Friday Encounter: Fisherman's Folly

Art by Jeff A. Menges

This encounter takes place in a village - ideally a small one by the coast. If the party is already in such an environment, it can be used there, or the village could be one encountered on the road. Like last week's encounter, it was written under the assumption of taking place in the North and includes some relevant details, but the core conflict is setting-agnostic. As always, don't be afraid to tweak the details to suit your campaign.

Background

While fishing off the coast, Hallbjorn, a local fisherman, found something unusual in his net. In addition to the usual bounty of fish, he caught a small serpent, about the size of his arm from the elbow down. At first, he believed the beast to be an eel, and brought it along with the rest of his catch to sell at the market. However, Hallbjorn's wife, Refna, was able to recognize this was no eel. He had caught a baby sea serpent!

Taking pity on the poor creature, Hallbjorn decided to raise it in the shallows near his home, feeding it fish he couldn't sell on the market. The creature soon became the talk of the town, with many villagers stopping by to see the beast - and some coming from even further afield. At first, Hallbjorn's monster - as the little creature came to be called - was merely a matter of curiosity for those in the area. However, it soon grew from a curiosity to a nuisance.

The creature quickly began to grow, and so too did its appetite. When fish alone could not sustain it, it began to swim along the coast, snatching chickens and small dogs that came near the shore. It only grew bigger and bigger, and is now the size of a newborn calf. As the creature grew to be more of a problem, and the novelty wore off, the people began to make up their mind about it - it needed to go. The problem is, Hallbjorn refuses to give it up...

The Encounter

The PCs might happen upon the village by circumstance when passing through on the road, or they might hear rumors of Hallbjorn's monster and decide to look into it for themselves. If they arrive in town, Hallbjorn will be happy to show them the serpent and retell the story. But the PCs should also become aware that the rest of the townsfolk are growing restless - indeed, there is hot debate on the streets and in the taverns. It's inevitable that they'll pick up some word.

One faction, led by the town woodcutter Agnar Giermundsson, holds that the creature is a menace and must be dealt with as such - after all, it has already killed several chickens and threatened the livelihoods of farmers. If such a thing continues, surely it is only a matter of time until it devours a child. Hallbjorn and his wife, however, maintain that the creature is harmless, and that killing it would be unnecessarily cruel. They insist that it is only a baby, and it would not be fair to it to punish it for engaging in its natural behaviors. Soon enough, they claim, it will learn to hunt on its own and eat fish further out to shore - the only problem is, the monster shows no signs of doing that any time soon. In fact, it has grown quite fond of being able to get all the food it wants so close to shore, and has stuck around.

The debates are growing heated, and it is clear that this cannot stand for long, lest it tear the village apart. If the PCs do not step in, Agnar's men are fully prepared to take matters into their own hands.

Further Developments

If the PCs do not resolve the dilemma within three days of arriving on the scene, Agnar will decide enough is enough, and rally a mob to kill the creature in the night. If the PCs are among this mob, or kill the monster on their own, Hallbjorn will be distraught, and slaughters one of his horses so that he can construct a nithing pole. Accusing the strangers of inciting the town to such an act of cowardice and dishonor, he pronounces the apparent leader of the party (if there is no leader, choose one at random) a nithingr and places a curse on them. The affected PC is afflicted with ill fortune for the next month. If they roll a natural 20 on any roll, they must re-roll it and keep the new roll (ie, the opposite of a halfling's Lucky trait).

Alternatively, the PCs may decide to resolve the feud by taking the monster with them. This has its own complications - as a sea serpent, it cannot walk on land except for short distances at a time, and must remain in the water. It will require them to feed it in order to keep it from straying back to the village it considers its home - and, as the creature gets bigger, it will only become harder and harder to keep satiated, let alone to transport easily. However, if the PCs can pull it off, they may have a sea serpent on their side, which presents its own advantages.

Either way, a month after the encounter, the serpent's mother will manage to track her offspring down. If Hallbjorn's monster remains at the village, the inhabitants may be in even greater danger than a mere feud would cause them. And if the creature was harmed, there will surely be hell to pay...