TNU Play Report 15.1: Almuund’s Dilemmas

I was able to find some time to catch up on the events of last session with Almuund’s player, and talk to him about his return to the thickets collaboration. This is Almuund’s first direct contact with Nougat after the events at the Sunlit Redoubt, where Nougat’s name was entered into the ledger of soldiers that Hant then stabbed. I decided that the party’s invocation of Nougat in these circumstances was reason for them to develop a nightmare curse, in this case: Whispers of Doom, the text of which in TNU reads:
“The nightmares whisper words into your ears. They tell you what other people think of you, what dangers lurk in the shadows, what poor decisions you always make. None of it does you any good, of course, and the nightmares tell you this, too. You’re going to die in the dark somewhere, alone, and then they’ll have all of you, not just your ears.” (page 302)

Almuund finds Nougat having successfully converted the old building he was in into a temple-office for the cult, but refusing to leave it. Plagued by the intrusive thoughts of the curse combined with overwork, he is unhappy to be addressed directly but unhappy to be left alone. Almuund takes an opportunity to open the Anchor from the sunlit redoubt, and edits Nougat’s name. Nougat’s player writes it out and discovers that Nougat, with some tactical use of ink, can be edited to “Aloggath,” a name befitting some sort of sorcerer king from a pulp comic. Whether this will help nougat at all is dubious but also maybe it will prevent him from identifying the source of his hurt when he begins researching the ledger anchor.

Almuund has one additional problem: As a cultist, half his xp is tithed to the cult until he pays for it by putting money into its coffers or infrastructure. A significant amount of the treasure value is the printing press, which the players are being credited with the xp for but choosing to donate rather than sell. This leaves Almuund able to reach level 2, if only he had some additional funds. It is possible that Almuund will need to look into a new underhanded way of getting some cash while in downtime, perhaps seeking a loan or trading in a favor.

Another task to undertake: We have 3 more days to cover of the Occult-Futurist Scout’s expedition:

On the first day, they venture into 0302, and get an encounter: a hunting pack of 5 wolves. The surprise roll means both parties become aware of each other at once, and the reaction roll is cautious for the wolves and neutral for the scouts. This makes perfect sense for wolves seeing a quartet of helmeted weirdos trudging through the wilderness. The scouts are unwilling to waste their ammunition on wild animals that seem ready to run away, and the wild animals will only bother the scouts if the scouts are careless with food or aggressive towards them.

On the second day the scouts venture into 0202. I roll no new encounter. This is where Akela’s lie placed the body and helmet that prompted the expedition. The four scouts find themselves free of the worst brambles, but still within a forest that defies easy navigation, roiling with fog. They begin work on setting up a base camp from which to conduct their search.

On the third day they begin the search. I roll no new encounters. They pair up and begin systematically combing the woodlands, marking trees with their swords to show where they have traversed. The thing they are hoping to find is simply not here to be found. What they find instead are marks upon the forest by beings other than themselves. Empty places where a tree seems to have sat, but been removed completely. Scarification on bark that towers out of reach. Bootprints, on occasion, of archaic design.

At night, from the north, there is briefly the sound of some great mechanical thrumming. Soon they will investigate.

Lastly, am still considering how best to adjudicate the fate of Parzival! This will either be appended to a post or get one of its own soon.