A long time ago the stars went out and the sky bled horrors. They drifted to earth and took...
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A World Of Endless Horrors (Reboot)
- Thread starter SeptimusMagisto
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A Home Lost
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.
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
Reserved
A Lakeside Home
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:
Adventure:
[ ] 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.
Industry:
[ ] 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.
Mysticism:
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.
The First Day
Your people begin carving sharpened stakes to fortify the perimeter of your camp. The work does not go quickly, especially as the work with the wood can't begin until you have enough flint knives, and their manufacture takes longer than expected. Your village was civilized. You had access to metal. Sometimes steel and sometimes bronze, and always to be carefully hoarded, it was nevertheless present. The art of creating stone tools is known but not practiced. When knocking pointy pieces of flint to produce an edge it's all too easy to shatter them entirely.
Meanwhile, the strongest of you arm themselves with spears and walk along the shore, staring into the swirling muck. One makes out a dark shape in the water and makes a hand signal. As one they plunge their spears. The creature writhes in the water, coloring it with a too-dark red.
The corpse they pull from the water looks like it's been a corpse for quite some time. The skin is green and peeling, grown over with a thin layer of algae, and the eyes are long-gone, eaten by the fish. It looks like a human. It may have been one once. Nobody is quite sure. But it is known that this particular breed of horror doesn't retain a human's intelligence. Its mind contains nothing more than malice and a desire to drag others down into the water.
Walking further along the shore the war party kills another of those creatures. And then one of a different breed - still vaguely humanoid but with fish-like features. When its mouth flies open it's obvious that its teeth are just the rib bones of other fish, and the hardness and crunch of its body make it full that it's stuffed utterly full of fish skeletons.
Then, disaster strikes. Trying to get the next monster, one of your men climbs on top of a large tree stump growing right on the shore to get into the best position. And without warning the stump pitches forward, dragging him down and trying to rap its thick roots around his body. It practically splits in half, revealing a maw full of dagger-like teeth. The others charge in for the rescue, but the stump's wooden body resists the spear attacks. And to make matters worse the hunter's original target bolts out of the muck, grasping his from behind and biting into his face and neck.
Enough of the hunters manage to grasp the stump to pull it back to shore, along with its victim and the other monster. Someone manages to poke a spear into the sump monster's maw, which seems to work better, making it thrash around in pain. In the end, the victim survives the ordeal, though he's left with terrible bruises and bite marks. To treat the latter the woman who's the closest thing you have to a doctor must cut away huge chunks of flesh and burn what remains with fire. Anything less would probably just mean rotting from the inside.
The expedition continues, bringing down five more monsters before it returns to camp. There may be others, either hiding deeper in the lake or so good at blending in with their environment they managed to go unnoticed.
In the meantime your ritual preparations take place. In lieu of the traditional grain you search the nearby woods carefully, finally finding a small berry bush. The lead actor carefully extracts their tiny seeds, spending the better part of an hour staining his hands and forearms with juice until they're a blotchy black.
You begin the ritual and something just...resonates. It is known that the rituals are meant to form a chain of connection through time and legend, but even with an entire village lending its energy to the proceedings and a true mage there to catalyze that energy, most rituals end up as little more than elaborate plays. You had a feeling that this ritual performed in these circumstances might end up more potent than usual, but it's beyond your expectations. When you light a fire on the 'field' of grass and twigs you threw down, it blazes out of control and threatens to burn the actors who fail to jump back quickly enough. When you re-enact the scene of the farmer protecting his second crop from a storm, the wind picks up and drives heavy droplets from the lake straight at the performers. And when you finally reach the triumphant end of the play...the ashen 'field' is suddenly pierced by green shoots. In mere moments they stretch upward and turn to golden wheat before your eyes. Beautiful, healthy stalks are almost bent by the weight of their own grains.
This is the rarest of rare events. Even at the best of times rituals almost never result in tangible changes to the world. They're far more likely to subtly influence the currents of luck and fate, making outcomes that much more likely to align with the ritual's events. Your success here has been extraordinary.
Late that evening, your people prepare to light the fires, their work guided by the setting sun. Some of your women have been grinding the seed of several of the wheat stalks into rough flour. The corpses of the lake's monsters have been dragged on top of the largest pile of sticks and leaves you could gather. Fire is the only way to be sure that these cold, dead things won't pull themselves together and rise again. Though a few of the horrors have taken the aspect of fire into themselves, using it to kill and ruin, the rest generally don't take to well to flames, and the mud-dwelling murderers from your new home are not known to be an exception.
Suddenly there is a terrible wailing and a new monsters crashes through the tree line. It looks like a dozen women's heads, each one the size of a boulder, have tangled themselves in each other's hair until they form a kind of centipede held together by black magic and poor hygiene. Almost immediately the monster manages to impale itself on one of your defensive stakes. One of the heads is pieced and caught, and the rest thrash around wildly, the whole thing seemingly losing any sense of coherent direction. Your people move in to take advantage of the confusion, then swiftly back off when one lashes out, straining at the limits of its follicles, showing off rotting green teeth and a thick, purple tongue. It spits something green that sizzles unpleasantly when it hits the ground. You content yourselves with throwing rocks and spears at it while it thrashes.
Then something smells and the creature is able to move forward, blooded but alive. Or at least it would be if the heads could agree on what constituted 'forward.' Instead it thrashes around for several more seconds - which is enough for a young man and woman to run in bearing one of the larger fishing nets. Staying far away from the thrashing creature, they're nevertheless able to wrap the net around it, then pull. On their own they could hardly move it, but the others get the idea and grab it too. The net strains and begins to break, but the creature still moves - right on top of the pyre. Someone throws a lit torch, the old leaves catch flame, and the fire spreads in mere seconds. The creature, covered in dry skin and old, old grease, is all too quick to catch alight. Flesh melts, hair burns, and the heads separate, mad with pain and half-dead. Your people impale them or drive them back into the fire until finally the last of them stops thrashing and the crisis is over.
