@09/03/2025

• Will MacGruber was returning home to his village of Ragged Hollow after his Winnowing. Youngsters go on a Winnowing as a coming of age journey to learn important skills and return to their community to serve in any way they can. He left two years before, striking out southwards to the kingdom of Dal Raeth across the Wytchwall Mountains where he learned the skills of arms and combat, selling his services to to wealthy merchants as a caravan guard and even working for a short period as the body guard to a minor nobleman.
• At the two year anniversary of his departure from Ragged Hollow, he packed his weapons and personal belongings and made his way back across the mountains to the Scaithlands and towards home along the Old North Road to meetup with the the other youngsters form the village who would also be returning from their own Winnowing.
• One the sixth day of his travel north along the ancient road, Will came to a sharp bend where the road led around a rocky outcropping. He saw a column of black smoke rising from the other side where the road curved around and heard multiple voices speaking what he thought sounded like the Goblin Tongue. Having learned the language in his youth from the mischievous forest dwellers near his village, he cautiously climbed up the rocky ridge to see what was happening on the other side.
• Once at the top, Will looked down from above at the scene on the other side. Where the road curved around the ridge, three goblin bandit had chopped down a tree across the road itself and ambushed some travelers. Below him the smoke was coming from a wagon that had been overturned and smashed, it wood used to make a fire that was being used to roast the dead mule that had pulled it. Two goblins were hacking chunks of burnt meat from the animal and feeding themselves and a third larger goblin that they called "boss". A dwarven corpse lay dead in the dirt, his body peppered with goblin arrows. The larger goblin was shouting orders to the smaller two and was sitting on a wooden chest that emitted thumping noises and a muffled series of screams could be heard coming from within.
• Will quickly realized that he was now a protector of the weak and a servant of Law as a member of his community returning successfully from a Winnowing. He took up his crossbow and made his way to the edge of the rocky ridge and took aim at the goblin bandits.
• After a brave combat whereby he slayed the three goblins and suffered a grievous wound, Will freed a captive dwarf who had been locked inside the wooden chest. It turned out that the victim was no other than Lofarr, a merchant from the dwarven settlement of Grimscarth that lay north of Ragged Hollow. Lofarr used to come down from the highlands to trade with the villagers and remembered the young lad. After agreeing to escort Lofarr back to the village, he rewarded will with the battleaxe that belonged to his slain bodyguard ("poor old Hárl") and all the silver coin that the goblins had stolen from them. Together, will and Lofarr buried Hárl, cleared the road of the wreck and fallen tree, and made their way along the Old North Road towards the rendezvous with the other youngsters returning to Ragged Hollow.
• Experience Award: 300XP