Nicole’s primary character – a ranger/druid named Elokin – makes it a point to recruit at least one native fauna during each adventure. Often it leads to some memorable improv: horny British rhinos, a chipper-but-nihilistic grasshopper, and an Australian bull shark named Bruce (naturally) to name a few.
During the second quest to exterminate the gnoll threat to the north, Elokin kept one stripped hyena safe from her party, and it eventually made it to her grove.
In order to find out about the source of the gnoll infestation, Elokin decided to Awaken the hyena. Now, rather than becoming a throwaway interaction, Nicole and I had to build out an actual character – a retainer in hyena form.
Thus was born Joseph of the Salt Watchers.
I did not see the Twisted Ones come, but many said that they came from the place of the tainted waters, the place that drinks of the salted water but never gives it back. We Salt Watchers did not hunt near that place – it was too far outside of our territory, and the Brush Stalkers and the Green Furs had strong alphas. Until the Twisted Ones arrived.
Something about them did not make sense to us. Not just how they walked on their hinds, but their lust for the hunt. They were never satisfied, never basked in the glow of a full belly and a soft bed of grass. But they had food to spare and they shared their kills with those like me. Why wouldn’t I have followed along?
Of course, some of us were Changed. No, I don’t know exactly how; some kills simply did not rest in the belly as they should, and a brother or sister joined the Twisted Ones. No more full bellies or beds of grass for them.
What’s that? Oh, yes. We heard that they came from the place of tainted waters. There was nothing special about the day their alpha (there was rumored to be only one at first) emerged and Twisted the packs. But their numbers grew. Moons of snow before you came, the numbers of the Twisted Ones dropped and their alphas raged for it. But there were plenty of brothers and sisters to Twist, and soon there were even more than before.
There was talk of food to the south: soft and toothless prey. And now there were no more Brush Stalkers to block the way, no more Green Furs to keep the tainted prey to their place of muck and wet. No more Salt Watchers. The Twisted pack grew and grew as we waited for the snows to melt and the hunt to begin.
And then you came. You freed me from the Twisted Ones. You spared me from your raging pack. And you showed me this place of peace and plenty. You are my alpha now.
Maybe some of the Salt Watchers survived. I hope so. And I hope that they did not survive only to join the next pack of Twisted Ones. My guess is they will try to recover their numbers. After a new alpha emerges, at least.
Here is Joseph in three flavors: au natural, with his collar (and attached Homing Arrowhead), and decked out in the adapted armor that Elokin had made from Cothynta‘s scaled remains.
Full disclosure: I basically 100% traced the base hyena image from one I found online. Baby steps.
