Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

Redana laughs. It explodes out of her, and when she tries to rein it in, she ends up making an undignified snort[1].

“Me? Saffron? Are you kidding? Saffron robes are for smart people. People who understand cosmic enlightenment and want to upgrade their bodies! Like you, you’re a great Hermetican. You don’t just know how this stuff works, like, even I could figure that out! You know why it was made like that in the first place, and how it fits with the rest of the device[2].”

Redana shakes her head with a rueful, oblivious smile. “Besides. I was born almost perfect.” She doesn’t turn her head. There’s no need. The Auspex sees all. “And then that was fixed. So Mom would have a fit if I started taking the body she gave me apart and sticking on tentacles and plasma kidneys.”

She doesn’t answer the question of what she wants to be. It’d be easy to assume that it’s because she’s running from the question. But, really, it’s not like she can rewind the conversation and remind herself of everything the Hermetican said[3].

***

[1]: Redana Claudius is many things. “Capable of composed, elegant laughter” is not one of those things.

[2]: “And an interlocking system made of interconnections between disparate but mutually necessary components we shall term a device henceforth...”
— The Traversal Catechism, origin disputed

[3]: she does have this capability. It’s just throttled along with all the other information the Auspex summarizes into basic instructions and chibi figures. And conversational aptitude is not the primary concern of Baby’s First Auspex Framework.

Breathless Dead

Redana lets the red and the white fill her up. On one side of her lies a white-handled cane, repurposed from a damaged strut, and on the other lies an untouched bread bowl filled with a hot curry. The winds twist the dust together, and if she unfocuses and lets it all sink in she can almost see two dragons with writhing tails biting at each other, breaking apart where they strike, wild and lawless, creatures of the storm and the far beyond.

Wait. The Hermetican is still talking. What was he saying?

“Okay,” she says, as the Auspex displays the key points of what had just been said. “I hear you. So you need me to go fight the crabs in a harness while you vent the lower decks, right?”

Just like Atlantica! She can see herself now, weightless, tethered, only needing three limbs as she vanquishes a monstrous horde! Behind her, the sky glitters with eight million ice crystals and angry crabs as the Plousios adds to the beauty of the heavens. Her mighty sword flashes and Bella clings to her—

“What are we waiting for?” Redana picks up her bread bowl and starts shoveling it into her mouth at a decidedly unwise speed.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

The minute you arrive "backstage," as it were, you're surrounded by servants. A Macaw starts sketching your features, a Thornback readies a tablet and stylus, blindfolded Janissaries level laser flintlocks, and the Lynx-- ouch! The Lynx pricks you with a needle to take a blood sample. This is a well-oiled and prepped operation.

Notably, this isn't the only operation going on back here: servants are stacking golden bars in an ornate display, each one stamped with the seal of Caphtor. This looks like another tribute of the city to their god. Still, it attracts your attention for a moment. What is Shamash supposed to do with that, anyway? Nod and order it carried to their chariot?

"Canada Taliv," the Inquisitor says, looking down at a tablet, "you are going to die."

Wow. Harsh.

"Had you offered yourself up to our justice beforehand," the Inquisitor continues, her voice calm and steady, "you would have lived. But Shamash holds your life in their hands now, and they mean to kill you, by all indications. Therefore, as a representative of holy Ereshkigal, I am offering you a bargain. Cooperate with my questions and I will carry out your unfinished business. You fight against civilization out of a misguided desire to protect those around you; give me their names, and I will see them given preferential treatment and protected to the best of my ability."

"Or you can die," the Lynx hisses, "and we will still track the ghost and the magician down. This is a bargain, flatfoot."

***

Marianne!

Daisy takes the paddle gleefully, and weighs it in her hand for a moment, overwhelmed and awe-struck. "Yes," she breathes. "Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, thank you! I'll... you'll protect me, right?" She's suddenly hesitant, looking over at those struggling figures, two long-limbed Annunaki and one prickly Thornback. "Because they'll be so angry..."

Her fingers tighten and loosen on the handle. Her breath goes quick and nervous through her nostrils, and one of the Annunaki sisters tosses her hair and makes an attempt at threatening Daisy, despite the shaking heads of her fellow captives. You can even hear the sneer.

***

Anathet!

It's almost dusk and you're about to leave your lovely little maple grove when Marianne looms out of the shadows and flashes that scary, scary grin of hers. It nearly gives you a heart attack, even with you prepared for Tia to pop up. But, hey, two of the gals here in one place! And you probably don't need Canada to talk with the Seneschal and present your demands, wherever that musclebound beauty is...

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

What system were you using before you made the switch if I may ask? The original Pendragon? or is there another AW hack of it?

