A two session, two team HeroQuest (kinda) module by John Hughes and friends, in the spirit of Terry Pratchett and Indlas Somer, first commissioned for Scotscon, and perhaps coming soon to a convention near you! A sort of beer-and-pretzels affair, though distinctly lacking in pretzels. Play fweedom-loving Heortling ducks! Play Imperious Lunar baboons! Match one band against the other (shudder) in a ruthless battle where only the Narrators walk tall! For ten players and two narrators, with live action bits, tabletop bits, and all the gwubs you can eat. This page contains basic information for players and some sample character sheets. If you'd like an electronic copy of the module, for either convention play or your own amusement, drop a me an email at this address. With full colour PDF character sheets and handouts, the complete package comes to around 5 Meg zipped.

Prelude: A Long & Winding Woad It was a dark and stormy night. It was a road outside Ironspike. It was a dwead wagon full of beetroot. Pinfeather's tail itched. He stepped onto the dark, stormy, road. "Stand and delibber, dis is a hoist!" Pinfeather was small, though fearless, and his wooden leg creaked as he moved. "Ook?" That didn't sound like a terrified Lunar. He spat his cigar stub. "Aak!" "Eek?" "Iik?" "Ook!" There were at least four of them. Dames. Soggy Furriners, with strange, musical voices. "I's shaid, Stand and Delibber!" "Ook?" What was that sound? Sniffing? Sniffing! "Iik?" "Eek!" "Aak!" Their pitch was perfect. Waak! Pinfeather raised his trusty bronze sword higher. This was twuly exasperwating. "Stand and Delibber..." Lightning flashed. Nine glaring red eyes. More depraved sniffing. An eery, musical cry. "Fruit and Horseflesh!" "Horseflesh and Fruit!" The night was assailed by a flurry of beetroot. Claws clashed against a single bronze sword. BIF! BAM! WHACK! "Waak!" DING! CLOD! "Ook!" TWANG! GEPOW! Silence. A single feather floats on the wind. A thick, curiously studded green tail drags across the ground. It was a dark and stormy night.

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ARMED & DANGEROUS The First Pavis Ballista, five superbly trained, dedicated baboon heroes pledged to make the Far Place safe for personkind, if not for horses.

Name: H'eer. Rank: Acting Bombardier. Race: Praxian Baboon. Clan: The Noeval. Psychological profile: Dominant female baboon. Confused. Download H'eer character sheet (419 K Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file).

Name: S'eah. Rank: Loader 3rd Class. Race: Praxian Baboon. Clan: The Noeval. Psychological profile: Second female baboon. Hungry.

Name: Sp'eek. Rank: Loader 3rd Class. Race: Praxian Baboon. Clan: The Noeval. Psychological profile: Overworked third female baboon. Ravenous.

Name: Mooner. Rank: DRUT. Race: Praxian Baboon. Clan: Berrybush. Psychological profile: Infant female baboon. Orphan. Cute is her middle name. Evil is her first.

Name: Utta Rutta. Rank: Loader 3rd Class. Race: Praxian Baboon. Clan: The Noeval. Psychological profile: Token male baboon, with ambitions to be leader of the pack. Delusions of grandeur.

And not forgetting Tequilla Mockingbird-Moonrise, fearless unit commander regrettably and permanently detained in Alda Chur; Sh'Kann, ever-eager Sable Rider NCO, a recent convert to the Lunar Way; Sparky, her fearsome riding sable; and Stretch, spirit of the ballista.

