Not sure how to do this. Do you like it better when I narrate or just post the receipts from the discord? That sounds lazy but may be more instructive. We'll see. I went open kimono on the last one. I think I'll sum up here. Understand that all of this is taking place in Oiax's private discord text channel.
Oiax spent his downtime using his rolled backup skill as a teamster and heard a rumor that the jeweler in town was expecting a shipment of silver ingots from the road to the Northwest, but it never showed up.
After nightfall Oiax decided to sneak out of town (remember the Palisade is closed fast against the Brigands) so he had to scale it and make his way down to spy on the Brigands. When he got there he found that the Brigands had abandonded their camp and moved into the old shabby three story house that the Gravedigger kept on the edge of the Folton Cemetary.
Peering through the windows he saw the Gravedigger tied to a chair. The Brigands were having fun feeding him with a spoon and making sure he drank as much Rum as they were. I rolled percentile dice for him to move silently and hide in shadows. He failed both and I sent him the following message:
dunder_moose — 04/17/2024 9:25 PM
Okay well I have some bad news.
You should stop talking in Tavern Chat because it's not clear whether you made it back last night.
So now we are playing by post back and forth as he gets spotted. You know what? I am just going to paste in the Discord dialog again. Because it was good, and Oiax's player was HOOKED, and I don't want to try to rewrite some of the most dramatic descriptions and dialog. This crap is happening in DOWNTIME people!!!! Get your game on 1:1 Timekeeping's level!!!
[Start Discord Copying]
dunder_moose — 04/17/2024 9:27 PM
So as you were peering through the glass at the goings on inside, you heard a faint noise behind you. Just a slight exhalation of breath. What do you do?
Oiax Lockdin — 04/17/2024 9:28 PM
Slowly turn and look lol what else is there to do
dunder_moose — 04/17/2024 9:29 PM
Four men in leather armor are fanned out behind you. Two of them have Daggers, and two have light crossbows.
The closest one whispers, "Give us one reason we should let you live, Brigand!"
Oiax Lockdin — 04/17/2024 9:37 PM
I have knowledge of a villager who is the leader of the uprising. They are upset that the knight hasn’t taken action against your forces. I was trying to help but considering your disposition towards that grave digger I was scared to simply knock.
Oiax Lockdin — 04/17/2024 9:48 PM
I was hoping you’d wish me to kill the villager to prove my worth to join your clan. That or coin, because being a teamster doesn’t provide the lifestyle I desire.
dunder_moose — 04/17/2024 9:52 PM
We are no Brigands fool! Our friend was shut out when the Palisade was locked and now these Brigands have him! And you’ve been working with them? Choose your next words very carefully.
In his rage his nose twitches most disturbingly
Oiax Lockdin — 04/17/2024 9:58 PM
Oh thank the gods. Was that believable. Actually, I was casing the place for my plans tomorrow night. I was thinking of burning them out until I noticed the gravedigger was still alive. My friends can vouch for me. Except Niet, I don’t think he likes me much. But the rest do.
dunder_moose — 04/17/2024 10:02 PM
You’d better throw your weapons down and come with us.
Oiax Lockdin — 04/17/2024 10:06 PM
Sure, but we are on the same team. So could you hold on to my weapons until I’ve proven myself? I’d rather not donate them to the dead
dunder_moose — 04/17/2024 10:16 PM
They bind your hands and drag you to a tunnel, then down under the earth. The leader has dropped to all fours.
[End Discord Paste for Now]
Alright at this point I need to interrupt and tell you what else I was doing. I take yet another awesome page out of the #BrOSR playbook. Why trust myself to run the WereRat faction when I can reach out to a bro. So I tagged in my buddy Sarrin61 from Trollopulous and asked if he had any idea why the WereRats were stealing bodies out of the cemetery. And boy did he ever!!!