You fully expect the next crisis to be just around the corner.
Pick 1 action from each category
Adventure:
[ ] Seek survivors
You think that more of your people may be 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
You've handled most of the immediate threats, but short of dredging up the lake and combing the bottom you'll never feel safe.
[ ] Scout the area
Venture beyond the shoreline and walk through the nearby area, noting any threats or anything else of interest.
Industry:
[ ] Increase fortifications
Your first efforts yielded fruit. Just keep going.
[ ]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).
[ ] Make spare weapons
Particularly concentrate on weapons that can be thrown or otherwise discarded.
[ ] Aim for tradable goods
This place has what you need to survive, but just barely. To strive you'll need better tools and more people. Supplement your pearls with dried fish and carved turtle shells.
Mysticism:
It's not good to do rituals too close to one another. You don't know why, you only know it to be true. For the time being you'll be left with things that are vaguely ritual-like. You still don't know what you're doing, so you'll just do something that feels right.
[ ] Plant some of the wheat, even though the season and soil are wrong
[ ] Display the charred bones of the monsters on the outskirts of your camp
[ ] Have people prick their fingers and draw small circles of human blood throughout the camp.
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Gnomes
Though the horrors came at you from all sides, you held fast. And to prove this you place the charred bones of your enemies just outside your growing defenses, to warn any other would-be intruders of the fate awaiting them. Meanwhile your hunters walk along the shore once more, looking for anything they may have missed. They find another of the half-fish creatures and ambush a giant frog. Normally a terrifying opponent, it's caught sleeping and has three spears sticking out of its brain by the time it begins to move. Even its death throes manage to knock over and nearly smother one of your men.
As dusk descends, you hear the bushes rustle. Prepared for anything, you rouse the camp and ready your weapons. But the moment passes and nothing happens. You wait and you wait and still nothing. Eventually those of you not on guard duty head back to the shelters.
Then the bushes rustle again.
Everyone is roused once more. It's patently obvious that the unknown presence is trying to toy with you, and this time you don't intend to stand down until the matter is resolved one way or the other. Your people gather together, to hoot, holler, and throw stones as near the bushes as they can manage. Eventually one of the stones hits something. There is a sound like a protracted squeak and moments later a tiny, naked, bearded man walks out of the bush, moving his legs with unnatural stiffness. A dozen more of them appear from behind the trees and walk closer.
Gnomes.
Stopping some way away from you, the gnomes form a line. As one they curl up their lips to expose as much of their teeth as they're able and begin loudly and arrhythmically clacking their teeth together. It's hard to say if they're merely mocking or actually threatening you. Those teeth of theirs are sharp and though they're not the most formidable of horrors, a swarm of them descending with their teeth bared, clubs in their hands, is more than enough of a nightmare.
After several minutes the gnomes change their tactics. Just as your people did earlier, they begin picking up sticks and stones and hurling them at you. You hurl things back, especially now that they're in range. Then one of the gnomes tumbles forward, practically contorting himself into a ball, rolls right up to your fires, and snatches a couple of burning logs. Hurling one of them into your crowd, he triumphantly carries the other one back to his kin. Squeaking in excitement, they retreat to the forest canopy and return minutes later with bundles of dry sticks. Holding them to the fire, they resume throwing anew.
You know that all this tossing isn't going to resolve anything. So far only the slightest of damage has been done to either side, and even if you manage to start doing some, they'll just retreat. But they'll be back. Some horrors are capricious, but others are tenacious, and gnomes are of the latter kind. They're going to lurk around the borders of your camp, straddling the border between nuisance and threat, until they're dealt with - one way or another.
[ ] Negotiate with them
Gnomes are thoroughly malicious and enjoy causing misery, pain, and confusion. On the other hand you've heard stories of them being bribed with food and shiny things. And right now you need allies, however tenuous and ill-intentioned.
[ ] Charge out and slay them
Gnomes are faster and stronger than they look, and the ones you see may not be the entirety of the pack. But you'll be damned if you back down to something that's knee high to you. This is your place, and you're prepared to defend it.
Negotiations
[X] Negotiate with them
The lore of your people tells you that horrors were originally formless shadows living in the dark between stars who needed to build bodies out of native materials when they descended to your world. And that the shapes these bodies took came directly from human nightmares. Looking at these hairy little men...they could certainly be somebody's nightmare. Maybe not in the same way as ogres or vampires or the corrosive slug men, but there's a kind of visceral savagery about them. It's all too easy to imagine them surrounding and swarming some travelers at night, dragging one away, and then later picking their teeth with his bones in some dirty hole.
Nevertheless, they're intelligent. And more importantly, you know them to be motivated by greed and gluttony rather than animal hunger or elemental malice. They can be reasoned with, in the same sense that an ordinary psychopathic murderer can.
What do you intend to ask of them?
[ ] To go away
You'll give them several days' worth of provisions and the two pearls your Treasure's generated so far to leave and never return. If they do come back, you will see them exterminated, no matter what it costs you.
[ ] To stay
You will provide the gnomes with daily meals and one pearl out of each five your treasure produces. In exchange they will live outside your village's borders, help you forage, and keep a lookout for any other monsters that might approach your village. They won't harm you, and you won't harm them.