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Ballista Baboons - Matriarchy in Action Join the Lunar Army and see the world! But Ironspike? Even the Great Bog was better than this.... S’eah, H’eer, Sp’eek, Mooner and Utta Rutta are members of an ancient race that once ruled all the berry bushes from Shadows Dance to the sea. Their horrible war cry - 'Fruit and Horseflesh! Horseflesh and Fruit!' - once instilled fear and terror in all the peoples of Prax. In the Third Age, however, they survive as a relatively small and insular tribe of hunter-gathers, content to instill terror only in fruitbats and small furry animals of the Praxian hinterland. Baboons are quadrupeds. They are quick and dangerous with powerful teeth and claws. They can use weapons, but find it difficult to balance on only two legs for any great length of time. When threatened, they form a defensive circle that can be near impregnable to enemies. Omnivorous, baboons survive mainly on roots, berries, insects and small animals. The flesh of larger beings is often sought, but rarely obtained. They are Animists, and most adults worship either Grandmother or Grandfather Baboon, the First Ancestors, two similar, overlapping, but totally independent traditions. An extremely musical race, their ecstatic ceremonies resound with weird though beautiful multi-scale harmonies. Baboon culture is a hierarchical matriarchy. Female baboons care for their young in an all-female social group (a shrewdness) led by the strongest (and usually oldest) woman. They allow only a single ‘dominant’ male to reside with them, and may grudgingly follow his suggestions. All other males are scattered to the edge of the clan’s range, where they serve as border guards, scouts, and broo fodder. Female baboons all consider this a wonderful arrangement. H'eer, S'eah and Sp'eek are sisters who first joined the Lunar Army when H'eer mistook the unit ballista for an ancestral shrine. Mooner is a young orphan who has been 'adopted' by the sisterhood. Utta Rutta was banished from his home troupe by Utta Utta Nutta, the alpha male. He signed up immediately upon seeing three lovely ladies with not a single other male baboon in sight. The baboons of the First Pavis Ballista continue to live by clan principles. H'eer is the strongest woman, and therefore leader of the baboons. S’eah is next, then Sp’eek. Mooner is young enough to get away with pre-adult status most of the time. The women work together with harmony, discipline, and sense of place and purpose. Utta Rutta wants to be alpha male and leader of the pack, but has had little success to date in charming H'eer or indeed any of the squad. While they have been taught to salute a military superior, the five recruits often confuse such salutes with traditional baboon gestures of subservience. In the presence of a superior, it is customary to bend over and raise one’s tail, exposing your ischial callosities. The superior must then take a polite sniff. Grooming (searching each other for fleas) may then commence. As baboonish culture is communal, the squad members also have trouble with the concept of personal possessions. However, as taught by their aunties, they have learned to mark everything with their own scent. This practice continues to wreak havoc with uptight Yelmie Quartermasters, who harbour an increasing hatred of the baboon unit and all that it stands for. Female baboons consider males of any species the lowest form of life. They are not entirely familiar with sexual differences among other species, but use standard baboon principles in judging strangers. If its big and ugly and violent, its probably male. Being your typical male baboon, Utta Rutta knows that effective courtship largely entails beating up other males while the ladies look on, and engaging in lots of chest beating and other epigamic displays, the details of which we can't really discuss in a family module. While this has led to discipline problems with male NCOs, Utta is relieved that the local Orlanthi humans seem to practice courtship in the same way. After that little incident of the baby white rhino and the Red Emperor's birthday (as recounted in Seven Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, a previous module), Duke Raus decided that the Great Bog isn't quite far enough away for the intrepid baboons of the First Pavis Ballista. If the innovative multi-species Army recruitment experiment - no doubt dreamed up by some mushroom-addled priestess in distant Peloria - must continue, let it be among the hillbilly Orlanthi, where there's a good chance a rebel band will solve the problem terminally. Raus has enough enemies (most of them within Imperial Command) without having to babysit a wayward troupe of lunatic baboons. And so to Ironspike, a tiny cattle town in the Far Place. Tequila Mockingbird-Moonrise, the reluctant human commander, decamped to Alda Chur within days of arrival, leaving the unit under the leadership of Sh'Kann, the Sable Rider NCO. A shame really, for the troop have found a nice spot just beyond the palisade, with the ballista placed in easy access of the town garbage chute, next to a steadily growing pile of saddles and discarded horse shoes. The local townsfolk all seem to hate the baboons, as do the local human elements of the Lunar Army. As Earth Season progresses, Ironspike is becoming even more cold and wet and muddy, and both Sh'Kann and the baboons are feeling increasingly homesick. Past experience has made them realise that desertion is not an option, but Sh'kann has sworn she will get them all home to Prax for Sacred Time. In the meantime, the baboons are continually amazed at the generosity of Red Moon Grandmother in keeping them close to so much horseflesh. Since Tequila’s departure, there’s been a constant flurry of messages (alas, no longer by messenger pigeon) between Tequila and Sh’Kann. The content of these messages has remained secret, but Sh'Kann has become increasingly agitated. Yesterday she rode off in a right huff, hoping to pass her latest scroll to a messenger. She has not returned, which means Acting-Bombardier S’eah is in control of the ballista encampment. Oh Happy happy, joy joy!

