[X] Plan "A Month of Study — The Ways of Longevity"
[X] Improve Defenses
[X] Zhu Long
[X] Immortality
[X] Improve Defenses
[X] Zhu Long
[X] Immortality
The Bringham Society (A Lovecraftian Horror Quest)
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
There's a final level of obsession she might plausibly reach. The best way to keep a heart close to her heart would be surgical...
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Fusion/Consumption by it was something I had considered as a plausible end to the obsession yeah.
In the sense, the main reason why I am okay to spring this mine now - aside from the fact that our schedule is clear and we have nothing pressing on our hand and no target of opportunities to deal with - is that I am basing the vote from how the meeting with Childe Ellery went:
It's almost clear that the Organ is a Star Things artifact, which well, some of you might have forgotten and I forgot to mention it but uh:
It's a whole seperate lore and while it seems that LeBlanc - or indeed, the Society - haven't encountered it, it's almost certainly something related to her lineage.
So if indeed she would have the heart be hers and hers truly? Well at least there's no compatibility issues
Pathetic King
"I Speak To The Audient Void."
- Location
- Colorado
[X] Plan "A Month of Study — The Ways of Longevity"
[X] Improve Defenses
[X] Zhu Long
[X] Immortality
[X] Improve Defenses
[X] Zhu Long
[X] Immortality
- Location
- United States
[X] Plan "A Month of Study — Ticking to The Stars"
[X] Improve Defenses
[X] Theresa Gail Atwater
[X] Mastery
Torn between Protection and Mastery tbh, Protection seems unambitious, whereas Mastery seems more prone to a loss of focus.
I really don't see much point in trying to ensure the Immortality of our members when playing as a society, since just managing net recruitment guarantees our immortality. And trying to learn stuff that makes us go crazy for its own sake without an actual goal doesn't seem very wise to me.
[X] Improve Defenses
[X] Theresa Gail Atwater
[X] Mastery
Torn between Protection and Mastery tbh, Protection seems unambitious, whereas Mastery seems more prone to a loss of focus.
I really don't see much point in trying to ensure the Immortality of our members when playing as a society, since just managing net recruitment guarantees our immortality. And trying to learn stuff that makes us go crazy for its own sake without an actual goal doesn't seem very wise to me.
Well, to be fair none of what we're doing is wise. And we do have one explicit example of someone who succeeded in the Knowledge goal, in a way - the mysterious Morris of the occult bookstore. So, you know, it's not entirely a doomed prospect.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've been thinking for a while of the inter-relatedness of three things we have acquired which form a sort of Temporal threat related to the Hidden History, including the Hidden History itself.
We first acquired the Travel Diary of Ashley Robert Enoch in the early parts of April of 1923, and within its pages was described a journey to America. It is a descent into madness across continents that are not known and sections were written before itself and there are bits where causality itself is forgotten, described first in understandable tongues, which were then eventually replaced with scrawlings in languages the poor madman should not have known.
What he described was history and places that appeared nowhere in any typical text of history, seemingly hidden and erased from our knowledge. When we finished examining it in August of '23 we realized the barest inklings of the extent of what it called the Hidden History. Lies and secrets and strange inconsistencies which hid the truth of the past from the modern eye. And it was found, impossibly, in the coffin of an Irishman who died five centuries ago.
By itself it paints a disturbing picture. However the secrets here are only the barest speck of what exists.
And we may only be able to find traces of entire centuries of time because of the rather damnable pest and infestation from the Moths. These are not like any of the tangible living moths with which we might be familiar, instead being an incorporeal entity which lives in the minds and skulls of its prey. There the Moths feed off their prey's ideas and memories until nothing is left, though when forcibly expelled by those with strong wills and strong minds their physical manifestation does carry certain similarities to the more harmless living moths we know. We first encountered these creatures in May, though we did not know it at the time, when some of the Society's members traveled below Bringham University into its Crawling Caverns and brought one back. There we also found a worm-fed corpse of one of the Lampsmen, a member of a secret society who had been destroyed by the Moths so thoroughly that even the idea of their existence had been removed from history. Consumed. Much of the Hidden History might be hidden by their animalistic, instinctive feeding on the very idea of cultures and entire people's existing.
And in August Gabriel traveled to the City of Angels and tracked down the rumors of the crew of a Japanese whaling ship from fifty years ago who told strange stories of an Emperor in the East. What they spoke of added another, terrifying facet to this mystery. They spoke of the Men of Glass and the Emperors of Qin who fought them and the Dragons that fought an Enemy like no other. The Men of Glass seem to be conquering histories, on Earths not the Society's own. In the month of September members of the Society traveled to the Clocktower Saint Andrew off the coast of Scotland, where there was a clock that supposedly counted down to the arrival of the Men of Glass. A horrible place, inhabited by even more terrible monks and some kind of strange ticking creature which lived within the flesh of the Abbot and does not rest easy in death.
But how much more to the Hidden History exists if we might have had more of these intrusions from other histories and other Earths? How much is lost because of the Moths?
My supposition is as I have outlined above, that there are basically three layers to the mystery of the Hidden History. One is the active efforts to lie and hide certain things from the future which is specifically mentioned in the Travel Diary. One are the Moths who have been eating history like candy. The third is the strong evidence that there a huge number of timelines and powers to travel through them as described in the Men of Glass. These are all basically part of one greater mystery I think.
And that basically, our primary source of threats are Temporal. Some horrible thing might crawl out of one of our Expeditions to these strange places described by the Travel Diary. We have to prepare for the doom the Men of Glass bring with them.
We first acquired the Travel Diary of Ashley Robert Enoch in the early parts of April of 1923, and within its pages was described a journey to America. It is a descent into madness across continents that are not known and sections were written before itself and there are bits where causality itself is forgotten, described first in understandable tongues, which were then eventually replaced with scrawlings in languages the poor madman should not have known.
What he described was history and places that appeared nowhere in any typical text of history, seemingly hidden and erased from our knowledge. When we finished examining it in August of '23 we realized the barest inklings of the extent of what it called the Hidden History. Lies and secrets and strange inconsistencies which hid the truth of the past from the modern eye. And it was found, impossibly, in the coffin of an Irishman who died five centuries ago.
By itself it paints a disturbing picture. However the secrets here are only the barest speck of what exists.
And we may only be able to find traces of entire centuries of time because of the rather damnable pest and infestation from the Moths. These are not like any of the tangible living moths with which we might be familiar, instead being an incorporeal entity which lives in the minds and skulls of its prey. There the Moths feed off their prey's ideas and memories until nothing is left, though when forcibly expelled by those with strong wills and strong minds their physical manifestation does carry certain similarities to the more harmless living moths we know. We first encountered these creatures in May, though we did not know it at the time, when some of the Society's members traveled below Bringham University into its Crawling Caverns and brought one back. There we also found a worm-fed corpse of one of the Lampsmen, a member of a secret society who had been destroyed by the Moths so thoroughly that even the idea of their existence had been removed from history. Consumed. Much of the Hidden History might be hidden by their animalistic, instinctive feeding on the very idea of cultures and entire people's existing.
And in August Gabriel traveled to the City of Angels and tracked down the rumors of the crew of a Japanese whaling ship from fifty years ago who told strange stories of an Emperor in the East. What they spoke of added another, terrifying facet to this mystery. They spoke of the Men of Glass and the Emperors of Qin who fought them and the Dragons that fought an Enemy like no other. The Men of Glass seem to be conquering histories, on Earths not the Society's own. In the month of September members of the Society traveled to the Clocktower Saint Andrew off the coast of Scotland, where there was a clock that supposedly counted down to the arrival of the Men of Glass. A horrible place, inhabited by even more terrible monks and some kind of strange ticking creature which lived within the flesh of the Abbot and does not rest easy in death.
But how much more to the Hidden History exists if we might have had more of these intrusions from other histories and other Earths? How much is lost because of the Moths?
My supposition is as I have outlined above, that there are basically three layers to the mystery of the Hidden History. One is the active efforts to lie and hide certain things from the future which is specifically mentioned in the Travel Diary. One are the Moths who have been eating history like candy. The third is the strong evidence that there a huge number of timelines and powers to travel through them as described in the Men of Glass. These are all basically part of one greater mystery I think.
And that basically, our primary source of threats are Temporal. Some horrible thing might crawl out of one of our Expeditions to these strange places described by the Travel Diary. We have to prepare for the doom the Men of Glass bring with them.
It might also be worth remembering that the entities named only as Them are still around and relatively active, even if our paths haven't directly crossed so far. We've had several recruits that have encountered (and stole from) Them before, and I'm inclined to think we'll have to tangle with Them eventually. Not to mention whatever the Dragonfly/Tigerlily/Vejovis is, since we've also begun to see it and its influence more often. The Stars and the Worm + Worm-Fed I'd say are kind of a secondary concern threat-wise, as they both seem to be somewhat passive - although given what we know of LeBlanc I'd wager that might change soon.
Of course, we also know about Irem and the Dreamcrow, but honestly we haven't been focusing on those two much so who knows what can of worms they are. I'd recommend pursuing the former soonish though, just so Mr. Yasir doesn't get ticked off (if he even can be) that we're ignoring the dreams he's had for like 4 months now.
