0310 — Turncoat’s Encampment

There are three tents here. One stores firewood and foodstuffs, one holds a cot and writing desk, and the last has a 1-in-6 chance of holding a visitor and their supplies. All tents are dark blue with grey trim, the Merchant-Industrialist colors, but faded from exposure to the elements. A fire pit surrounded by several logs for seating is in the middle.

The permanent resident is Dion Boche, a scout and woodsman in the Merchant-Industrialist militia. He hates his job and the people he works for, and is working up the nerve to desert. He hears that the Thicket Collaboration (0208) is a good place to live, and he has stolen some radical literature that the outpost at 0612 confiscated from prisoners, which he peruses when he believes he is alone. These books, as well as the least perishable of his rations, are concealed in the firewood stack in case he needs to flee quickly. If these are found and reported by his fellow militiamen he will be executed.

Dion suspects there are other more loyal scouts he does not know about who would sell him out or capture him if he openly deserted, and worries that the anarchists of 0208 would suspect him to be an infiltrator, so he satisfies himself with falsifying reports to make his superiors at 0612 more at ease. He salves his troubled conscience by also keeping a book of real records, hidden with his radical literature. Its discovery would spell disaster for many smugglers, bandits, and anarchist spies.

Dion has a mule named Apple.

Guests:
1. Merchant-Industrialist courier, delivering orders and supplies.
2. Hunter from 0208, accepting an offer of hospitality. Does not trust Dion despite his attempts to make them comfortable.
3. Sun Courtier, out on a hunt. Dion does not actually know they are here, and the courtier is enjoying this trickery.
4. Transcendentalist traveler. Happy for a nights company.

Dion’s hidden books:
The Enemies of Meaningful Life by Gedeon Vargova — An outcry against various systems of oppression and those who benefit from them, notable for using the framing device of a recognizable heroic peasant family from popular folklore meeting various ill ends under said systems.
Stasis and Impetus by Gedeon Vargova — a slim but dense volume, an attempt to complicate the popular understanding of “Law” and “Chaos” by introducing a new axis on which to understand contradictory permutations of those tendencies.
The Misdirection of Impetus (in the Dreamward Lands) by ‘Reyhan’ – published under what is commonly believed to be a pseudonym of one of Gedeon Vargova’s students, a history of several failed revolutionary movements in the Kingdom of Dreams
Golden Bereavement by Gedeon Vargova — a deeply controversial book for what its detractors claim is uncalled for sympathy towards certain reactionary tendencies. Its aim is to provide a rhetorical basis for turning certain dissatisfactions among hegemonic groups into allies of revolution, wittingly or otherwise. An alternative translation, called Princely Bereavement, also exists, and favored translation is another controversial subject.



This, the previous hex entry on this blog, and various future entries are part of my process of running my TNU campaign, using ideas that come up in play to fill out the map I made previously. I’m adding them to the list of entries here as I write them.