Journal¶
In the Journaling Game, you keep a diary. Answer the Prompts in writing, dedicating a short paragraph or so to each question. You will end up with a document that you can look back at later. In addition to a journal entry, you must still add an Experience for each Prompt.
Entry I¶
[VIII] - [II] => (6)
A mortal Character begins serving you. Who are they? Why are they drawn to you? Create a new mortal Character.
Story
Milushe’s husband was a woodcutter who died in the woods just the previous month. Young love was long gone, but now, so were even her meagre means. The only thing remaining were the burnt bridges. She sat contemplating the moon’s silvering reflection in the blade of her kitchen knife, when a wealthy young soldier stumbled into her yard. In his grievous head wound she saw an opportunity.
Experience: Memory V
There is a house here. I crawl out of the brambles and fall onto the packed dirt. As the darkness descends again, a woman approaches with a knife in her hand. I live once more.
New character: Milushe
A widow of a woodcutter from Bohemian forest, alienated and unhappy in her lot. Headstrong and calculating. She tended to my wounds.
Entry II¶
[IV] - [VI] => (6) - 2 => (4)
You are exposed and flee to a neighboring region. Lose any stationary Resources. Check a Skill. A mortal flees with you. What new name do you adopt among these strangers?
Story
Bozhydar does not die, but does not quicken. His torpor ends when Milushe calls for the local deacon and Bozhydar drians him of blood in a flash of instinct. Nights later the clerics lead Bozhydar’s troop to the house. Bozhydar rips through the throng, tearing apart men in his wake. He and Milushe flee North. They assume new names: Bolobor and Luboslava.
Experience: Memory V
I rage as my old companions flee before me in panic, but there is no time. In each trembling hand, Milushe holds the reins of a couple of the horses they leave behind. Before we start our gallop North I ask her to call me Bolobor and herself Luboslava until we arrive among friends.
Skills and resources
I survive by rash violence.
I command a troupe of armored companions.
Milushe (Luboslava)
(…) She escapes with me North and changes her name to Luboslava—after the massacre, they would have come for her too.
Entry III¶
[II] - [IV] => (4) - 4 => 0 => (1)
In your blood-hunger you destroy someone close to you. Kill a mortal Character. Create a mortal if none are available. Take the skill Bloodthirsty.
Story
Bolobor sleeps days and only wakens at night to travel. He grows weak and erratic, despite Luboslava’s care. She uses his spear to hunt around the camp, but he refuses to eat. They are both exhaused when they arrive in the Starogrod. They seek out Bolobor’s sister Bohuzhyzn in the sleeping keep, but overcome by hunger, he falls on her and drains her of blood.
Experience: Memory III
The chamber door opens, a flickering candle paints the corridor in light and our tall shadows. My sister recognizes me and her face paints with terror when shes the scarrs showing from under my bandages. The sight of her face strikes me into turmoil and I loose the grip I have held these last weeks. I leap and devour her. I find peace from the alien, clawing hunger.
Skills and resources
I am bloodthirsty.
Bohuzhyzn
(…) I drain her of blood in a fit of hunger.
Milushe, Luboslava.
(…) She witnessed me devouring my sister when I fell into blood hunger.
Entry IV¶
[VIII] - [II] => (1) + 6 => (7)
Your body manifests some trait related to the vampire that created you. How do you become more like them? Create a Skill that reflects this.
Story
Before madness took him, Taraz the Ageless was a healer among the locals, which was aided by his ability to sense sickness. This ability had transferred onto Bolobor.
Experience: Memory II
Leaning over my sister’s corpse, I felt her blood coarsing through my flesh. I looked up to see Luboslava with a new sight. I sensed her heartbeat and felt the humors of her body. I saw every ache reflected on her flesh and the tiredness weighing down her shoulders. I could feel the life growing in her womb.
Skills and resources
I can sense the weakness within human flesh.
Taraz the Ageless
(…) Before insanity took him, he was a healer through his preternatural senses. (…)
Milushe (Luboslava)
(…) I saw a child growing in her, even before she herself realized it.
