This is a single-player intro to their character. The character is a Rai-Neko Beasthandler. For more information on what that means go to the Break!-RPG Core Rules.
You live on a farm on the Blazing Garden’s Pride Coast.
There are several Rai-Neko farms here. Some people grow plants, others keep shaggy bumpos, everyone is content and peaceful. There is a small port a little more than a day’s walk away where the Rai-Neko farmers will sometimes take their wares, sell them and buy stuff from places further away.
Your family grows fruits and vegetables and preserve what isn’t eaten or sold fresh in small clay pots as jams, chutneys, or pickles.
One day you go out to check on a small experimental field in which you are trying to grow lamb’s tooth plants with much bigger blooms. On your way there you see that part of a field of snug* has been trampled! The trail of destruction leads towards a small wooded area bordering the property. You go to see whether you can find the culprit, likely an escaped shaggy bumpo that will need to be returned to their owner. It’s a good thing you spent several weeks helping out on one of the neighboring ranches: that means you know how to deal with an animal of that size. The ranchers even tried to hire you because you were naturally good with their herd, but your parents needed the help on the farm more.
What kind of compensation do you think you would like when you return the shaggy bumpo to its owner?
a) Some bumpo cheese would be good.
b) A piece of farming equipment. A saw would come in handy.
c) A new woollen blanket with a cool pattern on it.
d) A day’s worth of help ploughing a field with a bumpo.
While you are thinking about this you look around.
Do an Insight check with two d6
pass: collect some seeds from an interesting looking bush nearby.
fail: continue following the bumpo trail.
As you are standing in a clearing, marvelling at a fallen tree, a loud sniff from behind startles you!
Do a Grit check with two d6
pass: you turn around very slowly and say “Aha!”
fail: you jump and shout!
Your actions have startled a curious young bumpo. It is scared and lies down flat on the ground whining pitifully.
Do you
a) try and calm it down?
b) scold it for trampling your field?
A: The bumpo loves the way you’re talking to it and pushes its head into your outstretched hand.
B: The bumpo continues whining and rolls on its back to say it is sorry.
As you are talking to the bumpo you look at its horns to see who it belongs to (bumpo farmers will carve a symbol into the horns to mark an animal as theirs). There are no markings. This is a wild bumpo! Now that is a big surprise because the wild herds live more than a week’s walk away. This poor bumpo must have gotten lost or separated from its herd. That would explain why it looks so scraggly. Bumpos are usually very fussy with their pelt but this one is too young to look after itself still. You clean it up a bit, removing the worst of the sticks and sticky bits from its fur. The bumpo answers you talking to it with little grunts. It is more relaxed with you now.
When you get up and start to walk back home it starts to follow you.
Do you
a) shoo it away. You can’t keep a bumpo!
b) smile and keep talking to it. You wonder aloud where you’re going to keep it when you get home.
The bumpo follows you home. Shooing it away and worrying about where you will keep it is no use. This animal has decided to stay with you. It keeps gently pushing its head against your hand. It seems very happy to have found a replacement for its herd. When you get back to the farm you get it settled in an empty barn. It usually holds a large mechanical harvester that your family shares with several other farms but right now it is being used on a farm a day’s walk away. When the harvester is returned you’ll have to come up with a more permanent solution for _______________________________; that’s the name you’ve chosen for your new bumpo friend.
You’ll also have to tell your parents that there is a new addition to the farm. But first you take some hay down from the hayloft and make _______________________________ comfortable. Then you walk back to the farm house where dinner and an encounter that will change your life even more awaits.
The choices you’ve made in this adventure didn’t influence the outcome: you still came home with a big animal that has decided you are its person. But the way you’ve chosen sets the tone for your future relationship to this animal. You are either going to be very patient and loving, or a little rough and impatient with it. Either way the bumpo will be following you around. Better make the most of it. Maybe ask your neighbor for a harness in exchange for some pots of pickled lamb’s tooth root.
Did you collect those seeds from that weird looking bush? You show them to your parents who can’t identify them or the bush from your description. Choose whether you just chuck them or keep them, maybe someone will come along and be able to identify them.
