Symbols scattered about the towns

[Rane]

As night hits its final hour and the streets are scarce, a loud pop would sound out as an imp of the lower planes materialized and dropped a stack of papers on the ground in the suzail marketplace. The night winds would carry these papers all around polluting the streets with the symbol of the black hand. The imp would then disappear and reappear in all other towns doing the same thing.

[Left of Intentions]

A waif gets caught by one of the wind blown fliers, fending it off with an awkward flail of her arms. When she gets it out of her face she turns it about, staring it at for a long moment with a vaguely pleasant expression, though her gaze may seem detached to the acute observer. The small woman, who in her loose fitting clothes looks almost emaciated, presses her free hand against the symbol, as if fitting her tiny fist to it, before letting the paper go to be blown along on its course. Never once does her expression or demeanor waver, as if the symbol inspired nothing more than an idle curiosity that once fulfilled was forgotten.

[The Tallest Dwarf]

In Skull Crag, a dwarf clad all in silvered armor and cloak of grey with a greathelm leaving only his beard and eyes visible walks out of the Wild Wolf. He turns as one of the sheafs hits him square in the breastplate, and with a grunt of annoyance he drags the paper up to his eyeslits with a meaty fist, looking it over and then spitting upon it. He crumples it up and tosses it casually over his pauldron.

[ladyphoenix]

In Valkur's Roar, a reserve inquisitor finds all of them that she can, shreds the paper that the symbol is not recognizable and then starts to hands the scraps to poor families to suppliment their kindling to help start their fires in the name of Torm.

[Deleted]

A dark haired woman slowly walks the outskirts of Arabel, staring up at the midnight sky as if lost in some private reverie. Her dark jagged wings are furled on her back and limned only faintly by starlight, yet visible enough that she is given a healthy distance (and likely guarded dark looks) by most others who are out at that late hour. A look of annoyance briefly mars her features as a stray parchment is swept up out of the dust, her faceted blue eyes narrowing as she impales it upon a single claw.

She lifts the offending missive up to observe the black symbol upon it, turning it slowly, as if watching a live creature squirm on her talons before she laughs: dark, melodic and cruel. She sings a single sharp, dismissive note and the paper is transformed: a crimson pinwheel pinning the hand down and dripping what looks to be fresh blood .. before it is spun out on the winds, to wherever it may fly ..

[electricblue]

A young Waterdavian bardess sits at the fountain in the Suzail marketsquare, taking in the early morning air. A few of the parchments drift by on the morning breeze. Leaning down from the stone bench, she picks up the few parchments that have found thier rest at the fountain's base.

"Excellent. Free parchment, still in decent shape. Decent enough for a few rough drafts anyway," she thought to her self. She looks breifly at the symbol, then turns the parchment over.

"At least I can put half of this to good use," she thought as she begins to jot a recently inspired verse of "Red Thunder".

....."and the clash of her steel, and the roar of her voice
made all nearby take note
for the Red Thunder was on the field of battle.
None who stand against her would leave the field
'less they flee away with tail tucked 'tween....."

On other parchments, she quite artfully draws across the top of the parchment a symbol of femine eyes, with the moon and seven stars draping down to the right and left, then draws a flaming sword cleaving through the black gauntlet, beneath the black hand is a symbol of a shamrock. On the right is the gauntlet of Torm and to the left a shield with a cornucopia.

She then releases each parchment to the breeze to allow each to float where it will. The final parchment, as well as the one with the verse, she tucks away into her pack.

[heartofsilver]

In one of her many trips to Suzial, Fiona notices one of the parchments blowing about and picks out up before giving it a good look.

"Heh" Grinning a little, she shakes her head "Yeah, whatever."

From there, the redheaded warrior blows her nose on the parchment, crumbles it up, and tosses it over her shoulder.

"Fook that guy"

[Rane]

*being as noone saw who strewn them about the guess would merely be speculation*

[catmage]

*Should the imp dare appear in Marsember, it is quickly harassed by a small black cat with bright red eyes, a collar about her throat proudly displaying the pinwheel symbol of Tiamat the Dragon Queen. The diminutive feline hisses in an alluring female voice.*

"This is -not- your town, little beast. She Who Slaughters Gods rules here, and SHE will not forgive your trespass. Tell your insect of a master thus!" *The cat, in seeming disregard for the imp's damage reduction, lashes out at the fiend, driving it from her demesnes. Any creature of similar power, be it holy or unholy, will be actively hunted and driven away from the streets of the City of Spices, given the same warning.*

Any remaining parchments are rapidly recovered, and upon the reverse side the symbol of a red dragon playing a black harp is emblazoned, the following statement placed upon them.

"Fear and Tyranny, a hand stained black/ a lady strode, this stain she lacked/ A Queen stands tall, her place she finds/ her heart is proud, she undermines/ She stands tall, her will defies/ Against the dark gods may Her judgement rise!"

//Contact me in pm if the imp responds.

[hellscream123]

A man in blue catches one of these fliers as it drifts through Valkurs Roar.

He eyes it careful before shaking his head and muttering under-breath in damaran "Strange tidings and dark days ahead once again"

He pockets the paper and continues his patrol route around Roar.

[Razgriz]

*Riding to Suzail a man clad in adamntine armor glances up to the sky, he notices the cloud and then says without any visible expression on his face*

"A storm approaches."

[arisnorman1]

*Aris would look up and grin*

[Rane]

*screams would have filled the air as the storm came over greatgaunt, and as quickly as those screams died, so did the storm*

[Muse]

*There are rainstorms, and some of them blow and are bad, dark storms can be demoralizing and feel heavy, like a dark hand. (but not actually a dark hand)

On the day in question, someone gets a little too tall in their tales as rumor spreads. But really, there wasn't weather that was out of the ordinary. Just wild abandon and people being confused.*

[Rane]

haha that works

[darinder]

*being as noone saw who strewn them about the guess would merely be speculation*

// Aren't there guards in the Suzail marketplace? From the OP:

As night hits its final hour and the streets are scarce, a loud pop would sound out as an imp of the lower planes materialized and dropped a stack of papers on the ground in the suzail marketplace.

// If there are guards present, surely they'd investigate such sounds at midnight?

[sky]

//I believe you are thinking way too hard into this. A bunch of guards aren't going to be swarming the streets at midnight just because somewhere in the city a pop sound is heard. It's a capital city. Noises happen a lot.

[Rane]

OH MY GOD! thats how I fell about all this seriously....

[darinder]

// I didn't say a swarm of guards. I did say I believed there were guards in the marketplace and rane did claim it was a loud pop. There is also at least one lantern-pole in the marketplace to light up the area; so claiming nobody saw the imp is still a bit over-the-top (in my opinion).

// In my time on FRC, I've had one player tell me guards wouldn't investigate the noise of one occurrence because it happened in a frontier town (Skull Crag) and now I'm being told guards wouldn't investigate strange noises in the middle of the night in the capital city. Is it really just me or do these two comments start to make guards sound somewhat superfluous?

// For the record, my character has no idea that people even CAN summon imps and has never seen one of these leaflets. But we've also been told to bear in mind non-represented NPCs and to me, that means not claiming absolutes.

Edit: Typos

[Rane]

Ok seriously picture this... the imp... has been teleporting between towns okay? On a windy night... He pops in, drops the papers from on high the wind scattering them, then vanishes. A guard isnt going to notice who did it, only that the sky is raining paper....

[Deleted]

*A copper haired female ranger picks up one of the leaflets with a picture of a black hand on it. An impish smirk comes over her face as she says, "I bet I know what someone's been doing with that hand."*