Legacy O The Bearmen (Palladium Books Fantasy)

 Legacy of the Bearmen

(Optional Source Material for the Palladium Fantasy RPG)

By: Josh Hilden

*Authors Note: This is the finished portion of a proposed sourcebook for PFRPG that I was working on in 2008. I have no plans to finish the project, but I like what was written and am therefore posting it for other's enjoyment. There has been no real editing done on this project so please excuse the mistakes*

The Plain of Guim-Rai (High Grasses)

The smoke-filled the battlefield from the fires that continued to consume the remains of the fallen dead, even three days since the end of the battle. The stench of charred flesh saturated the atmosphere of the Plain of High Grasses in the Great Northern Wilderness. Even now, whimpering could still be heard from those who refused to submit to the oblivion that was their inevitable fate. Here and their shapes could be seen drifting through the smoke. These were the vermin of warfare… scavengers.

An arrow flashed across the field and slammed into the ghostly form of a goblin scavenger who had been hunched over the lifeless and bloated body of what had once been a beautiful and noble Elven Lancer. Its gurgling screams could be heard across the field as it struggled to remove the arrow from its chest, ultimately failing and thereby become yet another corpse to be stripped and desecrated on the blood-soaked field.

“Excellent shooting General Grell,” The small Kankoran ranger said to the massive snow-white Bearman by his side.

The appearance of the two creatures’ side by side may have been comical if not for the grim scene that surrounded them as far as the eye could see. The corpses of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Elves, Dwarves, and their minion races littered the once pastoral environment. Interspersed were the few Bearmen, Kankoran, and Gnomish bodies that had yet to be cleared from the abattoir.

“Humph,” the General grunted and then continued, “I have less use for thieves than I do for elves or dwarves,” The General stated in his dry, matter of fact, way.

Both creatures turned to the sound of onrushing hoof falls. In the distance, several mounted figures were visible, light glinting off of the obviously well-polished armor that skinned the riders. Elves by the looks of them, probably high nobility, Grell shook his head in frustration.

This was getting more difficult.

“General, should we sound a rallying call?” The young ranger queried nervousness barely perceptible in the Kankorans lean form. He turned slightly in the direction of the surviving Bearmen and Kankoran warriors that were resting in the shade of a copse of trees that had miraculously survived the day’s carnage.

“No, Perce, they’ve been through too much in the last few days to waste their fear on five elves, no matter how polished their armor,” Grell replied, obvious contempt saturating his voice.

The mounted elves quickly closed the distance and reined their mounts to a halt in front of the two warriors. The one that was obviously in command, his markings were that of a Captain in the 1st Imperial Lancers, at one time one of the most honorable units of the elvish military elite.

“You are a creature of incredible arrogance to stand so defiantly in front of so many Elven dead and dying.” The Captain said, his hand hovering at the hilt of his sword. His companions tensed at the motion of their leader.

“Elf, do you honestly believe that I have any fear of you and your companions? The survivors of this massacre are being taken care of by my people. Although after the damage they did to my warriors, I should have just put them all to the pike. But I am a creature of honor, and I will never take steel to those who are helpless.” Grell said, raising his Great War ax in the general direction of the elvish Captain.

Perce moved slightly behind his leaders’ leg and slid one of his throwing daggers from his belt. It may not be a bow, he thought, but I’ll take at least one of these haughty bastards with me if they are stupid enough to attack.

“You have kept our wounded safe, even though this battle has savaged your lands and left your people scattered and broken?” The Elf Captain asked surprise evident in his tone.

Rage seemed to well up in the great Generals voice, and he glared at the Captain as he replied, “Only one in every one hundred of my warriors that marched here to honor our friendship and treaties with the Gnomish people still live Elf. In the last two seasons, our villages and halls have been burnt and broken, many of our cubs have perished or been orphaned because too many warriors and mothers lie dead, and yet we have protected the survivors of this abomination because it was the right thing to do!” The last words were punctuated by a roar of grief and anger.

The Elf was at a loss for words. He looked again at the battlefield in front of them all. “Have you saved the Dwarves as well?” He asked quietly.

“Yes, the dwarf’s comrades will probably be here in the next few days. We will hand their survivors over to them as well.” Grell replied tiredness and sorrow, finally overtaking rage and numbness in his voice.

“Then we will take our people and return to our side of the conflict if that is agreeable to you.”

“Take them and go Elf, but take these words with you if you will,” Grell said

The Elf Captain stopped and turned to the mighty and noble Bearman and nodded.

“Our time is over before it has even had a real chance to begin. Our civilization was young and full of promise, now all is ash. But remember this, we are survivors, and one day we will rise again, and the great forests of the world will tremble with our power.” Grell said, not in deep and reverberating tones, but in a quiet and subdued voice of sorrow and regret.

“I will take these words back to Balgor with me, Bearman. Your people will not be forgotten.” The Captain motioned to his warriors, and they headed toward the survivors, and hopefully, home.

The History of the Bearmen

“The wastes of the North were once alive with the works of the Great Bears they were the bridge builders and the makers of simple, yet brilliant, works. They were the guardians of numbers and protectors of the innocent. Now they are forgotten by the peoples that toppled them, even now those of the canine races consider the stories of the Great Bears to be nothing but a legend. Yet some whisper that in the valleys of the Dragons Claw the Great Bears are waiting for their time to return to the lands of the North and reclaim their destiny.”

          -So writes the Chronicler

The Ancient Bearmen

The origins of the Bearmen of the North are unknown to the peoples of the Palladium world unless, of course, unless you ask the Bearmen themselves. If you were to search through the layers of mythology and legend that permeate Bearmen society, as some scholars of the Wolfen Empire have begun to do, you would find that the Bearmen are of the opinion that while they originated on the Palladium world, many of them left the Palladium world only to have their descendants return to the homeworld many millennia later. They instead believe that in the primal years after the Age of Chaos, they were raised up from their animal state by the High Elves that preceded the decadence and haughtiness of the Elven Empire. But the Elves soon left their children to their own devices, and if it were not for the intervention and care of the Great Turtle, the Bearmen might have reverted to their bestial nature. The Great Turtle, who is not named out of respect for its privacy, had looked over and protected its Bearmen children for tens of thousands of years in their homelands of the Great Northern Wilderness. But eventually, the Great Turtle and its peers removed the bulk of the Bearmen from the Palladium world and settled them, temporarily, on a new world until it was safe for them to be returned. The Great Turtle's reasons for doing this were never revealed to the Bearmen, but many believe that the Great Turtle saved them from a great disaster.

