The Play of the Dream of His Life

The weather is much colder now than it was—I need to protect myself just to make my way across the city.


I prepare by layering insulating, waterproof, and abrasion-resistant clothing. I am thinner these days and less capable of enduring pain. There was a time when I could not be hurt by other people, when they could cut or burn me without any response. But that was many years ago. There was a long period of uncertainty, it could have gone either way—and then I decided that I needed to change, because in some obscure way I was allowing myself to be killed. The death would have appeared painless because I had learned not to respond to pain, but the whole situation was violent and unbearably sad.


This is not how I live any more, and I am grateful for the shift, but it means that I need to protect myself from the cold, and also from things like the fumes of burning plastic, or mould spores in the rooms I live in. Invincibility as I have encountered it is an artefact of hallucination and projection, or the massive overcompensation of capital, or the impunity of legalistic, cop-like violence. I am vulnerable to illness and the infiltration of rot; of carcinogens, toxins, and tough, cutting fibres, in exactly the same way that I am now vulnerable to physical pain. I try to be careful. The clothing I use to protect myself in the city: thermal wear, cotton tops and trousers, heavy wool, fleece, kevlar. Especially boots that have been treated so that they are completely waterproof—for some reason getting wet while navigating the city makes it easier for me to be hurt. Each of these is important, and once I acquire a functional item I will wear it until it rots off me.


My body is a sealed unit out from which both vision and breath escape to form assessments and maps of the spaces I move through. I walk steadily. I take in air that is either fresh or polluted, but my body processes it without discrimination and my limbs can work on both. My body would steam in the cold air if it was not buried in protective gear. My skin is red and shining. My face and neck are exposed but they are tough appendages like smokestacks and lighthouses; they facilitate my breathing and my vision.


I think that the light in the city is very beautiful, even in the cold air of winter. When the sun is out it picks the details from the facades and trees and ancient churches, and presents these in perfect and undifferentiated clarity. The colour of this light that covers everything reveals the city as really a contiguous volume, like the working insides of an engine. Its hostile aspect is not the introduction of something new..


I walk and walk, and eventually I arrive at the building where I am working these days. It is a scrubbed-out maze of cheap timber cladding. All of the panel walls are painted to resemble different surfaces— concrete, brick, steel, or sometimes painted exteriors (fantastic exteriors, colours I have never seen before, pillars and fields of flame that are air and earth at once, a blazing world, a world of possibility and mutable form). From the back, all of the partitions are the same, so you are reminded that the entire territory is made of one contiguous surface. And not only the same substances (paint, screws, concrete floors, lighting systems rigged to micro-specificities of control), but also the same degrees of planning and instantiation. A robust, modular, and professionalised apparatus that can turn any surface and any series of rooms or maze-like corridors into any other; can create stand-ins for whatever you can imagine. What you can imagine also needs to be describable in terms of the maze of sheet timber and painted surfaces. There are some difficulties here, but they can, with professional effort, be disappeared or ignored. There are many ideas and even the good ones have a species of equivalence. The ideas are images that appear in formal series, and form a superstructure which, shaped by the contingency of surfaces, also consists of absolutely contiguous materials.


There are other systems of risk-mitigation. I could wear a cruciform, or one of the jackets I covet, laced with pearls, trimmed in chiffon, its texture and colour delicate; I might be able to enter into a seeming with others such that they would know me invincible. Would they know me invincible? It would depend on the seeming, the care and intention it was crafted with, my own capacity to nurture this craft, my energy, my access to the money I would need to fuel it, my capacity to ignore the pain of it, or to hallucinate the pain away. My capacity to once again assume an attitude of invincibility; to once again open myself up to, in some ambiguous sense, my own death. The choice of this.


There is some continuity here, but I do not have the training to perceive it. These days I also do not have the time. I know that the controls of this decision space are built from one flexible and invisible superstructure, but its nature and construction are obscure to me.


When I arrive I am dressed in new clothes. I am strapped into a harness with anchor points on my chest and hips, and fitted with rigid plates that protect my organs and sit firmly over my genitals and belly. My throat is likewise armoured, but not my head, which must remain unprotected for my movements to be convincing. The new materials are kevlar, steel, velcro, aluminium, fire gel. The lighting is harsh where the specialists swoop down to check everything and then soft again for the cameras. The painted timber surfaces pass behind me in succession. Pulp scenes: a stone cave that looks like a skull, emerging from a lake of boiling blood at the centre of the planet; some sort of human-built probe of black metal, drowned in a torrent of liquid coolant that sloughs away from it in opaque sheets of steam; the layerings of a city that houses millions, built dense and vertical to fit them all; a forest in the evening, when beneath the failing light, the trees are again like the earth that they grow from, and like the brambles between them, and like the insects in the brambles. And then from all of these images comes a single coherent song, a song without words or music, a song of the mind and of the vision. Some fantastic place of ease where people are free to love or hate one another without thinking of labour. The ocean, with its coldness and depth and fantastic clarity. All of them pass in front of me, each painted with precise, practiced skill, and I prepare myself for what must come next.




THE MATERIAL PLAY


Kevlar

Woven synthetic fibre, close-knit, tough; flexible substrate across which others may be layered. Protects against the abrasion of the skin where otherwise it would be rubbed away or torn open. Rated to high speed impacts with bitumen and concrete, but only minimal padding to protect against blunt trauma and impacts. To maintain its effectiveness, a kevlar shell is tied to the body at points of natural flexibility. Mine is fastened with heavy strapping at the throat and waist, beneath the armpits, around the genitals, and at the knees, elbows, ankles, and wrists. The fibres are dyed black, and when I hit the abrading surface at speed it leaves its imprint across me, traced in the softest white scoring.


Steel

Heavy and rigid, extremely hard. Painfully cold against bare skin. Here produced in fitted plates that are layered across areas identified as high risk—stomach, chest, groin, throat. When possible for the scene, the head is protected in a close-fitting, padded casque. Plates are always worn padded: sewn into a customised jacket or harness, or each manufactured with a bespoke strapping system. Will turn cutting and stabbing edges, but without padding does little to mitigate transferred kinetic energy and the associated trauma. You will still break bones and rupture organs. I hate wearing steel. It is perhaps the layer that best reveals the incapacity of the body it protects. A body of steel would be rough, cold, and heavy. It would hide nothing vulnerable. Its surface could be painted with anything at all.

Velcro

Synthetic universal fastening system, excellent sheer-hold but peels easily and quickly. A triumph of 20th century machined usability. Usually applied to strapping but can also cover large areas and act as a universal medium for attachments in arbitrary numbers and makes– most often across the broad area of a chest rig.

Aluminium

Bright, unpainted, light, hard. Light on the body, and in the sun it flares white like fire. Rigid but bends under force when worked thin. Used mostly for clasps and attachment points; sometimes for small mechanical clips and locking brackets.


Fire Gel

Thick and translucent, derived from the lighter petroleum byproducts. Low burning point, burns at a low temperature, does not emit smoke unless premixed with a specifically manufactured smoking compound; this burns black and oily and fierce, too hot for a body and too hot for a set built from timber sheeting. And the smoke obscures the vision, which is dangerous because of course the safety technicians may not be able to see the signalling from the body that has been set alight in the chaos and obscurity and opacity. So the gel will be used unmixed on me, smokeless, low heat. When they apply it, it is cold and sticky and viscous enough to hold its shape. The surface of the gel shows the rippled, oily, rainbow residues of spilled petrol, so faintly that they are almost imperceptible. Petrol colours across skin, clothing, harnessing, and also across the sections of the set that they have decided will burn with me when it happens. Each covered with about half a centimetre of the gel—on the set they have also installed a series of remote-controlled starters in case the flames wrapping my body fail to set the rest alight. I know that the starters will be unnecessary, but I don’t tell them this because there is no way that I can easily explain how my body and the others surfaces that will burn have entered into a kind of material co-contamination which completely ensures ignition.


Smoke

The gel will burn without opaque fumes of any kind. There will be fumes, as nothing combusts at such a low temperature without releasing gasses and particles, but these will be invisible and appear to the cameras as nearly identical to the heat shimmer that would envelop me if the flames were hotter. No smoke, so they have had to prepare further contrivances. There are aluminium canisters attached to something like a large glue gun, with a trigger that can be locked in place so that you do not need to keep it depressed manually. They have four of these with them. The nozzle of the gun needs to be lit on fire with a lighter or a long match, and then the compressed gas or fluid in the canister can be fired through the flame to create thick, black, oily smoke. They can be placed such that my body will be visible to the safety technicians. I will be framed in petrol smoke as I burn. In an interior like this, these machines can be used for fifteen-ish seconds at most, before the entire visual field is completely obscured and shooting becomes impossible. There is the frame of smoke and the second frame of the rapidly unfolding opacity that the smoke introduces. A frame made from smoke for a body that burns cleanly: foregrounding of formal artifice. After each deployment, the smoke must be cleared mechanically with a series of enormous turbine fans that have been installed like sentinels across the far end of the room. I have heard rumours that the fans will serve another purpose, more directly relevant for the framing of my burning body—that as the smoke is released from its four static generators, the fans will be switched on to introduce storm winds into the scene, to blow that thick oily vapour across, through, and away from me, such that it will catch and snatch at my limbs; that my body will be placed within a chaos of fire, wind, and vapour. But I can’t speak to this. It would seem to go against the comparatively staid set work of the timber panelling and the corridor. I know nothing about staging and cannot speak to this formal process of decision-making.


Fans

The turbines are about two metres wide, black steel and wire, mounted on collapsible steel stands. There are six of them, enough to fully cover a whole wall of the set, but I know that they have infinite stores of these machines in other places in the complex. There is no upper limit to how many can be deployed if they think that they are needed. They produce a solid wall or sheet of air that pushes through everything in front of them and introduces a directionality into the scene. A second, imagist directionality, after the visual, ray-like, POV directionality produced by the movement of the cameras.


Lights

What can I say about lights. The lights are everywhere, pointed at everything, spreading their friendly, precise, clarity of illumination without discrimination. If the cameras and the movements of their professional manipulators are the ones that create the picture it is surely the lights that police their creation; the archons and the executors.


The lights are of every conceivable size, from tiny handheld point-machines, to the truly monstrous assemblages that require industrial machinery to move and power– that can light whole sections of the countryside brighter than noon. I have seen them squatting at the edges of the set, and I have heard stories of their operation—each use its own monumental logistical exercise. The largest and brightest are arrayed inside steel scaffold attached to automated crane systems and tracked crawlers that look like mining equipment. The directional facing is made up of thousands of individual bulbs, and when they are switched on, they can only be used for two hours at a time because the filaments burn hot enough to melt the crystal. After each use every single bulb must be replaced, at truly unimaginable expense, because the casings develop microstructures in use and are vulnerable to bursting and raining molten glass over everything beneath them. Nothing like that in here, but the ghost of an arbitrary scaling-up hangs over the smaller machines. There are heavy Par Cans, LED banks, diffusers, reflectors, lenses and mirrors, projectors and various lasers and other pointal systems. If there is a chaos of flame/smoke/wind, if these things form a volatile sort of screen, then their interactions and relations will be: held in soft diffusion; cut through by laser projection and hard blue-tones; added to by the introduction of images across its shifting surfaces (what would the smoke frame, what would the fire frame); reduced to unreadability by darkness. All at the option of professionals whose faces and expressions will be invisible to me from my supine position in the smoke and wind.


What can I say about lights. The material play that my body has entered into—I can relate to that series of dependencies, can even talk about it. I can offer it my vulnerability, even wrapped in steel and kevlar. But the lights are above me and around me and I can offer them nothing. It is better to say nothing about the lights.


The Scene

The scene is simple. I will be attached to an industrial winch by a series of anchor points on my torso harness, then lit on fire and dragged across the floor at high speed, before crashing into one of the panel walls. Then I will lie still and burn until the cameras have their take, and I am extinguished. I understand that the camera angle will be static and that my burning body will be introduced moving laterally across the scene—I will appear, moving at extreme high speed, and be stopped just before I exit on the other side of the frame.




