Must Now Unite (Two Glog Classes, A Bright Place in the Sky)

 Gonna be real, Josie did all the heavy lifting here - but I was there to assist, sort of like a mildly helpful court scholar later known in history for dying in a really weird way, or something - classes, classes, that's what you're here to read.

You may notice these classes are on the (very) maximal end of GLOG - we know, it was intentional, you don't need to mention it in #blogpost-discourse ;)

THE DRAGOON
+2 HP, +2 Tension, and +1 to Hit per Template
+1 SKLL on odd templates, +1 SAVE on even ones. 
Starting Equipment: A Nautilus, a kamarband for tools, 50' of spare copper wire and gears for repairs, a light bronze shortsword, (potentially forged) discharge papers, thick glass goggles, a thick kosode and sashimono in regimental colours, a close-fitting, painted helmet (mandala, a slogan, geisha pinup or protective bodhisattva) and a set of reinforced full-body padding (as light armour).
Starting Skills: 1) Physics 2) Ballistics 3) Mathematics 4) Camaraderie 5) Carpentry 6) Distilling
A: Nautilus, Tension
B: Harpoon Drive, Overclock, +2 Arms or Legs
C: Hydrojet, Leviathan
D: Spirit Wires, +2 Arms or Legs
Δ: Fire in the Water

A: Nautilus
The Marines of the lands of Sea, élite soldiers of the Spindrift Regency (warriors bound to symbiotic molluscoid armor-organisms that give them immense strength and durability) have long thwarted the military ambitions of the Noonday Empire.

It is only in the past decades that the Imperial Puppetworks have managed to provide an answer—a kind of karakuri, worn over the body and controlled from within by a skilled human operator, called a Nautilus.

You are equipped with one such device. The delicate force-feedback wire-and-gear assemblies are tuned very precisely to your body weight and muscular strength; what else could explain the tendency of the thing to break down into a stuttering mess of slipped gears and snapped wires if somebody else tries to pilot it?

In battle, you count as two combatants—yourself, and your Nautilus. Opponents can freely choose which they want to attempt to attack. While wearing your Nautilus, you have a base AC of 18.

Your Nautilus, in its natural state, has 20 HP. Its base AC is 10, on account of its size, but it treats any damage under 4+[Templates] as 1 (with the exception of 1 damage, which it treats as 0). This threshold is doubled against edged weapons and fire.

Your Nautilus’s gauntlets are a heavy weapon that you can freely utilize while wearing it.

A: Tension
Your Nautilus is strung up with a cunning system of force-multiplying pulleys, gears, and levers that allow you to move and fight in it with only your body’s natural strength. If this was all that it could do, it would be little more than a bulky suit of armor.

Fortunately, that’s not all that it can do.

Your Nautilus has a pool of tension, which begins at 8 and increases by +2 at each level past the first. This represents energy stored in an internal spring capacitor, which can be discharged to power a clockwork motor.

You can expend 1 point of tension each round to utilize the Nautilus’ physical capabilities in place of your own. Your Nautilus has a Strength score of 24, can attack twice in one round, charge as fast as a horse in a straight lines, and can jump as high as it is tall.

Tension can be restored by means of a wind-up key situated at the back of the frame. You can restore 1 point of tension per per minute, or 1 point per round at the cost of a MOVE check and a slot of Fatigue for each round of exertion.

B: Harpoon Drive
You have enough of a handle on the maneuvering characteristics of your Nautilus that you can now begin to utilize one of its fundamental features—the Harpoon Drive. This consists of two tension-powered harpoon launchers that are mounted on hardpoints at the “hips” of the Nautilus frame, in line with the center of mass, and connected to a winch and spool of 150’ of high-quality tensile copper cord.

You can spend 1 point of tension to launch one harpoon, or 3 points to launch both at once. These are heavy missile weapons with a range of 150’ (naturally), with a penalty of -2 to hit for every 30’ past the first; these hit penalties don’t really matter if you’re shooting at something big, like a wall.

Once one sticks inside something, it takes a MOVE of DC 10 + [Damage] to dislodge it, though with a clever little jiggering of a couple of wires you can cause the barbs to retract from afar for easy retrieval (in which case it’s a simple DC 10 to pull it out).

You can reel in a harpoon at a rate of 5’ per second per tension (at the baseline, that’s 30’ per combat round and 5 combat rounds to reel it in from full extension). If it’s attached to something considerably heavier than your Nautilus, this will reels you in instead. You can also slacken it for free to rappel or belay or whatever that’s called.

Consider the laws of angular motion carefully when choosing how to use this, and remember that slamming into a wall at high speed does fall damage too!

B: Overclock
The master puppetsmiths who created your Nautilus gave you many stern admonishments about things like “ultimate tensile strength” and “shear moduli,” but they’ve never piloted it. You know your friend better than anyone else, and that includes knowing its limits.

With a night’s work tinkering with internals and adjusting gears and springs, you can overclock up to [Templates] - 1 of the following systems, allowing them to bear more tension than is “safe”:

• Arms - You can increase your effective STR score by 3 per additional tension spent for one round.
• Legs - You can multiply your running speed or jumping height by a factor of [Tension] + 1 for one round.
• Harpoons - You can gain a +1 bonus to Hit and damage on a single shot per additional tension spent.

Utilizing an overclocked system causes your Nautilus to take 1d6 unavoidable damage, +1 for each point of tension spent past the first.

You can also attach an extra pair of arms or legs to your Nautilus. Each pair of extra arms gives it an additional move each round, as you can coordinate them to perform more complex tasks or more complex tasks. Each pair of additional legs lets it jump 10’ further.

C: Hydrojet
There’s a lot you can get done with swinging on wires, but you have a need - a need for propulsion. You have enough of a handle on your Nautilus to (somewhat) safely use the hydrojet - a truly bizarre device reverse-engineered from the Marines of the Spindrift Kingdom, who naturally possess a similar ability - a nozzle, situated on the small of your Nautilus’ back, which fires a jet of pressurized liquid at extreme speeds in order to propel the user forward.

 It takes 3 points of tension per round to run the complicated pump apparatus, and 1 slot of liquid as ammunition, which you need to keep in a tank in your Nautilus’ inventory. 

Using it launches your Nautilus forward at about the speed of a modern automobile, if said automobile is in the middle of a high-speed car chase. Whether or not your Nautilus is running doesn’t really matter - trying to run with the Hydrojet on is like trying to walk on a treadmill set to maximum speed - better to just sit back and enjoy the ride. 

Since this speed allows you to travel the full diameter of a circle described by the default 150’ cable in about a second, it’s safe to say that even a single use allows you to travel anywhere within the radius of one of your harpoon tethers, via very rapid swinging.

In fact, this upgrade comes with a free cable extender that makes your cords 300’ long, along with some internal gyroscopic flywheels that allow you to spend a point of tension to freely decide your orientation in midair. Remember that large speeds come with large fall damage. In theory, you could also use the hydrojet as a water-cutter, dealing 2d8 to anyone caught in the backwash. The fact that it’s on your back makes it pretty hard to aim (to the tune of a -6), but it’s worth a try.