Of course, we also know about Irem and the Dreamcrow, but honestly we haven't been focusing on those two much so who knows what can of worms they are. I'd recommend pursuing the former soonish though, just so Mr. Yasir doesn't get ticked off (if he even can be) that we're ignoring the dreams he's had for like 4 months now.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh! That reminds me! The Tigerlily is mentioned in strange histories similar to how the Men of Glass are described in the description of Alexandria The Furthest.
Its not exactly odd that a god like thing, or just a god, could extend across multiple timelines. This connection to the Hidden History was noted by @Vocalend. There is also a connection between the Dragonfly and The Dreamcrow in the River People Expedition to find what offended them both so greatly. Its unclear if The Dreamcrow has temporal elements but given the strangeness of dreams its entirely likely that there is. At the very least both of these entities were hidden by the activities which create the Hidden History.
Now that you mention it, I actually find it pretty interesting that both The Dreamcrow and Dragonfly were offended, because from what we know the latter is a cruel, capricious creature while the former is kind of chill (although this might just be a mistaken impression since we've had no direct contact with the Crow). They seem pretty different personality wise and I'm pretty sure they prioritise different things, with the Dreamcrow pursuing the path of Knowledge and the Tigerlily... I guess the path of War? Or Mastery, the Cannibal Way sounds like something it'd like although there's no direct proof. I'm really curious about whatever grave sin it was that the River People committed now.
This entire universe is a horror movie.
Turn 7: October, 1923
- Location
- Texas
October, 1923
Theresa dabbed gently, moving the brush in slow, careful strokes. It was all coming together before her eyes, this time. The strokes flew faster as she felt the inspiration take her. Here, a splash of color, there an intriguing swirl, there a fleck of darkness to draw the eye, and...there. She grinned and stepped back to admire her work.
"Oh." Her heart sank. All the individual pieces which she had thought were so inspiring were...decidedly not, when taken as a whole. The splashes of color were jarring. The swirls were bewildering, not intriguing, and the flecks did not draw the eye but rather stung it.
Theresa studied the painting a moment more, then sighed good-naturedly. "Next time, I suppose. One can't be awful at painting forever. Right, Mr. Birch?"
She turned to the dark-haired man lounging on the couch behind her. His eyes were fixed intently on her and her painting, and he offered her a sort of smile as she turned.
"No, of course not, Theresa. But you know I find your paintings wonderful." He smiled again, but it did not reach his eyes. Those were sad. They always were.
Birch was an...interesting man, Theresa thought. She had met him at an art gallery, when he had bought several of her unsold paintings — all of them, in fact. She'd almost thought it some sort of mad joke, but over the next few weeks, Birch had doted on her, becoming her patron of a sort and encouraging her to do new work, which he then bought at a ridiculous rate. When she had told him that a Boston waitress couldn't afford to spend all her time painting, he had bought her family's home out from under their landlord and gifted it to her parents.
It was insane. He was insane. Theresa was no idiot — her work, much as she loved it, was not enough to get her into any art school in the country, much less win a wealthy patron who solved all of her problems like something out of a storybook. For a time, she had thought maybe he fancied her, but she had been fancied before, and Birch never looked at her like that — though he did look at her often. She would catch him sometimes, studying her with those sad eyes of his, as if looking for something. Waiting for something, rather.
Despite all of that, she liked him. He spoke softly, and was slow to laugh, but he was not an altogether terrible person to be around — in fact, he could be quite nice sometimes, when she got him to crack open that sad shell of his. He told her about the places he had been and the things he had seen, all the countries he had traveled and the lands he had explored. It was, in a word, amazing, and her eyes danced with stars to hear his stories — though she could not help but feel like there were parts he was leaving out.
But yes, she liked the explorer. She might perhaps even call him a friend.
"Theresa." Birch began, shaking her out of her reverie, "Has anyone ever told you that you're quite special?"
She thought on it, then laughed. "No, Mr. Birch. I don't believe they ever have. I'm just...me."
"I've told you, call me Gabriel." Birch shifted in his seat, and tugged at his collar. It was quite cool inside, Theresa noted. "And, well, I work with some people who think you're very special indeed."
Theresa blinked."What?"
"There's a whole world out there you couldn't imagine. Things you couldn't possibly dream. You can leave all of this behind. You will never have to go hungry again. You could travel, as I do. You could be free." He sounded like there was something catching in his throat, and he could not meet her eyes.
Theresa laughed again. "Now there's a nice thought. Mr. Birch —oh, excuse me, Gabriel— you're not usually one for jokes. What's gotten into you?"
Birch took a long breath, as if he had made an awful decision, then rose from his chair and met her gaze. For the first time since she had met him, his eyes were not sad. They glinted with something unfathomable, and quite terrible. Theresa's laughter died on her lips.
"Theresa, how would you like to live forever?"
(Birch: 4 Horror Gained)
(Birch: Trait Gained: Guilty)
Guilty: This character's sins hang heavy around their neck. They have done something they believe to be truly abominable. Were there some fairness to the world, they might even be judged for it.
The ballroom greets you, scarlet and terrible, as you file in once more. Birch is followed by a young woman with dark brown hair tied back into a braid. Her eyes are curious, and far too bright. The red jewels on the chandelier gleam in anticipation as she enters. The candles are lit, the blood is drawn, and the unspeakable words are said. When the ceremony is done, her face is icy and pale, and the brightness in her eyes has grown just a bit harsher.
New Member Gained: Theresa Gail Atwater.
The society's plans and ambitions have began to unfurl across the world in the last month. The tempo of your ambitions has changed, for you now have a concrete goal around which to organize yourselves. You will ascend the studded heights of mortality. You will overcome the curse of flesh, and defy time and tide itself. You will be as the cats and the rats are, and as the Worm once was. You will walk one of the blasphemous Ways that were Forbidden when the rivers were young.
You will be, forever.
Guided by Yasir's mysterious dreams, Harcourt and a small band of local guides have ventured into the high passes of the Andes, seeking a way to the city in the sands. The mountains at the throat of the world are ancient and perilous, and it will take Harcourt many weeks to find the forgotten trail of which Yasir has dreamed -- if indeed it exists. Yasir himself has spent the month in his quarters in Mammon Place, locked in study with the perplexing artefact known as the Dragon-Mirror. It offers glimpses --some tantalizing, some terrifying-- into a world which is not quite unlike our own, if our own was wrong. He reports visions of a China, or a land like China, locked in a great struggle with mad degenerate empires of bone and silver, ruled by a race of men who are men no more. Their skins, he says with wonder, shine through all the worlds like frosted glass.
The visions are not linked temporally, and rather show images from across the history of this world, often from different centuries or continents. There is only one vision which has recurred in the Mirror, and continues to do so constantly: a tall emperor with proud scarlet eyes and a forked beard, wearing a robe of brilliant yellow silk, who does not need to eat, or drink, or breathe. He is not human, but takes the form of a man when it so suits him. The people of this other-China name him the Dragon, for their language has no words to describe what he truly is.
It is the Dragon, Yasir says, to whom the mirror belongs, and the visions are the story of his life. He is --or rather, was-- an enemy of the Men of Glass, perhaps the greatest, and in other histories he becomes something not unlike a god, and in other ways not unlike a star. In the mirror-history, he is slain after lifetimes of war by those who walk shining, and his heart is carved into nine pieces, which are then devoured. The mirror-visions suggest, impossibly, that he is not quite dead -- or that if he is, it may not always be so. His children, however, survive his downfall, and are hunted broken and burning across the worlds, shedding their memories and their skins as they flee.
Yasir has seen the true form of the thing they called the Dragon. He will never forget the shape of it, not until his bones are dust.
Sometimes, there is something like fear in his eyes, now.
Lore Encountered: The Dragon: In another history, something that was decidedly not human ruled in the Middle-Kingdom for lifetimes untold, waging a terrible war against the Men of Glass -- and may yet rule there again. The Dragon is dead, at least as men understand death, but his children live still, and have fled, desperate, into other skins and other times. Their hunters' hounds are many-limbed and silver, and there is no pity in their eyes.
(Yasir: 40 Horror Gained)
The esteemed and noble Lady Leblanc steps up to deliver her report next. Her skin is flush and vibrant, a rosy color that is not wholly earthly. There is something solar about her eyes, and she seems somehow taller. She reports that to further her research, she has taken the Starry Organ with her on her travels and journeys over the past month, often leaving it by her bedside or on her mantel as she sleeps. She has traced the plot of this strange thing across the valleys and the hills and the continents -- and all the while her own connection to it has deepened. It speaks to her now, she says, in a way that is hard to put into words. It speaks rather in visions of the heavens: images from across the starry gulfs, dreams of roaring stars and fantastical nebulae. It lives, though not as we know life, and it thinks, though not as we know thought. It is not of this world, or of any world we could imagine, though it has dwelt upon our world since the days of the wheel and fire. It survives off of a certain energy given by living creatures, particularly humans, and provides something of the stars in return -- a stellar parasite of alien origin and alien thought, dwelling inside the bodies of it's hosts, prolonging their lives and changing their skins as it does so.