THE FUTURE


They attach the winch cable to me with carabiners, then they retreat to the edges of the set and signal using their hands. All clear? I go through a quick series of checks: I check that nothing will wrench or twist my limbs, and especially my neck, while I am dragged across the floor; I check the integrity of the harness, and that the carabiners have been securely locked. If one comes loose, then my (mostly intuitive, derived from experience, impossible to outline properly in language) understanding of how my body will impact and drag will be thrown off, and I won’t be able to guarantee that the forces will distribute safely. I check in with myself as well. I want to make sure that nothing in this scenario has any punitive flavour, any stink of suicide, in whatever soft, cloudy, distributed way. I am fastidious with my checks. I examine my motivations, my material circumstances, the resources that I need to live, the money I am making– but also the human contact that I will make with the engineers throughout the working day, and when I signal all clear. The woman who will light me on fire smiles at me, and I can see that it is with genuine friendliness. There are many other people in my life who would smile at me with that same ease and generosity.


I will give them the all clear that they are waiting for (all of my checks are go), but first, I want to take a moment for just myself. I am the only one who can give the all clear, and they will just have to wait until I am satisfied with the circumstances.


I said before that the timber board maze carried within itself an equivalence and an arbitrariness. I want now to take advantage of that, of what it allows. In me I think that it allows a transposition into the future; or if not the future, then a future. A future for me.


What are its qualities? It is framed in smoke and chaos, but at its centre is a calm place where the thing that looks out from behind my eyes has its peace and has its primacy.


The light that falls on me in the future is soft, although it is tinted red by the smoke. My body there is tall and strong and proud. My eyes are kind. I am capable of reassuring people with just a look, with a smile.


I am in no trouble, there are no material needs that I cannot meet. Especially my body is free from stress and the wear of it. I am healthy again, and my freedom from contingency allows me to practice kindness from a position of serene detachment.


Alongside these feelings, there is a noise that I think also comes from the future. It is like thunder but loud and continuous, rolling like artillery, shaking the earth to pieces.


I can feel that sound reaching back in time towards me from the best future. The sound is how I know that the future is coming—the shaking of the earth, the skin-feeling of its unstoppable approach—how I know that the smoke and the red light and the tranquility are real, that they cannot be questioned or denied by anyone.


Is it finally time for me to give the all clear? Am I prepared for the terrible force of the harness? For the flames, and the moment when I hit the wall and have to lie there, burning, while the cameras take what they need, before the engineers can extinguish the inferno?


If I tell you that I can hear the image of the future, coming closer to us day by day, hour by hour, second by second, would you affirm it with me? Would you tell me that this image is also your image, and this peace your peace?


What I am asking you is this: can I trust you not to hurt me in the time that stretches out between me signalling to you with my hands—between the all clear—and that distant place that I have seen, where the light is soft and kind and the air rings with sounds like artillery, and where we will be able to rest?

The Old Capital - Other Military Forces

 

See here for part one, detailing the Warbodies, Pilots-in-Dreaming, and Exterminator Orbs. 

Angel's Egg, Mamoru Oshii, 1985. Had the privilege of seeing this classic in cinema the other day!

Expungers

Highly trained and expensively equipped light troops, recruited from the state schools after a series of exams, and centrally trained. The second elite force of the Old Capital, after the Pilots. In peacetime, the Expungers are the bodyguards to the magistrates and nobles - each worthy so honoured is allocated a single Expunger by the state, their 'shadow', and often a skilled and highly-educated advisor, companion, and fixer, in addition to their official duties. 

In wartime, when the nobles and magistrates don warbodies, the Expungers are gathered into loose, autonomous groups led by the most senior among them. They are very effective skirmishers, infiltrators, assassins, and elite light infantry. They were known for their laconicity, and were stereotyped in their time as patriotic, insular, arrogant, and untrusting of democratic processes.

HD2-4, depending on seniority. Expunger Sword, black-bladed light misericorde, iron buckler, light armour and Dreaming, movement: as ninja, disposition: varies, but generally professional, direct, practical, and xenophobic. 

Expungers make two attacks in melee. 

The Expunger Sword is a blade drawn from the soul of the one who wields it. When dormant, it looks like a plain, black iron sword hilt. Someone with the knowing to do so can use this focus to produce a whining, sputtering blade of white light from their chest - you place the hilt on your heart, and literally draw it out of yourself. When an Expunger does this, they take d6 damage, and their blade deals [HD]d6 radiant damage. A non-Expunger can be taught to use it, but will have to choose how many d6s of damage they suffer when they summon the blade, which will correspond to how many d6s of damage it deals. The blade is functionally a plasma cutter, and can be used to cut open doors, locks, etc. It is about 4ft long, and weightless apart from the iron handle. 

Dreaming: like the Pilots, something terrible was done the the Expungers before the Old Capital fell to its enemies. It is hard to focus on their faces, hard to remember them when they're not in the room. If you kill them they are dead and then not dead again, like in a bad dream. What this means is that when reduced to 0 hp, they come back to life after a turn with d6hp. If this happens twice (and thereafter), the Expunger will come back as an insane, screaming berserker who can no longer use its Expunger Sword. They will resurrect in perpetuity, but can be tied up, locked up, pushed into bottomless pits, have their limbs shattered, etc. 

Myrmidons, Handlers

The Myrmidons were the professional standing soldiery of the Old Capital. They were pale, taciturn men and women, known for their distinctive white ruffs and pennants, and heavy black iron armour and weaponry. Each Myrmidon goes to war with their Handlers, three or four lightly armed retainers who are often family members or close friends of the Myrmidon they serve. They carry and reload weapons, cook meals, see to wounds, and sometimes fight next to their charge. 

In field battles the Myrmidons fight in close order with heavy pikes, but they are trained in the use of many weapons, and often take up looser skirmishing formations on broken ground, or in the endless tunnels beneath the earth, accompanied by their Handlers. 

Myrmidon

HD1+1, medium sword, heavy pike, plate armour, movement: as human, disposition: professional soldier. 

Handler

HD1, light knife, d3 light darts or 1 bola, buckler, light armour, movement: as human, disposition: professional soldier, squire, weapon loader. 

A bola is a thrown weapon with a range of 20ft that deals no damage. It entangles a target that it hits, making movement, fighting, and other applicable actions impossible until a full turn is spent dealing with it - this is automatic with a knife, but requires an INT or STR check without. 

Each Myrmidon is accompanied by 2d2 Handlers, who accompany them everywhere. The handlers carry one of the following heavy weapons, which they maintain, clean, reload, and carry, and which is typically passed to the Myrmidon for use. This is by social custom - the Handlers know how to use these weapons just fine, and will do so with the full support of their Myrmidon if their lives are on the line. Each weapon comes with d6 shots of ammunition. 

Heavy Weapons

1. Cooker. A large, shoulder-mounted, black iron 'rifle', carried and fired like an RPG. Its barrel is packed down with salt, which is consumed in its firing operation. All targets in a 20ft, 90 degree cone take 2d6 radiant damage (CON save for half) - flesh blackens and armour melts under the invisible heat ray. The Cooker takes two turns (or one turn for two people) and an INV slot of salt to fire again. 
2. Pilum. A medium iron javelin with an explosive charge in the tip. Thrown as normal, and deals an additional d6 blast damage to everything within 15ft of the target, whether or not it hits. 
3. Noise Maker. Another shoulder-mounted 'rifle' design - this one incapacitates living targets with high pitched, directional sounds waves. For each 'shot' fired, everything that can hear inside at 20ft, 90 degree cone must save CON or be stunned and knocked prone for a turn. Each successive hit on the same target increases the duration of the stun by one. Sonic Aggressors and dogs automatically fail their saves. Noise Makers also use salt as their ammunition, in exactly the same way as Cookers.
4. Stitcher. A long spike of hardened steel attached to something like a rivet gun. Functionally a heavy spear that ignores armour - it hits against AC 10, unless the target AC is coming from something else. This weapon does not need to be reloaded, but only has charges equal to the ammunition roll, after which it is useless.
5. Illuminator. A high-powered searchlight on a rifle frame. Never runs out of fuel, but can be destroyed by breaking the mechanism. Can be used to blind and confuse people, or to light up huge underground spaces with ease. Anything caught in it who has not encountered something similar before will test morale. 
6. Chakram. Given to Myrmidon Captains with connections in the nobility - city nobles in Warbodies throw them using telepathy, but the Myrmidons do so by hand. A Chakram is a heavy vorpal thrown weapon with a range of 20ft. It is about two foot across, and hurled from over the head or shoulder with both hands, such that it flies vertically. They can damage entities and other incorporeal beings, and deal double damage to beings of Law and Chaos.

Retainer

A professional companion to a city noble. Retainers were courtesans, singers, dancers, and often lovers to their charges, and were expected to act as bodyguards as well. A single noble might have kept many Retainers, and vied to engage those who were famously beautiful or intelligent. 

HD1-2, a medium scimitar, a bow with 12 arrows, one of the exotic weapons from the table below, light armour and 100s in jewels and finery in current fashion. Movement: as human, disposition: professional who survives on their charisma. 

All Retainers have expertise in dancing, singing, playing instruments, conversation, lovemaking, and recitation. They have excellent memories, and can remember whole a book perfectly given a day or two. Retainers never work for free under any circumstances.

Exotic Weapons

1. Jewel Weapons. Worn in rings and necklaces. As two light weapons that will not be found on inspection. 
2. Poison Teeth. Sharpened dentures of mother-of-pearl, or semi precious stone. Hollow, with small injector mechanisms built in. Can be used as a bite attack that does 1 damage, and injects the target with a random poison. You need to remove your teeth to have one of these installed, and they can be filled with whatever you like. 
3. Ceramic Sword. As a +1 medium sword that shatters on a crit. 
4. Ceramic Pistol. A spring-loaded weapon that fires wicked steel flechettes. d8 damage, range 20ft, fires silently, take a turn to reload. The spring must be replaced after 2d2 shots. 
5. Second Face. A lead mask that shows the face of a magistrate passing judgement. The wearer cannot be affected by gaze attacks, and deals fear damage equal to all other damage. They can also head-butt people for d4 damage in place of a regular attack. 
6. Locket. A pendant with a painted portrait inside. The Retainer who wears it never tests morale, and must be killed twice - the first time doesn't stick. 

Centipedes

So called because they burrow into the earth, and kill what they find there. The Centipedes were strange, tall, long-limbed men and women with paper-white skin, black, dead eyes, and unnervingly large mouths. They were grown in batches, and sent down into the underworld to fight until they were slain. Centipedes cannot speak, do not feel pain, do not appear to have desires or drives, and are totally loyal to their handlers. 

HD4, heavy black iron cleaver and brutality, 3 firebombs, heavy iron armour, movement: as monkey on all fours, as ambulatory scarecrow when upright, disposition: a thing that knows it's a thing. 

Centipedes take -1 physical damage from all attacks, and never test morale. 

Brutality: a Centipede can choose to attack twice with its cleaver, or once per enemy in melee range, whichever is higher. 

A Centipede can unhinge its jaws to swallow equipment and keep it safe in a storage bladder inside its body. They have 5 INV slots of room inside this space, and the items can be retrieved again by cutting open their corpse. A living human can be carried in this space (taking up the whole 5 INV), and will be uncomfortable and probably traumatised, but safe, for the duration. While carrying a living being, a Centipede must keep its mouth wide open to allow for air flow. The Centipede can regurgitate the contents of its storage bladder at any time. 

Beautiful Companion - Continued

More fiction in progress, continuing from here. I don't know what this is yet, but I am enjoying working through it. 

-

Ella Makes a Decision




In her room on the other side of the house Ella is awake and choosing what she wants to wear. Yesterday she was travelling, and dressed in anonymous, comfortable grey cotton, but today the others are arriving and they will be spending time together that night; actually this is the first real night of the trip, so she takes the time to think about how she wants to look and be seen by her friends. She generally approaches this question with an all-or-nothing attitude, and when she decides to take it on seriously she finds the whole thing intensely pleasurable.

She has bought with her: a mid-length dress made from pale chiffon, with thin straps that nicely frame her collarbones; a plain set of linen shorts and a matching top, light-coloured; a beautiful, wool-blend, box-cut jacket, with raglan stitching and pearls sewn in along the piping—the fabric of the jacket is mostly off-white, but offset throughout with thin red and blue threads, so that its colour shifts very slightly under changes of light. With this more elaborate piece she would wear less jewellery, perhaps only a matching set of pearls at her ears. No makeup. She also has a few sets of basics, cotton-synthetic sweatpants and tops, which go with anything, and which can be brought out as necessary. Today she will wear the dress. She considers layering the jacket on top, but decides that this is excessive, and that anyway it is much too hot. Since the dress is quite muted, she selects some jewellery to go with it. She chooses a short necklace that will nicely frame her collarbones, a chain of worked, flat silver sections, tarnished black in the deeper details but with its surfaces brightly polished. Then she puts on the earrings that go with it; small, silver rosebuds with the same tarnishing and polish, and the same hue of silver. Hair and makeup: her hair is dark brown, cut mid-length, she uses to clips at her temples to keep it off her ears so that it frames her face. Makeup understated, barely visible, the softest pink at the eyes. All of this sounds casual, and it is casual really, but it takes her almost an hour because she is having fun with it. She does not remember her nightmares from the previous night at all.

