On the outskirts of a town which its settlers call Chiffchaff, but which its occupiers call Al-Duarah, there lay scattered bodies on the dry, red ground. Some are beasts and some are men, or at least look like Man. Broken, bent, frozen and burnt. Some are drained of life, left ashen husks; others have had their life bleed out of them onto the settlement’s streets. Looming over them are slate-grey walls, their gates self-sealing, and atop those walls watch impassive black masks, with eyes that see on behalf of their master: Abdul Saniʿ al-Duruʿ, Abdul Murawwiḍ al-Wuḥūsh, <span class="mu-s">Abdul Alhazred the Reptilian Infiltrator.</span>

The scaly, slit-pupilled swarthy Southron son-of-a-skink who killed <span class="mu-r">your</span> best feathered friend-for-life and <span class="mu-g">your</span> shapeshifting hundun friend-with-benefits.

<span class="mu-r">You</span> are <span class="mu-r">Zith-Zi</span>, Boss Bitch of the Monstrous Regiment adventuring company, and an ex-goblin ‘nilbog’ made pretty by magic…

…while <span class="mu-g">You</span> have gone by a few variations on the name <span class="mu-g">CZ</span> but have most recently settled on reclaiming your ill-gotten family legacy as <span class="mu-g">Carazzi Yosef</span>: one-time demigoblin cambion, and now a transcended <span class="mu-b">Pure and Empty Vessel</span> at long last.

<span class="mu-r">You</span> came to the Southlands, across the Shieldwall mountain which separates it from the north-western lands of the Paladin Queen of Hawksong. You did so not to participate in their silly civilizational clash—what various shades of humans get up to with gnolls and secret subterranean lizard-men is none of your business. <span class="mu-r">You</span> came here to save your estranged boyfriend, fellow adventurer James Efron, from captivity in a Chiffchaff dungeon...

…but in the process of procuring him, <span class="mu-g">you</span> punched through the army of enslaved hyena-men to their demon-wielding human-reptilian centre: Alhazred, the devious demonist and dark wizard who bested <span class="mu-g">you</span> in combat, costing you the lives of others whom you cared for.

(To say nothing of Nicolette Testa, fashion-forward illusionist-enchanter who joined your quest and lost a body via bullet-blasted brain, only to be pieced back together with an emergency effort of esoteric expertise!)

(Or Denise Lilla, the cleric you liberated, who suffered a similar fate in circumstances which precluded such a happy ending for her.)

(…It’s been a long few days, alright?)