The Bearmen were escorted back to the Palladium world by the Flying Turtles, the “children” of the Great Turtle. In a massive effort of more than one hundred Flying Turtles, the largest known gathering ever of the powerful yet gentle creatures, more than two hundred thousand Bearmen were transported into what would eventually be known as the Kingdom of Timiro. The newly arrived Bearmen found the climate of the Deep South too uncomfortable for their liking and began the long march back to the northlands that were remembered only in their legends of the time before the removal. Along the way, thousands of Bearmen split off from the main group and formed many small societies that existed, in some cases, for centuries. These groups have been all but forgotten by the peoples of the south, but in some places, the ruins and remains of these people can still be glimpsed in the wastes and wilds.

When the main party of Bearmen reached the southern shore of the inland sea, they were faced with a quandary. The first group, the largest, wanted to head northeast and follow the shore of the inland sea. The second group, the second largest, wanted to build boats and sail across the inland sea. Finally, the third group, the smallest, wanted to head for the northwest and follow the coast of the inland sea. The three groups waited for the return of their Flying Turtle escorts, who had left their Bearmen charges for reasons that they still refuse to discuss, for a full year. At the end of the Year of Indecision, the Bearmen split along the three lines of disagreement, and head toward their various futures.

The group that headed toward the northwest eventually settled in the valleys of what would one day become the Middle Kingdom of the Western Empire. They prospered for many centuries and formed a tight relationship with the early Elven Empire. Their civilization survived horrors of the Elf Dwarf war, although they suffered deaths in the hundreds of thousands, and was poised to rebuild and fill some of the vacuum left in the wake of the war. The early human civilizations put a sad and final end to these possibilities. The end came when the first Emperor Kighfalton led a campaign of genocide against the Bearmen of the Western Peninsula and scoured them from his lands.

The Bearmen that decided to cross the Inland Sea had little trouble in their endeavor. They reached the northern shore of the Inland Sea and then promptly set to fighting among themselves. These Bearmen were not a unified group but were instead a motley collection of factions that had historically been the most violent and warlike of the Bearmen refugees. The cohesion that the group needed to cross the sea was quickly forgotten, and the Bearmen set to a “civil war” that lasted for more than fifty years. When the warring factions were either destroyed or worn out, the remaining Bearmen dispersed across the vast expanse of the Northern Wilderness. The descendants of these Bearmen would one day become the savage Bearmen of the North that have become infamous across the North of the Palladium world.

The final, and largest group, of Bearmen, began a trek that would be remembered even by the infant canine races thousands of years later. They headed into the wilds of the East, blazing trails into areas that had been all but uninhabited since the fall of the Old Ones. As they approached the Belimar Mountains, they encountered the Danzi tribes that claimed the region as their homeland. The Bearmen and the Danzi took an instant dislike to one another, and what began was a running war that dogged the Bearmen for more than ten years as they slogged their way through the mountains and into the North. To this day, it is the rare Bearman and Danzi that can consider themselves friends, although their mutual animosity is a pale reflection of the ancient hatred between the Elves and Dwarves. The Bearmen settled into the peaks and valleys of the Algor Mountains, what the Bearmen still call the Mountains of the Turtle to this very day. The elders of the seven great clans chose the Valley of the Moon as the center of their new civilization, within the Valley the first, and greatest, city of the Bearmen was built, Urspol. The Clan Elders called the first Council of Fire, and the League of Clans was formed.

For several centuries the Bearmen of the North were divided into three groups, the Western Bearmen, the Wild Bearmen, and the League. On the eve of the Elf Dwarf War, they could be counted as one of the bright potential young civilizations, along with the Gnomes and Kobolds. The Bearmen managed to stay out of the first few phases of the war until the Elves and Dwarves began sending armed expeditions into the Northern Wilderness. The first result was the stirring up of the Wild Bearmen who made the bulk of the North their home, faced by attacks from the Wild Bearmen who saw their presence as an invasion and act of war, the Elves and Dwarves responded by slaughtering them by the thousands.

The Bearmen of the League of Clans sent envoys to the Elves, Dwarves, and their brethren on the Eastern Peninsula. The Bearmen requested that the Elves and Dwarves remove their warriors from the northlands. They also asked their brethren in the East to support them and petition their Elven allies independently. All three groups refused to consider the requests of the League. After months of attempted negotiation, the League decided to act. They dispatched an entire Field Army to the northern shore of the Inland Sea to confront the Elves and Dwarves who’d assembled there to do battle.

The Elves and Dwarves turned on the army of Bearmen and attacked them independently. Both the Elves and Dwarves assumed that the Bearmen would be easy to defeat, with their lack of magic and psionic abilities the Bearmen seemed to be no match for the might of the Elves and Dwarves. Neither the Elves nor the Dwarves took the technical prowess of the Bearmen into consideration when they attacked them. They paid for their arrogance.

When the battle was over, the Elves had lost eight warriors for every Bearmen slain, and the Dwarves lost 11 for every Bearmen. But it wasn’t enough, the Bearmen were driven from the field of battle, and the Elves and Dwarves pursued them to the Turtle Mountains. In every town and village that the Elves and Dwarves entered, they slaughtered the Bearmen down to the last cub. In the end, the Bearmen dispersed and headed farther north to escape the rage of the Elves and Dwarves.

Modern Bearmen

 Now you know, the Bearmen of the North have not always been the savage brutes that modern society now knows them as. Although the idea of the drunken and dangerous beast that most people think of when the name “Bearmen of the North” is used, at one time, the idea of an uncivilized Bearman was abhorrent. During the last century preceding the Elf Dwarf War, the Bearmen achieved a level of societal and technological sophistication and development that the world of these later years would never believe. Some of the Keepers of the Flame claim that the Artifexers of the Bearmen were able to build devices that had never been seen before and have never been seen since. To dwell on the achievements of the fallen civilization may seem pointless considering that it is believed that the replication of the wonders of the Civilized Bearmen would be Impossible, but there are those amongst the learned of the Wolfen Empire that believes that writing off the achievements of the Bearmen would be premature.