Entry V¶
[IX] - [II] => (7) + 7 => (14)
An enemy Character uses a lost Resource to turn your few friends against you. Check three Skills to regain the Resource, or check one Skill to barely survive. Which former friend did you kill? Where do you flee?
Story
Milorad finds the dead Bohuzhyzn in the keep and starts a search for the murderer. He is aided by the remnants of the troop of armored companions, who have been pursuing Bolobor’s trail. They find the vampire hiding in an old pagan shrine. Bolobor assails his father with inhuman ease and devours him in the view of the gathered troops. He speaks to them from above the corpse, asserting his old authority over them and inspiring many to follow him North. Some try to flee, but are caught and bled to death beneath the ancient statue.
Experience: Memory I
In the eerie light of the moon, I imbue my troops with my inhuman bloodlust. I stand with Luboslava beneath the ancient statue, while my retinue return by handfulls, dragging the deserters to our feet. I speak and their throats are slit, silencing their cacophonous shouts one by one.
Skills and resources
I speak with the voice of command.
I know of the pagan religions of Pomeranians.
I am bloodthirsty.
I command a troupe of armored companions.
Milushe (Luboslava)
(…) She joined me and my troop on our march North—they know she speaks with me voice and fear her.
Milorad
(…) When he discovered I killed my sister, he tracked me down, but I defeated him easily and feasted on his corpse.
Entry VI¶
[VII] - [II] => (14) + 5 => (19)
Two friendly Characters become embroiled in an internecine conflict. Become involved and check a Skill. Create up to two Characters, if needed. How do you profit? Gain a Resource.
Story
During Bolobor’s slumberful days, he relies on his leutenants. One such is Luboslava, who understand his nature. She plots kidnappings and tends to his feeding. She hungrily exercises the authority stemming from her intimacy with Bolobor.
The other is Racimir called the Quick, who took the penant of the troop since the slaughter. He sees in Bolobor an opportunity to turn away from the Christian faith and return to his pagan roots. He has love and respect of the men due his skill and passion for ritual.
To Racimir, Luboslava is a foreign woman with no skill or experience, so he seeds discontent among the companions. Meanwhile, to Luboslava, Racimir threatens the position of power she feels she just acquired. She schemes to undermine him in front of Bolobor by translating attacks on her as attacks on Bolobor himself.
Bolobor begins gazing within each of the soldiers and judges their bile. He sees a sickness of the spirit moving among them, but it has already spread too wide. Striking against Racimir now will lead another bloody fracture. Instead, through covert whispers, Bolobor and Luboslava weave a web of spies and covert killers.
Racimir the Quick
The penant bearer of my reformed cohort. Previously hiding a pagan faith, a loyal and ardent supporter after the slaughter at the old statue. He chafes while having to compete with Luboslava—a woman and a foreigner—for authority within the troop.
Milushe (Luboslava)
(…) She entered a rivalry with Racimir the Quick, my new penant bearer and so we built a network of spies to counter his plots.
Skills and resources
I can sense the weakness within human flesh.
Among my companions, I have created a core of spies and assasins.
Experience: Memory IV
The tent flap opens and Luboslava leads in a small-framed man. He is a good bowman and has eyes for the dark. She vouches for him, but I peer inside him anyway. He is distrustful of Racimir and hides lust for Luboslava—he will be loyal. She hands him a string of rowan berries as a marker.
Entry VII¶
[I] - [I] => (19) + 0 => (19)
You scheme while your friends make war on one another. Manipulate the conflict to destroy any Character.
Story
Bolobor shows outward neutrality as tensions rise within the camp. One evening, Lubomira and Racimir the Quick argue and among their invective, mutually scream accusations of poisoning the company against Bolobor. He orders a trial of arms for the night after, so that the gods strike down the guilty. The soldier Racimir is confident of his coming victory, while Lubomira uses a rowan-marked companion to poison her opponent with a brew of wolfberries and amanita. When Racimir shambles onto the compacted earth, the will of the gods is evident, and Lubomira knocks him over and carves out his eyes.