C: Leviathan
Top brass (which, let’s be real, is probably just you) has decided that you’re ready for the big leagues. Choose one massive weapon to be installed within one of your Nautilus’s arms, occupying no extra inventory slots:

• Big Fist - Your Nautilus’s fist becomes a massive weapon. You can spend an additional point of tension to scatter those struck with it like leaves—they must make a MOVE check or be hurled as many feet as the damage dealt.
• Big Drill - Your Nautilus has a massive tension-driven drill concealed in one arm. You can use it like a large spear, or spend 2 points of tension to spin it up, allowing it to strike against AC 10 and ignore all DR. Commonly found on Nautili expected to hunt other Nautili.
• Big Saw - Your Nautilus has a massive tension-driven chainsaw or circular saw mounted inside one arm. Spend 2 points of tension to spin it up, causing it to deal maximum damage against unarmored targets. Commonly found on Nautili expected to do war-crimes.

In addition to whichever upgrade you pick, your Nautilus gains +10 HP and [Templates] DR (applied after the damage threshold), and fully encloses you for an AC of 20 while you wear it. If you salvage a different system somewhere you can probably swap it out with a week’s work at a suitable workshop, or install it in your Nautilus’ other arms. Manual dexterity in arms with massive weapons installed is severely limited.

D: Spirit Wires
At a certain point, the Nautilus becomes you, and you the Nautilus - the wires your tendons, the gears your joints, bronze and wood and lacquer and paper are your muscles and bones and teeth and skin.

At any time, you can trade 1 HP for 1 point of tension. You have a Strength score of 24 even outside your Nautilus, and a score of 30 in it. While wearing it, you no longer need to spend tension to use its physical capabilities in place of your own.

You can speak to your Nautilus - or rather, it can now speak to you.

Δ: Fire in the Water
We’re getting into experimental technology here, really top stuff that not even the Emperor knows his legions possess—likely because eyewitnesses tend to get blown the fuck up.

Gain a prototype system. This could be fresh from the testing ranges of the secretive Tiger Pavilion division of the Imperial Puppetworks (which deals with explosives and inflammables and recruits exceptional Dragoons as test pilots) or it could be reverse-engineered from a golem or marine, or it could be a product of your own deranged mind.

You can negotiate the properties of this upgrade with your GM. The Sky (and Sea) is the limit here!

As with opium dealers and gambling dens, the first hit is free. Further upgrades will require commensurate payment in goods and services.

A non-exhaustive list of examples:

1. Big Cannon - Your Nautilus gains a supermassive breech-loading cannon concealed in one of its arms.
2. Torpedo - Your harpoons can streak across the sky like fireworks.
3. Firelances - Your harpoons are equipped with exploding warheads.
4. Shoulder Hwacha - Your Nautilus gains a shoulder-mounted rack capable of peppering an area with arrows.
5. Electric Eel - You can electrify your harpoon cables.
6. Explosive Reactive Armor - Explode segments of your armor to negate attacks or give grapplers a very bad day.
7. Pile-Bunker - You know what this is. A classic of mecha design.
8. Hanabi Drive - Your hydrojet can now accept rocket fuel. So named because of the tendency for its users to shoot into the sky and then explode.

THE HERO
+1 to Hit and +1 Equipment Slot per Template
Starting Equipment: A massive bronze pole-arm, a medium composite bow with 20 arrows and a hide quiver OR a heavy jezzail with a bandolier of 12 gazyr cartridges, six light bronze chakrams, a green silk headscarf, a blue silk veil, a block-printed sash in your sept’s pattern and colors, a collection of turquoise-and-yak-bone prayer bead bracelets and necklaces, an undyed linen loincloth, and a skin of thick black coffee.
Starting Skills: Keen Senses and 1) Stellar Navigation, 2) Poetry, 3) Flute, 4) Meteorology, 5) Redsmithing, 6) Spear-Fishing.
A: Heroism, Spear-Wife, Breath Control
B: Mushin, Impaler
C: Spear-Saint or Windmother, +1 attack/round
D: Time Stands Still
Δ: Black Widow

"To be fit for fighting, every warrior undergoes hard training, and spends all his leisure in various exercises ... The hero must run for long distances, drawing a heavily-loaded sledge. He carries stone and timber, jumps up in the air, but above all, he fences with his long spear. He performs this exercise quite alone; and the chief feature of it is the brandishing of the spear with the utmost force, so that it bends like a piece of raw reindeer leg-skin. He also practices shooting with the bow, and uses for this purpose in various arrows [sic], sharp and blunt. from all these exercises he acquires great skill and agility ... When he is shot at, he avoids the arrows by springing to one side, or parries them all with the butt-end of the spear, or simply catches them between his fingers and throws them back."

A: Heroism
You are a member, by birth or later adoption, of the Nomad culture - called the Nomiai endonymously. The Nomads hail from the lands of the Wind, and are refugees from the imperial expansion of the Spindrift Regency, which seeks to unify Sea and Sky to fulfill the conditions for the birth of a preordained savior.

You, in particular, have been chosen by the sept elders to undergo initiation into the secret and terrifying martial arts of the Society of Heroes, an ancient martial order that teaches mastery of the vital breath. Imperials call your kind Dervishes or Yamabushi, but to other Nomads you are and will always be a Hero.

To be a Hero, you must exemplify the four Virtues of the Nomiai, which are different to the Imperial norms. These are:

• Charity - If somebody truly needs one of your possessions more than you do, give it to them. You can get away with not offering your things, but if somebody asks, you’re bound to oblige. Your heart-spear is totally exempt, and even asking you for it is an offense worthy of a duel.
• Bravery - If you are challenged to a contest you must accept it, and if you say you’ll do something dangerous you must at least attempt it. Do not flee from danger unless it would be obviously suicidal to face it head-on.
• Humility - Do not boast of your victories and deeds. Instead, commemorate them via the strands of colored beads you wear on your person—those who know your culture will understand without words. If someone outright asks you what you’ve done or it’s necessary to explain something for purely practical reasons you get a pass.
• Vagrancy - Do not spend more than three consecutive nights under the same roof.

So long as you maintain these Virtues, you gain a +[Templates] bonus to all your derived stats (MOVE, SNEK, HRTS, and the like). Remember that these are added to checks and moves, but not damage rolls, HP, &c.

If you violate any of these Virtues, you are unable to muster your breath until you beseech the winds for forgiveness from atop the highest place you could reasonably reach within a week’s travel.

A: Spear-Wife
Every Nomad carries around a massive polearm—by your strange cultural customs, you are in fact legally married to it. Other humans can only ever be concubines, at best, to you.

Your heart-spear is your life-long companion. You know it so well that you never have trouble transporting or using it, even in enclosed spaces. In your hands it can deal slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning damage, uses your best ability modifier, and can be hurled up to [Templates] x 30’, with a -2 penalty for each additional 30’ beyond.

By singing its name, which is written across the shaft in cursive Nomai script, you can call it back to your hand from any distance—it will arrive at the beginning of your next turn.

If you lose or break your heart-spear and are unable to find or repair it, you must go through a Season of ritual mourning, during which you only wear thick bone-white clothing, fast from dawn to dusk, and are unable to touch any other shafted weapons. This is when your chakrams typically come in handy. Afterwards, you are free to remarry.

You cannot wield swords or knives. Like, literally, you cannot—if you try it’ll just fall out of your fingers.

A: Breath Control
Spend an hour breathing deeply, preferably under the open sky, and meditating on the movement of energy through the body. At the conclusion, you can fill any number of your inventory slots with breath.

While you have at least one slot of breath in your inventory, you gain the following benefits:

• If unarmored and exposing at least half your skin to the elements, you have a base AC of 12 + [Breath].
• You are immune to cold and wind-burn.
• You can balance or hang from your heart-spear in any pose so long as you have at least one finger or toe firmly planted on the spear—you can use this to pole-vault, stick your spear into a wall and fight atop it, and so forth.
• You can wield and throw your heart-spear as easily with your feet as with your hands, and can thrust with it one-handed (or one-footed) with only a -2 penalty to Hit.
• You can run horizontally on walls and other vertical surfaces as easily as you can run on level ground.

