It's been a while since I have posted these to the list.  I'm not sure where DR2
is right now, but here's some fodder.


To be in the body of the Creature Catalog...



Concerning the Brotherhood of the Watchtower
     Andros stretched his aged legs, rose up from the fireside chair and welcomed
the small party of LightRaiders into his home.  The elf smiled; so many eager
faces, ready for the Good Fight.
 "Ah, you're early!  Let me put the kettle on, and I'll see about that scroll."
     After dealing with the amenities, he reached into one of the more forgotten
cubbies in his ancient oak desk.  "I've got that scroll I mentioned.  I picked
this story up from a Psalmist in a Kaffie house somewhere in the Eagle Peaks.
Darn good pie there."  He cleared his throat and began:
"Set to Papere by Josephus the Psalmist;  Concerning all that is Knowne of the
Anciente Brotherhood of the Watchtower."
"Once upon a tyme, so long ago that Andros was a lad...Harrumph!  We'll skip that
part!  Blah, blah...here it is...
 "...there was a party of brave warriors who made a pact that they would destroy
all the Dragons and save the world!"  A gasp mixed with a chuckle ran about the
room.  He fixed his pale gray eyes on the Raiders and continued.
 "These knights were cunning; they trained eight hours a day.  They were crafty;
they studied another eight, learning all of what Man had ever put to paper
concerning the Ancient Ones.  They were brave; they swore they would fight to the
last breath to free the world from the scaly claws of those dark and evil
creatures.  But alas, they were so utterly foolish, for they thought that they
could do this awesome task entirely on their own.
 "They were impressed by the Overlord of Many Names, make no mistake.  They
thought Him a great scholar, a brave warrior, a shrewd general.  But to these
OnceBorn knights, out beloved was only a man who died fighting the Dragons.  In
their great worldly wisdom, they set out on their own to overcome the darkness
that torments Man and hunts him.
 "At the edge of the Lawless Basin, where the cursed brown dirt begins to wither
away into the Dark Wastes, they built a tower.  Now this area was at the time a
meeting-ground where many Dragon Councils were held, and the people feared it.  In
defiance of the Dragons, the twelve brave knights built a watchtower like none
that had ever been seen by the eyes of Men.  From this Tower, they thought to
prepare for the Great Battle which would defeat the Dragons, for they knew just
enough of the Sacred Scrolls to know of that final conflict, but not enough to
know the signs of its true coming.  In their great bravery and arrogance, they
believed that they would begin that prophesied war.
 "One of their Brotherhood, Hiram by name, was a architect without peer.  The
Tower grew rapidly.  Its base was a furlong square, and made from green stone
quarried from the Dwarven mines at Sharuk.  Many people saw the knights as heroes
who would scour the world of the long feared Scaly Ones.  Many expensive gifts
were given to the Brotherhood, as they pledged that upon the Tower's completion,
they would burst forth to free the world from the Dragons.  The Tower was
certainly grand; it stretched a mile into the air, the Bards say (but that is, of
course, the way the Bards talk.)
The Tower sparkled in the sunlight, a monument to the knowledge of Men. But alas,
unknown to the Brotherhood, the dark earth in that place was only a shallow
covering over the ancient dunes of the Wastes.  The grandest folly ever built by
the hand of the OnceBorn was built on a foundation of sand.  While it stood, a
visitor could see around the world to the back of his own head.  (Or so the Bards
say; again, that is how they talk.)
The day finally came when the Watchtower was finished, and the knights sat down to
plan their new kingdom, which they would bring about after they had slain all the
Dragons.
 Another of the Brotherhood, Adamus, by name, was a smith, but that is like
calling the Overlord a "wise teacher"; the description does not do justice to the
thing.  It is said that Adamus taught the Dwarves themselves how to work metal.
Mithril, adamandite, fine steel and cold iron...no man alive was the craftsman fit
to even bank his forge.  He made huge siege engines and tiny clockwork birds with
equal ease.  A master smith who was said to be able to talk metal into behaving,
no task ever presented a real challenge to him...until one of his brother knights
suggested that to truly destroy the Dragons, they would need special armor, armor
unlike any ever seen in the world.  (They really sought the Armor of God that any
TwiceBorn may wear, but they were not wise enough to know what they really
sought.)
