Jalisco tugged his sleeves. His cufflinks flashed in the setting sun. Chamber music lilted neath the vaulted pergola, and the scent of wine and cut cypress pervaded the place. Jalisco sniffed, shrugged.

"Stop shrugging," said the man beside him. A weasley fellow, but one far more comfortable in the evening's stiff uniform. He smiled meanly. A golden stud flickered on his lip. "You'd look almost like you belong here, if you'd only look a little more at ease."

"This jacket is tight."

"That's because it fits."

"Next time we do this, you don't get to choose my clothes, Jifre."

Jifre tisked. "Here," he said. He plucked a flute of something gold and bubbly from a passing server. "Hold this and stop picking at your sleeve."

Across the pergola, a smart looking pair appeared. A jowly old woman and a young man, who, by the cut of his browline, was her son. They quickly noticed Jalisco and Jifre, approached them, smiling.

"Oye, dios mio," mumbled Jalisco, drinking. "Not her."

They neared.

"There you are!" enthused the young man. He gestured, palm open. "Mother, I'd like you to meet Jalisco. He's one of the cutters who cleaned out the undercroft for us!"

"Pleasure," said the old woman, extending a chiffon-clad hand. Jalisco took it, awkwardly, and, having smiled hesitantly for a moment in frozen thought, kissed it.

The old woman giggled in delight, clasped her heart. "What a gentleman," she said. Jalisco appeared momently shocked. "What a prince," she said. "Especially compared to that swine I met coming out of the undercroft. I'm glad not all your company are like him."

"Oye, well," Jalisco mumbled, still smiling. Jifre giggled wickedly, beside.

"Mother, Dear," said the young man, touching her elbow. "This is the man you met yesterday. He had a very impressive trophy in tow, you'll remember?"

"But that man was a boor! He was covered in blood, and he stank of offal!" She squinted at Jalisco, who was sweating. "You can't be!"

Jalisco bowed, hesitantly. "E-encantada, señora," he said, glancing at Jifre, who was stifling laughter. "Apologies about, uh, yesterday."

"Such a mannered young man, after all!" she said. "Well, I am sorry I screamed, señor. You clean up well!"

They all laughed. Jalisco, somewhat panickedly.

"Well, we shall happily await seeing you at dinner, my good fellows," said the old woman's son, stifling further mirth. "Hasta entonces!"

They parted. Jifre was still giggling. "You fat flirt," he said, winking at Jalisco. "Hamming it up for the old lady."

"Oye, what can I say?" said Jalisco, wiping his brow. He downed the glass of bubbly. "I guess I clean up well."

The Reaction Roll

The following is a mechanic from the Incunabuli Playtest:

Intelligent NPCs determine their starting disposition toward individual player characters via a reaction roll. The roll is made upon first meeting the character, and should be made again after some time has passed or circumstances have changed.

To make a reaction roll, assemble all the relevant reaction modifiers below, and apply them to a roll.

If the player character is:

Ragged: -2
Bloody -2
Filthy/unwashed: -2
In filthy, unwashed, or bloody company: -2
Unmannered: -2*
Misdressed -2*
Harmful: -2
Helpful: +2
Groomed: +1-4*
Well-spoken: +2*
Strangely Attractive: +2**
Etc.

Compare the result of this roll to the table below to get the NPC’s reaction:

16+: Affectionate, accommodating, beneficent: The NPC will deviate notably from their everyday lives in order to help or interact with the player character. They will accept detriment to themselves in order to do so.
15-12: Friendly, helpful, amenable. The NPC might offer a favor or their help, even at mild detriment to themselves.
11-8: Pleasant, civil, cooperative. The NPC may help, so long as nothing unreasonable is asked of them.
7-4: Disinterested, uncertain, or unhelpful. The NPC will do the minimum asked of them, or may politely refuse. They will not perform any favors or engage for long without strong impetus.
3-0: Hostile, disgusted, or frightened. The NPC will be of no help at all. They will leave as soon as possible, or else try and remove the offending player character.

If an NPC is harmed or otherwise wronged, they will make a new reaction roll, accounting for new modifiers, such as Harmful, to determine their new demeanor. Similarly, an NPC will reroll if they have been treated unusually well, taking into account any new modifiers, such as Helpful.

Likewise, if an NPC is approached in a different context, or approached by a player character whose modifiers have changed, they will roll again.

Certain NPCs, such as bank clerks or wilderness publicans, will be less bothered by characters in a run-down or hideous state.

Discussion

Here's one of those rather rare articles in which I present an actual mechanic. This time, the reaction roll. Or, at least, my use of it.

If you ask me, the greatest utility for such a thing lies in its ability to create emergent gameplay situations that are surprising and entertaining for both the GM and their players, as well as its ability to unburden the GM of some decision making. This can be achieved with the reaction roll of old, certainly.

However, the old table has some issues. Namely, its attempt at universal applicability fails: It does not tend to yield believable results, not without more than a little interpretation of said results. This is caused by its attempt to paint a full spectrum of possible behavior over a massive range of subjects (animals, monsters, people,) many of whom might not befit certain bands of the spectrum without absurdity, or, again, interpretation. The result of this failure ends up re-burdening the GM with the decision making the roll was meant to defer.

Furthermore, if a reaction table is meant for use when players encounter beings whose reactions are uncertain (or, at least, not automatically hostile,) why not start at a "neutral" automatic reaction, and then play things out based on other factors (the creature's needs and goals versus the players ability to negotiate, for instance.) Why must things be random, when a more believable outcome might be drawn from factors at hand?

To many, of course, the answer to these issues would be to lean on the beloved tradition of "rulings, not rules," and override the thing whenever it doesn't work. That's fine.

I, however, desire rules that are fully intentional.

So, I use a reaction table only in the circumstance in which I find its emergent results most fitting: Reactions by intelligent NPCs in social encounters.

This use is doubly warranted: First, in a system such as mine, wherein there are (of course) no rules for social skills, we need some believable foundation, believably informed by circumstance, on which to build a PC/NPC interaction.

