OXENFORT—The weekly market was violently interrupted today when His Worship Donal Brightwood, Mayor of Oxenfurt, was beheaded by an adventuring paladin.
The execution was carried out in the town square to a horrified audience, who had recently elected Brightwood for a third term based on his platform of compassionate justice and fair taxation—or, as the paladin claimed, ‘tyrannical, racist policies’.
Sources close to the precipitating events claim that the paladin took umbrage with the mayor’s support of a local merchant applying the proper tax on imported goods—specifically, on a selection of elven wine that the paladin’s company had retrieved from an ancient ruin beyond the kingdom’s borders. The difference of a single gold piece was sufficient cause for the paladin to denounce the attack on free trade and accuse the mayor of perpetuating hatred—a capital offence according to an as-yet-unidentified aspect of the law.
“This town deserves better than criminal leadership”, the paladin declared an hour later, drinking confiscated wine in the terrace garden of the mayor’s mansion. “After investigation of the town ledgers, it has been revealed that this was part of a widespread pattern of despotic rule.” The paladin, dressed in a fur-trim cloak and attended by a former street urchin turned page boy, pointed to compulsory service in the town militia during times of siege and an open bounty for giant rat corpses as evidence of the mayor’s use of slave labour and his shameless animal cruelty.
“As of today, Oxenfurt is liberated from the grip of evil. The rest of the town council have eagerly taken up the quest to make things right, and have vowed to start with scrapping the tax code in favour of a system more respectful of hard work and enterprise. Clearly, I will be leaving you all in capable hands. If you need me, my friends and I will be camping outside the north gate—the inn here charges a fortune!”
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What’s that elephant race in the back of the pic?
Hi Mitch!
That would be a loxodon. They’re a race that appear in the world of Ravnica, an area of the multiverse previously explored in the Magic: The Gathering franchise.
Best,
– the Archmage