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The Brave Coward


seneschal

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This one is soltakss' fault.  He said the Bronze Age in ancient Israel ended about the time of the judges.  So, here you go, another NPC to spice up your campaign:

Gideon – timid farm boy turned war chief

 Shy Gideon never wanted to be a hero, never desired to become a national figure.  But when a brawny angel interrupts your threshing to tell you it is your job to save the country, you just have to.  For the past seven years raiders from neighboring Midian had swept out of the eastern desert at harvest time to seize the Israeli’s crops and destroy what they couldn’t haul away.  As usual, one of the prophets said the attacks were the result of Hebrews adopting Canaanite culture by worshiping their gods instead of the One God.  Gideon’s own Pa had set up altars to Baal and Asherah on the farmstead.  Guess what his first assignment was?

 Knowing both his parents and the townspeople would be incensed, Gideon and ten of the hands destroyed the altars by night, and he built a traditional Jewish altar from the debris and offered sacrifice.  Farm folks get up early, Gideon had had too many helpers for the story not to get out, and by mid-morning a lynch mob had gathered at the front door.  But Pa surprised Gideon both by defending him and by the cleverness of his response.  “If Baal really is a god,” Pa said, “he can punish my son without your help.  It’d be an insult for you all to interfere.”  Grumbling, the crowd dispersed, and Gideon got the nickname “Jerub-Baal,” which translates roughly, “Go get him, Baal.”

 Soon after, the Midianites and their allies invaded Israeli territory in force.  Gideon sent out messengers to his own and neighboring tribes and gathered his would-be troops at a local spring.  But the One God told his insecure neophyte general, “If you win with this many men, the nation will claim it whipped Midian without My help.”  So Gideon culled his army, first by dismissing anyone who admitted to being scared on the eve of battle, then by watching the soldiers drink from the spring.  Anyone who did so in such a manner that he could retain hold of his spear and shield got to stay.  Gideon was left with 300 troops to fight a multinational army possibly consisting of tens of thousands.  They are described as swarming like locusts.

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On 10/30/2019 at 12:46 AM, seneschal said:

This one is soltakss' fault.

I get blamed for everything.

On 10/30/2019 at 12:46 AM, seneschal said:

He said the Bronze Age in ancient Israel ended about the time of the judges.

And I'm probably wrong, as always.

The locust symbology is interesting, the armies devouring the crops and then seeming like locusts, presumably because there were so many of them.

 

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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