Dead Man’s Promise

Moüd: The City of BonesDead Man’s Promise is a piece of fiction from 100 Whispers & Rumors For Moüd, City of Bones!, one of the supplements for Cities of Sundara.

The streets of Elmbarrow were long and winding, the pavers worn by centuries of baking sun, desert winds and the passage of thousands upon thousands of feet. Mausoleums stood in rows like faded soldiers, their names worn away to whispers and their banners reduced to bleached and tattered ruins. Grave markers were scattered about like broken teeth, watched over by the hooded gaze of obsidian grotesques who looked down from their plinths with grim, unsmiling faces. As the sun set, chill fingers crept through the air, spreading with the shadows and reaching for those brave or foolish enough to walk these paths beneath the gaze of the gibbous moon. Two figures walked along those paths, their steps silent, and their direction deliberate.

“I don’t really see why you need me for this,” Meran said.

“Because if I let you out of my sight, you’ll be gone in a puff of smoke,” her companion replied.

“Would it help if I gave you my word I would wait?” Meran asked.

“The word of a thief?” the outlander said, glancing at her. There was amusement in his voice, but not in his eyes as he regarded her, and readjusted his grip on his walking staff. “I would have returned to the room with my halberd, armor, spare boots and traveling trunk gone, with a note saying what you owed me and promising you’d pay it back.”

“I think I’m deep enough in your debt as it is,” Meran said, her voice carefully neutral. Her companion sighed, and put a hand on her shoulder.

“I appreciate you’d rather be anywhere else than in this city, and in any part of this city except the place we’re going,” he said. “So when we conclude our business we’ll head to a tavern, and the first round’s on me.”

Meran eyed him suspiciously, pursing her lips. “And the second?”

“If you get through this without stabbing anyone, I’ll cover the second as well,” he agreed.

Before Meran could respond, they rounded a corner, and came face-to-face with their destination. A massive, obsidian structure that gleamed beneath the pale moon. The stone was old, but had resisted the test of time in ways few of its companions had. The lines of its corners were still sharp, and the characters carved all over it were still legible, though the language was old enough that few could understand it even in this city. Hanging on black iron chains from one end of the structure were lanterns that burned green in the darkness, lighting the top steps of a descending stairway. Maren glanced at the entrance, then back at her companion, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“After you,” she said.

“If you insist,” the outlander said, striding toward the entrance. Maren followed, her hands all but twitching toward her hidden blades, and her teeth clenched hard enough to make the muscles of her jaw stand out in stark relief. In that green light, it made her look something of a corpse herself.

A stone slab slid away silently at the bottom of the stairs, revealing a doorway. The companions entered, and stepped into a vision from a fever dream. Rows of skulls gleamed along the walls, their death’s head grins catching the light of torches and candles so it looked like they were laughing. Chandeliers of bone hung from heavy chains, and shadows swayed and slithered across the stones inside. Men and women in the garb of a dozen nations danced and chatted, drinking strange liquids from fluted glasses. Between them all clattered the shambling shapes of skeletons, wearing only the loosest funerary drapes as they served foods and drinks, collecting silver in the rattle cans hung inside their rib cages. A ghostly voice crooned from the stage as an ethereal woman sung a dirge that reached into the soul, and plucked right at the heart strings. The air was chill and clammy, and from down in the depths there was a barely audible groaning sound… as if the expansive crypt hungered to embrace the living who had ventured within.

It was, in other words, a typical night in the Tomb.

The two companions slid through the crowd, avoiding the undead creatures whenever possible. They ducked into side galleries, wove through chapels that had been turned into lounges and descended even further into the earth, wandering through catacombs that had been converted into wine cellars where couples sat in niches behind gossamer curtains, their silhouettes close as they spoke of private matters. A man sat on a high stool in the corner of the room, his fingers plucking away at the strings of his instrument. He was long and lean, with hair the color of spilled ink, and dressed in clothes a generation or two out of fashion. Maren was glancing around the room, wondering where her companion was leading her, when the outlander slid something out of his pocket. Silver glinted in his palm for a moment, and he flipped the item end-over-end in an arc toward the wooden bowl at the musician’s feet. Before it could fall, the bard’s arm snapped out, and he snatched the glint from the air.

“Been a long time,” the musician said as the final notes of his song faded away.

“Not that long,” the outlander said with a smile. “Do you remember what you told me when you gave me that ring?”

“I remember,” the pale man said. He shook his head slowly, just once, and let out a breath. Then he slid the ring onto the middle finger of his left hand. The silver skull gleamed, the empty sockets filled with unnatural shadows. As he curled that hand into a fist, those shadows bled out of the ring, weeping down the silver and sliding over the man’s skin before vanishing up the sleeve of his coat. He rolled out his neck with a sharp crack, slid his instrument off his lap, and stood. He opened a case that had been leaning against the wall, placed the guitar inside, and then carefully closed it. Standing up, he turned to Meran, and the outlander. “All right, let’s go.”

