A place for comments, queries, and general chatter with a mug of flip and feet up by the fire.

An extra welcome to any and all about to make an introduction here - there may be another setting thread on Scorch Norton itself, and there will be at least a map, but I'd like to get an idea of what the primary industries of the village are first.

A quick note/warning about language: nobody is OK in 1771. Nobody is going to be OK until at least 1835 and the Keeper will compulsively edit this word out if it occurs. I'm also not making fun of anyone or their fingers if I point out amusing typos, I just find them funny.

edit: just waiting to hear back on a few queries on RTJs now submissions have slowed down. I may start picking tonight, but probably mostly tomorrow onward - I've had cracking concepts pretty much all round, so it's going to be tough, but a big thank you to all applicants so far for the interest, and if anyone is watching this game and wants to slide under the deadline with something amazing to poach a spot, now's the time.

edit II: All right, after a lot of deliberation I think the cast as it stands is what we're sticking with. Apologies for the delays in responses, checking numbers etc., I currently have relatives up and have been very low on computer time, particularly on my laptop (the device actually connected to my files, scanner etc.) - things should settle down next week and you'll have a reasonably attentive Keeper to kick things off and hopefully get the story ticking over before getting into the "juggling fieldwork" stage.

I have half a map, plenty NPCs, and am keeping track of connections. Some of you are well ahead of others, but feel free to wave at each other on this thread if you like.

Additionally, we have a Lurker, so if anyone objects to them following along do let me know.



This message was last edited by the GM at 19:55, Tue 15 June 2021.

Hello everyone! I'll be playing a doctor who is setting up a medical practice in this area, hoping for a quiet life in the country (which I'm sure will work out just as expected).

Hello!

Young Ben is one of the local Post Boys. Born and bred in Somerset, he is likely a familiar face to many.

G'day, All. (clumsy curtsy)

I be Margaret Yendale, but most call me Maggie or Meg (or worse), the poacher's daughter. That's Fred what lit out some year agone to escape transportation. No better than my Dad, most say, though my sister and her husband are proper God-fearing Christians.

Oh, and ye'll have heard of my babby that's got no dad, or if you haven't some pious soul will tell ye soon enow. You can see the Devil's in me they'll say, account I'm as tall and strong as most any man in Scorch Norton, or the whole county likely. More like t'be in the Hare Saturday night as in church Sunday, true enow. But I'm a good hand with animals.

Andrew is a carpenter. He’s lived all of his life in Scorch Norton and Somerset County. He took over the carpentry shop from his father, when the elder Sexton passed unexpectedly. Andrew is not the hard edged pragmatist that his progenitor was, and has been known to perform needed work for some that didn’t have the ability to immediately pay him. He likes the company of friends and enjoys gatherings at the Hare and Sheaf when he’s able to attend. He also regularly darkens the door of the church house, seeking guidance from God on how to navigate all of his newfound responsibilities.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:33, Sun 20 June 2021.

In other words, Andrew has a lot of debt-based credit to his name.

Scorch Norton, by the way, Norton from the Saxon 'north-settlement', Scorch from...well, the vicar is looking into that one.

Just a note to say your Keeper is still alive, and the aunts left this morning, I've just been low on brainpower the rest of the day. Hoping to resume normal service tomorrow evening, all being well, with a start date maybe midweek if that suits, since I know a couple of you have also had the real life of late.

Hokay, we at least have a map now. Everyone should be able to see their house from here (or the inn in Ben's case) - any questions?

I do mean to do a thread on the village, but I have spent today at home varyingly conscious because there is a vicious skeleton that hates me and is determined I should not stay on any schedule in any way (it is unfortunately my skeleton). Fortunately for me, only one of you is 100% through their setup, so I feel justified in shunting the start date to the end of the week, since I have not written a word in prep yet.

Oh, and do we know folklore basics? Salt for demons, iron for feyfolk, anticlockwise or left-handed is evil working, watermelons left out at the first full moon after Christmas become vampires, sort of thing?

That folklore tracks with what I am familiar with, yep.

And excellent job on the map by the way.

Very well done.

Thank you - trying to get one pretend village down has decidedly increased my respect for 18th century cartographers and/or whatever poor apprentices had to draw in all the trees for them. Most period maps actually have more detail on the kind of crops usually in a given field, but aside from a couple of fallow meadows, bugger that for a game of soldiers.

I will note that the main coach road now just about follows the course the wee river took in the Bronze Age, though, so although you can't see the topography, consider the road the lowest point. The Wyzenwood and Yendale farm are uphill, for instance, and the modest church is on an alluvial hillock.

Lovely map, indeed! Do you take commissions"

Wyzenwood is a lot closer than I had supposed.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:32, Thu 24 June 2021.

You...need a pseudo-18th century map? I mean, I'm not adverse, you could owe me some critical reading or a hand-drawn bird or something, but for many other kinds there are online generators that come free, albeit maybe without the archaeological knowledge base of how long term settlements grow.

The Wyzenwood is visible from a lot of the village and Maggie could maybe stand in the trees that once marked a lane in the 1400s and hurl rocks into the edge of it if she's good at uphill throwing. The citizens of Pompeii probably thought their assessment of local hazards not a problem in any remembered history was worth the  risk for the good fertile lands below, too; I'm not entirely surprised Maggie's father got complacent.

...more on the inn, and the Wyzenwood, and anything else requested between then and now when a) it is not silly in the morning and b) less of my internal structure hates me, maybe.

(ignore me smacking the Intro thread to the top there, that's not adding anything, just for aesthetics)

Also, Thomas? Look what I incidentally found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Bees

Saint Bees.

Outstanding map, Keeper.

Many thanks for all of the setting notes. They’re incredibly helpful in providing a strong grasp of the period and our humble (and terrifying) corner of England.

Thanks - you know, I happened to show it to one of the archivists whilst we were talking about creative projects and the archivist (who deals with a lot of actual 18th century maps and was probably relieved at something legible) was impressed, so I feel it truly is a Good Map now.

I'm glad you're not exhasperated by the setting notes, too - single locations the characters are well familiar with do need some extra info, but I am aware it's a bunch of text and me rambling a lot. The church is roughly based on this one, if you'd like a visual, though any remnant angels/demons are invisibly stuck in the walls and it has a little bit more spire, enough to look like the church is wearing a clown cone for a hat.

I should also note that a dedication to St. Giles suggests a mediaeval hospital or leper colony hosted under what's now a bunch of trees full of rooks by the river, probably dismantled during the Dissolution of monastic holdings. That said, the Great Plague of the 1660s didn't particularly affect the settlement, possibly because so many of the original population had hardy ancestors, so perhaps the locals never needed it much.

Visual of the church is great for an American whose customary image of churches is quite different, tending to be high and light-filled spaces whose imagery is of heavenly, not demonic presences.

You're missing out, honestly...be-gargoyled English churches aside, European Catholic ones have great demons (or a good ol' corpse - look up 18th century gravestones in an image search for the entertaining period fad of goofy skulls) wedged in just about everywhere there's not a saint or a pelican... *ahem*

Getting back on topic, the hefty church tradition is partly due to climate and wood availability - not having the forests of Canada or the fjords to pluck big trees from at will when seeking repairs, and not starting out in a Virginian swamp, building in stone makes most sense for any place that won't constantly have a through draught or fire in to dry it out and keep it from rotting, and if you don't want your parishioners to freeze in winter or any fresher nobility under the floor to cook in summer then thick walls are necessary things.

There's also the unstockaded prospect of...hmm. The Magic 8-Ball refuses to tell me if this church has those particular adaptations, but let's just say that peasants in trouble tend to run to the church, and sometimes the church is equipped to deal with that.

I don't know about the rest of you, but trying to find anything of substance on working class people in the era has meant sifting through a great deal of fluffy pop history about the gentry...

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 18):

Speaking of headstones, is there apt to be one for Meg's mother in the churchyard? Or is that more the purview of the gentry?

@Ben - that's partly why this game exists, and why everyone here comes from an IC...if I'd put it out to advertise with 'Georgian' in the ad I am certain I'd get the wig-and-powder set looking for dashing!adventure! and possibly Elizabeth Swann. Ironically, you get reasonable coverage of the working class in the colonies at this point, but aye...

@Maggie - if they could pay or owe favours enough for a headstone or the community liked her enough, she certainly can have a headstone. Probably won't be all that grand, but she could have a goofy skull or a winged heart and a few words of fondness, for sure. Example: https://images.app.goo.gl/SV2ZkfrdnmE15qiW6 (but new)

The gentry's are just lots fancier, and they buy their plot permanently, so even if something happened to their marker they wouldn't get turfed out of it. That sexton in Hamlet that's playing with the old jester's dug-up bones when the prince walks by the grave in progress isn't doing anything unusual in an overcrowded village cemetery. Archaeologically speaking, you often get quite a jumble in such contexts, but since the notion of souls going directly to Heaven has superceeded the Catholic eventual-physical-resurrection-forever thing, it doesn't much bother folk.