 Adamus blew a hot breath out past a bushy red mustache.  Here was a task!  He
locked up his shop door, descended into his massive library, and was not seen for
seven days.  On the eighth day, he returned to his forge, and with the shop door
latched tight, he began to work.  The forge glowed bright as the sun, but he was
the only one there to see it, and in another seven days, after endless clanking
and hammerfall, the door to his shop blew outward off its hinges.  When his eleven
brother knights stormed the shop, they found Addamus exhausted, sleeping soundly
on the floor surrounded by a chalk circle.  And standing about him, with just the
tips of their armored boots on the pale white circle, were suits of armor unlike
any ever known.
 They were blindingly white, and moved without creaking; every joint was crafted
with tiny bearings and gimbals.  No blow by the knights could even scratch the
finish of the dazzling armor.  As they moved to examine them, they found their own
names etched in the finest filigree on the breastplate of each suit.  Delighted,
they forgot their sleeping comrade and donned the armor.  It fit exquisitely, as
if molded to every muscle of their finely trained warriors.  With a strangely
final click the helmets one by one snapped into place, and they set forth to
conquer the world.
 They were never seen again.
 Did they fall in battle against the Dragons?  No tomb records it.  Did they
travel to the Eternal Lands on a ship of their own devising, or were they lost at
sea in a horrible storm?  No one knows.  But the Brotherhood of the Watchtower
disappeared from the world without so much as a puff of smoke left behind.
 It is recorded that on the same very night, the whole of the western sky lit up
with gouts of flame.  The tower was found utterly shattered; not toppled merely,
but melted and blasted to ruins, and even that in time was covered by sand as the
Wastes expanded from their ancient home and reclaimed the site.
 Thus, the Brotherhood of the Watchtower came to an end.  From time to time the
Wastes shift and move like living things, and they say that foolish adventurers
pass through the southern Wastes trying to find the remains of the Tower, which
after all did hold enormous wealth at the time of its demise.  But though many
foolish OnceBorn disappear in that area, the Wastes have never given up so much as
a trinket or coin.  Thus ends my tale."
 Andros sipped his tea and reguarded the students.  "Let that be a lesson to you,
young ones.  You fight at the High One's bidding, for His reasons, in His time.  A
humble warrior survives to repel the Darkness.  A arrogant one looses his way in
it."



APPENDIX II

Sleepless Knights
-------------------------------
No. Appearing:      1
Size:               7'
Battle Ability:     14
Vitality:           57
Enchantment:        Dark Tongue
 Strength Attacked: CO
 Strength Damaged:  PE
Passed by:          Speech
Physical Attacks:   d8+4 Great Sword
Special Attacks:    Dreamwalk
-------------------------------
    They dress in black.
    There are eleven Sleepless Knights, and they are never found together.  There
have been sightings in the Wastes, in the cold northlands, in the depth of
dungeons and in the Eagle Peaks.  They say that if the full eleven ever appear in
one place that the world will split from pole to pole and the Final Conflict
between Man and the Dragons will begin.  (But then again, that's just the kind of
thing they would say, isn't it?)  They also say that even the Dragons fear them,
although who but the Dragons really know?
    Even the Wise Ones at the Academy know very little about these creatures.  Are
they men, Dark Creature, or some strange Dragon-made clockwork?  What are their
goals?  Very little is known, but here is what LightRaiders have discovered about
them.  This information is to be regarded as little more than rumor, but it is all
we have.
    They move on their own quests for their own reasons.  They appear as knights
in the finest black armor, but are supernaturally silent, their armor giving no
creak, a MS of 20!  This errie silence even extends to their battle; a Knights
blow to a foe is completely soundless (but just as painful!)  They TE at 14.
Their armor also allows them to BWS at 20, although any WordRune that evokes light
will drive them back, and lower their BA to 10.  For all that is known, they may
be Dragon-animated suits of armor, for no man has lived to raise the visor of a
Sleepless Knight.