It is not unkind. It loves, if such a thing can be said to love as we understand it.
It also thinks 'Organ' is too impersonal.
Artefact Gained: The Starry Heart: This strange 'heart' came from a man who was not quite a man. It is warm still, and pulses and beats with a heat not of this earth. It's colors --for it has colors, though they cannot be described-- change with the waxing and waning of the moon, it hums with an almost imperceptible drone, and when cut, it bleeds something not unlike light, but not unlike blood. It bears a marked and troubling resemblance to images found in the stained glass windows of a heretical Church in the Spanish hinterlands, and also to perplexing diagrams from the religious texts of a certain Berber tribe. If you spend too much time around it, your heart will begin to beat in time with it's tune. It is a symbiotic beast from the timeless gulfs of space, a stellar parasite that drinks deeply (of what, it is a mystery) from men and gives something of it's own in return. It is ancient and enigmatic, paradoxical and alien. It is calming, and it loves you.
Stephanos returns. He has performed the ritual, as asked. At the appointed day on the appointed time, he inscribed certain runes on his his tongue, silenced his heart, and drew an impossible circle of marrow and yew. Something like Jon Stephanus left his flesh and walked in that place which no occultist may safely name aloud: the place where all is quiet. Whispering, he made an awful promise with those who dwell in silence, the particulars of which can never be spoken. His bones will smolder for a time when he is dead.
He has seen the shape of the world to come. Stephanos' voice is imperceptibly softer, the sharp-eared among you note. His skill in The Rituals has grown.
+5 to all rolls for one turn
Stephanos has also examined the Abbot, or the thing that was the Abbot. With the insight from Yasir's own study of the mirror, he has determined that it is a servant, or a slave, of those who are called the Men of Glass. Like it's masters, it, and those like it, dance through histories other than it's own. It is many-limbed, though just how many is impossible to tell, though not for lack of trying. Stephanos admits he began to weep after his tenth attempt. It is silver, like a knife's edge glinting, or like razor wires in the sun. It is not, he has determined after many weeks of investigation, wholly here -- it is a creature of maybes and could-have-beens, that exists in planes and histories other than our own. In this history, Yasir and Harcourt slew it off the coast of Scotland, but that is only one history, and there are many. To us, it is dead, most certainly -- but we may catch at times awful glimpses of those histories where it lives still, shifting, pitiless, and silver.
Stephanus finishes by mentioning that his research into the Moths goes slowly, but promisingly, and that by the next time the Society convenes, he should have tangible results. He cedes the floor to Birch, who rises and spins a tale that will stand among the Society's strangest.
Armed with the knowledge of the creature's origins, Birch has ventured to the dreadful isle where stands the antediluvian clocktower, aged and awful, looming black over the Scottish coasts. There is a facsimile of human life within -- beds, kitchens, and a small library with an adjoining abbey. But it is all wrong, Birch says. The beds are bare, without sheets or covers, and are covered in the thick dust of decades. The kitchen is bare and the cupboards are filled with straw. The books in the library are filled with empty pages. Everything is constructed as to give the impression, to a casual viewer, that those who live within are human, that they eat and sleep and drink as men do. But the abominable monks and their awful Abbot were anything but human, and their facsimile of humanity is a cruel mockery.
But this paled to what awaited Birch on the upper floors of the clocktower. As Birch advanced up the tower, things grew less...certain. He could no longer trust his senses, or his memory. The tower has only three floors, yet he swears he climbed at least a dozen, each more baffling and perplexing than the last. One room was ringed with mirrors, yet each showed a different reflection, each of Birch at different ages. Another was empty save for a window, but the shore which lay beyond the window was not the coast of Scotland, or the shore of any land on God's Earth. At times, Birch swore he could hear footsteps behind him as he walked. He recalls an awful moment when he turned quickly to gaze at the source of the sound -- and was met with a view of himself, turned to gaze back at a third Birch -- who, himself, was turned staring at another Birch, and so on and so on in an awful kaleidoscope that stretched on into infinity. He says they all screamed, then.
Birch swears he spent many long days in that tower, and yet he returned from Scotland in less than a week. His water and food ran out, or so he swears, and he was forced to procure more. Exactly how he did this, he has not said. He will not speak of what else he saw in those awful days, save that he came at long last to the top floor of the tower. There he found the Clock (which was not a clock at all) and saw it's truth.
The Clocktower is an anchor, of a sort, a thing beyond our imagining. It exists, like the Abbot, in the then and the now, and in distant, awful aeons yet to come. Long years from now, countless and numberless days in the future, the beings known as the Men of Glass will walk shining upon our world, and build in their time an abominable clocktower off the coast of what was once Scotland. This tower will stand --does stand, has stood --backwards and forwards through our history, an impossible anchor through all the days of our Earth.
The Men of Glass are not coming.
They are here.
They have always been.
We just do not know it yet.
(Birch: 16 Horror Gained)
Over the course of the month, while the Society at large has been traveling and exploring, your members have also entertained at Mammon Place a few of the more illustrious and well-off member of upper society, men and women who have expressed a certain interest in the higher mysteries of the world. These men and women are given to wild desires and debased proclivities, which they must hide from the public world, and from the legal authorities. They indulge in hedonistic pleasures that are frowned upon by most, and these pleasures oftentimes stray into the esoteric and the deranged.
They do not know, of course, what they seek. Their idea of control is an illusion. But as any occultist will tell you, illusions are important. They come to Mammon Place, and engage in their petty revels. They feast in the room with the blood-red chandelier that has tasted of greater debaucheries than they will ever imagine. They play at being sadists -- silly little games with whips and knives and bone-carved things. They are masked and nude, and they imagine they are monsters.
When they are done, they pay you a great deal.
One of them is not quite satisfied. There is a greater hunger in his eyes. He leaves his card in the foyer.
Option Unlocked: Contact A Libertine
Moorham and Sons is a legal interest established in New England at the turn of the century. They act as go-betweens for certain parties with interests in the occult who would rather not have said interests made known. From governments to businessmen, they have many clients across the globe, and their neutrality, skill, and devotion to their clients has made them among the premier names in the occult world in recent years. When you reach out to contact them, they reply shortly with a letter printed on a crisp white piece of paper that smells, faintly, of roses.
There are clients of theirs who wish to obtain certain things. If you can retrieve these things, you will be very well compensated. A contract will be signed, of course. Breaking it will not be in your best interest, and neither will failing to deliver. Once taken, you will have precisely four months to complete a contract.
Information:
[] Somewhere in the American midwest, there is a place where cats do not grow old. (Gossip)
--[] Assign A Member
[] In a certain Mongolian plateau, ghosts walk at night. (Rumor)
--[] Assign A Member
[] There is a place in China where some do not die. (Rumor)
--[] Assign A Member
[] A professor at a university in a distant land has stumbled on a troubling set of formulae that scratch at the back of his eyes. He has aged years in days, and his skin glows with starfire. (Gossip)
--[] Assign A Member
[] Rumors abound -- there is a tortured poet who speaks in strange tongues. In moments of lucidity, he claims there are worlds in his skull. (Hearsay)
--[] Assign A Member
Discovery:
[] Thebes: There stood in Greece in ancient times a city called Thebes. There stood in Egypt in ancient times a second city, called also Thebes. Enoch says there stood in ancient times a third Thebes, and the other two feared it mightily.
--[] Assign A Member
[] Where It Fell: A star fell to Earth in the time of the Roman Emperor Elagabalus. They say it bent the world and shone with the light of the gods. In some histories, mad Enoch tells you, the emperor swallowed it and became a star himself -- some say the very star that fell. Where it fell still burns.
--[] Assign A Member
[] The Ten Thousand: In antiquity, the elite spearmen known as the Ten Thousand Immortals served the Shahs of Iran. Their name, some irreputable histories tell us, was not an exaggeration.
