I may not have much interesting rules or tables to share with you, and neither am I brewing any GLOG hacks which seems to be the favourite past-time of all the cool kids, so instead I offer you yet another look into a small settlement that I would love to run some players through and see what remains of it after.
I've had an idea for adventure, or more specifically a quest by some village people, that I've been wanting to run even before starting to include this religion of land and sea to my world but now I feel like I can get so much more out of the village with the religion to tie around it.
Trey and it's people in the past
It all begins with a story generations old about this River God that the villagers had from time to time run into while leading cattle to drink out of the local river, fishing nearby or hunting when the village had been but a few hovels and the people had travelled around the area like nomads.
This pig-like creature no larger than a baby piglet would sometimes be sighted scampering out of the water. The creature had a maw unlike one seen on any other animal with needle-like teeth lining it's jaw and it's back covered in scales as it dragged itself forward on the land with it's child-like forearms and the two fins it had in place of it's hindlegs.
At first the creature was feared and even hunted but it would always come back no matter how it was wounded or driven off.
As time passed the creature grew to the point that it could no longer be fought off by mere men.
It was at there that the villagers and their shamans, before the Church of Varchic had reached to these lands, decided to instead try to begin to live with this strange creature rather than try to fight it off.
Time passed, and traditions and stories formed around what had now come to be known as the River God of Trey.
These men would offer a share of their cattle as well as their own to keep their god sated and contempt, and the god would in return give them plenty of game to hunt and fish to eat.
But as it does, time has now passed since those days and the villagers have come to tend large open fields of crops with their cattle kept grazing in their pens. Hunting is no longer plays such significant part in their diet and fishing is more of a way to pass time while still providing something for one's family.
This does not mean that old traditions have died down, even if the faith in them has significantly lessened from the old days.
The villagers still revere their River God who is said to rule the deep riverbanks and to pull in children who are not careful while near the river, but these kind of beliefs are more and more being regarded as nothing but old wives' tales.
Trey and Church of Varchic
The Church of Varchic now teaches men about the terrors waiting for them in the Deep, in depths of the sea and in the darkest shadows. Beings that will take those they deem like them to their side to inflict unspeakable miseries upon them and how the only way to avoid an eternity in such a fate is to keep giving Varchich, who was the first of our kin, something to be proud of in yourself and to take on aspects of him to live in his image for that is the one thing these creatures of the deep truly fear.
The church is a corner stone the stability of men has been built upon and has thus built houses of it's faith far and wide, with the small village of Trey being no exception.
The local church is small and overlooks the local graveyard. Not much happens out in small villages where everyone knows each other and the priest of the church has with the years he's spent here slowly integrated himself to be an essential part of the village.
He has mostly overlooked the worship that some older villagers still offer for this "river god" of theirs, but has still made it clear that he does not by any means support the worship of a beast living in the depths of local riverbanks as it is nothing but a spawn of the Deep in direct opposition of Varchic.
However he is also aware of the backlash he would get from too rigorously trying to convert these people from their old ways and thus for the most part turns a blind eye to their practices.
The teachings of the church however have slowly but surely been taking root in the village, and more and more of the younger folks are also showing their dissatisfaction towards the old ways.
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The adventure I've been interested to run here is one where the PCs are tasked with dealing with the River God that has been growing violent lately.
Some of the elder folks are still clinging on to their worship of this strange god and insist on the PCs simply helping to calm it, while the younger folk around the village and maybe even the local priest are of the opinion that the beast is to be dealt with for good.
It might even come down to the elder folks attempting to rely on tales of past rituals lead for the god to try and calm it, while the opposing faction might try to gather up a mob to put an end to this problem on their own.
This might then lead to the PCs collecting tales about this River God to learn about it's habits, or maybe to simply stake the riverbed as they hunt for the creature and decide what to do with it, if they even can...
In fact, I have some base already written to develop around here as well as hidden somewhere else for just me to brood over so we shall see. Maybe in time I can subject some brave adventurers to a problem of this kind.
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