And second: In what other circumstance is the outcome of a first impression more important than the reaction of an NPC? An NPC who, unlike monsters encountered on the wilderness path, is no throwaway obstacle, and whose changing moods and opinions may have continuing effect on the PCs for some time. And, even if the NPC is a one-off encounter, a nuanced, believable reaction by them will serve to separate them from the everyday wandering encounter.

So, here there it is, above, as I currently utilize it. I'm sure I will tweak it, in time.

If you like what you've read, r/Incunabuli and @Incunabuli are rather good ways to get updates served directly to you.

If you like what you've read quite a lot and want exclusive articles and a really large world map, consider joining Incunabuli on Patreon.

Special thanks to Archon's Court Games, and all my generous supporters for their continuing support. Incunabuli is made possible in great part by the them.

Footnotes

* These factors are provided by skills, in my system. The Manners and Grooming skills, respectively. The final

** This factor is provided by a trait, as I run it.

Something crashed in the night.

Eloise scowled. Half past two in the morning. Another crash, followed by several echoing clangs, like a kettle dropped down steps. Then a muffled rumble of raucous adolescent chortling.

Eloise tore away her bedclothes, stomped for the door, nightgown flapping.

Barefoot, she stamped down the creaking paneled staircase, set foot on the cold hallway tile. Under the kitchen door, there flickered light. Muffled laughter came from within. Laughter, and some animal snuffling. Eloise seized the knob, pushed through.

"Sagle, what in the Lord's good name is…" She croaked, trailed. Confusion deepened the lines of her face. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, gawped at what had become of the kitchen.

The kitchen door hung open to salty night air, and at the table, strewn with pots, pans, and jarred goods, sat two teenage boys, mop-headed and still dressed in their coats, scarves, and boots. It was not the boys that drew Eloise's stare, however, but the three creatures seated with them.

Three brown and furry visitors. Four-foot glossy-black beasts with elbow-y arms and nimble fingers capped in stout claws. They resembled a trio of small men unconvincingly dressed as large otters, or perhaps thin bears. One was, at that moment, passing a green and mostly empty bottle to Sagle, snuffling. Another drunkenly lapped salt peanuts from a jar with an obscenely long pink tongue. The third was gesturing complicatedly to the first, clawed fingers twisting intricate shapes in air. It grunted for emphasis, seeming to indicate Eloise's appearance.

"What?" sputtered Eloise. "Sagle! What are those?" She gestured, nightgown cuffs flapping.

"Ah, Mum," drawled the pimply Sagle, grinning. "Meet my new friends!" He patted the nearest creature on its narrow back. The furry personage turned, flared his nose, and performed some complicated series of gestures at Eloise, finished by a salutary touch to the top of its glossy head, as if tipping a cap.

"Friends? These are animals." Eloise swept forward, shooing. "Out, out! Out of my kitchen, you badgers!"

"Master Eloise, please!" slurred the other boy, standing and raising his dirty hands. "They are not badgers. They are traveling gentlemen!" He gestured at creatures, who had taken up cloth bags, exotically embroidered, and seemed sheepishly ready to leave. All five sets of eyes, two human and three brown-gold and watery, eyed the woman. "Look, they have luggage. They are civil folk."

"Since when do gentlemen have fur? And where have they traveled from?" Eloise huffed, crossing her arms. "At that, where did you find them?"

"They are visitors from the sea, Mum," urged Sagle. "We met them at the docks. They came in a very nice square boat."

"Square boat? Pah! Travelers. Not travelers, then, but drunken foreigners?"

"No, no," Sagle's friend shook his head, smiling. "They're not vagrants. Not at all." He grinned. "And they were not drunk until we took them to the Eagle."

At this, there was a crash. Eloise flinched. A ceramic crock rolled into view. Yet another creature emerged, staggering quadrupedal from the larder with a brown fifth of Firlish beer in hand. He crawled up on a stool and yanked off the cork with a confident pop. One of his fellows gestured, claws flicking, and offered a china bowl to be filled. They drank, messily, gesturing between gulps and frothy snorting.

"How many of them are there?" exclaimed Eloise.

"Just these," Sagle said. "The others went off willy nilly with other crowds. They're very popular."

"I simply can't imagine how," grumbled Eloise, she glared at the rapidly growing mess of spilled drink.

"Oh, it's simple. They're rich."

"R-rich?"

"Yes. Very."

"Rich in what? Acorns?"

Sagle patted the creature beside him, who turned companionably, blinking. "Show us one of those gemstones, good man," he said, and dug out a silver penny, to illustrate. The furry person made a waggle of sticky claws and, clumsily, opened the drawstring of his exotic pouch. Eloise goggled at what glittered inside.

An emerald the size of a grape clacked on the tabletop. All the furry creatures began gesturing, conspiratorially.

"That's a-"

"See? They're rich."

"Oh." Eloise's tone changed. She stepped forward, plucked up the gemstone. The bear-otter creatures seemed not to mind. It twinkled, crystal clear, save for shining gold inclusions. "They," said Eloise, weighing it in her hand. "They wouldn't be seeking lodgings, would they?"

Piedmont stood on the embassy steps, umbrella in hand. Chilly springtime drizzle lent a grey shine to the imperial concrete grandeur of Governance Lane.

Beside him stood an official in a navy suit and a black silk sash: The official mark of a Crown Parliamentarian. Under her umbrella, held by a uniformed aide beside, she bore a look of prim anticipation. Her fingers twitched. Complicated gestures.

Piedmont broached a smile. "I'd, uh, like to thank you again for arranging this opportunity, Sir."

She glanced at him. "Wallace, you know my position. Thank the envoys. They hold an… eagerness that outweighs my caution." She pursed her lips, maintained an eye on the street. It was blockaded by mounted, decoratively steel-encrusted officers, armed and stately. "As do you."

"They are simply as interested in us as we are in them. Do you distrust that?"

"Not as much."

"Then why your caution?"

"Whether their curiosity is innocent or not, humanity's certainly isn't. You recall what became of their first diplomatic mission?"

