Björn's Story

Your name is Bjorn. You left the kingdom of Oerik in Isolet a decade ago. King Leifgard levied heavy taxes on the inland estates to fund his campaigns in the south and west, and your parents could not appease the tax collectors after several consecutive short summers. They were put to the sword, the estate was seized by the crown, and you fled to the wild East, choosing the unknowns of the bizarre fungal wasteland over the lifetime of serfdom that awaited anywhere in Oerik. Crossing the isthmus to the kingdom of Lettish would mean passing Menhir, or finding passage on a ship to the archipelagoes, and neither of those options sounded appealing. Better a strange new future in the far East!

During your escape, near the border to Quipmen Landscape (within sight of the strange, towering mushroom peaks you're now very familiar with, in fact) you came across an abandoned shack filled with strange books. You'd learned to read - your parents had paid for a tutor for several years before the hard times - and you looked through them, hoping to find something of value. Most of the books were gibberish, empty pages, or crumbled to dust at your touch, but you did find two that you could make sense of: "Floura unt Fauna in Qku-Altzo: Guide to Avoide Korpulent Dis-Asterre" (or "Flora and Fauna in Qualtso: Guide to Avoiding Bodily Harm") and "Explicatio Alkemistrio Ruminate Qu-Altso" (or "Alchemical Listing Regarding Qualtso"). Both were written in strange dialects, but it was clear it as the common language known to all people (unlike the other strange books in that shack). Armed with these two tomes, you made your way through the no-man's-land, where ordinary plant life withers before the fungal ecosystems that stretch for a thousand miles, all the way from the cold sub-arctic landscape of Isolet to the sterile crystal place known as the Aether Wastes.

You wake up before day-break. Initially confused, you quickly remember where you are and how you got there. You'd been out gathering, just the usual daily chore. You've been exploring a bit further north than the rest of the tribe, heading uphill, still following the advice in "Flora and Fauna" ten years since you read the first page. It's never let you down, and yesterday was no different - you found a huge node of a rare species of milk-cap that works as a preservative when added to pretty much any food prone to spoilage. Dessicating Ghostblood  tastes foul, but it's a real life-saver during the birthing months when the tribe can't easily move to find new forage.

That's when it happened - two  Pentos, gatherers from a rival tribe, came upon you from the other side of the ridge. Thinking you'd be an easy target, out there all alone, they threw their spears, and one cut you deep in the thigh. It hit an artery, and the blood pulsed out with intense pressure; seeing the geyser of blood, the  Pentos  grabbed their spears and ran off, leaving you for dead. You guess they didn't want to risk injury by allowing you a chance to pick yourself up and throw a spear back at them. This was lucky for you, because you took two fistfuls of the  Ghostblood  and squeezed the juice out right into the wound! It stung like a Scorvia bite, but the bleeding staunched in seconds and it clearly saved your life. Unfortunately, the  Pentos  returned to rob you of your valuables (spear, blades, clothes, rations, rope, whatever else you might have). They were shocked to find you alive, and this time you got the drop on them - darts cured with  Roaring Goatmane  to incapacitate them (one such dart stings about ten times  worse  than a Scorvia bite!), and then a hatchet to the forehead for each of them. Terrible work, but it had to be done.

No wonder you had slept terribly, with dreams like death. Your leg feels leaden and hurt badly, you still feel faint from bloodloss (should find some type of blood-thickening  agaric  and counteract the mental effects with a  Scaly Chanterelle, maybe?), and you're now laden with your own kit plus two more from the dead  Pentos. You're a few hours of hiking away from your tribe's camp, which is to the south. It's downhill most of the way, and there's a couple of small streams, but nothing navigable.

[meta] Wild animals: 1d12 + /u/rollme (1-2: carnivore smelling blood, 3-9: just some herbivores, 10-12: nothing you can see or hear)

You can hear a flock of slithering snakezelles in the distance. They must be grazing on a fresh bloom of dewcaps or maybe some long-fingered slime molds. It's a reassuring sound - they'd be underground if there were any large predators about.

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I look through the kits I have now, and then start heading back to the village, gathering anything useful as I go.

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Source
https://www.reddit.com/r/MyWorldYourStory/comments/6bv2nc/fantasyexisting_settingyour_erwt_story/