The lore of your people tells you that horrors were originally formless shadows living in the dark between stars who needed to build bodies out of native materials when they descended to your world. And that the shapes these bodies took came directly from human nightmares. Looking at these hairy little men...they could certainly be somebody's nightmare. Maybe not in the same way as ogres or vampires or the corrosive slug men, but there's a kind of visceral savagery about them. It's all too easy to imagine them surrounding and swarming some travelers at night, dragging one away, and then later picking their teeth with his bones in some dirty hole.
Nevertheless, they're intelligent. And more importantly, you know them to be motivated by greed and gluttony rather than animal hunger or elemental malice. They can be reasoned with, in the same sense that an ordinary psychopathic murderer can.
What do you intend to ask of them?
[ ] To go away
You'll give them several days' worth of provisions and the two pearls your Treasure's generated so far to leave and never return. If they do come back, you will see them exterminated, no matter what it costs you.
[ ] To stay
You will provide the gnomes with daily meals and one pearl out of each five your treasure produces. In exchange they will live outside your village's borders, help you forage, and keep a lookout for any other monsters that might approach your village. They won't harm you, and you won't harm them.
A Crossroads
[X] To go away
Getting the gnomes to talk, turning a battle into a parley - it's a challenge in and of itself. But after enough yelling and several near-misses with more thrown projectiles, you finally arrange a negotiation - a few of yours and a few of theirs standing together. The gnomes don't seem to take it too seriously. They take turns scratching themselves or eating insects from their own beards. One of them defecates without even changing his expression. Are these horrible little men deliberately choosing to try and disgust you? Or was their choice made a long time ago? None among you know the answer.
You give them an ultimatum: they can take what little you can spare and leave, or else you will fight them and you will slay them all, no matter what it costs you. Such a threat would mean nothing to most monsters, even ones who speak and think. The False Men, the Briar Dwellers, the Chainsmiths - all of them are at least as intelligent as humans, yet none of them care about earthly comforts or their own lives. But some creatures are different. It seems that alongside human fear they drink in human greed and vanity and become something that can coexist with society - however peripherally. The mountain god that protected your village was one such. He kept the covenant and drove off all lesser horrors in exchange for an annual sacrifice. Your people could coexist with him for centuries, even though he was a lumbering, man-eating giant monster. It is known that gnomes are cast from the same mold. They fear their own deaths. They like to decorate themselves, and to stuff their maws with cooked food. They're killers who delight in misery, but on some level their minds are comprehensible to you in a way most monsters' minds aren't.
In the end the gnomes agree to your terms. Truth be told, full scale battles against large groups aren't their strength. They prefer to snatch people and pull them into the dark, or to wreak chaos while staying just out of reach. You pile together what little cloth you have to spare, a few shiny baubles, loaves of freshly baked bread, fried fish, and top it with the two pearls that have emerged from your treasure so far. Secretly you hope that in the days to come the gnomes will fight over them. In any case, the gnomes collect the tribute and leave. When they don't return by daybreak you decide you've seen the last of them. Gnomes are fickle creatures. Which means there was a possibility that they would renege on your deal...but also that now that they've actually left they likely won't find the motivation to return.
The next day more dark figures approach your encampment, again calling in familiar voices. As usual, the guards jeer them. But this time the figures step into the light and answer the questions they're asked. Though it's hard to believe, they're not shapeshifters or illusions - they're your fellow survivors.
They're led by a mage. Not the old man, but a girl who served as one of his apprentices. According to her, the master perished while trying to set up some sort of a defense against the rampaging souls of former sacrifices. She managed to get away. Lost and alone, bereft of books or materials, she nevertheless managed to improvise a ritual to locate other survivors, and to gather those of them who still live.
You spend the day in celebration and the evening in contemplation. Even your newly boosted numbers are a small fraction of the people who once inhabited your village. A settlement this small can't last indefinitely. To survive you need to be able to replenish your supplies. To get metal for tools and weapons, herbs for healing and incense, meat and grain to supplement your diet, and a thousand other things. Thus you need to be able to visit the sites where such resources are located, or to trade with others, and either one requires a large party to do in relative safety. At your current strength you can spare one, maybe two such parties without stripping bare your defenses. And if one of them does prove unlucky and is destroyed, that's the end of you.
Moreover, a civilization needs specialized skills, many of which your new village currently lacks. Only one of you knows how to work metal, and only crudely at that. The scholars who knew how to make educated guesses about the weather, safely build tall buildings, or improve fruit trees have all perished. Many other skills are either lost or diminished.
One thing is obvious: if you want there to be a village here ten or twenty years from now, what you have now needs to grow, and grow faster than childbirth allows. To survive you will have to entice others to leave their communities and join yours. A daunting task as things stand right now.
In seeking the way forward, your people find themselves split into three camps. There are those who say that the best way forward is to focus all effort on growing and defending your village. No man would leave an established community for what you have right now. But you can change that. Build houses on the water so you don't have to come out and battle every horrible creature that approaches the shore. Visit established markets with carts full of timber, fish, and pottery and bags full of precious pearls, and bring back essential supplies. Build up a place that's small and prosperous, and people will come seeking opportunity they're denied in older, more stable communities.
Others say that this way is too slow and too risky in its own way. The utter ruin of your village has made you one of the poorest communities out there, and scrabbling your way to riches is an uncertain proposition. You advantage is your desperation, because it makes you willing to take risks others would balk at. To seek out secrets and treasures heedless of peril or guardians, and to bring assistance to those who need it...and ruin to those who deserve it. It will be a long time before anyone joins you out of envy, but there's a chance they'll join you out gratitude or awe...or perhaps fear. Who knows, under the right circumstances your courage may simply win you leadership rolls within one of the established communities.