"Yes," said Piedmont, wearily. "The Alagorians put them in a zoo."

"Thus my hesitance."

"You distrust their lack of distrust."

"I am concerned by it. Concerned for them, and about them: After being robbed and treated as beasts, they come again to the shores of our world with open arms? Trusting only that a mission to the North might prove friendlier than to the South? Concerned, yes. And cautious."

"Do you think they are deceiving us?"

"No, not as much as that."

"Then surely, this is a chance to prove our Firlish exceptionalism." Piedmont enclosed Firlish exceptionalism with a parodic tone.

The MP shut her eyes briefly. "That is what I am trying to convince my colleagues of. They, however, are tempted by the possibility of immediate trade. Which I discourage, given our lack of concrete information."

"Tempted by all those flowing gemstones."

"Yes, which the bears seem equally willing to spend." She pinched her nose, wincing. "The envoys, rather."

"Do they look like bears, to you?" said Piedmont.

"Forgive my lapse, Wallace. I know they are not animals."

"I know you know." He smiled. "I was merely going to put in that I believe they're more like otters. Rather adorable."

"Their appearance is indeed, well, disarming." The MP smirked, but only briefly. She glanced past Piedmont, eyes flitting past the mounted guards and decorated rows of state buildings, to the ornate, shut gate and statued arches at the lane's end, wet with rain. Idly, she massaged her palms, ran her fingers through a mimed series of gestures, briefly touched the pate of her pinned hair. She repeated the sequence.

"Sign language coming on well?" said Piedmont, noticing.

"Well enough," she said, wearily, quit gesturing. "I will be able to greet them. Dunne will handle the rest."

"Dunne, your translator."

"Yes. Alas, the sign is another obstacle to my aims. She is good, and has learned remarkably fast, but these folk are… already so alien. Their language even more so. I feel my words will not take hold, regardless of her skill. Sometimes, I cannot tell if their ignorance is honest, due our clumsiness, or willful." She turned to Piedmont, briefly. "Even a roomful of älves would be easier, I'm sure you'd agree."

"I would." He smiled.

Down the lane, a drone of highland pipes roared to life, heralding the procession's arrival. A clatter of horseshoes gained. The gates creaked wide, admitting a glossy black carriage and an escort of towering cavalry. They bore ceremonial partizans dangling with tasseled lamps; swinging, glowing blue and diffuse in the drizzle. The MP straightened. Piedmont's eyes brightened. They watched the swaying lamps near down the vast, officious lane.

"You mean to caution, them, I suppose?" said Piedmont, loud, over the pipes.

"I do. If we are to avoid another travesty, I must convince them to wrangle up their roaming "emissaries" at once. They can explore our cities, in time. But for now, they only put themselves at risk. They will be exploited, if things continue as they are."

The carriage neared. Footmen emerged from the embassy with a stepped mounting block and placed it beneath the carriage door as the wheels stilled. Furry, indistinct shapes shifted behind the fogged, small windows. From the carriage dismounted a red-cuffed sergeant at arms, who, gripping the decorated door, announced: "The honorable delegates from far Tefelk." All bowed as the delegates emerged.

They descended, tentatively, like otters from a cave. Four of them, picking their way, shrouded by footmen's umbrellas, down to the wet flags. Some wore a smattering of Firlish clothes- small pinned hats, waistcoats, and gloves- and all clutched embroidered cloth-of-gold bags. They stood, some bipedal, others with but a single paw raised, flicking away water, appearing for all the world like a lot of confused, costumed marmots.

Behind exited the flyaway Dunne, who, acquiring the delegates' attention and directing it towards the MP, made introductions.

Rapt, Piedmont watched the official's signed greeting, which finished with a touch of the pate. He did so, as well, smiling. The delegates returned the gesture, somewhat absently.

"Gentlemen, if you would follow me," she smiled thinly, signing.

The delegates burst with activity. Snuffling, signing, tugging the tired Dunne's trouser leg for attention, they followed up the embassy steps.

Back down the lane echoed the hoofbeats of a single rider. The MP, consumed in helping Dunne with the fumbling, possibly drunken, furry delegates over the tall steps, did not notice.

Piedmont frowned, broke from the lot at a brisk pace to intercept the arriving rider. He stopped at the road, motioned for her, as she, rain-drenched, reined to a halt amidst the idling cavalry. The rider, an embassy attaché, dismounted and thrust a wet-spotted letter at Piedmont, speaking. "Urgent, from the Port Authority."

Piedmont tore it open, read. His face slackened, then hardened. His heels clattered up the embassy steps, stopped, stumbling, to walk beside the henpecked MP. "From the port authority," he indicated the letter. The MP frowned, glancing, irritated, away from the clamoring delegates. "Ships are launching for Tefelk," summarised Piedmont.

"No," mouthed the MP. She stopped, glanced at the creatures, who continued without her, deep in conversation with flustered Dunne. She frowned, lip curled.

Piedmont goggled at her. "So they have given themselves away? Are they so incautious?"

"Worse. I believe they are desperate." She stepped as if to rejoin them.

"Wait," said Piedmont, hurriedly. "Desperate for what? What haven't you mentioned?"

She looked back at him. "They are more like us than you know, Wallace."

Piedmont blinked at her. "How? They're not in a position to loot our world. We are, for theirs."

Fast, she spoke, glancing back at the departing entourage. "That's because we suspect their world is ruined, Wallace."

Beckoning for her umbrella, she spoke once more before departing.

"We suspect they are not foolish animals, but hopeless ones."

Tefelk

In the mild autumn of 3.444, aliens landed on the balmy shore of peninsular Alagór.

Aliens in boxy arks with sails battened like webbed fingers. Furry, wet-eyed, long-tongued creatures, reminiscent of otters or long-bodied bears. Mostly starved, they fell upon the cypress-scented olive towns in an excited gaggle, driven to root and scavenge like the animals they so resembled. And in little time, they encountered Littoran* kind.