 If you were to ask the Elves and the Dwarves, the perpetrators of the fall of the Civilized Bearmen, if they thought that the Bearmen were capable of forming a civilization, they would most likely laugh at you. Even the oldest of the civilizations in the known world seems to have relegated the fallen society to the dustbin of mythology, if not erasing them completely from their recorded histories and legends. But the fact is if any race has ever had the chance of developing a society of research-based pure sciences, it was the Civilized Bearmen and their League of Clans.

That chance is now, sadly, all but lost.

The ancient Bearmen at one time ranged all over the lands of the Palladium world, a world that in their own language is known as the Krielok. There were Bearmen subjects in both the realms of the Elves and the Dwarves. Many a Bearmen Paladin was associated with the Titan heroes of the age. Their counsel was welcomed by the members of all races, and at one time, their engineering prowess was second only to the Dwarves. But their real fame lay in the realms of research and experimentation. The claims of the Bearmen Artificers and Researchers are many, but some of the most famous claims are.

·       There are not four elements in the universe, but so many that they could not all be identified, but Barathek the Wise claimed to have isolated 37

·       The planet Yogee (Palladium World in the Bearmen Language) revolves around the sun, Pythia

·       Disease is spread by organisms too small to be seen by the naked eye

·       An extract from the mold of fruits could stop most sicknesses

The center of the Bearmen civilization was across what is now known as the Algor Mountains in the Northern Wilderness. The Bearmen were never city builders, and the academics would be hard-pressed to find ruins from the fallen civilization. The one exception is the fabled Capitol city of Urspol, which is believed to have sat in the center of the fabled Valley of the Moon. It is told that the city was built under the direction of the greatest Bearmen leader Diunas Strongclaw. It was Lord Diunas that was reputed to have united the 7 High Clans, and the dozens of lesser clans, into a cohesive society. The city was abandoned after the collapse of the League of Clans. The decision to leave the city was reached when the leaders of the surviving Clans decided that the survival of the species was more important than the survival of the nation.

After the collapse of the organized forces of the League, the city was left virtually defenseless in the face of the enraged hordes of the Elven and Dwarven Empires. With no army left to defend them, the Artifexers and resident militia fighters escorted the remnants of the civilian population out the Valley of the Moon and sealed the passes. There are reliable historical accounts in the Library of Blethelrad that state that armies from both the Elven and Dwarven Empires were dispatched into the region now known as the Algor Mountains in the time frame that fits the legends of the Lost Civilization of the Bearmen.

It is believed, by the few scholars that are willing to entertain the theory that the Bearmen were once more than just barbaric savages, that the pitiful few survivors of the League of Clans were absorbed into the vast population of uncivilized Bearmen that have wandered the wilds of the Northern Wilderness since before the recorded history of the region. What is not known to the world at large is that small groups of surviving Bearmen of the League made the decision to stay together and try to keep some facet of their civilization intact. Lead by the famed General, Lord Grell Blackfoot of the Blue-Sky Clan. These Bearmen made an exodus from the Algor Mountains to the isolated and sheltered valleys near the Dragons Claw. More than half of the Bearmen attempting the journey perished enroot.

Less than five thousand Bearmen, representing three of the seven great clans, arrived at the new homeland. They carried with them the few relics of their civilization that were brought out of Urspol before the sealing of the Valley of the Moon. Among the items that the Bearmen rescued were.

·       The Sword of Diunas, fabled to be a greatest rune weapon

·       The Scroll of the Elders, the earliest record of the fabled origins of the Bearmen race

·       The League Declaration, the paper that was signed by the heads of all 13 great clans on the birth of the League of Clans

·       The Tome of Jimisin the Clever, a book detailing the construction of more than one hundred unique and complex items invented by Jimisin and his daughter Jamin. Some notable items in the book are the plans for a printing press using moveable type, a pump-action repeating crossbow, and a water-powered iron stamping press

·       The Vial of the First Fire, an unbreakable crystal vial containing the ashes from the First Council of Fire (The Governing Body of the League of Clans)

In the years after the exodus, from the lands of their ancestors, the last members of the Great Clans cut themselves off from her chaos engulfing the known world. While the hostilities between the Elves and the Dwarves burned the civilized regions of the world to the ground, the Bearmen attempted to rebuild some small measure of the world that was taken from them. Word began to trickle to the Bearmen inn exile that the races that had been their allies and friends were now threatened with extinction. Am envoy representing the Gnomish Republic arrived in the Valleys of the Bearmen two years after they themselves had arrived and begged for help under the terms of their treaty of old.

The relationship between the Gnomes and the Bearmen had almost mirrored the ancient friendship of the Elves and the Titians in the ancient days before the sundering of their relationship. The Bearmen had always stood fast with their “little cousins,” providing them with technical assistance and the military backup to defend themselves from the monster races of the world. The Gnomes, in turn, provided their “big cousins” with the magical assistance that they were unable to produce for themselves.

In the two short years since the fall of the League of Clans, the Bearmen of the Valleys had managed to more than triple their population by bringing in as many of the refugees of the League as they could locate across the Northern Wilderness. These refugees also brought with them, members of a new race that the Bearmen had had very little contact with up until this point, the Kankoran.

Many of the civilized Bearmen of the League had been thrown into the wilderness with no supplies and only their wits and claws to see them through to the next day. Quite a few of the refugees were on the verge of becoming almost unrecognizable when compared to their uncivilized and wild brethren when they were befriended by the Kankoran. The Kankoran took many of the Bearmen under their paws and reintroduced the civilized Bearmen to the wonders of the Northern Wilderness. The result was that when these refugees rejoined their brothers and sisters in the Valleys, they brought more than a thousand Kankoran with them and a new respect for the might and majesty of a homeland that they had allowed to become a stranger to them.

Although the Bearmen that the Gnomish leaders approached were a shadow of what they had been, and they now contained within themselves a sizeable number of Kankorans a race that the Gnomes had had very little knowledge of, they agreed to help. The last muster of the armies of the League took place in response to the appeals of the Gnomes, more than two thousand Bearmen warriors and Kankoran Rangers marched to the defense of the Gnomish Republic and her citizens. Lead by none other than Lord General Grell Blackfoot himself, the last march of the Bearmen managed to free more than twenty thousand Gnomes from the slavery and oppression of the Eleven and Dwarven Empires. Though this act effectively ended the influence of the Bearmen civilization and marked the last days of the Gnomish Nation, the Valliant actions of the Bearmen and their Kankoran allies have remained alive in the folklore and children’s stories of the Gnomish people to this very day.

