Sometimes adventurers are a little more organized than random rapscallions who threw themselves together in a tavern before looking for a ruin to plunder or bandits to, well, plunder. Or, maybe those rapscallions decided to make a decent go at the ruins-spelunking and the bandit eradication and the cleaning up of abandoned graveyards and their restless inhabitants — that sort of thing — and eventually passed along the tricks of the trade to younger, fresher faces.

Or adventuring is more of a cover for finding the ways and means to get the resources needed to push back against an iron fist. That’s also a possibility.

In fact, all these and more are the multi-threaded genesis of the Vine. Less an “adventurer’s guild” and more an interconnected web of chapterhouses, informal associations, whisper networks, chartered “adventuring parties” (where such exist), individual explorers and mysteriously maintained dropboxes, way-houses and gear caches, the Vine — once a budding adventuring sort, young or old, makes a connection — is your best source for weird gear, weirder rumours, tips and tricks, and suggested sources for anything from replacement travel spellbooks to friendly sources of healing magic to the best smith for silvershot weapons to nesting material for an angel’s egg.

Aid received for aid offered, of course. And vice versa.


Vine
“Give a little, get a little; we’re all in this crazy thing together, yeah?”
An informal collective of adventurers, explorers, rebels and similar roaming, delving types, connected by their spelunking through ruins and labyrinths and necropolei and trading around rumours, tips and news
– dark green, wine-red and violet; grape or ivy tendril (or related emblem)
– mess kit, scrollcase of scribbled maps and notes, reinforced backpack, lantern and oil or candles, “souvenir” from latest delve


This Vine contact knows of …

01. a deep-forest ravine where a strange blue portal appeared last week
02. a soon-to-arrive band of deer-goblins that make amazing mead
03. a rumoured location to the subterranean cult chambers of Iiifryth Of The Amber Hells
04. a newly discovered sublevel in the Sundered Castle
05. the hidden vices of Marquis Barran, the region’s new conqueror
06. the calculations needed to divine the next appearance of the Pearl Tower, and where
07. a grateful supply trader specializing in trail rations and camp gear
08. the location of Dagger Bright’s newest bandit hold
09. a formula for a balm said to blunt the agony of dragonfire
10. a fervent crusader looking to find a fallen temple to restore and reconsecrate
11. a sorcerer who wants an escort to the magic pool on the Underloft’s fifth marble level
12. what best to bribe the lord’s ailing seneschal with to gain access to The Books


This Vine contact is looking for …

01. a sorcerer who’s willing to take on a wilful apprentice
02. someone who can speak the languages of hobgoblins and unicorns
03. a party to retrieve a fallen friend in the depths of the Bone Cathedral
04. referrals for signing on with a mercenary company for a season
05. clues to the locations of the remaining Night Ruby shards
06. a good source for ingredients for lightning-magic scroll inks
07. the buried granite gateway of the Great Black Delve and its lost halls
08. advice on a source for healing that doesn’t require faith or (too much) charity
09. a body-double for a lordling’s son, just for one night
10. spellcasting strong enough to break the Eleventh Moon Curse
11. leads on iron rations that taste less like wood and have less mushroom
12. a dragon heart, or at least a dragon’s lair and companions to travel with