The fortunate were allowed to trade. Trade great, inexplicable pawfulls of gemstones, brought with them on their arks in bags of gold thread, for meager supper. Silently, clumsily, they traded, for the aliens spoke not words, but queer gestures unrecognized by the Alagóran countryfolk as anything more intelligent than the pawing and grooming of cats. The trade proceeded only briefly; only as long as the alien bear-things could be extorted of their gems, whose value they seemed not to understand.

The misfortunate met sorrowful ends. The lucky among them were caught, robbed, and caged in national zoos, where they lived as miserable specimens of another world a short while before expiring. The unlucky were, appearing to simple humankind as mere beasts, simply shot as curious game.

Those few that remained gathered what goods they could aboard two arks, and struck off again across the trackless sea.

To this day, there remain alien arks of foreign timber mouldering on the shores of Alagór. The few scholars to have analysed them found writings there. Scrolls, that, once deciphered over many arduous years of translation, told of a once-proud and artful people. A mute species reduced to desperate indigence by a disaster of their own creation, driven to find a new home on the shores of other worlds. Refugees, come from a wondrous ruin of a land.

A land the translators named Tefelk.**

Present Day

For long years, scholars, explorers, and banks Coastwide sought eagerly that alien, gem-filled land. Even as the arks faded from public memory, even as all forgot what foreboding words they deciphered from the Tefelkan's scrolls, the rich and the greedsome sought Tefelk.

And, after half a decade of fruitless speculation and lost expeditions past the seas of the world, the Tefelkans returned.

In the spring of 3.449, they came upon the docks of cold and dreary Firlund. Still weary, still starved. Still, with their stomachs hollow and the lustre faded from their silken otters'-fur, they plunged into Northern cities with a gusto to trade, eat, and socialize undiminished by the failures and horror of half a decade ago.

And the Northerners, themselves a strange and often furry lot, hailed them as foreign gentlemen. Hailed them with a worrisomely uninhibited conviviality. Unmitigated by cultural, linguistic, and anatomical barriers, they took the Tefelkans among them, and, as guides, quickly found commonality in quickly-realised and much-desired unities: Food, strong drink, and music. Lots of it. Enjoyed while parting the aliens all the while from their glittering, high-carat money. It was a welcome made warm, doubtless due to these gemstones, which flowed aplenty from the newcomer's cloth-of-gold purses.

And even as they were subtly robbed, the Tefelkans pursued their exploration with animal fervor. Interested not in establishing cogent communication, but with expanding their furry emissaries experience into all facets of Northern society. They were there to explore, to investigate, to survey new lands.

Only after two months of explorative carousing, after multiple emissaries' deaths and several arks suddenly departed again from Firlish shores, did the Tefelkans make any attempt at formal, diplomatic relations. They, somewhat distractedly, began to cooperate with Firlish Academy linguists' attempts at decoding their curious sign language.

As dialogues with Tefelkan delegates grew fruitful, several points of information became clear. First, the Tefelkans owned some opaque reason for their nearly-suicidal exploration, a reason they either willingly or innocently refused to disclose. Second, the delegates' foremost goal was to obtain possibly retroactive permission to land several more waves of arks. Third, they enquired ceaselessly about other Coastal territories and nations, seemingly in an attempt to recruit more allies, or possible landing zones.

For all three points, the Firls could gain no elaborate detail from the Tefelkan delegates, who reliably lapsed into a sort of faux good-natured linguistic ineptitude when questioned further.

The Firlish Crown held no trust for this ruse. Given knowledge of the ominous scrolls left by the first, failed wave of arks, Firlish diplomatic policy settled on a sort of polite stalemate: Pending further communication, they would host the Tefelkan's indefinitely, but would sanction neither further refugee landings nor facilitate introductions to allied nations.

This ultimatum was made under the good-faith guise of protecting the Tefelkans from neighboring nations, whose comparative greed the Firls emphasized to no end.

Greed

Faced with an intransigent and cautious Firlish Crown, the Tefelkans made new allies: Banks, trade commissions, and private investors.

They sold the priceless route to legendary Tefelk to any and all who could promise transport to and from that vaunted land of supposed riches. The gave up their world, seemingly without care for the likely influence of voracious, eagerly colonial powers. They cared only for the possibility of escape for their countrymen left behind.

Now, countless expeditions launch for Tefelk, bearing with them furry alien navigators strangely eager to betray their hidden world.

The Truth

Only the Tefelkans know the whole truth.

They are altogether more like Littoran folk than they let on. In their furry heads, they are aware of their necessary deception, of their willful camouflage of idiocy and alienness.

They proceed with their nigh self-destructive exploration, for they are desperate. They are the faithful few, chosen by a waning civilization and sent, expending precious dwindling resources, to acquire, by any means, deliverance.

For Tefelk— wondrous, gem-filled Tefelk— it a ruin.

A world somehow destroyed. Burnt to near nothing, adrift between wilder worlds by the same means and in the same fashion as the Coast was, in antique days, by the Ancient Nor. Hence, the poor bear-like Tefelkans are more like mankind than mankind can yet know.

And, thus far, they have succeeded. They have lured ships by the dozens along the hidden oceanic gaps between worlds. Lured ships' that will find not a land of plenty ripe for exploitation, but a barely-extant wreck of coastline and a starving populace clung to a dying, vanishing land.

They have lured the means by which they will, by any means, survive.

Author's Note

So, it's not a Halloween article, but it's here on Halloween.

The concept of Tefelk is one I have kicked around for quite a while (and it is, mainly, a concept; one I will continue to edit and tweak.) Sadly, it's one I won't be able to subject my players to, as they will have read it here in due time.

It's sort of a continuation of the idea of a negadungeon (nega-expedition?) Players may be lured to Tefelk either by greed, or by a moral imperative to prevent rampant colonial greed. Either way, as they find more info, it will become increasingly clear that nothing good will ever come of contact with Tefelk. It's a trap:

Going to the ruined world itself just nets you a year-long voyage to a dwindling hellscape, with horrifyingly little possibility of making it back to the Coast.
Extorting the desperate Tefelkans amounts to hastening the extinction of a sapient race.
Dealing with the Tefelkans will lead to them revealing existentially dangerous technology (the likes of which the Ancient Nor almost wrecked the world with.) The Tefelkans realise their mistake, of course, but humanity has too much hubris not to make the same mistakes twice.

