Vercingetorix

Vercingetorix is a young warrior of Dalpok, committed to resist oppression by pirates and outsiders of his native homeland. Vercingetorix took his warrior name from an outsider legend of a resistance fighter of antiquity. Vercingetorix is the son of the now deceased Dappled Shadow, the former Raktam warlord and erstwhile Empress of the Three Lands, conceived and raised during her exile in Dalpok.

Religious Beliefs

Vercingetorix is a member of the Native Resistance Front, in the tradition of all Dalpok warriors. Dalpoki tradition postuates the existence of star gods, rather than sky gods as advocated by Raktami belief, and that the star gods control the behaviour and fate of all on the island.

Vercingetorix is an ultra-conservative follower of the Path of the Revered Elders. The Path of the Revered Elders is a tradition of behaviour, rather than a formal philosphy: to exercise xenophobic suspicion of all outsiders and revere the jungles and grasslands of the Great Dalpoki Plains. The Revered Elders are, witout order of precedence, Azuma, Ropata, Stargod Tinxiweewee (a holy incarnation of one of the deities), Gridflay, and Isolation. These five Great Ones by their example have preserved the way of life in Dalpok despite ongoing assaults by nearby pirates.

As an ultra-conservative follower of the Path, Vercingetorix refuses to cut a blade of the jungle, nor harm a single animal. It his belief that the grasslands west of Dalpok are a sacred place, the playgrounds of the star gods.

The journal below was written in the ink of poisonous berries upon the dried and pressed leaves of banana trees.

Journal of Vercingetorix - Resolution on the Path of the Revered Elders

November 'o8

My childhood playing amongst the grasshoppers and dragonflies of the Great Dalpoki Plains ended as the constellation of the Red Stranger loops over the hoizon of the plains. My arms are tattooed by an ancient crone, so long in the village people have forgotte her name, with ink drawn from the venom of the deathadders of the holy grasses. This was once done with the tooth of tiger or the tusk of a wild boar, but in recent years since the pirates endeavoured to sell Dalpok to the outsider Maevar, it has been executed wth bone fragments of from the corpse of that unfortunate man.

The story is fairly interesting and so I recount it: a small horde of pirates seized control of the south of Dalpok and purported to re-name it "New Amsterdam". For barely 150 gold coins Maevar bought all rights, title and interest to New Amsterdam, and then rather naively endeavoured to live in the village and act as its benevolent quasi-governor. Maevar's sun-dried corpse, reduced to a state of partial mummification, is in the weapon's hut, an edifice identifiable to visitors by the motto inscribed on the doorway, "Live Free or Die". By using Maevar's shattered bones as tattooing instruments for warriors as they depart to fight, we remind ourselves as a culture that we are owned by no one, that we have allegiance only to ourselves, and that human longevity is a condition which may end at a moment's notice.

I brace myself with a blowpipe carved from the ivory of an elephant. This is my first blowpipe, and I treasure it as a novelty, fully aware that I have little ability to use it. Animals in Dalpok all have some significance to different sects within the vilage, but elephants, by reason of their nuisance value in stripping the bark and leaves from essential trees such as mangoes and bananas, are quite freely killed, with little remorse. Some meagre efforts have been made over the years to domesticate the beasts, but it is far more likely that you will see a Dalpoki eating the meat from an elephant's corpse (which is quite delicious) then riding precariously upon a bull elephant's back, other than, perhaps, as a dare or a gesture of courage in the course of a courtship.

I head north. The road between the pirates' haunt and Dalpok is called Corsair Boulevard by both the natives and the pirates. It is usually in various states of disrepair. Discarded rubbish such as broken pottery, rags of cloth and the leftovers of meals has created an avenue of detritius. Civic-minded individuals from both sides periodically lay straw or long grass on the road so as to allow ease of passage, and this has slowly intermingled with the rich soil of the island and the manure of passing animals. The remarkable result of this is that the road itself is three feet higher than its surrounds. One almost feels as if one is riding on the back of a tiger when traversing the Corsair Boulevard, both literally and figuratively.