@Penny

We were using Fellowship, which is a fantasy quest version of AW. It’s really solid (we’re doing a great space fantasy with it in Breathless Dead) but didn’t have the right vibe.

(Good call on Pendragon; I handed Anarion the GPC for inspiration.)

Breathless Dead

“Nnngh...”

Feeling is coming back. The only problem is that it is the sort of feeling of unfolding your leg from underneath you and having the blood rush back in. Redana has always imagined tiny little needles under her skin, throbbing as they stick in place, until her blood melts the pain away. But that feeling isn’t going away this time, so all she can do is grit her teeth and try not to squirm. It’s agonizingly ticklish.

The infirmary is a small circle of lantern-light. Beyond it stretches rows on rows of folded cots, ready to accommodate dozens of injured marines and sailors, unused in the darkness. There are small, hard pillows tucked under her back and piled beneath her leg. She is under firm orders from Dolce to not get out of bed, not to walk on it, and to let her divine blessings counteract the curse long enough for it to heal normally.

(The curse. Those weapons were meant to leave unhealing wounds. Even her nanites can only deny that power, not unmake it completely.)

She’s alone, now. Epistia is sleeping on the other side of the door, scythe resting on her lap, still unsmiling. Nothing is entering the infirmary without her say-so. And that’s sweet, but the vast dark of the rusting, moldering room is starting to... ugh. It’s a room. Another room she’s not allowed to leave. And there’s nothing to do.

Her Auspex peels back walls, showing her: a Magus squeezing through vents (wow, that’s what’s under the robes?) and a statue on patrol, ship-rats scuttling and gnawing on plating, and far far beyond, the raging heart of a star that fuels the Plousios. She stares without a choice, without seeing.

***

Hush-a-bye, princess, I’ll give you a moon
all strung with pearls
a bouquet of worlds
and morning will be here soon

Her face aches. The numbing injections are wearing off and her socket itches. The thing keeps sending numbers and measurements and calculations straight to her brain and it’s too much, it’s a muddled mess shouted at her in a foreign language of mathematics and statistics, and she doesn’t want to know the atomic weight of her palace walls or the estimated wealth per capita of the planet or the dread shapes of the gods moving through all things.

Her knees are drawn up to her chest and her arms are wrapped around them and she’s shaking. It’s so bad. And it’s got to get worse before it gets better, that’s what they told her, the priests and doctors and surgeons. It’s got to get worse before it gets better.

Hush, little princess, your Bella is here
all through the night
til morning light
shows you there’s nothing to fear

She can feel the breath moving through Bella. One ear is smooshed against her lacy apron, but her song is still clear as the water in the little garden stream. Her voice is so pretty. It’s the prettiest thing in the whole wide world.

Her fingers are so soft. They stroke gently over one cheek, staying well away from that throbbing socket, wiping away the tears that seep out from around that glittering sapphire. She’s here. She’s here and she’s never getting taken away. Please. Please, Mommy. You can take away her toys and her privileges and her eye but please don’t take her Bella away.

Sleep, o my princess, and please do not cry
one day you will see
a silly kitten like me
will always wipe the tears from your eyes.

***

Redana Claudius closes her eyes and shakes. It’s completely silent in the dark, cavernous infirmary as Bella breaks her promise.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

Nah.

This is keeping up appearances. A display of majesty and power, soaking in the worship. But when that helmet shifts towards you, you see the way their limbs flex, as if they’re already beating you down. It’s a lot like setting out a cake and then waiting for the perfect moment to eat it so it’ll be special. They want the cake. It’s why they came down here. But the smoke is just smoke; there’s no satisfied, rattling sigh coming out of that helmet, no low, rumbling purr. It’s all a show.

“Excuse me, Exalted One.” There is looming. An Annunaki has appeared on your right side, accompanied by a Lynx who is now on your left. “This humble servant of your sister-wife, She Who Turns The Wheel Of Torment, mighty star-cracking Ereshkigal, who discerns truth through her implements of agony and delight, must have a moment of your guest’s time to discuss the security of the city.”

Shamash raises one hand. Everything stops. Prayers cease. Golden silverware (goldenware?) freezes on its way beneath veils. There is the crackle of burning meat and the sound of a lot of people holding their breath.

”I want her back,” the god says. ”Unbroken. Not yet.”

“But of course, most radiant master of the horizons,” the Inquisitor says smoothly. Fearlessly? With conviction. Her hand on your shoulder is steady and chill by their standards (which means it feels like someone who was just outside in the sunlight). “I would converse with her. Little more.”

”Do not make me seek her out.” The hand is lowered. After a tense moment, one of the attendant priestesses makes an impatient gesture at the musicians and the feast resumes.

You are pulled up to your feet and frog-marched towards a side door by an Inquisitor of Ereshkigal and her hunts-cat. On a scale of one to ten, how much are you making them fight for it?