Racimir the Quick
(…) He duels her, but she poisons him with amanita and wolfberries the day before and pokes out his eyes.
Milushe (Luboslava)
(…) Eventually she poisons him and stabs out his eyes in triumph.
Experience: Memory III
Racimir, the Quick no longer, stumbles onto the compacted earth, into the view of the gathered companions and my own. I see his grip slipping of his spear and sweat dripping from his pale visage; I can smell the stench of his rotting bowels. I hear the axehead scrape the boss as, with his last effort, he catches Luboslava’s hatchet on his shield. He drops to his knees. I look with fondness as she triumphantly presses that black kitchen knife into one eye socket, then the other.
Entry VIII¶
[IX] - [V] => (19) + 4 => (23)
You master a strange new science or field of knowledge. How does your vampire nature give you special insight into these studies? Create an appropriate Skill based on a Memory.
Story
The troop build a fort among the lakes and forests of Pomerania, not far from the sea, atop the ruins of an ancient outpost. From there they extort local villages and raid trains of merchants heading from the sea to the amber road. They obtain food and valuables, as well as live captives for labor and to quench Bolobor’s thirst. Through repeated effort and his preternaturally sharp senses he learns to stalk human prey through among the trees and masters the art of ambush.
Created skill:
I am a peerless hunter of men.
Experience: Memory IV
My attention touches upon each guard and each drover as we lie in wait in the dusk. The archers follow my poiting arm, as I direct them to their targets. I feel the intimacy of Luboslava’s closeness as I whisper the descriptions of those of our prey I want to take alive.
Entry IX¶
[VI] - [V] => (23) + 1 => (24)
Erase the first sentence of any two Memories. You’re not quite sure why. Do not create an Experience about this.
I think each experience is supposed to be a sentence, which I ignore, and write paragraphs, so this means remove the first experience from two memories, effectively.
Experience: Memory III:
The bowmen break and run afore my lunging horse, as the wild dash through the river yields its bloody harvest. My shoulder aches where an arrowhead drilled into my scale and my arm twinges with each thrust, but I feel elation that I do not share the demise of those who faltered at the other bank.
Experience: Memory IV:
Atop my mount, I look down fondly into a clearing, where my troop organize a campsite, according to my orders and under Ratibor’s watchful supervision.
Entry X¶
[VII] - [I] => (24) + 6 => 30
What social mores have your forgotten? Lose a checked Skill.
Story
Over time, as Bolobor starts avoiding combat to prevent it interfering with his exercise of command during the band’s raids. Instead, he relies more on schemes, tactics, and subterfuge, and more on his companions to execute on these. Soon, his bold spirit completely gives way to a calculus of caution.
Removed skill:
I survive by rash violence.
Experience: Memory IV
I can sense his hearbeat quicker than the footpad can discern my silhouette in the gloom of twilight. I can hear his breathing as he passes the boulder where I crouch. He is within my grasp, but I let him pass—our fresh companions will have their blooding today.
Entry XI¶
[VIII] - [II] => (30) + 6 => 36
The deceptions you practice fool even yourself. Combine any three Traits to fabricate an Experience that you believe to be true.
Story
Bolobor wanders around the forest at night and encounters an old friend on a journey. The friend is Ratibor whom he last saw be obducted by Taraz the Ageless.
Combined traits:
I know of the pagan religions of Pomeranians.
Ratibor
The penant-bearer of my troupe; a friend and reliable right hand in the field. Grievously wounded in battle and captured by Taraz the Ageless.
Taraz the Ageless
A mad alchemist living in the secluded woods in Bohemia. Before insanity took him, he was a healer through his preternatural senses. He deceived me and captured Ratibor.
Experience: Memory II
In the myst I see the bedraggled figure of Ratibor. He holds up his hand in greetins and I see glimpses of bone showing through his skin. He cannot stay; he heard tales of a young mystic who lives among the Prussian tribes and can heal even those who have once passed—like he, like myself. I wish to follow him, but I am afraid.
