies were overthrown and the temples of the Sartanists burned even as the Far East sank into the waves.

Coming to the western land that most called the East, the mad Xerarch, Selenia's betrayal, coming to Perdan after the failed rebellion. Climbing the ranks to a throne and the unsought position of Supreme Allied Commander.

A brief absence... and now he was back.

Much had changed. Kellan's life, it seemed, was very quickly getting back to its normal.

71
Roleplaying / Re: The Continued Adventures of House Dodger
« on: April 19, 2019, 09:38:23 AM »
Kellan strode up and down the length of the allied camp, giving orders here and suggestions there. He was only of average height and appearance, with a plain, well-lined and sunbeaten face covered in multiple scars. His salt-and-pepper hair was almost all gone in the front and middle, leaving only the sides and back of his head covered.

But he was broad of shoulder and strong as any younger man, his eyes sharp and piercing. He bore himself as a man born to command, upright of posture, with a firm handshake, the kind of man that looks everyone in the eye and sees them for who they are.

He was dressed all in black as was the Dodger custom. Between battles on a hot summer day, he wore a simple cloth tunic and pants, his House arms and signs of his rank presented neatly on his collar. In battle he would wear black scaled leather and mail, and a war mask of black iron. Its blank and forbidding visage was known to terrify foes.

His soldiers were heavy archers, and while in times past they had been known to ride swift Udorian coursers into battle, firing from their saddles as they danced among the lines, these days they dismounted from humbler steeds and lined up with the rank and file.

But they were Khalkar soldiers one and all, takers of the Steel Oath like Kellan, with the scars on their palms to prove it. Some Darkishmen from the Isle, some Perdanese, some even from Garuck Udor and Unterstrom in Dwilight. They were trained in the Khalkar ways, ready to die at a moment's notice, and armed and armored with Perdan's best.

Kellan would need them today. Perdan would need all her soldiers today.

He continued making his rounds among the tents and pickets, as if his last-minute adjustments could stay the hand of Fate...

72
Roleplaying / The Continued Adventures of House Dodger
« on: April 14, 2019, 04:08:04 AM »
The night was dark, and somewhere in the distance an inhuman shriek rent the chilly air.

An old man picked his way through the ancient ruined shell of a noble manor in Gor Ault.

Had Heimar been the kind of man for musing, he might have mused at the irony of his situation. Alone in a lost and monster-infested land, surrounded by all the dread of dark and creaking boards and spiders and Creator knows what else scurrying off into the gloom, he feared none of it half so much as he feared the very thing he sought.

But Heimar was not a man for musing. He was an old soldier, burned out from too many battles and too much raaha smoke to cover the pain of lost friends. So he did not muse. He pushed aside his fears, his very thoughts, consigned them to the dark place behind the well-built walls of his soul, and continued on his mission.

The thing he sought - and it was a thing, for what other word can describe that which cannot be called human, and yet is not spirit, nor elf, nor beast, and yet moves as though it had will, and sense, and kills and kills again? - was somewhere within these crumbling walls, somewhere in the shrieking plains of Gor Ault where man was predator or prey or long gone.

Heimar had been sent by a master he'd once loved to find this thing to which he had somehow become bound, this killing machine that had turned his life into a nightmare unending, this yoke he thought he'd escaped twice, only to be dragged back under its crushing weight. That weight had smothered all love in his heart, until all that was left was duty unshirkable and the yearning for the release of death.

For now, Heimar believed, death was his only escape.

He found it collapsed in a dusty corner, like a doll tossed aside by a storming child. The yellowy eyes stared blankly off at empty darkness. The cruel mouth twisted in a meaningless grimace, exposing sharpened teeth behind the cracked and ragged lips. The clawlike hands twitched intermittently, spasmodically, on the ends of arms askew, splayed out at angles unnatural to the human form.

Heimar drew in a slow breath, shoved his hands into his pockets as he looked down at it. Was there life within? If so, it showed no sign of seeing him or sensing his presence. He thought - but perhaps it was the wind through the cracks in the rotting walls, but he thought - he could hear shallow rasping breaths.

He hoped against hope that he was too late, that he would fail in this "last" duty and go back to his peaceful life as a beggar in the streets of Agyr. But he knew better. As he drew forth the stone chip the nameless Khalkar brother had thrust into his hand by surprise as he sat smoking on the docks, he could feel the power within it surging forth as it never had.

It had led him here, and now he must complete the mission.

The thing stirred even before he pressed the stone to its convulsing palm, a great creaking shudder up from the base of the spine to the base of the skull. Heimar drew back and fought the urge to vomit.

"Can't be helped," he muttered to himself after a moment. "Made an Oath..."

Forcefully, he pressed the stone into the outstretched palm. A wheezing gasp racked the  supine form, the spine arching toward the ceiling. Heimar backed away as it siezed and shuddered, rasping groans grinding forth from between the desiccated lips.

At last the limbs shot out at crazed angles, the yellowed eyes opened fully, the mouth opened, and a rasping scream worse than that of a tortured animal burst forth from between the sharpened teeth. Then it collapsed, and was silent.

Heimar hoped again, briefly. But the thing stirred, slowly this time, the claws seeking purchase on the warped floorboards, turning itself, forcing itself to its hands and knees.

The head rose slowly, lanky hair parting to reveal the strange, barklike skin of a face halfway between human and monster. The yellow eyes glinted. It bared its sharpened teeth in a savage, bestial grin.

"Captain... Heimar," it rasped.

Heimar drew breath, fighting the wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him.

"Lord Kilhorn," he said, clearing his throat. "You have been assigned a task."

If a tool of murder can be said to smile, the thing known as Kilhorn Dodger smiled.

73
Dwilight / Re: Lurian Resurgence
« on: April 12, 2018, 08:46:45 PM »
Edited by Gabanus: *Absolutely no need to assault a player. I suggest you deal with IC issues IC and keep a friendly atmosphere ooc*

74
East Island / Re: Wanted: Secessionist Northern Duke
« on: March 30, 2018, 05:36:20 PM »

75
East Island / Re: The Bloody Battle of Evora
« on: February 28, 2018, 03:56:19 AM »
 8)

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