You can burn one or more slots of breath to:

• Follow up a regular attack with a pair of unarmed attacks or a light strike with the butt of your polearm.
• Jump [Breath] x 20’ in any direction as a move, even in mid-air.
• Parry an incoming attack, reducing damage by [Breath] + [Hit], and counterattacking immediately if damage is reduced to 0. If it is a projectile, you catch it and throw it back.
• Ignore [Breath] x 2 points of AC and range penalties on a missile attack.
• Fully negate one instance of damage from falling or fire.
• Any other cool martial arts bullshit you can convince your GM to allow you to make.

You can spend a maximum of [Templates] slots of breath in a single round.

B: Mushin
While in free-fall, you can burn breath to enter a state of perfect no-mind, lightning-fast thought, and action without intent. Make up to [Breath] missile attacks in a single crystalline instant, suffering no penalty from range, weather, or, you know, being in free-fall.

You cannot use this ability again until you touch the ground.

B: Impaler
On a critical hit with your heart-spear, you deal a base of 2d6 + 6 damage and can choose to impale your target.

Your heart-spear remains within them, requiring a MOVE check of DC 10 + [Damage] to pull free, and a concomitant SKLL check of equivalent difficulty to do so without inflicting an additional 1d6 damage. While your spear is stuck in them, they take disadvantage to all physical exertions, and an additional 2 points of damage with each attempt for their trouble.

Calling your spear back to your hand requires no MOVE roll.

C: Spear-Saint
A title given to those amongst the Nomads who have mastered their heart-spears to the degree that they can teach new initiates.

Your critical range with your heart-spear expands by 3 points, allowing you to score a critical hit on a natural roll of 17+. You can make an extra move with it each round.

While in your hands, your heart-spear is indestructible.

You can now speak to your spear.

C: Windmother
A title given to those amongst the Nomads who have mastered their breath to the degree that they can “birth” new winds.

So long as you have at least one slot of breath in your inventory, you can manipulate wind-pressure to make attacks with your heart-spear from up to [Templates] x 10’ away. These count as both hand-to-hand and missile attacks.

You can spend breath to exhale a gale-force wind in a [Breath] x 30’ cone, causing all within to have to check MOVE or be hurled back [Breath] x 20’. Unless you are firmly anchored, you are also hurled an equal distance in the opposite direction—you can use this for rapid movement and to change your direction mid-flight.

You can also spend breath to run on the wind as if it were a solid surface for up to [Breath] x 40’ downwind, [Breath] x 20’ perpendicular to the wind or in still air, or [Breath] x 10’ close-hauled or in irons.

You can now speak the whispering language of winds.

D: Time Stands Still
The ultimate move - the stillness at the heart of the windstorm, the flawless star sapphire that sits at the apex of the spine. Take a long, deep breath and remember this moment - you’ll be in it for a while.

Burn your breath to take [Breath] extra consecutive turns in the span of an instant. In this state all your attacks are against AC 10 and deal an additional 4 points of damage, both because you have time to line them up and also because you are going fast enough that you cause a sonic boom the first time you move. Nobody is able to react to any of your actions.

At this speed, moving through normal air is like swimming in jelly. You cannot move faster than a (subjective) walk. You would have all your skin flayed from your muscles and all your muscles flensed from your bones in seconds if you weren’t immune to wind-burn.

You cannot use this ability again, until you score a critical hit, recharge your breath or make a heroic vow.

Remember that gravity doesn’t work any faster—if you jump, you won’t fall down. Remember, also, that just because it feels like you’re moving at a slow walk doesn’t mean that you actually are. If you’re still in motion when your supercharged reflexes wear off, you’ll find yourself shooting off like a bullet in the direction of your movement.

If you fight another Hero who also has this move, they can use it as a reaction as soon as they notice you doing it, allowing you to have a cool mutual time-stop duel. At the conclusion, if you both agree, you can choose to declare that the duel was fought in the eye of the mind - refund all breath spent on the duel and snap back to reality, rolling a new Reaction Roll at +[Breath].

Δ: Black Widow
Shatter your heart-spear over your knee. This is a deeply wicked and shameful act.

You can now wield swords and knives, and gain all the benefits you would normally have with your heart-spear (extra attack, throwing, balance tricks, impaling, etc…) while using one. Your blades can cut the intangible.

You are still restricted by the Virtues, but you are free to twist them and violate their spirit, if not the letter.

The Society continuously sends Heroes to challenge you, and will do so for the rest of your life unless you manage to forge a completely flawless new identity and never use your powers in public. Or, you could just eradicate them all and never have to worry about it again :)

Aixin Lake Caravanserai (Scenario for the UW)

 This dungeon was revealed to me partially in a dream. It is set in the Unfinished World. 

You have been heading northeast from the Holy City, Anyang, for a fortnight. It feels like a month, but, no, only half that. The road is dusty, the land is flat and scrubby, and you have grown sick of the sight of cattle.

Your destination? A port on the northeast coast, where doubtless you are awaited by an important business deal, an Academy ship, a consumptive aunt with a fortune for you in her will, or some other very good reason for you to be passing through these lands.

The trip from the last town, which is called Geval, has taken just a little too long for comfort. Whoever laid out these roads was careless, or perhaps had faster horses than you. Night is drawing in, and you need to find some high walls to be behind, and quickly.

All around, the flat grasslands stretch out - then, look there! A trio of hills, and between them, a sheltered dell. Roof, walls topped with mortared glass shards glinting in the Sunlight, and the leaves of apple trees. Listen! There’s accordion music, a beautiful and soothing tune, too. Thank G_d, civilisation:

YOU CAN FINALLY REST

Wait. 

Look over there - in the long south-reaching shadows of the ruins on the western hill. In those shadows are the unburied dead. A lot of them - sixty, seventy of them. Yellowed eyes, rotted gaunt faces, rags hanging limply. They crouch in groups, or stand and stare at you, quite patiently. South of the hill, a wagon is rolled over, smashed up - they’ve already claimed victims. 

Where the fuck did they come from? They’ll catch you if you start on the road onwards to your destination, and you’ll be even deader if you turn back. So, what to do, to preserve your own life? Think too of the next visitor, for if you are caught, you will add to the problem. The only thing to do is to get inside before the Sun’s light leaves the land, and the dead are free to advance. 

The only problem is everyone else in the same situation as you. 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE 

• Europese Zwaarden - Aeshean Man, 28 - Currently hiding in the Walled Orchard.

Small, skinny, sunburnt, blinking, has a huge bandage wrapped around his head.
Dressed in a black herringbone suit that is not suitable for the weather, along with an ill-fitting shirt. Unarmed.

He’s so thankful you’re here. You see, he’s the original owner of the Caravanserai. His father left it to him when he died a few years ago, but now all these maniacs have turned up, and brought a horde of the dead with them! One of those corpses nearly bit through his skull before he fled in here!

Mr. Zwaarden is convinced at least one of the other people hiding here is in league with dark powers, and would like to effect an alliance to determine which. Zwaarden is a bumbling incompetent with a head wound, and a massive coward on top of that, so, the alliance doesn’t really get you much. 

• Melanchthon of the North - King Man, 41 - Sitting in the Courtyard of the Caravanserai. 

Gigantic, brick-red, muscular, handsome, expressive face, on the edge of getting fat.
Dressed in sky-blue silks and a red sash. Openly carries a rope-dart and a carbine.