Everyone here has seen dead bodies before, by the way. Kate probably helped prep their mother's body for burial, and Lucy may have helped with her dad (Widow Sexton definitely arranged her husband). Unless they're terribly mangled and/or in a deeply upsetting ritual context I don't SAN check peasants for that.

Oh, and talking of toffs, Doctor Lovelace, I'm not quite reading Martin as the type (books to buy, tobacco to smoke and all that), but do you have a fellow to do this sort of thing for you?

Yes, I think I should like that. It sounds like a fun prospect.

Ha! All right, give me a name (and any other preferences) for not-Jeeves in PM and I'll see if I can find a slot for him. Currently working on the last of those setting notes.

Dr. Lovelace is the only one I've yet to have a sketch of an intro for, but being carefully dressed by your trusty servant would actually be a nice way to settle into the character's shoes, so to speak. his stockings, at least.

edit: typo!
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:44, Sat 26 June 2021.

[bops other threads to the top]

Next stop when not silly in the morning, in-game posts! Just need to confirm a few things and check we've not lost Mr. Bees, and give the vicar some description, really.

Incidentally, if anyone has a 'thanks, I hate it' reaction to any of the local folk tradtions/lore, please know that it's barely modified, and <90% is just random bits of English folklore stuck together.

#....dee doopy doopy do-be-do-be do-be-do-be do-be-do-be...#

I believe young Ben is all set for the inaugural posting.

I went down a rabbit hole concerning the construction of oil cloth garments for the better part of thirty minutes.

That's always a promising sign.

Fred Yendale (Maggie's Dad) had several stories about his ventures on the fringes of the Wyzenwood. The best was of a time he ventured too deep inside, finding a fountain and a pool. When he started to go, he had to race against the gathering gloom. Branches clutched at his clothing and he heard the cackling of the witch as she sought to keep him. He barely made it out and into his own field before the sun set.

Hello all, still here and very busy. Thomas looks to be finished for the best part. Thanks.


-

Thanks, Long Tom. Looking in is appreciated.

@Ben - I certainly consider it a good sign, but then again, I am all about the potatoes, so to speak.

(Incidentally, the more common/less exotic and exciting crop in England as yet would be turnips. Expect turnips in contexts where modern potatoes would be today, and expect curry to be more an excersise in showing off access to spices than any sane balance of flavour. If it sounds Indian, it's exciting!)

@Maggie - nice, loving the living rural legend there.

@Martin - reminder that I'll need the name of your manservant to start drafting your bit.

Continued thanks to both of you waiting on me to check numbers, for numbers are hard, but at least I know what Skills you possess! Right now I am aiming to go to bed within the hour, since I have a punishingly early start tomorrow.

Update: Started drafts for non-Martin threads, disliked drafts, started over, got distracted by new washing machine issues, need to go to bed soon to be up early, still within the three days of "new field season sore". Ugh.

Whilst I'm here, though, do people have past/present tense preferences? That may be partly why I was getting in such a tangle with the scene-setting - if we have a tie with those I can ask the Magic 8-Ball.

Continued thanks for bearing with the hanging about, I'm getting there, honest.

I'm partial to past myself, but am content with either.

Does Geoffrey work?



Ditto.

I prefer present for myself, as it makes things seem more immediate and let's me differentiate between what I'm doing now and what I did yesterday. But I don't have any problem with others using past.

In reply to Margaret Yendale (msg # 33): All right, that puts us presently at a tie, counting myself - Tom and Andrew?

@Martin - unusual but possible for someone of that class, though Martin will probably refer to his valet by surname...of which Geoffreys is found in the region Martin comes from. Alternatively, you could give the cast a Welshman to harass; Griffiths is common.

To be honest, it seems as though I generally default to present tense in the games I participate in. So, I suppose that would be my preference by way of habit. That said, if the general consensus is for past tense, I’ll happily go along with the majority.

Hm! Looks like it's up to either Tom or the Magic 8-Ball...

Update!

Still not dead. Been busier than I thought and lost a chunk of yesterday both to being asleep and letting a fellow on the edge of a mental breakdown in the park tell someone his woes (he legitimately had a lot; I pointed him at a local mental health/anti-loneliness-in-idleness charity and the works of Guy Gavriel Kay before leaving, but yeah, recovery and rehabilitation services must've had it hard through the pandemic). Aiming for tonight, fingers crossed. If I don't hear from Long Tom by then and/or the player below has no preference, I'll ask the Magic 8-Ball what tense we're in.

Sally Ann's player from the Australian game has joined us and I hope I'm up to the task - since we did have a prior agreement but no time was available until this late in setup the player is taking an NPC that was close enough to concept to get going with. The Reverend Palmer now has a player! You must now all protect your squishy vicar.


edit: ...or maybe not. I will take the grace of remembering that it's some kind of holiday for several of you and cease to state even tentative certainties, but I do pledge game posts as soon as I get time and capacity to do so. My sincere apologies for the delays and thanks for your patience.

Meanwhile, from wandering about the internet yesterday, this person isn't wrong: https://twitter.com/NeurologNy.../1411088892720160768
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:12, Sun 04 July 2021.

Hello everyone! Looking forward to not go insane and/or die horribly!

Welcome, Reverend! Glad to have you with us!

Indeed, you are very welcome Reverend. :)

All right, going to bed now so as to get 6 hours asleep...I think my vaccinated arm is less sore this time around, but that doesn't entirely help. Ben & Maggie, you at least have dreams now. They are horrible.

I kind of want to draw Trugred now, but yes, working in background. Bear with me, I'm trying to get decent quality out on the table first thing, is all. Everyone who still needs to fill in bits of their backstories, you do that whilst you wait...

Also, I think I'm changing our local highway robber's name to be even more blatantly a pseudonym, just in case that goes over anyone's head. His name might actually be Robert, but.

Must sleep. Grateful y'all are stll about. Going.

Posts will go up as they're finished, since I'm tired of drafts hanging about - folk who aren't Ben/Maggie, please bear with me a bit longer...

Also, with a mild regretful shrug towards my present-tense Keepering friends, the Magic 8-Ball declares us to be in the past tense - try to use it if possible to avoid general confusion.

edit for clarity: Going to bed now, though! 6am starts and all...
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:35, Thu 08 July 2021.

No worries chief! Take your time.

I really appreciate the patience (incidentally, that first post has dream sequences you can't see, so is really twice as long), though I'm also trying not to be the annoying sort of GM who sets an unrealistic timescale and then either spends every day apologising for not sticking to it or vanishes off the face of the earth and wonders where half the players went when they roll up two months later...

Anyway- [shoos doctor towards backstory] The more I have to work with, the more flavour you get, like, y'know, pottage.

Could everyone add a biography line with who they are? Helps me not have to click open descriptions every time. Thanks.

Oh, and Rob Anybody? Priceless!

[distant "I am, darling!" from Rob] Given he hunts a broad range to conceal his base of operations, you can imagine the bemusement of travellers trying to report instances of rural armed robbery with a relatively decent description of a masked man, only to receive the response "hmm...could be Anybody."

Yesterday's excuse was that I got gently kidnapped by Irishwomen after work, today's may be some jobs I expected to do Sunday getting moved up, but rest assured I am working on posts for the other players (and started to draw Trugred at lunch break huddled out of the wind - it's a good 'oss, that).

There we go. Things should go more smoothly from here on out, though I have been having such a bad time of things of late I wonder if I've killed a spider.

Drafting replies whilst my skeleton/nervous system leaves off trying to kill me long enough to type, though I'll possibly/probably wait until 1c get posts in so's I can line them all up nicely. Continued thanks for wating, though maybe reading each others' threads may amuse you? I'll likely keep separate IC groups in separate OOC threads later when information gets more specific/relevant, but right now revelations in the introduction will likely become communal. I hope that makes sense.

edit: never mind, I realised that if I give 01c a fair amount of time to post I can still make things line up nice. Oof, I am desperate to be outside by now, though my lower joints will hate me.


Oh, and if anyone wonders about Polzeath later: yes, he is, and no, it's not necessarily relevant, it just amuses me.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:03, Sun 18 July 2021.

Aww Hessie, you too?

She was actually wondering if she could greet Maggie from there and stop her running away from the exposition, but Ben doesn't know that. Just maybe that unguarded food or small items that might become food after a quick roadside sale tend to suddenly disappear around Maggie.

I never...nobody saw...ye can't prove...

I think the general idea was for one of us mount the stag and ride it across the green. Maybe all the way to the Fox Estate.

I mean, if you roll under...let's see, 3% on an Animal Handling roll...

(which would, of course, mean everyone else would have to join hands and perform a freaky chain dance, possibly whilst rapturously listening to music inaudible to the ears of the outsider. Them's the rules.)