The next few minutes were a riot for me as I went back and forth between a captured player (who only rolled up 1 hit point mind you!) and a Rat Patron who was in it for himself and gleefully adding lore, and me, just playing jazz with all the pieces to fit them into my setting!
Long story short the commander of the rat people rides on the back of a Rat Ogre, and speaks through an ear trumpet snaking around under it's shoulder. From the front it just looks and sounds like a very intelligent Rat Ogre. AND he wanted it to bargain with Oiax, to capture something from the Folton Knight, and took a piece of his ear to hunt him down with if he doesn't deliver the item to the dungeon by the end of the month! (man I am really trying to get them to the dungeon!)
We continue:
[Resume Discord Paste with Oiax]
dunder_moose — 04/18/2024 6:01 PM
A bag is placed over your head, and you are made to crawl through a dirt tunnel that you have been in before.
Though you cannot see it you come out in the nexus room. You have been here before, but it's different this time. There is a chair, and they guide you to it. A stench fills your nostrils and the ground shakes. The bag is pulled from your head and as your eyes try to adjust to the dark, you hear the breathing of an enormous creature in front of you.
It looks like a Rat and an Ogre had a baby.
Beyond all reason you hear it begin to speak.
dunder_moose — 04/18/2024 6:08 PM
"I'm very hungry. Are you a meal, or could you be more?"
You can see the stitching of what are clearly different types of flesh, holding it together like some kind of Frankenstein's monster. The smell of its breath like that of an open grave.
Oiax Lockdin — 04/18/2024 6:12 PM
I’m told I taste fowl. But I do have a skill set that could be useful to you. It just depends if you need anyone dead.
dunder_moose — 04/18/2024 6:12 PM
An assassin?
Very interesting.
There is something in that clutch of human dwellings that festers on top of the hill that we want. Something protected.
IT'S NOT THEIRS!!!
He pounds the ground and four pairs of hands catch you as the chair topples backwards.
(Crap! I gotta go grill some burgers. Just when this was getting good!)
Oiax Lockdin — 04/18/2024 6:21 PM
(OOC) lol aww man it was getting good.
dunder_moose — 04/20/2024 5:07 PM
The Knight is in possession of a page of a certain book. The one who torments us wants that page.
This forward observation post is no longer safe for us, thanks to your friends. Can you bring the page to us in the ruined tomb in the forest to the North? Can you be more than a meal?
Oiax Lockdin — 04/20/2024 5:16 PM
Friends, I don’t have any friends. But I can get this page if that’s what you desire. I saw something in the nightstand room that had unrecognizable writing in it. Why one one page?
Only*
dunder_moose — 04/20/2024 5:18 PM
Trust me, all you care about is getting it back. But we are going to need a token to ensure your compliance.
{you hear a rustle of fabric behind you then a sharp pain in the top of your left ear. A large chunk has been bitten out of it!!!}
{you hear the wet sound of it being spat into a jar.}
Now we can find you. Wherever you run. Whenever you flee. If we don't have that page in thirty days, you were never going to be more than a meal.
The filthy canvas is pulled back over your head, making your ear burn as it scrapes over the fresh wound. As they retreat down the tunnel before you, you hear one of them mutter, "He does. He does taste fowl..."
It looks like you are own for getting your hands and feet untied to escape.
Oiax Lockdin — 04/20/2024 5:26 PM
F#$%ing ouch lol. Ok well I mean I’m going to try to escape for sure
dunder_moose — 04/20/2024 5:27 PM
Right on. I need to go have dinner and then I'll figure out how long it takes you. It's not chains or anything, just thin chords.
You might also need to save against disease.
Oiax Lockdin — 04/20/2024 5:29 PM
Ok, well you’re the dm man. I wouldn’t even know I had a disease unless I started feeling the effects
dunder_moose — 04/21/2024 9:15 PM
It took you two hours to get your hands and feet loose and get the sack off your head. You feel your way around a familiar room. Circular, with a pounded earth floor. there are 4, 3' diameter tunnels eating into the West wall (and one collapsed one if memory serves). There is one 8' diameter tunnel in the East wall. Aside from the chair, there is nothing else in this room. It is dark and cold.