Finally, there are those who believe that to recover from this disaster you need a miracle. Or better yet, a chain of miracles, one after another. Look at how your people have survived this long. By eating grain grown by a magical ritual. By finding each other in the woods thanks to a spell. And before that, by living under the direct protection of a god. You must take care of wordly concerns like food or defense, of course. But the rest of your efforts should be turned toward magic and rituals. Because this world is so dark and dangerous and you are so very small and only magic will give you the power you need to survive.
Naturally, none of these are mutually exclusive. In this world even the meekest farmer must occasionally take up arms, heroes and mages alike need to eat, and none can escape from magic's web. Yet one of these principles shall serve as your guiding star. Which shall it be?
[ ] The Path of Prosperity
[ ] The Path of Valor
[ ] The Path of Miracles
Getting the gnomes to talk, turning a battle into a parley - it's a challenge in and of itself. But after enough yelling and several near-misses with more thrown projectiles, you finally arrange a negotiation - a few of yours and a few of theirs standing together. The gnomes don't seem to take it too seriously. They take turns scratching themselves or eating insects from their own beards. One of them defecates without even changing his expression. Are these horrible little men deliberately choosing to try and disgust you? Or was their choice made a long time ago? None among you know the answer.
You give them an ultimatum: they can take what little you can spare and leave, or else you will fight them and you will slay them all, no matter what it costs you. Such a threat would mean nothing to most monsters, even ones who speak and think. The False Men, the Briar Dwellers, the Chainsmiths - all of them are at least as intelligent as humans, yet none of them care about earthly comforts or their own lives. But some creatures are different. It seems that alongside human fear they drink in human greed and vanity and become something that can coexist with society - however peripherally. The mountain god that protected your village was one such. He kept the covenant and drove off all lesser horrors in exchange for an annual sacrifice. Your people could coexist with him for centuries, even though he was a lumbering, man-eating giant monster. It is known that gnomes are cast from the same mold. They fear their own deaths. They like to decorate themselves, and to stuff their maws with cooked food. They're killers who delight in misery, but on some level their minds are comprehensible to you in a way most monsters' minds aren't.
In the end the gnomes agree to your terms. Truth be told, full scale battles against large groups aren't their strength. They prefer to snatch people and pull them into the dark, or to wreak chaos while staying just out of reach. You pile together what little cloth you have to spare, a few shiny baubles, loaves of freshly baked bread, fried fish, and top it with the two pearls that have emerged from your treasure so far. Secretly you hope that in the days to come the gnomes will fight over them. In any case, the gnomes collect the tribute and leave. When they don't return by daybreak you decide you've seen the last of them. Gnomes are fickle creatures. Which means there was a possibility that they would renege on your deal...but also that now that they've actually left they likely won't find the motivation to return.
The next day more dark figures approach your encampment, again calling in familiar voices. As usual, the guards jeer them. But this time the figures step into the light and answer the questions they're asked. Though it's hard to believe, they're not shapeshifters or illusions - they're your fellow survivors.
They're led by a mage. Not the old man, but a girl who served as one of his apprentices. According to her, the master perished while trying to set up some sort of a defense against the rampaging souls of former sacrifices. She managed to get away. Lost and alone, bereft of books or materials, she nevertheless managed to improvise a ritual to locate other survivors, and to gather those of them who still live.
You spend the day in celebration and the evening in contemplation. Even your newly boosted numbers are a small fraction of the people who once inhabited your village. A settlement this small can't last indefinitely. To survive you need to be able to replenish your supplies. To get metal for tools and weapons, herbs for healing and incense, meat and grain to supplement your diet, and a thousand other things. Thus you need to be able to visit the sites where such resources are located, or to trade with others, and either one requires a large party to do in relative safety. At your current strength you can spare one, maybe two such parties without stripping bare your defenses. And if one of them does prove unlucky and is destroyed, that's the end of you.
Moreover, a civilization needs specialized skills, many of which your new village currently lacks. Only one of you knows how to work metal, and only crudely at that. The scholars who knew how to make educated guesses about the weather, safely build tall buildings, or improve fruit trees have all perished. Many other skills are either lost or diminished.
One thing is obvious: if you want there to be a village here ten or twenty years from now, what you have now needs to grow, and grow faster than childbirth allows. To survive you will have to entice others to leave their communities and join yours. A daunting task as things stand right now.
In seeking the way forward, your people find themselves split into three camps. There are those who say that the best way forward is to focus all effort on growing and defending your village. No man would leave an established community for what you have right now. But you can change that. Build houses on the water so you don't have to come out and battle every horrible creature that approaches the shore. Visit established markets with carts full of timber, fish, and pottery and bags full of precious pearls, and bring back essential supplies. Build up a place that's small and prosperous, and people will come seeking opportunity they're denied in older, more stable communities.
Others say that this way is too slow and too risky in its own way. The utter ruin of your village has made you one of the poorest communities out there, and scrabbling your way to riches is an uncertain proposition. You advantage is your desperation, because it makes you willing to take risks others would balk at. To seek out secrets and treasures heedless of peril or guardians, and to bring assistance to those who need it...and ruin to those who deserve it. It will be a long time before anyone joins you out of envy, but there's a chance they'll join you out gratitude or awe...or perhaps fear. Who knows, under the right circumstances your courage may simply win you leadership rolls within one of the established communities.
Finally, there are those who believe that to recover from this disaster you need a miracle. Or better yet, a chain of miracles, one after another. Look at how your people have survived this long. By eating grain grown by a magical ritual. By finding each other in the woods thanks to a spell. And before that, by living under the direct protection of a god. You must take care of wordly concerns like food or defense, of course. But the rest of your efforts should be turned toward magic and rituals. Because this world is so dark and dangerous and you are so very small and only magic will give you the power you need to survive.
Naturally, none of these are mutually exclusive. In this world even the meekest farmer must occasionally take up arms, heroes and mages alike need to eat, and none can escape from magic's web. Yet one of these principles shall serve as your guiding star. Which shall it be?