The few remaining troops returned the Valleys of the Bear with the surviving Kankoran Rangers and a surprising number of Gnomes who asked for and were granted sanctuary by the Bearmen. They settled back into the valleys and kept their heads down as the centuries and then millenniums passed. It was not a quiet time for the residents of the Valleys of the Bear. They had to deal with the elements and then the rampaging monster races and purifier sects that seemed to swarm across the northlands after the end of the Elf Dwarf Wars. Then they were faced with the threat of the then barbaric and thoroughly savage Tribes of the Wolfen and Coyle Hordes. Human slavers soon began to ply the waters of the North, and the Bearmen were considered prime slave stock, both for manual labor and for use in the blood sport arenas. Tens of thousands of civilized Bearmen met their end in the stadiums and arenas of the Western Empire. As hard as it may be for some to believe the Human Barbarians of the North (see the Northern Hinterlands book for more information) were some of the key players in keeping the Great Bearmen population low, literal centuries of continuous warfare between the Bearmen and the Barbarian Humans took place. The ironic thing was that the number one threat to the Residents of the Valleys were other, uncivilized, Bearmen. The wild and uncivilized cousins of the Great Bearmen were determined to acquire the fruits of the labor of the inhabitants of the Valleys, cultivated lands, and Artifex Workshops were things that the Barbaric Bearmen had long ago abandoned in favor of the wilderness and adventure of the Northern Wilderness.

The Great Bearmen and their allied kindred, Kankorans and Gnomes, continued their isolated existence right up until modern times. They were content to stay out of the affairs of the dominant races and live the simple lives of farmers and family, until the return of the Turtles. The Bearmen have never given their allegiance to any God or Pantheon of Deities. They preferred to respect those with greater power than themselves but reserved their reverence for individuals who made great contributions to society. The sole exception to this policy is the Great Turtle. The Turtle first appeared to the Bearmen on their homeworld thousands of years before the cataclysm that drove them to the Palladium world. The Turtle never told the Bearmen what they could and could not do. Instead, it advised them on the possible outcomes of their actions and provided them with technical insights and inspirations. The Great Turtle never came directly among the Bearmen, but instead worked through its speakers (Bearmen who were gifted with priest-like powers by the Great Turtle, making them the only Bearmen with preternatural abilities). The Great Turtle also sent its children, the Flying Turtles, to live amongst the Bearmen on their homeworld and here in their new homelands. After the establishment of the system of villages and towns in the Valleys of the Bear, the Flying Turtles departed to allow the Bearmen the time to rest and recover from the losses of the preceding years. But they promised that they would return when the time was right.

Twelve years ago, a mated pair of Flying Turtles, Benar (the male) and Tena (the female), with an agenda that even now has not been fully revealed to their friends and charges, arrived among the people of the valleys. The Turtles called for a meeting of clan leaders, in effect the first Council of fire that had been called since the Battle of High Grasses, and the heads of the 7 Great Clans (the three that survived the fall of Urspol and the four that have been reconstituted out of the remainders) came. Senka Redtooth of the Tree Farmer Clan headed the Council, and his first act was to add a portion of the ash from the Vial of the First Fire to the New Great Flame Pit. The debate of the Council lasted seven weeks and, at many points, was on the verge of disintegrating, but in the end, the wise leadership of Senka Redtooth (advised by Benar and Tena) prevailed, and the League of Clans was reborn all be it in small scale.

The reborn League is virtually unknown to the powers that be in the Northern Wilderness, The Kingdom of Byzantium, and the Wolfen Empire, but already whispers and rumors of this “new” nation have begun to reach the leaders of these nations. Also, the wild Bearmen and the Human Barbarians of the North have to be considered. They are the only factions that have remained consistently aware of the existence of the Great Bearmen. It is an irony that if anyone in the last thousand years had bothered to ask, they could have directed them right to the peoples of the Bear Valleys.

The factions within the League are not of one mind in regard to the future of their people. Some want to remain in isolation and simply develop the new unity between the towns and villages of the League. Others desire a return to the public stage. They wish to send envoys to all the nations near them and declare their existence. The final, and perhaps largest, of the factions wish to approach the Wolfen Empire. The vast majority of the citizens of the League (Bearmen, Kankoran, and Gnomes) consider the Wolfen Empire to be the worthy successor to their ancient civilizations that were destroyed during the chaos of the Elf Dwarf wars. It seems to the Elders that they are once again threatened with a three-way sundering of their people, but with such a low population, they have concluded that such a rending of their people would be a blow from which they may never recover.

The decision has to be reached soon. With this as a fact and not an opinion, the leaders of the Council of Fire have decided that they have only one option, they need to return to Urspol. In the abandoning of the City of Urspol, many of the Bearmen’s greatest treasures and artifacts were not brought out of the Valley of the Moon but were instead hidden deep within the abandoned city when the Valley was sealed. The reasons for leaving the greatest treasures of their race were never explained to the refugees that left the city, but it is assumed that the leaders of the day assumed that they would be safer there rather than taken into exile. It is believed by the Elders that the relics from the past will help them reach a decision about their future. The three items that the Council feels need to be retrieved from the ruins of Urspol are.

·       The Stone of Memory

·       The Mirror of Truth

·       The Tapestry of Home

There are, of course, many other items that the League would love to have returned to the Valleys, but the three are considered the most important. Of course, the Valley of the Moon and the ruins of Urspol are located in the Algor (Turtle) mountains, deep in the heart of the Wolfen Empire.

League Defense Forces

The Military of the modern-day League of Clans is very similar to that of the League of old. The main difference is reflected in the racial makeup of the new League as opposed to that of the old League. In the days of the old League, the Bearmen made up almost 98% of the population, with the remainder a small mix of Gnomes, Kankoran, Coyles, and Wolfen. The League of Clans that exists today is a smaller organization and has an entirely different racial mix. The Bearmen were all but annihilated in the wake of the Elf Dwarf wars but were still honor-bound to defend their smaller “cousins” from further harm. Today the League is composed of less than 100,000 citizens. Of that number, only 10,000 (ten percent) is actually Bearmen. A full fifty percent of the population of the League of Clans is composed of the Kankoran race, possibly the largest organized grouping of Kankoran in the world. Another thirty percent is comprised of the Gnomish race, with the last ten percent representing a mix of Humans, Wolfen, and Coyles who have found safety and acceptance amongst the Bearmen and their brethren.        