Ratibor
(…) I saw him at night, in the myst—he searched for a pagan priest, and I wished I could go with him.
Entry XII¶
[VII] - [VI] => (36) + 1 => 37
Things fall to dust. Lose a Resource for which you have no corresponding Memory. Do not create a new Experience for this Prompt, it simply happens as you stare in silence.
Skills and resources
I carry a long spear.
Entry XIII¶
[V] - [VI] => (37) - 1 => 36
Punish someone because of this false Memory. You kill a or maim a Character. Check a Skill. Take the Skill I Know What’s Real.
Story
Bolobor retells his encounter to Luboslava back at the camp, but flies into a rage and slashes her with a knife, disfiguring and blinding her.
Skills and resources
I am a peerless hunter of men.
(Acquired) I know what’s real.
Experience
She only looked at me with concern, when I told her I saw Ratibor. I feel my blood boil. I feel the weight of that black knife in my hand. I see a red gash across her face. I flee to the forest to hide my shame from from all human eyes.
Milushe (Luboslava)
(…) Enraged, I slashed her face with a knife and blinded her.
Diary entry I¶
Story
Wandering morosely in the forest, Bolobor obsesses over his memories from the camp. He agonizes over the people close to him that were hurt: Luboslava and his sister. He makes a necklace on which he scratches out his recollections.
Diary I
A necklace of smooth riverstones on a leather strap. The beads are scratched with clumsy marks resembling circles, tally marks, and various crosses.
Skills and resources
(Acquired) A necklace of scratched riverstones on a leather strap.
Memory moved to diary: III
The chamber door opens, a flickering candle paints the corridor in light and our tall shadows. My sister recognizes me and her face paints with terror when shes the scarrs showing from under my bandages. The sight of her face strikes me into turmoil and I loose the grip I have held these last weeks. I leap and devour her. I find peace from the alien, clawing hunger.
Racimir, the Quick no longer, stumbles onto the compacted earth, into the view of the gathered companions and my own. I see his grip slipping of his spear and sweat dripping from his pale visage; I can smell the stench of his rotting bowels. I hear the axehead scrape the boss as, with his last effort, he catches Luboslava’s hatchet on his shield. He drops to his knees. I look with fondness as she triumphantly presses that black kitchen knife into one eye socket, then the other.
Memory moved to diary: IV
The tent flap opens and Luboslava leads in a small-framed man. He is a good bowman and has eyes for the dark. She vouches for him, but I peer inside him anyway. He is distrustful of Racimir the Quick and hides lust for Luboslava—he will be loyal. She hands him a string of rowan berries as a marker.
My attention touches upon each guard and each drover as we lie in wait in the dusk. The archers follow my poiting arm, as I direct them to their targets. I feel the intimacy of Luboslava’s closeness as I whisper the descriptions of those of our prey I want to take alive.
I can sense his hearbeat quicker than the footpad can discern my silhouette in the gloom of twilight. I can hear his breathing as he passes the boulder where I crouch. He is within my grasp, but I let him pass—our fresh companions will have their blooding today.
Entry XIV¶
[V] - [VI] => (36) + 2 => 38
Your whole being becomes centered in your senses and your hungers. Create a Skill that demonstrates your feral vampire nature and lose an existing Memory.
Story
The companions search for Bolobor, but he hides from them and from all humans. Soon the choice becomes a reflex, and over time, it becomes deeply ingrained.
Skills and resources
(Acquired) A shadow among trees.
Experience: Memory III
I hear the clatter of men moving down the trail. They speak, but I can barely recognize the words. They cannot see me buried in the leaves, but I cannot stop anxiety building in my muscles as they pass.
Entry XV¶
[II] - [III] => (38) - 1 => 37
You are a creature with habits of unknown origin. Lose an unchecked Skill for which you have no corresponding Memory.
Story
As time passes Bolobor’s the tie between Bolobor and his former troop disappears. Year after year, there are fewer and fewer familiar faces among them. Even had he, himself, stopped hiding away from people.