“That’s it?” Meran said, the words bursting out of her. “You’re not going to ask what the job is, or what he expects you to do?”

“Nope,” the man said, giving Meran a flash of strong, white teeth. “I’m a man of my word, and I told him that when he needed me, this side of the grave or the other, I’d be there.”

Meran’s eyes filled up with questions that trembled on her lips. When she opened her mouth, though, all she said was, “Three rounds. I expect three rounds for putting up with all your cloak and dagger nonsense.”

“Where did you find her?” the man with the tarnished silver ring asked. “I like her.”

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100 Post-Apocalyptic Aerial Encounters, 100 Post-Apocalyptic Aerial Encounters (Mutant Future) and 100 Data Files to Find for Sale in the Revel Now Available

100 Post-Apocalyptic Aerial Encounters100 Post-Apocalyptic Aerial Encounters, 100 Post-Apocalyptic Aerial Encounters (Mutant Future) and 100 Data Files to Find for Sale in the Revel are now available to buy on DriveThruRPG.

Even in a post-apocalyptic setting, there can be things to encounter, ranging from the useful to the odd to the dangerous. 100 Post-Apocalyptic Aerial Encounters has 100 such for the skies.

100 Post-Apocalyptic Aerial Encounters (Mutant Future) is the above supplement converted for use with Mutant Future. You do not need both versions.

In The Stars Are Fire, characters can find data for sale, and 100 Data Files to Find for Sale in the Revel 100 such to find about the Revel of varying value and utility.

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Tabletop Mercenary, Episode 21: Talking About Taxes For TTRPG Creators

In this video, Neal Litherland talks about taxes and the importance of planning for them for freelancers.

Make Your Own Cheap Pallets

A YouTube Short featuring extracts from the longer video to give you an idea of the process.

D10: The Strange Rumours – Ardeyn: Glass Desert

WorldsThe Strange is a game published by Monte Cook Games. It is, at least in part, set in the normal world, but there are other worlds out there, in the Strange. This list has ten rumours for that setting, similar to the various different adventure hooks in the books, and these can be used as adventure hooks or simple misinformation.

  1. Ardeyn’s Glass Desert is one of the most treacherous parts of the recursion because of the ground glass particles that comprise the sand. It’s rumoured that those who are killed by the abrasive nature of the sand may rise as undead beings composed of particles of swirling glass and in a vaguely humanoid form.
  2. Calometh is an Umber Judge who seeks the Silver Sword believing that it will enable him to free demons from evil taint. He’s regarded as a dangerous lunatic by the Court of Sleep, and was cast out to wander alone, though it’s rumoured that Calometh has recently started recruiting a handful of humans to his cause.
  3. Galeta Swan is the current leader of the Reclaimers of the Glass Desert, who was captured and put into slavery by glass pirates when she was young. Though Galeta has vowed to bring the Green Wilds to the desert as a way of seeking revenge on the pirates, it’s rumoured that sometimes she uses more direct means against them, and regularly hires others to seek out and destroy pirate ships.
  4. It’s rumoured that someone has been taking advantage of the fact that the glass pirates are not unified in order to turn at least some of them against the others. It’s being said that a clan is being paid a bounty for any other pirates they hunt down, and that some from outside the Glass Sea have started to consider signing up to do the same.
  5. Siraja, the captain of the Revenge, has a fearsome reputation such that some of the other glass pirates fear her. It’s rumoured that her reputation has grown to such an extent that a bounty has been offered on her head, body optional, in order to end her depredations.
  6. Taimin of the Nightstar is one of the most well-known of the pirates of the Glass Sea, and it’s known that he has a habit of decreeing death matches between members of his crew who are feuding with each other. It’s rumoured that he’s not averse to ordering a death match to eliminate those he fears might try and usurp him at some point.
  7. The glass pirates of the Glass Desert are anything but a coherent force and the clans will often fight when they come across each other. This makes the rumour that someone is trying to unite the pirate clans worrying, as the potential infighting is one thing that somewhat diminishes the risk the pirates pose.
  8. The Reclaimers want to return the Glass Desert to the garden it once was, and are seeking out any way of doing so. There are occasional rumours that for some Reclaimers this means any way at all, and that they have performed frightful acts in their attempts to recreate the lost garden.
  9. The Silver Sword is a blade of glass visible only every nine years in the Glass Desert and can briefly be used to shrink the borders of the desert. Knowledge of its existence has leaked out and many adventurers are now seeking it, as well as the Reclaimers. It’s rumoured that the Reclaimers have taken measures to deal with others seeking the sword.
  10. There is said to be one dragon living in the Glass Desert, and scholars believe it is an embodiment of elemental disaster. It’s rumoured that some sorcerers have been seeking out information on the Glass Desert dragon, but only in the hopes of being able to make a lesser beast of disaster.