Seriously, though, are you going to go up and poke the Devil [looks up Imperial] 400 ulbs of unpredictably weird-acting wild animal? Stop two metres away? Four? Eyeball it a bit, decide 'nope' and start sprinting in the opposite direction?

Thomas will stop at the edge of the grass to give the animal some space should it decide to run.


-

He's no further than most other observers, then; too far to make out any particular details. I should maybe point out that although the majority of those in the village itself at this time of morning are women, Goodie Westcott isn't here yet.

How high is your Animal Husbandry skill?

Wrong kind of mounting there, Doctor. *cough*

Sure, but the original statement takes on a whole new light with that (incorrect) context applied!

Yes, well, don't let your imagination go buck wild.

That said, though it comes with the territory for a great deal of folk horror, I can't help but feel there's somewhat more Subtext about than I intentionally put in. Might be because I can see the back of the embroidery/myceliae of the bloom, so to speak, but...hmm.

Why do I feel like attempting to scare the stag off has the potential to end like this?

https://youtu.be/tGH3XdERdd8

Generally speaking, red deer stags only 'roar' and show teeth when their brains are hormone soup, so...here's the Subtext back again. (It's understandable. He's a hart throb. What a deer.)

Meanwhile, Polzeath being convinced this animal is actually the Devil gets even funnier if you realise he's at about a 50-degree angle to the normal conception of religion. Tangentally, I think I will have to try and draw this man, with effort and such: he'll likely be about enough to deserve a Cast slot, but he's so peculiar looking no picture I can find will quite do, yet not peculiar enough that I could get away with an orc or Abe Sapien or something...

OOC:

Does the rabbit look to be a healthy looking one? Fit for the dinner table?

[[message moved by Keeper, who has a Thing about 'empty' posts]]

The rabbit is under a box in the scullery with some nice plump birds.

What you are looking at presently is a hare, a much larger, more muscular animal commonly associated with witchcraft (possibly due to being the sacred animal of various Celtic goddesses depending on who you ask, possibly because instead of running immediately when disturbed at a distance or at night, hares will often stand up and stare, and thus - being small toddler-size with deeply inhuman shining eyes - be easily confused with the Good Neighbours).

They can be eaten, but unlike rabbits where you just scald, skin and cook away, hares are so sinewy and tough they need to be bathed in acid (vinegar, lemon juice) and steamed for hours, pressure-cooked in a specific manner for hours, or rotted down ('hung') for a few days (maggot action ideal - the meaty maggots can be served as a side if desired) to be tender enough to eat. As with most foods invented because some fancy bugger already ate all the palateable stuff, hare is now considered a delicacy, and was just becoming gentrified at this point in time: city people would think the dish fancy, country folk would be bemused and turn their noses up at it if there was any possibility of eating anything else.

I am also highly amused at this scene for obscure folklore reasons: if there was a period Italian present at this scene they would have all their fears about Protestants being in league with the Devil confirmed...due to the similarity of period carrots to the wild version (Queen Anne's Lace) and the difficulty non-herbalists have in telling QAL and hemlock* apart, early carrot cultivars had an association with witchcraft. How else could these grandmas who'd worked with plants all their lives make tasty soups from poison roots? Clearly, this wayward English priest is offering Satanic vegetables to his familiar...


Unrelatedly, a fun thing about making jam from the first trim of the rhubarb crop? Scaring yourself silly with the sudden weird noises made by the jars as they cool and safety-seal when you use metallic lids...gah.


*as in what they executed Socrates with, I know there's an American tree called hemlock for some reason, but...it's not.

edit: spotted one last typo, 'vingegar'... agagagagaguh.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:15, Mon 26 July 2021.

[bolding mine]

I, um. You realise I have to think of some way to incorporate the absoloutely horrific mental images engendered by this typo in the plot now, right?

(big Hannibal ravenstag* vibes; I like.)

To return to my previous rambling about Satanic Vegetables, please note that sail power is not consistently fast and you never know when terrible Orcadian pirates will steal all your fish and/or hats and give you a load of beeswax in apology (poor John Gow, he was so bad at piracy); most things that come in from the Empire come in dried, powdered, or as seeds. Out of season foodstuffs consist of whatever can be grown in a late Little Ice Age English greenhouse or rehydrated from storage. We do have real live non-fantasy potatoes, though!

Also a lot of the in-game varieties of crops and livestock don't look like ours, mostly being smaller and taking longer to mature. As an illustration as I go to bed, behold the beauty of old-timey carrots: https://images.app.goo.gl/xZczGhxnQLJHEdzS9


*spoilers(?)

I have a story of a wild pig when I was involved with search and rescue, but that involved a deer..... still along the same lines.



-

...are we getting vampiric watermelons?

@Thomas -  that...raises so many more questions than it answers...

@Dr. Lovelace - ask the Magic 8 Ball if the Fox estate is greenhousing watermelons, since otherwise any you see a month early, well...they'll have been out for a full moon after Christmas, and then some. Zrrrrl!

(see, paying attention to seasonality is Important in historical games.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:41, Tue 27 July 2021.

08:48, Today: Martin Lovelace got the result "Very doubtful" on the magic 8-ball.  Is the Fox estate growing watermelons?

Alas, it was not to be.

Your peace of mind? Now we've established they can't be got fresh, it follows that any given watermelon encountered is either extremely well-preserved...or the annoying undead! [scare chord]

Very busy weekend for me. Catching up on all the goings on now.

A Ben! Excellent. Which belongings are you taking to where, there? Or is that a handful of shoes and gaiters being wrangled along with any tack kept warily with the clothes?

If the latter and attempting to put them on and go downstairs at once, a DEX check may be in order...

I had meant his satchel, but since I don't see him carrying two, and his original was taken from him, let us say it is his gaiters, shoes, coat, etc.

For the sake of fun.

And for my penance in not posting over the last few days.

18:23, Today: Benjamin Craddock rolled 64 using 1d100.  Dexterity vs 35.

Edited my sanity-slipping post :-)

Appreciated! Maybe the stag Devil would like a carrot, too, what do we think...

Thread 1a, I'm going to shuffle posts about a little to make things make sense and also cook myself a plurality of noodles, hang on.

edit: Thread 1a, your posts are shuffled!
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:46, Wed 28 July 2021.

Fortunately, Hessie has high DEX and aced the roll, so no harm done...you're like one average person between you.

Thread 1b, I'm going to give Andrew a chance to post so that the Spot isn't wasted if he wants to go up closer and be briefly possessed by the spirit of a wild Tungus, swinging aboard see some things without one.

Dr. Lovelace, I'm assuming you're busy because I've seen you log in/say a short thing OOC, but if you're actually stuck instead, let me know. [TV ad voice] just text 'stuck' to PM now...

Neither; I had written up a post and not pressed send, so to speak.

I say this with the greatest affection, but...ya dope.

Meanwhile, just because it's a good medley performance and we've already got a bunch of Longest Johns content kicking about, (some of) the ballad Bart's tagline's from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj_0Zz3eOhw

(he does have perfectly good arms though. Well, right now he has perfectly good legs, too, they're just Maggie's.)

I'm struggling with a cold, headache, stuffy nose, the whole shebang.
always extra fun in the summer.

Give me a couple of days to recover.

Alas! Here, I will roll a pretend orange in your direction.

          ^{(     (      (   ((}  O

May you recover swiftly and with a minimum of steaming.

Hm, I hope our vicar is all right.

Dr. Lovelace, I know you're waiting on him, but if anyone else is stuck please a) know I am generally available for poking until pleasing ways forward fall out and b) there are villagers around the green to be interacted with, should one wish to do so.

In other news, I had the dark red sunflowers I'd managed to grow in a discarded bulk sample called Satanic yesterday, since they look black and mildly alarming from a distance - I was amused. Also that I'm likely to be about but intermittent 'til tomorrow night, since I need to organise many things tonight and am out on site tomorrow to provide dubious technical assistance, so.

<a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poeYBbpR9z4> Brrr-CROO-coo c-coo.</a>

(This is the sound of the English countryside for me, even if they're everywhere.)

Sorry to go AWOL, I was in bed a couple of days and then had to catch up with Real Life as well. Should be back now, good as new! :-)

Huzzah!

Loved the master shoeing.

I wish to assure anyone puzzled by my anarchic grammar that that was a simile and Polzeath is very good at the raise hoof tap-shoe-tighten, not just hammering horseshoes into Dr. Lovelace's feet. Unless Dr. Lovelace wants to tell us something...?

I mean, I could tell, but that wouldn't be as fun as letting that sort of information emerge in play.

True, true. Indeed, unless their feet have been observed, one can only speculate about any of the people in this game. Anyone could have hooves and/or be the Devil. Fun thought!

You two can trot on to Thread 1b at will, along with other villagers converging on that point (Andrew's mother wielding a medium-sized skillet is one of them).