--[] Assign A Member
Expedition:
[] The Lake: A frozen lake in the north of Europe. Here, Enoch says, is where the Worm first came to Earth, and where they slew it a second time. Its bones lie beneath, but be wary, for its children swarm the water. Crack the ice and see the Worm in all her glory.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Mausoleum: There is a place in the desert where the Mughal rajas buried their honored wives. One in particular, Enoch says, was honored here. They demolished the temple, after, but the catacombs still run deep beneath the sand. Strike the earth, and you may find what they loved and feared.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Black Hills: The Romans killed many when they conquered ancient Gaul. What they murdered in these black hills took three legions to kill. Go to the place where they fell, and you may find where it died. Targarung roars.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] Alexandria The Furthest: In some histories, Alexander the Great made it as far as China. In some histories, the city he founded there grew to become the mightiest of all cities. In some histories, they worshipped a vain and mighty god indeed, and conquered the world in his name. Something of their history bleeds into ours, Enoch suggests, like fresh paintings running together. Go to the place where it would have stood, and you may catch a glimpse of the Dragonfly, called also in our world the Tigerlily.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The River People: In the dawn of mankind, there lived a certain people on the banks of the River Indus. Their very names have been scoured from history ten times over, and their crimes will never be forgiven. Something of them still remains, however. Dig the earth and find their cities, and you may learn of the sin that so offended both the Dreamcrow and the Dragonfly.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Crawling Caves: The catacombs beneath the university are truly cavernous. They run deeper than humans ever delved, and the worms feed on those who have gone too deep. There is something deeper still.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Cobalt Lodge: The ancient redoubt of the Boreal Order, home to six centuries of occult lore and research. It is protected by wards of living light and deathless knights who long ago gave their flesh and their spirits to serve their homeland even in death. It is not located entirely on this world. There are spirits of living winter chained to its' walls, cursed to protect it until the stars die out, and some of the mightiest occultists in the world await within, armed with artifacts of untold power. Unless you are incredibly well-armed and have powerful friends, attacking this place would be a very, very bad idea. But you could try.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Church of the Dragonfly: There is a church in the heart of Germany where an abominable faith is practiced. It's adherents sacrifice their limbs to a terrible being that might be called a sort of god. His attention is elsewhere, for now. It might fall, at great cost -- his servants are zealous and cruel, and will give their lives for him.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] There is another, darker place, in the shadow of the Valley of the Kings, where they buried those pharaohs whose names had been excised. They are nameless, certain histories suggest, because names have power, even after death.Pharaoh has risen again in the sky. He is crowned as Lord of the Horizon. He has smashed the back-bones, and has seized the hearts of the gods. Pharaoh feeds on the lungs of the wise. And likes to live on hearts and their magic.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
Study:
[] Study The Starry Heart: This heart beats with an otherworldly strength. It's light is not of this earth. It's heat is not of these stars. It loves, and can be loved. What else can it feel?
-[] AssignA Member LeBlanc
[] Study The Abbot's Corpse: The corpse is dead, to us, but not elsewhere and not always. Examine the Abbot's corpse and see if you can wrap your minds around it's stranger properties.
-[] Assign A Member
[] Study The Dragon-Mirror: The Mirror's story has been told, but something more may be wrung from it.
[] Study A Moth-Riddled Tome: This book is useless now as a book. As a study of what destroyed the Lampsmen, it may yet prove useful.
-[] Assign A Member
[] Hidden History: Now that you understand what hides beneath the skin of history, you can pore through old tomes and irreputable histories of the sort written by madmen for clues as to ancient things long forgotten. This will require great effort and expense, however. (2 turns, -10 Wealth, gain 1d5 Expeditions/Discoveries)
[] The Clocktower of Saint Andrew: The tower that stands off the coast of Scotland is older than mankind. It is perhaps older than the earth. How did it come to be here, and what lies within it's walls? The Society claims we conquered it. This a pleasant lie. The tower is not so easily mastered by men, not as we are now. You understand it's awful purpose, at least somewhat. Perhaps this purpose may be perverted to your own ends.
-[] Assign A Member
The Arcane:
(Note: You may pick as many Arcane options as you want, but remember that Arcana takes two turns to regenerate)
[] Divination: Bargain with something not quite dead and not quite living for a glimpse of what might be. (-2 Arcana, +5 to all rolls for a turn) All is silent.
[] Explore the Dreamscape: Beyond the gate of bone lies a burning city of dreams. A place of song and mystery, a land where painters and madmen alike find inspiration, a kaleidoscopic jumble of reals and unreals and smoldering impossibilities -- the Dreamscape is many things. There are secrets in it's depths, if you are brave enough to delve for them. (-1 Arcana)
--[] Assign a Member
[] The War-Words: As every occultist knows, there are rituals for those going to battle. Dance the dance and speak the words, and fill your hearts with a murderer's flame. These are the war-words. (+3 to all combat rolls for the selected Society member next turn. -1 Arcana)
[] Who Came Before: Many have died in Mammon Place. Their spirits have been bent to terrible purpose. Free them, and grant them new death. (Releases Wraiths, frees up Summoning slot)
[] And In Darkness Bind Them: You summon several lesser souls drifting too near to the veil, and bind them to your service. They will aid you in all things until they are released. (+1 Arcana permanently until the spirits are released, bonus to all research, combat, and exploration rolls, may change outcomes story-wise)
[] A Mortal Bargain: You may lease a bit of your souls out to something other, in exchange for power and success. (-3 Arcana, pick a single non-expedition vote and it is an unequivocal success. The cost of this vote will increase by two with each use.)
[] A Mortal Loan: You may borrow power, for a time. But all debts will come due. (Gain 10 Arcana, that regenerates twice as quickly as normal (so one turn). In 10 Turns, your debt will come due, with interest. If you cannot pay it, there will be consequences.)
[] A Mortal Trade: Nothing comes from nothing. Give something of value, and you will gain something of value. (Select an Artifact to sacrifice. In exchange, gain 5 non-renewing Arcana instantly)
Miscellaneous (Pick Two):
[] Buy Interesting Information: You reach out into the underworld and pay for the latest rumors of things which might interest the Society. It costs money to weed the wheat from the chaff, but it may be worth it. (-5 Wealth) (One piece of information is guaranteed Rumor level or higher next turn)
[] Cancel Contractors: You no longer have need of extra hands around the city, freeing up funds for other things. (-1 Miscellanous option a turn, +1 Wealth a turn)
[] Reach Out: The Society needs wealthy patrons if it is to survive. Reach out and try to get some more. (-2 Influence)
[] Contact A Libertine: There is a man of certain proclivities in New York City. The pleasures of regular society are not enough for him. He hungers, and he will pay. (Gain 1d10 Suspicion) (+20 Wealth) (Chance of gaining Influence)
[] Gain Leverage: It has been said that knowledge is power. For certain people, it is more. There are secrets men would die to keep secret. (-10 Wealth)(Chance of gaining 1d20 Influence and unlocking the Blackmail option)
[] Backdoor Channels: Getting stuff done is easier if you ignore the legality of certain things. (-5 Wealth) (All non-study actions take 1 less turn. Increases Suspicion)
[] Canvass Students: You search among the young and fresh-minded students of Bringham University for potential recruits to the Society. The University has a certain way of attracting people. (Low chance of discovering potential recruits)
[] Seduce Socialites: Wealthy, bored, and capable of magnificent cruelty. The scions of the wealthy prove a valuable breeding ground for occultists of all stripes -- men and women who, bored of the pleasures of regular life, seek out more exotic fancies. (Chance of discovering potential recruits) (-1 Influence) (+2 Suspicion)
[] Enoch's Names: There are certain people now living named in Enoch's travel diary who were not yet born when he died. If you use the Diary as a map and track them down, who knows what you may find. (Medium Chance of discovering potential recruits)(???)(Takes ??? Turns) They were hidden for a reason. Do not bring them together. They were hidden for a reason. Do not bring them together. THEY WERE HIDDEN FOR A REASON.
[] Inside Connections: Everything is easier when you have people with their ear to the ground for you in the places you'd like. You've already got some, but more might be beneficial. (-10 Wealth)(Low chance of acquiring an Informant)
[] A Visit To The Morris Collection: There is a library whose halls are unnaturally silent, and whose shelves are filled with books of a different sort. It's owners are extremely particular. If you pay an exorbitant amount, they may allow you to enter. If you pay more still, they may let you leave with something. You must know what you are looking for -- they will not let you enter otherwise. (-12 Wealth) (Gain one random book artifact of a lore you already know)
[] Call An Appraiser From Ivary's: The Ivary clan can send someone to examine the artifacts currently in your possession and assign them a material worth, making sale possible.
[] Hire an Agent: There are skilled people in the mortal world who, while not immersed in the occult, are well-equipped to handle it's mysteries. For a certain sum and regular payment, you might be able to employ one of these into your service for the time being. (An agent is a fully-fledged character with their own skills and traits that can be sent on expeditions or discovery missions, but costs money per turn to employ)
[] Influence: The Society is now possessed of enough money and influence to attempt to manipulate events around the world in their favor.
--[] The Brazilian Government has uncovered an artefact of considerable age, said to be related to the Worm-Lore. Force them to relinquish it. (-5 Influence, -5 Wealth)
--[] A Russian expedition has found the tomb of a Mongol conqueror recorded in no modern history. The seals upon it are written in the blasphemous tongue of the Vejovites. Force them to turn the expedition over to you. (-7 Influence, -4 Wealth)
--[] A Star fell to Earth in America. The authorities reached it before you, but that is of no matter if you know the right people. (-7 Influence)
--[] There are people of wealth and power who are in your debt. Push on them. (-8 Influence, Gain 1d3 Artefacts next turn, Gain 11 Suspicion)
--[] A lost paper here. A shredded document there. A dead man there. It will be like you were never here at all. (-10 Influence, -10 Suspicion)
The Bringham Society
- Society Ledger
- Society Roster
- Agents
- Artefacts
- Lore
- Groups of Interest
- Misc
The days grow shorter and the nights grow longer. The fires grow dim, and the awful darkness of the timeless gulfs weaves in close and tight about the world of man. These, then, are the wicked hours which the ancients feared.
