An Adventure for Every Monster - Cattle, Wild

Cattle, Wild

Frequency: Common
No. appearing: 20-200
Armour class: 7
Move: 15”
Hit Dice: 1-4
Percentage in lair: Nil
Treasure type: Nil
No. of attacks: 1
Damage per attack: 1-4
Special attack: Stampede
Special defences: Nil
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Semi-
Alignment: Neutral
Size: L
THAC0: 19/16/15
XP value: 35+2/hp
Goes well with: red wine

On a semi-civilised frontier, a local noble who has been given the task of completing the pacification of the area is having problems. Wild cattle that he is in the process of corralling and domesticating have started to disappear, albeit in small numbers. Nevertheless, this is taken as a threat to his authority and, by implication, his position as well. He sent a group of his men out to see what was going on and they have not returned. He therefore needs the party to find out who has been rustling the cattle and to discover the fate of his men as well. If they do well, they may be kept on to provide security whilst the settlement and domestication process is completed.

The rustling is being carried out by a gang of ogres but there is more to the situation than meets the eye. The ogre leader has a document that the grandfather of the noble used to settle a long running dispute with the ogres’ ancestors many years ago and which gives the ogres and their descendants rights to take a certain number of cattle each year for their own use. Although he probably intended it to be a mere glass bead trick, the ogres actually believed him and will take umbrage at anyone trying to renege on the deal.

To make matters even more interesting, many years ago, the ogres were actually converted by a zealous and very persuasive roving paladin and they still adhere to the faith, albeit a rather confused and ogrish interpretation thereof. The paladin went on to higher things, eventually heading up the temple’s Arm Militant, but that’s another story.

Due to this, clerics of the faith maintained contact with the ogres to ensure that there was no backsliding and when the noble’s grandfather and the ogres signed the document, a cleric happened to be there and witnessed the process. The faith therefore has records of the agreement at its temple. Thus any attempt to overrule it by illicit means will attract the attention – and subsequent intervention - of a band of LG paladins and clerics, keen to protect their flock.

I would imagine that the noble's men who were sent out to find out what was going on were either killed by the ogres (and perhaps given a faith-based funeral, complete with badly written gravestones, etc) or spooked the cattle and were killed in a stampede.