Not Maggie! Anyone can see her feet most any time. She goes barefoot cause she doesn't want her shoes to get dirty. Besides, they pinch.

...Maggie excepted (and Ben, whose strength of feets we've also seen).

Meanwhile, in South Queensferry: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-...h-east-fife-58201759

(I think given the heraldic posing between staves the character is intended to be a woodwose, though he could just depict the Green Man or a specific local plant spirit.)

Anyone is welcome to add in whatever commentary on hares, witches, Polly and summonings they like here, but my brain has gone to sleep and I must follow. John will likely bring up forming a dedicated search soon, though yes, lots of ways to go from this point if Investigators have a favoured line of investigatin'.

I am no longer making sense to myself. Hopefully this makes some? Here is a folk song about trying (failing) to kill an occasionally conversational hare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT9foxlerfI

Just a heads up that we'll be moving into the new appartment over the next few days, and my internet access will be a bit spotty. Should be back to normal by Wednesday.

Thanks for the notice - may you arrive with all you set out with, and may the new place soon smell like home.

I don't know that I honestly have enough brain for a coherent post tonight, for which I apologise, though I'm not sure everyone has checked in to see if they want to say a thing in between yet. Nothing but blep between the ears, in the main.

Also I have thus far failed to depict Polzeath, in part because I made an attempt via editing thispersondoesnotexist.com's photorealistic generated pictures whenever they looked credibly Cornish and just wound up creating what look like new members of the UK's royal family. Sheesh but those people need to put some branches on the family tree.

Human sacrifice! Always a valid solution, right?


edit: batting threads about a bit, but everyone but Maggie is now on Thread 02. She should join you shortly, unless something sudden and terrible happens.

edit II: ...you don't have to wait for her, though, it actually makes more plot/timing sense not to.

edit III: crickets, huh. Are you all busy? Stuck? Have I muffed something up spectacularly? Not that I'm entirely unbusy myself this week - posting this at present since I may or may not be about tomorrow evening, and that would be time for all the main thread players' one-week abscence warning checkin - but no posts since Wednesday is...worrying.

That said, if the offer of free drinks has caused everyone to abandon ship in alarm I will laugh.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:09, Mon 30 Aug 2021.

All right, in-game posts - those are both nice and appreciated!

I'm aware there's not much to go on from the lunchtime one but thought I'd post what I had down in the time and that I'd give Dr. Lovelace a chance to respond to letting a four-year-old draw him a pint of "something". I also owe Tom some information for specific observations and am tracking offscreen villagers; lots of juggling.

Please note that small beer isn't physically small in any way, it's just barely alcoholic. That is, enough to kill cholera, liver fluke eggs, algae and/or anything else that might be living in it whilst storing water. It's generally given to children and will make Andrew moderately hydrated, which is good for blood loss but probably won't make him forget he has a gouge in. He might be more cheerful to finally realise how great ribs are, though. Ribs are great.

Lastly, all but one of the things that were going to make me miss slots I'm usually around through the first part of this week are now happening tomorrow, so...if I'm not about for a patch that's what's going on.

Moving was taking up wayyyyy more time than expected. But I never said specifically *which* Wednesday I was hoping to be able to get back to normal, was I?

Anyway, I'll catch up on reading the posts tomorrow!

Hi! Indeed, I think there's a very manageable amount of catching up at present, all the moreso since I am also about to take myself to bed...

I apologise for the delay here right when I said I'd be attentive: it seems my badly-put-together nervous system has decided to entertain itself by making sure I wake up just under my minimum sleep time, then inflicting pain for not hitting my minimum sleep time.

Giving the rest of you space to post, since between the two (more?) simultaneous conversations rhubarbing along in the pub there's useful information to be gleaned by sharing.

Also, it's not our side of the Atlantic, but someone fed Puritan names to a copy-the-thing AI and I was howling with laughter/going 'oh no-O' at some of the results, so: https://randomencounters.tumbl...lagers-and-townsfolk

...some of them sound like Terry Pratchett characters, others just terribly unfortunate.

edit: Also! Do we want a Clues thread?
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:14, Sat 11 Sept 2021.

I think a clues thread always proves beneficial.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 96):

"Proper Condom Richmond" I'm dying here!

We need to figure out a game these will fit in.

It is a virtue! XD

...yes, yes we do. Puritan naming traditions are great in general. If I ever go back to my Massachusetts-based group of feeple from a comedy game on here (who continue such conventions as a cultural marker within the broader demi-Deep One diaspora), I'm going to have to visit that list.

Clues Thread a bit later, since it's my first free weekend in a long time and I have so very much cleaning/fixing to be done...

Question, for Americans: Given the word "rooster" was invented so that Puritans would never have to say "cock", is it applied to non-domestic galliforms as well, like 'a rooster grouse', 'rooster pheasant' etc.?

I am afraid to ask the internet but having thought of it I am now desperate to know.

Well, that's new information for me. I did know that they're called cocks across the pond, but not why we call them roosters here.

I'm going to claim ignorance on this one. I don't talk about birds much in my day to day life. A light internet search does seem to suggest that it's used for other non-chicken birds, but I have never heard this colloquially (but then again, I don't much discuss birds).

Unfortunately, I have to claim ignorance also. The only time I’ve heard the term is in reference to chickens. I’ve honestly never heard it employed with regard to other types of birds.

Side question: Do we happen to know if the disturbing secretions seen in the local fauna might possibly be highly flammable? Asking for a friend.

My Birds of North America guide seems to use male and female in its text.

I can't recall ever seeing rooster used except in connection with chickens, though hen is used of various sorts of female fowl, and cock insofaras I recall.

@ Martin - ! !! Now I feel compelled to command you to talk about birds. ( command it!)

In fact, I command all of you to talk about birds. Go find the nearest person and tell them that it has been scientifically proven that parrots have names, or that the feathers of the Hooded Pitouhui can poison humans through the skin, or that maleos spring out of the sides of volcanoes fully-formed and independent or something. Tell them most owls have asymmetrical ears, or that bee hummingbird chicks are the size of baked beans. Spread the word and the terror and the horror of the Great Potoo (all Hail). There are so many birds to discuss!

Incidentally, the cock under discussion IC looks something like this - note the lack of white/yellow patches about the head from hybridisation with later imports, and that period pheasants will be smaller and smarter than the semi-domesticated stock consistently barn-bred and dumped into the wild for easy shooting by the gentry from the mid 19th-century onwards. With the exception of waterfowl - remembering swans are owned by the Crown regardless of whose land they're on, and whilst not yet extinct, great bustards need rough grassland and don't like hills - that's still the biggest gamebird to be got in southern England.

(Scotland had - and still has, just - considerably bigger sorts of wild cocks, but that's not where you are.)

@Andrew - I am afraid this information can only be obtained by experiment.

@Mags - Probably a stylistic thing for consistency, but thanks for looking! I appreciate that, and the birds of North America.


I think we can conclude that unless one is still a Puritan, or a writer of bird guides that doesn't want to get into _{very cool} technicalities, the U.S. has domestic roosters and wild cocks. [nod]

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 104):

I'd wager that we've got some domesticated cocks as well.

Only in terms of, huh, roosterfighting, as far as I know. I was going to look something up to be witty but then I got distracted by a Rhode Island Red (cross?) and look at this magnificent cock. 10/10, shiny bird.

I'm giving Andrew and Tom a chance to contribute their relevant knowledge (if desired) before distracting them with other concerns, by the way, if anyone was waiting for villager chatter.

Alas, so does everyone else. Small village communities are great if you're on the right side of them, otherwise, not so much...

Andrew, sorry I didn't mean to have Martin completely ignore you. I just missed your post until just now!

(And Maggie, I did contemplate having Martin stick up for her a bit more, but got the sense that it might just make things worse and that he'd be better off somewhat redirecting their energies).
This message was last edited by the player at 14:47, Fri 17 Sept 2021.

In reply to Martin Lovelace (msg # 108):

No worries, your honour.

It’s all good, Doc! You’ve had quite a bit of conversation sent your way in recent posts.

...though if you do want to keep that pheasant after all, better send someone out sharpish, since it's currently scheduled for immediate execution and Maggie is the very picture of decorum (and so won't get it hurled at her whilst a couple of dumbass yokels run like hell).

I'm quiet because both as a player and as character, I have no idea what to do with a possibly-possessed bird. So I'll follow along with the general consensus unless directly asked for my input.

Excorsise it? Keep it under observation? Burn it?

The questions he was actually asked were whether he thought the wildlife weirdness might be Wyzenwood and/or missing person-related, but at any rate - here to help! If anyone gets stuck, do let me know and I can lay out some clearer choices for you.

I must say I'm entertained by the vicar's current choice of distraction, however.

Aaall right, the backroom chat got considerably more involved than I thought and the vicar is just about keeping Tom from fisticuffs with lovely Nancy - going to make a sub-thread for it and move things about, this evening.