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100 Descriptions for Locks, Locales of Sundara: The Skelet-Inn and D66 Elvenspring for the Forbidden Lands Now Available

100 Descriptions for Locks100 Descriptions for Locks, Locales of Sundara: The Skelet-Inn and D66 Elvenspring for the Forbidden Lands are now available to buy from DriveThruRPG.

Doors and containers can have locks, and 100 Descriptions for Locks has 100 such to find. They range from the normal to the odd to the dangerous.

Locales of Sundara: The Skelet-Inn describes a single location, a fantasy inn, without a map but with various details that allow the GM to use it as a drop-in location.

Elvenspring are the half-elven descendants of human hostages left in Ravenland in the Forbidden Lands. D66 Elvenspring for the Forbidden Lands has 36 names and briefly described Elvenspring to encounter.

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Discussions of Darkness, Episode 36: Nothing In Your Chronicle Should Happen In A Vacuum

In the latest episode of Discussions of Darkness, Neal explains why anything that happens in a Chronicle should have an effect on other things.

One Week Bundle: Mutant Future

One Week Bundle: Mutant FutureFor one week seventeen Mutant Future compatible supplements have been bundled together with 50% off. They are as follows:

Click here to get the bundle for $12.42, reduced from $24.84.

Making a Wooden Mantlet for Tabletop Gaming from Coffee Stirrers

This video shows how to make a wooden mantlet for tabletop gaming using coffee stirrers.

D10: Europe Rumours: The Finance Commission

Europe10 Hooks and Rumours for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.’s Europe

This list has ten hooks and rumours that can be heard about Europe’s Finance Commission. Whether or not they are true is up to the GameMaster. They can be used as background colour or as potential adventure hooks.

  1. Audits by the Finance Commission are done on individuals and companies with holdings or throughput in excess of 20,000 eurodollars, with random samplings done on those with less value. It’s rumoured that the random samplings are not entirely random, and that it’s possible to get individuals or companies specifically targeted.
  2. Commissioners of the Finance Commission often work with Interpol to help the latter with their cases. It’s rumoured that some within the Finance Commission and within Interpol believe that those employed by the other should be permanently assigned to them as part of their own organisation.
  3. Company and personal finances are audited by the Finance Commission, and it’s rumoured that some of the auditors working for the commission are little more than thugs running a protection racket, with those refusing to pay the necessary “fees” ending up on the wrong ends of audits which, without fail, always find indications of illegal activity.
  4. Eurobonds are issued by the Eurobank to investors, offering fixed interest rates and available for multiples of five years. It’s rumoured that recently the bank has been issuing Eurobonds in greater than normal numbers, with some wondering just why the bank is seeking so much investor money.
  5. Part of the Finance Commission is currently running blind tests with members of the general public, both within the EU and without, to see what neutral name the eurodollar should be renamed to, so that there is less objection to it becoming the world’s currency.
  6. The auditors and inspectors of the Finance Commission all have degrees of at least masters level, though some study in their spare time whilst at more junior levels. It’s rumoured that the commission has been considering founding its own college in order to train its staff with the degrees they need.
  7. The EC’s finances are controlled by the Finance Commission, which ensures that the budgets of the different commissions are sufficient for their needs. It’s rumoured that those commissions who annoy the Finance Commission in any way find their income drying up and the reasons for this always seem to be corruption within the targeted commission.
  8. The Eurobank is the most powerful financial institution in the world, and rumour is that it’s even more powerful than it seems. It’s said that the Eurobank has been quietly picking up stakes in financial institutions in other countries, slowly allowing it to affect a country’s economics without wielding the brute force of the eurodollar against them.
  9. The Finance Commission has a large number of security personnel, for transportation and site security and as the bodyguards of inspectors and auditors. It’s rumoured that the commission is planning to organise its security personnel so that they are more like a military force than a security one.
  10. The reserves of the Eurobank are stored within vaults in the mountains between Freilassing and Salzburg. These have a reputation for being the strongest vaults on the planet, and it’s rumoured that, so far, no-one has managed to successfully breach them. Which doesn’t stop people from trying, and it’s said that those who get closest, and survive the experience, are offered the choice of either indenture to the Finance Commission or being disappeared.

D10: Europe Rumours: The Finance Commission is unofficial content provided under the Homebrew Content Policy of R. Talsorian Games and is not approved or endorsed by RTG. This content references materials that are the property of R. Talsorian Games and its licensees.

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