The Tusk and Talon Lodge, a nondescript building facing Coldwake Pond in Respite, is the den of a small but tight-knit cabal of some of Xen’drik’s most deadly hunters. Big game and trophy hunters flock to Xen’drik. Their butchery of the natural fauna is abhorred by druids and native peoples of the continent, who see them as little more than opportunistic glory hounds who slaughter beasts for a small trophy and leave the rest of their kill to rot. Expeditions of drunken Five Nations nobles or gold-grubbing mercenary hunters-for-hire leave fields of wasted carrion in their wake and earn the ire of local tribes who rely on herds for food, and on rarer animals for spiritual purposes.
The Lords of the Hunt are not common hunters. They have no interest in depopulating the dream serpents or driving speckled dire wolves to extinction for profit. These master slayers seek only the most fearsome and dangerous prey: monsters that tower over the treetops, old rogue dragons ensconced in their lairs, and sanity-shattering formless terrors lurking in the darkest reaches of the jungles. Lords of the Hunt seek only monsters of legend that terrorize the local tribes as well as encroaching Stormreacher explorers.
At the Tusk and Talon Lodge, the Lords of the Hunt swap stories, show off their kills, and sharpen their weapons. The greatest hunters in Xen’drik gather here, and nonmembers of the Lords are not granted admittance lightly. PCs who wish to petition for membership must prove their worth. Alignment means little to the Lords, who judge candidates for membership on their skills, their kills, and their zeal for the hunt. Every Lord lives for the Hunt and little else. Outside interests, whether religious, political, or business-related, that overshadow any hunter’s commitment to the constant search for ferocious specimens might earn excommunication from the Lords. Rumors suggest that an ancient shrine to Banor the Bloody Spear rests beneath the Tusk and Talon Lodge, and that the Lords hold secret services on the eve of hunts and offer up trophies to their dark lord upon their return. The Lords dismiss this as nothing more than inane conjecture.
The Lords include a bevy of bored nobles who hunt dangerous creatures for sport or to chase away ennui, or for some ridiculous sense of status among their rich peers. A number of the Lords are thrill junkies who only feel alive when they are facing down a 50-foot monstrosity. Some, though, are devoted monster-hunters who kill in revenge for the massacre of their family or village by a rampaging beast, or some other similarly traumatic event.