    They get their name from the fact they never sleep, never stop, never give up
tracking a foe.  Once they select a target, they pursue relentlessly.  Brave men
have been known to lay down in their tracks and wait for the Knight's huge foul
blade rather than run like dogs for the rest of their lives.   They seem to seek
out LightRaiders especially.  And oddly, no victim is ever found...they disappear
upon the killing blow.
    They are fierce fighters, but often they will simply stop and stow their
swords, and begin talking with their Dark Tongue Enchantment.  This is their most
fearsome weapon.  Any round they are not fighting, they may begin chanting a
whispering drone of almost unintelligible words, that is hard to identify but
seems to be in the native tongue of every listener.  Anyone hearing this for more
than one round must make a DL10 ability check vs. their Courage rating, or run in
absolute total terror at the highest movement rate possible for the next hour if
not restrained by their fellows.  A SF check will prevent 8 points of Peace
damage, but will not lessen the fear.  The character is running from whatever
thing or person that it absolutely, down deep fears, and will not stop for
anything.  (The sole exception, of course, is Rescue by WordRune or Scripture.
See the Remove Fear WordRune in the Appendix.)
 Stoppering one's ears with wax will prevent the effect, or the music of a
Psalmist will drop the DL level of any check to DL5.  This dark enchantment works
only once per encounter, though, and the Knight will hand-to-hand if it fails,
seeking to dispatch the remainder of the party who stand around to fight.
 If anyone survives an encounter with a Sleepless Knight, and the Knight is not
destroyed or subdued, the person will begin having horrible Knightmares(!) upon
going to sleep the following night, in which the Knight will attack and battle the
person in their dreams.  Combat is Solo Battle, but all processions of the PC are
allowed into the dream if the player wants to try something creative.  If
appealing in prayer to the OverLord, player may create normal weapons or items in
this dream to counter or battle the Knight.  (Do not treat this like a magic
ability...the PC MUST be aware that the OverLord sustains him in this battle, it
is not his own doing.)  It is possible for the PC to be slain in this dream, and
in real life.
 AM's, and AM's alone may examine the Appendix at the back of the book for more
information on the Sleepless Knights.


AM's Eyes Only - Concerning the Sleepless Knights:

 The Knights are, of course, the eleven white-clad Brothers of the Watchtower.
They are doomed to walk the Urth doing the Dragons' bidding until the end of the
world...or until a certain young band of LightRaiders stops WHACKING on them, and
starts witnessing to them!  All the chopping in the world MAY kill a Sleepless
Knight, but remember the Overlord's own prohibition against taking the life of a
OnceBorn; if the party slays one, they are going to bear the sin and will need to
repent it.  The visor of that jet black plate is down...anything (or nothing could
be there.)
If players think to subdue the Knight and bind him, they will find his Strength is
a mere 5, like other men.  If they think to lift the dark visor of the armor's
helm, they will hear a keening unlike any they have ever heard; the Knight has had
a thousand years to walk the Urth, destroying the lives of the ones he thought to
protect, and knowing what he is doing every minute.  A lined, anguished face will
stare back, eyes pleading.  Once this is done, and the party knows that apparently
a human is inside, give the Knight a brief burst of Strength at 15 in a DL5 check
to try and snap the ropes.  The Dragons don't want to give their plaything up!
Only the love of the OverLord and becoming TwiceBorn will shatter the now
jet-black armor to bits and free the poor hapless soul within.  The knight may be
killed or subdued, tied and bound, but that armor of Darkness is on tight until
the Sword of the Spirit and/or the Great WordRunes blow it off.
They are tired, they are so tired; they haven't slept for a thousand years.  A
freed TwiceBorn Knight will praise God, and fall down to sleep for a month.  After
a game year training in the Liberated Lands, they may return to the game as player
characters.  They will have a KN bonus of +10 alone in History from a thousand
years ago, a +3 KN bonus in ancient artifacts, and other pluses as determined by
the individual AM.
 People "killed" by a Sleepless Knight do not die, they evaporate into a Dragon's
castle, to be mindless servants until that Death Knight is killed or freed from
the control of the Dragons.  When the Knight's spell is broken, all those
imprisoned by his actions reappear about him, no older than when they were taken.