[ ] The Path of Prosperity
[ ] The Path of Valor
[ ] The Path of Miracles
Path of Valor
[X] The Path of Valor
There is a story. Not a story from your town but one from a place far away, given to your people almost a century ago by the Wandering Lizard tribe. It's the story of a young girl who found herself orphaned and unwanted. She fell into the care of a cruel man who had no use for another mouth to feed. So he took her deep into the woods and broke her legs, so as to make sure he wouldn't see her again. The story you received claims that he himself met a terrible fate on his way home, but this may well be apocryphal. It is, in any case, irrelevant to the poor girl's fate. Injured and alone, with night fast approaching, she would certainly be taken by the ghosts of ash and rot. (In your own region it would more likely be the shadow men or the insect-like people).
Or so you'd think. But faced with the certainty of her own death, the girl found herself bereft of fear. With nothing left to lose she found it easy to fight for the slimmest chance. She crawled, pulling her hobbled body over every hard root, heading for the places no one else dared to go, seeking the only place the ghosts wouldn't find her. Exhausted and bleeding and armed with a sharp stick, she finally found what she sought - the lair of a great wyrm, already settled in for the night. She crawled through its teeth and into its mouth. The story gets vague there, but one thing is certain - she found a vulnerability somewhere inside the wyrm and inflicted damage enough to slay it. The wyrm's scalding blood washed over her, burning off her skin. She screamed in terrible pain and eventually passed out. Hidden inside a nightmare's body, she was paradoxically safe.
The girl spent weeks living inside the wyrm's unrotting corpse, venturing out only to drink from a nearby stream and pick what berries and mushrooms she could. And over time her legs healed and the scabs that covered the entirety of her body slowly changed texture and appearance, becoming a covering of shiny scales. In this state she finally made her way home. Tougher than any armor, her new hide rendered her an invaluable warrior and the location of the wyrm's corpse made her a well-off woman. In time she was able to capitalize on her legend and her supernatural toughness to gain the post of warchief.
On this day of reunion your people tell this story and paint their faces in scale pattern to honor the memory of the girl who was desperate enough to fight when all was lost. So too must you be. For you are lost and crippled and it's not good enough to merely survive. You must fight for a chance to reap an awesome reward, lest you fade away.
Trait Gained!
The Spirit of Adventure: you may undertake 1 additional Adventure Action each turn.
In a fit of fervor accompanying your realization, the strongest of what few real fighters you have, a man named Skylar, is named warchief. The girl, Sen, is officially named the village mage. A senior laborer, Aron, is named an Elder. Together they form the beginnings of The Ring. Right now your tribe is small enough that most decisions get made by consensus, but The Ring can help direct discussion and put its weight behind a particular course of action.
Ironically, your newly inspired warriors find themselves with nothing to fight. Even though it sometimes seems that way, not every inch of land is covered with monsters. And it seems that you have emptied the area around your village of the ones that feel confident attacking a village...at least for now. More horrors will wander your way eventually, and there are always lesser ones lurking around, waiting to ambush an unwary traveler or snatch a baby. But your people have a few days to regroup.
[ ][Adventure] Run Drills
The difference between true warriors and those who merely hold weapons is grueling, unrelenting practice. Begin the process of forging your fighters into a true warband.
[ ][Adventure] Patrol nearby woods
Get the lay of the land and make sure you spot any encroaching threats in advance.
[ ][Adventure] Scout the trading routes
Walk down the roads to the Grand Trunk, the Raised Valley, and the city of the Tunnel Lords and evaluate their fitness for travel.
[ ][Adventure] Scout the resource sites
This lake was a place important to your town's survival. There are others, like your clay pit, your hunting lodges, and the herb gatherers' camp. Check on them, and try to retrieve anything useful you find.
[ ][Adventure] Garrison
Double up on watch duty and make sure your warriors are prepared to respond to danger at a moment's notice.
[ ][Adventure] Sneak into your old town
Your former home is a treasure trove of wealth and supplies, though one that's haunted by a vengeful monster. Enter it, grab what you can, then get out.
[ ][Industry] Increase fortifications
[ ][Industry] Make rafts
[ ][Industry] Make spare weapons
[ ][Industry] Make tradable goods
Your new mage has taken one of the shacks for herself. Though she's half-trained and without books or ingredients or established holy sites to make her power stretch further, her knowledge far exceeds the meager scraps you've been able to piece together until now. She knows how to perform lesser rituals, ones that don't stir up the fabric of the world as badly as the grand ones. She can cast spells of divination or limited protection and knows how to make herbal remedies. As she gathers the necessary materials, she will be able to do more for your people.
[ ][Mysticism]Perform a divination
-[ ] Target?
Learn specific information about something nearby, or else receive a flood of vague visions that usually contains one or two pieces of important knowledge.
[ ][Mysticism] Begin consecrating the lake
This lake has a strong connection to your people. For hundreds of years your ancestors fished here and killed monsters to make the fishing safer. Begin the arduous process of transforming it into a lesser sacred site.
[ ][Mysticism]Pour sunlight into firewood
Imbue the wood used for your fires with the light of the sun, to make the flames that much more potent at searing the horrors.
[ ][Mysticism]Abjure insects and other small, unclean things
Purify your camp through aromatic smoke imbued with charms of cleansing and protection.
[ ][Mysticism]Make Wilder Brew
Brew potent grain alcohol that makes those who drink it nearly feral, able to fight without fear and heedless of injury.
