Shosan the Traveller

Arrived in Sandpoint, the town seems quite stirred up about some festival in the next day or so. Apparently they are re-dedicating a temple that burned down some five years ago. I had heard something about that, but not much as news is hit or miss in the far bush, especially when away from home as much as I am. To return – the temple is being dedicated to the 6 faiths, and there is a festival. Everyone is also glad that 'the late unpleasantness' is done with – not sure what that is about, no one will talk specifically. The townsfolk seem likable enough, even to a halfbreed like me. Tracker and I may make this home for a while.

Festival Day. – First day of Autumn

Started out well enough. The place I'm staying is an inn by the north gate. Owned by a Shoanti named Garridan. His nephew seems nice enough and looks to be good with his hands. We are going to explore the Swallowtail Festival today.

later

Day was nice, but the dedication ceremony went badly. When the Priest called for attention with a thunderstone, Goblins came springing from everywhere and started burning, killing and pillaging. A halfling and his dog were nearby, it is well known that goblins don't like dogs and they seemed to be a focus, so I and a couple of others helped out.

End of Session

For five years, the faithful of Sandpoint have attended church in smaller wooden structures rebuilt after fire destroyed the previous temple, and while their new pastor Abstalar was helpful, kind, and wise, church wasn’t the same. Now, the new cathedral is finally done. All that remains is for the Swallowtail Festival to renew the site’s blessings from the gods and it will be as if the Sandpoint Fire had never occurred.

Ten Fun Facts About Goblins
1: Horse Hate: Goblins excel at riding animals, but they don’t quite get horses. In fact, their hatred of all things horse is matched only by their fear of horses, who tend to step on goblins who get too close.
2: Dog Hate: Although goblins raise horrible rat-faced creatures called (creatively enough) goblin dogs to use as mounts (and ride wolves or worgs if they can get them—goblins are quick to explain that wolves are NOT dogs), their hatred of plain old dogs nearly matches their hatred of horses. The feeling is mutual. If your dog’s barking at the woodpile for no reason, chances are he smells a frightened goblin hiding in there somewhere.
3: Goblins Raid Junkyards: Garbage pits, gutters, sewers…  anywhere there’s garbage, you can bet goblins are nearby. Goblins are weirdly adept at crafting weapons and armor from refuse, and are fond of killing people with what they throw away.
4: Goblins Love to Sing: Unfortunately, as catchy as their lyrics can be, goblin songs tend to be a bit too creepy and disturbing to catch on in polite society.
5: They’re Sneaky: An excited or angry goblin is a noisy, chattering, toothy menace, but even then, he can drop into an unsettling silence in a heartbeat. This, matched with their diminutive size, makes them unnervingly adept at hiding in places you’d never expect: stacks of firewood, rain barrels, under logs, under chicken coops, in ovens…
6: They’re A Little Crazy: The fact that goblins think of things like ovens as good hiding places reveals much about their inability to think plans through to the most likely outcome. That, and they tend to be easily distracted, particularly by shiny things and animals smaller than them that might make good eating.
7: They’re Voracious: Given enough supplies, a goblin generally takes nearly a dozen meals a day. Most goblin tribes don’t have enough supplies to accommodate such ravenous appetites, which is why the little menaces are so prone to going on raids.
8: They Like Fire: Burning things is one of the great goblin pastimes, although they’re generally pretty careful about lighting fires in their own lairs, especially since goblins tend to live in large tangled thistle patches and sleep in beds of dried leaves and grass. But give a goblin a torch and someone else’s home and you’ve got trouble.
9: They Get Stuck Easily: Goblins have wiry frames but wide heads. They live in cramped warrens. Sometimes too cramped.
10: Goblins Believe Writing Steals Your Soul: The walls of goblin lairs and the ruins of towns goblins have raided are littered with pictures of their exploits. They never use writing, though. That’s not lucky. Writing steals words out of your head. You can’t get them back.