The Fomorians stride forth from the abyssal deeps of time.
Samhain is nigh.
The Fomorians stride forth from the abyssal deeps of time.
Samhain is nigh.
Plan "A Month of Study — Ticking to The Stars"
-[] Yasir has had dreams of a city in the sands. The path to the city begins in the Andes, in a forgotten pass deep within the mountains. You could always pay a few scouts to see if his dreams have any truth to them (-5 Wealth) (Finished in 2 Turns)
--[] Jackson Harcourt
-[] Study The Starry Organ: This organ beats with an otherworldly strength. It's light is not of this earth. It's heat is not of these stars. It loves, and can be loved. What else can it feel?
--[] Isadora LeBlanc
-[] Study The Abbot's Corpse: The corpse is dead. Most certainly. It just moves out of the corner of your eye at times, and in your dreams you may see it as it was in life: many-clawed and silver-eyed, hateful and awful. It yearns to return whence it came.
--[] Jon Stephanos
-[] The Clocktower of Saint Andrew: The tower that stands off the coast of Scotland is older than mankind. It is perhaps older than the earth. How did it come to be here, and what lies within it's walls? The Society claims we conquered it. This a pleasant lie. The tower is not so easily mastered by men, not as we are now.
--[] Gabriel Birch
-[] Study The Dragon-Mirror: What lies through the mirror may have passed, or may yet come to pass. Studying it may yet provide insight.
--[] Al-Athari
-[] Magical Warding: Stephanus has thrown up a few basic detection wards, but with time he could daub the walls with blood-infused runes that repel any but those the Society has chosen to let enter. This will take time. (-1 Arcana)(Takes 2 Turns)
-[] Divination: Bargain with something not quite dead and not quite living for a glimpse of what might be. (-2 Arcana, +5 to all rolls for a turn)
-[] Entertain Libertines: There are people of wealth and power who flirt with the occult, with the idea of mystery and the thrill of the unknown. They will pay you a large sum for a look behind the veil. (Gain 1d10 Suspicion) (+15 Wealth) (Chance of gaining Influence)
-[] Take A Contract: Moorham and Sons has many opportunities for an enterprising occultists to make money, if they're willing not to ask too many questions. Ask them to send over a list of their current contracts.
[] Improve Defenses
[] Theresa Gail Atwater
[] Immortality
-[] Yasir has had dreams of a city in the sands. The path to the city begins in the Andes, in a forgotten pass deep within the mountains. You could always pay a few scouts to see if his dreams have any truth to them (-5 Wealth) (Finished in 2 Turns)
--[] Jackson Harcourt
-[] Study The Starry Organ: This organ beats with an otherworldly strength. It's light is not of this earth. It's heat is not of these stars. It loves, and can be loved. What else can it feel?
--[] Isadora LeBlanc
-[] Study The Abbot's Corpse: The corpse is dead. Most certainly. It just moves out of the corner of your eye at times, and in your dreams you may see it as it was in life: many-clawed and silver-eyed, hateful and awful. It yearns to return whence it came.
--[] Jon Stephanos
-[] The Clocktower of Saint Andrew: The tower that stands off the coast of Scotland is older than mankind. It is perhaps older than the earth. How did it come to be here, and what lies within it's walls? The Society claims we conquered it. This a pleasant lie. The tower is not so easily mastered by men, not as we are now.
--[] Gabriel Birch
-[] Study The Dragon-Mirror: What lies through the mirror may have passed, or may yet come to pass. Studying it may yet provide insight.
--[] Al-Athari
-[] Magical Warding: Stephanus has thrown up a few basic detection wards, but with time he could daub the walls with blood-infused runes that repel any but those the Society has chosen to let enter. This will take time. (-1 Arcana)(Takes 2 Turns)
-[] Divination: Bargain with something not quite dead and not quite living for a glimpse of what might be. (-2 Arcana, +5 to all rolls for a turn)
-[] Entertain Libertines: There are people of wealth and power who flirt with the occult, with the idea of mystery and the thrill of the unknown. They will pay you a large sum for a look behind the veil. (Gain 1d10 Suspicion) (+15 Wealth) (Chance of gaining Influence)
-[] Take A Contract: Moorham and Sons has many opportunities for an enterprising occultists to make money, if they're willing not to ask too many questions. Ask them to send over a list of their current contracts.
[] Improve Defenses
[] Theresa Gail Atwater
[] Immortality
Theresa dabbed gently, moving the brush in slow, careful strokes. It was all coming together before her eyes, this time. The strokes flew faster as she felt the inspiration take her. Here, a splash of color, there an intriguing swirl, there a fleck of darkness to draw the eye, and...there. She grinned and stepped back to admire her work.
"Oh." Her heart sank. All the individual pieces which she had thought were so inspiring were...decidedly not, when taken as a whole. The splashes of color were jarring. The swirls were bewildering, not intriguing, and the flecks did not draw the eye but rather stung it.
Theresa studied the painting a moment more, then sighed good-naturedly. "Next time, I suppose. One can't be awful at painting forever. Right, Mr. Birch?"
She turned to the dark-haired man lounging on the couch behind her. His eyes were fixed intently on her and her painting, and he offered her a sort of smile as she turned.
"No, of course not, Theresa. But you know I find your paintings wonderful." He smiled again, but it did not reach his eyes. Those were sad. They always were.
Birch was an...interesting man, Theresa thought. She had met him at an art gallery, when he had bought several of her unsold paintings — all of them, in fact. She'd almost thought it some sort of mad joke, but over the next few weeks, Birch had doted on her, becoming her patron of a sort and encouraging her to do new work, which he then bought at a ridiculous rate. When she had told him that a Boston waitress couldn't afford to spend all her time painting, he had bought her family's home out from under their landlord and gifted it to her parents.
It was insane. He was insane. Theresa was no idiot — her work, much as she loved it, was not enough to get her into any art school in the country, much less win a wealthy patron who solved all of her problems like something out of a storybook. For a time, she had thought maybe he fancied her, but she had been fancied before, and Birch never looked at her like that — though he did look at her often. She would catch him sometimes, studying her with those sad eyes of his, as if looking for something. Waiting for something, rather.
Despite all of that, she liked him. He spoke softly, and was slow to laugh, but he was not an altogether terrible person to be around — in fact, he could be quite nice sometimes, when she got him to crack open that sad shell of his. He told her about the places he had been and the things he had seen, all the countries he had traveled and the lands he had explored. It was, in a word, amazing, and her eyes danced with stars to hear his stories — though she could not help but feel like there were parts he was leaving out.
But yes, she liked the explorer. She might perhaps even call him a friend.
"Theresa." Birch began, shaking her out of her reverie, "Has anyone ever told you that you're quite special?"
She thought on it, then laughed. "No, Mr. Birch. I don't believe they ever have. I'm just...me."
"I've told you, call me Gabriel." Birch shifted in his seat, and tugged at his collar. It was quite cool inside, Theresa noted. "And, well, I work with some people who think you're very special indeed."
Theresa blinked."What?"
"There's a whole world out there you couldn't imagine. Things you couldn't possibly dream. You can leave all of this behind. You will never have to go hungry again. You could travel, as I do. You could be free." He sounded like there was something catching in his throat, and he could not meet her eyes.
Theresa laughed again. "Now there's a nice thought. Mr. Birch —oh, excuse me, Gabriel— you're not usually one for jokes. What's gotten into you?"
Birch took a long breath, as if he had made an awful decision, then rose from his chair and met her gaze. For the first time since she had met him, his eyes were not sad. They glinted with something unfathomable, and quite terrible. Theresa's laughter died on her lips.
"Theresa, how would you like to live forever?"
(Birch: 4 Horror Gained)
(Birch: Trait Gained: Guilty)
Guilty: This character's sins hang heavy around their neck. They have done something they believe to be truly abominable. Were there some fairness to the world, they might even be judged for it.
The ballroom greets you, scarlet and terrible, as you file in once more. Birch is followed by a young woman with dark brown hair tied back into a braid. Her eyes are curious, and far too bright. The red jewels on the chandelier gleam in anticipation as she enters. The candles are lit, the blood is drawn, and the unspeakable words are said. When the ceremony is done, her face is icy and pale, and the brightness in her eyes has grown just a bit harsher.
New Member Gained: Theresa Gail Atwater.
The society's plans and ambitions have began to unfurl across the world in the last month. The tempo of your ambitions has changed, for you now have a concrete goal around which to organize yourselves. You will ascend the studded heights of mortality. You will overcome the curse of flesh, and defy time and tide itself. You will be as the cats and the rats are, and as the Worm once was. You will walk one of the blasphemous Ways that were Forbidden when the rivers were young.
You will be, forever.
Guided by Yasir's mysterious dreams, Harcourt and a small band of local guides have ventured into the high passes of the Andes, seeking a way to the city in the sands. The mountains at the throat of the world are ancient and perilous, and it will take Harcourt many weeks to find the forgotten trail of which Yasir has dreamed -- if indeed it exists. Yasir himself has spent the month in his quarters in Mammon Place, locked in study with the perplexing artefact known as the Dragon-Mirror. It offers glimpses --some tantalizing, some terrifying-- into a world which is not quite unlike our own, if our own was wrong. He reports visions of a China, or a land like China, locked in a great struggle with mad degenerate empires of bone and silver, ruled by a race of men who are men no more. Their skins, he says with wonder, shine through all the worlds like frosted glass.