There is a story. Not a story from your town but one from a place far away, given to your people almost a century ago by the Wandering Lizard tribe. It's the story of a young girl who found herself orphaned and unwanted. She fell into the care of a cruel man who had no use for another mouth to feed. So he took her deep into the woods and broke her legs, so as to make sure he wouldn't see her again. The story you received claims that he himself met a terrible fate on his way home, but this may well be apocryphal. It is, in any case, irrelevant to the poor girl's fate. Injured and alone, with night fast approaching, she would certainly be taken by the ghosts of ash and rot. (In your own region it would more likely be the shadow men or the insect-like people).
Or so you'd think. But faced with the certainty of her own death, the girl found herself bereft of fear. With nothing left to lose she found it easy to fight for the slimmest chance. She crawled, pulling her hobbled body over every hard root, heading for the places no one else dared to go, seeking the only place the ghosts wouldn't find her. Exhausted and bleeding and armed with a sharp stick, she finally found what she sought - the lair of a great wyrm, already settled in for the night. She crawled through its teeth and into its mouth. The story gets vague there, but one thing is certain - she found a vulnerability somewhere inside the wyrm and inflicted damage enough to slay it. The wyrm's scalding blood washed over her, burning off her skin. She screamed in terrible pain and eventually passed out. Hidden inside a nightmare's body, she was paradoxically safe.
The girl spent weeks living inside the wyrm's unrotting corpse, venturing out only to drink from a nearby stream and pick what berries and mushrooms she could. And over time her legs healed and the scabs that covered the entirety of her body slowly changed texture and appearance, becoming a covering of shiny scales. In this state she finally made her way home. Tougher than any armor, her new hide rendered her an invaluable warrior and the location of the wyrm's corpse made her a well-off woman. In time she was able to capitalize on her legend and her supernatural toughness to gain the post of warchief.
On this day of reunion your people tell this story and paint their faces in scale pattern to honor the memory of the girl who was desperate enough to fight when all was lost. So too must you be. For you are lost and crippled and it's not good enough to merely survive. You must fight for a chance to reap an awesome reward, lest you fade away.
Trait Gained!
The Spirit of Adventure: you may undertake 1 additional Adventure Action each turn.
In a fit of fervor accompanying your realization, the strongest of what few real fighters you have, a man named Skylar, is named warchief. The girl, Sen, is officially named the village mage. A senior laborer, Aron, is named an Elder. Together they form the beginnings of The Ring. Right now your tribe is small enough that most decisions get made by consensus, but The Ring can help direct discussion and put its weight behind a particular course of action.
Ironically, your newly inspired warriors find themselves with nothing to fight. Even though it sometimes seems that way, not every inch of land is covered with monsters. And it seems that you have emptied the area around your village of the ones that feel confident attacking a village...at least for now. More horrors will wander your way eventually, and there are always lesser ones lurking around, waiting to ambush an unwary traveler or snatch a baby. But your people have a few days to regroup.
Adventure:
[ ][Adventure] Run Drills
The difference between true warriors and those who merely hold weapons is grueling, unrelenting practice. Begin the process of forging your fighters into a true warband.
[ ][Adventure] Patrol nearby woods
Get the lay of the land and make sure you spot any encroaching threats in advance.
[ ][Adventure] Scout the trading routes
Walk down the roads to the Grand Trunk, the Raised Valley, and the city of the Tunnel Lords and evaluate their fitness for travel.
[ ][Adventure] Scout the resource sites
This lake was a place important to your town's survival. There are others, like your clay pit, your hunting lodges, and the herb gatherers' camp. Check on them, and try to retrieve anything useful you find.
[ ][Adventure] Garrison
Double up on watch duty and make sure your warriors are prepared to respond to danger at a moment's notice.
[ ][Adventure] Sneak into your old town
Your former home is a treasure trove of wealth and supplies, though one that's haunted by a vengeful monster. Enter it, grab what you can, then get out.
Industry:
[ ][Industry] Increase fortifications
[ ][Industry] Make rafts
[ ][Industry] Make spare weapons
[ ][Industry] Make tradable goods
Mysticism:
Your new mage has taken one of the shacks for herself. Though she's half-trained and without books or ingredients or established holy sites to make her power stretch further, her knowledge far exceeds the meager scraps you've been able to piece together until now. She knows how to perform lesser rituals, ones that don't stir up the fabric of the world as badly as the grand ones. She can cast spells of divination or limited protection and knows how to make herbal remedies. As she gathers the necessary materials, she will be able to do more for your people.
[ ][Mysticism]Perform a divination
-[ ] Target?
Learn specific information about something nearby, or else receive a flood of vague visions that usually contains one or two pieces of important knowledge.
[ ][Mysticism] Begin consecrating the lake
This lake has a strong connection to your people. For hundreds of years your ancestors fished here and killed monsters to make the fishing safer. Begin the arduous process of transforming it into a lesser sacred site.
[ ][Mysticism]Pour sunlight into firewood
Imbue the wood used for your fires with the light of the sun, to make the flames that much more potent at searing the horrors.
[ ][Mysticism]Abjure insects and other small, unclean things
Purify your camp through aromatic smoke imbued with charms of cleansing and protection.
[ ][Mysticism]Make Wilder Brew
Brew potent grain alcohol that makes those who drink it nearly feral, able to fight without fear and heedless of injury.
Collection
As most of your warriors leave, Sen begins the difficult work of making the lake into a holy place. It's not ideal for the purpose. Though your people had a long history with this lake they didn't truly live here, and though they killed and died on the lake's shores, no one battle stands apart as particularly memorable. Moreover, the only ritual Sen knows by heart will require her to claim the whole of the lake, by setting appropriate anchors into its shores and placing herself at the center. The resulting site will be far more diffuse and harder to use than a proper shrine or temple might be - but then again the sheer size may be an advantage in and of itself.