The Army of the League was never an organization designed for set-piece battles, and on their own would have a hard time matching the standing armies of the world in a stand-up fight, but that is not how the Bearmen and their allies fight. They are instead a hit and run force, in a fight with an army that is organized into ranks of battle, the Bearmen would set small groups on all sides of the larger and more organized force, thereby making the enemy send their forces out piecemeal to be slaughtered. This is not to say that the League cannot give a good accounting of itself in a conventional fight. During the battles of the Inland Sea and the Plains of High Grasses, both conventional fights against numerically and magically superior forces, the Bearmen sustained one loss for every ten enemy’s dead. That is not to say that the League is made up of vicious savages that wreak terrible and violent fury on their enemies. Perhaps if they did fight more like Coyle Hordes that cover the Northern Wilderness, they would have been decimated a millennia ago. No, the Bearmen are penultimate Chess Masters on the battlefield and woe to all of their enemies that have forgotten that throughout the ages.

To a Commander in the League Military apparatus, all tactical and strategic decisions are viewed with the most critical and logical eye that can be brought to bear on them. It may become necessary, in the course of a difficult and important campaign, to knowingly and coolly send a force of warriors off to certain doom if it means that in the end, the objectives are met. To the citizens of the League to see warfare as anything other than an exercise logic and critical thinking is to invite the disaster that comes with being overly emotional.

Can a warrior become enraged in the midst of a great battle and revel in the “Blood Fury” that covers them like a summer shower?

This is a question that the Bearmen and their kindred have been asking themselves for a very long time? The only answer that they have been able to come up with is that the Great Turtle, and the lesser gods, gave them the savage side of their personalities to tame and hone in the years of peace and then to release on their enemies like a whirlwind of razors when the need arises. But then they must once again put it away until it is needed again.

All Citizens of the League over the age of 16 must serve for at least eight years in the Defense forces on active duty and then remain in the Leagues Read Reserves for the rest of their lives. This is not seen as a burden by the citizens, but instead, as an honor, they are defending their way of life in the hostile Northern Wilderness, and nobody will break them. At any given moment fully, one fourth (25%) of the Leagues adult population is serving in the Defense forces in some active capacity.

League Defense Forces Tables of Organization

Field Army – A combined force of all of the branches of the League Defense Forces, used only in times of all-out warfare, the field army is brought together for drill and war games once every year. The Field army consists of members of the Rapid Reaction Forces, The Ready Reserve, The Rangers, The Preternatural Corp, The Engineers, and Coastal Guardians. There are three field armies in the League of Clans.

Rapid Reaction Force – The Rapid Reaction Force is what most citizens of the League think of when they imagine the League Defense Forces. The RRF is dispatched to any scene that requires a military presence. The RRF is like a miniaturized version of the entire League Field Army, utilizing the talents of all branches of the League Defense Forces.

Ready Reserve – The Ready Reserve are the National Guard of the League of Clans. They function behind the scenes ensuring that the active-duty warriors are free to train and fight. The Ready Reserves function as the clerks, paymasters, quartermasters, and civil defense forces within the League. When an entire Field Army is called up for an emergency, the Ready Reserves fill the slots that are vacated by active-duty troops. In times of national emergency, the Ready Reserves can be called up to active duty and merged with the Field armies, the last time this was done was three hundred and twenty-one years ago when the Razor Spear Coyle Horde attacked the Valleys of the Bear. The Razor Spears never left the Valleys of the Bear.

Rangers – The Rangers are the Legacy of the Kankoran warriors that joined with the Bearmen as they fled the abandoned Valley of the Moon and the lands of the original League of Clans. The Rangers have defended the borders of the Valleys of the Bear since the first days when they arrived in their new Home Lands. The Rangers were part of the force that was dispatched to the Gnome Republic in an effort to defend their little cousin from the insanity of the Elves and the Dwarves of those dark years. The Rangers are the elite of the League Forces, and their members are drawn from all branches. To be a Ranger, a warrior has to go through a sixteen-week training period that tests them in more ways than they could have ever possibly imagined. When it is time for the League to go to war, Rangers lead the way.

Preternatural Corp – The Bearmen have no Wielders of Magic or Mind Mages counted amongst their numbers, the only thing approaching a creature of magic that they have is the Speaker of the Turtle (see the OCC). But the Kankoran and the Gnomes have many wizards and mind mages counted amongst their number, and the Bearmen being pragmatists, have organized as many of the preternaturally powerful citizens of the League as they could into a unique fighting force.  Along with the various Gnomes and Kankoran that are members of the Preternatural Corp, any citizen of the League that has extraordinary abilities have been urged to join up. Any time that a nonpractical solution is needed to a problem, the Preternatural Corp is called in to deal with the situation.

Engineers – If any one branch of the League Defense Forces is dominated by the Bearmen, it is the Engineers. The Engineers, much like the Preternatural Corp, acts as an independent unit assisting all other branches of the Leagues Forces. If a bridge needs to be built, or a defensive rampart needs erecting, then the Engineers are called in. But if a town needs a new sewage system installed the Engineers are also consulted, if there is a branch of the Defense Forces that are viewed as heroes by the common citizens of the League it is the Engineers.

Coastal Guardians – The Coastal Guardians are the newest branch of the League Defense Forces. In the days before the fall of the old League, the Bearmen had very little need for a “Navy” per se. But after the exodus to the North, they found themselves living on and near the coat of the Algor Sea and the Dragons Claw. These days the Coastal Guardians function as brown water and river naval force. The Coastal Guardians are the smallest branch of the League Defense Forces.

Magic Items

The Memory Stone

Mavina walked toward the table and stared at the object, resting on the silken pillow. It was a perfect sphere the size of a duck egg and appeared to be made of crystal that shifted across all colors of the rainbow. She lifted her shuddering hand toward the Stone and moved to grasp it. She could feel the energy pulsing off the Stone in waves

          Her pointed fox-like ears perked, and she could smell fresh grass on a summer’s day.

