The eastern river bank here is well-patrolled by southern hobgoblin troops, who have a few waystation camps which are fairly ramshackle affairs. Larger patrols and camp garrisons will usually have one or more fiends, generally babau, as leaders and commanders. Iuz’s priests and mages will only be found with such large patrols, not with the smaller day-to-day prowlers along the banks. Many of the hobgoblins have been trained in archery here, so as to be able to harass Furyondian river boats headed north out of Willip.

Althea does not expend significant resources along this river border. For one thing, the Veng is wide and hardly easy for any Furyondian force to get across. For another, a Furyondian invasion is one hazard she knows she will not have to worry about. Eastern Furyondian provinces are not exactly teeming with troops. The one major settlement in the area is Eyeberen, and while Althea is well aware of the magical scrying which emanates from that town, she is not overly concerned about it. Skirmishes between Furyondian bowmen and hobgoblins are moderately frequent, but they really don’t matter in the larger scheme of things. Hobgoblins from this area very rarely raid Furyondy, because they are hopelessly unskilled at using river vessels for crossing the Veng. The Furyondian patrols on the opposite bank are smart and strong enough to rebuff any such raid, unless composed of hundreds of hobgoblins, which would be an unacceptable violation of the Pact of Greyhawk. Althea is not averse to seeing a renegade fiend marauding into eastern Furyondy, however, and this happens occasionally.

Rather, just as the central Vesve has seen Iuz’s forces experiment with magic and new creatures to worry and test the defenses of the forest folk, Althea prepares different kinds of terrors for Furyondy. A river-borne miasma spreading pulmonary disease among the Furyondians was mildly successful in the month of Readying and this is the kind of affliction Althea now hopes to spread to better effect in future.

Horned Society