Main thread, any other queries, possibilities or concerns you want to share?

Hokay, so whilst Tom is getting about the best hidden knowledge in about the worst way possible, I've had a player request to update the setting notes with forms of address.

Tonight it is far too late to start on that, plus my head hurts (weatherfront, probably) but beware further thread-shuffling and random pings incoming when I get to that.

I think there's a decent chance the good Reverend was responsible for the Jacobite Uprisings after trying to "have a calm discussion about the strongest claim to the throne"

Thanks for the terms of address.

No worries. Sorry I vanished yesterday, was just one of those "brain chemistry doing a bad then the news comes up and punches you in the face" kinda days when you just have to go to bed and hope the foolishness sorts itself out.

---TECHNICAL HITCH---

[saved to scratchpad & continued from old inherited iPad] At this point my cooker exploded and seems to have taken out exactly half the electrics in my ridiculously small house, including the socket that serves my ancient laptop which is crumbling to the extent it has 2 minutes of battery & cannot be moved, and the lights above/near my fuse cupboard...going to move part of my "attic" storage out of there and see if the electrics are a simple fix by the light of some bottle lamps I own rather than set the cupboard and the rest of my house on fire with candles...might not be all that active later, depending.

edit/update: so after much internal wailing and alarm on my part, I'm not sure why but turning the electicity entirely off then on again (rather than the affected circuits/circuit groups) seems to have everything on again...I haven't tried turning the cooker on in the 'heating food' sense again, but damn, it sounded like the bang came from there. Concerned. Anyway, let's see if I can get a post or two in

[at this point your Keeper develops a sudden nausea and tension around the skull, is distracted for 40 minutes by proto-migraine symptoms and goes to drink water] ...never mind. Posts when I can, I can only half see.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:13, Sat 25 Sept 2021.

Ditto!

Just reporting that I'm not dead, just been somewhat run off my feet in combination with badly requiring my ritual stabbing appointment, and right now I need to make plum sauce (I mean, I won't die or anything if I don't, but the plums will go off) so if those threads waiting could please bear with me a bit longer, I am working on it, honest.

edit/update: one! post! done! The plums are preserved as sauce and now, to my sensibilities, edible, and...now I am headachey and about to facekeyboard, so I must sleep. Goodnight!
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:36, Thu 30 Sept 2021.

I have to mention without context that Thomas has activated the Bunny Vortex. [nod]

All right, so just to make sure expectations match up here:

- Andrew and Maggie are joining the first sweep from the start
- Cecil and Martin are dropping in at Polly's house and joining them later
- Tom is organising making his cart available for the afternoon search and/or possibly joining the first sweep later, as far as he can persuade the horse to go.

...is that about right?


edit:



Indeed, but could at least one of you confirm the above so that I don't wind up cutting anyone off whilst setting up new threads? That would be really helpful to me.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:04, Tue 05 Oct 2021.

That works for me. Martin will grab his medical bag, accompany the vicar to Polly's house, and then join the rest when we're able.

Try not to get eaten, rest of you!

#...thank you...# I'll get on that presently. Onwards!

As a note, our lurker expressed interest in Ben's slot and I hope will be able to come in and join the searching party at some point soon.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 124):

hello! I was that lurker, and I'm looking forward to joining you all. :)

Welcome former lurker!

In reply to Martin Lovelace (msg # 126):

Thanks! I'm hoping to get Sam done by this weekend.

Right. Threads. A couple of extra notes before I go to sleep:

1. Being extremely rare in comparison to castrates (usually only happening when something went horribly wrong whilst whelping pups, as in Dockie's case) and liminal beings in the sense of being thought to have puppy-making life-force/power inside without the ability to do so, spayed bitches were held to be able to detect and guard against all kinds of fey and demonic influences.

2. The Durbin house is the one on a line with the wet and wavy field to the left of the map. The doctor and vicar are currently in the lane serving it, on the doorstep, and the search line is spread roughly along the footpath bounding the village on that side between the main road and back lane. They'll comb the ground heading west and eventually swing back up and around to the edge of the Wyzenwood.


Oh, and to make up for what look like Trugred's cousins from the shallow end of the gene pool on 3a's music video there, here is a brilliant shot of Penglaz I found: https://images.app.goo.gl/6bNkkQYgMnASa2fW7

Hello!

*waving at lurker*

In reply to Reverend Palmer (msg # 129):

Thanks!

Welcome former lurker.

Welcome aboard new vic…I mean, former lurker!

In reply to Andrew Sexton (msg # 132):

Thanks everyone!

Doctor Lovelace and Reverend Palmer, apologies if you're busy instead, but I suspect a gentleman jam: should you both be politely waiting on each other, could the first to read this ask the Magic 8-Ball if he goes first? Thank you.

Sorry, Real Life was distracting, our chancellor was just forced to semi-resign and we've been pretty much all glued to tv/internet.

Not quite sure why Martin wanted to go to Polly's home, I just figured he'd grab his bag and I'd grab a book or two to have with us on the search for Polly.

That...sounds highly alarming, and I do not blame you. Between this and Poland being even worse than reported (yes, that's possible, they seem to be trying to become Belarus) from contacts on the ground there, I am seriously coming to doubt the way the BBC reports European news...very sorry to hear that.

Andrew suggested investigating where she was last seen, but didn't have the social clout to ask to look at her room/ask her parents if they'd hurt her feelings or body the night she was last known of; it was determined the Doctor should go, and I'm pretty sure Cecil specifically agreed to go along, being considered an expert in hearing and keeping others' sins to himself.

[points up] I did ask if y'all were on the same page before starting these threads - remember, if you you don't tell me help, reminders or background information is needed, I don't know!

Communication in words is preferred, but I will accept drawings, mime and interpretive dance.

Ah, all good, then, I shall commence to posting!

The resignation is good-ish. I mean it's great that he had to step down as chancellor. The guy following him is to be expected just a puppet of his, though, so we'll have to wait how that turns out.
And he's not completely out: He's still the head of his party and instead of being the head of government, he'll be the head of his party's faction in Austrian parliament. So he'll still carry a lot of clout.

We dodged a bullet; but we're still in the same gunfight, so to speak.

Maggie has apparently chosen the last option.

Hey all,

I wanted to let you know that I have a family member who's not doing well, and my family expects him to pass any time now. I realize it's awful timing since I just joined, but wanted to give a heads up.

My sympathies.

I certainly wouldn’t worry about this. We’ll be here when you’re able to return.

In reply to Andrew Sexton (msg # 140):

Thanks so much. Just been trying to keep my mind away from it.

Whatever we can do to help keep your mind off it, we'll be here.
Sending you strength through the internet!

Ach...I present the Kentucky Meat Shower as an aid to getting lost in Wikipedia, if that helps any.

I also proffer my apologies at Thread 02b, since I spent most of yesterday in a state like this frog with not much brain left spare; I am out of break now but will get there tonight...!

In reply to Reverend Palmer (msg # 142):

Thanks.

That family member passed away earlier this morning. I don't know the funeral plans yet, but wanted to let you all know anyway, keep moving ahead and I'll catch up asap.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

In reply to Reverend Palmer (msg # 145):

Thanks. <3

In reply to Samuel Hartman (msg # 144):

My condolences.

In reply to Margaret Yendale (msg # 147):

Thanks. <3

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 143):

"two gentlemen who tasted it" W.T.F.

[vegetarian shrug] Free meat?

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 150):

i guess, either way it's extremely cursed

All right, heads up that before I go home presently I'm going to shuffle the closed threads about to change the order because they're annoying me as a jumble...Tom, haven't forgotten you, bringing you back into the main thread is due next.

Martin & Cecil, are you stuck? If neither of you have any particular reaction to that information/urge to selflessly volunteer to distract Mrs. Durbin whilst the other searches I can carry on over there, just let me know.

edit: Threads shuffled, sorry about all the pings...
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:44, Fri 15 Oct 2021.

Got like a million customers come in in the least week before the filing deadline and crowing in work right now.. Should be done after the weekend.

Ah! My apologies, I wasn't meaning to agitate, and will surely give you a chance to look in before shooing anything on. That's a rather terrifying workload, and a mental image rather like a zombie hoarde...

Unrelatedly, given recent OOC topics I thought maybe some of you folks would, hmm, enjoy? This pretend U.S. National Park I found on the internet.

Oof. Just wanted to extend general apologies for being slow, and to say that I will likely be around more over the weekend, since I have to self-isolate waiting on a PCR. The tail end of this week has been...well, getting a Covid exposure alert was about the best thing that happened today, not counting the sun coming out for a bit.

I need to report the PCR and cook things into curry to help support myself for ~3 days of self-isolating, but hopefully will be more about tonight than yesterday.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 155):

Oh no! I'm sorry to hear that - take care of yourself, life always comes first. <3

Yes, please take care. We’ll be here, ready to venture into the woods to be eaten, whenever you’re able to give this time. Self care assuredly comes first.