The visions are not linked temporally, and rather show images from across the history of this world, often from different centuries or continents. There is only one vision which has recurred in the Mirror, and continues to do so constantly: a tall emperor with proud scarlet eyes and a forked beard, wearing a robe of brilliant yellow silk, who does not need to eat, or drink, or breathe. He is not human, but takes the form of a man when it so suits him. The people of this other-China name him the Dragon, for their language has no words to describe what he truly is.
It is the Dragon, Yasir says, to whom the mirror belongs, and the visions are the story of his life. He is --or rather, was-- an enemy of the Men of Glass, perhaps the greatest, and in other histories he becomes something not unlike a god, and in other ways not unlike a star. In the mirror-history, he is slain after lifetimes of war by those who walk shining, and his heart is carved into nine pieces, which are then devoured. The mirror-visions suggest, impossibly, that he is not quite dead -- or that if he is, it may not always be so. His children, however, survive his downfall, and are hunted broken and burning across the worlds, shedding their memories and their skins as they flee.
Yasir has seen the true form of the thing they called the Dragon. He will never forget the shape of it, not until his bones are dust.
Sometimes, there is something like fear in his eyes, now.
Lore Encountered: The Dragon: In another history, something that was decidedly not human ruled in the Middle-Kingdom for lifetimes untold, waging a terrible war against the Men of Glass -- and may yet rule there again. The Dragon is dead, at least as men understand death, but his children live still, and have fled, desperate, into other skins and other times. Their hunters' hounds are many-limbed and silver, and there is no pity in their eyes.
(Yasir: 40 Horror Gained)
The esteemed and noble Lady Leblanc steps up to deliver her report next. Her skin is flush and vibrant, a rosy color that is not wholly earthly. There is something solar about her eyes, and she seems somehow taller. She reports that to further her research, she has taken the Starry Organ with her on her travels and journeys over the past month, often leaving it by her bedside or on her mantel as she sleeps. She has traced the plot of this strange thing across the valleys and the hills and the continents -- and all the while her own connection to it has deepened. It speaks to her now, she says, in a way that is hard to put into words. It speaks rather in visions of the heavens: images from across the starry gulfs, dreams of roaring stars and fantastical nebulae. It lives, though not as we know life, and it thinks, though not as we know thought. It is not of this world, or of any world we could imagine, though it has dwelt upon our world since the days of the wheel and fire. It survives off of a certain energy given by living creatures, particularly humans, and provides something of the stars in return -- a stellar parasite of alien origin and alien thought, dwelling inside the bodies of it's hosts, prolonging their lives and changing their skins as it does so.
It is not unkind. It loves, if such a thing can be said to love as we understand it.
It also thinks 'Organ' is too impersonal.
Artefact Gained: The Starry Heart: This strange 'heart' came from a man who was not quite a man. It is warm still, and pulses and beats with a heat not of this earth. It's colors --for it has colors, though they cannot be described-- change with the waxing and waning of the moon, it hums with an almost imperceptible drone, and when cut, it bleeds something not unlike light, but not unlike blood. It bears a marked and troubling resemblance to images found in the stained glass windows of a heretical Church in the Spanish hinterlands, and also to perplexing diagrams from the religious texts of a certain Berber tribe. If you spend too much time around it, your heart will begin to beat in time with it's tune. It is a symbiotic beast from the timeless gulfs of space, a stellar parasite that drinks deeply (of what, it is a mystery) from men and gives something of it's own in return. It is ancient and enigmatic, paradoxical and alien. It is calming, and it loves you.
Stephanos returns. He has performed the ritual, as asked. At the appointed day on the appointed time, he inscribed certain runes on his his tongue, silenced his heart, and drew an impossible circle of marrow and yew. Something like Jon Stephanus left his flesh and walked in that place which no occultist may safely name aloud: the place where all is quiet. Whispering, he made an awful promise with those who dwell in silence, the particulars of which can never be spoken. His bones will smolder for a time when he is dead.
He has seen the shape of the world to come. Stephanos' voice is imperceptibly softer, the sharp-eared among you note. His skill in The Rituals has grown.
+5 to all rolls for one turn
Stephanos has also examined the Abbot, or the thing that was the Abbot. With the insight from Yasir's own study of the mirror, he has determined that it is a servant, or a slave, of those who are called the Men of Glass. Like it's masters, it, and those like it, dance through histories other than it's own. It is many-limbed, though just how many is impossible to tell, though not for lack of trying. Stephanos admits he began to weep after his tenth attempt. It is silver, like a knife's edge glinting, or like razor wires in the sun. It is not, he has determined after many weeks of investigation, wholly here -- it is a creature of maybes and could-have-beens, that exists in planes and histories other than our own. In this history, Yasir and Harcourt slew it off the coast of Scotland, but that is only one history, and there are many. To us, it is dead, most certainly -- but we may catch at times awful glimpses of those histories where it lives still, shifting, pitiless, and silver.
Stephanus finishes by mentioning that his research into the Moths goes slowly, but promisingly, and that by the next time the Society convenes, he should have tangible results. He cedes the floor to Birch, who rises and spins a tale that will stand among the Society's strangest.
Armed with the knowledge of the creature's origins, Birch has ventured to the dreadful isle where stands the antediluvian clocktower, aged and awful, looming black over the Scottish coasts. There is a facsimile of human life within -- beds, kitchens, and a small library with an adjoining abbey. But it is all wrong, Birch says. The beds are bare, without sheets or covers, and are covered in the thick dust of decades. The kitchen is bare and the cupboards are filled with straw. The books in the library are filled with empty pages. Everything is constructed as to give the impression, to a casual viewer, that those who live within are human, that they eat and sleep and drink as men do. But the abominable monks and their awful Abbot were anything but human, and their facsimile of humanity is a cruel mockery.
But this paled to what awaited Birch on the upper floors of the clocktower. As Birch advanced up the tower, things grew less...certain. He could no longer trust his senses, or his memory. The tower has only three floors, yet he swears he climbed at least a dozen, each more baffling and perplexing than the last. One room was ringed with mirrors, yet each showed a different reflection, each of Birch at different ages. Another was empty save for a window, but the shore which lay beyond the window was not the coast of Scotland, or the shore of any land on God's Earth. At times, Birch swore he could hear footsteps behind him as he walked. He recalls an awful moment when he turned quickly to gaze at the source of the sound -- and was met with a view of himself, turned to gaze back at a third Birch -- who, himself, was turned staring at another Birch, and so on and so on in an awful kaleidoscope that stretched on into infinity. He says they all screamed, then.
Birch swears he spent many long days in that tower, and yet he returned from Scotland in less than a week. His water and food ran out, or so he swears, and he was forced to procure more. Exactly how he did this, he has not said. He will not speak of what else he saw in those awful days, save that he came at long last to the top floor of the tower. There he found the Clock (which was not a clock at all) and saw it's truth.
The Clocktower is an anchor, of a sort, a thing beyond our imagining. It exists, like the Abbot, in the then and the now, and in distant, awful aeons yet to come. Long years from now, countless and numberless days in the future, the beings known as the Men of Glass will walk shining upon our world, and build in their time an abominable clocktower off the coast of what was once Scotland. This tower will stand --does stand, has stood --backwards and forwards through our history, an impossible anchor through all the days of our Earth.
The Men of Glass are not coming.
They are here.
They have always been.
We just do not know it yet.
(Birch: 16 Horror Gained)
Over the course of the month, while the Society at large has been traveling and exploring, your members have also entertained at Mammon Place a few of the more illustrious and well-off member of upper society, men and women who have expressed a certain interest in the higher mysteries of the world. These men and women are given to wild desires and debased proclivities, which they must hide from the public world, and from the legal authorities. They indulge in hedonistic pleasures that are frowned upon by most, and these pleasures oftentimes stray into the esoteric and the deranged.
They do not know, of course, what they seek. Their idea of control is an illusion. But as any occultist will tell you, illusions are important. They come to Mammon Place, and engage in their petty revels. They feast in the room with the blood-red chandelier that has tasted of greater debaucheries than they will ever imagine. They play at being sadists -- silly little games with whips and knives and bone-carved things. They are masked and nude, and they imagine they are monsters.
When they are done, they pay you a great deal.
One of them is not quite satisfied. There is a greater hunger in his eyes. He leaves his card in the foyer.
Option Unlocked: Contact A Libertine
Moorham and Sons is a legal interest established in New England at the turn of the century. They act as go-betweens for certain parties with interests in the occult who would rather not have said interests made known. From governments to businessmen, they have many clients across the globe, and their neutrality, skill, and devotion to their clients has made them among the premier names in the occult world in recent years. When you reach out to contact them, they reply shortly with a letter printed on a crisp white piece of paper that smells, faintly, of roses.