          Mavina closed her paw around the Stone, and the first thought that sprang into her mind was, “What is this?”

          The Stone began to glow and pulse with an internal light, Mavina thought she could hear voices distantly I the back of her mind. The warmth seemed to spread from her paw to her head and down to her toes. Mavina looked at the pedestal that the Stone had rested on before she picked it up and saw the ethereal image of an elderly Bearman. The Bearman stared at her and spoke in a deep and paternal voice, “this is the Memory Stone.”

The Memory Stone is perhaps the most revered artifact of the Great Bearmen and their past civilization. Legends tell them that the Memory Stone was a gift from the Great Turtle when the Bearmen were still a newborn race on their homeworld. The Memory Stone was presented to the First Council of Fire when it was assembled on the Bearmen homeworld more than ten thousand years ago.

          The power of the Memory Stone is the ability to record, store, and project both the memories and the personalities of all those who have handled it since its creation. From the highest lord to the lowliest beggar, any individual that has handled the Stone has had the sum total of the person they were at that time imprinted on the Stone. Continued handling of the Stone will cause the imprinted personality to be updated with the memories and experiences of the individual that have been accumulated since the last time the person handled the Stone. Historically the Stone was used as an advisory tool by the leaders, scientists, and teachers of the Bearmen society. The Stone served as a mystical database of the sum total of the accomplishments and actions of the Bearmen and their culture.

          The Memory Stone is not a sentient being. Although the interactions with the personalities contained within the Stone may render the distinction unrecognizable, it is simply a repository of information. There is no life within the Stone, the personalities in the Stone are not the souls of the people but merely “recordings” of the individuals who have handled the Stone. The Memory Stone is not like a Rune item. It will never attempt to communicate with the person handling the Stone. To get answers from the Stone, the handler must ask clear questions, and if the information is within the Stone the individual or individuals who have the knowledge will appear in a spectral form and speak to the questioner, the personality can converse about any topic that they had knowledge of in life. Different personalities can be brought forth to discuss the same topic, but only one at a time.

          During the years before the Great Exodus, and during the years of the original League of Clans, the Memory Stone was considered the most important artifact of the Bearmen people. The Stone was used to counsel and advise the movers and the shakers of the Bearmen civilization. If the need arose to build an aqueduct or a new road, then the Stone was consulted. If a neighboring tribe or nation was threatening the Bearmen, the Stone was consulted.

          As the League disintegrated following their participation in the Elf Dwarf war the decision had to be made as to whether or not to bring the memory stone with them or leave it in Urspol to be retrieved after the region had become stable enough for the Bearmen to return to the Valley of the Moon and reclaim their domain. The final decision was to leave the Memory Stone with the other treasure for future retrieval.

          Of course, the Bearmen never returned to the Valley of the Moon. When the dust had settled following the Battle of the High Grasses, the Bearmen realized that it would be many years before they could return to the Valley of the Moon And the city of Urspol, if it were ever possible. In the intervening years since this realization, the Bearmen have regretted this decision, and there have been innumerable times that they have needed the information retained within the Memory Stone to help them through hard times.

          According to the information that has been handed down through the centuries, the Memory Stone, along with the other great treasures that were hidden away when the Valley of the Moon and city of Urspol were abandoned, has remained in the vault of the Great Turtle. Unfortunately for anybody looking to enter the vault, the details of the defenses set to protect the vault have been lost and forgotten by the descendants of the people who left the Valley.

Name: The Memory Stone, the Eye of the Turtle, the Conduit

Description: The Memory Stone is a perfect sphere the size of a duck’s egg, composed of multicolored crystal that shifts across the colors of the spectrum. The Stone is lighted internally at a level consistent enough to keep a room dimly lit in perfect darkness

Properties:

·       Internally lighted, equal to a 40-watt incandescent bulb

·       Keeps the body temperature of the wielder consistently comfortable in external temperatures ranging from -150 to +150 F

·       Indestructible

·       Repository of great knowledge

Notable Personalities within the Memory Stone:

Lord Diunas Strongclaw – First head of the Council of Fire that was established upon reaching the Valley of Moon. Lord Diunas was born and raised on the Bearmens original Homeworld and was the leader of the Bearmen faction that chose the Northeast route around the Inland Sea. Diunas was the founder of the city of Urspol and the pacifier of the Valley of the Moon.

General Grell Redtooth – Commander of the League of Clans Army during the withdrawal from the Valley of the Moon and the abandonment of the city of Urspol. Grell was actually against the abandonment of the city and the Valley. He petitioned the members of the Council of Fire to make a stand instead of fleeing. In the years after the move to the Valleys of the Bear, Grell came to accept that to remain in the Valley of the Moon would have meant the end of his people. Grell led the last army of the League of Clans in the battle of the High Grasses, upon his return to the home he had made for his mate and cubs in the Valleys of the Bear he settled into the life of a farmer and village elder.

General Perce Sweetwater – Perce Sweetwater was the Kankoran commander of the Ranger detachment that accompanied the Army of General Redtooth to the battle of the High Grasses. After the battle, Perce was the first Kankoran to be given command of the Armies of the Bearmen. He oversaw the transition of the dissolved League army into the Militia of the Valleys of the Bear. It was because of the efforts of General Sweetwater and his commanders that some form of defensive unity was maintained in the years between the fall of the old League and the formation of the new League.

Jimisin the Clever – Jimisin Greenstone was one of the greatest Artifexers of the Bearmen civilization, he is credited with the invention of the first moveable type printing press ever developed on the Palladium world and the pump-action repeating crossbow.

Pender Querk – Pender was the first ambassador from the Gnomish Republic to the Bearmen League of Clans. Pender was the first non-Bearman to earn the friendship and respect if the Clans. It was his treating the Bearmen as equals and not as savages that gave birth to the friendship and brotherhood between the two races that are just as strong today as it was when it was forged.

The Sword of Diunas

Although the Bearmen have no innate talent for magic, and no natural psionic abilities, they have a great love of magic items and devices. Over the centuries, the Bearmen have commissioned many mystical smiths and artisans to produce countless magical items for them. But the Sword of Diunas is considered the holiest and most powerful mystical weapon that the Bearmen have ever been associated with.