We have mentioned two pairs of earrings—the pearls and the rose buds—and one of her necklaces, the silver plateresque chain. In her bag Ella also has a very short necklace of pearls, nearly a choker, with a silver clasp, and a third set in gold, a thin chain without a pendant and two small hoops.

When she is done she heads out to the kitchen, sees Michael, and suggests that they make a concerted effort to locate the nearest supermarket—they walk up together, to a the complex that services this part of the town, and buy bread, cheese, fruit and vegetables, oil, coffee, and also paper towels, toothpaste, toilet paper, all the other necessities. They buy enough for seven of them, for at least a couple of days, and Michael makes a point to buy ingredients for that night’s dinner, when everyone will be together in the house for the first time. He asks Ella if she likes pasta and she says of course, who doesn’t like pasta? So they also buy expensive sausages, onions and garlic, ripe tomatoes, basil, roquette, and vinegar for a salad. They buy six litres of water and another six litres of sparkling water, and they buy four bottles of wine and a case of beer. Then they realise that they won’t be able to carry the whole lot back with them so they enter into a halting and mostly charades-based conversation with the cashier, trying to indicate that they will leave half of the shopping behind the counter and then return for it in fifteen minutes. The cashier shakes their head firmly, with an inscrutable expression. Take it with you, they say, in accented english. They look angry, for no reason that Ella or Michael can immediately understand. Before they can launch into another explanation of their situation, a second worker in the store, possibly a superior, tells them that it’s fine for them to leave it. The original cashier is absolutely stone-faced, and says nothing, won’t even look at them. Michael almost tries to address them directly in a conciliatory way but Ella stops this by grabbing at his shoulder, and they exit the store, confused, with half of their purchases in bags. The day is getting hotter. They walk back to the house together in a strange, disaffected silence, and when they get in they pack everything in its correct place, either in the fridge, or into likely-seeming cupboards. As she does this Ella says, almost to herself, that spending this amount of money on a place to stay should entitle you to at least some olive oil and some coffee, some salt. The kitchen is nearly suspiciously bare, like whoever owns the house actually cleaned out the essentials before they arrived, for reasons best known to themselves, almost certainly miserliness. When they are done they walk back up along the road to collect the rest. The air buzzes with heat, and they are now both sunk into their own distinct foul mood. Michael rallies a bit and tries to break them both out of it; he asks Ella about the story she is writing, how far along is she? What does she think the work still needs? But when she tries to answer Ella remembers her nightmares, and the conversation they had the night before, beneath the stars and the slowly tracking satellites, and finds that she can’t talk about it without slipping into a savage, almost deranged, anger of her own. She starts by saying that what the work needs is a programme, a procedure. That what it has now is characters and a plot, but that it has no structure that comes from itself. ‘Does that make sense? It has to suggest its own structure, it needs to develop this on its own terms; experimentation kills this. Everyone wants to experiment with form, but experimentation for its own sake is useless, actually worse than useless.’ Then she sees his face and immediately apologises and starts trying to explain that it’s not him that makes her angry, that she has a lot going on at the moment. Michael’s expression is placid as the Archangel. He could be carved from stone. He is polite and understanding; he even apologises to her for asking. Ella wants to scream, or to hit him, which is totally unlike her. She says ‘It’s totally unlike me to get angry like this for no reason at all. I’m really so sorry. It’s good to see you. And I’m sorry about last night, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’ His composure cracks a bit, and he says that it’s fine, and that he understands what she means about structure coming from the work itself, growing out of its complex web of decisions and images. That this is actually exactly the kind of thing he looks for in fiction in his job as an editor. You can always tell when you’re reading a piece of writing when the writer is letting the work suggest things to them. Ella nods and they lapse into silence. They are now back at the store, standing out the front, and, since neither has anything more to say, they enter and collect the rest of their shopping, making sure to thank the cashier in their effusive, gestural way, for looking after it all.

The walk back is free from the influence of all of this strange energy and striving, which, when she looks at it from this calmer position in the future, which of course is now the present, Ella imagines must have come down on top of her from somewhere far up in orbit. She imagines the spectre of it floating up in the frozen air, like a heat haze, or like an invisible angel made from glass, outside the belts of terrestrial atmosphere, waiting to ambush her on her morning grocery run. She had no control over it at all—about this she is very clear. She asks Michael if he knows much about satellite weapons, which makes him laugh, and he says that he knows about them only in reference to science fiction stories; that when he hears ‘satellite weapon’ he thinks of the final scene in the film (or the first scenes, if it’s that kind of story), of beams of light that reduce skyscrapers to ash, or that kill things too large and durable to be dispatched with more conventional attacks. Ella says that there have been various plans from various states at various times to launch payloads up into orbit on satellites, mostly missiles and kinetic weapons, not beams. She tells him about tungsten rods, each about the size of a telephone pole, which she explains are massy enough that when you drop them from orbit they impart energy equivalent to a small nuclear bomb. Michael nods as she speaks. He is watching the sea behind her head. ‘You can get five or six of these rods on a satellite, and once you have enough of them up there, something like fifteen thousand, you always have ordinance in position over any arbitrary strike point, so you can drop one on any point on the planet immediately.’ He is still nodding, and they spend the rest of the walk back this way, her explaining, and him nodding along in good humour and letting her speak, watching the sea, watching the sky, letting his own thoughts out and up, into the bright and friendly sunshine.

When they get back, they see immediately that the others have arrived.

The Guests Arrive, Continued




The taxi is still in the driveway, and Caitlin is unloading suitcases from the back and talking to the driver, asking him if he takes payment by card. They wave as they approach and she waves back, smiling broadly. Caitlin is short, with thick glasses and huge quantities of thick hair that she ties behind her head and which, seen from the front, looks like a strange sort of halo. She pays the taxi and gives Ella and Michael a kiss each. Ella notices that there is still only one car in the driveway, and asks whether anyone has heard from Parvel yet, and Caitlin says that they haven’t, or at least she hasn’t, and that she guesses he must be getting in later that night. Then she says ‘I like your dress,’ which makes Ella smile. The strange Ella/Michael mood has almost entirely dissipated with the addition of a third party. Michael hugs Caitlin and says that Ella has been telling him about satellite weapons which makes her grin widely and ask which ones. Ella doesn’t quite blush when she says ‘tungsten rods’, but she does search the older woman’s face for something as she says it, possibly some sort of psychic assurance that she is not being made fun of.

‘Ah, yes,’ says Caitlin. ‘The classic.’

Inside, Sally and Simone are unpacking their own bags of shopping into the now extremely well-stocked fridge and cupboards, and Beth is standing by the sink with a glass of water, chatting, staying out of the way. When they see Michael and Ella walking in with even more bags of groceries all three of them start giggling. Sally says that they should have been in better contact about what the plan was tonight, but that at least now they have options. He makes a big show of not knowing where to put everything. Then he asks them if they have heard from Parvel and they say that they haven’t. Maybe he’s getting in later tonight? Everyone nods.

Once everything has been packed away the six friends head to the back garden to walk around and admire it, and then to sit beneath the canopy and catch up, talking about work, about projects, about love and desire and dating, about books, about films, about ideas, and about the state of the world, which they all agree is terrible and getting rapidly worse.

Sally is comfortably in his element. He is a tall man, dressed casually in a way that flatters his face and proportions. He knows how to do this, and how to be in his element, and has a lot of practice with both. He voice is loud and friendly. When he speaks he sounds like he is smiling. He is very careful not to speak over people, and sometimes gets excited and ruins this carefulness in his excitement. During gatherings with friends he will occasionally stop talking entirely (only if he feels that he has said his piece) and simply watch the others, content, free to reengage at any time, but happy for now to hold back. At the moment he is talking with Michael about magazine work, about what the ambitions are for the next few years in terms of the type of fiction it would like to publish, and Michael is explaining that his own position on this is different from the other staff—that because of this he is considering looking for somewhere else to work. He says that what he wants more than anything is for the magazine is to develop a taste that is recognisable but not predictable, and that their ideal reader might learn to trust and appreciate. This reader is not anyone in particular, it is the perfect reader of history. He would like to found this process in the development and promotion of a stable of writers whose trust he would earn over time, in the steady championing of their work, in its insulation from trends and other useless garbage. His is rueful: his colleagues are, apparently, only superficially supportive. Sally tells Michael that he has always respected his editorial taste. Sally is a painter, apparently a successful one, since he does not have other work that anyone here knows about. He has shows now and then, and pays rent, and, by extrapolation, must sell paintings.

Simone is Sally’s partner, and also a painter. In some ways she is like him: tall and confident, at ease in the company of her friends. She is always smiling. In other ways she is very different. She has cropped blonde hair and large, intense blue eyes. When you get close to her she smells of sweat. She gives, generally, the impression of being in less than full control of what she says—not because she is impulsive or stupid, but because she has practiced a nearly automatic process of thinking and expressing her thoughts, and has worked to make the lag between these two things essentially non-existent, with the result that she occasionally says things that upset people badly, but that she will also usually immediately and sincerely apologise for upsetting them, and explain what particular thought or chain of associations she was following to arrive at the offending position. Nothing in this chain is ever mean-spirited or bullying. She will assert a position, examine it after pushback, find it untenable, and then reject it, without this process causing any disturbance or tearing in her ego or internal processes. Because of this she is blunt and crude, and abrupt, but also very graceful. She does sell paintings, not in the sort-of-assumed way that Sally does; she has shows and sells paintings often in the city, loudly and visibly, for good money. She occasionally watches the people around her like a cannibal might. What does this mean? You know what it means. You know what that face looks like; its curiosity and its subtle calculation. It is not immediately clear what exactly she would devour, metabolise, and shit out again; probably not the body, but the body is also a possibility. She gets along very well with everyone, even when she offends them. She is much bigger up close than you expect her to be, and the smells of her body are more intense—you don’t notice the sweat-smell at all until you are right next to her, and then it is overwhelming.

Beth is a slight woman, and a quiet woman. Most of the time she seems serene and imperturbable. If you didn't know her you might think that she was tired; she has eyes are full of a strange, great fatigue, and also a great deal of humour and discretion. In fact she is probably the person here most capable of sustained, high-energy work. She is the only one of the friends who did not study art; she works in logistics, in shipping, procurement, transportation, and sometimes in production, operations management, roles like this. She is used to directing teams of employees. She is actually, right this moment, at a strange tipping point in her career—for nearly two decades she has been making a good salary, and, after putting in this time, and being good at her work, she is on the cusp of making much, much larger amounts of money. Her friends are only vaguely aware of this, and also only vaguely aware of what she actually does day-to-day—Caitlin is the only one with an applicable frame of reference for her job, but Caitlin and Beth sometimes have trouble relating to one another; troubling finding anything to say, Beth with a sort of beatific retreat or surrender into comfortable silence, and Caitlin with a good deal of frustration. Beth is neatly dressed; mostly in vaguely-professional black designer clothing, but with accents that work to signal her taste excessive to this persona (a necklace of cowrie shells)—her capacity to inhabit it without issue, and also to move beyond it whenever she wants. She has had many discreet surgeries—quite a few of the friends have actually, but she has had the most—without thinking much about it. By instinct she has avoided having work done on her eyes, which keeps her strange, infinite fatigue, which, it has to be stressed, has nothing to do with her work, which might actually lessen it. It is charming and disarming. Beth is a notably beautiful woman.

This is everyone, except for Parvel. Parvel the pornographer, the landlord. But Parvel isn’t here yet, so we will defer description to the appropriate time.

They are all seated. There is no food yet, but the light is bright and clear and the wind is sweet-smelling. It cools them, and the smell of it calms the nervous system. The atmosphere on sunlight island is so clear that any of them could look down the garden, along its structuring architectures, and see the ocean, the city, the buildings and signage and boardwalks traced out in crisp and perfect definition— small, difficult to make out, but no haze or distortion at all—or, with equal ease, look back upwards towards the black stone peak of the volcano behind the house, and see it the same way: crisp and perfect, framed in vivid and endless cornflower blue, its every detail traced as with the blade of a stylus.