There are clients of theirs who wish to obtain certain things. If you can retrieve these things, you will be very well compensated. A contract will be signed, of course. Breaking it will not be in your best interest, and neither will failing to deliver. Once taken, you will have precisely four months to complete a contract.
[] The Boreal Knight: In the deserts of Arabia, a Knight Commander of the Knights of the Order of Prussia searches desperately for a lost city which has haunted his dreams for a lifetime. He bears with him an ancient artefact of his order, which holds, it is said, the awful secret to their unlife. Find the knight and lay him low, and take from his corpse the truth of their order's sin.
[] Zhāyēdān: There is a man in the Zagros Mountains of Iran whom it is said has lived for millennia. All others sent to find him have failed, or been slain. Moorham and Sons instructs you to find this man, and return him alive, if possible, and in once piece, if not. The rewards will be great, Moorham and Sons promises.
[] Lupercal: In Rome, there is an ancient cave where it is said the boys Romulus and Remus suckled on a she-wolf's breasts. In ancient times, a Roman cult devoted to the god Vejovis held their degenerate rituals in this selfsame cave, giving parts of themselves to their one-limbed god. Venture into the ruins of their crypt, and find the knife they used to mutilate themselves.
[] You opt not to take any of the contracts this time around.
[] Zhāyēdān: There is a man in the Zagros Mountains of Iran whom it is said has lived for millennia. All others sent to find him have failed, or been slain. Moorham and Sons instructs you to find this man, and return him alive, if possible, and in once piece, if not. The rewards will be great, Moorham and Sons promises.
[] Lupercal: In Rome, there is an ancient cave where it is said the boys Romulus and Remus suckled on a she-wolf's breasts. In ancient times, a Roman cult devoted to the god Vejovis held their degenerate rituals in this selfsame cave, giving parts of themselves to their one-limbed god. Venture into the ruins of their crypt, and find the knife they used to mutilate themselves.
[] You opt not to take any of the contracts this time around.
Information:
[] Somewhere in the American midwest, there is a place where cats do not grow old. (Gossip)
--[] Assign A Member
[] In a certain Mongolian plateau, ghosts walk at night. (Rumor)
--[] Assign A Member
[] There is a place in China where some do not die. (Rumor)
--[] Assign A Member
[] A professor at a university in a distant land has stumbled on a troubling set of formulae that scratch at the back of his eyes. He has aged years in days, and his skin glows with starfire. (Gossip)
--[] Assign A Member
[] Rumors abound -- there is a tortured poet who speaks in strange tongues. In moments of lucidity, he claims there are worlds in his skull. (Hearsay)
--[] Assign A Member
Discovery:
[] Thebes: There stood in Greece in ancient times a city called Thebes. There stood in Egypt in ancient times a second city, called also Thebes. Enoch says there stood in ancient times a third Thebes, and the other two feared it mightily.
--[] Assign A Member
[] Where It Fell: A star fell to Earth in the time of the Roman Emperor Elagabalus. They say it bent the world and shone with the light of the gods. In some histories, mad Enoch tells you, the emperor swallowed it and became a star himself -- some say the very star that fell. Where it fell still burns.
--[] Assign A Member
[] The Ten Thousand: In antiquity, the elite spearmen known as the Ten Thousand Immortals served the Shahs of Iran. Their name, some irreputable histories tell us, was not an exaggeration.
--[] Assign A Member
Expedition:
[] The Lake: A frozen lake in the north of Europe. Here, Enoch says, is where the Worm first came to Earth, and where they slew it a second time. Its bones lie beneath, but be wary, for its children swarm the water. Crack the ice and see the Worm in all her glory.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Mausoleum: There is a place in the desert where the Mughal rajas buried their honored wives. One in particular, Enoch says, was honored here. They demolished the temple, after, but the catacombs still run deep beneath the sand. Strike the earth, and you may find what they loved and feared.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Black Hills: The Romans killed many when they conquered ancient Gaul. What they murdered in these black hills took three legions to kill. Go to the place where they fell, and you may find where it died. Targarung roars.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] Alexandria The Furthest: In some histories, Alexander the Great made it as far as China. In some histories, the city he founded there grew to become the mightiest of all cities. In some histories, they worshipped a vain and mighty god indeed, and conquered the world in his name. Something of their history bleeds into ours, Enoch suggests, like fresh paintings running together. Go to the place where it would have stood, and you may catch a glimpse of the Dragonfly, called also in our world the Tigerlily.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The River People: In the dawn of mankind, there lived a certain people on the banks of the River Indus. Their very names have been scoured from history ten times over, and their crimes will never be forgiven. Something of them still remains, however. Dig the earth and find their cities, and you may learn of the sin that so offended both the Dreamcrow and the Dragonfly.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Crawling Caves: The catacombs beneath the university are truly cavernous. They run deeper than humans ever delved, and the worms feed on those who have gone too deep. There is something deeper still.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Cobalt Lodge: The ancient redoubt of the Boreal Order, home to six centuries of occult lore and research. It is protected by wards of living light and deathless knights who long ago gave their flesh and their spirits to serve their homeland even in death. It is not located entirely on this world. There are spirits of living winter chained to its' walls, cursed to protect it until the stars die out, and some of the mightiest occultists in the world await within, armed with artifacts of untold power. Unless you are incredibly well-armed and have powerful friends, attacking this place would be a very, very bad idea. But you could try.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] The Church of the Dragonfly: There is a church in the heart of Germany where an abominable faith is practiced. It's adherents sacrifice their limbs to a terrible being that might be called a sort of god. His attention is elsewhere, for now. It might fall, at great cost -- his servants are zealous and cruel, and will give their lives for him.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
[] There is another, darker place, in the shadow of the Valley of the Kings, where they buried those pharaohs whose names had been excised. They are nameless, certain histories suggest, because names have power, even after death.Pharaoh has risen again in the sky. He is crowned as Lord of the Horizon. He has smashed the back-bones, and has seized the hearts of the gods. Pharaoh feeds on the lungs of the wise. And likes to live on hearts and their magic.
--[] Assign A Member
--[] Assign A Member (Optional)
--[] Take An Artifact (Optional) (Write-In Artifact)
--[] Hire Muscle: Big men who ask few questions. Ideal for situations like this. (Optional) (-5 Wealth)
--[] Hire An Occultist: Well-read and thin, their eyes wide with secrets. They may be of use. (Optional) (-10 Wealth)
--[] Send the Wraiths: Red and hungry, the wraiths will kill until they are done. (Optional)(Can use on one expedition per turn)
Study:
[] Study The Starry Heart: This heart beats with an otherworldly strength. It's light is not of this earth. It's heat is not of these stars. It loves, and can be loved. What else can it feel?
-[] Assign
[] Study The Abbot's Corpse: The corpse is dead, to us, but not elsewhere and not always. Examine the Abbot's corpse and see if you can wrap your minds around it's stranger properties.
-[] Assign A Member
[] Study The Dragon-Mirror: The Mirror's story has been told, but something more may be wrung from it.
[] Study A Moth-Riddled Tome: This book is useless now as a book. As a study of what destroyed the Lampsmen, it may yet prove useful.
-[] Assign A Member
[] Hidden History: Now that you understand what hides beneath the skin of history, you can pore through old tomes and irreputable histories of the sort written by madmen for clues as to ancient things long forgotten. This will require great effort and expense, however. (2 turns, -10 Wealth, gain 1d5 Expeditions/Discoveries)
[] The Clocktower of Saint Andrew: The tower that stands off the coast of Scotland is older than mankind. It is perhaps older than the earth. How did it come to be here, and what lies within it's walls? The Society claims we conquered it. This a pleasant lie. The tower is not so easily mastered by men, not as we are now. You understand it's awful purpose, at least somewhat. Perhaps this purpose may be perverted to your own ends.
-[] Assign A Member
The Arcane:
(Note: You may pick as many Arcane options as you want, but remember that Arcana takes two turns to regenerate)
[] Explore the Dreamscape: Beyond the gate of bone lies a burning city of dreams. A place of song and mystery, a land where painters and madmen alike find inspiration, a kaleidoscopic jumble of reals and unreals and smoldering impossibilities -- the Dreamscape is many things. There are secrets in it's depths, if you are brave enough to delve for them. (-1 Arcana)
--[] Assign a Member
[] The War-Words: As every occultist knows, there are rituals for those going to battle. Dance the dance and speak the words, and fill your hearts with a murderer's flame. These are the war-words. (+3 to all combat rolls for the selected Society member next turn. -1 Arcana)
[] Who Came Before: Many have died in Mammon Place. Their spirits have been bent to terrible purpose. Free them, and grant them new death. (Releases Wraiths, frees up Summoning slot)
[] And In Darkness Bind Them: You summon several lesser souls drifting too near to the veil, and bind them to your service. They will aid you in all things until they are released. (+1 Arcana permanently until the spirits are released, bonus to all research, combat, and exploration rolls, may change outcomes story-wise)
[] A Mortal Bargain: You may lease a bit of your souls out to something other, in exchange for power and success. (-3 Arcana, pick a single non-expedition vote and it is an unequivocal success. The cost of this vote will increase by two with each use.)
