A World Of Endless Horrors (Reboot)

A long time ago the stars went out and the sky bled horrors. They drifted to earth and took corporeal form and nothing was ever the same again.

For centuries your village was guarded by a fearsome mountain god. He was half a man and half a goat with the teeth of a tiger and the height of a tree. He kept the lesser horrors from your people's front doors in exchange for an annual sacrifice. Each year one of your number would be bound and taken up the mountain to be devoured by your patron. This year things went wrong. The sacrifice smuggled in an enchanted knife. Three days after the god consumed her, his belly was split and the ghosts of his victims crawled out in a writhing mass and made their way down to the village wearing the god's corpse like a bloody puppet.

Now your village is gone and most of your people are gone and your safety is gone too. Your band of survivors sits huddled inside a ring of fires, clutching what few possessions you were able to snatch away.

What does your band look like?

[ ] You are a hunting party. You were well away from the village when the abomination descended on it. Your members are strong, well armed, and well prepared to deal with the dangers found in the woods. But you have no valuables, only the simplest of tools, and a limited skill set.

[ ] You are a collection of random villagers who happened to get lucky and escape the abomination's wrath. You happened to go right when it went left. You happened to meet up in the woods. One of you happened to be carrying the village's Treasure. If you have nothing else, you seem to have plentiful supplies of luck.

[ ] Your party consists mainly of women and children of the village. Others died to give you a chance to flee. The village's mage accompanied you, doing what he could to shield your escape and cover your tracks. There are many of you, but you move slowly. Most of the party's members were within their houses when the danger came, and even in their haste you were able to snatch food and valuables.


Another survivor approaches the fires. A woman, limping, calling out in a familiar voice. None of you answer. You wait for her to step forward between the fires. But she doesn't. She calls out several names, pleading with their owners to come with her to help the wounded. You see several more figures slowly limp into the outermost edges of the firelight. But you don't answer save by throwing more logs into the flames.

Ignored, the creatures chitter like insects and step back into the darkness. You can't see them but they're watching you. Still, they'll leave you alone. The horrors that haunt the night are vague in nature. They hunt through deception and ambush and don't like bright light or big, alert crowds. When the sun rises they'll crawl away into shadows...while the more substantial horrors of the day wake from their slumber, eager for a fight. Out in the open like this, you might survive a day or a week but within a year you'll be torn to shreds. You need to find a defensible position.

Where will you go?

[ ] The Caves

Your own mountain is off limits, possibly forever, but there are others nearby. The stone walls of a cave would make a fine shelter against monsters...provided you can a cave that's not already home to a horror. There are many valuable minerals buried in the stone and if you follow the goat paths long enough, they will merge with overgrown roads.

[ ] The Lakeside

The water is safe to drink and your ancestors managed to eliminate all the really big threats that once swam these waters, though a few mud-dwelling creatures still wait to pull the unwary down into the drink. There are fish and reeds and quite normal animals regularly come by for a drink. In an emergency you could retreat to the middle of the lake and stay there until the danger has passed.

[ ] The Woods

The wood is plentiful and easy to work with. There are animals to hunt and fruit, berries, and mushrooms to pick. You know which ones are safe. Some of the trees can move but usually choose not to. Provided you avoid those ones, you could construct wooden fortifications and maybe even clear land for a field. Sooner or later you'd have to face danger head on, but other people can do so and survive. Why not you?

[ ] The Deep Woods

Here the trees tower higher than you would ever imagine possible and long needles cover the earth in a thick carpet, covering the ruins of castles that were never built. The needles are disturbed only by sedately crawling slime colonies. Up in the canopy you can walk from one branch to another without ever coming close to the ground, but only if the owls like you. The berries that grow here have many strange properties, not all of them harmful.

Reserved

[X] You are a collection of random villagers who happened to get lucky and escape the abomination's wrath. You happened to go right when it went left. You happened to meet up in the woods. One of you happened to be carrying the village's Treasure. If you have nothing else, you seem to have plentiful supplies of luck.
[X] The Lakeside

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Trait Gained!
Fortunate Souls: Reroll 1 low roll each turn. May fade with time and circumstance.

