Waterdeep Wazoo, Tarsakh 13, 1493 DR (April 13, 2021)

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Tarsakh 13, 1493 DR

There was a break-in at the Waterdeep Zoological Gardens yesterday.  According to Archdruid Laucian Galanodel, the break-in occurred late in the evening, and whoever perpetruated this crime opened the cages of all the rarest behemoth predators--including King Ubtao, a very rare tyrannosaurus specimen.  Readers may recall that earlier this year, King Ubtao was donated to the Waterdeep Zoological Gardens as a gift from King Shago I of Chult--as part of his recent efforts to improve diplomatic and trade relations between Chult and Waterdeep.

King Shago also donated a number of other behemoths to the Waterdeep Menagerie--including a large pack of velociraptors, a mated pair of deinonychuses--along with other herbivoric behemoths.  Although these behemoths are quite common in Chult, where they are commonly used for Port Nyanzaru's exciting but dangerous sport of behemoth racing--behemoths do not exist in the wilds of Faerun.  Some sages believe that behemoths once romed Faerun, but this hypothesis is disputed--the general consensus of the arcane community is that the skeletons that rogue scholars claim as evidence of ancient behemoths can be far more easily explained as draconic skeletal remains.

In addition to the stolen behemoths, a mated pair of sabertooth tigers, and an ice bear were also missing from the menagerie this morning.  The City Watch is looking for information regarding this theft--and has asked us to publish the following "manifesto" which was left behind by the perpetrator:

Manifesto 

By "Dawn Age Pervert"

I was roused from my slumber by my friends, and I declare to you, with great boldness, that I am here to save you from a great ugliness.

If you look around eyes of some people, you see a certain kind of demented energy.  It is pure anger or lust for power with nothing more.  I hate to dirty this exhortation with mention of names of nobodies in our time.  But if you see Laeral Silverhand, or Gaxly Rudderbrust, with their eyes bugged out from sniffing too much their own farts, or who knows what, you know what I mean.  You see this also in the dead eyes of the automatons running Waterdeep Palace, and the incompetent city bureaucracy.

In the Dawn Age men had life and force, and I already see, far on the horizon of our world, but the glimmer is surely there—may it not be a mirage!—I see this spirit returning surely in our time. Piratical bands and brotherhoods will take to the seas, and not just to the seas.  The enemies of Faerunian man and the enemies of beauty are to learn just what was meant by a piratical race, a nest of pirates like the Shou thought of the Amnians on first meeting them. I want to prepare you to receive this old spirit—old spirits are moving, from behind the reeds… the silhouette shimmers against a river in late summer, and I see already men who know how to honor such uncanny old friends. May they inhabit us again and give us strength to purify this world of refuse!

.

I think the answer to this problem isn’t so simple, but one feature of this new condition in modern age is that the masters are hidden--THE MASKED LORDS.  That is even why this condition of subjection seems so suffocating, because they hide, and so there is no opportunity for open and manly challenge.  You must aim high! Band with your friends on the way of power and know that nothing has the right to stop you, and nothing can stop you!  For now, promote nature, beauty, physical fitness, the preservation of high traditions of literature and art.  The time of reckoning is at hand!

Here is my vision of the true justice, the justice of nature: the zoos opened, behemoths unleashed by the dozens, hundreds….four thousand hungry velociraptors rampaging on streets of these hive cities, tyrannosaurs and triceratops stampeding, the buildings smashed to pieces, the cries of the human bug shearing through the streets as the lord of beasts returns. Waterdeep, Neverwinter, and the Forbidden City reduced to ruins overgrown by vines and forest, the haunt of the raptor and the deinonychus again.

Let loose hundreds of sabertooth tigers, companies of brontosaurs, with strong engine of spirit revving in their deep chests, let them bring the justice of the volcano to this world of trash! Bless the passing of Talos!

-Dawn Age Pervert