[] A Mortal Loan: You may borrow power, for a time. But all debts will come due. (Gain 10 Arcana, that regenerates twice as quickly as normal (so one turn). In 10 Turns, your debt will come due, with interest. If you cannot pay it, there will be consequences.)
[] A Mortal Trade: Nothing comes from nothing. Give something of value, and you will gain something of value. (Select an Artifact to sacrifice. In exchange, gain 5 non-renewing Arcana instantly)
Miscellaneous (Pick Two):
[] Buy Interesting Information: You reach out into the underworld and pay for the latest rumors of things which might interest the Society. It costs money to weed the wheat from the chaff, but it may be worth it. (-5 Wealth) (One piece of information is guaranteed Rumor level or higher next turn)
[] Cancel Contractors: You no longer have need of extra hands around the city, freeing up funds for other things. (-1 Miscellanous option a turn, +1 Wealth a turn)
[] Reach Out: The Society needs wealthy patrons if it is to survive. Reach out and try to get some more. (-2 Influence)
[] Contact A Libertine: There is a man of certain proclivities in New York City. The pleasures of regular society are not enough for him. He hungers, and he will pay. (Gain 1d10 Suspicion) (+20 Wealth) (Chance of gaining Influence)
[] Gain Leverage: It has been said that knowledge is power. For certain people, it is more. There are secrets men would die to keep secret. (-10 Wealth)(Chance of gaining 1d20 Influence and unlocking the Blackmail option)
[] Backdoor Channels: Getting stuff done is easier if you ignore the legality of certain things. (-5 Wealth) (All non-study actions take 1 less turn. Increases Suspicion)
[] Canvass Students: You search among the young and fresh-minded students of Bringham University for potential recruits to the Society. The University has a certain way of attracting people. (Low chance of discovering potential recruits)
[] Seduce Socialites: Wealthy, bored, and capable of magnificent cruelty. The scions of the wealthy prove a valuable breeding ground for occultists of all stripes -- men and women who, bored of the pleasures of regular life, seek out more exotic fancies. (Chance of discovering potential recruits) (-1 Influence) (+2 Suspicion)
[] Enoch's Names: There are certain people now living named in Enoch's travel diary who were not yet born when he died. If you use the Diary as a map and track them down, who knows what you may find. (Medium Chance of discovering potential recruits)(???)(Takes ??? Turns) They were hidden for a reason. Do not bring them together. They were hidden for a reason. Do not bring them together. THEY WERE HIDDEN FOR A REASON.
[] Inside Connections: Everything is easier when you have people with their ear to the ground for you in the places you'd like. You've already got some, but more might be beneficial. (-10 Wealth)(Low chance of acquiring an Informant)
[] A Visit To The Morris Collection: There is a library whose halls are unnaturally silent, and whose shelves are filled with books of a different sort. It's owners are extremely particular. If you pay an exorbitant amount, they may allow you to enter. If you pay more still, they may let you leave with something. You must know what you are looking for -- they will not let you enter otherwise. (-12 Wealth) (Gain one random book artifact of a lore you already know)
[] Call An Appraiser From Ivary's: The Ivary clan can send someone to examine the artifacts currently in your possession and assign them a material worth, making sale possible.
[] Hire an Agent: There are skilled people in the mortal world who, while not immersed in the occult, are well-equipped to handle it's mysteries. For a certain sum and regular payment, you might be able to employ one of these into your service for the time being. (An agent is a fully-fledged character with their own skills and traits that can be sent on expeditions or discovery missions, but costs money per turn to employ)
[] Influence: The Society is now possessed of enough money and influence to attempt to manipulate events around the world in their favor.
--[] The Brazilian Government has uncovered an artefact of considerable age, said to be related to the Worm-Lore. Force them to relinquish it. (-5 Influence, -5 Wealth)
--[] A Russian expedition has found the tomb of a Mongol conqueror recorded in no modern history. The seals upon it are written in the blasphemous tongue of the Vejovites. Force them to turn the expedition over to you. (-7 Influence, -4 Wealth)
--[] A Star fell to Earth in America. The authorities reached it before you, but that is of no matter if you know the right people. (-7 Influence)
--[] There are people of wealth and power who are in your debt. Push on them. (-8 Influence, Gain 1d3 Artefacts next turn, Gain 11 Suspicion)
--[] A lost paper here. A shredded document there. A dead man there. It will be like you were never here at all. (-10 Influence, -10 Suspicion)
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- Location
- Classified
So this is how Samhain is described:
And this is the invisitext up there:
... I'm thinking it's time to batten down the hatches.
Also, wow I regret not getting the dragon guy, that's so him. Then again, one look into it kicked Yasir in the dick, 40 fucking horror.
And this is the invisitext up there:
... I'm thinking it's time to batten down the hatches.
Also, wow I regret not getting the dragon guy, that's so him. Then again, one look into it kicked Yasir in the dick, 40 fucking horror.
I... feel like this is our 'worst' turn yet.
Analysis is coming up... later because the gacha waits for no one.
Aside from that, I think I can safely say that Atwater's entry doesn't seem to be the most beneficial, as of yet.
Analysis is coming up... later because the gacha waits for no one.
Aside from that, I think I can safely say that Atwater's entry doesn't seem to be the most beneficial, as of yet.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
"he certain runes on his his tongue," What did Stephanos do with certain runes on his (X 2) tongue? Also yay he got his wish for some actual power.
You do get that all the people on Enoch's list are like that? Like if they are not the children of the Dragon hiding among mortals then they are something similar.Also nothing other than that Fomorian text is new in the invisitext and suspicion is up by 4 from last turn.
Yes, true. But at the same time, one cannot deny that in the short-term (which is vital in a Quest such as this), Atwater is a bad investment, especially when one of the drawbacks is having Birch acquire Guilty. What's done is done, of course. All that's left is to move on from this.
Speaking of, good bloody thing we decided to amp up our rolls for Samhain. Feels like we're about to be assaulted by these Fomorians somehow.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Same just in the sense that the voting matters less to me now and that I'm more interested in lurking and analyzing the events in story and on a meta level. After all I haven't seen all that many Overseer games and only one other that is as blatant as this one: Cultist Simulator. So I still have stuff I can get out of this quest even if it's story is probably going to go bad in my tastes soon.
- Location
- France
You know, just because we voted for Immortality doesn't mean we won't still investigate stuff, fight monsters, and attempt to keep Earth in one piece... It's where we live, after all!
Basically the Protect goal was altruism and it lost the vote, but that isn't the only possible reason to protect others!
Incidentally, I voted for Immortality because it was the maximum hubris option, which is always nice. And the Boreal Knights seem to have achieved it without all becoming inhuman monsters who lost their original purpose, so why not us?
Basically the Protect goal was altruism and it lost the vote, but that isn't the only possible reason to protect others!
Incidentally, I voted for Immortality because it was the maximum hubris option, which is always nice. And the Boreal Knights seem to have achieved it without all becoming inhuman monsters who lost their original purpose, so why not us?
To be fair, the Boreal Knights are inhuman, it's just that they still defend humanity. Well, specifically Germany/Prussia but it still counts. I personally am looking forward to how the Society achieves immortality (if they succeed) because the flavour text is bound to be deliciously Lovecraftian.
Regarding Atwater, I do feel like she's pretty ordinary but the brief snippet about her shows that she's pretty likeable and I think we can use her to socialise/trick/influence mundane at least. In hindsight I should've expected that it would be Birch who'd recruit her, being the most 'normal' member of the 4, and that he's a good enough person to feel guilty about it. Oh well, it's done now, and I'm hoping Atwater can show whatever made Enoch write about her.
About the Dragon, I'm really curious about how Zhu Long would've reacted if we had him this turn - would he have freaked out or just plain not remember his father? But well, it seems we might actually encounter him eventually, if he survives the Glass hunters. I'm also really curious about what happens when those named by Enoch meet, but we probably shouldn't test that with our new member.
Samhain is definitely interesting, although I dread the Fomorians, whatever they are. I'm thinking it's a damn good thing we boosted our rolls this turn, as others have mentioned. No ideas about options yet, but it's absolutely shaping up to be a rather eventful turn.
Regarding Atwater, I do feel like she's pretty ordinary but the brief snippet about her shows that she's pretty likeable and I think we can use her to socialise/trick/influence mundane at least. In hindsight I should've expected that it would be Birch who'd recruit her, being the most 'normal' member of the 4, and that he's a good enough person to feel guilty about it. Oh well, it's done now, and I'm hoping Atwater can show whatever made Enoch write about her.
About the Dragon, I'm really curious about how Zhu Long would've reacted if we had him this turn - would he have freaked out or just plain not remember his father? But well, it seems we might actually encounter him eventually, if he survives the Glass hunters. I'm also really curious about what happens when those named by Enoch meet, but we probably shouldn't test that with our new member.
Samhain is definitely interesting, although I dread the Fomorians, whatever they are. I'm thinking it's a damn good thing we boosted our rolls this turn, as others have mentioned. No ideas about options yet, but it's absolutely shaping up to be a rather eventful turn.