Hope it comes back neg.


-

It probably will, given I only shared an enclosed room with the colleague for one meeting. Just a weekend of being cooped up and upset. The day/background stress/my inability to sleep like a sane animal has given me enough chest & neck tension to be sore, though, so I should probably try to get some sleep in before my body decides that the thing I really need right now is migraines.

I will go drink some water. Thank you all for the concern and even moreso for the patience, they're truly appreciated.

You take good care of yourself, mister, or else. Seriously, take it as easy as you can, my friend.

Got the all clear at 7pm this evening; I will actually be able to go outside tomorrow!

...I am going to have no idea what day it is, and the cascading work-related Problems will only be worse for my absence, but I am going right out and getting myself some orange juice and some green edible thing that is not the feral parsley taking up the greater part of my postage stamp of garden at present.

Anyway, please enjoy this found instance of 'internet people discover weird historical facts', potatoes edition: https://hookteeth.tumblr.com/p...t-asparklethatisblue

I will attempt to go to sleep now, my brain is cloudy and the rain is loud.

That is good news!

The quarantining will continue until the pandemic is over, but hopefully, that should now be merely annoying and no longer a sign of imminent sickness.

I agree with Reverend Palmer, I'm glad it's good news.

Annoying it certainly is! Still, if it might save someone's grandma it has to be done.

Everyone else doing all right?

I am! Been drinking way too much tea and doing some personal projects while job-hunting, but doing alright.

Do I have time to grab the book?

If you're quick about it...the fun question is 'then what?' :D

Well, the idea would be to grab and hide it in my coat.

Doable, since male coat pockets of the period are pretty much designed for exactly that (the pockets of female clothing are separate bags worn under the dress, and aren't necessarily standard between changes of clothing, let alone ladies). Mrs. Durbin will come in to find the vicar standing there holding a not-quite-metre ruler for no clear reason, in that case. Measure things and pretend to be looking for secret panels?

@Sam - glad to hear things are evening out. I would express shock at the notion of too much tea, but rather I am curious as to what kind, since you implied being based in the USA and a tea-drinking American is a rare bird indeed.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 169):

I usually drink chai tea - it's just Cinnamon Rolls: The Drink. It's my go to caffeinated beverage, especially this time of year.

It's definitely good stuff, though the cinnamon combination does something to my insides that gives me the acids, particularly if made up properly with thick milk and sugar.

My default autumn tea is a 1:2 lapsang:keemun mix that has all the qualities looked for in a fine whiskey without getting you drunk in your shirtsleeves by 2 in the afternoon, but part of me rather enjoys a 2:1 of rose congou:darjeeling at this time of year more than others. Rain, cut fields and a cupfull of sweet flowers summoned out of summer/warm places to your bidding like a kind of magic.

Nice! i know sometimes I'll blend my chai with either ginger or vanilla tea, that's tasty.

...or stir it for a while with a piece of raw liquorice root, that's good if not otherwise adding additions, too.

Presuming at least the Americans are away tonight doing that thing where they dress as sexy household appliances, I shall put this down here for when folk come back, since it seems meet to acknowledge the season. *dance dance* Also one of my favourite bits of zombie art (what does he want it to do, all wrapped up in its shroud like that?) and a strawboy as a reference to what the 'Bogi' morris character looks like in-story.

Neither All Hallows itself nor Hallowe'en were particularly marked in England in the Georgian era - partly through saint-worship being lost to Cromwell's Puritan regime like the church decorations, partly through disdain of Cornish/Welsh/Scots traditions which did mark Samhain - though in various places you were held to be able to go to the churchyard gate that midnight and see a procession of everyone who was going to die that year (potentially including yourself) or a few other fortune-telling tricks. I suspect in Scorch Norton that's when they dance the Other Morris.

Ahoy, Andrew! That's actually a Natural World roll for that specific thing.

I've been giving Dr. Lovelace a chance to look in, but if he's not about by tonight he officially gets sent to the land of Over There Somewhere, so I'll move things along. Trying to bring Sam in soon, too - sorry to leave you isolated in a prelude thread there.

Generally speaking, are we still having fun?

It's hard to phrase this, but please don't be too polite to tell me if not. See, I've noticed the pacing seems to be stuttering somewhat, and I'm not sure if it's folk being busy (it is maybe Thanksgiving now/soon in the US?), folk being disillusioned and not enjoying things or me biting off more than I can chew and making useless wheezing noises rather than clear narration, so to speak.

Sorry, work has been pretty crazy lately! Missed catching up here. I'll do that today.

Thank you, doctor.I'll give the PCs space to update ye.

 I don't want Wyzenwood to be a chore, though, and the deafening crickets when I've asked for feedback (a "yes/no/busy" would do, I'm not fishing for essays or head-patting) concern me considerably. I...will assume folk were out of a Friday night, as is commonplace, but whilst I don't want to put a game down just because it's limping a bit, I also don't want to fuel some joyless enterprise on people's sense of obligation. I can be PM'd if anyone wants to say things are/n't working for them quietly, but please communicate.

I carve out time for this stuff, too, and I've seen very promising games die for want of their GMs coming forward and saying they were struggling with a post rate below what they'd advertised for: lag temporary or ongoing can be adapted to if identified and mutually agreed-to, but un-prepared-for? Gosh it's a lot of extra work this side of the screen.

I want to introduce you to the wet Somerset mud and the layered past of generations living in one place, safe paths turned wrong, the miserable petty cruelty of human beings in contrast to the grand obliterating indifference of entities so ancient, alien and inescapable they might as well be an element. The fact that those human beings can stand up and do what they can about both, too. I don't want to introduce you to being intermittently poked by an annoying Keeper to slog through something just because y'all said you would, or being constantly confused because lag, or your Investigators not living up to their potential due to my lacking time or energy to spoonfeed dropped findings back into their beaks. In short, it is a game and I want everyone to have fun therein.

No issues for me at all, Keeper.

I think, on analysis, some of my recent quiet has been a little situational, with respect to the game. As Andrew is further back in the line of searchers, I tend to play off of what is happening ahead. That’s probably not the best approach. Rather, I need to focus on what’s in Andrew’s immediate vicinity, like dead people reaching up from the marsh trying to drag the living under.

No complaints about the game itself whatsoever. Truly enjoying my time here.

Im enjoying the game as well. Holidays are coming up soon for me though

Maggie is just waiting for everyone else to get excited about hauling up fairy treasure.

Feedback much appreciated, truly. It is reassuring to know I am not causing my players dule and woe.

...and yes, reacting to distracting incidents does get one to a place they can be walked away from quicker, if that's what one wishes to do. Currently, Maggie is probably quite happy to handle all the unleashing of ancient ghosts digging for treasure and distracting of other searchers whilst y'all go on along the field - no sideroute or subplot is mandatory.

Unrelated but interesting, what people were dying of in London 139 years before our story is set.

edit: here I proceed to get entirely distracted - sorry Sam, will get to your thread tomorrow. Vicar, you can leave the door open and let your creepy old sexton Mr. Carpenter know that needs dealt with if you like, it's not a particularly Satanic pigeon.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:57, Sun 14 Nov 2021.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 180):

No worries, take care of yourself first.

I like the game, just wonder what poor Cecil has done to anger the dice roller so much! :-)

And I don't mind a pace that's a tad slower now and then. Work and life have been unusual busy for this time of year. Barely manage to kepp up with all the games I'm in.

And I just chased after a player in a game and now haven't been able to update myself...

Which sucks.

And then there's the other thing: Covid numbers are on the rise, the highest they've ever been and our government's local and federal response has been woefully inadequate.
We still have family members who refuse to get vaccinated and it's taking a toll on us all.

It would be one thing if everybody just got tested regularly and then we avoid the subject altogether, but they keep bringing it up.

There was a major fight the other week between my wife and a couple of her sisters and they are not on speaking terms right now.
The holidays are coming up and we don't know how that will go. We might go into full Lockdown again soon, so the point may be moot.

It's stressful. I just want this whole bloody pandemic over and done with.

Sorry for the rant.

To be fair he has succeeded at all things academic, he just has trouble spotting anomalies sometimes or at all.

Hey, no worries, lots of social people are very fed up by now, especially with Facebook-poisoned idiots prolonging it. Personally I think all* anti-vaxxers should be shot, since it would end the lethal danger they pose to the innocent and simultaneously rid society of those most prone to right-wing culting, but that's just me. Being firm that they're not allowed to spend any holiday gatherings with parents or children due to the risks they pose is about as much as can be done, and you both are 100% right to do it.