Aha! Thank the G_ds you’re here. You see, he’s the original owner of the Caravanserai. He found this place abandoned 20 years ago, or so, and has spent a great deal of time and money getting it up to snuff. Now, a bunch of insane people have turned up and invaded the place, dragging a horde of the dead behind them! He’s here to guard the entrance. Let’s be friends, you can’t trust anyone these days. 

Melancthon is rude, flirty, condescending, constantly offering compliments, proud of his ability to do a standing backflip, and suicidally confident. He doesn’t like direct sunlight - for his complexion, you see. He’s certain one of the people here brought the dead in - probably that little Shee hiding in the storehouse. We should go confront him! I’ll lead the way!

• Orderic Anfealt - Shee Man, 40 - Currently hiding in the hay-filled loft of the Storehouse. 

Pale, dark-haired, neatly trimmed beard and short-shorn hair. Multitude of scars. Sad grey eyes. 

Dressed in a white tunic-like shirt, and black trousers. Armed with a ringsword, two carbines and a big cartoon bomb with a long fuse. 

Claims to be the original owner of the Caravanserai, but with a slight twinge of discomfort. He’s an obvious liar. He’ll tell you a story about winning the place from the previous owner in a game of chance, when he was returning from a pilgrimage into the north. He is unable to improvise further details if pressed, and gets annoyed. Listen, can we just focus on the hungry dead? 

Orderic is grumpy, weary, irritable, suspicious of others, acting suspiciously, and extremely cautious. He is set up at what is clearly a sniper’s nest in the loft of the Storehouse. 

• Clovis Martel - Umbern Man, 42 - Currently in the Stables, sitting on rafters above a pair of hungry dead. 

Blond, blocky, large teeth, pale skin with freckles and faded scars, messy beard, barrel chest. Watery blue eyes.
Dressed in green travelling clothes (the shade doesn’t flatter him), with a high collar and tight cuffs despite the heat. Wears a north-Aeshean style gaucho hat with a little dagger charm hanging from the brim. 

If you ask him whether or not he owns the Caravanserai, he’ll say he does, with a firm nod, but he won’t bring it up himself. Right now, he would like you to get him down from these god damn rafters so he can lock himself in his bedroom in the Caranvanserai building. 

Clovis is relaxed, pronoiac, chattery, and alternates between seemingly-tireless and always-sleepy every few days. He is full of stories of Umbersheen, all of which have a fairly picaresque character. He claims to be a champion hunter, to explain the long two-handed spear and decorated rifle he’s got with him up here in the rafters. Shame is, he’s out of bullets. 

• Hadewych von Baas - Aeshean Woman, 50 - Smoking furiously in the dining room of the Caravanserai. 

Burly, stout, grey-haired, golden-brown, duelling scar on her left cheek, right eye screwed shut by a huge burn.
Dressed in a purple-red dress, in a severe and modest cut, with frilly cuffs. The delicacy of the garment and the crudity of her language stand in opposition. 

Own this shithole? Don’t be ridiculous! She just wanted to get through, but her entourage has been torn apart by the dead and now everyone is acting exceedingly shiftily. She would much rather be in Warkuste - she works for the Academy, you know. 

Who’s the owner? How should she know? She just arrived here, and had to fight her way through a crowd of the Unburied to do it. She hates the North!

Hadewych is a complainer, and she’s bloody annoyed. So far as she’s concerned, unless you have a magical undead-killing gun, we’re all going to die here, so she may as well drink all the wines, smoke all the cigars, and lament that she wasted a promising old age on this! And if you think you have a plan to survive this - well, she’s listening. 

• Anke van der Bijl - Aeshean Woman, 34 - Currently in her bedroom in the Caravanserai.

Black-haired, golden skinned, bright clear grey eyes, picturebook smile, mole under her left eye, everything carefully presented. Hair all in a long braid. 

Heather-grey herringbone suit, sky blue tie, lavender-coloured shirt. Crisp and neat.

Claims to be the proprietor of the Caranvanserai, managing it on behalf of the owner, a fellow called Bai Blom who lives in Warkuste. Look, she’s got these finely made, authentic-looking documents to prove it. Encourages you to organise “her guests” to form a rag-tag defense of the Caravanserai. 

Anke is painfully polite, laconic, soft-spoken, smiles pretty much at all times, and will happily answer questions about her life. She reminisces on her childhood in the city of Koboldberg. It wasn’t easy - her father, a miner, died before she was born, and her mother, a clerk, had to work hard to support her. She speaks in glowing terms of the move to Anyang and her entry into her mother’s business - that of management and careful accounting, of course. 

• Digit  - Aeshean Man - 22 - Currently cooking nervously in the Caravanserai kitchen. 

Tall, handsome, golden-skinned, guileless. Possesses some je nais sais quoi that draws the eye despite his lowly position. Has the frame of a swordsman and the soul of a tailor. Currently in the pursuit of drudgery, wasting both.
Dressed in a simple dark red tunic with wide sleeves, baggy red trousers, a gaucho hat, and a cheap belt.

Is fairly certain he works for the owner of the Caravanserai. When asked, he will say - after a long pause - that the owner is Anke van der Bijl. Digit is nervous of new arrivals (and silently frustrated that his workload has just increased, considering everyone seems to expect him to cook, clean and serve for the foreseeable). 

Digit’s sole goal in this mess is to get back to his father and siblings in Geval and give up on the “adventurous” decision to work at the Caravanserai. Having seen the dead firsthand, he is now more than happy to join the family cooping business and make barrels til the Sun goes out. 

Digit is humble, brave, mostly illiterate, and remarkably world-weary for a man of twenty two. 

• Ol’ Bei Klein - Aeshean Man, 91 - Sits in his own bedroom in the Caravanserai.

Knee length silver beard, shiny bald head. Ancient, wrinkled face. Eyes clouded with age, wispy eyebrows, nose broken once long ago. Full set of perfect white teeth.

Dressed in a long dark blue coat, a slightly threadbare red tunic, baggy black trousers, and a straw sunhat. 

Ancient, blind. Exceedingly friendly. Knowledgeable, cryptic, forgetful. Was he the original owner of the Caravanserai? Hmm… maybe? He can’t quite remember who was. Occasionally, he plays pleasant music on his venerable accordion that echoes throughout the whole of Aixin Lake. 

The old fella casually claims to have seen insane things (“Alden’s sword? I’m familiar.” “The far-side of the Moon? Uninteresting, if you ask me.”), or to have unlikely skills (“I’m a champion knife thrower, you know!” “Oh, the Art of Destruction? Yeah, I know the trick.”). 

He hands out boiled sweets and encouraging words to anyone who seems to be having a bad day (you). If you mention the horde of the Unburied, he doesn’t seem all that bothered.

||||/

STABLES

Two Unburied dead wait immediately within, clad in ragged brown jumpsuits. They look pretty fresh, with livid human bites on their necks and faces. Their jumpsuits have the Academy’s Red Mar on the back. One of them wields a wrench like a club, the other attacks with teeth and nails. Sitting in the rafters above them is an apologetic Clovis, who bemoans his lack of bullets and wonders if you could draw the dead away? Or put them down and Hallow them? Please? 

All the horses are dead, shot, or burnt, or in one case apparently torn apart by a large dog. Clovis was investigating this situation, or so he claims, when some dead came out of the hay and went for him, and chased him into the rafters like a cat up a tree. 

