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Post by hengest on Oct 9, 2019 20:49:20 GMT -5
There's a town.
It has townish things that you would expect. It seem neither ancient or new. Nothing is that old, but it seems well-established. It has a distinctive accent, but not its own language. There is nothing wrong with the town.
It has taverns and stores and private houses, and they have cellars. Roots, barrels, the things you find in cellars. It has a good number of cellars.
Some of the cellars have cellars and the air gets quite cool down there. Some people go a little ways down to store their food and drink.
Some of them are linked to other cellars directly below-ground by passages that a man or a child could easily pass through. A couple of these are used in poor weather or, in better weather, to facilitate nighttime meetings.
Some of them seem to go deeper. But, if there's no reason to venture past where the last stash of apples and wine is stored, there's nothing really to ask. No one is really sure where the cellars end and no one is especially worried about this.
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Post by mao on Oct 9, 2019 20:53:34 GMT -5
Go for it!
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Post by shimrod on Oct 10, 2019 11:27:09 GMT -5
This seems pretty fun. Could be a nice adventure site or starting campaign location.
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Post by El Borak on Oct 10, 2019 16:32:31 GMT -5
Spooky!
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Post by hengest on Oct 10, 2019 18:15:56 GMT -5
There is nowhere to go but down (and a little ways across). But there is also no particular reason to go there. No taboo, but sooner or later people get sick of poking around in quiet, dark passages. What's down there, anyway? Likely just more roots and some cold stone at the bottom.
No one listens to the burgomaster's children when they play, always by daylight, at being the creature that comes not in from the woods, but up from the root cellar. No one but an old, old woman who remembers hearing...something...in the night, long ago, when she was barely old enough to speak. Something she thought was her mother coming up to dry her tears, but it wasn't her mother at all.
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Post by hengest on Oct 10, 2019 21:25:21 GMT -5
The town is not atop a mountain but is significantly elevated relative to the surrounding countryside.
The deepest cellars still in use today, if inspected closely, appear not to have been designed as cellars. A few appear to have remains of windows although they are well underground.
The air feels fairly fresh down there, considering.
But that's the cellars, and no one knows more than this about them unless they look, which no one does.
What about the town itself?
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Post by mao on Oct 11, 2019 10:15:43 GMT -5
The town is not atop a mountain but is significantly elevated relative to the surrounding countryside. The deepest cellars still in use today, if inspected closely, appear not to have been designed as cellars. A few appear to have remains of windows although they are well underground. The air feels fairly fresh down there, considering. But that's the cellars, and no one knows more than this about them unless they look, which no one does. What about the town itself? this is a lot of fun!
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Post by hengest on Oct 11, 2019 21:23:44 GMT -5
The bakery is a little to the southwest of the geographic center of town. Here, you can bring your own loaves to be baked on the village model, while wealthy travellers may buy relatively fancy loaves and cakes. You can find the poorest and richest jostling for attention here, at times. And you can always overhear something or other.
It smells fresh but feels otherwise: the decades of bsked bread mingle with the old wood and ancient stone that make up the structure to create a feeling of a place out of time. Our daily bread...and that of yesterday's yesterday, as well.
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Post by hengest on Oct 12, 2019 23:10:07 GMT -5
The town is well-defined by its walls.
There is no supersitition or law about activity outside the walls, but there are no significant structures out there. It seems that the town has a reason to stay its present size, although no one knows what that reason might be. Questions to locals will get only bafflement in response. No one now living has even considered this question.
A few old images of the town, such as the tapestry in the burgomaster's house, depict it as somehow more vertical than one might expect. These images may be the remains of a tradition that knew something the present citizens do not know.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Oct 15, 2019 8:42:11 GMT -5
There is nowhere to go but down (and a little ways across). But there is also no particular reason to go there. No taboo, but sooner or later people get sick of poking around in quiet, dark passages. What's down there, anyway? Likely just more roots and some cold stone at the bottom. No one listens to the burgomaster's children when they play, always by daylight, at being the creature that comes not in from the woods, but up from the root cellar. No one but an old, old woman who remembers hearing...something...in the night, long ago, when she was barely old enough to speak. Something she thought was her mother coming up to dry her tears, but it wasn't her mother at all. Very evocative and really sets the mood, that would send chills down my spine as a player.
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Post by simrion on Jul 28, 2020 19:00:57 GMT -5
Lovecraftian, definitely Lovecraftian! Not all "Deep Ones" need be sea creatures...
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jul 29, 2020 20:00:37 GMT -5
Lovecraftian, definitely Lovecraftian! Not all "Deep Ones" need be sea creatures... Huzzah!!
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Post by hengest on Aug 29, 2020 14:09:46 GMT -5
Nice to see this get activated. Feels like I wrote this stuff about ten lifetimes ago.
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Post by simrion on Aug 30, 2020 10:31:46 GMT -5
Nice to see this get activated. Feels like I wrote this stuff about ten lifetimes ago. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward?
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Aug 31, 2020 22:34:27 GMT -5
Nice to see this get activated. Feels like I wrote this stuff about ten lifetimes ago. Yeah, this is really good hengest, I hope you complete it.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Aug 31, 2020 22:34:50 GMT -5
Nice to see this get activated. Feels like I wrote this stuff about ten lifetimes ago. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward? I have not read that, I think I should!
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