*especially the ones who believe the conspiracy theory that the MMR magically gives children autism and would rather have entire school districts die of measles - frequently lethal to adults, second only to smallpox in terms of endemic disease - than try to love an autistic child. That's straight-up evil on all levels.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 183):

I absolutely understand being pissed at anti-vaxxers - that being said, I am more sympathetic to the people who would get the vaccine but can't because of a medical reason (like being allergic to something in a vaccine) - that doesn't go to the facebook people saying stuff like "they're putting microchips in the vaccines to track you" or whatever - they're already tracking you using your phone.

That's my rant - and I am completely okay with a slower pace.

That is why my ire is directed at anti-vaxxers and not the unvaccinated in general, indeed: language is important. I'd actually be less violently inclined towards the former if the latter didn't exist, disproportionately so in marginalised communities. As it stands, hothousing viral mutations in the Johnson/Trump/Boisonaro fashion is the next best thing to active cultural genocide in terms of taking out the elders of rural indigenous groups, refugees, Roma and the like whose access to sanitation is low, let alone vaccines.

Additionally, I do have a little sympathy for African-American and Black folk in the US, who have historically recently been experimented on by a country that regularly tries to kill them, but...that's a real reason to be wary, not a real reason to cease using logic on the raw facts that less uptake = more deaths.

In hindsight I should probably have specified shot like a mediaeval outlaw - i.e. until you stop going about burning people in their houses/axing them at the mead-bench/being a jerk for the better part of a decade, you are socially classed as a wild animal and anyone can kill you and take your stuff - since I am very much against governments & organised groups being encouraged to shoot anybody. Still.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 185):

I completely agree.

And here you all were being polite about gentle little rants! People being illogical and hurting others on account of nonsense gets my goat. In this game, however, vaccinations haven't been invented, so no-one can be stupid about them - they just have half their babies die now and then. Another fun fact about measles? It wipes your immune system of all prior resistances and modern medicine hasn't worked out a way around that yet. Measles and tetanus are worth the boosters.


Incidentally, 'consumption' - most but not all of which is TB - is not a massive problem in the country the way it is in cities in the period, and of the London causes of death listed under the link above Doctor Lovelace is approximately 70% less likely to diagnose patients with 'Planet' (i.e. 'they acted weirdly and died, maybe their horoscope was bad?'). As far as I can tell there isn't syphilis going round Scorch Norton at present, but in London and Liverpool it's thought rates might've been as high as 1 in 5.

The popular high-class Georgian 'beauty patches' were often used to cover dents from smallpox scars, but beware anyone wearing a huge one, since that was considered the 'fancy' way to cover festering syphilitic lesions in visible areas. Syphilis and its tendancy to make people's faces rot off in the long term is another reason folk are well used to scars and prosthetics.


Anyway, various horrible diseases aside - I'm actually surprised I haven't veered off on my usual rabies ramble - is anyone waiting on input from me?

Sorry i've been away, coming up on holidays and my birthday right after.

Happy approximate-birthday! If you could let me know when you're likely to be off on hols, that'd be really useful for me planning things/pacing, if that's possible.

Your and Dr. Lovelace's current positions are close enough to potentially affect each other, is why there was a ping there.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 189):

thanks! Thursday is Thanksgiving here in the states, but my mom will likely need some help every day until then

Moved from IC thread
v



Tom! There's twa of us bothering you about props now - see if you can sort it before I get home and get things moving again.




All right, I'll pre-emptively send Sam to the Land of Over There Somewhere 'til next week. Everyone else, if you're upfield of where Maggie is now, you can see Sam and his buddy Edwin, but they're...over there. When Sam's player is back they'll join the action.


Also, Americans...do you not eat pumpkins in a normal fashion? After being utterly scandalised to read on the internet that the "pumpkin spice" stuff we hear so much about the moment summer's over contains 0 pumpkins(?!), I saw someone respond that it was because it was the only spice put on pumpkins, which were only consumed as those weird sweet flan things. I...is that true? Surely you roast them with your potatoes, at least? ... I have made myself want pumpkin now.

I feel like its similar to the spices you'd use in pumpkin pie - my mom has told stories of how she would put pumpkin in pancakes when I was a baby. I haven't had pumpkin by itself, but I'd probably put ot in with something.

Pumpkin soup? Pumpkin risotto? Pumpkin gratin? In with roast veg in general? As a sweetish thickener in a cheese sauce-based dish? Pumpkin is a savoury food, it ought to be roasted with salt, sage and rosemary or spiced with paprika or full-on kitchen pepper if anything. Also, you're not here, you said so - shoo!

Tom's fixing his prop issues, so I'll get on with that post...

I think the confusion may be related to definition, as while the word pumpkin doesn't really have an agreed upon botanical meaning, it is generally used interchangeably with variants of squash. There are squashes that are consumed here as part of savory preparations, as well as squash consumed in sweet preparations, and squash consumed in both. This makes sense as some squash have a sweeter element to them, like butternut squash.

Pumpkin pie, however, is a dessert. The spice blend used for pumpkin pie (or at least something meant to evoke the flavor of pumpkin pie) is what is described here colloquially as "pumpkin spice." It usually has some combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, ginger, etc., which are not uncommonly found in various other dessert preparations. As such, it is usually used in sweet preparations like lattes that come autumn are eagerly consumed by people who are unintentionally cosplaying as Han Solo.



That said, for my part, I eschew pumpkin spice lattes in favor of drinking my coffee black. Black as midnight on a moonless night, in the words of Special Agent Dale Cooper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...Reactionclips-mostly
This message was last edited by the player at 20:42, Mon 22 Nov 2021.

You...you mean pumpkins don't exist? I tell you, I see a round gourd squash with more oop than solid, I call it a pumpkin (to the best of my knowledge and belief, so does everyone else, but then I thought 'eldritch' was a common word and that fish existed, so.).

! Look at all the little Hannes...

Bleg. The only "coffee" that comes close to what the smell promises is roasted dandelion, and I haven't worked out how to actually drink the small bag of whatever the hell my friend in Tennessee sent me (this stuff - 'gentle' only to coffee-drinkers and those that don't brew Russian-style, I bet*) without feeling like I have to consume my own weight in nectar for several hours.

Unrelatedly, in looking for a 'dog helping with large stick' picture to illustrate Dockie's 'helping', I found a picture that could very nearly be the Magical Warding Bitch herself: https://images.app.goo.gl/MEDtU9DSJp6webG19. I don't think the Reverend Jack Russell has refined his breeding stock yet, but that rough kind of orange-and-white small game dog was the common southern English terrier type of the period.

Also! Period pugs, whilst status markers rather than what the common folk would call a dog (animals kept only as friends haven't been invented for the working class yet), aren't inbred to the point of nonfunctionality yet. They look more like this.

*also that understand ulbs and ozzes.

"Period Pugs" sounds like a device from the 18th century used by menstruating women.

I mean, that angle makes the "breed these dogs to be smaller, rounder cylinders" thing even more horrific, but you're not wrong.

Oof. It's been a day that'd entertain Kafka and now it is somehow 10pm. >_<

Posting this here because it's true: https://youtu.be/4aCBuK69-KM

(though I also transform into a mediaeval peasant and/or gravedigger when shouldering a mattock for any length of time.)

Happy Thanksgiving if everyone is celebrating - if not, i hope you have a great day. :)

It's 8pm for me (and has been dark for almost five hours up here at 59^o North), and 9pm for the vicar, but thank you. I hope you enjoy your strange flan thing made out of round squash.

Thanks

Well, ongoing good wishes for the Hanukkah period, whether we have any Jews aboard or not. Light festivals are nice. Technically a happy St. Andrew's day as well, by ~30 minutes...


Speaking of lights, since it's finally decided to act like winter here and snow a little with a windchill of up to -7^oc, I was getting out my cold weather clothing and found some lined work trousers I must have got late last winter or in spring. They are fine and pristine, yet also a complete liability at the time of year they're needed, i.e. when 'day' is 2-3 hours of unenthusiastic twilight, since they have no reflective patches at all.

Since I would like to have warm legs without being run over, I need to add patches, and if I'm going to expend the effort in cutting and sewing fragments of the sleeve bit of a dead traffic cone onto said garment, I'm not going to just do squares. My usual pair are already strategically covered in stylised human eyes (to indicate my speed by showing where my calves are, make drivers feel observed, and to deter  predators) so I'd like to do something different...my current thought is a line of bracket fungus around the legs and maybe waxcap-looking things on the leg pocket if I have enough left over. My sort-of apprentice thinks jellyfish, but I'd feel I ought to get in some reflective thread for better tentacles on those. Any thoughts from Team Folk Horror over here?


Also, a heads up that I mean to update the Clues thread soon, since a few of you have information maybe worth sharing...or concealing for your own mysterious ends.

Deer: https://twitter.com/FabulousWe.../1467442393301626886

...just giving Sam and the Doctor a chance to catch up and we'll roll along here. Tom, since you're out ahead squinting at the trail (and still have Dockie), mind throwing me a Track roll over here?