Something will end up horrible or morally reprehensible, at the end. Enjoy.

Special thanks to HDA, G. Sal Risa, Louis, and all my generous supporters for their continuing support. Incunabuli is made possible in great part by the them.

Footnotes

* "Littoran" describes any of the folk native to the Coast, be they human, mouse, or otherwise.

** Tefelkans, of course, do not refer to themselves or their land by this word, as they have no spoken language.

On the cobbled gatepost, there sat a skull.

A human skull, set in a divot midst the stones. Brown, crusty. A fresh wreath of floral daisy pixies, their heads torn off, crowned its sun-dried pate. A lump of clay carved with runes was tied in its gaping jaw.

On the road, two Ward Rangers stared at it from horseback. One spat a gob of pepperelle juice, non-affectual. "Well," he said, thumbing another wad of chew. "What you bet this is her place?" he nodded, past the gate, over the planted lawn budded with cabbage and broccoli. There, surrounded by blooming mock orange, squatted a stone cottage. A deflated frog was nailed to the rune-daubed door. Flies buzzed thickly beside.

A boy with a covered wheelbarrow passed, knickerbockered legs coated with mud and flies. "Hey, lad," one Ranger called. "This old Nan's place?"

The boy nodded, pimply face screwed up out of exhaustion, or for the sun.

"Okay, thanks lad."

The kid continued hurriedly. A bit of the barrow's tarp flapped in the summer wind.

The other Ranger, a woman with a peachy blond buzzcut, shook her head wearily. She dismounted. "Come on then," she said. "Let's see what nan's got to say about… " she waved a hand at the village square, behind them, where a great woven twiggy shape loomed, taller than the surrounding fir trees. "That," she said.

Gate hinges creaked. Black riding boots squished through the muddy garden. A gloved hand rapped at the door, beside the toad and the mud-drawn symbols. The Rangers met eyes, raised curious brows. They waited.

A mock orange pixie, sweetly white and tittering, gently assaulted the man's earlobe. He brushed it away. In the distance, a crow creaked thrice.

"Come on. Is she there?" mused the woman. She knocked again, scratched her insect-bitten neck. "Bollocks. There's no end of flies."

"Maybe she's hard of hearing," chewed the man.

She grumped, raised a fist to knock again.

The door jerked open.

"Uh." The blonde Ranger shut her mouth, politely clasped her hands. "Good day." They both smiled determinedly, but winced. A rank aura of pickling and rancid butter wafted from within.

"Hallo," said the hunched woman in the door. She grinned, loosing a liver-y breath and a glimpse of three black teeth. "Ah, Ranyers! Ooh, would ye look at te two of ye? So smart, in yer little ridin' capes n' hoods." She drawled in a thickly pastoral Awnish accent, pricked at the nearer ranger's grey hem.

The Rangers, their navy summer uniforms stained with sweat and dust, smiled politely. "Old Nan Dagne, I presume?" said the man, chewing, extending a hand. Old Nan gripped it softly in bony fingers, shook. A bit of ash came off on the Ranger's glove.

"Ja, ja," Nan said. "Would ye care te come in? Have a bit o' kraut n' sour cream on a hot day?" She gestured into the cottage. It was dark and moistly hot, within. Some things, herbs or pheasants or coneys, hung swaying in the dim, backlit by a greasy peat fire, lit despite the summer's heat.

"No, thank you, Nan. That won't be necessary. We only have some quick questions, if you'd oblige us," said the blonde Ranger, hurriedly.

"Oh o' course," said Nan. She passively smoothed her filthy paisley apron. "So good o' ye te sheck on te old folk. Sush good little Ranyers."

"Uh."

"Listen, Nan," said the chewer. "Would ya happen to know anything about that?" He pointed back, towards the square and the woven form of twigs.

"Oh, ja," smiled Nan, again revealing those three teeth. The Rangers subtly averted their gaze. "Te effigy! A very happy old tradition. Part of te majstång. "

"The midsommar festival?"

"Ja!"

"Can you elaborate? You burn it, right?"

Nan Dagne nodded. "We burn him, and burn away all te ills of yesteryear. And his ashes fertilize te fields." She grinned wickedly, pointed at the blonde ranger's midriff. "And te young ladies, eh?" She nodded knowingly.

The Ranger glared at her, stepped back once. "Okay, fine," she said. "That's all you burn? Just a wicker man?"

"Ja," said Nan, confusedly. "What else would we burn?"

"What about that skull?" said the man, pointing back. "Did you burn him?"

"No?" said Nan. "He is pleased to be dere."

The Rangers blinked awhile. Old Nan mugged at them, toothlessley.

"Nan," said the blonde. "Would you mind terribly if some of us from the Fort attended your Midsommar festivities?"

"Not at all!"

"Uh, grand. Wonderful."

They all stood. Nan mugged all the while.

"We'll be off, then," said the Ranger woman, as last, turning faster than usual.

"Fairwell!"

Off down the path, swatting at pixies and the blizzard of flies which had detached from Nan's open door. They stepped into their stirrups, flicked the reins, and departed the little hamlet. They left, looking often back at what loomed at the center of town. Over the peaked shingled rooftops and squat stone chimneys: A giant. A giant woven from willow, with great antlers, adorned with all the flowers of summer.

"Bloody impossible to tell what they're up to," muttered the chewing man. "Even when it's right bloody there." He spat, inches from the flinching knickerbockered boy and the wheelbarrow as they approached him.

"Quite. Right. These neosorcerors are getting more brazen. Everything's out in the open, and you can't even see it."

"Exactly."

They tittered to themselves, capes flapping in the summer wind. They overtook the muddy boy, gossiping all the while.

The boy with the barrow, and his covered load of carven, human bones.