CAIRN

Ancient dusty bones, a rusted helm, a banner-pole finial of bronte and patina. Some captain or charioteer of ancient time is buried here. Maybe you are his reincarnation? (You aren’t - it’s Hadewych. But that isn’t relevant). 

STOREHOUSE

Exceedingly dusty. The front double doors are locked up with a padlock, but you could heave yourself into a high window on the south wall and fall on top of some sacks of apple leather and dried beans. Stored here are various necessities - hay, bags of coal, spare horseshoes, coils of rope, spare bedclothes, and a trio of spare mattresses in the loft. 

Two floors, thick stone walls, hayloft (dried plains grass) on the upper floor. This place has a lot of food stored in it, and windows in the hayloft looking in every direction - you could hold up here pretty well against the Dead, normally. Except, go pacing around on the bottom floor, and you’ll immediately notice a problem. The fucking worms, there’s worms in every sack of food, like somebody put them there. Where else would they all have come from? 

The Storehouse contains 4 rations of unwormed food - 4 days for one person, or one day for four. 

Orderic claimed the storehouse as a little fort as soon as he realised what was happening, but quickly found that the sacks were wormed (or so he claims), and that his position was not half as tenable as he thought it might be. Wonder if we could convince that lot in the Caravanserai to resupply us, eh? 

WALLED ORCHARD 

Venerable, well-cared for apple trees, in an ovoid wall. The soil inside the wall is carefully tended and fertilised, and the ground between the trees is full of flowers. There’s a two-person gazebo in the eastern end, near the hefty gate that allows access. From the gate, you can see a toolshed of some sort, with ladders leaning against it, in the western end of the orchard. 

The Orchard currently contains 20 rations, in the form of apple-leather drying on racks, various radishes and garlics planted along the south wall, and a few small and unripe apples. 

Europese Zwaarden hides inside the toolshed in the western end. He's deathly afraid of all the maniacs around, and, yeah, deathly afraid of the hordes of the dead, too! The Orchard is safe, though - high walls, with spikes atop, and trees to run up if the dead come! 

Zwaarden is certain the dead cannot climb. 

HILLTOP RUINS

Old, grey-brown bricks. Ancient buildings, worn by the weather. Whoever lived here did not survive the bad times after the beginning of the plague of the Unburied. 

THE SPRING & AIXIN LAKE 

Lake is perhaps generous, or maybe even a toponymic play to increase foot-traffic through the Caravanserai. 

Freshwater burbles out of the Spring, a narrow gap in the rock, at a carefully measured rate, replenishing that which evaporates. If the Spring were plugged, the Lake would be a dry bed within a month. If it were unplugged, it would casually return to its dry bed like it had just been on holiday. 

There’s a door to an ancient underground structure on the lakebed. But maybe that’s a later post. 

Swimming into the Spring takes you to a small underground chamber. The water comes out of an apparently-bottomless square hole in the floor, about a foot across. On the western wall of the chamber, there is some writing, in Primal. The writing says: 

THE LORD TIMOTHEOS CREATED THESE HILLS. THE HILL TOWARDS THE SUN WAS CREATED IN ONE DAY. THE HILL WITH THE SPRING WAS CREATED IN ONE DAY. 

THE OTHER HILL WAS CREATED IN FOUR DAYS, DESTROYED, RECREATED IN EIGHT DAYS, DESTROYED, RECREATED IN TWO DAYS, DECLARED FINISHED, DESTROYED AGAIN THREE DAYS LATER, RECREATED IN TWO DAYS, OBSERVED FOR A DAY, AND DECLARED FINISHED. 

SO RECORDS THE SCRIBE SERVIUS.

In the south edge of the Spring, a large sack has been deposited in the corner. This is the owner’s hidden stash of glass coins - 80 of them, in fact. Everyone would try to claim it’s theirs, but only Clovis would try and stab you for it. 

||||/

THE CARAVANSERAI ITSELF 

Thick-walled and windowless, with an interior courtyard. The wall-tops around the outer edge are tipped with sharp steel spikes. Unless otherwise stated, interior rooms have dark wooden flooring, plastered walls, and ceilings painted with flowers and angelic figures (or, a hazy guess at angelic figures, anyway).  

1. Courtyard - Door: Open Gateway, Barricaded with Furniture

Octagonal. Rammed-earth floor, spike-topped eaves overhang. Walls are painted amateurishly with scenes of Nosam and Jovan and the Great Sage. A barrow full of sacks of apple leather leans in the south, and a rope runs between the west and east sides, strung with drying laundry. The walls are lined with benches where there aren’t doors, to allow for relaxation - upon one of these benches, guarding the gate languidly, is the imposing figure of Melancthon. 

A stubborn mule is here, along with a chestnut mare - the mule is Clovis’, the mare is Orderic’s. The mule is called Prick, and it will kick your fucking head in if it decides it doesn’t like you. The mare doesn’t have a name, and is skittish. 

2. Southwest Bedroom - Door: Reinforced Wood, Unlocked 

Melancthon’s room. He doesn’t bother locking it. What is there to rob? He lives humbly.

The room is fastidiously tidy and clean. 

A double bed, sized for Kings to be comfortable. It is laid out as if two people are sleeping there, but Melancthon has no companion. Did he get up and carefully walk around the bed, to turn aside the bedclothes as if someone rose from sleep here? 

3. Storehouse - Door: Steel, Locked 

Spare bedding, hammers, nails, glue, paint, and various other needful things for the running of a small establishment out on the plains. Dark and dusty. 24g in glass coins hidden in a boiled leather box under a large roll of canvas tarpaulin. There is also a stack of ten manufactured folding beds, which can be pulled out to turn the Dining Hall into a makeshift dormitory, if the need arises. 

4. West Bedroom - Door: Reinforced Wood, Unlocked 

In a bit of a state - bedclothes piled in the corner, drawers all pulled out to the point they’re nearly falling out of the cabinet. Graffiti on the walls from years of guests - Chen Yang cheats at cards. Do Not trust the Geval goat sellers i was sold a sheep. PENES (sic). Fuck yuorself. ← No, You. - and so on, all carved into the walls.

This was Zwaarden’s room, when he first arrived. If you dig in the pile of bedclothes, you’ll find a heavily blood-stained white shirt that would fit a small, skinny man. 

5. Northwest Bedroom - Door: Reinforced Wood, Unlocked 

Ol’ Bei Klein’s bedroom. He’s in here right now. His luggage is all unpacked in a large circle on the floor, and he sits in the middle of it on a cushion, with everything in arm’s reach. He’d definitely need help to get himself out of the Caravanserai - who abandoned him here? How long has he been staying? How did he pay for his room? I’ll tell you, he paid for his room by answering the owner’s questions about the world - to the best of his ability, anyway. 

Klein is marvellously unconcerned by his situation, sitting wrapped up in the blanket off the bed and humming to himself. Anyone entering the room must SAVE or be locked in a 1d6*10 minute (exploding) conversation with Klein, who has an almost supernatural ability to draw you into a long and rambling conversation. 

6. Owner’s Sitting Room - Door: Reinforced Wood, Locked

Four nail-holes indicate that someone has ripped a plaque off the door. 

Within, it’s dark, comfortable, and plushly appointed. This is one half of a two-room apartment. In here, there’s a couch, a bookshelf, a small stove with a metal pipe chimney going up out the roof, a spare bed (just in case), a ouija board on a low table, and some paraphernalia for opium smoking. 

On the bookshelf in the corner: six copies of the Third Edition of the Sayings of Aeshe, each with a fetching dust-cover, a smattering of pulp romances, some old melancholy poetry, and Epistles to Warkuste, a collection of clerical letters. There’s also two old books, without titles, full of fairy stories - and I don’t mean the Peaseblossom and Mustardseed kind. 

