Riverboat Gambler: Keyed Map

No more fiction. What happens next will be decided by the actions of the players.

 

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Eight

The Knights made the most of the time between summer and autumn. 

• Auckland explored the southeast of the realm in search of the beast. He found no tracks but knew it was around somewhere, dormant for the time being. He did find the abode of the Screaming Seer, a shepherd's hut and a dune full of quicksand. 
• Tiber got lots in the woods to find the Goblin and his apprentice Kemp. The Goblin forgot how much energy twelve year olds had. Kemp could already be in two places at once and used this power to regale the Salt Knight from both sides with a list of lost items he collected. He could visit his family any time he wanted but was distracted with the new powers of Goblinhood. The Goblin admitted he would have tried to kidnap Valenta next, but didn't have to worry about that now. He had his succession secured and soon he would go down into the earth never to be seen again.
• Valenta went to Cuganscove in the Southwest and asked her daughter Gert to send caravans to Sparenot's orchard to buy her cider. When she visited the orchard she found the remaining family clearing the last fruit off the trees. A pear fell down and scared a kitten who was hiding among the roots. The animal assumed the green fruit was a snake. 

With all that handled they arrived at the Glass Mountain the night before the Feast of the Stars. Valenta remembered a patch of exterior wall that concealed a sally port. She hammered on it with the secret knock and a servant let her in. She asked him to take their horses around to the main gate while the Company went to talk with the King.

 

Into The Odd: The Unquiet Tomb

 

The Brilg and Spowegg expedition to Hogman's Plain was going great. The desert was lethally hot by day and infested with undead by night, but the gunboat cared not for either as it motored up the River Hog. When three of the crew disappeared in the night, the Captain of the Rent Seeker wasn't fazed. He sent three of his top explorers ashore to follow the mysterious tracks into the cliffs above the river: The Janitor, the Pistoleer and the Grenadier.

 

The footprints led to an opening in the rock, tall enough for a man to enter at a crouch. A heap of scorched human and humanoid bones lay outside the entrance. The space inside was dimly lit by a red glow from the passages beyond. The shore party entered the tomb. 

 

Riverboat Gambler: Travel and Terrain

Another erg

Another erg

Another erg

Another erg

Traditional Hog travel song, translated from Green Man

 

Mythic Bastionland Myth: The Giants

Any power must always meet a greater power.

  

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Seven

Seghers

 

The Company ate with Boar, his wife Muriel and her bodyservant Glorietta at the great hall of Bravecrossing. It looked like the interior of a tavern, where Boar had spent most of his life drinking, with the addition of wood floors. The food was campaign fare with a few flourishes added by the kitchen servants. Simple ingredients stewed or pan fried with lots of salt. 

 

Glorietta sat away from the table and worked on a strange needlepoint design stretched across a frame while the others ate and went over what they had learned over the last week or two. The Red Mail Mercenaries were still operating in the region, though nobody knew how many were left. They used seals and sigils probably stolen from the herald to pretend royal authority, but were really after the Crown themselves. The Tangled Seer told Boar that the Crown would restore the Glass Knight's spirit. The flying swords were a rogue element, nobody knew if they were working with the mercenaries or if they were a separate group of bandits. They needed straw for their flying machine and had access to other advanced technology. 

 

Riverboat Gambler: Shrine of the Dragon

 

 

I swim in the water. I swim and eat the things that fall off the island. The island floats in the water. I gnaw the underside. The island tilts. The things on the island fall over the side. The rays burn me. The things fall in the water where the rays do not reach them. I eat them. I eat the island. The rays cannot harm me. I swim deep in the water. So deep the rays cannot reach me. I forget which way is up. I swim in a straight line. I breach the surface of the water and leap toward the burning eye. My jaws snap shut.

I am in the tomb. I am on the floor in the sand. There is a sound from the hall of reeds. A scraping sound from the floor painted like the water. Something howls.

I roll over and skate silently toward the sound. I imagine I am swimming.

