Once again, I had time at work, so my players got this in their e-mail today:
Kingmaker Season Three!
<cue dramatic announcer voice>
“In a world where 'high adventure' doesn’t have anything to do with altitude – or drugs – three years have now passed, and the burgeoning kingdom of Roma is slowly growing… and now new challenges and adventures await the kingdom’s founders!”
<cut to rapidly flashing image montage>
A group of lightly-armored centaurs sweep over a rise in a well-trained unit, bows already firing, sending a wave of arrows into the camera as they let loose an ululating cry.
A small Erastilian wedding ceremony in a grove of trees, the bride garbed in green and brown, her face swathed in a veil. As the camera approaches, she turns and reaches gloved hands up to unfasten her concealing veil.
A fog-shrouded swamp with shadowy shapes moving through it, dim torchlight dancing around them, and, a moment later, another shadowy shape following the torch-bearers.
Howell Talbot slams his hands into a stone wall again and again, bloodying fingers and breaking bone, his head bowed and face bandaged, as he screams silently.
A pretty woman with green skin and rose petals for hair sits on a throne, and smiles as the camera approaches like a supplicant, each step making it more plain that thorns emerge from her skin to pierce the dress she wears.
A lethal beak snaps at the camera, which pulls back to reveal a richly-colored axebeak, several arrows protruding through its feathers, with one foot on a still-thrashing human figure. The axebeak lowers its head, beak agape, as the camera cuts away.
Leaves blow through an empty street, the wind swirling them into a dust devil and causing a tavern sign to swing, creaking eerily in the stillness as a distorted shadow passes across the cobbles swiftly.
A herd of mastodons move through a field, grazing, until one looks into the camera and sounds an alarm, causing them to encircle their young defensively and bugle cries of warning.
A woman with short brown hair sits in darkness, her pale face dirt-stained and her clothing in tatters, her hooves scraping against the stone floor futilely as she tries to stand in the too-small space.
With a rush of wind, a gigantic black-feathered wing blots out the sun and a tremendous claw sweeps across the screen to snatch up an animal so swiftly that all that can be seen are four hooves as they are carried off-camera.
With a shudder, a moss-covered stone pulls free from the ground and unfolds to become a stylized humanoid figure of stone, wood, and ropes taller than a man. Green light plays about the carving on its stone surfaces, and it raises massive lithic fists prefatory to delivering a crushing blow.
A raven flaps to a landing on a dead branch, peers into the camera first with one eye and then the other, and croaks 'Vanished' before taking flight again.
Kyla stands before the camera, tunic blood-spattered, and holds the remains of a chipmunk in her hands, face stricken, fighting back tears, as she says, "She's dead."
Armored for battle, a minotaur with steel-sheathed horns dripping with gore bellows a challenge whirls his greataxe, and charges through the screen, shattering the image to reveal a single bloodshot eye staring at the screen.
<The dramatic announcer voice resumes as the camera slowly moves in on the eye>
“Tune in this season and follow our heroes - Raj Mystery-Blooded, Mere Elkrider, Althais the Paladin, Osric the Stag Lord, and Kaylani Shadowborn – as they confront new dangers, new challenges… and one angry axebeak.”
<The eye closes, revealing the words: ‘Season Three begins on or about 01/31/2012 – check your local stations for listings.'>