Oiax Lockdin — 04/21/2024 9:17 PM
Well, I’ve beer there before, so I can find my way out to my home correct?
dunder_moose — 04/21/2024 9:18 PM
You know the far left tunnel in the West wall will eventually lead to Digger Ced's basement. The others lead to empty coffins. You are not sure where the big tunnell leads.
Oiax Lockdin — 04/21/2024 9:19 PM
Well I’m not venturing of on my lonesome in this state I head back to my home.
dunder_moose — 04/21/2024 9:21 PM
Your best bet is to follow the tunnel to the basement. You recall having dug down into that one and it will let you get to the surface.
It's terrifying and claustrophobic. Your nerves are already shot from encountering that giant whatever it was.
You are crawling on your belly up an incline in the dark, with little cascades of dirt on your head and back as you go.
But at least this time you aren't breathing through that hoodwink
Oiax Lockdin — 04/21/2024 9:24 PM
Yeah, I’m traumatized as all get out lol.
I’m headed to my house if possible
dunder_moose — 04/21/2024 9:26 PM
The tunnel evens out and your breath catches as you see a tiny sliver of moonlight impossibly far ahead. Keep pushing, keep crawling. One elbow in front of the other. Your ear is burning and you can feel it throb with each heartbeat.
Nostrils filled with the smell of earth, teeth gritting on the iron rich grave dirt.
You want to rest, but you can't sit up, can't stretch your arms out. A thought occurs to you. These were one-use tunnels. How long can they hold up?
You remember stamping down mole tunnels with your heel in your yard back home. Back home at the end of the tunnel and the top of the hill. So easy, just a heel down, and a little weight and the raised earth just crumped down filling the void.
How easy would it be for this tunnel, with all the weight of six feet of earth above you to just crump down while you are still only a quarter of the way to that thin ray of moonlight impossibly far away. Just one little crump and you'd be stuck...
dunder_moose — 04/21/2024 9:33 PM
You hear your ragged breath come quicker, feel a slight vocalization with each exertion
Oiax Lockdin — 04/21/2024 9:36 PM
I’m getting out to hell with those masks monstrosities, I’m going to live!
(OOC) Damn man stupid autocorrect put masks in that sentence
dunder_moose — 04/21/2024 9:37 PM
There's a cold fire in your stomach. Something alien and aloof as the stars
Something as primal as the first elves walking the molten earth in the moments after creation
You may die.
But not today.
Some horrible creature may yet end you.
But not these Rat things!
Oiax Lockdin — 04/21/2024 9:38 PM
F#$kin f#$k my f#$kers I got me one of them that there disease
dunder_moose — 04/21/2024 9:40 PM
You surf the wave of alien pride and aloof rage that only the Elves know. You are better than them. It does not end here at the hands of some short-lived vermin. You have centuries!
One elbow in front of the other. Teeth gritted. Surfing a wave of defiance you crawl.
Oiax Lockdin — 04/21/2024 9:42 PM
OOC, bro I do not care how this ends. You’re a great DM. I’m like a child again lol. Anyway, back to gameplay.
I’m going to live my ass off
lol
dunder_moose — 04/21/2024 9:42 PM
They picked the wrong elf.
You are not sure how long the time was.
The rage has died down. The fear has died down. All that is left is exhaustion.
But the hole is above you. And you stand. And you rise.
[End Oiax Discord Paste]
In the meantime, Neit the Lawful Good Monk was disturbed that Oiax had not returned and was worried that he may be up to no good. He went to Oiax's house, followed boot tracks in the dirt and even found some scratches along the palisade where Oiax had climbed over. While he was pondering the climb and making ready, he heard someone climbing back over. Oiax gained the top, but collapsed on the way down and Neit caught him, covered in dirt and crusted blood down one side of his head.