Caitlin, who has seated herself next to Ella, tells her that tungsten kinetic weapons on satellites were never seriously pursued for cost reasons. It’s very expensive to put things into orbit, especially at the kind of scale imagined by the people that thought it up, who were actually science fiction writers. The benefits compared to a straightforward missile launch exist, but are minimal. Ella does blush then, and says that she is of course no specialist, and Caitlin laughs. She says that the more seriously pursued model is a sort of sheaf or beehive of hundreds of thousands of heavy, cheap projectiles made from lead or depleted uranium, each about twenty centimetres long. They are kept in ‘nest’ pods on the satellite, and fitted with a cheap and extremely rudimentary guidance system. They don’t destroy bunkers and cities, they are designed to kill a single person in a crowd—actually the satellites are designed to talk to intelligence analysis and targeting systems, to acquire and track specific people, and then to ensure that one of these projectiles is above them at all times, waiting for a kill order. You can give the system as many targets as you want, and it will work to make sure that all of them are ‘covered’ this way. They won’t go through concrete, but they will certainly go through the roof of a house or a car. ‘How horrible,’ says Ella, and Caitlin nods absently.

Then she asks how the book is going, and Ella says not very well actually, that progress has stalled. But that this always happens at some point, it’s to be expected. Her usual pattern is to work in long, sustained bursts of inspiration when everything is easy, and then struggle through fallow periods where she goes back and edits what’s already there, or just works on something else, or, occasionally, loses herself to despair. These periods can last for months sometimes, which of course is torturous. Caitlin asks what the issue is, why things have stalled, and Ella considers getting into it the way she did with Michael earlier that morning, talking about structure and formal experimentation, but instead finds herself saying ‘Sometimes I just can’t think at all. Sometimes I’m not capable of forming a single coherent thought, or even of arriving at a feeling or an emotion that is clearly anything. I feel like a doll, or like a corpse.’ Caitlin says that yes, she gets that way too every now and then, and then she smiles and says ‘But I wouldn’t have thought to express it in those terms, I wouldn’t have thought to say “corpse.”’ Ella checks the other woman’s face again and decides (courageously, in her own estimation) that she doesn’t believe her, though she doesn’t say this.

In Ella’s febrile and notably imagist imagination Caitlin is a type of avatar, nearly inhuman, and her face is a cypher for closeness to and the exercise of power. She has abilities and capacities that are nearly supernatural: she can borrow large sums of money as she needs it, and can organise loans like this for others; she can keep control of conversations with anyone-whoever; she can intimidate people if she wants to, she is impossible to bully. Her relationship to cruelty, violence, and brutality is that of a professional; her response to it can be modulated as necessary and appropriate. It is as though she can choose the distance from which she is affected. Nothing in her can be induced. Ella has told Caitlin all of this before, and when she did Caitlin laughed and said that she learned all of it in art school, at the same time as she learned how to paint, and how to talk about painting with collectors and curators, about how to place that practice and its production inside the great, glittering arcs of dispersal and transmission and mutual infection that properly frame it. Her later forays into professional life and consulting were built on that foundational education, which, she feels, was significantly concerned with power and its operation.

Ella imagines her friend as a soldier, a spy, a hitwoman, a trench raider and tunnel fighter; sees her engaged in lonely missions and contracts that are invisible to other people. Caitlin looks this way even in Ella’s memories of her as a much younger woman, during their degree, when they were all so much less capable of sober self-awareness, or any sophisticated understanding of cause and effect. Loneliness is a key component in this image, or perhaps alone-ness. So are detachment and humour—humour that is soft, self-deprecating, and self-directed.

There is something incomplete in this mental portrait of her friend, and Ella is aware of this. She is not sure if it is because she herself cannot see something important, maybe owing to lack of subtlety, or if Caitlin has decided to amputate or obscure something of herself; to make herself incomplete. She sees a reflection of a woman in a mirror, in a room growing darker as the light fades at the end of the day. The face is turned away from her. And she sees the back of a distant figure at the end of a long, long corridor, walking away from her and ignoring her calls (or perhaps unable to hear them), moving unstoppably into the future. She asks how work is going, and Caitlin grins and says that it is very busy, and a little depressing, but that this is nothing new.

Bard? Fool?

Youth is the semblance of strength, love is the semblance of peace. Neither youth nor strength nor love nor peace can be granted to me [...] nor can I accept such a gift.

-2666, Roberto Bolaño

Skills: none. 

Gear: an instrument that's easy to pick up and noodle around on: a harmonica, a tin whistle, a guitar, etc. 

Unlike most classes, you lose access to old templates as you get each new one.  

A: You play well enough that nearly everyone likes it, which means that nearly everyone likes you. No mechanical effect. 

You cannot be trapped or restrained against your will - cuffs come loose, binding ropes slacken, prison doors swing open. If you wish to leave, you may always do so. This doesn't stop people from killing or maiming you. 

You roll on the Death and Dismemberment table with advantage. 

B: You roll on the Death and Dismemberment table with advantage. 

When you have the time and focus to play properly for someone (you can do this over lunch, before sleep in camp, etc.), you can double the effects of any healing of any kind that they receive from a rest. Your playing can also guarantee a good night's sleep, which overrides spells, curses, and other effects that might prevent this. 

If you look directly into someone's eyes as you speak with them, they will find that they cannot knowingly tell a lie. Your mind cannot be read by sorcery, nor can you be scried on, located, or otherwise sensed using magic. You gain +1 to-hit with swords, the weapons of kings. 

C: If you look directly into someone's eyes as you speak with them, they will find that they cannot knowingly tell a lie. Your mind cannot be read by sorcery, nor can you be scried on, located, or otherwise sensed using magic. You gain +1 to-hit with swords, the weapons of kings. 

Your playing is now greatly famed. You can show people the truth of themselves as you see it - mechanically this means that you can redistribute HD between the members of an audience that you play for. You can add or subtract a maximum of [templates] HD to each individual creature this way, and any changes that you make last until midnight. The tyrant king is a fool and a coward, his champions are oafs, the good man is a giant, a paragon. You can shift these HD to yourself if you wish to. No one listening knows that it is you doing this, but they can feel themselves growing or shrinking. 

You know the secret names of things, which means that you can learn spells like a Magic User - though initially you have none of your own - and gain a single MD. If you give a sword its first name it becomes your ally, and counts as a +1 sword that gives you an extra attack when you wield it. 

D: If you look directly into someone's eyes as you speak with them, they will find that they cannot knowingly tell a lie. Your mind cannot be read by sorcery, nor can you be scried on, located, or otherwise sensed using magic. You gain +1 to-hit with swords, the weapons of kings. 

Your playing is now greatly famed. You can show people the truth of themselves as you see it - mechanically this means that you can redistribute HD between the members of an audience that you play for. You can add or subtract a maximum of [templates] HD to each individual creature this way, and any changes that you make last until midnight. The tyrant king is a fool and a coward, his champions are oafs, the good man is a giant, a paragon. You can shift these HD to yourself if you wish to. No one listening knows that it is you doing this, but they can feel themselves growing or shrinking. 

You know the secret names of things, which means that you can learn spells like a Magic User - though initially you have none of your own - and gain a single MD. If you give a sword its first name it becomes your ally, and counts as a +1 sword that gives you an extra attack when you wield it. 

You may now redistribute MD by stealing them from other Magic Users, in precisely the same way that you can redistribute HD. If you slay the Magic User so affected before midnight, the reallocation is permanent. You may still only invest a maximum of [templates] MD this way, which means that your personal MD cap at 5. 

Choose only one of the following:

• You learn the spells Wish, Power Word: Kill, and Geas, taught to you by the Powers you hold court with. You will not die except by violence or poison. Any who know your name can blind, silence, and bind you with it. 
• You play well enough that nearly everyone likes it, which means that nearly everyone likes you. No mechanical effect. Whenever you wish, you may give up your D template and regain your A Template. 

Paladin? Fool?

With a host of furious fancies,

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear

And a horse of air

To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghosts and shadows

I summoned am to Tourney;

Ten leagues beyond

The wide world's end:

Methinks it is no journey.

-Tom o' Bedlam, anonymous

Gear: none

Skills: none

A: You may choose to attack thrice in melee, instead of once, at the cost of a point of fatigue. You have no weapons proficiencies. You can attack (and are sometimes attacked by) your own ideas, illusions, fancies, and phantasms - your attacks against these foes count as unarmed, unless you discover some means by which to arm your mind. 

You can choose one of the the following wagers to make per turn, while engaged in mortal combat (that is, against dangerous enemies who can fight back):

• At least one of my attacks will hit this turn. If it does, you gain +1 to-hit for the rest of the combat, which stacks if you make this wager more than once. If it doesn't you lose all stacks, and cannot make this wager again until you slay an enemy. 
• At least two of my attacks will hit this turn. If they do, you don't gain a point of fatigue, and gain +1 damage on your attacks. If they don't, you take a point of damage and two fatigue instead of one. 
• At least three of my attacks will hit this turn. If they do, you clear a point of fatigue instead of gaining one, and your attacks gain +1 damage and count as vorpal. If they don't, you take d4 damage, and three points of fatigue. 

If you ever gain truesight, or any other ability to see through illusions, you immediately lose, and can never regain, all templates in this class. 

B: You make always choose to re roll a missed melee attack, at the cost of taking an attack from every enemy in melee range. Enemy attacks are resolved first. 

You can choose one of the the following wagers to make per turn, in addition to one of those allowed by your A template, while engaged in mortal combat:

• I will kill a foe this turn. If you do, your next attack hits automatically (roll anyway, just in case it crits). If you don't, the next time you take damage it counts as critical. 
• I will kill three foes this turn. If you do, you clear all fatigue, and heal d6 hp. If you don't, you take d6 damage and double your current fatigue. 

C: At any time, you may sacrifice a point of max HP to:

• Turn a miss into a hit in melee combat.
• Turn a hit into a crit in melee combat. 
• Imbue a hardwood stick, fire poker, set of rusty shears, etc., with the properties of a +1 medium sword while you hold it. 
• Imbue a pot lid, window cover, etc. with the properties of a +1 shield while you carry it. 
• Imbue a theatrical costume, fool's motley, or beggar's robes with the protective properties (but not the weight or bulk) of medium armour while you wear them. 
• Heal d6 hp. 

Additionally you may now befriend your own ideas, illusions, fancies, and phantasms. Depending on their natures, they might choose to join you as companions on your travels. 

For every day that you go without rations or rest, you receive +1 to-hit and +1 to damage in melee - you still suffer the usual effects of starvation and sleep deprivation. 

D: You may always choose to make another melee attack in combat, as many times as you want, at the cost of taking an attack from every enemy in melee range. Enemy attacks are resolved first. 

You may make the following wager while engaged in mortal combat, in addition to any others allowed by your other templates:

• I will end the combat this turn by killing (or scaring off, befriending, seducing, etc.) all remaining enemies. If you do, gain 1 max hp. If you don't, gain a point of fatigue and lose a point of max hp. 

If you ever slay a giant, dragon, ogre, tyrant, or royal family entirely by yourself, you immediately gain d3 max hp.


Δ: Lie with a fairy or an illusionist, and gain their love. Break their heart. Whenever you slay something in combat all remaining foes must test morale. If you are in direct sunlight when you do so, you also heal 1hp. 

Sing Out Your Joy - The Island of Paravel

This writeup comes via Prime's excellent Starter Box challenge. 

It's not really the setting primer for Barony - that better describes the last hexcrawl I wrote, A Great Airy Chaos - this one is more like a long-gestation proof of concept. I've wanted to do an island hopping, Voyage of the Dawntreader, passage into seas of dream type of thing for a long time, so this can be considered the opening chapter in what I hope will be a longer work. 

Without further ado (the Seat of the King is coming soon!):

SING OUT YOUR JOY

  

Turner, Sunrise over the Sea, watercolour, date unknown

Paravel

A small, rocky island, mostly free from vegetation, that juts from the sea about two miles north of the Lantern Berth. It has been periodically settled and then abandoned, because it has very little fresh water - what groundwater exists is periodically contaminated by rogue waves that salinate the aquifer lens. 

About 300 years ago the Old Capital colony on the Lantern Berth built the Black Stone Aqueduct from the main island to Paravel. The sea between the two islands is quite shallow; nonetheless construction of this kind is no longer possible, and the aqueduct is a wonder from a culture that no longer exists. It is still functional, and reliably feeds the town - also called Paravel - with fresh drinking water. This has lead to permanent settlement, the growing of gardens, and fortification. 

