TNU Play Report 7: Plotting a New Course


After she finishes dealing with Rubello, Akela approaches the Salvager’s Guild’s dock, where a bit of an altercation is taking place. Nobody has seen the crew who had been sent to get the printing press (as mentioned in the over-long play report 1), and they were expected back as of five days ago. A portion of the salvagers want to pay for mercenaries to mount an expedition for the lost or stolen cargo, while another group argues that it isn’t feasible to do so. Akela, taking in all of this, hatches a plan. If herself and her companions can locate the missing press, she wants to hide it somewhere until she can report its existence directly to the Thicket Collaboration (0208) and hopefully organize a team to haul it there. She has made a decision to commit herself to bettering this settlement. She misses the old revolutionary camaraderie she once had and hopes she can finally rediscover it. All she needs to do is convince her companions this is a good idea.

Almuund is easy to convince. He has a foothold in the Thicket Collaboration and a bit of charity could cement that nicely.

Hant is a harder sell, but has ulterior motives that help expedite the process. His desire to hunt the counterfeit Holy Mountain texts has lead to him asking around the crossroads after anyone who has a particular knowledge of/interest in books. One of the scavengers-turned-merchants mentions that she had luck selling books, in particular books about religion and magic, to some people stationed at Fort Cygne (0413), also mentioning that a witch lives down there somewhere. When Akela pitches her plot to Hant, he eagerly agrees on the condition that they make a slight detour to visit the fort for his benefit.

The first day of travel passes uneventfully. The party sticks to the road, heading down to the Fort.

On the second day, late in the afternoon they find themselves overlooking the river from a cliff that the road runs atop. 12 Merchant-Industrialist militiamen are encamped here, watching over a boat flying their colors moored at the bottom of the cliffs. Curiously there are 2 Occult-Futurist scouts also present, camped just next to the militiamen. They have less cumbersome helmets than Rubello did. The party gives this camp a wide berth, and make their own camp a respectful/safe distance away.

They reach Fort Cygne the next evening. It is the ideal of a purely utilitarian outpost: rock walls around rock buildings, inhabited by tired militiamen attending to mundane tasks. Hant engages a guard at the main gate in conversation, mentioning that he had heard rumors that some folks here were interested in odd religious texts. The guard ruefully replies that, ever since that ugly incident with the witch, the commanding officer of the fort has cracked down on this sort of thing. “We confiscate books more than we buy or trade them, now. If you have any with you, keep them out of sight. I don’t want anyone to start shit.” Hant asks about the ugly incident with the witch and is told that a group of soldiers got in an altercation with her, ended up killing her, and the commander held a funeral to hopefully stave off a haunting. This particular militiaman feels bad about the whole thing. The witch’s apprentice seemed distraught, and the job got duller with more oversight. He points Hant in the direction in which the witch’s shack (0413) can be found. The party plans to sleep outside the fort tonight and set off to find the witch in the morning.

In two days, messengers from the Occult-Futurist flagship, the Molars of Leviathan (named for a Wayne Barlowe painting that has served as campaign inspiration to me) that made landfall at 1407 will arrive in the crossroads to collect Rubello’s reports. It will take them four more days to then return. When they do, a large expedition will be dispatched to 0202 where last session Akela lied about finding the helmet Rubello bought from her. Tracking that expedition and what they get up to will be a particularly interesting exercise for me I think.