"HEY"
Echoing so close, it can easily be mistaken for something someone in the party said. A sudden outburst in a place like this is not unheard of, and no shame to all but the most hardened adventurer. There would be no judgement.
"HEY? HEY!"
This time slightly further away. Or perhaps behind. Certainty, now, that it is not one of the party. Yet, no other light source burns in the immediate area. What poor soul could be trapped down here with no light source? Soon the answer becomes all too obvious.
"YOU WANNA BUY A SKULL?"
the Skull Hawker
[Travel Event]
.jpeg "Yeah, that's an envelope. I have many envelopes.") |
| S 0 | P 0 | C 0 | W 1 H/D 1/0 Likes: Skulls, Haggling Hates: Bright light, Slime |
Scuttling from the darkness and every tight space in the general area, 10 + [discard value] leathery cephalopods, knee high to the average human and wearing skulls for shells, swarm the player characters, babbling away as they do so.
"BUY? SKULL? YOU BUY!"
These creatures wish no ill will to the PCs, the opposite actually. They wish to provide the adventurers with the highest quality skulls possible. For a price of course.
Barking and babbling, they'll call out various prices while showing off the various skulls they carry with them, just in case of a sale. Trouble is, they neither understand currency nor haggling. They sure as hell love it though. To the point they'll even begin swapping between themselves and the players, should the bastards get their fervor up. Should the players seem not interested in buying, the Hawkers will naturally see if they're interested in selling.
"SKULLS HERE. GET YA SKULLS. ONLY ONE PREVIOUS OWNER! LIKE NEW!"
Now, by themselves, they ain't much of a threat. They just want to buy and sell their skull collections. That's it. The problem comes with how damn loud they are, and the fact they refuse to take 'No' as an answer. Seemingly incapable of speaking quieter than a scream, they generate a huge racket, drawing the interest of any nearby dungeon horror. That, paired with encircling the players almost instantly, could spell trouble.
"HEY BUDDY. I'LL GIVE YOU A GOLD FOR YOUR SKULL! YOU SELLING?"
Mechanically, this means that until the Skull Hawkers are convinced to go away, anything that would need peace and quiet, or extended concentration, automatically fails. Attempts at being stealthy are right out. When pulling from the Meatgrinder, pull twice, as both events happen at the same time. (Except for two instances of [Torches Gutter] being drawn at once. Just do it once.)
"BUYING? BUY! SELL! 30 GOLD! YOU GIVE."
Now, why are they doing all this? It's sort of a cargo cult situation, really. Ever since their home, the Underworld, opened up to the surface, those damned surface dwellers have been coming down here to die. But why? The Hawkers are attempting to figure that out. Finding so many corpses of adventurers, the Hawkers' greatest minds examined them in detail, as they pulled on their beards and scratched their chins in deep thought. Eventually, a pattern was realized; there were almost always two things on the found bodies: coins and skulls. Surely these had to be related. Surely the surface dwellers valued these things. Why else would they bring them down here to be buried with? Thus, Hawker society suddenly formed a Merchant class, one that was immediately sent out to worship and barter with these Surfacers.
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