Corsair Boulevard is used for the convenience of both sides of the conflict to find the other's camp. As a consequence of this mutual destructive convenience, the road is occasionally tended. The Dalpoki statesman Woo Elephant Yeah is the person who seems to be most active in this exercise. I know that he also tends a road down to York. The "Woo Elephant Yeah Network", as some people call it, takes some effort on his behalf. At one stage pirates laid signs to mark the Corsair Boulevard so as to assist the less experienced of them to find Dalpok during periods of spikes in aggression between the two sides. Dalpoki warriors tended to remove them as they were erected, and often killed the outsider mercenary road workers responsible, but in more recent times there is an strange understanding that the road is of joint advantage, and so it stays relatively intact.

My holy war on pirates begins, and my first step on the Path is actually upon the rotting timbers of the deck of the wreck, the unholy vessel known as the Hellborn Strumpet. It is a single-masted sloop, as the outsiders call this type of vessel, something we often see out to sea, but never have I seen one so close as to stand on it. It lies more-or-less horizontally on a sandbar, a great gouge cut into its side, perhaps by reef further out to sea. It seems to my untrained eye that it might be capable of repair with driftwood, if only the pirates had the tools to fix it. The stargods grantsthem his boon, I say, for then they may leave Dalpoki territory.

High above on the mast, a repellant facsimile of a great tree, is a black rag bearing the image of a skull. The stench is enormous, eminating from the wood, beneath which various pirate sailors slumber in the moonlit night.

I can hear muttering in the vulgar outsider tongue, a vocabulary I do not understand, and do not like for its gutteral phrasing. The ship is a diseased place, diseased of the spirit, far worse than as described to me by my mother, who raided the vessel when she was Warlord with the Royal Court of Greater Raktam.

Three pirates and a nearby Yorksman felt the pain of my darts, despite my novice skill. Moe specifically, they are the pirate called Red Will, a broad man with jagged scars around his neck and hair the colour of the sunset, a shortish, surly man with ruffled sleeves called Cryptrocket, and a darkhaired woman pirate, called Nicolette the Fierce, my first kill. I looked closely at the woman as I poisoned her in her sleep. She wore the clothing of an outsider man, but had long hair and pouting lips. The unwashed smell was the same, though, irrespective of the gender. The Yorksman, notable by the red-coated dress worn by many of the people of that town, is called Vinzenz, an overweight settler, not a fighter.

I try to take their heads as trophies, but have no knack for it. Perhaps I should practice this more.

December 'o8

I participated in the Battle of the Crazy Falls, my journey twice interrupted by a corsair called Pirate Bay, lurking to the south-east of the village. Blood stained the foam and by the grace of the star gods, manifesting as lightning, the native forces won the day. I was dispatched earlier by a giant parakeet, glory in the war deprived by their blackguard actions.

My mother died in the action, apparently assassinated by Rex Feral. It was her wish to shed her blood to appease the Raktami skygods, who have recently frowned on Raktam by causing an outsider horde to ravage the royal city. I will mourn her once I avenge her.

Afterwards I travelled to Wiksik to pay my respects to the Grand Tyrant of the Kingdom of Skulls. The throne room was unoccupied save for courtiers. I received word to travel to the far western plains to particpate in a Kingdom of Skulls event. While hiding in the water, I was killed by a giant squid. I reincarnated and tracked the beast down. An abomination in the eyes of the star gods, with giant arms and eyes as big as the full moon. Diamond Joe Quimby of Wiksik and others dispatched the beast.

I met some paid mercenaries of the Kingdom of Skulls near the western marsh, but there was no sign of the promised event. And so I travelled to Rakmogak, and collected some fungi from the tunnel to the far north, evading the local Rakmogaki Exotic Sports Hunting Club members farming the mushrooms near the entrance. Once I saw the great Wicksick warrior Foo Fighter in a tunnel near the settlement, and gathered that Anthor, Avatar of the Kingdom of Skulls, and his Dalpoki liegeman Daigo Smash, had recently visited. I bought some wooden clubs from the trader, better weapons in melee combat than machetes, but rarely found outside Rakmogak.

January 'o9

I have returned from a sojourn to Rakmogak. The cannibals brook no interference in their affairs by natives. I saw signs warning that natives were as fair game as outsiders.

Dalpok is quiet. I restock and head north. I meet the fmed cartographer Woo Elephant Yeah, and give him a spare blade. I assist Megagaw with healing herbs, and then later discover him on the beach, and then again on the deck of the wreck. The novice is wounded and easy game to the buccaneers. I kill one of them, the deathdealing Cownose, and adminster healing herbs. But he is in a bad way: I whisper to him to move on but it is probably too late.