Dogbox: 6 Manors

Spoilers for Dogbox, again.

No dungeons this time, just a lot of Guys. It's still incomplete, but a bit o posting helps me build up motivation for the hard parts, だから許して下さいねえ?

 

The Hills play host to two manor-castles separated by an unseasonably autumnal forest and barely-forded river, each of considerable influence beyond Blushdale. They host rival parties about once a month, drawing notables from out of town, with overlapping guest lists. (A rare opportunity for a failscion to mingle above their station, if they can receive an invite.)

1. Knothole. Contains silver scarf (10s) and flask of mead (2s).
2. Bridget. Strong arms, gap teeth. She maintains the ford. After a storm, she's hard at work clearing branches and suchlike. Lives in a cabin on the Leroys' side. Sometimes delivers private letters between the manor-castles, for a small fee. Illiterate. Longs to be elevated to high society, to wear dresses and hold erudite conversation.
3. Lightning-split tree. Deep in its roots, a secret cache of firearms quartet.
4. Old forest gallows. Nooses high on a big black oak; no sign of the bodies.
5. Master Leland, out hunting. If you're skulking about, he may deign to shoot you. (2d12)
6. The azure hind. Leland's quarry. The pelt is worth 80 sovereigns.

Rosewall Castle belongs to House Larsene.

• Harrier, the daughter. Will enlist in the military once she's put her late father's (Hargrave's) affairs in order. [All scions of House Larsene must serve minimum 2 years, 3 for men. If you don't, you're branded a coward and disinherited.] Courageous, talented, and morally inflexible, despite being a bootlicking fascist.
• Henrik, the grandfather. Fought on the Eastern frontier, under the storm-that-blinds-God. Still alive, albeit insane. His estate passed prehumously to Hargrave as a result.
• Harris, the uncle. Dodged the draft and became unmarriageable. Resents being bossed around by a teenager. Jokingly considering becoming a monk.

Fort Leroy belongs to House Norbury.

• Logan, the son. A competent and aggressive satirist. Revolutionary bent; struggles with praxis. Slanders the Rosewall clan under the pen name Walter Lee.
• Leland, the father. Taciturn huntsman and survivalist. Claims to have killed Hargrave himself, but no one takes this seriously.
• Lenora, the aunt. A stunningly beautiful drunk. Reminds of her late sister in every way, complains of Leland's unwillingness to remarry. A dragon of a woman; jealous, petty, ontologically unsatisfied.

The Battlefield is a fuschia grassland which swallows three once-great castles. The roads here are haunted and frequently out of service, isolating its inhabitants and their bloody claims.

1. Lashgrass. Long, cutting grass. Identifiable by haresblood dripping from its edge. Ruins your dress if you stray from the path.
2. Restless stone. The earth shakes. Save or lose your footing. The path is broken; press on, and you risk a fall. It'll be fixed in d20 days.
3. Stranded lamb. Can lead you to a nearby farmstead. The farmer, Lennox, is a pious soul and generous gossip; as reward, he offers food and a wool hat. 
4. Gryke. Deep, deep within, a corpse with a malformed jaw draped in olive-gold cloth. (40s)
5. Bloody murder. d6 ravens. Harry with talons for cruelty's sake. 
6. Soldiers in the fog. Linger and you risk possession. Return later, and you’ll find fuchsia blood on the grass and unearthed panoply. (worth 20sovs to a historian; haunted, obviously)

Fort Zeon belongs to the House of John.

• Sean Sciotameyer, the husband. A broker of exotic trade goods. Married into the family, sits uncomfortably with their traditions. [The House of John has no female scions. Women are considered tools, or furniture, and can neither inherit nor speak unless spoken to.]
• Jane Sciotameyer, the wife. Sarcastic and a little mad. She is going a little blind as Sean's vision begins to overlap her own; in two months, she will be completely reliant on him to see. (This is the sort of thing a psychologist might be asked to help with.)

Jayford House belongs to House Rhayadder.

• Cardwin Rhayadder. Novitiate historian of the pre-Victorian Doggerlands. Desperately lonely, he falls in love quickly and easily. Desperately horny, he pretends monk-like self control. Incredible poker face; rumored to have won Jayford House in a game thereof, to his own detriment.

Daley Hollow belongs to House Devinsen. The lady of the house is entirely absent, preferring to pass her time in town (see below), so her servants run the show.

• Samuel. A stern head butler with a heart of marble. If afforded the opportunity, he'll get sopping drunk and be a little friendlier.
• Carmina. Hyperattentive dalula (mooneyed and mousy). Creepy, nosy, very stealthy. Fangirlish obsession with the late master of the house, disapproves of the itinerant lady. She'd make an excellent thief; in fact, she's stolen quite a few things.

(It is a common misconception that ghosts haunt battlefields or forests. The spirit is bound to the home as flame to hearth.)