I don’t have a skill that fits, I’m dropping a resource instead.
In retrospect: I think I misread the prompt as “a corresponding memory”.
Skills anr resources
I command a troupe of armored companions.
Experience: Memory III
A group of men travel. They wear the same colors as my scale, but their young faces are not known to me. I feel a glimpse of something familiar, but I bury it under the clamour of my fear.
Entry XVI¶
[VIII] - [I] => (37) + 7 => 44
An immortal Character you’ve met returns to claim a debt. What is it? How have they changed? Do you pay willingly? If you have a Memory of this Character you lose two Resources, if not then lose three Resources and check a Skill.
Story
Under the spell of a notion, Taraz the Ageless travels to Pomerania to seek out Bolobor. He stalks the towns and castles looking for the warrior he remembers from those years ago and attacks their denizens in the dark.
The news reach an organization known as the Rowans who live in the shadows and trade in secrets. They talk to the few survivors of these attacks and find Taraz’s true nature. They also find he seeks another one such as he, to take payment for saving a dying soldier from his grievous wounds.
They report to an elderly blind mistress called Luboslava, a rich doyenne of the town of Bialogrod. She realizes whom the mad vampire seeks and decides to end the violence in the community. She seeks out Bolobor in the forest and offers to help him evade his pursuer. They concoct a plan to stage his demise, upon which he would flee.
Checked resources:
I own well-made armor of a mounted
companion and horse tack.Among my companions, I have created a core of spies and assasins.
Experience: Memory IV
White bones peer from under the helm, propped up beneath a familiar three-faced statue. The dessicated skull drinks the blood flowing from my wrists, its eye sockets filled with yellow straw and green moss. Luboslava touches her torch to the effigy and red tongues start licking the scalemail from within. I feel a morose sense of release as Bozhydar, son of Miloran blackens and she tells me not to come back.
Milushe (Luboslava)
(…) Though we have not spoken for years, she helps me stage my death to fool Taraz the Ageless’ hunt. I do not know why.
Taraz the Ageless
(…) He deceived me and captured Ratibor, whom he claims to have healed. He traveled to Pomerania to hunt me down, but Luboslava helped me stage my death and escape.
Entry XVII¶
[III] - [I] => (37) + 2 => 46
You are exposed and flee to a far-off land. Convert any stationary Resources to a new Resource representing portable cash or treasure. What name do you travel under? What profession do you claim when you come to rest?
Story
Bolobor flees the forests of Pomerania. He travels westward to the Vistula river, where he finds a cowled robe and a small fishing boat with a lateen sail—the very last of Luboslava’s gifts. The currents take Bolobor to the sea, then futher North along the coast of the great bay there. Eventually, he reaches the tip of the Hel peninsula whose tip protrudes into the Baltic sea.
In his journey he learns to sail his vessel, both through trial-and-error and by watching river traders. Soon repairs are needed, and thus he catches fish and game during the night to trade for tar, rope, and canvas. He uses the name Nevrat in his dealing and the the strange becowled nightfisher becomes a known, if uncommon sight in the villages along the coast. Meanwhile tales spread of travelers and unwary fishermen washing up at the shore, their bodies torn up as if by some beast.
Experience: Memory III
I hear the clatter of men moving down the trail. They speak, but I can barely recognize the words. They cannot see me buried in the leaves, but I cannot stop anxiety building in my muscles as they pass.
A group of men travel. They wear the same colors as my scale, but their young faces are not known to me. I feel a glimpse of something familiar, but I bury it under the clamour of my fear.
Experience: Memory III
Darkness surrounds me as I dive, but it does not matter: my pray’s heartbeat stands out among the weak flashes of life teeming around me. Soon, my left hand crashes up through the water to reach for the side of the boat, as my right grasps the wriggling pike. This will surely pay for the cracked oar.
Skills and resources
(Acuired) A lateen-rigged boat.
Entry XVIII¶
[IV] - [I] => (46) + 3 => 49
What simple, practical skill proves invaluable in your strange existence? How did you learn it? Create a Skill.