          The Sword of Diunas is believed to have been forged by the Great Turtle itself. Whether this is true or not is a matter of debate amongst the learned of the League and the philosophers of the Bearmen. It is known that the first mention of the sword is in the historical accounts from the time of the Great Northern Trek. The Bearmen were making the journey from the far south back to their homelands of the Great Northern Wilderness. During this journey, the Bearmen were forced to face many of the horrors and dangers that had been released upon the world as the Time of a Thousand Magicks drew to a close. Although the Bearmen are formidable warriors and have a natural resistance to magical and mental forces that is envied by many other races, this resistance did not help them attack creatures of magic.

During the Trek, they were bequeathed with many magical weapons and magical defensive items to assist them. But during the crossing of the Shattered Mountains, in what would eventually be known as the Eastern Territories, the Bearmen encountered an obstacle that they were unable to defeat by force of arms alone. The creature blocking their way was a holdover from the Age of Chaos, one of the servants of the Great Old Ones. Although the enemy is not named in any of the writings of the Bearmen that have survived from this time, the descriptions speak of a mass of claws and arms that tore apart a dozen warriors in the blink of an eye.

          Diunas was the greatest Bearman warrior of the age, but he was also a Speaker of the Great Turtle. After the fourth attempt to escape the predicament failed, Diunas appealed directly to the Great Turtle and begged it for help. Diunas awoke the next morning and found the sheathed sword next to him. At first glance, the sword appeared to be very plain and much too short for the use of a Bearman, but when Diunas lead a group of warriors against the creature barring their crossing of the mountains, something amazing happened. As Diunas unsheathed, the sword at green glow covered him, and he felt empowered and invincible. Diunas looked around and saw that time seemed to have come to a standstill. Diunas spent the next three minutes, at which point time resumed its normal flow, hacking at slashing into the head of the beast. When time restarted, the head of the monster fell from its shoulders, and the body burst into flames.

          For the next forty years, Diunas wielded the sword that would come to bear his name. The Sword of Diunas helped the Bearmen complete their Trek back to their ancient homelands and build the foundation of their civilization. The sword was handed down within the Pure Spring Clan, the clan of Diunas and his family, until the battle with the Elves and Dwarves on the northern coast of the inland sea. Following the battle, the sword refused to accept a new partner and demanded to be placed with Diunas in his family crypt until “I am needed by my people once more.” The Sword of Diunas was left in the Valley of the Moon as the Bearmen sealed the valley entrance and withdrew to the far reaches of the North.

Name: The Sword of Diunas

Type: Greatest Rune Weapon

Description: The Sword of Diunas is a giant-sized claymore sword measuring six feet from the pommel to the blade tip

Personality: The essence of an ancient Flying Turtle is bonded with the Sword of Diunas. The sword has the personality of a teacher and advisor. It is always trying to find ways to teach its wielder some new bit of knowledge or a lesson. Even in the most stressful of times, the sword always speaks in a calm and measured tone.

Damage: 5D6

Powers: All standard powers of a Greatest Rune Weapon and.

·       Double damage to supernatural evil

·       If held aloft, the blade will always point toward the Valley of the Moon

·       +3 to save versus magic

·       +5 to save versus Psionics

·       +2 to save versus Poison

·       +20% to all skills

·       +5 to strike, parry, and dodge

Special Power – “Time Freeze”

Description: Utilizing the Time Freeze allows the wielder to freeze time in a limited radius for three minutes. During the time freeze, the wielder can manipulate the environment around them as if time was not frozen (slash throats, steal items, etc.).

Duration: 3 minutes (12 melee rounds), can only be used once every 12 hours (12 hours MUST elapse between uses).

Range: The power affects everything and everyone within a 90 ft radius from the sword.

Save: Not possible.

Value: Priceless

Reputation: Virtually unknown outside the Bearmen society

Curses: None.

Honey

Traditionally honey has been seen as a treat for children in the Palladium world to only be served with desserts and as part of sauces or to be used as the basis of mead and other sweetened alcoholic drinks. At the same time, honey was viewed as a money-making product. It has never been taken as seriously by any other race or civilization as it has been by the Bearmen.

The uses of honey are as varied as the types of the sweet sticky substance. The first and most obvious use of honey is as a food crop. But the sub uses within the scope of a food crop are drink making (alcoholic and nonalcoholic varieties), candy making, sauce making, and just consuming the honey in its natural state. There are, of course, dozens if not hundreds of other foods uses for honey that are not presented here.  Some of the more overlooked uses of honey are as a survival food and as a substitute trade good for long-distance trade.

Per ounce, the honey that is cultivated and produced in the Northern Wilderness has more energy value than a four-course meal in the Eastern Territories. In all honesty, though, the honey of the Bearmen is of significantly superior quality than the honey produced by the other peoples of the Palladium world. The only exception to this truism would be the honey that was once produced by the Elves of the early Elven Empire, it was the Elves of that era that passed on their honey-making skills to the precursors of the modern Bearmen, and the Bearmen have remained thankful for this to this very day.

For long-distance trade and travel, honey, much like whiskey, is a great way to transport food long distances without having the food spoil.

Bearmen Honey

          The different varieties of honey produced by the Bearmen of the North are all superior to the types produced by the other races. All Bearmen honey that makes it to the outside world is traded through intermediary traders, mostly Gnomish merchants, with connections to the Valleys of the Bearmen.

There is nothing magical or preternatural about the honey that is produced by the Bearmen, although many believe this to be the case. The amazing properties of these varieties of honey are solely the result of several millennia of selective breeding and cultivation in an effort by the Bearmen to achieve desired results.

Golden Honey: Golden Honey is the traditional honey that is known the world around. The Bearmen version of golden honey has higher sugar content and is thicker and darker honey than most people are used to.  Golden honey is used mostly in food applications. Golden Honey is the most common, and least expensive of the Bearmen Honeys.

Value: 2 silver pieces and ounce in the Northern Wilderness, up to 10 times as much outside of the Northern Wilderness. The cities of the Western Empire have begun to import massive quantities of Golden Honey via the merchants of Byzantium. Demand is so high in places like Caer Itom that the price is easily 30 to 100times the base value.

