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).
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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