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DWEAD & DESPERWATE The Pinfeather Gang - desperwate duck bandits, sometime Sartarite freedom fighters. Mercy is not in their vocabulary. Neither is competence.

Name: Quackbeth. Cult: Hueymakt Deathdwake. Race: Far Place Durulz. Nest: The Black Bellied Whistlers. Psychological profile: Fweebooter (just the one) and fweedom fighter. Desperate and dateless. Download Quackbeth character sheet (520 K Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file).

Name: RedCrest. Cult: Vinga Nestguard. Race: Far Place Durulz. Nest: The Black Bellied Whistlers. Psychological profile: Zesty, nesty, caring & sharing, with a nasty left uppercut.

Name: Pondzilla. Cult: Canarda StreamMother. Race: Far Place Durulz. Nest: The Black Bellied Whistlers. Psychological profile: This tough old bird has a fowl mouth. And a fowl temper.

Name: Hobbs. Cult: Apprentice Storm Bill. Race: Far Place Durulz. Nest: The Black Bellied Whistlers. Psychological profile: Nasty, brutish and short. Like a very small condom packed with walnuts, only not as elastic.

Name: Dodger. Cult: Dwead Eye Dueymakt. Race: Far Place Durulz. Nest: The Black Bellied Whistlers. Psychological profile: Ugly, violent, loud and given to spontaneous outbursts of poetry. Death is too good for him. These dwead desperates are led by Pinfeather, the legendawy bandit leader and fweedom fighter with a heavy price on his tailfeathers.