Special Properties

·       Increased energy, for an hour following the consumption of one ounce or more of Golden Honey, the eater will be +1 to strike parry and dodge (single servings of food and drinks made from Golden Honey will also have the same effect)

·       Save vs. Poison, direct application to a wound that is poisoned or infected will grant a +5 to save

·       Healing, Direct application to a wound will grant 2D6 in healing                                                 

White Honey: White Honey is thinner than traditional Golden Honey and is slightly less sweet. The main use of White Honey is as a base for the famous “Whitened Iced Cream.” The Bearmen only sell Whitened Ice Cream to the villages of the new League, and certain allied merchants among the Wolfen Empire. White Honey has an almost alcoholic effect on the consumer, but without the side effects of drunkenness, a feeling of cheerful euphoria envelopes the individual that consumes White Honey and its affiliated products.

Value: White Honey, in its raw form, sells for one gold per ounce in the Northern Wilderness. White Honey is unknown in the Southlands but would easily sell for ten times that amount.

Special Properties

·       Non-Psionic Characters receive a temporary (1D4X10 minutes) +2 bonus to save versus Psionics

·       Psionic Characters receive a temporary (1D6X10 minutes) +5 bonus to save versus Psionics

·       Consumption of at least one ounce of White Honey gives the individual a 15% chance of recovering from one insanity

·       Plus 12% to all skill rolls for 1 hour

Red Honey: Red Honey is a super sweet (10X Golden Honey) and extremely thick (similar to the consistency of wet mortar). Red Honey is almost exclusively in the production of “Crimson Fang Mead,” the most expensive drink produced by the Bearmen. Silver Fang has a rich earthy flavor and an extremely high alcohol content. “Crimson Fang” has become the fastest-selling mead in the Wolfen city of Shadowfall.

Value: 10 gold per raw ounce of Red Honey. One pint of “Silver Fang” Mead goes for five gold.

Special Properties

(Red Honey is the most potent and versatile of all the varieties of Honey, all properties are based upon ¼ ounce consumption or one serving of “Silver Fang” Mead)

·       Restore 1D6X3 Hit Points/SDC

·       Non-Mages +3 to save versus magic (1/2 hour)

·       Mages are +5 to save versus magic (1/2 hour)

·       + 3 to spell strength (1 hour)

Weapons & Equipment

The “Hammer Claw” Pump Action Bolt Thrower (Crossbow)

          Jason moved quickly through the underbrush, trying to keep himself from being heard or seen.

He was the last of his unit, fourteen Imperial Janissaries that had been dispatched to the Northern Wilderness to keep an eye on Wolfen troop movements. The unit had headed out from the Ophids Grasslands colony and head straight for the Kingdom of Byzantium’s Sothern Colonies. From the Colonies, they headed toward the territory claimed by the Wolfen and their barbarian allies. Three days out from the last outpost of civilization, things changed.

They camped near a shallow creek at the edge of a sheltered valley. They stumbled upon a concealed aqueduct hidden along the base of a hill. They had been confused, as far as they knew the Wolfen had never expanded this far west, and the only races prevalent in the area were the barbarian human tribes and the bestial Bearmen of the North. To the best of Jason’s knowledge, neither of these groups were better than animals, so who had built the cunningly designed aqueduct?

Noises from the brush had put them all on guard, and then there was a snapping sound, and then Captain Reliah had keeled over with a short spear sticking out of his chest, his armor pierced clean through. The first spear was followed by four more in rapid succession; four more of the Janissaries were thrown to the ground by the force of the shafts.

Jason and his remaining warriors broke and ran, they were the best soldiers in the known world, but this was too much. After more than seven hours of running, Jason was sure that he was the last surviving member of his unit, he didn’t think he was going to make it much longer.

He was huffing out of breath, and his side was hurting. Suddenly there was an immense figure standing in front of him, easily ten feet tall. It was Bearman, but unlike any Bearman, Jason had ever seen. He was golden in color and was dressed in a tartan kilt and a half suit of armor, lacquered black and gray. There was a sword sized blade on its hip that was obviously a “knife” for the Bearman, and he was holding the largest crossbow that the young soldier had ever seen.

“Well human,” he said I a low melodic voice, “you have led me on a merry chase. This has been the most fun I have had in months.” He grinned good-naturedly as he spoke.

“What are you going to do to me?” Jason asked, trying hard to keep his voice from breaking in terror.

The Bearman just laughed.

          Designed by the great Bearmen Artifexer Jimisin the Clever, the Hammer Claw is the epitome of ranged infantry combat. Discounting the size of the weapon as a factor, the Hammer Claw is the best designed and most effective, non-magical, personal weapon ever developed on the Palladium world. The Hammer Claw was the standard issue weapon of the armed forces of the League of Clans and is now the standard weapon of the new League.

          The Artifexers of the League also manufactures a version for the smaller citizens of the League (Kankoran and Gnomes, along with a few Wolfen and Humans).

Weapon Title: Model JM2 Pump Action Bolt Thrower

Weapon Description: From a distance, the Hammer Claw looks like any sturdy crossbow built on the Palladium world. The only notable features are the box mounted on the top and the thick front grip piece. As a human approached the weapon, they would realize that the Hammer Claw was the size of a small ship mounted artillery ballista. The box on the top is a magazine that holds six giant-sized crossbow bow bolts, and the oversized grip is the handle for the pump-action mechanism that loads and draws the weapon. The weapons are traditionally constructed from the strong golden oak that the Bearmen have spent hundreds of years cultivating, light, strong wood also used in boat and building construction.

Weight: 35 Pounds (Bearmen size) 12 Pounds (Human size)

Length: 6 Feet (Bearmen size) 3 ½ Feet (Human size)

Length: 4 ½ Feet (Bearmen size) 2 Feet (Human size)

Damage: Varies per bolt

·       Hunting Bolt 1D4X10 (Bearmen size) 4D6 (Human size)

·       Military Bolt 1D6X10, +4 vs AR (Bearmen size) 6D6, +2 vs AR (Human size)

·       Constabulary Bolt (Blunt and Padded) 4D6 (Bearmen size) 2D6 (Human size)

Rate of Fire: Each shot equals three attacks (2 to “chamber” and pump, and 1 to fire)

Effective Range: 500 Feet (Bearmen size) 350 Feet (Human size)

Payload: Six bolts per magazine (loading the magazine take a full melee round)

Bonuses: +2 to strike when used by the properly sized individuals

Market Cost: Not sold on the open market