In the morning you throw dirt on the fading fires and begin walking. Once along the way you hear the cracking of branches, so you stand still and finger your weapons. But your luck holds and whatever creature made the noise moves on without finding you.

You approach the lakeside, where several empty lean-to structures already await you. In better days they were used by your village's fishermen to shelter from the elements. Now they're almost large enough to hold half your party. One of you is a fisherman and he shows you a hollow tree covered by a door made of bark. Inside are nets and spears. This should make things easier.

You carry the tools back to your shelter and set them in a lean-to that now also holds your village's Treasure. It is a small statue that looks like a particularly ugly gnome got frozen midway to turning into a frog, his mouth open in an idiot's grin. Once a day that mouth spits out a large pearl, and each day it's a different color. These are valuable and once you gather enough, they can be sold for things you need.

As the dusk falls you draw lots to decide who sleeps when and those who don't get to sleep light the fires and stand watch. Those who do sleep dream of a great village standing in the middle of the lake, propped up on stilts, connected to land by a bridge that can be pulled away in times of trouble.

There is much work to done. You must catch enough fish to feed yourselves, build more shelters, and make flint tools. You generally rely on metal, but there is always more need than supply, so a few still remember the art of knacking. There are also more specialized tasks to be done. Fortunately your group holds all kinds of people. The strong among you must go out and solve problems through violence. The patient must work, and work hard. The wisest among you must prepare a ritual. Though none of you truly understand magic, you know that like calls to like and a ritual performed here will connect to the grander rituals from your better days and all the way back to the original event.

Pick 1 activity from each category:


[ ] Seek survivors

You think that more of your people are out there. The abomination failed to kill methodically and those who ran might have survived as you did. The woods are teeming with shapeshifters and puppeteers, but your people know the signs and how to tell a false man apart from a true one...most of the time.

[ ] Patrol the shore

There are things lying in the muck with long, thin fingers and brittle, sharp teeth, you're sure of it. Find them and spill their blood before they have a chance to spill yours.

[ ] Scout the area

Venture beyond the shoreline and walk through the nearby area, noting any threats or anything else of interest.


[ ] Fortify

Create a perimeter of sharpened stakes around your camp and start making sure that all of your shelters have actual walls.

[ ]Make rafts

Use sticks and reeds to make a small flotilla of rafts to make it easier to navigate the lake (or use it as an emergency retreat).

[ ] Gather additional food

Spend all your time finishing and gathering whatever edible plants you can find in the immediate area.


Bereft of anyone with true knowledge of magic, you're left with fumbling attempts to imitate what worked before. In this case it means ritually re-enacting important events from the past, seeking to bring out their echoes through sympathetic magic. The re-enactments can be altered in subtle ways to draw out particular facets of the ritual.

[ ] Ritual of the First Chief and the Guardian

One of the oldest rituals in your village, and one that you performed just a couple of days ago, it commemorates the founding of your village, when the First Chief struck a bargain with the mountain god, gaining protection in exchange for sacrifice. Traditionally the ritual would be finished by carrying a tied-up victim to the top of the mountain for the god to swallow whole, but this time you're going to have to pretend.

-[ ] Honor your guardian and lament his loss
-[ ] Honor the sacrifices and seek to ease their pain
-[ ] Honor the final sacrifice and seek to assuage her wrath

[ ] Ritual of the Clever Boy

A ritual commemorating a boy who got traveled too far from home and was in turn captured by the Crone, the Hag, and the Harridan. Each time he succeeded in outsmarting and slaying his captor, compensating for his lack of strength through observation and cleverness.

[ ] Ritual of the Ashen Field

A farmer whose field is burned scours the land inch by inch, picking out what few grains he can find. He then replants them and tends to them twice as hard as before. And though he goes through many hardships and humiliations, the field bears a large harvest and in the end he is better off than before.