Story
In his dealing with the population of tradesmen and shopkeepers, Nevrat notices the usefulness of writing and reading to keep records. His head is heavy with memories that he wishes not to forget.
Nevrat captures a priest and coerces him to reveal the secrets of the skill through months of imprisonment, starvation, and torture.
Experience: Memory III
The priest quakes as always, but the bruises and burns mean he no longer protests. The scent cooked fish wafting into the lean-to acts on his hunger to give him resolve. His blackened fingernails search the tome for the page where we ended the preceding night. He resumes to decipher the foreign markings for me.
Father Ioannes of Kolberg
A priest of the diecesy of Kolberg whom Nevrat captured to teach him to read and write. The man suffered physical and mental agony through his months of imprisonment, torture, and starvation.
Diary entry II¶
Story
The light of the bonfire mixes with that of the rising sun, as Nevrat reminisces of his turning and his loyal companion—Milushe. He records his memories on leather pages in a shaky, unaccustomed hand.
Diary II
A small collection of fishleather leafs with black markings in a clumsy script, bound with strips of birch phloem. He reflects on the people he has not seen in a long time, realizing they are probably long passed.
Skills and resources
(Acquired) A collection of bound leather leafs.
Memory moved to diary: V
Blood seeps out of Ratibor’s stomach as we hasten deep into the forest. In their odd dialect, the villagers spoke of Taraz the Ageless, a mad sorcerer who posseses unearthly alchemical lore. In sudden anger, he pushes my head into a crucible. I do not die, but I am marked and fall sensless.
There is a house here. I crawl out of the brambles and fall onto the packed dirt. As the darkness descends again, a woman approaches with a knife in her hand. I live once more.
I rage as my old companions flee before me in panic, but there is no time. In each trembling hand, Milushe holds the reins of a couple of the horses they leave behind. Before we start our gallop North I ask her to call me Bolobor and herself Luboslava.
Zhyrovit
(…) I never saw him after my turning, and he must be long dead.
Racimir the Quick
(…) He is surely dead by now.
Entry XIX¶
[VI] - [III] => (49) + 3 => 52
The beauty of the dawn calls you. Create an additional Memory slot dedicated to beauty, nature, or peace.
Experience: Memory Beauty, nature, and peace
Though the waves and wind finally subside, the shore is too far. Nevertheless, my frustration subsides as the sun paints the black sky in a patchwork of gold and crimson and I am overwhelmed by its forbidden beauty.
Entry XX¶
[II] - [II] => 52 + 0 => 52
You stay long enough to hear the end of a morning bird’s song. You are burned by the Sun—create a Mark.
Story
Nevrat becomes attracted to the sight of dawn and lingers longer and longer to witness it during his excursions. The lag causes him to remain exposed to the sun’s rays longer each time. He develops an obsession with the sensation of burning.
Experience: Memory IV
As I stare at the haunting rays, their warmth reaches my dead skin and for an eyeblink I feel it burn. The pain is excruciating, but the sensation is stragely appealing, a sole forgotten echo of my human past.
Mark
I harbor an obsession with fire and the sensation of burning. I linger by flames and to watch the dawn sun.
Entry XXI¶
[X] - [V] => 55 + 5 => 60
Check a Skill to avoid arrest as a criminal. What happened? Who was arrested in your place? Create a mortal Character if necessary.
Story
An investigator was sent to find out what happened to Father Ioannes. He hears stories and follows hunches and manages to tighten the gauntlet on Nevrat, who prevents being discovered by his skillful ability to hide in the thick forests. He moves his prisoner from place to place, avoiding pursuit, sometimes narrowly.
Experience: Memory III
I sense my hunter in the distance, but the darkness is on my side. I throw the bound priest into a ditch and he bumps into exposed roots and mossy stones as he rolls down its bank. The gag prevents him from crying out and his whimpers are instantly stopped by the weight of my foot on his chest. I see fear in his eyes.
