Connects to: 07.21, 11.08 and 13.08.
After the great departure of horses, rank-and-file knights of Thring were forced to ride mules. The mules’ sturdiness, courage and loyalty went unappreciated. The knights disdained their mounts’ low breeding, utter lack of panache or dash, and above all, their refusal to participate in macho, life-threatening jousts. Every knight errant dreamed of the Duke recognizing their deeds and granting them a riding lion.
Now, Alphonse provides knights of Thring with mighty war ostriches at reasonable prices. Even the lowest gentle families dip into their coffers to outfit their sons with these flamboyant mounts. His ostriches are as aggressive and beautiful as the mules were docile and plain. Mastering one requires great finesse, willpower and charisma. Knights with well-behaved war ostriches are held in high regard.
Before his rise to fame and wealth, Alphonse was a career criminal whose only ostrich-related experience was the month he spent as a ranch hand at Bolger’s Freehold (11.08) to elude justice. During his stint at the ranch, he fell in with a disreputable adventuring party intent on stealing the chest of Scorshia charcoal from Severard’s tower (13.08).
The adventure ended in tragedy. Everyone in the party was turned to stone when he failed to find the trap that guarded Severard’s alchemy lab. Instead of trying saving his comrades, he snatched an enticing bottle of greenish fluid and fled by shimmying down a privy before the master of the tower arrived.
When he learned that he had stolen Severard’s infamous growth serum, he used some ill-gotten gold to purchase a mating pair of ostriches and a few acres. He fed the pair a few drops of the serum and they grew dramatically.
He would have certainly found himself facing horrible retribution if Severard had not disappeared shortly after his escape. Alphonse is now one of the wealthiest, most respected men in the Freeholds, but he sleeps uneasily, as he is beginning to wonder when his luck will run dry.
Hooks:
- Who were the adventurers that Alphonse joined? Have any of them been un-petrified?
- The war ostriches seem to be increasingly violent. Some even wreak havoc among Thringish peasants. Can anything curb their aggression?
- Who in the Freeholds envies/despises Alphonse the most? How are they plotting against him?
- Does Alphonse’s luck have some supernatural source? What does this source ask in return?
- How much growth serum does Alphonse still have? And who knows that he has it?