There are ruins to the north of the island. The Temple of Lights is a small stone church(?) of unknown provenance, where pious islanders still leave offerings to placate the spirits who are said to live there. The Seat of the King is a darker thing - what is left of one of the bunkers or research facilities of Old Capital settlers. To the west of the town are a chain of tiny islands where the inhabitants build stone cairns and bury their dead. The rest of the island is a rocky, treeless expanse, covered in saltbush and mangroves, and little else. 

The Town

The town of Paravel is small; around 2000 people live there. Its population are mostly fishers and whalers, although a few small gardens and orchards exist, fed by the aqueduct. The town is governed by a council of the local whaler hunter-captains, and policed by their harpooners. Like all islanders, the people of Paravel seem fey, mercurial, unfriendly, and unemotional to Baronials, although they are hospitable and welcome trade.

Paravel is famous among the islanders for its natural stone that glows blood-red in the sunrise and sunset, and for its night skies, where the stars blaze coldly in the sky, larger, closer to earth. There are old stories and songs about congress with merfolk and sea people. The island is one step closer into those distant territories of dream. 

The aqueduct is the life blood of the island. Tampering with it is grounds for execution. If it were somehow destroyed or stopped up, Paravel would run out of water in four days, and its people would flee to the Lantern Berth. 

Recently

There has been a wedding planned! The children of two of the wealthy whaler families - the Pelon and the Garamant clans - are in love, and have been betrothed. But all is not well! One of the old lovers of the bride, who says that she was promised her hand, has gone mad with grief and perceived betrayal, and has sworn revenge on the whole affair. She has disappeared into the hill country to the north, said to be haunted by the ghosts of sailors who died on land, with stolen pistols and sabre. Several men sent to find her have gone missing. A number of heads, taken from bodies unknown, have been found along the north-south road. There are rumours that she has gathered criminal friends to aid in her mad quest, or perhaps allies still stranger. 

The wedding is in five days time. Both families have organised their own security, but they have also placed a bounty of 2000s on the life of the ex-lover. The bounty is for delivery dead or alive, but the local harpooners have made it generally known that capture alive, such that she can be judged by a magistrate and executed as a murderer, is preferable - those who manage this will find favour with that secretive sect. 

If the day of the wedding comes and the renegade lover has not been captured or killed, the Pelon and Garamant families will instead offer you 400s to bolster security during the ceremony. 

Rumours and Local Legends

• Something haunts the rocky northern hills - this is locally held to be ghosts, but the few educated islanders would privately doubt this. Most islanders, and all of the harpooners, are superstitious, and avoid these areas. 
• The Isles of the Dead are not to be disturbed, except for burials, mourning, and propitiation of ancestor spirits. Outsiders found to have done so will face heavy fines, beatings, or worse. It is well known locally that guardian monsters haunt the sacred ground of the isles.
• The Temple of Lights is empty, except for old spirits that no one understands anymore. They keep to themselves, and the villagers leave them food and water. The temple itself is of strange and ancient construction, and none know its original purpose. 
• The Seat of the King is better understood: it is a poisonous, broken wound in the world, where things best left unmentioned were done in ages past; one of many places where the hubris of the ancients was punished. The harpooners do not allow relic hunting or exploration of the ruins, out of fear that whatever festers there may reemerge. 
• You should always be polite with the spirits on the islands of the dead! They have been known to spare the lives of those who pay the proper respects. 
• Something is badly wrong in town. No one can say what, but something is badly wrong. It is like a nightmare. It has the feeling of a nightmare. What is it? No one can say what it is. 

The Sea

The sea surrounding Paravel is warm and bountiful. When the sun makes the local stone red, it stains the water the same colour. All local islands are swimmable to those in light or no armour. Anyone who knows how to fish, and has the gear to do so, can sustain themselves on fishing and shellfish forage indefinitely, although there is no drinkable water on the island outside of town. The weather is generally pleasant and warm year round, although storms and hurricanes sweep across the island periodically. 

Sleeping by the sea while the weather is mild will always result in excellent, restful sleep. This even works to dispel magical effects and curses that prevent it.

Every day that the PCs wake up on Paravel, roll 2d20, one for the hunt, and one for the weather. On the hunt die, a 20 indicates that a monster has been sighted from the watchtowers in town, and the population will gather for the hunt. They will invite the PCs along if they express interest, with broad smiles and loud, approving whoops. Use these rules. If you have agreed to act on behalf of either the Pelon or Garamant families, you will travel in their boats. 

Paravel can put 16 fully crewed boats into the water for a hunt, each with a full crew of ten. If the hunt is for a Monster Fish, the locals will advise the PCs to stay home. If the PCs insist on coming anyway, and pull their weight, they will immediately gain the respect of the whole town. 

If a hunt is rolled on the day of the wedding (extremely auspicious), the bride and groom will join as the symbolic 'captains' of the community, symbols of its bright future. Their roles may be symbolic, but they will throw harpoons and pull oars with the rest. Both will go to sea in their wedding outfits. 

If you roll a 20 on the weather die, it indicates extremely hot sun: you consume carried water at twice the usual rate. On a 1, it instead indicates heavy rain. 5 in 6 chance of a storm, rushing low over the sea, chopping up its surface. 1 in 6 that it is instead an ocean hurricane.

In general, water consumption is a big deal on Paravel. Assume that 'normal' adventuring kit includes water for two days, and each additional INV slot gives you one extra day. Tweak to your preferred miserliness and lethality. 

All coastlines on 'Open' and 'Rocky Foothills' hexes represent stone cliffs of varying heights, unsuitable for landing a boat, although you can fish from them. PCs who know what they're doing can attempt a landing on these hexes, but you will always risk destroying the boat, and locals will never do it. 'Low Coast' and 'Mangroves' hexes have sand beaches suitable for landing. The town of Paravel has a stone harbour where the fishing fleet is kept safe from storms.

The Island of Paravel. I won't hear a word against my baby. 

0000 - Low Coast - The Seat of the King

A small, unremarkable sandy island that develops into a central rocky hill, where shrubs and grasses cling against the wind and the baking sun. At the top of the hill is a black stone shaft that leads down into the earth. This is the Seat of the King - see the appropriate dungeon write-up for details. 

The mainland promontory in the east of the hex is a simple outcrop of bare rock. 

0100 - Open - Mineral Baths

The North South road runs through this hex, leading towards Paravel to the South, and the Temple of Lights to the northeast. Most days, you will find elderly pilgrims on the road, bearing gifts of food and water for the Temple. All have heard of the recent troubles surrounding the wedding, and will readily gossip about the evil of the ex-lover, hidden out in the rocky hills.

In the north of the hex, overlooking the sea cliffs, is a natural hot spring, where saline groundwater is geothermally heated, and forced to the surface in a series of natural rock basins. The islanders use these recreationally, of course, and will invite you to the springs to discuss business or sensitive negotiation - the relaxing effects, and the fact that you need to strip naked to enter, traditionally help all sides feel at ease. Bathing in the springs for a morning or an afternoon heals you of all fatigue, and you will meet many villagers from the town doing the same thing. Neutral ground - anyone attacking anyone else here would be particularly reviled as a betrayer and coward, and certainly sentenced to death. 

0200 - Open - The Temple of Lights

The North South road terminates here at the Temple of Lights. The temple is a squat building carved out of the living stone, and in the late and early sunlight it glows red like everything else. Nearly uniquely on the island, a few hardy cypress trees grow here, close to the ruined gazebo structure at the entrance of the temple. Pilgrims encountered here will tell you that the spirits in the temple are friendly, but that its interior is a sacred place, not for humans. 

It takes two days on foot to get from Paravel to the Temple, if you're not pushing yourself. You can do it in a day, but it's exhausting, and you will be travelling after nightfall towards the end. 

0001 - Mangroves

A long, stinking beach, dense with clusters of mangroves. It is has its own complex biome, quite unlike the rest of the island. At high tide much of this hex is flooded, and PCs will traverse it at half speed. 

If they traverse it at low tide, they will find d4-1 decaying human bodies as they pass through, partially eaten by crabs and birds. Reporting these corpses to the townsfolk will result in some unease - yes, it is known that corpses wash up on this stretch of beach from time to time. No one knows who they are or where they come from; the going local theory are that obscure currents bring murdered bodies from the harbour front of the rougher and more densely populated Lantern Berth. The townspeople will be uncomfortable discussing the bodies. 

If the PCs make a thorough search of this hex (it would take three days to do so), they will find evidence of 63 human bodies on the beach, the vast majority rotted skeletons. 

0101 - Open/Mangroves

Open country at the foothills of the haunted hills. The North/South road runs through this hex, and the heads of the townspeople who were sent to find the ex lover were found here. In the west of the hex is a small section of mangrove beach - adjust the encounter rolls depending on what the PCs are doing here. 

0201 - Rocky Foothills

Stone gullies and outcrops. Extremely broken ground, and quite dangerous to traverse, especially at speed. Everyone in town will tell you that the hills are haunted. The ex-lover Beren has made her rude camp here - a simple bedroll and shade cloth, and five heavy water skins. See the Town of Paravel section for details on Beren and her intentions. 

0002 - Low Coast - The Isles of the Dead

The isles are mostly low sand bars, with ragged grasses clinging to their tops, and some with small stands of mangroves growing up the beaches. The cairns of the islander graves are clearly visible, even from the mainland. When the sun sets, the Isles of the Dead are silhouetted in bloody red light. 

There are seven islands in all, split across this hex and 0003, as shown on the map. Each of the three larger islands houses 5d10 burials, and each of the four smaller islands houses 2d10. Roll when the PCs land (or swim across) and investigate. 1 in 4 burials will be rich, containing grave goods (typically a captain's grave), and 1 in 10 will be opulent, containing a hoard.   

An islander burial is most usually a simple hollow dug into the sand, with a stone cairn erected on top. Traditionalist families let the body lie uncovered on the isles for several days, to be picked clean by birds, crabs, and other scavengers, before burying them. A rich grave will include a small stone niche built beneath the cairn, filled with grave goods and then sealed with a stone slab and a poured-lead seal. An opulent burial will include an actual stone crypt, dug into the sand. The lack of firm foundations on the islands means that most crypts of this type have fallen in on themselves over the years. 

In an emergency, Islanders will sometimes break the lead seals of family graves, and take back grave goods from their ancestors. This is not publicly avowed, and outsiders won't be told this. As far as the PCs are concerned, stealing from the graves is a capital offence. 

A rich grave has a 1 in 2 chance of being emptied - the lead seal has been broken, and nothing now remains in the stone niche. For a rich grave that is still intact, breaking the seal will reveal 1d6 'burial coins' (large golden medallions that the islanders have smithed for burials, each worth 50s), and one item from the grave goods table, below. An opulent grave likewise has a 1 in 2 chance of being looted, but if intact holds 4d6 burial coins and three items from the table.  