Concerning the "nightmare" attacks:  other LightRaiders, if currently in the realm
of sleep, may be bidden in to the defender's dream to offer aid...if the PLAYER
thinks of it.  A Sleepless Knight cannot be killed in the DreamRealm...but
defeating the dream-shade of one WILL place the Knight in a dormant mode for 24
hours...if players can deduce the creature's physical lair from clues in the
dream.  And there may be clues in the dream fight to the Knight's true nature if
the AM wants to use it to move the plot along.  "What's that on the hill behind
him?  Could it be...a TOWER?"  Also, remember that if anyone is killed in the
DreamRealm, their physical self evaporates from the dream and from their bed, and
they get to be a mindless NPC in some Dragon's castle somewhere until the party
either redeems THIS knight, or learns from the Overlord where the character has
gone.  If they assume that because his body has disappeared that he is dead, don't
dispel the mistake immediately.  But you will want to tell the player what he sees
in the Dragon's castle as he reports for work, and EXPECT that this information
WON'T come back to his comrads.

 And what of Addamus, the Smith, the Brother left behind when the Eleven
disappeared and the Tower fell?  Odd you should ask...
 This tale may only be found in Addamus' own diary, or told from his lips. And
thereby hangs the tale.
---------------------------------------------------------------
 His name is Omegus, or that's what he tells his acquaintances.  He has no friends
to speak of, and he doesn't.
     He looks about eighty, but a hard eighty.  Those aren't laugh lines, friend;
those are grief lines.  His shoulder-length white hair is ragged and frizzled.  A
small trickle of red runs through his full beard, but other than that it has run
to white as well.  For his age, he has remarkably strong arms.   He carries a
staff with a carved chesspiece on the top, apparently a rook.
 He lives in a one-room shack in a quiet part of town; nothing too showy, a bit
dusty and rumpled.  He is said to be a sage of sorts.  He has an almost complete
grasp of ancient history, and is a bit of a tinker as well, often mending cookpots
for the local housewives.  But he keeps to himself...and talks very little.  "As
silent as Omeegus," his neighbors say when they mention him at all.
 If you were to look into his room, you would see mainly books; hundreds of them,
mostly history texts.  His only other real possessions other than a cracked anvil
and some ancient smithy tools is a tiny clockwork bird.  If wound up, it only
gasps, some tiny internal mechanism long broken.
  He may be found at home, where he will refuse any contact with outsiders he does
not know.  If introduced by a third party he knows, he will consult on
history...for a fee.  If the party finds him elsewhere, it will be late in the
evening, at a run-down pub called the Hope & Anchor.  He will be drinking...and
crying.  The party will learn of him as a sage, and probably begin by viewing him
as a tool toward larger goals.  The AM must remember to play him with tragedy and
sympathy to draw the party out.
 This is a man lost, a man adrift.  What is his story?  It will take a long while,
several favors, and some serious trust-building to find out.  They will learn it
only from his own lips...or perhaps he drops a book during some consulting session
at the pub...

The Fall of the Watchtower
----------------------------------------------------------------
 Addamus awoke alone, his forge long cold, the only sound in his massive smithy
was the demonic laughter of a small red Dragon.  He looked away in shame, knowing
how he had compromised himself, and knowing something had gone wrong.  Where there
had been twelve fine suits of white plate armor, there was now only one standing
watch over his smithy.  A sickly-sweet smoke filled the air of his workshop as he
lay in the dust.
 He had failed at first.  He had tried and tried to find the formula; the powerful
combination of the elements that would yield the perfect metal for the Fight.  He
sought some steel alloy that would provide his Brotherhood with the earthly
protection they would need to vanquish the world's many dragons.  His vast
knowledge had failed him, until one day, when feeding the small subdued red Dragon
that the Brotherhood kept as a research animal, the idea finally came to him: To
slay the Dragons, once and for all, they would need the armor of a Dragon!
