<< Session 0, Part II: Influences
Session 1, Opening Scene
Although neither he nor his parents knew it, Stenn had begun life as Stenosian Vey. On his Naming Day at the age of twelve, the boy had unknowingly dredged up a moniker from his subconscious: 'Stenn'. Moose Rock Clan accepted and celebrated it. They were simply thankful to now have a shortened way of referring to Chief Hrowaka's son other than the lengthy title that roughly translated as Twig of the Branch of Hrowaka Axe-Arm.
It was 35,386 B.C., a cold night somewhere in what would eventually become the Dordogne region of France. The nineteen year old Cro-Magnon man stood next to his mother's woven sleeping pallet and looked down upon sunken, closed eyes, her pallid face. It was warm enough in the hide-covered dwelling that Stenn's heavily muscled body gleamed with a sheen of sweat. He was clothed only in a breech cloth. The woman on the pallet shivered.
Norda was gravely ill, and Stenn was not Mog-Ur, nor a shaman. "How is she?" queried a gravelly voice from the other side of the dwelling, where the firelight cast a shadowy silhouette of a man. Stenn's father, Chief Hrowaka, was weak and stooped, crippled by severe osteoarthritis and by something much worse. Something that Uta, their medicine woman, could not treat.
Stenn felt helpless. It was impossible to guess which one of his parents Gray Coyote would take first. A bujant had been troubling the village of late. If it followed the usual pattern of such Stenn was torn between staying near his ill mother and joining his fellow hunters.
The chief was very old, sixty-two sheddings of the Bear Tree, if the chief's memory could be trusted. And so Stenn kept watch over his mother while his father lay addled on kuju on the other side of the hide-covered dwelling.
Norda, though delirious (perhaps mercifully) and in and out of consciousness, coughed up more blood. Stenn cradled her head and dabbed at the reddish foam on her lips. A minute went by, and only the crackle of the fire spoke into the darkness. Then Norda was wracked by another bout of coughing, just as the brazen bugling1 of the bujant shattered the relative quiet of Moose Rock.
Shouts erupted throughout the camp, and there were running feet, peppered with curses, oaths, deprecations, and more than one cry to Ursus2 for strength and protection. A young woman of the clan, Jenkla, ducks into the dwelling. Her furs are frost-rimed and snow powders he long, dark hair. "Stenn Pah'et, you are needed!"
Stenn looked up at his mate. "Jenkla Su'hed, Drogan and the others can handle a bu—" His words were clipped off abruptly as Jenkla ran a gloved hand through her hair, dispersing red flakes already beginning to melt in the warmer interior of the frost-den. Blood Dust3!
Jenkla took a step toward Stenn. "It is the Tears: the bujant was merely a harbinger! Many will die this night!"
Stenn moved and embraced Jenkla, cradling her for a moment to his massively muscled chest, a massive hand cradling the back of her neck. Then, releasing her, he pulled on fur-lined leggings and wrapped his bear pelt around himself. "Not if I can help it!" he vowed. Stay with them both," he pleaded as much as instructed, and then he was outside the frost-den and shouting orders.
Meta: see three footnotes below.
I spent a fair amouont of time on this post, and it in turn spurred the creation of a Cast of Characters and a Terminology post, so I'm going to award 0.5 XP, bringing new total to 4.0 XP. I choose to spend those 4 XP to increase Stenn's Spirit attribute from 4 to 5.
XP
- Lifetime earned: 1.0 (started with 3; +0.5 character creation, +0.5 end of current scene)
Lifetime spend: 4.0 (raised Spirit to 5)
Stenn's Attributes
- Body 3 ○○○ stress track: □□□
- Mind 3 ○○○ stress track: □□□
- Spirit 5 ○○○○ stress track: □□□□□
1. Asked the Mythic oracle, Does the bujant attack while Stenn attends his mother? Fate Roll = yes.
2. among the mightiest Spirits; some believe the mightiest
3. the tears shed by Vodor the Sky Spirit as he fights a losing battle with the Void.
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