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An Acolyte of Fire lands in Kislev
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He's not especially bothered by cold or wind or rain, so yeah he'll probably just surreptitiously climb up onto some building's roof (maybe Salyak's Arms so that he isn't technically trespassing, assuming they've got a roof that's flat enough to sleep on). With money more or less assured, he can return to his research every two or three days and work the rest of the time, which should also hopefully let him start saving up just a little, day by day.

Once he does have a good bit of cash, he might try going somewhere a bit more expensive to eat, especially after a long couple weeks of work and research.

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His use of profound arcane knowledge to avoid needing shelter allows him to save up a good bit of cash, in reasonable time, and he's able to treat himself to a meal of roast lamb with nice gravy and roast vegetables, soft white bread, plenty of butter, and wine in good order.  

After a couple of weeks, a teenager will come up to him, asking if he's the Acolyte, because he has a message for him if he is.

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Ooh, maybe news from Klomm? Or perhaps the veranites want a word with him. He'll certainly take the message regardless.

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It's from the Veranites; they've finished copying the book he left with them, and would like the discuss the matter with him. The message is terse and vague. 

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Well, off he goes to the temple then. Hopefully it won't be all day. Assuming he's got the cash for it, he'll also makes sure to tip the messenger before heading off.

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He does, and the messenger is very grateful! 

The Acolyte will be welcomed back, and directed to the library, where the same templar he has talked to previously is there. 

"We're prepared to remand your copy of On Gods back into your possession, with a few warnings. Several of the gods it describes are proscribed under the laws of civilised nations. In particular, you should remember that cannibalism is illegal in all civilized nations. A list of gods which are proscribed here in Kislev has been left inside the binding; the laws are similar in the Empire, though often stricter. I would recommend reading this book alongside a description of the gods written by a more neutral source, however; the author of this book was not a good or reliable sort."  

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That makes sense. Seeing other people as potential food, especially outside of extreme situations, can have some unfortunate consequences. He shivers a bit as he remembers some of the events of his mercenary years. No mercenary company is truly good, in the Acolyte's opinion, making killing your business simply cannot lead to good, but some of the ones he's had the displeasure of encountering seemed to make a competition of being utterly despicable.

He'll shake those memories off for the moment and ask the templar, "Would you happen to have any recommendations for any such more neutral sources?"

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The templars can recommend several books about the good and virtuous gods of the old world, but their sources for the more esoteric gods in On Gods are lacking. Not that any of those gods would be good or trustworthy, of course. They can piece together a couple of sources on the ogre gods, though, that're not totally worthless. 

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Today was a research day anyway, so he can tolerate spending it collating these resources and comparing them and the contents of The Gods. As with before, he'll be looking especially for anything sounds like it might relevant to purifying dhar, or at least isolating it from the environment.

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On Gods is crudely written in a inhumanly large script, in crude Gospodarinyi contains two sections - "Foreign Gods" and "Sensible Gods". The former describes the five main gods of Kislev, and the seven main gods of the Sigmarite Empire. Elves are mentioned tangentially, as having gods what don't do much, and dwarves are described as worshiping their ancestors. The chaos gods are mentioned as "very bad news", and a god named Hashut is mentioned as being more interested in enslaving you than being worshiped by you. Some gods worshiped by "greenskins" are mentioned - Gork and Mork, gods of cunning brutality and brutal cunning, and the creeping death, a god of spiders "what are only good for eating.". All of this information can be balanced with a better perspective from the Acolyte's other books, though the information on Hashut or the greenskin gods is limited only to verifying they exist and are illegal to worship. 

The section on "sensible gods", however, is much more detailed. It first covers The Maw, an ogre god of hunger and eating, who is worshiped, apparently, by eating anything and everything, with various ritual praises and seasonings provided for eating everything from human flesh to the highest peak of a mountain, to your own fingers, in a tremendous amount of detail. preparations for dealing with chaos-flesh and corrupted material are included; the Maw's blessing will apparently allow for the safe consumption of even incredibly corrupted materials, by the sufficiently faithful. A ritual is described for devouring a small portion of the flesh of a penitent, and concentrating all of the corruption or disease in their body into that part; presumably this functions only with the intervention of The Maw. A few other ogres gods and spirits are described, though the only one who gets remotely close to the same level of attention is The Fire Mouth, a volcano-god whose acolytes move from eating spicy food to eating embers and eventually even molten lava, gaining immunity to fire and the ability to conjure or spit flames. These gods aren't described as abstract entities of power - they're described as places that physically exist; there are rituals for pouring food and offerings into the literal physical presence of The Maw, and for drinking lava taken from The Fire Mouth itself. 

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Of course gods are physical things. Are the other gods not physical? He supposes he's never actually heard them described as such. Maybe they just don't reveal their physical forms often, he knows some gods back home liked to secret their bodies away and use their magic to influence the world from afar.

As repulsive as the Acolyte finds the Maw's overall philosophy, and lacks all interest in implementing it in a general sense, he can almost feel the potential knowledge to be gleaned from their purification process.