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Duck Bandits - A Fewocious Fighting Farce Ducks are twagic. Twagic. And fweedom-loving rebel bandit ducks like the dwead soggy Pinfeather gang are doubly so. Ducks are serious. Twuly serious. You have to be serious when, driven by unspeakable atwosities committed against your kind, you sacwifice everything to fight the Evil Empire, while the featherless fweaks, the moaning monkey men you’re fighting to fwee, often hate you almost as much as they do the Lunars. And all because you have to collect small highway tolls to bankroll the campaign. It's seriously twagic. Luckily, ducks have thick skins. And ducks are Durultz, thank you vewy much. Only their friends ever dare call them ducks to their face, and even then risk much in doing so. They have fowl tempers, you see. Ducks tend to be secwetive and shy when amongst other races, and are often misunderstood. Members of a proud and ancient, feathered-though flightless race that guards many tewible secwets, they stand a little over a metre in height, have fingered hands with opposable thumbs, waterproof feathers, webbed feet, beaks, a few teeth, lips, and forward looking eyes. Ducks fish, gather, hunt and tend simple crops from communal cwannogs by secluded rivers and ponds. Some are boaters and merchants, and, while cowardice is a common trait amongst them, not a few become hewoes of dweadly power. Females lay eggs, which both parents tend until hatching. The Durultz are a quarrelsome wace, given to earthy speech and bullying - in this they are indistinguishable from their human Heortling neighbours, whose languages and gods they share. Violence between ducks seldom causes sewious injury, but losers are expected to follow in a line. Desperwate ducks can become dwead fighting machines. In these dry times, many have turned to the thwee ancestral lords of death - dwead Hueymakt, Dueymakt and Loueymakt, the Death Dwakes. Hueymakt, who kept fighting even when he lost his arms and his legs; Dueymakt, the Boat Bandit, who can see a long way even though he has only one eye; and Loueymakt, the dwead Berserker Storm Bill, who runs to tell someone when Chaos is near. 'Eat, dwink, smoke, and guzzle down gwubs, for we choose the day that we die.' The Death Dwakes are sons of Poveri PondFather and Canarda StweamMother, father and mother of the Pond pantheon. When the Great Ice froze the Stream World, Poveri Pondfather stole fire and sweet herbs from the hostile gods, bearing it to his people in the form of a sacred cigar. Canarda is the Stream Mother, the Egg Beater who first taught the womanly arts of bullying and good nestkeeping, making the duck tribe what it is today. Other gods born of the Cosmic Egg include Finoswam the Waider, Mallard Gor the MudSlinger, Babeakster Gor the Egg Avenger, Vinga Nestguard the Weed Pwotector ("Not 'weed', 'weed!"'), Mudhome the Nest Maker, Sogarsi the Stweam Voice, Swimmer In Shadows, the dancing shamanka, Ty Kora Quack, Mistwess of Secrets, and Ducka Fowl, Judge of the Quick, the Dead and the Dwead. Ducks also recognise Orlanth the Twickster, the cold wind who makes circles cwoss the pond, who once stole their wings but promised to one day return them. The ancient enemy of ducks is the chaotic Quackodemon, who laid the Wed Egg in the Sky, the Wed Moon of the Lunar Empire. Dwead prophecies reveal that if the Red Egg ever hatches, it will release into the world Kwakboth, the Devil Weborn. And that could turn a bit nasty. Ducks like to use the word 'dwead' a lot. They divide the world into twee basic categowies: quick, dead, and dwead, cwoss-rewerenced by wet, dwy and soggy. They are also partial to cigars, and will sometimes heroquest for more teeth so they can chew them properly, and for cigar-related feats to impwess their nests. Because of the widespread worship of the Death Dwakes, amputations are not uncommon - some twuly dwead feats can cost you an arm and a leg. Made scapeducks after Starbwow's Webellion, many cigaro-chomping, uni-ambular, Durulz fweebooters haunt the backwoads and twails of Sartar and the Far Place, surviving fwom day to day and marshalling their powers for the dweadful day when a hewo will wise to fwee them. And on the so-called Safe Twail between Fort Engoli and Ironspike, the dwead Pinfeather Gang weign supreme! Pinfeather has taken a motley collection of outcasts and wefugees and twained them into (by duck standards) a fewocious fighting farce. One-Legged Quakbeth can be a deadly fighter (though he weally needs to get a life), as can Hobbs, the apprentice Storm Bill. Pondzilla is the Canarda nest-mother, providing a modicum of care and a gweat deal of bullying. The Vingan Wedcwrest is a good strategist, but perhaps a liddle too wet between the feathers to ever be a weal bandit. And then there is one-eyed warrior poet Dodger, who should be seen but not heard. No, weally... The Safe Twail has been especially busy of late, as many travellers and merchants trek to Ironspike for the annual Earth Season Cattle Fair. From their latest hideaway, a tiny cwannog (weed hut) on the edges of the chaos-infested Dead Duck Marsh, the Pinfeather Gang have had a busy time doing the fweedom fwing, collecting donations to tide them over the coming winter. Last night, Pinfeather went off alone to collect an extwa donation or two for their dinner. It is dawn, and he has not weturned... [See also my Duck Kults & Keywords page at Questlines.]

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The duck character art on this page is by Stewart Stansfield. Stewart's stirling contribution to this module has really helped bring the Pinfeather Gang to life. ('Cept for Pinfeather himself of course, poor sod). The Storm Bill header art is by Japanese artist Makoto Hokura. On his Duckland page you'll find dozens of Uz (chilling! hulking! dark!), Ducks (wooden-legged bandits, storm bills, and others) and a selection of Gloranthan heroes. As some of the links do not appear to be current, also check out the directory listing at http://folklore.srvf.org/runequest/. My special thanks go to Terra Incognito for his invaluable assistance in reaching Hokura-san.

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