7. Owner’s Bedroom - Door: Flimsy Wood, Open 

Dominated by a comically large bed. Must be custom made. A leaning four-poster, stacked high with blankets and embroidered cushions. On the north side of the room, past the bed, there are wardrobes, containing a number of humble but well-fitted outfits sized for a portly, broad-shouldered fellow shorter than six feet. Only Clovis could make a claim to fit these clothes. 

A little songbird sits in an expensive cage in the southeast corner. Fine plumage. If you let it free, it would fly off north, towards the SUN, and never be caged again. 

8. Music Room - Door: Flimsy Wood, Open

Ceiling and walls painted sky blue, with little square windows (no glass) facing into the courtyard. A well-maintained harpsichord sits in the northeast corner, with a rack above it containing a guqin, an erhu, and a flute. A few plush chairs sit around a heavy wooden coffee-table with a copy of The Third Edition of the Sayings of Aeshe attached to it by a chain. 

9. Northeast Bedroom - Door: Thick Wood, Locked

Clovis’ bedroom. Mud’s tracked everywhere, the bedsheets smell of sweat and spilled booze. Clovis refuses to let Digit into his room to clean, but also refuses to clean it himself. Clovis’ travelling rucksack is dropped in the corner - it contains a bottle of blade oil, a whetstone, a canteen, a set of heavy steel manacles, a bigass box of snuff, and a  well-thumbed copy of a Green Heretic text with Clovis’ own crude illustrations in the margins. 

10. East Bedroom - Door: Thick Wood, Locked, Decorated with Tally-marks 

A plaque on the wall next to the door reads “RESERVED FOR OFFICERS OF THE ORTHODOXY - SERVANTS OF THE GREAT SAGE SLEEP HERE WITHOUT CHARGE”. 

The room is currently unoccupied. It contains four comfortable beds, two with black blankets and two with white. A little overenthusiastic on the owner’s part! Each bed has an accompanying desk, trunk, and side-table. Due to this, there’s not a huge amount of floor space here. Otherwise, undecorated and humble. 

11. Fancy Bedroom - Door: Reinforced Wood, Locked 

Anke’s current bedroom. Fancy sort of equates to “overdecorated” out here in the sticks, you suppose. Thick rug depicting hounds and deer in the hunt, patterned drapes, curlicued woodwork, polished brass, gilding, small standing mirrors depicted with pearls (from the Pearl Islands, of course), and various other fripperies.

All told, 40g of valuables decorate the room, not including the tapestry. 

The north wall is covered by a  tapestry (50g, very heavy) with a slightly amateurish, brightly coloured image upon it. It depicts a “map” of Anyang, not conforming at all to the actual layout of the city, but including simplified depictions of all the classes of people, with an idealised, nonspecific Emperor looking down upon them, flanked by fork-tailed animals. 

Anke is usually in here, sitting by the bed with her feet up on the pouffé, reading. She seems entirely unconcerned. If she isn’t in the room, she keeps the key on her at all times. 

12. Private W.C. - Door: Thick Wood, Unlocked  

Tiled floor and walls, flush toilet, expensive soaps, large mirror. Soaps and mirror worth 25g together. Manufactory-installed pipes run along the east wall, then under the floor and all the way north out of the building. 

13. Southeast Bedroom - Door: Reinforced Wood, Locked 

When there’s too many guests, Digit might need to sleep on a pallet in the Pantry, but for the moment, he’s sleeping in this room. It’s plain, sturdily fitted, and the door is slightly drafty. Digit has locked the door and keeps the key in his pocket - he resisted Anke’s suggestion that he hand it over to her for safekeeping. 

In here, there is a trio of hares in a large cage. Digit caught them the other day (he’s not entirely sure why) and doesn’t really want to let them go. Perhaps watching these ordinary beasties provides him some comfort. 

14. Dining Room - Door:  Reinforced Wood, Open (Can be Barred from the Inside) 

Large, with a wood-panelled ceiling and five round tables. Could seat twenty. Tiled floor. Large hearth in the southern side, to the left-hand side of the door. 

15. Shrines - Door: Reinforced Wood, Open (Can be Barred from the Inside) 

Behold, clumsy folk-religion. Glass cases and wooden shrine boxes crowd under fading wall-paintings. Lots of the shrine boxes contain unusual “relics” - cobblestones, boots, the broken tip of a sword. Little plaques announce these came from the priests and ancestors who reclaimed Geval from the dead, and G_ds bless them. 

The chief and champion of these shrines is an expensive glass case, within which a scrap of slightly burnt white cloth is pinned to a felted cylinder. The little plaque asserts this scrap of white cloth came from the very garb of Joshua himself, and a few incense sticks smoke away in front of it. 

Compared to it, the well-worn statuette of Dead Timotheos is humble, but there are many offerings in front of it (13g of offerings, in fact). 

A large painting dominates the east wall, done directly onto the plaster in cracking paint. Two titanic men stand side by side - it is Nosam, all in white with a black skull mask, and Jovan, all in black with a white child mask. In the hands nearest to the other, they hold up a tiny depiction of Anyang and her distinct skyline - metonymically, the Empire. In his outward-facing hand, Nosam holds a ringsword. Jovan’s outward facing hand is missing, as a large portion of plaster has cracked off. 

16. Small Hall - Door: Open Archway 

A battered cabinet stands along the north wall, containing chipped porcelain plates (for trusted visitors) and dented, undecorated pewter ones (for everyone else). Locked in the top drawer with a key nobody seems to have is 20s of silverware. In the unlocked drawer next to it are an array of clearly-Manufactured forks and knives, which are decently sharp. 

17. Office - Door: Reinforced Wood, Locked

Everyone has their own story about how they lost the key to their office, in the panic of last night and the horde of the dead. Nobody in the Caravanserai wants you to break in, apart from Orderic, who strongly encourages it - he mentions offhand that the register of guests is kept here.

If you break in, the office smells of sage. Large expensive desk, painting of a young Umbern woman with a gun and a hunting dog on the wall. A pair of unlit lanterns hang on chains from rings in the ceiling. Inside the desk are various letters addressed to a “Mr. Blom”, and an entirely overspecified bronte strongbox which you could fire out of a cannon without it opening at all. Inside the strongbox are 100 glass coins and old gold atens. 

There is also the guest manifest, which has entries for Bei Klein (arrived two months ago), Clovis (arrived four days ago), Huang Hoosk (arrived four days ago), and nobody else present in the Caravanserai. 

The centre of the room is covered by a huge, cheap-looking and threadbare rug - a damn ugly thing, and it seems to depict worms. It’s out of place, and that’s because it’s to cover the floor, not to look good - under it is some kind of circle of glyphs, carved into the floor, and the faint traces of old wax. Still, anyone with supernal sight could tell you this collection of stars and jagged emblems has nothing extraordinary about it. Perhaps the owner is simply an attempted occultist, and not a real one. 

18. Gaming Tables - Door: Flimsy Wood, Unlocked 

Three felt-covered tables stand in the north side of the room, giving each other space. The chairs are in poor repair here, with their upholstery nervously picked at. A small, tall cabinet holds dice, dice-cups, decks of cards, and backgammon boards. 

Painted on the north wall, a fairytale scene of Timotheos carving the first dice, then another scene of Timotheos looking disappointed as Alden invents betting on dice-games. On the east wall, A third scene of a grumpy Alden standing next to a row of Kings laden down with new treasures. 