Skills and resources
A shadow among trees.
Tvrtko of Kolberg
When Ioannes of Kolberg disappeared, Tvrtko was sent by the diecesy of Kolberg to scour the fishing villages and shoreside towns to find the missing priest. He is a tough and smart guard, but one from the city and unused to the wilderness. I evaded him by hiding his objective deep in the forest, where he could not hope to track him down.
Father Ioannes of Kolberg
(…) Eventually, the diecesy sent an investigator by the name of Tvrtko to find him, but I hid Ioannes deep in the forest, where none but me could find him. This was a brutal act and the man fears me even more and suspects his life is forefeit.
Diary entry III¶
Story
Nevrat and the priest inhabit a cramped shelter, a pit roofed with timber covered in leaves. Thin stripes of sunlight shine through. Nevrat idly plays with them, he puts his hands into the sunlight, then takes it away. His skin brightens, flares up, sometimes chars. He tells Ioannes stories about his old life, of an old god-statue, of his dying sister, and of Ratibor, both young and bedraggled undead. The quaking priest is terrified and offers to write the memories down to ingratiate himself with his captor. He scribbles them down in the empty pages of his bible.
Diary III
A Catholic bible written in latin, with some pages containing stories scribbled in black ink in an expert, but shaky hand.
Skills and resources
(Acquired) Diary III: A Catholic bible with shaky scribblings.
Memory moved to diary: II
Shydlo leads me through the forest to a dark grove with a three-faced pillar in the center, the painted runes peeling and faded. I feel the intimacy of shared secrets as he whispers the stories of the old gods to me. He calls me Niedrog, my childhood name.
Leaning over my sister’s corpse, I felt her blood coarsing through my flesh. I looked up to see Luboslava with a new sight. I sensed her heartbeat and felt the humors of her body. I saw every ache reflected on her flesh and the tiredness weighing down her shoulders. I could feel the life growing in her womb.
In the myst I see the bedraggled figure of Ratibor. He holds up his hand in greeting and I see glimpses of bone showing through his skin. He cannot stay; he heard tales of a young mystic who lives among the Prussian tribes and can heal even those who have once passed—like he, like myself. I wish to follow him, but I am afraid.
Entry XXII¶
[I] - [IV] => 60 - 3 => 57
Your knowledge of old things becomes a strength. Based on a checked Skill, what knowledge do you share with contemporary mortals? Check a Skill. Create a Resource.
Story
As day turns to night, and night turns to day, Nevrats tales of spirits and violent death take a toll on the young priest. As Nevrat weaves his tales, the maltreated Ioannes’ horror grows into a terrified fascination. His eyes twinkle as he retells the story of a fiery death of raider lord Bolobor at the feet of an old three-faced statue. He tells how previously the dirt beneath the old godwood drank the blood of his companions in a torrentious massacre. Then he goes back even further and reminisces of two boys whispering the secrets of the forest spirits and elder gods at the feet of that same statue. Then he retells that ancient and forgotten lore, god after god, deed after deed, artifact after artifact. The enthralled priest soaks in the old myths. Through his starvation, bondage, and fear, he starts to believe them and his faith is forever shaken.
Based on a checked skill:
I know of the pagan religions of Pomeranians.
Experience: Memory I
I speak the entire night and as the light of dawn interlaces the gloom of the cramped shack with its burning stripes, the man whispers frightened denial, “Lord God, just old fairytales.” I lean my face closer; the exposed bone of my visage catches the light and the sun blackens a sizzing stroke across it. “Only the truth,” I reply. We stare into each others eyes, his dialated and haunted.
Skills and resources
I know what’s real.
(Acquired) I turned a clergyman against his beliefs and taught him of my bloody deeds and the old gods. He fears and respects me, and will follow me.
Father Ioannes of Kolberg
(…) I tell the young priest of my exploits under the name of Bolobor, and of the old pagan religions. One dawn he doubts his what his Christian teachers told him about the world, as he faces a demon in the flesh and bone.
No pun intended. Ok, some pun intended.