Today's spent, he'll go and get dinner, practice purifying the dhar from various detritus and trash that it doesn't seem like anybody would miss, then find one of his usual roofs to sleep on. The next day is dockwork, but in the evening before dinner he'll explore this Ogre Quarter he's brushed past but never deeply entered and see if he can find somewhere to learn more about the Maw's style of dhar purification.

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Some of the gods are possibly physical! Sigmar, the patron-god of the great empire to the south of Kislev, was def a mortal human once upon a time - it's even noted that he was a follower of Ulric, another popular god, both in Kislev and the Empire. The elves believe their gods to be both historical figures and metaphors for the state of the human mind. The Dwarves worship the polycule of their first king, his wife's brother, and their children, though none of them have been seen for millennia. But actually seeing or meeting a god is unheard of in the human realms; gods send miracles and very rarely servants, but are not themselves seen. 

The Ogre's quarter is a brutal mish-mash of buildings poorly modified to fit the stature of their inhabitants, and harried and terrified (but surprisingly well-fed, compared to elsewhere in the city) human service-workers scurry back and forth on errands. The centrepiece of the quarter is a great building, with the sign of an iron cauldron with teeth around the rim, and text proclaiming it to be "Butcher Bigfeast's". It appears to have once been a tannery, the industrial scale and down-wind location providing an excellent location for Ogres to be as noisy as Ogres are wont to be. The noise of their merriment is almost deafening, even from outside. By the door, at human-eye-level, there is a sign proclaiming: 

No skinnies
No stunties
No twigs. 

 

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The Acolyte certainly doesn't think of himself as skinny, stunted, or twiggy, and due to not having spent very much time in the Ogre Quarter completely misses the context for these things, and thus finds no pause before entering Butcher Bigfeast's.

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The interior is that of a great feasting-hall, filled with the huge bodies of ogres, dressed in a wide variety of ways, ranging from little more than a loincloth and a gut-plate to complex outfits in bright colours to pirate hats and braces of pistols; the only unifying themes are piecemeal individualism and prolific grease-stains. The ogres are eating constantly, each one of them possessed of a roast - often as much as half a cow and a bowl of stew, and often a variety of other sides. Halflings, smaller even than humans, dart in and out, bringing platters of food and mugs of drink that look comically large when carried by their small frames, from a kitchen where iron bars protect still-roasting pigs and vast iron vats of stew from the hungry ogres. There is singing, arguing, shouting, and even an impromptu wrestling match going on in one of the corners. 

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After a moment, the Acolyte is noticed by an ogre sitting near the door. 

"Hey! What's a skinny doing in here!"

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The Acolyte has just got done from a day of hard labor in the docks, utilizing his robust physique as much as his magical powers. He's maybe a bit more brash than normal at this hour of evening as well.

"Who are you calling skinny?!" He asks with challenging bravado, sliding his blouse to hang from his sash and baring his chest..

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The Ogre menaces forwards, twice the Acolyte's height and not particularly physically exceptional by the standards of the ogres around here (which is to say, heavy-set in a way which would indicate on a human severe obesity, but which on an ogre indicates the vigour of your prime). 

"I'm calling you skinny! Because you are! Skinny little fool who thinks he can eat at our tables!" 

This is starting to get the attention of the ogres around the place, who are starting to holler, cheer, and heckle from the sidelines. 

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The Acolyte snorts derisively. "You insult my body and my mind?! What is your name? I must know who I am delivering a beating to tonight, because those are fighting words."

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"I'm Geak, and I'm the one who's gonna be beating you!" 

Geak raises his fist to deliver a overhead smash. It's a clumsy move, made viable only by the ogre's size and strength. 

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Big and tall isn't an uncommon build among some of humna tribes the Acolyte has encountered back home, and thus he's not unfamiliar with their fighting. He ducks and slides in and around Geak's opening blow with unsightly speed, and strikes out with his own Power-filled fist to back of his opponent's knee.

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Geak will loose support from that leg, stumble forward onto his knees, and do his best to grab at the Acolyte behind him. The crowd is moving from cheers to amused boos. This is interesting! 

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Hmph. That might not have been a sufficient show of simple, pure strength. The Acolyte redoubles the Power coursing through his body, grips Geak's reaching arm painfully tight, and with a great heave drags the ogre in a half-circle around himself and then swings him over his head, slamming him back down onto the floor in front of him.

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Geak does not get up. 

The crowd laughs and cheers. A chant of "Eat! Eat! Eat!" goes up. The Acolyte might remember a note that ogres use ritual cannibalism of (sometimes small parts of, sometimes large parts of) defeated opponents to count coup. 

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Ugh. He's hungry but the idea of actually eating a part of Geak makes his stomach revolt. Hm. What might be an acceptable alternative...? Assuming that Geak is as dhar-tainted as the rest of Praag, maybe carving a bit of flesh out of somewhere not-too-important with his Flames (which takes a moment of real concentration to limit the sundering), a pinky maybe, and then setting it darkly ablaze by ripping the dhar out of it will satisfy the crowd?

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Geak is actually noticeably less dhar-tainted than the rest of Praag!

Carving off a pinky-finger seems like a reasonably normal choice; Geak is in fact already missing the top joint of one finger presumably to such a match previously. 

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