The next day, while Oiax was recovering, Menetheren (Dwarf Cleric) had been asking around at the Temple of Aslan and had learned about the Knight's behavior. The only rumor he got about the Knight's behavior is that the previous Knight started acting that way just before he went mad. The previous Knight was a devout man and spent much time in the Temple of Aslan. But there was one priest he met with toward the end. That priest is no longer at the Temple, Brother Glastonbery.
Menetheren asked the Abbot about Brother Glastonbery and learned that BG fell out of favor with the previous Knight, and left of his own accord, rather than bring enmity down on the whole Temple. His effects were bundled up and stored in the Scriptorium.
Neit joined Menetheren at the Scriptorium and told him about memories that were interfering with his meditaion, of old children's stories of men who could turn into beasts, and with their bites make others as they are. He is worried about Oiax that he may have been bitten and so could be vulnerable to such an affliction, but he had a memory that Belladonna could help.
Looking through the scritporium they found a bundle of belongings marked "Br. Glastonbery"
In it were a pair of leather gloves, a simple braided leather belt, and various letters received from the Abbot and the Mad Knight. There is a diary, but it is not in Glastonbery's tight clean handwriting. The writing matches the large, fevered script of the previous Knight.
Here is the diary of the Knight's predecessor. They don't know how Glastonbery came to posess it, nor why he left it behind when he fled:
‘October 15: Found an interesting-looking book in the scriptorium
today. I asked the abbot if he would let me study it here, and he said yes. It
appears to be in a strange language, and it may deal with magic.’
‘November 28: I must find time to study that new book; I fear my lack
of training in languages will hinder me.’
‘January 21: I have been trying to unlock the cipher of this strange
book. Having exhausted my supply of cryptographic manuals, I am sending to Bradenton
for more. The writing looks as though it could be translated. That is, it is
suggestive of some meaning.’
‘February 3: The new books are no help. I am going to give up trying
to interpret this piece of nonsense. It has taken up far too much of my time.
After all, it may be in a language I do not know. But then, why does it seem so
meaningful?’
‘February 17: I will give this damnable book one last try. To the
devils with all manuals! I should be able to solve it with my native wits.’
‘February 18: I stayed here all night, and toward morning, when the
letters were twisting and squirming before my eyes, I found that the first two
lines made sense. Laudate Leoninum! All that is required, it seems, is
concentration. It seems to be the beginning of an incantation of some sort.
This has been a bitter winter. Wolves were howling last night in a grove of
trees to the North. I could see their eyes as I stood in my window.’
‘February 20: I have asked Brother Glastonbery to excuse me from
prayers for a few days, so that I might finish something that will, I am sure,
be for the greater glory of Aslan. He consented but reluctantly, and made a
needlessly unpleasant remark about my haggard appearance. He has not wrestled
with Powers and Principalities.’
‘March 13: It has taken incredible concentration, but I have finished
the first incantation. I assume it to be complete, since the next line is
indented and begins with an ornamental capital. Tonight, I will try the spell
and see what it brings.’
‘March 14: At first, I was horribly disappointed. I chanted the words,
but nothing happened. However, I soon came to see that one has to want
something specific to happen. I decided that the best thing would be to close
my eyes and see what image formed. I saw many things, but one picture kept
recurring, the snowy field outside my window, and in the middle of it, one gray
wolf. (No doubt this was the result of what I mentioned in my note of February
18.) I chanted the words again and went to my window. It was ten o’clock at
night, a three-quarter-full moon was in the sky, and in the snow, I saw a wolf
staring up at me. In that instant, I realized that I had made him, and that I
could keep him there only by intense concentration. The moment my brain began to
grow tired, the wolf began to shimmer and fade into the snow. When I ran
outside, I saw that the creature had left tracks. I have done what Tiresias,
Simon Magus, Arbaces, and all the sibyls could not do.’
