Meet the Iconics - Dinnai Eckert: Bard (College of the Dirge)

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Dinnai Eckert glared into the black of the tunnel beyond, seeing nothing more than rocks. He licked his lips and crawled further. He hoped the guide’s information was good, that he had been sold a true map through the labyrinthine Cap-Caps and -even had the dealer been honest- that the quakes hadn’t shifted the passageway enough to twist such instructions to falsehood.

Up ahead, he heard drums. That was promising.

Slowly, his eyes shifted from darkvision to regular as he caught dancing torchlight from beyond the end of the tunnel. Going careful slow now, he crawled until he could see out the edge which overlooked a rough carved room.

Harpies; three of them and perhaps two dozen zombies ringed around them. The undead banged at drums while the feathered witches worked on a corpse on an altar – it’s middle open and various organs splayed across or in ceramic jars. Without thinking about it, Dinnai started playing with a spot of lyric about, ‘oh the silly birds, fly below the stones, pecking out the hearts, of little children.’ He peered at the dead man on the altar, wouldn’t want to disrupt any old ritual (and put himself at risk) unless this was the right one. Green eyes, thatch colored hair, and a tattoo of an ankheg on his arm; yes, this was the blood-merchant's son. Pity he was quite dead, perhaps his father would be in the market for a suitable song to send him off at the funeral. 

But before that, it was time to collect the unlucky lad's ransom.

With a slight *whuff* Dinnai flipped from the tunnel overlooking the scene, landing easy, drawing and strumming on his lute. The harpies turned, cocked their heads like quizzical chickens. Dinnai had often found that starting with a song/something confusing bought him more time than opening with his sword or spell. He began to sing.

The witches grinned, malicious and predatory as crazed eagles, gestured with taloned hands. The zombies dropped their drums, turned to lurch at Dinnai. Too late. When the bard struck the last chord -just so- they stopped in their tracks, and now it was Dinnai’s turn to gesture towards the harpies and the undead to stumble that way, intent on bashing the bird fiends to death.

The harpies shrieked, stalked foward with their carving implements. 

Necromancers always got so mad when you took away their toys; it was really quite funny. 

Dinnai added a bit to his song about it, dodging out the way of a thrown dagger as he continued to urge forward 'his' zombies with his song.

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 Want more? January is the last month to preorder the Salt in Wounds Campaign setting. Place your preorder or learn more about the project here