 He had scraped the scales from the small, horse-sized creature and had used the
Dragon's own flame to heat his forge.   He had melted the scales together with the
finest, hardest metals, and talked it into shape; twelve suits of armor for the
Brotherhood of men!  They had thought they would emerge from the Watchtower and
free the world!  But here in the dust at the feet of the Dragon, he was beginning
to see that they had been terribly wrong.
 The Dragon's laughter now mocked him.
 "Petty human!" It snorted.  "So full of your own arrogance, so bloated on your
own self-made wisdom!  It is a wonder that our Enemy even notices your worthless
lives!  You so hungered for your own path to glory that you would dance with the
Ancient Ones themselves and try to steal our secrets!"
 Addamus shook the sleep from his head, and for the first time he noticed that
their "captive" Dragon was now twirling its collar on one razor-sharp claw.  Its
missing scales seemed to fill back in as he watched.  It spewed another wicked
laugh, and eddies of flame began to burn sections of his smithy.  It regarded him
with a cold, bright eye:
 "I was the weakest of our brood, sent to let your petty Brotherhood capture me.
It was thought that your own pride would make you take me in as some lickspittle
pet.  I have waited years for your own arrogance to grow to the point that I could
quietly work my will upon you."
 "No!" Addamus shouted, as it all began to become clear.
 "Did you not hear me in the night?" The creature chuckled a deep, throaty laugh.
"Calling to your petty brain in the stillness?  Urging your kind on to their
self-appointed task?"
 "You will fail!" Addamus proclaimed.  "We fight on the side of Good!  That
armor..."
 "That armor I let you *think* you designed?"  A thick spume of flame melted his
anvil into a cherry-red puddle.  "Weakling!  Did you think of your own glory you
walked in Light?  You walk in Darkness!"  And with that, the tiny Dragon grew and
shifted, filling out until his now-massive wings blew out the windows of the
workshop.
 The finest smithy in the world was in ruins, and with his fiery breath, the
Dragon flew up and turned his flame upon the grand Watchtower.  The Dragon was
joined by several others of his kind, even larger and more terrifying, and they
all focused upon the Tower.  The very stone flowed like water as the Tower
crumbled unto itself, and sank beneath the sand it was built upon.  The dragons
danced in the air high over the smoking remains of that place.  The now huge
Dragon's laughter echoed across the Wastes, and with a flutter of his great red
wings, he was gone.  At the last, only silence ruled the place.
 What of the smith?  He crawled from the ruins, bitter, bruised.  His Brothers
were all gone, clad in the armor they believed would protect them...armor forged
by human hands to Dragon designs.  Who knew where they had gone, or what would
befall them?  Did they die in the "battle" of the Tower?  Did they run into the
night clad only in the missing armor?  Who knew?  The smith cursed his own name,
they day he was born, and his family line back to the Glade.
 All he found in the ruins of their great Watchtower before the Wastes blew
quietly over the slag was a single clockwork bird from his workshop, a toy he had
been creating before the armor was even a dream.  It was battered and bent, and
when he touched the switch with a bloody finger, it merely coughed and sputtered.
He walked out into the Grey Wastes, hoping that this day would be his last.  No
curse in the world would be great enough for him.  He had danced with the Dragons,
and now he would willingly pay the price."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 The first chapter of the tiny book ends there, and after some ragged and torn
pages picks up again in the same handwriting, but different ink.  Assumedly some
time has passed between the two entries.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
     "I may be the only survivor.  Drunk on the wisdom of men, I have dammed my
fellows to the Overlord knows what fate.  I have scoured history to locate any
mention of them, but there is none.  In the years that followed, I sought them in
the surrounding lands, then further and further away.  They are as gone as our
grand Watchtower.  As far as I know, only I survive to carry the shame of my all
too human arrogance; the blood of my brothers is on my hands.  I committed the sin
that caused the Tower to fall; I sought to conquer Evil with Evil's own tools.
Surely the Overlord himself has turned his face against me.  I am not fit to live,
and yet I do.
 "I have tried many times to take my life, and yet I live.  Cuts heal before my
eyes, poisons pass right through me.  I am a ruin of a man, aged but denied
death.  I walk the lands of the living, passing among men but never of them,
afraid to tell a soul who I really am.
