Hello class, welcome. take your seats so that we can start. My name is Drex Najar so if you have any questions during the course you are welcome to ask. I see some familier faces, and some who came to join the course from other guilds, I will ask you to introduce yourselves.
Today is the first day of the B level course so we will introduce ourselves to the Lexicons.
Well then, Hunting is very much a profession that requires many different skills and knowledge of a variety of subjects. So we will need to know many things about plants, medicine making and even a little chemi, how to fight, how to build traps and many more things that will help you with adventures outside cities and towns where you will need them.
A monster lexicon minimalist version is what you will carry to almost all adventures and will count on to identify your prey and find the optimal solution in order to dispatch of them. Normally we will be learning from the big monster lexicon which has a large number of volumes and quite a big section on each and every monster, but since you will actually be using the M lexicon, that is the Minimalist version optimal for adventures, I did bring one here to observe.
I am quite bad with operating magical devices. Is it on? no? Terry-boy, go fetch Luxious and tell him I need help with the projector. …Alright, in the mean time, any questions? Yes, you, name and guild first please.
“Hello, my name is Pixie and I’m from Scarlet Coat. When you say ‘the M lexicon’ do you mean the traveler book?”
Good question, well, I guess that each guild has different names for it, for adventurers in this guild we call it the M lexicon. When we go to the library we say to the librarian “I’m going on an adventure, I need the M lexicon” and then they’ll give you one of the copies.
Well they will probably scold you for not going through other books in preparation, but after making sure you read all the things like location history, location flora and fauna and other things, when you leave they will then give you a copy of the M lexicon, which you call travelers book.
Luxious, here, should I put it… ohh I see, put the book inside. How do I turn the pages? I see, fine. Thank you. And thanks to you too Terence, take your seat.
So now you can see the cover with the drawing of Yggdrasil, this is a 4th edition, and until some new discoveries will come out it is the final edition. Now let’s open the table of contents.
As you can see this seems counter intuitive at first, but it is probably most useful out in the wilds, the categories are based on the type of marks left by a monster, so we have humanoid, hoofs, 2 toes 1 reversed, 3 toes, 3 toes 1 reversed, 4 toes, etc, and we have other things that aren’t footprints for monsters who have other more prominent features like scorch marks, frost, uproots, mana scars and more.
Now within each category we have the creatures organized by size, from smallest to largest. If you see a big foot print you go to the end of the category and look for it here, start going backwards untill you find it… here we go, Stone Troll, and here withing the actual the pages we have a drawing of the monster, of the foot print and other markings, a small description and pointers. Since you should all be able to read how about you over there, name and guild and start reading the description.
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“Umm… Cody and I’m from The Phantom Slayer.. umm, here I go. ‘Stone trolls: Big brutes with little brain. Naturally found in Uesterosa and A’yamar. Stay normally near or in caves. Live alone. Aggressive to all creatures, do not have minions. Eat stones. Distant cousin of gargoyles. “
Very good, Pixie, you have a question?
“Yes, It doesn’t say anything about their connection to goblins or trolls but it does tell us about gargoyles? why?”
Good eyes, Pixie, although stone trolls are closer relatives of other types of trolls, and even of goblins, they are compared to gargoyles in they’re description, can you tell why? No one? try harder… I see your all pretty shy, it is your first lesson after all. Stone trolls shed stone and sometimes leave stone compositions that resemble the ones left by gargoyles, not only that but a witness who thought he saw a stone troll could’ve seen a gargoyle, so it hints you to look over the clues again and maybe you’ll find that your up against a gargoyle instead. Next, I want someone else to read the next paragraph over pointers. who can do that? you there!
“I’m Gabriel, I’m from Big Axe Lop. Ahm. Stone trolls are statues at daylight, in stone form they are not vulnerable. At night they are flesh. When hurt, wounds become rock and heal quickly, fire and frost wounds take more time to harden. In the evening they have some body parts still rock and hard to pierce. A toss-poison can help against the hardening. Acid won’t help like with normal trolls, only spacial poisons can melt them. Hammers are advised, crushing their head will finish the job. They use trees as clubs when they can... isn’t it their blood that becomes rock?”
Yes, it is their blood basically, but for the context of the lexicon you only need to know that slicing or piercing is not going to work. Anyway, you see that after identifying the threat the pointers give you a sense of what will or won’t work, it is important to read this, even an unskilled party can take a stone troll if they prepare enough, although I guess preparing comes with experience so it will most likely be skilled parties that take it down anyway.
We can also see on the side here… it says E4, this is a recommendation for the party, let’s look toward the end of the book, there is a table here. Not this one, this is for later. Here, the author thought it would be smart to rate guild members strength and recommend proper skill level for some monsters and party size.
A is a beginner guild worker, B is a guild worker taking care of things that are not outside quests, real hunting quests are only for C level and above. C is indeed a beginner outside party, ‘An inexperienced party able to take hunting quests’ if some of you will form a party to take on a quest, that is what you will be. Next is D, E all the way to K, with J being an hero so powerful that he can take on dragons alone. It is said that Sorteiva is level K, meaning he is even stronger than dragons, I myself am at E, and Luxious is my senior at F. Anyway, for a party to take on a Stone troll it is recommended to have 4 level E hunters. Many guilds have their own ratings, some take these as a must to have a certain composition or above, and some take it as a suggestions and nothing more. But it is a nice addition.
Finally we will open back the table we saw before for a short moment, this is a table of skills to acquire and the proper books to look at for the these, so as we see if we wanted to make a toss-poison for fighting that troll, we will look for a poison book and it will be in the book ‘A compilation of useful chemical tricks for adventurers 2nd Edition’. The books mentioned here are all suggestions of the author and are not the only place to find these, our library has a poison lexicon that is better in my opinion, but for the sake of this course we will talk about these books as if we have them.
We will now go for a break and after we return we will begin the assignment: I will be dividing you to groups of 3 and you will need to give a plan on how to best deal with a Barghest. I will be bringing each party an M lexicon. Now, Deva in the tavern will treat you to a meal and the yard is free for you to roam, I will ring the class bell when you need to come here so don’t wander off too far to hear it. Enjoy your break.