Out at sea, between the overcast, drizzling sky and equally grey waves, hung a black ship. A barque with a glistening hull painted with tar, and sails of luxuriant burgundy. Billowing anthracite smoke puffed forth from triple stacks amidships, swathed the craft in a stormy veil; a thundercloud out at sea.

At shore, behind an old wall overlooking a slimy stone moorage, huddled children in down coats. They shivered for the chill drizzle, peered over the mossy stone, covertly, eyes fixed on the ship.

"Help me up!" squeaked a tiny voice. Someone hoisted a sweater-clad mouse pup, small and fat as a football, up onto the wall. "Wow!" he exclaimed, pitchily.

The eldest child, a serious-looking redheaded girl, nodded knowingly. "Aye. And you lot said it wouldn't come. I told you: a've seen it before. Her ship, with her red sails."

"The Sorceress!" cried the mouse. The other children held fingers to their lips, hushed him.

"Quiet, Dempsey."

"Look, look," said the pup, quieter. "There's a little boat lowering down."

And there was: A long shuttle boat, similarly black, had lowered and put out oars. It started towards the wave-licked moorage, oars heaving, fast as a water-strider over the lapping sea. From its stern fluttered a curling, burgundy banderole marked with runes of silver thread.

"Who are they?" said a shivering boy. He stuck a grubby finger at the moorage, where an entourage of folk in black suits and flapping fur and broadcloth cloaks had appeared, battered by the wind. One and all, they wore silver, gold, and alabaster masks under their long hoods. At their lead, first on the dock, stood a man haloed by wind-whipped silken black hair. Glittering rings encrusted his clasped, satin-gloved hands.

"Dunno. More sorcerers?"

"Aristos, Galder. See their masks? Only aristos wear them."

"Wow," said the boy, mouth agape.

The shuttle neared. The oars withdrew. Attendants, clad in rubber jumpsuits and sack hoods, leapt to the pier and hauled the craft to dock with stout ropes. They tied it off and lowered a gangplank.

Across, shielded by umbrella-wielding attendants, came a mismatched pair. First, an impossibly tall woman in crisp black. A narrow hood and cherry-red streamers of hair framed her onyx, sneering mask. She stepped onto the dock, and all bowed, save the ring-fingered man, who shook her red-gloved hand. At the sight of her, the children gasped. Someone shushed the pup.

Next among the pair came a mask-less woman. A small presence, beside the towering lead. She too wore formal black, a split-sleeve frock coat, but was otherwise austere and unadorned; with short shiny hair and no jewels. She stood, naked hands clasped, nodding primly to the entourage.

"Who is she?" squeaked the mouse, too loud. His thin voice cut clearly through the wind. The children all hushed him again, but too late: The mask-less woman flicked a glance towards their wall, raised one thin brow. The kids ducked for cover. Someone yanked the mouse down, too, and covered his brown snout.

The eldest girl pressed a finger to her lips, for subdued conversation gained, soft over the wind. The entourage was approaching via the narrow, winding stone path up the hill. It abutted the old wall's edge.

Pained, horrified expressions passed over the other children's faces. Someone mouthed oh no.

Footsteps. Hard heels on mossy stone. Shadows passed round the wall, and flapping cloaks and tails of coats rounded too. The masked folk spoke softly, with some amusement in their tone, in a language unknown.

They paid no notice to the children, save the maskless one. She came last, and, lip curled in amusement, winked at them. One white, long-fingered, horribly scarred hand waved, passively, in greeting.

Dumbstruck, Galder waived back.

The Sorceress and her entourage departed, laughing and mumbling in forgotten words.

"Oh, I've pissed meself," whined Dempsey, the pup.

"Serves you right," said a thin, pimply boy. "Thank luck the Sorceress didn't see! You almost got us killed."

"Who was that last woman?" said Galder. "She seemed nice."

Everyone looked to the eldest. She beheld them, absolutely pale.

"What? Tell us, Ivy." they demanded of her.

"You d-dolts," stammered Ivy. "The woman with the red hair and the mask, that was the Duke of Felance. I've seen her mask in the papers. It wasn't the Sorceress."

"W-what?" said Galder. "Which one was she, then?"

"The Sorceress did see us. Didn't you see her hands?" said Ivy.

"Oh my. She waved right at us."

"Galder waved back!" said the pup.

"Oh no."

"I'm sorry," sniffled Galder. "I didn't know it was her."

"That's how they get you, Sorcerers, says my mum," said Ivy, seriously. "You never know, at all."

Dark Practice

Neosorcery isn't illegal.

It is, after all, merely the study and application of ancient technology; no more illegal than learning Ancient Nor or building scale models of antique aqueducts. The study of ancient writing systems and irrigation, however, doesn't involve chopping people up, brewing up monsters, and dabbling in arts that long ago ushered in a Dark Age for all mankind.

Consequently, neosorcery does tend to be illegal. For it will, as a learner shifts from tantalizing theory into debauched practice, come to demand steep costs. Costs that mount without fail into the most abominable of crimes.

Seeds

The Coast is a fertile land. A land littered with moldering carcasses of countless empires centuries gone. Kingdoms, dominions, and hegemonies, fatted once, one and all, by powers long ago unveiled by the dead Nor. The Nor, who drew them from the depths of physics and biology by methods now lost. The Nor, who with their arts brought doom to all the world, burning it, its universe entire, down to a tattered scrap of coastline: our tiny Coast, abutted by a wilder Otherworld that ever threatens to consume it.

The Nor, whose science we call now sorcery. Whose great corpse of knowledge fed all the corrupted many minds to come. A great bloat of knowledge that nourished a two millennia Dark Age and all the horrid powers that rose, fell, and died along the way, creating, like the Nor, fertile lands for those still yet to come.

And now, in these industrial, fragile, critical days, wherein Humanity has finally reached the brink of freedom from both the encroaching Other and its own sorcerous past, sorcerous seeds bloom ever faster in the fattening, fertile soil.

