Roll of Honor: Rhinar

A risky excursion in the wilds. That's what those coined-up hedonists deemed pleasurable, and that's what they got. In the Moat, they were voyeurs. In the Savage Lands, they could take part.

After an afternoon stalking brawnhide and scarbit, we set up camp in the far north-east reach, Togark the Wrangler rousing the Gougemoor elite with ale and tall tales, promising them another crack at a brawnhide, maybe a Big Horn. As night fell, our bonfire grew, their banal revelries intensifying.

Eager to distance myself from the rowdiness, I went behind the bushes for a leak. Stood in a pile of dung, the stench pungent. Now, when I think back, any predator could have attacked us, the jungle air so still our voices would have travelled for miles, our scent further.

Anyway, I was taking a leak, my eyes fixed on the stars, when I heard an ear-splitting scream. I ducked real low behind the bushes, looked towards the campfire, and there it was. Not a brawnhide or a scarbit, not even a Big Horn. It was the fiercest Brute I'd ever discerned, wielding a club made of bone and stone. We all know the stories. Brutes bite big! It wasted no time, smashing each reveller, shredding them with its claw-like hands until they lay torn and bleeding. The thing grabbed ole Togark by the back of his neck and sunk its teeth in deep. Tore his voice box clean from his throat and spat it out.

Astonished but alert, my instincts kicked in. Quiet as I could, I shoved my hands into the dung and covered myself in it, gagging as I went. After the Brute had finished its feast and collected its trophies, it picked through the camp, grabbing clothes from cases, smelling perfumes and soaps. Damn beast was after our scent alright. I waited and watched until it moved on, headed out of the jungle towards Gougemoor.

That thing is out there somewhere. If it makes it as far as Tarnish Hill, the croppers have a much larger problem than a Big Horn, that's all I can say. When Togark promised me a purse of coins for that 'picnic', he handed me a Brute-sized stack of it. Perhaps the croppers might need a cicerone to lure it elsewhere? Deathmatch is just the place for a predator like that.

-Luca, Arena Cicerone