Riverboat Gambler: Hunter and Hunted

Djemaleddin held his mug hard enough to dent the metal. The bar didn't use horn or wood because it splintered too easily in the clenched fists of overpowered adventurers, but the metal mugs had to be light and cheap so they still crumpled. He was nervous because there was too much clang in the room. Too much power in the opposing force. Fighting men at the bar counter with dates and parties and crowds on their hips. If the sorceress at the riverside window started casting the whole room was within her area of effect. He could make it to the door before the cloud swallowed him but that would mean fighting his way past the group of Sugarmen hauling the idol up to the trade booth. He had to hit first, it was the only way. Get close so she couldn't zap him without catching herself in the blast. Put out damage, force her back. Her comrades would rush him but then she wouldn't FF them, and he could handle them until- 

 

Gordy arrived with the refill. Gordastasia Greengloves, whose green gloves never came off even when she was naked. She put a green-gloved hand on his shoulder from behind and he sank into his seat with an instant scruffed-kitten reaction. Gordy was here. The only "encounter" was with the tray of river fritters and hippo steak and pickles and sweet pink guavarrack and beer so light and crisp and cold you could bathe in it. If he fell before the death spell or the plus ones and twos and threes of the bunched dunecrawlers, she'd catch him.

 

Mythic Bastionland Myth: The Wizard

The wizard is just that. 

He wears a pointed hat. 

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Six

The three Knights of the Company arrived at the Funeral Plain at the end of Spring, on Tax Day. The Green Season drew to a close as the days got shorter and the Great Glass Mountain sent its heralds to collect a share of coins from those of appropriate social standing to trade in currency. The Chain, Horn and Salt Knights would worry about that later. They had a funeral to attend.

They were not the only guests on the funeral plain. They heard it before they saw it. A man screaming. He knelt in front of a half-finished mausoleum, next to the one where the mourners interred the Pearl Knight. He slashed his arms with a flint knife and screamed. Two servitors stood by, wearing coats and trousers but no tunics. They had seen this all before.

 

The mourners emerged from the tombs and flower fields to take Reme's body off the Salt Knight's horse. They unwrapped the chains holding the shroud over him. The Knights saw that the half-finished tomb was roofed with sod atop the stone, in which the mourners planted seeds and bulbs. They had not delivered news of the squire's death but already the tomb was half finished.

 

One of the screaming man's servants handed Tiber a note, scribbled on birch bark paper.

He liked flowers. 

With his newfound clarity and his memories of what came before he emerged from the sea, Tiber recalled that Reme had been raised by the Screaming Seer.

Mythic Bastionland Myth: The Bear

  

The villagers called it the Third Bear because they had killed two bears already that year. 

 

But, near the end, no one really thought of it as a bear, even though the name had stuck, changed by repetition and fear and slurring through blood-filled mouths to Theeber. 

 

Sometimes it even sounded like “seether” or “seabird.”

Riverboat Gambler: Shrine of Sanctification

 

she threw a rock. she didnt want to throw rocks at him because he was her brother. he found a thing in the hard stuff. it was like the gold blades they carried but it was blue in color. he kept it because he had never seen anything like it and he didnt understand it was forbidden. he had no way of knowing because hed never seen it before. the others knew and they caught him swinging it at a cactus and they threw stones at him until he died and she had to throw too even though he was her brother. they were all brothers but they still threw the stones. a large stone fell on him where one of the older brothers threw it and he died.

 

the judges came and burned him and burned the blue knife. the body of her brother burned but the flames made the blue knife glow bluer. the judges sang a song and the tribe went away but when the sun went down the blue glow was still visible. it lit the glass around it so it looked like the little moon had fallen and got stuck in the bled. she thought of her brother and his blade and thanked god.

 

Riverboat Gambler: The Dent in the Shield

Stomp your foot
Flick your sword

Across the body

Of the fat

Thing from the

Jar and toss

With the same 

Motion your shining

Sword to the 

Man waiting to

Catch it so

The blade is

Not lost as

The pincers close

Around your head

You are not

The dancer you

Are the dance 

So if you

Miss one step

The part that

Matters will 

survive