This is a great undertaking, especially for a half-trained mage and a small and poor village, so the going is slow. For now all that can be done is for her assistants to plant bundles of rowan twigs into the ground, surround them with small piles of acorns, and water them with the blood of small woodland animals and fish. Sen walks between them, tracing designs in the dirt that she carefully dusts with red chalk.
Your warriors trace a path between the resource sites, stopping at each one to clear out any useful tools or leftover materials. Burdened with several unglazed pots filled with half-dried herbs and mushrooms, they approach the river crossing leading to the hunting grounds. Having last crossed the river here less than two weeks ago, they don't expect to encounter any major trouble.
They find the river driving an enormous waterwheel that turns the stones of a mill that wasn't there before. Your warriors huddle in the bushes and a few minutes later the miller emerges onto the roof, nine feet tall and terribly gaunt. As they sink deeper into cover, now very sure that he is at the very least a monster, he strides onto the wheel and runs against its turning for a time, seemingly reveling in its motion. Soaked through with water spray, he steps back onto the roof and throws his too-wide arms open as if reveling in the day.
A noise comes from the opposite side of the building. The monstrous miller jumps down to the ground - an easy enough feat from a creature his height. The stealthiest of your warriors steps out of cover and runs into position to observe as quietly as he can. The miller greets a strange humanoid, hunchbacked and fur-wrapped, looking like someone tried to make a man out of a squirrel or a wolf pup and quit three quarters of the way through. The newcomer is carrying a mutilated deer carcass across its shoulders. The miller grasps the carcass, almost tenderly, and carries it inside. Through a narrow window you catch glimpses of him as he sticks the deer between the great stones. The gap is too narrow for it to fit easily, but the miller uses his great strength to cram it inside, certainly breaking most of the bones in the process. With an echoing grunt he presses the still-rotating stones together, grinding the carcass down.
Your warriors exchange looks. This is a very unusual manifestation, and unusual things are dangerous. Ordinarily you would prefer to give it a wide berth. But you walk the path of valor now, and you can't back away from a challenge.
The slimmest of your warrior approaches the mill, oiled up and dressed in the clothing of your largest warrior, stuffed with leaves and with false arms made from tree branches. As she crosses an invisible boundary, the miller bursts out and seizes her with unnatural speed. She finds herself carried helplessly toward the grinding stones.
But in truth she's not as helpless as she appears. She easily slips out of the oversized clothing, leaving the monster clutching a fake arm. Her true arms were pressed against her body, holding a long knife. She twists while she falls and slashes at the miller's belly. The monster roars in pain and outrage, but she's already tumbling in-between its long legs and slashing at the back of the shins. Though horrors are harder to kill than men, the ones who take bodies of flesh still need their blood and sinews. Too many wounds and they'll stop moving.
Not just yet, though. The miller continues to roar and grasps one of the great rotating beams attached to a stone wheel, ripping it from its moorings and wielding the whole thing like a makeshift club. He chases after your warrior, almost crossing the gap in two steps. But she slips out the door at the last possible moment, and when the monster emerges after her he's hit by a barrage of arrows and spears from the rest of her party. He staggers backward, roars once more, and throws the club in anger. But that proves to be his last act of defiance. Bleeding from a dozen wounds, he slumps over. Almost immediately, his turns dry and brittle and starts falling away. The flesh quickly follows, leaving behind something black and rotten.
Taking a moment to celebrate, your party advances into the mill, on guard against the return on one of the miller's hunters or any other horrors that may be lurking inside the structure itself. But they find only the broken machinery and a wall lined with crude jars. Looking inside, Skylar the warchief finds them filled with brownish red powder. It smells of blood. Skylar offers to bet a week's worth of rations that a mage would find these valuable, but finds no takers.
It is certain that the jars are coming home with your war party, but what is to be done about the mill itself? In fatter times your tribe may find its properties useful, but it's uncertain whether destroying its occupant was enough to render it safe. It may be safer to burn the building to ashes and bury the stones.
[ ] Keep the mill intact
[ ] Destroy it
Returning to the village laden with loot, your war party stays for a night of celebration and vigil, then sets off for the more dangerous mission: your abandoned home town. Approaching the outermost buildings, the party pauses. The monster that turned half of the town to ruins can be neither seen nor heard, but this does not mean it's gone. It may be dormant, or low to the ground, or split into hundreds of individual angry ghosts. The looting must be both swift and cautious. But what is the target?
[ ] Outermost buildings
Never mind going after great prizes. Something as simple as a metal axe or a barrel of salted vegetables is a treasure to your people right now. Snatch what you can easily find and get gone before something finds you.
[ ] The armory
Weapons enough to arm your current tribe twice over and the equipment from the attached smithy. What more could a warrior want?
[ ] The Town Hall
The former meeting place of the Ring still houses many important heirlooms passed down from your ancestors. And, perhaps more importantly, coin and valuables that was to be used for the town's needs lies buried in the meeting chamber.
[ ] The temple ruins
With books of magic and proper reagents, your mage could be much more valuable than she is right now.
Triumphant Return
It's difficult to say what good or harm may come of keeping the watermill intact. If the powder your party looted proves valuable, you hope to manufacture more of it. Yet you don't know for what purpose this mill was created or if destroying the miller foiled that purpose. It may be that you're allowing a dark force to run rampart in your woods, but you are not in a position to turn down any potential advantage.
Upon the party's return, Sen evaluates the powder and confirms its importance. This is dried blood, but preserved in a way that makes it just as good as fresh blood for the purposes of magic. There is a ritual that can do much the same thing, but it's a complicated one. Of course this is just animal blood, so it's not terribly potent in the first place, but it's still a good source of power. Mages can bring some power of their own to bear, but they overwhelmingly prefer to serve as the fulcrum for other forces, be they sacrificial lifeblood, the rays of the sun, or the repetitive patterns of history. With these Sen can perform rituals that would normally be beyond her strength. They would also fetch a good price at any market.