The Town serves as a window into the world beyond this hexflower of countryside. There are foreigners here, as well as the gleaming innovations of the city. Curiosities and services can also be bought and sold at a fair price. (note to self: now you have to write a list of curiosities for purchase you silly bitch)

1. Book sale. (note to self: and a list of books too you silly silly bitch)
2. Pickpocket. A skilled thief will notice this immediately; everyone else notices ten minutes later. A handsome lady at the Violet Monk is to blame.
3. Wishing fountain. Toss it a sov', miss! (Once you're out of sight, the child fishes your coin out.)
4. Cyril. An apocalyptic prophet and panhandler. Be generous to him and he'll tell you about an "incoming heavenly strike". He is, of course, telling the truth.
5. Lost package. Contains 10 sovereigns allowance, addressed to... the name's a smudge.
6. Automobile accident. A Devinsen failscion crashes into a streetlamp. There are literally no other cars in Blushdale.

In the middle of town is the Violet Monk, a former monastery converted into a hotel by its reluctant owner, Belmont. A long T-shape is formed by the old church and renovated wings, the latter of which house the Violet Monk's eight tenants.

In the east wing:

• Belmont himself, a mountain of a man straining against the confines of semi-rural society and polite conversation. Balding and heirless; when he retires, the Monk will become Church property.
• Seramichael Erin, the clergyman. Severe, sensible, controlling, a smidgen antisocial. Comes and goes like a ghost, without passing the front door; he's always very busy elsewhere. As a high ranking Church member, he can summon a severe windstorm with a well-worded letter and fly short distances. As a vampire hunter, his methods are less traditional: soporifics and piano wire.
• Summers Daley, the itinerant Devinsen from the [Battlefield]. During the Season, she is the flame of every eye; at the moment, she is lifeless and grim. A painter of crime scenes and gory portraiture. Off-putting as she may be, she craves conversation, which is why she quit Daley Hollow. Staked her own father (don't tell Carmina).
• "Seven", a vampire hunter from the far colonies. Thick, suspicious accent. Disciplined and singularly skilled in swordplay: if she's directly confronted by another vampire hunter, she will kill them. Admires Belmont for his size and barely-restrained wildness. Keeps telling people she's on holiday.

In the west wing:

• Dr. Abraham Cross, the exorcist. Possessed by a surfeit of lore pertaining to all manner of nightkin. Paying a visit to his country cousin, Master Leland. Big silver missile of a beard. Would like to train a successor, and has, by coincidence, met many excellent candidates here at the Monk.
• Harker and Halen Parish, the twins. They pretend to be a single tenant in front of Belmont (to halve their rent). Halen has a burn above her left eye; Harker has a gun in her pocket. Runaways with fake names trying to claw their way back into polite society. Picked up many lowborn habits during a two-year stint as thief-vigilantes.
• Van Hotep, the magician. Showy and acrobatic. A master escape artist, practiced fulminator, and dabbling necromancer. Can shoot red lightning by shouting Abrakadoom! Talkative and a touch mad (bit queer for a Doggish man). He's actually in town chasing rumors of vampire activity--doing his job, for once.
• (There is a final, empty room in this wing.)

One of these eight people is a vampire; the rest are dogged vampire hunters. The scenario begins with an attack, which sends the tenants into a suspicious frenzy; you have a few days to root out the vamp before everyone kills each other.

The Manor stands on the largest and most productive land in the region, overlooking the roads which join the other manors and old castles together. It belongs to House Sardon, the current Royal House, passed two years prior from the hands of your late grandfather into those of your absent uncle. (He's left you lot in charge while he fucks off for weeks at a time.)

• Argus Sardon. Absent uncle, religious and distant, repelled from the premises by superstition.
• Sargasso Sardon, the late grandfather. A doctor well-loved by his patients. Haunting the house.
• Elum. Passably loyal groundskeeper. A hairy malisian with uncharacteristic respect for the dead. Knew Sargasso well; keeps a little shrine to him in his shed as a ward against his haunting. (this genuinely works, see: ambient danger)

The Manor serves a few purposes:

• It's your home base. Every day begins and ends here, at least until you start setting camp in weird places. (That's why it has no random encounter table: you're always safe to return to the manor.)
• It provides connections. Doggerlands PCs lean heavily on their families, and as a Sardon, you're very well situated to go out and pester random NPCs. Royal House clout means bootlickers like you and bootspitters have to be careful around you, even as a failscion.
• It's a dungeon entrance. My ideal dogbox is half character dramedy, half horrorcrawl. I'll try to elaborate more on the latter in the next post.

* * *

I think my personal takeaway from this post is I should work on writing better NPCs. I'll need a little more oomph if I want to properly rip off Abattoir Symposium, but I'm bushed atm, seriously, gimme a break, yeesh

Note that the manors are intentionally somewhat depopulated, and they'll likely stay that way: I tried to boil down to the NPCs who I actually enjoy writing AND who serve a purpose in the social network of Blushdale. Why so stingy, you ask? Why no random NPC generator to flesh out the families? Because the Psychopaladin makes every NPC a potential dungeon. This is a funny prank to play on myself as a gm, but this needs to be runnable by anyone and everyone, so I'm dutybound to write a few rooms minimum for every named character. (haha, hoho, so funny)

I'll try to focus on dungeon stuff for the next update.