19. Water Closet - Door: Wooden Double Doors, Swing Shut on their Own 

Tiled floor and walls, four flush toilets, large cracked mirror. Smells exactly like you’d expect a public bathroom at a roadside stop to smell. A huge brass water tank in the corner connects to brass washbasins, wearing a sign saying “DO NOT OVERUSE WATER”. A small window of thick glass looks north towards the Sun, allowing his light even into this filthy place. 

20. Pantry - Door: Thick Wood, Unlocked 

Dark, cluttered shelves - butter, beef, apple jam, lard, suet, olive oil, bottles of tonic water, cordial and spirits, and so forth, and so forth. 

The pantry currently contains 60 perishable rations (will last the week) and 30 imperishable rations. One person could survive a good while off all of this, but a group will start to eat through it quite rapidly.

Under a loose flagstone, there’s a small chamber where you could store contraband or secret things. It’s currently empty. Its emptiness will distress and annoy Hadewych significantly. 

21. Bottles and Kegs - Door: Thick Wood, Unlocked 

Stout racks of wooden kegs and glass bottles form a small maze here. The kegs contain strong cider

One keg, hidden behind a false wooden panel in the northeast corner, is stamped with a label: “FINEST GEVAL PULPY SCRUMPY”, appended with a paper note saying “Caravanserai Property! Hands Off!”. The pulpy scrumpy is frighteningly strong and extremely pleasant to drink. Every member of the Dramatis Persona except for Orderic is vulnerable to the siren song of really good scrumpy, and there’s enough here to get the lot of them and all present PCs absolutely fucking mortal. 

22. Kitchen - Door: Thick Wood, Unlocked 

Designed to cook for many people coming in off the road. Works best for a pair, but the sullen Digit works here alone and under considerable stress. He’s currently making stew. 

Three coal-fired stoves stand in one corner, with chimney flues going up out of the roof. 

23. Washroom - Door: Flimsy Wood, Usually Propped Open

Facilities for washing people and clothes. Large metal basins, soap and washing powder, some wooden screens for privacy. A large brass laundry tub, clothes wringer and scrubbing rack sit in the southwest. 

||||/

If the dead try to invade the Caravanserai, they would try and enter though the Courtyard gate (smashing their bodies into the barricade), or through the Dining Hall back-door (one at a time down the narrow corridor). A few will try to crawl onto the roof and get stuck on the spikes like shrike-victims. 

||||/

DRAMATIS PERSONAE -  FOR REAL THIS TIME 

• Europese Zwaarden - Cleric (Red Mask) C

Armour as leather (reinforced undershirt), Morale 5, Chaotic Evil, 3MD

Attacks: Wimpy Punch (+0, 1 Damage) OR Antique Pistol (+2, 2d6, Explodes in his hands on a fumble.)

Spells: Missile, Fly, Undead Alacrity, Bust Development, Feign Life, Mad Dog, Sciatica, Worms, King’s Evil, Nerves to Gold, Repeating Concussion

This fucking guy is a wizard. He is the one who unleashed the dead, partially deliberately, partially he was digging in a tomb west of here and it sort of all just happened at once. NONE OF THIS IS HIS FAULT, ok, well, it is, but, shut up! SHUT UP! His Red Mask is a bright red handkerchief with eyeholes cut in it that’s stuffed in his pocket.

If you try to rest in the Walled Orchard overnight he’ll open the gate quiet-like, creep out, and order the horde of dead to crowd into the orchard and eat you alive. You see, he’s being chased by the Black Masks - they nearly took his head off in Geval, that bandage covers a bullet-wound. Huang Hoosk is the pseudonym he gave the owner of the Caravanserai. 

He has gotten fucking paranoid, and at this point, he sees everyone he meets as a possible Black Mask and wants them dead.  He also killed all the horses in the stables, in case any of them were Black Masks. 

He can’t discern who the Black Mask is, so he thinks the safe move is just to kill everyone. He is, however, a coward and these guys are all armed to the teeth., Therefore, he lacks the spine to do it directly, so optimally he’ll have the PCs work through the others. Then, he’ll escape NORTH once he’s reasonably sure any Masks are dead. The only person he’s got the guts to kill personally (unless severely pressed) is probably Ol’ Bei Klein, since, you know, he’s blind. 

• Melanchthon of Parailos – (Romantic?) C

Armour as leather (thick silks), Morale 10, Chaotic Neutral 

Attacks: Rope Dart (+5, 1d6+2, Ignores Shields) or Carbine (+3, 1d6+1d8, Gun) 

Spells: He can extinguish small fires with a glance, and large ones by staring. By raising his hands and focusing, he can delete stone in an expanding sphere, though this takes a great amount of effort. 

Melanchthon is a cultist of a Power that has an obsession with sad romances. That’s what drew it to him.  He was once arranged to be married to the princess of a King enclave in the north, but while out hunting, he shot the bride’s father by accident. He went mad, alone in the dark woods where the Sun doesn’t reach. Of course, Kings turn to dust when they die. There was no proof of what he had done, so he returned and he lied, and was married. But she saw through him, and confronted him one day, and he snapped and fled. 

He’s been trying to get someone to shoot him accidentally for the last twenty years, so that he can go to the same Hell as his father-in-law and apologise. He isn’t at all responsible for the chaos at Aixin Lake, but he’s acting shiftily in service of his goal. He might start a fight for what seems to be literally no reason. 

• Turtleshell - Cleric (Black Mask) C

Armour as chain (concealed chainmail), Morale 11, (Whichever Alignment a Black Mask Is)
Highly trained in the Sacerd style. 

Attacks: Ringsword (+4 to Hit, 1d8+2) or Rifle (+4 to hit, 2d8, Gun). Also has a bomb.
Spells: Hallow, Turn, Kindle, Iconoclasm, Demagogy 

Turtleshell is the Black Mask whom Zwaarden fears. He resents having to return to the identity of “Orderic”, who he considers the costume of his dissolute and rejected youth. In fact, in that youth, he was friends with Clovis (such that a Shee and an Umbern can be friends) and they ran together. He recognises Clovis. 

His mask is concealed in his pack. His main goal is to identify the wizard who killed a Black Mask novitiate back in Geval, and then kill him with such fury that his reincarnation is delayed ‘til after the end of the world. His secondary goal is to destroy the undead. 

Open Wizardly behaviour from Zwaarden or the undead breaking into the Caravanserai will induce him to put on the mask and act in a fearless manner. 

If he learns too much about the other people at the Caravanserai, they may join Zwaarden on the kill-list, depending how it goes. Being a Black Mask un-masked, he can lie, but is massively out of practice, and nervous of it besides. He has been taught over a career of decades that bad things will happen to him when he lies, and thus, is like a man with two burned palms in a roomful of stoves. 

• Clovis Brugaria - Sword Swallower C 

Armour as chain (skin of horn), Morale 9, Chaotic Neutral
Champion bare-hand climber.
Attack: Any Sword (+4 to Hit, Dice as Appropriate), Anything Else (+0, ` ` )

A scion of the famous Brugaria family, notorious Umbern bandits. He was cursed before he was born, and the skin on his arms and torso is hard like horn. It’s pretty helpful in his line of work. 

He came to Geval in pursuit of an ancient sword called PROVIDE ME SHELTER, which was owned by the venerable house of Van der Modder. When he broke into their mansion last week, he found the sword already gone, and a letter of thanks from the local Academicians, saying they would soon convey it to the place it was most needed. He hastened here, reasoning it would be easier to take the sword on the road. He’s hopeful the sword’s carrier is one of the people shut up in the Caravanserai with him, but hasn’t got a good plan to scare them into showing they possess it. 