Neosorcerers. Called "new" only because they are the nouveau generation of a kind apparent many times before. Divided from the sorcerer-empires of the past by their inexperience, their as-of-yet division, and their status as a weight in the balance of precipitous history.

Some are small.

Barely more than folk practitioners fed on scraps of ancient lore turned cultural wisdom. Medicine men and cunning women whose arts are queerly effective, and utterly queer. Practitioners who, while essentially beneficial, risk the discovery and dissemination of their potent arts to more dangerous hands.

Ruder among the small breeds of neosorcery are the so-called "sorcerous remnants:" the blood-soaked witches and animal druids that terrify frontier realms. Wicker-witches, their bloody arts informed by fallen, once-noble Agadion. Druids, their attempts at communion with Othersome älves forever sabotaged by their false reliance on the worst arts of men.

Some are scavengers.

Products of human ingenuity. Like the Nor themselves; unwitting in the danger they flaunt, or perhaps hubristic. Players with toys not fully understood.

Some take what they can. Wilderness communities sprung up round the warm and mysterious hearts of cracked ruins, thankful for warmth and energy and oblivious to radiant danger. Poor ruins divers, eager to plumb the wealth laden depths, unaware that what they uncover was meant for a burial at sea. Or greedy cutters, the worst offenders of all, who, in search of ever more gold, unleash all manor of ancient dread in the name of the venturing economy.

Some scavengers are half-ignorant, willingly or not. Scholars of occultism, squirreled away in the depths of academic halls piled with dangerous texts and inscribed tablets, eagerly transcribing ancient warning messages as fast as they can discard them in favor of real, recorded sorcery. Or perhaps superhuman Avethan knights; warriors fed a lifetime diet of faith and discipline in hopes of concealing the sorcerous truth of their hallowed strength.

Others are powerful indeed.

These are the more dangerous hands. The worst of all: These powerful few, fully ensconced in carefully constructed fortresses of wealth, station, and influence, who dare to call themselves the sorcerers of modern times.

Modern dark practitioners. Members of the masked aristosphere; wealthy eccentrics, mad scientists, and cloistered scholars and horologists, disturbingly akin to those who formed the sorcerous empires of old, who wield power and funds sufficient to prosecute a never-ending search for hidden sorcery. They search for the same power, the same legions, and the same immortality as the decorated horror-emperors they seek to emulate. And, safe in a stratum of society untouchable and detached from the world's petty concerns, they toil away, facing only the depredations of each other's ambition. They face discord and intrigue, the only blessed obstacle, save time, on their way to ultimate power.

Sorcerers are Here

And, divided and different as they come, they are united by one factor:

They are hidden.

Neosorcery never survives without something to hide it, willingly or not. Something to distract, something more evident: The cunning woman with real power lives in the shadow of wild folk tradition. The sorcery-fueled knight is sheltered by his church. The bank executive in pursuit of eternal life is invisible compared to minion cutters unleashing eternal evil. The vizier with the crooked hands is the hidden, potent right hand of a more powerful, ostentatious man.

Sorcery yet lives, concealed.

Seeds on a blooming lawn.

Author's Note

I'm back.

While gone, I've generated lots of ideas (and acquired a cushy new job.) This idea (bit of a warm-up) relates strongly to the current campaign I'm running, which is, of course, the glorious d12-based Incunabuli Playtest, which you are also welcome to try.

Warm thanks to everyone who reached out during my hiatus.

More lore to come.

If you like what you've read, r/Incunabuli and @Incunabuli are rather good ways to get updates served directly to you.

If you like what you've read quite a lot and want exclusive articles and a really large world map, consider joining Incunabuli on Patreon.

Special thanks to Peter McAvinny and all my generous supporters for their continuing support and patience while I was away. Incunabuli is made possible in great part by the them.

A coin clattered on the polished bar top. A stool scraped. A pair of bandaged palms clasped beside.

"What's this?" said the barback. She plucked up the coin, turned it round. It was old, thick. Dented, but cleanly cast with bas reliefs: Some runes on the obverse; and on the reverse: the cruel-eyed face of a woman with spiral horns. A scent of mildew and copper rubbed off in her hands. "This is no regulation golden pound," she quipped, twiddling the coin, looked to the man who'd sat across the bar. Her expression changed to something sour. "You're dripping on my bar."

He, young and crop-haired, was indeed dripping. Bleeding, but smiling broadly. A trickle of mingled red and clear liquid ran from one swollen, ruined eye, down his cheek to drip from just below his mugging lips.

"Don't you worry, Eavan," he leaned forward, and his clasped palms trailed a smear of reddened dirt as they went. A pair of broken teeth showed in his smile. A pall of sour air washed off him. "That right there's more 'n sufficient to account for whatever damages I inflict on your bar." He nodded to the coin.

Mingled concern and detestation knitted Eavan's brow. "Have you passed a mirror, Flatwich?" she said. "Since you crawled from whatever awful hole you got that coin out of?"

"Ach. It's nothing. Pour me some medicine, if you're so worried."

"Your ear is barely hanging on."

Momently, Flatwich's hand twitched towards his shredded ear. He sneered, clasped his hands again, knuckles cracking. "Is my gold fair tender here, or not?" His eyes gleamed dully in the bar's orange lamps.

"Doctor Stotz is in town. Let me call for-"

A sack jangled. Flatwich dropped another fat coin on the counter. It resounded, rang spinning; glittering gold edges reflecting in the oak polish. "Gimme a stout n' a dram of whiskey. Straight," growled the bleeding cutter.

Eavan's lips went thin, but she acted, nonetheless. Grudgingly slow, she pulled a frothy pour of stout from a nearby bank of taps. And, covertly, while the foamy head settled, scribbled a brief note, tore it off, passed it to a mouse mopping under the counter. The furry creature nodded, propped up his mop, hopped away. She flicked her eyes to Flatwich as she poured the top-up, found he was occupied spinning the pair of coins. Two gold disks, whirling in a growing pool dripped from the mangled man's head.

