Dear Hrothgar

My Pathfinder game is tomorrow. One of the NPCs, Robyn, a Dwarf Fighter, has gone missing. Someone intercepted this letter addressed to Hrothgar, who is Robyn's Godfather, and former boss at the Armoury in Dragonport. Robyn has been fighting with the group as long as they have been a group, almost. The letter was given to them by a mongrelman street urchin, as the group were eating breakfast one morning in the pub.

Dear Hrothgar,

I don’t much like being a vampire. I mean have you ever met a Dwarf vampire? I didn’t think so. We aren’t nearly as appetizing to the undead, nor are we as numerous as Humans and Elves, which is the reason that almost any Vamp or Wight, or what have you, that you meet, is of either Human or Elf extraction. 

I think if I can get myself away from these assholes who have turned me; I will start a fellowship of The Less Glamourous Vampires. Do you recall that Half Orc Vampire lady a few years ago, who paid upfront for adamantine armour for her carriage and horses. 

One up side, perhaps from your, and I guess my point of view, is that my new condition has ‘cured’ my craving for alcohol. I can still drink the stuff, and with my new heightened senses, it tastes ever better, but I simply don’t crave any liquid, save blood, even after only a week, I am completely addicted to biting Elves in the dark. (obviously I’m sleeping during the day) their blood tastes like five kinds of honey, all at once and yet together creating a sixth excitation you can only get for a brief moment. 

A moment which already gets shorter each time I drink. So there’s one addiction traded for the other. I am told by my maker though, that if I can stay alive, as I age, I will ‘need’ to feed, less and less. Vamps older than her (she says she is three and a quarter centuries a vampire, a delicious Elven vampire. But a total Bitch as well. She did not handle the fact that I prefer the company of gentlemen to that of women folk, very well at all. My hand has almost grown back though. I sense it will be stronger than before.

I guess this must also be my resignation or notice that I won’t be returning to work at the old Forge, any time, well, ever. This gives me greater sadness than any other part of my now Dead existence. I still have all my faculties, a kink for Elf blood, perhaps, but otherwise in good, ‘health’, and of oddly sound mind (which is probably what all the crazy vampire Dwarves say.) I must say I will miss my boon companions, and I desperately hope that I never see them again; but I think I shall, since the architect of my turning, was the Necromancer whose body my compatriot Slash McPherson now inhabits, having slain Handrell, killing his old Halfling body.

The Necromancer had some sort of trap for his own soul to be transformed into a Ghost, thus the ghost he is has all his Wizardly abilities, and those of a ghost. He is very formidable. Able to drain a being’s life force by just drifting through their body, and so much more, not to mention his current ‘gang’ being a pretty big upgrade since Slash and our gang so easily took him out at the rim of the glacier. There is of course Valgarnia, the Drow/half Dragon Vampire who turned me. She could have kicked my ass without being a vampire, but she took me as I was stumbling upstairs to my room. just like in the a penny novel, just like that, except that I was so drunk, that she vomited up most my blood she drank, and had to take me again. She is a complete bitch to everyone all the time. I am kind of amazed that her and Handrell have come to blows yet, both so full of themselves. But when it comes to ‘work’ this gang is all business, especially the fricking strangely erudite Cyclops second in command under Handrell (though ‘Val’ has her hooks into everyone but the ghost.) who is called Geryathor, or ‘Gery” which he encourages, but no one uses. he has obviously been a soldier or a mercenary before this, maybe still a mercenary. A lot of gold to be had, hanging out with these folks. 

There is also an ‘Unfettered Eidolon,’ who uses the very un-Eidolon appellation of Clive Freeman. The Summoner who created him died in a battle with some frost Giant Laird. Clive chooses to use the family name of his maker in honour of the spell the magician had in place to help Clive become his own independent being. No, I don’t know what that means either. But he the the nicest of all my captors/new gang. I felt bad about stealing all the that gold from that Elven Caravan last night, but I didn’t mind supping from those delicious Elven arteries.

This is why I want to get away from this group, I want to live, I don’t want to die again. I feel I am still myself, and I know if I can get back to Dragonport, I can find willing donors, or folk I can pay to drink from. I set out with Slash and his band, not to loot and pillage (which as former pirates, they (and myself as well, have done) but to be on the sea, and to have some adventure. I have had that in spades. I don’t like this Glacier Continent much, and will be glad when we sail, later today back to Dragonport, the ship, then heading for some reason I am not privy to, The Old Lands. I plan to somehow stay in Dragonport, if indeed I make it that far. 

Word of a ghost that looks exactly like him (except for the tattoos) wreaking havoc on caravans going into the Frost Dome are likely to reach him one way or the other, and that band of Pirates, rangers, and witches is a formidable foe, who have dispatched handrell and his plans once already this month. One can only hope that they can see the Dwarf I was, I still am, despite the fangs, blood red eyes, and feelings for Tanis, that I never knew I had, before.

I can only hope Hrothgar, as the man who was more my father than my own Pater, that you too, can see that I am still Robyn, the Fair, Heir to a throne, I can never possess now, even were my line to be restored... not as a Vampire.

Accept me or not, I shall always be thy servant, and godson - with strength in steel, and stone and fire, and love, truly yours, 

The Former Crown Prince Robyn Stonefire