1. The remains of an extremely fine sailor's cloak, rotted to uselessness. 
2. d4 pieces of exquisite scrimshawed whalebone jewellery, rare in the Barony, and sought after in elite circles. Each is worth 20s in the islands, and 100s in the Barony proper. 
3. d3 curse stones, which captains and harpooners have made after particularly vicious hunts, when they lose more people than they expect to. A curse 'stone' is usually made of clay mixed with the blood of the one who commissioned it, about the size of an apple. The surface is inscribed with lamentations for the dead, and with promises of revenge against the monsters that killed them. You can smash one to roll damage and to-hit at +1 for a single combat, but if you do so you also roll death and dismemberment at disadvantage. Each is worth 50s to a collector back on the mainland. 
4. A beautifully carved whalebone pistol. The symbol of a captain's authority - used during the hunt to execute mutineers and cowards. Functionally a pistol that sells for triple. 
5. An executioner's harpoon. Not commonly seen these days; they were once used by the harpooners to kill and maim human criminals, and, of course, for executions: the condemned would be tied to a post (often a mast), and then 'barbed' to death. Skilled harpooners could kill with a single throw. Heavier than the type used for whaling - getting hit with one is like getting poleaxed. As a heavy harpoon, with a +1 to damage and d12s for critical damage dice, but which rolls to hit against unrestrained targets at -2. A symbol of authority in the harpooner cult.
6. A complete gilded and painted skeleton. In the ancient times, bodies were left to the scavengers, and the cleaned skeleton gilded in precious and semi-precious metals. Roll a d3 for the metal: 1: lead, 2: copper: 3: bronze. 
7. A carved hardwood club, traditionally used in a last resort to beat monsters away from the boat when the harpoon and lance have been lost. More traditionally used by sailors to beat the shit out of people in dock brawls. As a medium club, worth triple. Has a leather loop in the handle, which makes it hard to disarm. 
8. An ornate Fire Tube. A scaled-down version of the ship mounted weapon that the islanders have used for centuries to avoid colonisation by other powers. About the size of a very bulky rifle, with a pump handle attached that produces pressure in the breach. You pour petroleum into the wide muzzle (or islander napalm, if you have access to it), stuff a rag into the end, set it alight, and depress the trigger to release the pressure buildup and spray the flaming mixture over everything in front of you. Lethal for ships, but also quite good at burning people to death. Loading the barrel takes a turn, and pumping up the pressure takes another. If loaded with petroleum, the attack does d6 fire damage and sets people alight in a 20ft cone in front of you. If loaded with islander napalm, it does d8 damage, and the flames can only be extinguished (by you or someone else) on a successful INT check. Islander napalm famously burns underwater. This weapon is a rarity in the Barony, and worth 200s there. 3 INV slots. 
9. A Bone Child. One of the traditional islander crafts: the making of Bone Children is now illegal. A small doll made from animal bones, leather, and copper wire, about the size of a human baby. If you immerse it in seawater or blood it will follow simple instructions, like a golem, until the liquid dries. It is very stupid, and has no sentience. 1hp, unarmoured, frightening for people who don't know about them, has a natural attack (bone claws) that deals d3 damage. Moves like a creepy puppet in a horror film. The bones of some Bone Children are painted, gilded, or scrimshawed. 
10. Eyes of the Heroes. Red rose lenses in a wire frame, very like the sun goggles of the nomads or the spectacles of the capital. Used as an aid by sailors of the dreamer's temperament to sink into that languid, half-lucid state in which great deeds are done. The Eyes must be used at sunrise or sunset (each lasts one hour at the appropriate time of the day), or in combination with a dose of sedatives (which lasts one hours per dose). While these conditions are met, and you cannot see land that you have set foot on, you treat your statistics as if you were in the dreamlands (I just realised that the original Dreamlands post has not been updated with these rules - your CON is now equal to your WIS, your DEX equal to your INT, and your STR equal to your CHAR), and roll all checks, attacks, and saves at advantage. 

The islanders of Paravel will try to kill you if they think you have been robbing their graves, and will be immediately suspicious of PCs visibly carrying anything on the grave goods table. 

When you are on the Islands of the Dead, treat encounter rolls of 6 as an encounter with the The Old Woman. Increase the range of this encounter by one per grave you have robbed - if you have robbed one grave, you now encounter her on a 5 or and 6, if you have robbed three graves you encounter it on a 3, 4, 5, or 6, etc. 

The Old Woman

A copper skeleton that is slightly too big to be human. It has an elongated cranium and fangs, and moves across the dunes and sparse grasses on all fours, totally silently. The bones are carved with geometric patterning, and set with black and red glass jewels. 

HD6, heavy copper claws + heavy bite, armoured as chain and takes -2 damage from physical attacks. Speed as huge dog, but completely, supernaturally silent - when you encounter the Old Woman, she has a 5 in 6 chance of getting surprise. On the other one in six, you instead see her seated cross-legged, miming the combing and washing of long hair. If you don't disturb her she won't even notice you. Disposition: furious guardian of the graves, enjoys killing thieves messily. Has an ancient sense of decorum: if you bow to her, she will bow back, which robs her of her surprise round. 

If you are fighting her in a storm, there is a 1 in 10 chance per combat turn that she will be struck by lightning, healing her to full, dealing 2d10 fire damage to everything within 10ft, throwing them back 20ft, and knocking them prone. If you are fighting her in a hurricane, the chance per turn is 1 in 4. 

If you bring the Old Woman to half HP, she will flee. If you kill her, but do not disperse the bones, she will be resurrected by lightning in the next storm that blows over the islands. She will never leave the Isles of the Dead. 

0102 - Open

The outskirts of the town of Paravel. The few houses this far out are barely shacks, and inhabited by drunks, outcasts, and the very poor. Open fires cook fish, and heat white spirits. Red rock and scree, stunted bushes, everything wind blasted and baked by the sun. The Black Stone Aqueduct terminates in the south of this hex, in a large, sunken stone reservoir. The reservoir is constantly fed and overflowing, and the water is cool, pure, and delicious. Its borders, where the soil is damp from the overflow, are overgrown with bright wildflowers and creeper vines - the only place in the island where these plants can survive. Two local guards, town citizens on rotation, use blunderbusses to shoot birds and animals that water here, to avoid excessive fouling of the water. Stats as commoners - they have no issue with humans coming for a drink, and will want to chat about nothing much if you approach them. At night the pool appears unguarded, but the local harpooners have been staking it out, hoping to catch Beren refilling her water canteens. So far they have been unsuccessful. 

If you express interest in helping the harpooners apprehend Beren, they will probably ask you to undertake some of these stakeout shifts, because they are extremely tedious. She is actually going to the priests in 0203 for water - they are trying to talk her into giving herself up. 

0202 - Rocky Foothills

Like 2021, sharp, red, stony outcrops, dangerous to cross without caution. To the north, in a series of sea caves along the coast, are the lairs of the Salt Drinkers, who haunt the rocks. There are four such caves, and they are mostly alike - openings at sea level, with long flooded tunnels and ledges of rock along the walls, where the Salt Drinkers sleep. They have learned to set their camps out of view of boats on the waterline. They mostly emerge to hunt at night. In the day they sleep sprawled on the slick stone.  

There are 42 Salt Drinkers in the caves - if the PCs end up killing some, mark them off the list. Each of the three smaller opening has 2d6, and the larger one houses the remainder. At night, half of the Salt Drinkers will roam the foothills searching for carrion, birds eggs, and lost travellers. 

At night you can sometimes hear their wailing, keening songs, rising up from what seems to be the ocean itself. 

Salt Drinker

A pale humanoid, very large, and naked, with cracked and bloody lips, big white teeth, and staring eyes. Salt Drinkers are popularly said to be the unquiet spirits of sailors who died on land; they are actually a divergent species of humanoids that, as the name implies, can drink seawater without ill effect. Salt Drinkers are social creatures, and quite intelligent. They use tools and weapons of knapped stone and sharpened bone, and can figure out complex mechanisms given time and someone to mimic. They are even better swimmers than the islanders, and can hold their breath for almost an hour.

HD2, light stone or bone tool (can be thrown), unarmoured. Speed as human, but swims as dolphin. Salt Drinkers can also scream loudly enough to make the ears bleed at close range. If they do this in melee, you must save CON or your choice of: take a single point of sonic damage/drop what you are carrying as you clap your hands to your ears. A combat that has included any number of these screams will prompt a fresh roll on the encounter table once it has concluded, with the result showing up d3x15 minutes later. 

Salt Drinkers sing to one another in a strange language that sounds like whale song. It is unnerving, but also very beautiful. There are many legends of them shedding their monstrous skins and living as humans, and of stealing children and lovers away to the depths of the ocean. 

0003 - Low Coast - The Isles of the Dead

See the entry for 0002. In addition, the sole larger island in this hex includes an ancient black stone structure at its centre - a simple, solid, octagonal platform, about two metres tall, without stairs or other means of access. In the past the islanders used the platform to lay out their dead and have them devoured by birds before burial, but this is no longer done, and the structure is considered cursed, haunted, or both, and given a wide berth. 

Octagonal platforms like this were used centuries ago by the Old Capital as arbitrary markers of position, visible from space, which factored into their attempts at communication with the Star People. Their means and methods have been lost to time. The stars do remember though: a Southern Mentat who stargazes from the platform will automatically succeed on their INT save to receive a gift, and will add their INT modifier to the gift roll, treating results of 20+ as either a 20, or 'roll two and combine their effects, with your new gift taking the larger of the the two mental inventory spaces', at their option. 

PCs educated in the history of the Old Capital have a good chance of knowing about this structure's original use. 

0103 - Open - The Town of Paravel

The Town

Paravel is built in the pale local stone. The buildings are mostly single story, with imported timber frames and ceramic clay tiles for roofing. The local islanders practice mural painting in many bright colours, and the walls of houses are often painted with layered geometrical designs, or decorated with scrimshawed whalebone wind chimes and hanging ornaments. Their boats are painted the same way. Glass windows are rare. Cast iron fences and railings, in the Old Capital style, are symbols of wealth and prestige. 

The town is organised around its stone harbour, which has been built with unmortared stone, and which must be actively maintained after the seasonal hurricanes. Inside the harbour are the boats of the villagers; their most treasured and valuable possessions. There are 16 whaling small-boats (also used for fishing when not on the hunt), 6 larger and more specialised fishing boats, and 2 'warships', very fast, very light, shallow-keeled and oared vessels, fitted with fire hurlers, rams, and boarding ramps. On the shore harbour are two ancient brass cannon, sighted at the harbour mouth. Shot and powder are kept locked in the town centre armoury. 

The town centre is the where the prominent whaling families meet to vote on the affairs of the town. It is a simple, spacious building that also acts as the community's courthouse, events venue, and hurricane shelter. A small, locked armoury is attached to the back, which houses 8 muskets, 14 blunderbusses (the preferred firearm on the islands) and enough medium cutlasses, clubs, and spears to arm an arbitrary number of villagers. Islanders keep their personal whaling gear in their houses. 

In addition to the boat sheds, the dry dock, and the town centre, noteworthy businesses in town are everything you would expect from a whaling community: shipwrights, blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, smoke houses, etc. All of these services can be accessed in town at market rates. Good quality hemp rope is valuable and has to be imported; it can be sold on the island at 3 times its usual sale price. The same is true for delicacies that can't be produced locally: white bread, baked goods, sugar, red meat. 

All islanders can swim twice as fast, and hold their breath twice as long, as normal people. All carry light knives on their person, and 1 in 2 in any given group will additionally have a medium machete with them. 

The Whaler Families

Paravel is governed by a council of the heads of the local whaler families, all of whom are wealthy from the trade, and who own boats in and administer to the whaling fleet. In islander culture a captain who no longer goes out in their boat is no captain at all, and has no authority - all of the family heads are fit, strong, fearless, and used to absolute obedience. There are 12 of them in the council - if you need to stat them up, use a men at arms but give them HD2. Captains carry pistols with them, and like most islanders, also have a machete and a knife on hand for day-to-day tasks. 

The Garamants and the Pelons are typical whaler families - their heads are Harlan Garamant, and Fidor Pelon. Harlan Garamant is a thin, tall man, with muscles like knotted rope and a long white beard. He is a high-functioning alcoholic, and goes to see drunk because he gets the shakes sober. While intoxicated he gets a +2 to hit with his pistol. He can also throw a harpoon as well as any of the harpooners on the island, and they love and respect him for this. He loves his daughter, and wants to see her married and awarded a captaincy. HD2, pistol, medium iron club. 

Fidor Pelon is a tall, fat woman, with long grey hair that she keeps bound in a thick braid, and a two long basket-hilted fighting knives in her belt. She is extremely strict on the boat, and a known miser, but her bravery and skill on the hunt are legendary. The Pelons are the wealthiest of the captain families, entirely due to her shrewd accountancy and thrift. She also loves her son, but in a distant and slightly confused way - she considers 'love' to be 'letting them make their own mistakes, and learn their own lessons'. She also wants the wedding to go smoothly. HD2, pistol, attacks twice with her medium knives and gets +1 AC, light armour. Absolutely ruthless to her enemies. If she thinks a fight is going to break out, she will go home to get a blunderbuss and backup. 

The Harpooners and the Magistrate

The harpooner cult are the police in Paravel. They have broad authority to apprehend, judge, and punish lawbreakers. They answer to the magistrate, Ben Solomon, whose makeshift court is held in the town centre whenever necessary. The people of Paravel rely on the harpooners to arbitrate disputes fairly and equitably, and they are held in a great deal of reverence. They are also indispensable in the whaling boats, where they do the majority of the actual monster killing.

Ben Solomon is a kind man, around eighty, whose responsibilities weigh heavily on him. He is extremely well read, but relies on intuition and common sense in his judgements (which has lead to one or two officially sanctioned injustices over the years). He knows and loves all of the harpooners, and treats them as something like his children, and something like a pack of trained wolves. 

The harpooners are, on average, slightly taller and broader than the locals. They file their teeth to points, and are famously laconic in speech. They have a strange separateness about them. All are heavily muscled, and they keep mostly to themselves, taking no part in festivities and normal business in town. There are 22 of them in Paravel. All are armed with harpoons, silk garrottes, and medium machetes. 