The party has also gathered everything of value at each of the resource sites. They brought half-dried herbs, and salt meant to be used as a preservative, and a great supply of arrows and throwing spears, and special paints and glazes meant for pots, and many good flint stones that can be turned into tools, as well as a few other tools or trinkets. All these things were dropped off before the adventurers set off for the village to empty out their loot bags...and to account for the possibility of them not coming back.
Many of the town's buildings were torn apart by the vengeful gestalt's hunt for their inhabitants. But the temple has been practically obliterated. It is here that the old mage and his apprentices tried to take some sort of a stand. You have no details. All you know is that whatever they tried, it didn't work and it focused the monster's wrath squarely upon them. It's possible that the time it took to so thoroughly destroy the temple was what allowed the people who make up your new village to slip away.
Your warriors dig through the ruins as best they can. By straining to lift a big slab of wall, they uncover a hole that leads them down to the half-collapsed underground levels. Picking through the rubble is a nerve-wracking task; there is a keen awareness that every time a rock is shifted, the noise might attract the thing that caused all this destruction in the first place. It's one thing to risk one's life in battle against the monster and the beast; it's another to lose it to an overwhelming malevolent force and be buried in the rubble before you even know you're in a fight.
Yet, almost surprisingly, everything goes fine. After an hour of searching for books and strange substances, the warriors end up with what looks to be a decent haul of both. Deciding not to press their luck, they retreat in good order and quietly sneak out. It's only as they're well out of the village that one of the warriors peers back and sees something. Not the roiling storm of angry souls hauling around the corpse of a god, but a single woman with a knife sitting on a crumbled wall.
Your warriors spend eight harrowing days camped out in the wilderness, walking back and forth, repeatedly crossing running water and hard earth and leaving behind false tracks. These techniques would work better on humans or animals, but it is hoped that the very effort they make may prove meaningful, even if the results of that effort don't. It's only after they're relatively certain that nothing is following them that they complete the short journey home.
Sen spends a while meditating on the eyewitness account and leafing through her new books. Like your warriors, she is reasonably certain that the knife-wielding woman is the last of the sacrifices; the maiden who opened his belly with a knife. Also like your warriors, Sen is positive that the maiden is no longer human. Having given it a lot of thought, she narrowed down the possibilities to two:
The first is that the souls that destroyed your village have dispersed. Having expended their strength on a rampage, and eager to forget hundreds of years of agony, they might have faded away, leaving behind only a few ghosts, their liberator among them.
The other possibility is more worrying. The swarm of souls seemed formless from the outside, but that didn't mean that every souls within it had equal weight. The last of the sacrifices would freshly dead, her lucidity not destroyed by years spent in a monster's stomach, and she would have just slain a god. She would certainly be the strongest presence within the swarm, by a considerable margin. It's conceivable that as the initial rampage faded she took more and more control, silenced dissenting voices through sheer willpower, and finally absorbing the other souls in the gestalt. If that happened, the power she gained that way would be enough to catapult her to the status of a goddess.
Adventure:
(Select 2 actions)
[ ][Adventure] Run Drills
The difference between true warriors and those who merely hold weapons is grueling, unrelenting practice. Begin the process of forging your fighters into a true warband.
[ ][Adventure] Patrol nearby woods
Get the lay of the land and make sure you spot any encroaching threats in advance.
[ ][Adventure] Scout the trading routes
Walk down the roads to the Grand Trunk, the Raised Valley, and the city of the Tunnel Lords and evaluate their fitness for travel.
[ ][Adventure] Garrison
Double up on watch duty and make sure your warriors are prepared to respond to danger at a moment's notice.
[ ][Adventure] Sneak into your old town
Your former home is a treasure trove of wealth and supplies, though one that's haunted. Enter it, grab what you can, then get out.
Industry:
(Select 1 action)
[ ][Industry] Increase fortifications
[ ][Industry] Make rafts
[ ][Industry] Make spare weapons
[ ][Industry] Make tradable goods
Mysticism:
Sen has immersed herself in study. Many of the tomes your warriors retrieved are reference materials, not really meant to be memorized. And not every one of the tomes survived the assault on the temple. Even so, there is a lifetime's worth of material.
Between the books, the reageants, and the dried blood from the mill, Sen can now perform 1 additional action. She's also learned additional rituals.
(Select 2 action)
[ ][Mysticism]Perform a divination
-[ ] Target?
Learn specific information about something nearby, or else receive a flood of vague visions that usually contains one or two pieces of important knowledge.
[ ][Mysticism] Continue consecrating the lake
The accumulated progress won't automatically fade away if you interapt the process. But over time elements of it may be disrupted.
[ ][Mysticism]Pour sunlight into firewood
Imbue the wood used for your fires with the light of the sun, to make the flames that much more potent at searing the horrors.
[ ][Mysticism]Abjure insects and other small, unclean things
Purify your camp through aromatic smoke imbued with charms of cleansing and protection.
[ ][Mysticism]Make Wilder Brew
Brew potent grain alcohol that makes those who drink it nearly feral, able to fight without fear and heedless of injury.
[ ] [Mysticism] Guardian Dolls
Grant a temporary semblance of life to dolls woven from cloth or straw. Should an enemy wander near them, they will make alarmed sounds and try to cling to the enemy's face.
[ ] [Mysticism] Messenger Bird
Coerce a bird into delivering a message to a nearby, known place.
[ ] [Mysticism] Untangle the Snarls
Reach into the unseen world and bring it in order, accelerating the time when it's safe to hold another Festival.