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`Apr. 25, 2025` · [[Horseapple]] · #Fragment #Characters #Warband
> [!custom-callout]- All mentions, including keyword *“npc11”*
> *Pulled from* [[2-strings-(Warband)]]
> - “I understand that you've given leave to Katrin to spread some nonsense about marks on your hands. I just want to say that, as an educated man, I find it disturbing that you would resort to old women's superstitions to back your claim. Village women will believe one thing one day, another thing the next. Now a horoscope, properly cast by an astrologer at a royal university with a reputation to uphold, might tell you something worth knowing, but those have not been performed in Calradia for some time.”
> - “Hello there, {laddie/lassie}. Have a drink on me.”
> - “Why, I managed to sell my wagon and pots, {lad/lass}. For once I've got money to spend and I intend to make the best of it.”
> - “For 30 years I followed the armies of this land, selling them victuals and drink, watching their games of dice and finding them girls, and nary a denar was left in my purse at the end.”
> - “It's no kind of life, victualling the armies. You earn a bit here and a bit there as the soldiers spend their money, and then along comes one defeat and you have to start over, endebting yourself to buy a new wagon and new oxen. So I've decided to get out of the business, but army life is all I know.”
> - “Why, I'll be a soldier myself! Help my old hands to a bit of loot to comfort me in my retirement. Two boys I bore, both soldiers' brats, and they became soldiers themselves. One had his head split by a Khergit war club, the other died of the pox, but at least they didn't die hungry.”
> - “I know how to swing a blade, staunch a wound, and feed an army on the march. It would be a foolish captain who passed up the opportunity to hire an experienced campaigner like me! Say, {laddie/lassie}, don't you command a war party of your own, now?”
> - “Hey thank you captain. But before joining up with you, I would ask for a payment of {reg3} denars. I know that in war parties soldiers can go on for weeks without seeing any wages. I am wise enough not to sign anywhere without having myself covered.”
> - “Excuse me, captain. It's not good that we {s21}. I've followed armies and warbands for 30 years, and the least the soldiers expect of a leader is to feed them, pay them, and do {his/her} best to keep their sorry skins intact as best {he/she} can.”
> - “Begging your pardon, captain, but I can't keep silent. That man, {s11} -- he killed his own brother.”
> - “He's a kinslayer, cursed by heaven, and he'll bring misfortune and sorrow upon us, that's for certain. I don't like being around him and I don't think he should be with us. That's all. Sorry for troubling you.”
> - “Captain. I don't much care for that {s11}. After that last battle, he went around muttering some heathen incantation, as he went through the slain looking for loot.”
> - “He said it was a prayer of thanksgiving for victory, but it didn't sound like that to me. Captain, I don't want him raising up the ghosts of the dead to make trouble for us on our travels. I think you had best be rid of him.”
> - “Ach, captain! A fight like that one sets my old joints a-creaking. Still, we licked them pretty good, didn't we?”
> - “Old {s11} in particular showed them a thing or two, I thought. Not bad for the pair of us, I thought, given that between us we've probably seen close to a hundred winters.”
> - “You did an old woman a great service by taking her into your company. But I'm afraid I'm finding this life no more to my liking than driving a wagon. Too much cold, too much hunger, and at the end all I see in front of me is a hole in the ground. So I'll be off, although I don't know where.”
> - “Captain! So good to see you! People say that you've been making gold hand over foot. I'm a fidgety old bag of bones, I'll admit. I left you because I wasn't satisfied with the warrior's life, but I spend a bit of time in town and I realize that there are worse things in life than a full belly, honest companions, and the joy of seeing the enemy run before you. So, would you be hiring again.”
> - “I see the mountains. We must be getting near home.”
> - “I'm from Uxkhal. You know the saying, {sir/madame} -- 'Barley grown in Uxkhal is made into ale in Praven, and we're all the better for it.' Not sure what that means, {sir/madame}, but it's true about the barley. And wheat, and oats. We grow more grain here in the Vale of Uxkhal then all the rest of Calradia put together, and our ale is the best, too. You can see it in the soil here -- rich and black, and smells of good harvests and full bellies.”
> - “The Swadian king will tell you that Praven was the biggest city in Calradia back under the Empire, and that's why he should rule the whole land today. Mind you, I don't care much about politics, {sir/madame} -- I've sold provisions to every army that ever marched in Calradia, and I tell you that I wouldn't give a single one of them a single biscuit unless I had the cold, hard denars in my hand first. Why these high and mighty kings and nobles can't pay their bills, I'll never know. But I prattle on a bit, there, don't I?”
> - “I was born in the train of an army, and lived all my days in the train of an army. My folk are from Praven, however, so I guess that's as much home to me as anywhere.”
> - “Why, that's a fine idea, {laddie/lassie}! I suppose I shall have to learn to call you 'Majesty', or 'Your Grace', then...”
> - “Of course, I would! Let me see your hand, there... Aha! You've got the 'Mark of Kings.' That's what we call it in Praven, anyway. I hear in Suno it's the 'Emperor's Line,' but they call everything differently, over there. Anyway, yours is very long -- I'd say that it means that you're meant to rule! It's your destiny! In fact, I think I can even recall a prophecy to that effect. Hmm, how did it go...”
> - “I can't recall now, but if you let me go back to my home, I could find an old greybeard who remembers it in full. And, I could put it around that you've got the mark of kings on your hand! There's many where I come from who are waiting for a just ruler, and a man's hands tell all that's worth knowing about him. Give me a few weeks, and I'll reckon I can have quite a few expecting you to be their next {king/queen}.”
> - “I hear that Lezalit is off and about telling folks that you're going to make yourself {king/queen} and then lead an army over the mountains. Shall there be no end to these wars, {laddie/lassie}? I was thinking that if you made yourself {king/queen}, then maybe you'd give us a bit of peace. But I guess the heavens have made Calradian blood to be spilt, and Calradian bones to be broken, and there's no getting round their decree.”
> - “{Laddie/Lassie} -- I was thinking that it's been a while since I visited my kinfolk in {s17}. They've been kind enough to me over the years, helping me out during the lean times, so I feel I'd like to share some of my newfound fortune with them. I've also bought wholesale enough times from the Praven grain merchants for them to trust me. I'd reckon they might be persuaded to spill a few tidbits about events in the {s18}, if that would interest you.”
> - “Ay! You'd grant old Katrin a title of nobility? Well, I'd be daft to turn you down, now wouldn't I? My, the strange turns that life takes... Fancy this old bag of bones becoming a great peer of the realm of Calradia.”
> - “Aye, lassie, I just can't help thinking to myself -- you've made quite a name for yourself, haven't you? Fighting and marching up and down the length of the land. Why, I suspect if you were a man, some king would have offered you a fief by now. Well, you may still get what you deserve -- you'll just have to prove yourself a bit more.”
> - “Great heaven, {laddie/lassie}. So now it looks like you and I are enemies. Didn't I say that life takes us on some very strange turns? Destiny sometimes has a cruel sense of humor -- I'll say that much.”
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