South Central Wildlanders: Belvedere Stillwater

Although the Dragon Magazine article refers to a four-Halfling team of wilderness adventurers as a "Woodlander" gang, the primary area patrolled by the South Central Wildlanders (hereafter known as SCW) was not a wooded area. Instead, it was a fertile grassland situated in the midst of a river delta. Therefore, in its earliest conception the team was known as "The Wildlanders," which frankly sounds a little bit cooler.

The leader of this gang was a little fellow named Belvedere Stillwater. He began his career as a rogue/druid, and eventually took the Lightbearer prestige class. The Lightbearer class appears in the same Dragon magazine issue referenced in the previous blog entry. "Lightbearers serve as guardians, peacekeepers, and general purveyors of goodness," reads the article.

For the first time ever, at left is a revealed page from the fabled journal. It contains all the vital statistics, special powers, skills, feats, possessions, etc. of Belvedere Stillwater, leader of the SWC. Several aspects of this page are worthy of note. First, the date on the page is 7/5, and the year was 2001. This is significant because it was written "pre-9/11" which was one of my most prolific periods of fantasy writing. Second, the title line of the page includes the first-ever recorded use of the term "Wildlanders" in all of the writing. Third, at 15th level, Belvedere Stillwater was, at that point, the highest-level character I had fully generated for my campaign world.

Also, this page contains the first-ever intelligent item I ever created, the "Wildlander Quarterstaff." All of the stats for the item are on the page. Further writing details the story of how Belvedere came into possession of the quarterstaff.

If you look at the last sentence on the page, you'll see a reference to "Kamtul." Kamtul was the primary villain in the local area. He was a 13th level Kobold Sorcerer in league with the regional arch-villains, who were known as, "The Dragon Lords of Ra-Shatok." Kamtul liked to ride around on a green dragon, terrorizing whole neighborhoods by setting them ablaze with Walls of Fire, and then disappearing into his network of burrow-mounds on the grasslands.

The lore of the SCW is surprisingly deep and richly textured. Throughout all of the tales, Belvedere is referred to as the leader, i.e. "Belvedere and the Wildlanders." This is remarkably similar to the way that Thrym's name is often used at the head of the NEW (Northeast Wildlanders), as in, "Thrym and the Wildlanders." Still, despite the numerous tales of the SCW, Thrym and the Wildlanders achieved much greater deeds.