When Jervis Stoot made clear his intentions to build a home on the island just north of the Old Light, locals paid him no mind. Jervis had already garnered something of a reputation for eccentricity when he began his one-man crusade to carve depictions of birds on every building in town. Stoot never made a carving without securing permission, but his incredible skill at woodcarving made it a given that, if Stoot picked your building as the site of his latest project, you seized the opportunity. “Sporting a Stoot” soon grew to be something of a bragging point, and Jervis eventually extended his gift to include ship figureheads and carriages. Those who asked or tried to pay him for his skill were rebuffed – Stoot told them, “There ain’t no birds in that wood for me t’set free,” and went on his way, often wandering the streets for days before noticing a hidden bird in a fencepost, lintel, steeple, or doorframe, which he’d then secure permission to “release” with his trusty hatchets and carving knives.
Stoot’s excuse for wanting to move onto the isle seemed innocent enough – the place was a haven for local birdlife, and his claim of “Wantin’ ta be with th’ birds” seemed to make sense. So much so, in fact, that the guild of carpenters (with whom Stoot had maintained a friendly competition for several years) volunteered to build a staircase, free of charge, along the southern cliff face so that Stoot could come and go from his new home with ease. For 15 years, Stoot lived on the island. His trips into town grew less and less frequent, making it something of an event when he chose a building to host a new Stoot.
Sandpoint was no stranger to crime, or even to murder. Once or twice a year, passions flared, robberies went bad, jealousy grew too much to bear, or one too many drinks were drunk, and someone would end up dead. But when the bodies began to mount five years ago, the town initially had no idea how to react. Sandpoint’s sheriff at the time was a no-nonsense man named Casp Avertin, a retired city watch officer from Magnimar. Yet even he was ill prepared for the murderer who came to be known as Chopper. Over the course of one long winter month, it seemed that every day brought a new victim to light. Each was found in the same terrible state: bodies bearing deep cuts to the neck and torso, hands and feet severed and stacked nearby, and the eyes and tongue plucked crudely from the head and missing entirely.
Over the course of that terrible month, Chopper claimed 25 victims. His uncanny knack at eluding traps and pursuit quickly wore on the town guard, taking particular toll on Sheriff Avertin, who increasingly took to drinking. In any event, Sheriff Avertin himself became Chopper’s last victim, slain upon catching the murderer in a narrow lane—known now as Chopper’s Alley—as he was mutilating his latest victim. Yet in the battle that followed, Avertin managed a telling blow against the killer. When the town guard found both bodies several minutes later, they were able to follow the killer’s bloody trail.
A trail that led straight to the stairs of Stoot’s Rock.
At first, the town guard refused to believe the implications, and feared that Chopper had come to claim poor Jervis Stoot as his 26th victim. Yet what the guards found in the modest home atop the isle, and in the larger complex of rooms that had been carved into the bedrock below, left no room for doubt. Jervis Stoot and Chopper were the same. The guards collapsed the entrance to the chambers, burned Stoot’s house, tore down the stairs, and did their best to forget. Stoot himself was burned on the beach in a pyre, his ashes blessed and then scattered in an attempt to stave off an unholy return of his evil spirit.
As fate would have it, the people of Sandpoint would soon have a new tragedy to bear, one that almost eclipsed Chopper’s rampage. A month after the murderer was slain, a terrible fire struck Sandpoint. The fire started in the Sandpoint Chapel and spread quickly. As the town rallied to save the church, the fire spread, consuming the North Coast Stables, the White Deer Inn, and three homes. In the end, the church burnt to the ground, leaving the town’s beloved priest Ezakien Tobyn dead.
All that remains today of the once-loved Stoot carvings are ragged scars on buildings and figureheads where owners used hatchets to remove what had become a haunting reminder of a wolf in their fold. The homes and businesses ravaged by the fire have been reconstructed, and the Sandpoint Chapel has finally been rebuilt as well. With the consecration of this new cathedral, Sandpoint can finally put the dark times of the Late Unpleasantness in the past.