***

Marianne!

The pathways of her secret heart are easy to slink down. Your flanks brush against black velvet curtains, and behind them is the sound of an audience, and the snap of camera-bulbs. An actress-in-waiting, then. The Annunaki took this from her, like they take everything and shape it to themselves. They do not ask their slaves what role they should like to play! They simply use them as tools to fill a need, yes. Mop the floors, little starlet!

Now your shoulders graze the cramped ceilings of a high school. Ah, she is young. To have already learned how to hate! So exciting. Faces float by, rivals, boon companions, an intricate web that she remembers more fondly than it deserves. Anyone would, after being torn away from both its joys and cruelties, and—

A flash of gold.

She knew your Ètoile’s sister. An underclassman, an acquaintance. A fleeting connection. But one that might stir a softer heart inside you. This girl should be grousing about her job serving coffee, should be coming home to a beloved she-cat sleeping in the sun (who she has not seen in years now), not mopping the passageways of an Annunaki arena.

Ah. Here. Squeeze yourself down into the residential cell. How it rattles and shakes and roars with the sound of chariots coming and going! Daisy holds her hands carefully around the flower growing from her chest, stained off-white. Her hands throb with smoke and fire. Anger chokes the roots, anger that curls into smoke and fills your lungs. Anger at the ridiculous dress codes. Anger at being taken away from home and pet and dreams. Anger at being disciplined at the whim of her spacey, careless owners.

How dare they? What gives them the right to do this?

***

Set!

Read between the lines. Sit in a safe place (where, exactly, is safe enough for perusal of stolen messages?) and let the symbols carve themselves into the slab over and over again.

Our tempestuous sibling is to be rendered the respect they are indebted. Their word shall be your reward.

If you screw this visit up, your ass is grass. If they come back and complain, your ass is grass. If they gush about their treatment, maybe you’ll get stockholder bonuses. We don’t actually respect Shamash, or at the very least, I don’t.

The high links are constant and certain in their movements. It is the low that are warm and likable.

If Shamash is erratic and acts like a rock star, indulge them. Your job is to act like a slave. Pass the shit downwards if you have to.

Thus is the proclamation of Marduk.

As interpreted by a secretary who took it to a Djinn so that it could be written down by another secretary. Wouldn’t it be interesting if that process was interrupted somehow?

Regardless. This might be the perfect time to blackmail the Seneschal. Have Marianne show up in his office, threaten to disrupt Shamash’s stay unless certain things are done, and you could play him like a violin. He’d be incandescent afterwards, but this is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity...

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

What has happened to the glen and the knightly home? Are the ruins of fire built upon, or left as they were?

The wood swelled around it like an infected wound, over the course of a sweltering summer. By the time Uther reassigned the former title and lands of the Alder Knight (to the Knight of the Red Adder, if you can believe it), the manor was little more than burnt stone and charred wood wrapped in root and branch. The Knight of the Red Adder made three attempts to clear out the wood before abandoning it as condemned ground.

(The third involved fire. That was a mistake. One of the peasant laborers threw himself on the bonfire and smothered it with his wet smock, and saved their lives, or at the very least their wits. The trees were leaning. The trees were muttering. The trees have learned hate.)

What of the glen?

Withered. The grass is brown. The trees are bare and creaking. One tore up from the soil, roots and all, and now lies with its head in the Thames. Biting insects swirl around the banks.

It is much like any other place one might stumble into while riding, now. A wasteland. A place where the world has gone brittle and dry and dead and callous.

Here there is fear in a handful of dust.

What secrets do your father's folk still protect?

The same they always have. The changing of forms and shapes. The languages of beast and bird and rain and wind. The knowing of where Bran’s head is buried. The way to walk the road to Perbast, where cats go by night.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

If you’re frantically flipping through books trying to figure out where the Changeling comes from: I renamed the Dragon because I wanted something Fae instead of something dragonish. (And then Thanqol swooshed right into that conceptual space anyway.)

I also scrambled around my core to make them Sleeping Beauty blessings instead of “I’m a dragon and these things I can do inherently.” There’s even a Norse myth shoutout in there!

Sidebar: I kind of want Constance to be, like, Unnaturally Strong and for that to flavor her +2 Blood. Should I do that, or should I remove one of my “I’m tripling down on +2 Grace” Traits and replace it with “unnatural strength, despite having been a fawn”?

(And if you’re wondering how I got those, I used my What Is A Dragon to snipe a core move from the Beast.)

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

I am Constance Nìm, daughter of the Bristol Avon, seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. In me flows the blood of the Old Royalty who ruled Britain before the arrival of mankind, the blood of giants.

