>>5860233A cat. A flea bitten animal walking on two legs thinks itself a god, the equals to the Crimson Lords themselves!? Preposterous! Various dark lords actually begin assembling mobs of peasants to hurl at the impudent fur bags before cooler heads prevail. Perhaps these cat creatures can serve as a testing ground for new tools. After all, while cattle are replaceable, giving them time to breed and multiply does reduce the frequency of nightly hunts and other frivolities.
> Action 1: Research Poisons to kill, cripple, and torture with.The forests, river banks, swamps and prairies are searched for all manner of flora and fauna whose digestion might kill or bite cripples. Scorpions, spiders, frogs are gathered aplenty, but pleasant surprises are found in the oddest of places. Certain flowers, berries and seeds, when ground and congealed and condensed produce all manner of delightful agonies. Many cattle earn their village a week’s reprieve from nightly hunts when they produce a specimen that leaves a man foaming at the mouth and twitching.
Those villages that do not deliver, or deliver late, provide the test subjects instead. Ten rows in ten columns, bound tight to slabs with straps of leather. Extracts of frog, snake and scorpion are applied until the screaming starts, then the note taking begins. What poisons can be boiled, or cooked? Which hide well in food? Which kill unexpectedly hours later, or only on the third dose?
> Action 2: Develop the Illusion Spell ‘Twisting Whispers’, which corrupts the target and fills them with avarice, greed, hate and jealousy. Poisons of the body are all well and good, and much fun is had when one of the cattle is given a slice of cake that causes his eyes to swell and explode, but no effort is spared for poisons of the mind either. The spell ‘Twisting Whispers’ is quite subtle at first, proceeding in stages. First it slowly fills the target’s mind with idle dreams of wealth and power. Next attention is drawn to the wealth and power of those around them, laced with envy and greed. Finally the target’s will is slowly eroded until every waking thought is driven by malice and desire, usually erupting in raging violence over the pettiest of slights. The test village cycled through seven consecutive leaders in three days, each murdering their predecessor. By the third leader, purges of the village began against those associated with the old leader as well, ending with the seventh being the sole surviving family of the village, who then fatally wounded each other in a knife fight over a bowl of porridge.
