Welcome to the Party

When I decided to assemble some adventurers I was hoping to get a couple of stoic fighters, a friendly cleric and a wise wizard. Instead I have collected:

• a half-orc who's too stupid to speak and may not understand why I hired him
  
• a wizard who thinks she's a belly-dancing princess
• a friendly cleric
• a shifty bard with strangely good armour
  
• a weapon-crazed halfling
• a mysterious dwarven monk.

Well, at least the cleric is OK.

Hellsby

I have become quite good friends with a young lad living in Fazzell - a halfling called Hellsby. Here's the weird thing about him (there's always something weird, it seems) - he doesn't know he's a halfling. His parents have always told him he's human and that it's his fault he's short. I don't know how (or whether) to break it to him. I'm sure the opportunity will come up one day.

Oppillaa

It seems the strange ones are attracted to me.

Today I found a female dwarf walking alongside the cart. When I confronted her she said she'd joined us. I don't know where she came from or where she's going. Her name is Oppillaa, and she's a monk. I haven't heard of a monastic tradition amongst monks but I'm not going to argue with a kukri. She seems to have an unusually strong... erm... personality.

Athelred

It seems to have got about that I was looking for adventurers, and I was approached by a tall fellow (heh heh, not me!) calling himself Athelred. He's a bard - he plays the mandolin and sings quite nicely. I'm not sure about him, but I told him to come along anyway. He says he's interested in finding historical documents and learning songs, but there's something odd about him. Maybe it was when he asked if he could keep his mandolin in the wagon rather than in the cart, and I realised the mandolin would have cost more than the wagon did...

Garm, the Walker of Roads

I had a thought... several times along the road I have met priests of Fharlanghn tending to their roadside sanctuaries and keeping the roads safe. They have always seemed like decent fellows. So I went to the temple of Fharlanghn and asked if they had anyone who would care to travel with me. It turns out they had a fresh recruit called Garm who has agreed to come with me. He's a quite fellow.

"Princess" Valmyra

I have met and hired another adventurer. If I thought Unk was unusual due to his lack of loquaciousness, this one is remarkable in the other extreme. She's a pretty young human wizard who claims to be a princess. She says she was kidnapped by sahuagin and sold into slavery and is now trying to get home again. I didn't ask how she escaped from her alleged slavery. I'm worried she may act like a princess, and she'll certainly need some more sensible clothes before winter comes, but still, Pansy seems to like her.

Unk

I have hired a half-orc I am going to call "Unk". I met him in the market and asked if he was looking for work and he only told me "unk". When I walked away he followed me and he has been following me ever since. I wonder if that counts as a contract? He is a remarkably unresponsive fellow, only ever saying "unk" and that rarely. I told him he could put his goods in the cart and in half an hour he was back with a barrel of the cheapest wine imaginable. That and his armour and weapon (a massive double headed axe) seem to be his only possessions.

Now Hiring

I have decided to get some adventurers to join me, as protection and as a sideline business. It seems so often these days people need help chasing off some goblins and suchlike. I've bought a cart for their things, and Pansy and I will continue using the wagon. I now have 5 ponies!

Fazzell

A cryptic entry from Mr Jumbles' diary:

This evening we have pulled into Fazzell, a place I haven't been for nearly 20 years. The folk here are rather dull and unimaginative, but that's what makes it such a good place to hide something.

Introduction

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Longfellow Jumbles, my business is Snake Oil. I travel these lands with my niece Pansy Hopcoat selling my goods to the villagers of the plains, hills and mountains. I'm rather busy now, won't you come back later?