He knows what Zwaarden is, but he hasn’t told anyone, yet - he’s hedging. He doesn’t want to leave empty-handed or dead, and he doesn’t know what Zwaarden’s capable of (or that he’s a coward). 

He only has a faint recognition of having met Orderic somewhere and somewhen, and only if he gets close for an extended period of time will he realise. He will cry out “Ah! Orderic!? It’s you! Clergy didn’t work out, old boy?!” and try to become friends with him once again (less of a doomed endeavour than you may expect). 

If Zwaarden is present when he realises, however, he says nothing, but keeps the realisation holstered, to use to bargain with Zwaarden. 

Anyway, the spear and rifle are kind of decorative, and he never had bullets in the first place - stored in his gullet, Clovis has three swords:

• WELCOME BACK GLASS. He is a light scimitar of pale. A beautiful wave-pattern that glimmers in sunlight runs through the blade. When you win initiative and draw the blade, the shimmer becomes an otherworldly fractal - someone must save or have their sight replaced with endless kaleidoscopes for 1d6 rounds. If there’s nobody around, that someone is you. Runes inscribed on the pommel announce the blade’s name. 

• LOW PROCESS STOP. She is a medium talwar of bronte, with a deep notch in one side of the blade. Any vegetable put into the notch is instantly cut. She can talk, and has the personality of a bored secretary. Her memory is excellent, luckily for Clovis, who is quite forgetful. 

• LONG RED ROAD. He is a heavy zweihander of chardun. Square-ended and wickedly sharp, he was designed for executions. He can speak, but rarely decides to do so. When swung in a vom tag manner, his blade becomes covered in black ink, which splatters messily everywhere and poisons any wounds he makes. His name is often spelled out in King characters in the ink-blots he makes. 

• Hadewych von Baas - Manufactory D

Unarmoured, Morale 7, Lawful Good (but absolutely not above bribery)
Attacks: Right Hook (+1 to Hit, 3 Damage)
Techniques: (Basic) Eat Fuel, Identify Ash, Speak with Metal, (Advanced) Summon Machine Spirit, Powder Actuate, Fuel Food (Master) Make GP, Simplify Maths 

Hadewych is very well known in academic circles for extensive treatises on bronte, and is considered something of an expert on it. She would much rather be in Warkuste than here, but she is in trouble for punching the Deacon of the Warkuste College in the mouth for cheating at cards. Therefore, she is doing this personally to get back in the good graces of the ol’ Ardens Mater. She is the courier of the sword PROVIDE ME SHELTER. Or, well, she was accompanying the couriers, but they all got torn to shreds by the undead. 

PROVIDE ME SHELTER is a light xiphos of extremely pure bronte. His name is written on his current scabbard in large and slightly florid letters of gold. When drawn and held in both hands, PROVIDE ME SHELTER can absorb and project brilliant rays of sunlight, which is why this blade made the old Lord van der Modder a famous slayer of the dead. However, it also has unpredictable effects on local reality - gravity shifts, colouration changes, and in extreme cases of overuse, breakdown of normal causality. 

The Academy understands roughly why the sword does this. However, they are engineers, and only knowing precisely why will satisfy them. Thus, a caravan was dispatched, Hao van der Modder bribed, and the sword set in transit. 

Some of Hadewych’s memories are falsified. She believes she stored PROVIDE ME SHELTER under the loose flagstone in the Pantry - but had the ill fortune to be witnessed doing this by Digit, who mentioned it to “Anke”. See below for more on that. 

• “Anke” - Metatron B 

Unarmoured, Morale 11, Lawful Neutral 

Attacks: Croquet Mallet (+3, 1d8)
Procedures: Falsify Memory, Haste, Knock, Lock 

Through a combination of Falsify Memory, gaslighting and friendly conversation, she has recruited Digit to vouch for her. She has done this because she actually wants to help Digit get out of here, but when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like the back of someone’s head. 

The story about the childhood in Koboldberg is actually entirely true. The only part of it that’s false is the profession she followed her mother into - Anke’s mother ranks highly in the mysterious inner workings of the Company, and trusts only her daughter with her personal white whale - artefacts of a dangerous nature. 

Her entire purpose for being here was originally to prevent the Academy from getting their hands on PROVIDE ME SHELTER. She was then to take it back to Anyang and lock it away in a subterranean storehouse. The sword on its own is merely possibly dangerous, but the involvement of Manufactories will make it definite. Missing it in Geval was a possible disaster, then Hadewych chanced to deliver it to the very place she was staying!

She alone knows the sword’s true hiding place - wrapped up in a sheet in her valise, under her bed. She keeps the key to the Fancy Bedroom on her at all times. 

Anke is a perceptive, diligent, prudent woman, and wants everyone to receive the best outcome that is possible for them. As Digit is a completely innocent imperial subject, she will expend the most effort to improve his outcome - as for everyone else, well, she wants the best outcome, but fate does not always give us what we want. She knows everything about everyone thanks to sources in Geval - admittedly, her picture of Melancthon is vague at best. In fact, being completely truthful, she knows nothing of Ol’ Bei Klein and, unfortunately, Europese Zwaarden, who she has incorrectly identified as a harmless clerk. 

Oh, and her hair is a wig, and she’s got a very small knife hidden under it. 

• Digit - Cadet A

Unarmoured (+ Sanctuary), Morale 9, Neutral Good

Attacks: Chairleg or Similar (+2 to Hit, 1d8+3)

To be honest, the summary up above is probably good enough. Digit is mostly as he appears - well, as you may have noticed from “Cadet A”, he’s actually a descendant of the imperial house, which nobody (including him) has any idea of. 

• Ol’ Bei Klein - Vielleur D

Unarmoured AC, Morale 13, Chaotic Good

Attacks: None of note. 

Songs: Song of the Snake, Song of the Dog, Song of the Child, Song of the Tower 

Maybe, in his youth, Bei Klein could have been a hero of the age, a famous immortal (in the historical sense), and a name to be recalled. However, humility and weariness caused a retreat from the concerns of the earth, and senility is creeping up on him. Though, he’s not half as senile as he seems. 

The old man has done and seen many things - too many things, in fact. If you can get him to cotton on to the fact that a bunch of liars have taken control of the Caravanserai, he’ll blink and swear to assist you in a clear and noble voice. His memory and cognition seem to improve rapidly, and remain improved until the danger passes, until which he shrugs and returns to idle music. 

He possesses a piece of paper upon which are the words “The joy of the consumer outweighs the pain of the consumed.” If anyone reads from this, they immediately suffer a freak misfortune. 

||||/

The order of arrivals to the Caravanserai was, if it comes up:

Bei Klein (Two Months Ago) → Digit (Two Months Ago) →  Clovis (Four Days Ago) → Europese (Four Days Ago)→ The Dead (Four Nights Ago) →  “Anke” (Three Days Ago) → Melancthon (Day Before Yesterday) → Turtleshell (Yesterday Morning) → Hadewych and her Entourage (Yesterday Evening) → The PCs (Now)

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One of the Unburied attacking the compound is Bai Blom, the original proprietor of the Caravanserai. He has the keyring for the entire Caravanserai, including for the strongbox in the office, on his belt.

 

It took him twenty years of hard work to set this place up to his satisfaction, and he was finally getting ready to settle into the simple, quiet life. Zwaarden took him for a disguised cleric, disembowelled him, and left his body outside the orchard to turn.