 "I began this as a history of the Watchtower, to set right every lie and error
that men have said about us over the millennium since its fall, but even now, my
spirit fails me.  What is the point of what men say?  The Brotherhood is gone.
Perhaps they were the lucky ones.  May they rest in a better place, if in truth
there is a better place.  I will probably be here, cursed that I am, long after
the true Final Conflict has come and gone.
 "Our great Tower lies broken beneath the sand, and every night I find myself in
another murky bar, listening to another tuneless bard further mangle the memory of
my Brothers and our quest.  Will this hell never end?
     In my hand, Addamus"

Omegus (Addamus)
Hope of 1
Knowledge of 20 in metalwork of all kinds
Knowledge of 15 in Ancient History
Vision of 12
Strength of 12
PV 25 (apparent...regeneration makes this Infinite until
             The End of Time or TwiceBorn)

   Omegus is a pathetic old man who is cursed by the Dragons to wander the world,
calling no place home and no man brother.  He keeps to himself, afraid to share
his sin.
   The man is a sage of sorts, friends will tell the LightRaiders.  If you want
History, you want Omegus.  The Orc Uprising in the highlands?  He tells it like he
was there.  The Sad Case of the Battling Barons?  He tells it better than the
Bards do, and he knows their first names!  Trust me, for research, its Omegus.
His knowledge is vast, but his short-term memory is a bit spotty...always
forgetting where his staff is, or what street he is on.  He's not a bad tinker as
well, they say.  But he never touches weapons.  He will fix a pot like new, or
make a clockwork toy for a child, but he never repairs armor or weapons, not for
money or threat.
   This fellow is a man without a country or kin, a hollow shell of a machine
built solely for carrying his grief around, and built so perfectly it never wears
out.  This is the true curse laid on him by the Dragons: he will remember his
failure forever...or so he believes.
   The sad thing is this, it need not be this way.  Omegus knows not what happened
to his Brothers, but he believes them dead, with the blood on his hands.  He
believes (in a stout, Old Testament way) that the Overlord could never forgive a
sinner such as he.  And though he knows it not, that is what is keeping his
horrible enchantment alive.  The enchantment is simply broken, if only he would
accept the Overlord's gift.  His exile is self inflicted.
   The party will need to witness to him several times.   He will at first hustle
them along to their adventures, then at another time he will make bitter comments
about his sin being too great.  At a time of the AM's choosing (possibly when
drunk) he will relate the entire story most tragically, filling in what is known
about the Brotherhood from the Palsmist's tale in the main book.  The party will
have to role-play him through the Great Runes, and get him to accept the
Overlord.  When he does, the following happens: complete catharsis, de-aging to a
man of 50, and quite probably a Unicorn visitation.  (Touched by a Unicorn?)
   As far as he knows, his Brothers were never seen again.  He does NOT know they
are the Sleepless Knights.  If the party relates this to him at any time, he will
take out a VERY nice sword, tucked away wrapped in velvet, and begin a quest to
free his Brothers from the domination of the Dragons.  If the party is nice, they
can come along too!
   Some possible plot lines to mix into the stew for the dedicated Adventure
Master...
* Omegus hears his lost armor calling to him, haunting his dreams.  He fears it
will work its dark magic on him, and compel him to put it on.  He seeks a party to
join him on a quest to the Wastes to seek the foundation of the Tower.
* Or perhaps this is a lead in to the revelation of his true past; the party leans
of his dreams, the Overlord dispatches them to destroy the armor, and along the
way they learn the tale of his past!
* Or, word comes that the Tower's ruins have emerged from the Wastes.  Perhaps the
Overlord wants the armor destroyed, or perhaps some Dragon has taken over the
dungeons beneath the dunes as home base for a raid on the Human lands.
* A secret society, a sect of the dreaded Cryptic Alliance, has found the armor
and is trying to divine its secrets.  Or...
* Or the sect is seeing to perform some hideous ceremony which will draw the 12
knights together and begin the Final Conflict before its time!
* Or the above sect is doing so at the bidding of the Dragons to destroy the
mortal lands!
* Or they are doing it as a power grab to try and control the Dragons!