17 of them have HD1+1. 4 of them are larger still, and have HD2+1. One is almost a monster, 7 feet tall, with teeth like a shark and muscles that stand out against his skin. His name is Baraque, and he has 4HD. Harpooners do not have ranks, and all consider one another equals and peers. 

A harpoon is a medium javelin attached to 50ft of rope. Harpooners get +[HD] to their roles to hit with harpoons. Additionally, harpooners with 2HD roll d8s instead of d6s when they crit with these weapons. Baraque rolls d12s, and has his crit range increased to 18-20. 

A silk garrotte can only be used from ambush against an unaware target. If it hits, the target is grappled, and the attacker is automatically placed in control of the grapple. The target takes d8 strangulation damage until the grapple is broken, and cannot make any sound while this is happening. 

If you break any laws in Paravel, or behave aggressively antisocially, the harpooners are the people who will try to kill you. Depending on the severity of your transgression, they may give a warning first. For lesser offences (theft, cheating at gambling, disrespecting a captain in front of their crew) they will usually be content with taking a hand or foot. For serious offences (arson, sabotage, murder, rape, kidnapping) they will kill you in your sleep.

The harpooners cook and eat the bodies of condemned criminals. They do this privately, because it upsets people. The meal is held in common, and all of them partake. If they really like you, and you have shown yourself to be of good character and competent at fighting and killing, they might invite you to one of these meals. Attending the feast, and eating the flesh of a criminal (and a few months of living with them and learning the trade), is how a PC might earn their first template in Harpooner. 

The Wedding

The wedding of Kion Garamant and Tesler Pelon takes place in five days time. Kion is a famous island beauty, and has had a storied history with marriage proposals. She is a whaler, but not seeking a captaincy - she would prefer to travel to the mainland and see the Baronial Capital. This causes her father a great deal of sadness, shame, and stress. It is Kion's ex-lover Beren who is threatening to attack the wedding. 

Tesler is a big, loud, cheerful, and forthright man. He is a lot more intelligent than he seems, and is fully bought in to his bride's plans to travel on the mainland. He is a skilled gunsmith, and known in the small boat for his physical strength and nearly suicidal bravery - bravery isn't even the right word, he simply does not seem to notice what is going on around him when on the hunt. Tesler has heavy scarification on his face and chest, and a glass eye, the legacy of a sea grenade that detonated prematurely. 

Both have stats as commoners, and both wear ceremonial medium wedding sabres and formal wear - on the islands this is worn from the time the match is made until the wedding itself, and consists of a fine, tailored linen suit for both genders. The bride additionally wears red cotton ties around her waist (many thick strips, used to tie back the sleeves and trousers when in the boat), and the groom an expensive and elaborately embroidered half-cloak.

Both will fight to the death to defend the other. They are completely in love. 

If the wedding is allowed to take place unimpeded, it will be a day of the entire community eating together, drinking, playing music, and dancing. The music is based on percussion and horns, as well as singing. Islanders are famous for dancing on tables when they get drunk, generally stripped to the waist. They also love shooting guns into the air. The celebration IS the wedding, there is no formal exchange of vows or similar, but the bride and the groom will traditionally engage in a song duel with one another at some point. This happens while they are drunk, and means that they take it in turns singing improvised verses making fun of one another, needling one another, bringing up old grievances and old wounds, airing any dirty laundry, and generally getting everything out in the open. It is not at all uncommon for people to get really angry with their spouse during this process, but the idea is that, if you can get it all out now, and if you can make your way back to one another in good humour and good faith, then you are on a strong foundation. The song duel is a type of insurance and invocation against self-consciousness and preciousness. Kion and Tesler will really try to get into it, but neither has much ammunition to work with. The whole thing in the key of obvious joy. 

The Garamants and Pelons have their own security at the event: family members (stats as commoners) armed with blunderbusses. There are 12 of these, posted around the perimeter in pairs. 

Beren

Beren and Kion were a couple about a year ago. Kion met Tesler, realised that she wanted to pursue him, and left Beren - Beren has been nearly insane with grief since then. When she heard that her ex-lover was getting married, she stole weapons and armour from the armoury and disappeared into the haunted northern hills. 

Beren is not from one of the wealthy captain families. She worked as a blacksmith's apprentice, and then in the boats. She did not know her parents. She is a tough woman, well-used to violence on the dock front, with short blonde hair very large blue eyes. She has convinced herself that she wants to kill the couple during the wedding, but it would not be difficult to talk her down by showing her a bit of human kindness and some rough common sense - she is truly just heartbroken, miserable, young, and in pain. Contrary to local rumours, she is not responsible for the heads left at the side of the North South road - she has never killed anyone.

Beren has HD2, a brace of four pistols, a medium hanger sword, and medium armour. She is also what the Baronials would call an artist, but she doesn't know this. Her entity-feeling is not coherently expressed enough to have an independent existence, but it will allow her to slip into state of possession when threatened with violence - her pistols, sword, and unarmed attacks will deal an additional d3 psychic damage, and she ceases to feel any pain (-1 to all physical damage). At the end of a trance state like this (the end of a combat) she will fall unconscious for 24 hours. The Salt Drinkers in the hills can sense something odd about her, and give her a wide berth. 

If she is not talked out of it, or otherwise stopped, Beren absolutely will try to shoot her way into the wedding. She will advance towards the couple, firing her pistols until they are dry, and then draw her sword and try to get close enough to kill them. In the unlikely event that she is able to accomplish her aim without being shot to pieces, she will then attempt to end her own life. 

Other Inhabitants of Paravel

• Citizen Bucet. Bucet is accompanied by two soldiers from the White City, and is an object of endless fascination to the islanders. The Citizens enjoy teaching the basic postures and procedures of the image game to the locals in the evenings. They are considered guests in good standing. During the day, Bucet takes local measurements and works on a map of the area. During the night, she takes astronomical readings. She has given her assurances to the local whaler families that the City respects the political integrity of both Paravel and the Lantern Berth. She is being put up by the local powers that be, and sleeps with the soldiers on makeshift bedrolls in the town centre, with her notes, drawings, and other findings scattered around her on expensive foreign paper. She is a person of interest to the harpooners, who suspect that she is here to explore the Seat of the King. 
  
  Bucet has HD1, a light stamped-steel misericorde, and expensive brass optical and mapping instruments in a leather case - a telescope, a lensing glass, a compass, a sextant, and a plumb line. She is a stimulant addict, and carries five doses with her at all times, and 10d10 doses with her baggage back in town. Her plain cotton jumpsuits are currently without ornament. She owns a set of typical White City militia medium armour, but the island is too hot to wear it day-to-day, so she leaves it by her bedroll. 
  
  The soldiers have HD2, heavy steel greatswords, light misericords, and heavy arbalests. They also wear injection harnesses, and are fond of going shirtless in these, which makes the local girls swoon. They brought their heavy plate armour with them, but don't wear it in the heat - it stays locked in the armoury, under the sworn protection of the magistrate. Their injector harnesses each hold six doses of combat drugs, which give them a second attack, +1 to hit, and -1 to all physical damage for one hour, and the cost of d4 hp. 
  
  All three have taken to wearing the local broad brimmed straw work hats with gusto. Bucet would like nothing more than to attend a whaling hunt in person. If she thinks that you might be interested, she will offer to accompany you north to the mineral springs, and encourage you to explore the Temple of Lights with her, which she will tell you is her main interest on the island. She doesn't know anything about the Seat of the King, but like every adventurer, knows well not to fuck with the ruins of the Old Capital. 
  
  
• Pelanante and Gershwin. Baronial Agents from the capital. One tall and one short, both men in their forties. Here in a vaguely ambassadorial capacity, to show good faith from the Barony. Officially, they are to give what logistical and administrative support they can to the magistrate, and showcase the power of modern investigative techniques. They have been told quite firmly that their input on local justice is unwelcome, and now while away the hours in drink and ennui. They still wear their crimson armour in public, and will still defend the townspeople from crime and violence if it comes to it. They don't get along with the harpooners, but the two groups share a wary respect. Both men are genuinely brave, and both are patriots. 
  
  Each has HD1+1, a medium sword and buckler, and red-painted medium armour. They are very pious, and make regular visits to the church in 0203. Homesick, and vaguely humiliated by their posting. If you get them drunk they will talk shit about the perfidy and laziness of all islanders, to the great amusement of their hosts. 
  
  
• Selanon. A quiet local woman with long fingers and a blank look in her eyes. She smells bad. Selanon was kicked out of the boats at a young age for being an unreliable and unpleasant worker, and now seems to make her scant living mending nets and splicing rope. What she actually does is murder people out of town and steal their cash and valuables. She has become very good at it. Her favoured approach is to simply cut people's throats with a knife while they sleep, but she has also become quite skilled at using her surprising weight, strength, and speed to bully, beat, and smother unwitting travellers to death. She is responsible for leaving the heads on the North South road, and for many other 'unexplained' dissapearances and inexplicable corpses over the years.
  
  HD3, light long knife + pummelling and smothering as medium bludgeoning, unarmoured. Selanon is something like a nightmare. If you are fighting her one-on-one, all of her hits against you damage as crits. If she can look into your eyes, you will find that you cannot make a sound. Those who she kills while they are alone are forgotten by the living, who fabulate to fill the gaps in their memories. It is very hard to remember her face (PCs can test CHAR to try to keep it in mind). She has no idea where these abilities come from, or even that they are abnormal; for Selanon, life has become a parade of useless cruelty and debasement, itself something nightmarish and unreal. 
  
  The many, many corpses that can be found in 0001 Mangroves are the remains of her past victims. They are the fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters of the townspeople. No one can remember them. 
  
  If the vast extent of her crimes are discovered, it will be a great blow to the credibility of the harpooners - they will probably try to cover up evidence of her impunity over the years. 

0203 - Open

A long strip of stony coastline. A small church sits on the cliff, overlooking the sea. When the sun rises, it bathes the tiny building in red light. Pious islanders worship outside the view of the secular majority, out of respect for cultural unity in the whaling boats. They are expected to keep their faith private, and not speak of it in public spaces. The walk to the church from town is around three hours along the cliffs. 

The building is humble, with a large, spare room for congregation, and a smaller annex where the priests live. A detached timber 'angel's bath' and washroom round out the facilities. The grounds include a vegetable garden which produces year-round, and a small pear orchard, both surrounded by a low wall of unmortared stones. The two priests who live in the church are named Sophie and Janus. They keep a small library in their chambers, mostly theoretical religious texts, but also a few well-thumbed novels. In the ceiling space they have a heavy musket and eight shots with powder (as musket but -1 to hit and 2d10 damage, deals 1 bludgeoning damage to the firer on a critical miss), and six doses of deadly poison in wax-sealed glass jars, just in case. 

They spend their time reading, praying with the faithful, tending the gardens, watching the sun and the sea, and awaiting the arrival of saints or angels. They have been waiting for many years, and except to wait many more. Both have stats as commoners. 

Encounter Tables

Roll a d6, and consult the table that corresponds with the terrain you find yourself in. 

Open Country

1. 2d6 pilgrims, on the North South road to the Temple of Lights, or travelling to the church in 0203, depending on where you encounter them. They are friendly, and will offer to share food and water with you. They travel in larger groups these days, because people have been disappearing. One in six carries a well-handled blunderbuss in addition to their other gear. 
2. 2d8 local thugs, who have followed you out into the wilds with bad intent. Paravel has strict hospitality customs, but anything can happen out on the road. As bandits with medium machetes, and light knives. Those who roll max HP additionally carry a ranged weapon: 50/50 blunderbusses or a pair of javelins. They want to rob you, but they know that if they are discovered to have done so they will be executed, so they also need to murder you to prevent you identifying them. They will demand that you disarm and swear not to hurt you in an attempt to make the killing less risky. If the fight starts going badly for them they will flee. 
3. d8 Feral Dogs. Packs of dogs roam the island killing and eating what they can catch. Locally considered a particularly bad way to go. HD1, medium bite, unarmoured, +1 damage if you are below half HP or panicking. A dog that rolls max HP bites as a heavy weapon, and knocks targets prone on a charge (STR resists). Easily spooked with explosives or firecrackers.
4. 3d8 Giant Centipedes, horrible insects the length of a forearm, that constantly emit a weird droning noise that sounds almost like singing, like a lower-pitched cicada. They occasionally migrate en masse from their burrows underground for reasons that are poorly understood. They eat meat, and hunt by vibrations. Each has 1hp, a bite that does no damage, and is unarmoured. For each bite you take, save CON. Each failure deals d3 poison damage, a point of fatigue, and adds another d3 to subsequent failures in this encounter. These added dice stack. Explosives and other AOE attacks kill as many centipedes as they deal damage, and blunderbusses kill total damage/2. 
5. A Monster Pig, accompanied by d4-1 Monster Piglets. A boar about the size of a bear. Aggressive and extremely dangerous. 6HD, heavy gore (massive if it has charged you) that knocks its target prone (STR to resist), plus a medium trample on a single prone target. Armour: as chain, speed: runs twice as fast as a human, disposition: really angry pig, which means: actively murderous on a good day, and will fight to the death if it thinks you pose a threat to its piglets. If it has no piglets in the picture, it will flee at half health. The Piglets are also monstrous! They have HD1, a medium bite, and are unarmoured. Someone who knows what they're doing can butcher a Monster Pig for 50 rations of premium pork; Piglets give 5 rations. 
   