My stats are +2 Bold, +1 Good, -1 Strong, 0 Wary, +1 Weird. I am fearless and a talented counselor, but am no warrior and am perhaps as easily fooled as my ancestors.

RIGHTS

• I have the right to due respect from all.
• I have the right to exhilarate and intoxicate when I win someone over, instead of asking a question, I may fill them with hope, kindness, love, mercy or faith; I may require from them a boon which may not be refused; I may leave them in despair, longing or regret.
• I have the right to be recognized as one of the Old Blood. I am to be given fitting tribute and recognition from all the rivers of Britain; I may bind warriors to my service with oaths and blood rites; I may solemnize the turning of the seasons and the bonds between our worlds.
• I have the right to receive gifts and offerings on behalf of the waters of Britain.

OBLIGATIONS

• I am obligated to care for the sword Excalibur until I find a rightful wielder, and to not let any unworthy destroy themselves by trying to draw it from the scabbard.
• I am obligated to care for the waters of the duchy; to see them cleansed when they are fouled, to see them honored and fruitful, to bring forth the mists in their proper seasons.
• I am obligated to care for my companions, Tybalt and Palug. I am to leave food for them, to hold them when they demand it, to scratch them behind their ears, and to let them roam the night as they please.

BELONGINGS

• I wear a pale blue gown with a belt of pearls and bronze links. My feet are bare upon the earth. My hair is knotted about an ancient comb of the Old People, made of polished bronze.
• My drinking cup is a gift given to the water, made of tarnished bronze, two-handled.
• My knife is made of flint, old as the hills, antler-handled.
• I may dredge from the river arms as I see appropriate: mail and sword, shield and helm. They are bronze, the fine ones, and of iron or the wild otherwise.

HOUSEHOLD

• I am head of my household. (My cats disagree.)
• I have a lake, a sacred shrine which I tend, orchards and woods which I keep, and a numinous reputation. (My larder is ever half-full of gifts.)
• I am on the far side of the lake from Bywater, and one must take a journey by wood or water to reach me.

***

PEOPLE
My people are from the Village of Bywater, the duchy’s oldest settlement. They are all who settle here, fifty or so strong, descended from the hill peoples. They keep the old ways.

Their stats are Rites +1, Wealth +1, War 0.

They are known for their veneration of me, the old enchantments wound about their village, their physical prowess, their generous hospitality and their rich land.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

Gasps. Stunned, horrified silence. The banner in front of your face drops and you catch a glimpse of the sun glinting on Shamash’s armor. You have mouthed off to a god, and that makes you mighty. And maybe mighty dead.

Then Shamash just keeps laughing, and the Huntsman of Caphtor joins in nervously, and so does everyone else. ”Ah,” Shamash says. ”I will keep you. Imagine killing such a funny creature!”

——

The meal is ridiculously extravagant. You sit at the right hand of a god, who isn’t eating at all. Instead, food is being cooked in front of him, filling the air with the tantalizing aromas of cooking meat and spices.

You have some sort of crab drop soup. It is very unclear whether you are meant to eat the crustacean or it’s an inedible flavor additive. Ditto on the beaks filled with stuffing on the side.

Below the dais, worshippers shuffle in and out. Few Annunaki grovel here; instead, their slaves bring gifts and offer prayers of praise in their stead. No one dares look up at you, and the feast hall feels more like a cathedral in the middle of some very particularly sacred festival to a portentous saint.

It is begging for you to make a scene.

***

Anathet!

Escape? Actually pretty easy. Duck behind the statue of the Dying Lynx-warrior. Wait until the sweep has passed you by. Duck out, stun the light guard on the door, leg it. Lose your pursuit in the upper gallery. Effortless.

No, the real danger is that without any explanation offered, the Annunaki will be on high alert moving forward. This little incident will make them take further measures to stop you and any other psychics who might be in the city. If there were some way you could convince them it was natural or otherwise a simple accident, maybe relating to some trophy they had on display here...

***

Daisy!

Your heart hammers wildly in your chest out of a wild, terrified thrill. The words are stumbling out of you as you stumble forward on your hands and knees, your head level with the dangling slaver.

“I want you to do this to Abdi ab-Shamash, she’s from the House of Morning Falcons. And to Geba, her vicious sister. And to Lazaari, their Thornback. I want you to make them terrified and beg for mercy like they make us. I want you to leave them in the dark bound and gagged and wondering what you’re going to do to them next. Please. What do I need to do? Whatever you want.”

Even as you say it, you flinch. Did you offer the devil your soul? It’s quite possible. But right now, seeing the squirming Annunaki... you reach out and smack her cheek, once, thrilling as she squeaks indignantly. You want more. You want a cane and room to swing. No worse than what they’ve done to you and far more justified.