As soon as the beer appeared before him, Flatwich tipped it back. He drank it down in four long, slow gulps interspersed by gasping swallows. In that time, Eavan plucked up the spinning coins, placed an amber glass of booze before him. Soon enough, it too had disappeared. Up went a tiny splash of droplets as he slammed the snifter down.

"Och, that hits just right," he grumbled, shook his head. The stool legs squeaked. Flatwich made to stand.

"You're off, already?" said Eavan, eyes wide as she beheld him. Now the man stood, a hilt could be seen protruding just above his right hip. Not the hilt of a belted knife, but an antique, rusted dagger still stuck, crusted in the cutter's side under the seam of his armor jacket. Eavan blanched at the sight of it. Flatwich moved as if the impaled blade bothered him not at all.

"Indeed, I'm off. Lots more where this came from, down the hole." He slapped the jangling sack on his belt. "Gotta lug it all safely home, you know." Eavan watched, incredulous as he limped for the saloon door.

"But what about the others, Flatwich? Your friends. Are they coming?"

Flatwich paused, door latch in hand. "Oh, yes. They're down there, too. Salted. Don't worry."

"Salted? Their-"

"Don't worry. I'll carry them up." He rounded the doorframe. "After I get the rest of that gold, of course."

Avarice

Everyone's got a teaspoon of salt in their coin purse. Everyone civilized, at least. And not typical salt, either, but the magical and curative grey salt grisodate; the mineral by which tenuous civilization survives. * Steely grey grains, crushed to powder among the pence and the little farthings.

You'll get a unified** explanation for why it's there: Wisdom. The wisdom to treat one's money well; to spend discerningly and choose a degree of asceticism and moderation over greed. How or whether at all this works, none could tell you for sure.

None can say, as it is indeed working. City folk couldn't tell, though. It's not they who are at risk of unnatural greed. They, with their purses full of grisodate and freshly minted, uncorrupted specie, need fear only the materialism contrived by their own minds.

They are blessed to never know the horrid avarice of real gold fever.

Gold Fever

Civilization's gold is not mined. Not anymore.

It is stolen.

Stolen from the tombs and dungeon complexes of awful empires past. Of rich and terrible kingdoms, now buried, lain to rest uneasy behind locked vaults and ranks of undying guardians. To the financial institutions of the world, it is largely preferable to wrest gold from these ancient halls than to mine it. *** To do so, they employ cutters: venturesome mercenaries and weird errants madly bent on an often-unlawful life of high adventure.

Gold taken from the forbidden earth is no good bullion. It is, so say gossipful cutters over pipe bowls and cups of aqua vitae, horribly cursed. It is this ancient gold, they say, the twisted chalices, spired crowns, and fat, sneering-faced coins, that bears the curse of gold fever.

And they are correct. Gold buried long ago bears a sickness in its dusty luster: A mold, indistinguishable from spotty common mildew, that clings dormant to crevices and reliefs. A mold responsible, in part, for the madness of those venturesome souls who ferry it from its places of interment.

Scholars, those few who are aware of it, call the mold Rabeseductor aurum. This, the mold for which people unwittingly keep antifungal salt in their purses, is observed to grow and reproduce only on gold.

Those same scholars theorize that contact with R. aurum is observed to cause a sort of mania, one characterized by an overriding, antisocial avarice, particularly for gold. A dangerous drive accompanied by grandiosity, impulsivity, and a prevailing disregard for personal or public injury, all the signature symptoms of gold fever.

Madness

Anyone who has spent time among the fringe subculture that is cutters will know all the above symptoms to be more than prevalent. Though none among those cavalier, itinerant killers would recognize it, most cutters of moderate success are fully ensorcelled; enchanted by lucre just as effectively, if not more unnaturally, than the greedy financiers they distantly serve.

To learn of R. aurum and the mania it's thought to incur is to have one's perception of cutters, perhaps even of one's venturesome self, bespoiled; strewn to muddied doubt. What once seemed a natural range of behavior in debonair, Devil-may-care mercenaries with nothing to lose becomes more transparently concerning: Selfless stoicism becomes indifference and personal neglect; rollicking bravery becomes a penchant for unnecessary violence; and ambitious determination becomes suicidal avarice. †

After all, how often can one see a cutter, wounded beyond belief, stagger to the bar and gladly down a few drinks, only to return, weapon-hand twitching, back to the dungeon for more loot? What sane creature, after having seen the buried horrors of ages long ago, would gladly return to the deep? Indeed, to know the truth of gold fever is not just to doubt the cutter, but to doubt the integrity of free will. Without some madness, how should a sane person wish to be a cutter at all? And is R. aurum the vital madness that fuels it all?

The scholars who named R. aurum theorize that the venturing economy would not exist, if not for gold fever. They are wrong. R. aurum is not present outside stores of ancient gold. †† Instead, far more mundane drives exist to send cutters down horrid, deadly holes: Scarcity, curiosity, thrill-seeking, and, most notably, debt will all send a soul down the venturing life.

Gold fever, unnatural or not, simply serves to keep them there.

Author's Note

Murderhobos, justified for you by fantasy toxoplasmosis.

They way I use gold fever, I actually don’t stat it out. There are no systems attached. It’s simply a rumor. A rumor meant to unnerve the players and make them second-guess their behavior.

Special thanks to Tyler Lamb and all my generous supporters. Incunabuli is made possible in great part by the them.

Footnotes

* Civilization as we know it would end if not for grey salt: The only preventative capable of combating plague.
** Purse salt is an uncommon superstition in that it is practiced by folk Coastwide. Usually, folk of the North carry different superstitions than those of the pious South.
*** In addition to plentiful, pure gold, tombs, catacombs, and dungeons are rife with the terrible
sorceries and magical technologies of millennia past; all unspeakably valuable.

† Curiously, gold fever does not dissuade a person from spending or handing away collected gold. R. aurum's sole drive is to distribute itself as far as possible to new people and to new, uninfected gold.
†† Gold that is melted and recast into new coins and products is safely rid of R. aurum, as is any bullion treated with grisodate. For this reason, gold fever is rare outside venturing boom towns.