‘March 15: The wolf will not obey my commands, though I can hold him
here for upwards of an hour. I must read more. Brother Glastonbery will not
allow me to have my meals brought here. I spoke to him sharply, and he accused
me of experimenting with black magic. I said that he spoke without knowledge,
and quoted the Narnian Chronicles to him. He stared at me in wonder and, I
think, in fear. I expected him to ask me to kneel and beg forgiveness, but he
hurried away.’
‘March 17: More success with the control of the wolf. I have
translated three whole paragraphs now. The intense study is affecting my
nerves. I constantly think that someone is plucking at my sleeve. When I turn
around, there is no one there. And last night I dreamed that something dead lay
alongside me in my bed. I woke up in terror and thought I heard something
strike the floor. When I went to the window, I saw the wolf. He had come
unbidden; I do not know why.’
‘March 20: Quarreled with Brother Glastonbery again today. It seems
very strange that he is opposed to what I am doing. Now that we speak of
witchcraft, I wonder who his master is?’
‘March 28: I cannot get beyond the third paragraph. Could it be that
the rest of the book is untranslatable? I lack will power. Told Brother
Glastonbery that I would not obey his evil command. He has fled the abbey in
disgrace.’
‘April 7: It seems that the next paragraph is not an incantation at
all, but a set of directives. Prerequisites for further action. I cannot
believe that such demands need to be met, so I will simply continue to the next
spell.’
‘April 23: The words have fought me fiercely, but I am ready now. I
think the “instructions” were interpolated by a madman.’
[Note: The
next entry,the last one, has no date. The original page from the diary was torn
out, crumpled, and thrown into the fire. Someone rescued it and stuck it back
into the book, but the date was burned away.]
‘I have smashed my bottles and retorts, and I have given the book to
an old fisherman—a foreigner, but a good man—who promised me that he would drop
it into the deepest part of the sea. How can I tell what has happened? I spoke
the words I had learned, and suddenly the whole room began to waver and drift
like smoke. I felt as if I could put my hand through the table and the walls. I
saw everything as through murky water. The floor pitched like a deck, but with
difficulty I got to the window. The wolf was out there on the grass, closer
than ever before, but beside him was a man in a monk’s robe. The cowl was
thrown back, but I could not see his features through the shimmering air. Then
his face grew impossibly large and came near, and I saw that it was mine—my
face as it might be after a year in the grave. A voice, a dry insect voice,
harsh and cracked, whispered, “Give me the book.” I clutched the book to my
chest and fell down to the floor, which was now like smoking, bubbling water. I
could see through to the ground and there was no roof above me, and I was
sinking with that awful rotted face hovering over me. I tried to destroy the
book, but I only was able to rip out a single page before I fainted, and when I
awoke, the solid stone floor of my study was under me again. The book was there
in my arms. What I did with it I have written above, and I swear to Aslan that
what I have written is true. The abbot has forgiven me, but word of my actions
has reached the Baronet, and I’m worried he will be sending an army to take me
back to the capital in chains. I will take up my studies again when I feel able
to.’
[DM Note: the well-read and astute among you will recognize this as the diary from the Appendix N book, The Face In the Frost by Bellairs. I simply edited certain parts of the text to fit what has been developing in this setting already and keep the mystery going. Shamelessly lifting from Appendix N is also a #WinningSecret of the #BrOSR!]
So here you have it!!! Have you got BrOSR Bingo yet? We have 1:1 Downtime Actions, we have Patron Play, we have Appendix N! Do you see how it all comes together so easily and seamlessly?
Thank You Jeffro! You have turned this bored, frustrated, harried, no-time DM around and now I'm not only playing, but RUNNING the most electrifying D&D ever.
So now you are all caught up! I can hit you with Session 2 wherein the players decide to deal with those durned Brigands! AND Session 3, that had two totally new players in the same campaign! Stay tuned!
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