6. Selanon. She has followed you with the intent of murdering you one at a time on the road. She will follow you at a distance until she thinks she can get one of you alone, then attack. She is hard to notice when stalking this way, but the PCs will sense something oppressive or bad in themselves - it feels a bit like the building up of an anxiety attack, far, far down inside you. They will also smell something terrible, without any apparent source. If she does manage to kill a PC by themselves (your companions sleeping next you while you cannot scream to wake them counts as dying by yourself), you will need to explain to your players that they no longer remember that person. Killing Selanon will not bring the memories back. 
   
   If Selanon has been killed, a roll of 6 in Rocky Hills instead indicates Citizen Bucet and her companions. They are taking their usual measurements, and chatting about home. If you watch them for ten minutes, and they think that they're alone, you will see them address the fourth member of their party, the invisible Citizen Demon Nanorn, who joins them on their walks outside of town. Nanorn and Bucet's true mission is to discover how to get to the western islands of dream. Bucet is trying to get useful info from the townspeople, and Nanorn has been staking out the islander boats that arrive at and leave from Paravel for weeks - it is well suited to this work because it doesn't need food or water, doesn't sleep, and doesn't get bored. They check in once a week to compare notes.
   
   Nanorn is non-corporeal, and permanently invisible. It could be killed with a single point of psychic damage. If you can see invisible things, Nanorn looks like a distorted image of a woman wearing a crown of white flowers. Its speaks in short, precise whispers. 
   
   If they think they have the secret, Bucet and her party will leave for home. The islanders are not secretive about this information, and have told her that to sail there, all you need to do is keep the islands in sight. She thinks she is being lied to. 
   

Rocky Foothills

1. A badly wounded Sea Eagle (HD1, light beak, unarmoured, flight as eagle), who might imprint on and befriend a human who nursed it back to health. This would take a week (she eats one ration a day), and a successful WIS check (with an auto success for PCs with templates in either Elf Friend or Nomad Errant). Thereafter, can be trained like a loyal dog. Further rolls of 1 yield nothing but the wind in the sky and the sun beating on the stone. 
2. 3d6 Island Rats, long and sinuous, each about the size of a house cat. Usually a nuisance, but this far out of town they congregate in dangerous numbers, and grow bold enough to attack human prey. Each has a single point of HP, a bite (d3), and is unarmored. Explosives and other AOE attacks kill as many rats as they deal damage, and blunderbusses kill total damage/2. When the islanders cull their numbers, they do so with fire tubes. 
3. d8 Feral Dogs. Packs of dogs roam the island killing and eating what they can catch. Locally considered a particularly bad way to go. HD1, medium bite, unarmoured, +1 damage if you are below half HP or panicking. A dog that rolls max HP bites as a heavy wepaons, and knocks targets prone on a charge (STR resists). Easily spooked with explosives or firecrackers.
4. d6 Salt Drinkers, foraging for food. Don't want to fight. If you let them escape, further rolls of 4 that day are instead counted as 5. 
5. 2d6 Salt Drinkers, looking to kill you for entering their territory, and take the meat of your body back to the caves to share with the family. 
6. Selanon. She has followed you with the intent of murdering you one at a time in the foothills. She will follow you at a distance until she thinks she can get one of you alone, then attack. She is hard to notice when stalking this way, but the PCs will sense something oppressive or bad in themselves - it feels a bit like the building up of an anxiety attack, far, far down inside you. They will also smell something terrible, without any apparent source. If she does manage to kill a PC by themselves (your companions sleeping next you while you cannot scream to wake them counts as dying by yourself), you will need to explain to your players that they no longer remember that person. Killing Selanon will not bring the memories back. 
   
   If Selanon has been killed, a roll of 6 in Rocky Hills instead indicates a Salt Star, an enormous amphibious starfish with long, prehensile limbs. They are hideously strong, distant descendants of the extremophiles in the centre of the earth. HD6, attacks four times in melee with heavy tearing limbs, can also attack using water cutter breath, which does 2d8 slashing damage at a range of 20ft (recharges when the Salt Star reenters the ocean), armour: as chain, speed: half human, disposition: ambush predator specialised for large prey. The four attacks represent the Salt Star wrapping its limbs around yours and trying its best to pull them out of their sockets. 

Mangroves

1. 2d3 fishermen with broad straw hats and wooden fishing spears, wading in the shallows, and filling bags with mussels and other shellfish. Will offer you water if you are in distress, and will flee from conflict. They also carry a single dose of anti-venom with them, and will use it to save a stranger's life without hesitation. 
2. 2d4 Coconut Crabs (named so that readers will know what type of animal I'm talking about, there are no coconuts on Paravel. The locals call them 'bastards'). Pack hunters and carnivores; large groups can easily overwhelm a human who tries to fight them. Their claws are famously, crushingly powerful. 1HD, crushing claw (as heavy with -4 to hit), armour: carapace as leather, speed: half human, disposition: carrion eaters, opportunistic hunters of wounded prey. 
3. d4 Salt Drinkers, crouched in the mud completely still, staring at you. They will not attack unless you start to move towards them or show aggression, and if you do so they will throw stones and scream as a threat display before actually engaging. Not interested in risking a fight with motivated and dangerous enemies. 
4. A pair of hunting Dire Cormorants, stalking the mudflats for large game. Related the the terror birds of the Baronial mainland, but capable of flight. HD3, heavy killing beak, unarmoured, movement: regal, murderous, flight as seabird, disposition: territorial hunters with no fear of humans. Will fly away if injured. 
5. An enormous Saltwater Cocodril, terror of the coast. Even larger that the marsh dwellers of the Barony. Some grow to lengths of six metres. Frighteningly fast, strong, and patient, and famously cunning. The islanders joke about The Grandfather, and speak of the cocodrils as thought there were only one. HD6, massive Killing Jaws (on a crit save CON or lose a limb), armour: as leather, speed: twice human over a sprint, but only for 30 seconds. If the jaws hit, the target is grappled, and will be thrashed, pounded, and shaken to pieces. They take d10 damage per turn grappled this way, and the cocodril cannot attack another target while it is killing the first one. 
6. Selanon. She has followed you with the intent of murdering you one at a time in the stinking mud. She will follow you at a distance until she thinks she can get one of you alone, then attack. She is hard to notice when stalking this way, but the PCs will sense something oppressive or bad in themselves - it feels a bit like the building up of an anxiety attack, far, far down inside you. They will also smell something terrible, without any apparent source. If she does manage to kill a PC while they are alone (your companions sleeping next you while you cannot scream to wake them counts as dying alone), the DM will need to explain to their players that they no longer remember that character. Killing Selanon will not bring the memories back.
   
   If Selanon has been killed, a roll of 6 in the Mangroves instead indicates a Sea Snake, the smaller cousin of the monstrous serpents hunted in the open ocean. Sea Snakes are striped black-and-white, and about the length of a human forearm. Their bite is intensely venomous; easily enough to hill a human. They can move on land as well as in the sea - they can also talk, like their larger cousins, and delight in spreading misery. While the snake follows you, rest is impossible, because it won't stop whispering horrible things about people you love, or about mistakes you've made, past deeds you are ashamed of... It is a tricky thing to catch; quick and small and slippery, and it always seems to know your next move. Each hour that it follows you, the party may try to outwit the serpent - a matched INT check: the snake against a nominated PC in charge of planning. The serpent rolls at +5, and gets a cumulative +1 for each test it wins, as frustration builds and the sun beats down on you. If the snake gets a critical success on this check, the person in charge of the hunt resolves an attack with whatever weapon they have in hand against a randomised member of their own party. If the PCs win, they have a chance to kill it - everyone involved rolls a single to hit against AC12, using whatever weapon they like. If someone hits, the snake is killed. If this is done in melee, the serpent gets a single, spite-filled bite before it dies - an unarmed attack that does no damage. If it hits, the target must save CON or take d10 poison damage. Sea snakes will not follow you out of the mangroves. If you have islanders with you, they will flee the hex immediately. Sea Snakes make people go insane. 

Low Coastline

1. d4 islanders swimming well out from town, diving for pearls and abalone in the crystal sea. Friends or lovers or family. They call out to one another when they surface, and will ignore you unless you hail them. Even if you do will remain taciturn and unfriendly; they're working, what is it that you want?
2. 2d4 Coconut Crabs (named so that readers will know what type of animal I'm talking about, there are no coconuts on Paravel. The locals call them 'bastards'). Pack hunters and carnivores; large groups can easily overwhelm a human who tries to fight them. Their claws are famously, crushingly powerful. 1HD, crushing claw (as heavy with -4 to hit), armour: carapace as leather, speed: half human, disposition: carrion eaters, opportunistic hunters of wounded prey. 
3. d4 Salt Drinkers, treading water out to sea, watching you. You might hear them singing to one another before you see them. In the sea they are completely unafraid - they know that they can out-swim you if need be, or kill you at their leisure in the water. This is their territory. 
4. d8 Feral Dogs. Packs of dogs roam the island killing what they can for meat. They can swim just as well as humans, and often hunt birds and other animals in the more sparsely populated islands off the coast. HD1, medium bite, unarmoured, +1 damage if you are below half HP or panicking. A dog that rolls max HP bites as a heavy weapon, and knocks targets prone on a charge (STR resists). Easily spooked with explosives or firecrackers.
5. Sea Motes. Small balls of light that drift down through the air, floating on the wind like dandelions, the colour of sunshine. They bring warmth, peace, and comfort. A very good omen to the islanders, said to be gifts sent from the Sea People. If you like, you can try to catch them as they fall. Check INT, then DEX. Each success catches one mote, and a critical success catches d4. Each mote caught this way heals one disease, one HP, or one fatigue, in that order, as needed. PCs with templates in Elf Friend may additionally add any motes caught this way to their own (this can take them above their normal maximum), where they behave as usual. 
6. Selanon. She has followed you with the intent of murdering you one at a time in the dunes. She will follow you at a distance until she thinks she can get one of you alone, then attack. She is hard to notice when stalking this way, but the PCs will sense something oppressive or bad in themselves - it feels a bit like the building up of an anxiety attack, far, far down inside you. They will also smell something terrible, without any apparent source. If she does manage to kill a PC while they are alone (your companions sleeping next you while you cannot scream to wake them counts as dying alone), the DM will need to explain to their players that they no longer remember that character. Killing Selanon will not bring the memories back.
   
   If Selanon has been killed, a roll of 6 in Low Coastal hexes indicates something strange. There is a loud CRACK in the air, just ahead of the PCs, just over the next dune. Roll another d6. On a 1-5, they discover nothing but a smoking circle of sand solidified into rough glass by some enormous heat. On a 6, they instead see a single large, well-formed humanoid with bright red skin and blue hair. Its gender is difficult to tell, and it is dressed in heavy mother-of-pearl armour, and holding a long silver spear. Islanders, and PCs who are decently well read, will know that this is one of the Sea People, thought to be a myth in the Barony. They will watch you with friendly amusement for a few seconds, then point to the western horizon with their spear, before disappearing in a great, roaring CRACK of white light that seems to rush from the earth into the sky. The sand beneath their feet will be congealed into glass. If you look to the horizon where they were pointing, you will see the outlines of the distant island of Belagratis, one step further into dream. You will be able to see it, and sail to it, until you next sleep. If you sleep without reaching its shores, you will lose it.
   
   Islanders know this, and will tell you if you ask them, but they will also tell you that no one who sails for Belagratis ever returns.