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 203):

I'm working on it, just dealing with a lack of sleep.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 203):

Thomas Bees rolled 78 using 1d100.  Track = 25%.


-

Why do I feel like we’re headed toward this kind of outcome (minus the video recording of the terrible things that transpire)?

Nah, the folks come over from my last game surely think it's old hat to be tormented with small bundles of twigs, various teeth and animal remains...

https://youtu.be/JVfHDF_ZmVU?t=98

Update for fairness' sake: I've been out being as social as I get all 'day' and have not had time/weather for walking, then the national broadcasting corporation decided to pick on certain minorities again and now makes you give a postcode & telephone number in the complaint process (presumably through being swamped with concerned internationals after the last debacle) which just makes me want to hollow out my entire torso with a spoon from reflex anxiety, so...since it looked like everyone was staying clumped together for now, I'm aiming for tomorrow to start a new thread over in the field by that end of the Wyzenwood.

tl;dr bad brain, can't word nice.

---

If anyone possessing the Track skill wants to give me a roll now for expediency, I can incorporate results in the aforesaid next thread's intro.

Leaving the thread open tonight, though, just in case someone (Maggie? Vicar?) wanted to run off and get et do something else or make a comment.

---

In news a little less dule and woe, here is a bit of genius advertising/silliness from the Longest Johns, the Somerset shanty/folk band who've provided several of our mood music bits (they also have a chiptune collection out)

Thomas Bees rolled 10 using 1d100.  TRack = 60%.



-

So basically, Mistress Yendale is the only one who isn’t clueless.

Ah, Long Tom made his Track roll, he's just not noticing his surroundings...I'm around, by the way, just giving Sam and the Vicar time to post before sharing out information around yourselves.

...but yes, it seems our picaresque poacher with shades of Mad Maudline is the most aware and sensible of you lot right now. Not as daft as she's turnip-looking, that lass.

Oh! I finally got the Round Cthulhu I compulsively made (aided and abetted by a local potter) glazed, re-baked, etc. and he is rather delightfully repulsive, even to me. Anyone want to see?

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 211):

As long as I don't lose my mind, sure. :P

Ah, well then, you make a wee post so as not to keep the gentlemen (and Maggie) waiting, and I'll show you a terrible chubby god. Consider it a ctharrot. [nod]

I will be away from the 16 of December to about the 23rd of December. I wont have any internet access. Thanks.


-

May you travel safely and things turn out as well as they may do. Thank you for the notice, such is always appreciated.

As promised, one chubby, chubby god:

         

He's not quite the near-sphere I was aiming at, but close enough. I was skittish about the hollowing process, too, so he's heavy...you could definitely bean someone with this thing.

Nicely wrought.

Thank you, he's kind of horrible. ^_^

Got a lot to do today/tonight, but if the vicar doesn't show up by this evening I'll do my best to scoot things along with him Over There Somewhere.

Sorry, I've been waiting for business & work to cool down as we approach the holidays, but there's no end in sight (good problem to have, obviously, but also very time consuming!)

Ah, no worries, as you see the pace is not exactly hopping at present. Indeed, I'm wondering if the group want me to call an official hiatus, since we're getting to interesting/spooky bits of Plot and information just when everyone is running short on time and attention, and nothing makes it harder to swing horror than being unable to build atmosphere. Let me know, folks.

At any rate, may the extra business result in extra funds with which to remain warm and fed, and hey, my official Absence Policy exists right there on the intro, and I do my best to suit players' needs.

[juggle juggle juggle]  Please note that unless someone sneaks up to them somehow, the conversation between the Vicar and Hessie is only audible as vague background sounds. I'm leaving it visible for now since it's just village background stuff and what might be picked up from rumour, but the conversation may go "mute" if more sensitive information is volunteered.

edit: purely because I personally fret over these things: Mrs. Durbin undoubtedly thinks she's helping by adding the perspective of "in our day we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways" etc., but her failing is not carrying through to then say "...and we solved the problem by getting the village together and building a bridge". It's not a case of Bad Parent is Bad, just someone too self-absorbed in that anxious self-flallegating way to remember that teens don't actually have the life experience to use that perspective in any way, and are only going to be emotionally crushed by being told the concerns of their social sphere are really very unimportant after twenty years.

Ehhh...that is to say, my policy is that human badness is always human badness, not disposable cartoon badness, and inhuman badness is...well, either you have a human who has crossed into What Should Not Be from trying to squish things into a human mind/soul that really shouldn't go in there any more than lawnmower blades should go in a human stomach, or a non-human about whom human judgements are irrelevant, though they might melt your brain out of your ears.

*ahem*

There's an optional Spot Hidden for anyone looking out at the fields, and a little more that might be learnt from a Track roll right at the flattened patch Andrew's in, particularly if it comes in at fifth value, if anyone felt in need of more input to post with.

Unrelatedly and only on-topic because non-contemporary horror, please enjoy this Victorian Christmas weirdness*: https://twitter.com/LaurynIpsu.../1471680617452429312

GOAT.


*edit II: if anyone wants me to explain the bird thing, I know that one! Obscure and useless folklore is a broad part of my knowledge base!
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:44, Tue 21 Dec 2021.

'tis true, it's very nearly Christmas Day, and you know what that means:


   


May all here (and the Mari Lwyd) find a hearth and warmth, food and ale and such good things.

i dont know if you all are on the discord, but if you are friends with either ThatGuy#2029 or WaitingCynicism#2429 that you should block those accounts if so. Those are my accounts, and i fell for for malware so they are compromised. I am in contact with discord trying to regain access to them. ill post when I do

I am not sure what any of that means precisely, but it sounds unfortunate, and perhaps like it should be posted in the Offsite Gaming forum rather than here? I don't think it is anything to do with this game at all.

Meanwhile, I very much need to know if Sam is keen to get himself horrifically devoured heading into the Wyzenwood with the men or hanging back with Maggie to hear discussions over there.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 225):

I did email the admins about it but never heard back. I will post there or in the community chat.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:30, Thu 30 Dec 2021.

I don't think the admins from here mod any related RPoL Discord, but then I don't know who does, either, and am very vague on what a Discord actually is, so...the Chat forum is probably the place for that, sure. May your malware issues not require too much scrubbing or a hardware overhaul.

Huh, seems I had this open/written hours ago and got entirely distracted...general note: the Vicar/Doctor don't (potentally) take that roll at Hard because they're not Scorch Norton natives - also the reason they potentially take SAN damage if they fail.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 227):

Thanks! I don't think it will, but I want to investigate the actual code used to be sure.

Happy new year, though of course, 2021 had to throw us one last middle finger. not looking forward to 2020 season 3.

Happy New Year, everybody!

I'm consoled to think that Betty White went out with the whole world blasting fireworks into the sky. A nice tribute to her.

99 and BOOM is pretty damn cool, that's for sure.

I am joining the sections of the internet I wander around in being excited that the Galve Goat burned down this last year, as it has not done since 2016. It does make me think of those lines from Heaney's Beowulf, though (minus the narrator's sorrowful judgement).



A non-patented vaccine is coming out, however - I think it's India's hack rather than Cuba's for once? I know both were working on such, but I need to check - which should vastly help to end the cycle of big pools of unvaccinated folk in countries made up mostly of poor primary-profession workers who don't eat if they don't work, encouraging infection and mutation and new variants which then upset the rich nations who hoard company vaccines and won't send doctors, because borders, etc. etc.

Don't get me started on rich countries hoarding vaccines.

We got about 15-20% of hard-core anti-vaxxers (at least against Covid) in my country. There was some hope that the new, more traditional vaccines coming out like Novavax might entice them to get vaccinated by allowing them to save face. You know, like "I wasn't against vaccination, I just wanted to wait for a proven technology, like any smart person would."

I got a super-small sample of two in my immediate family. But when I asked one of them (the other got Covid about a month ago), she said: "Let's see."

Amazing how many ways there are to say "No".

If for some reason I had not disowned her already, I would describe to her in detail how it is reported to feel to drown in one's own mucus, and how I absoloutely didn't care about that happening to her, but rather the ashmatic child or immunocompromised veteran she's willing to infect. The incredible privilege-cruelty of those people - assuming that of course the hospital will have time and space for them, of course the nurses will work themselves into weakness and danger and stay away from their own children for them, that just because the government cares about their category of people and isn't letting them drop like flies doesn't mean they have to get protection - very much makes me want to beat skulls in with a shovel in the name of community defense. That would be mean, however, so I simply maintain they should be shot.

You can quote "your scientist friend on the Internet" (she doesn't need to know 'archaeologist', but I certainly know about what happens to populations during real, pre-immunisation plagues) on that.

...

More cheerfully, I realised I haven't shared any recipes this year, so before we run out of Liminal Spacemas, I just want to tell everyone that a no-extras nut butter (Lidl does a plain squished-almonds-and-nothing-else that's affordable, but Americans may have to dump pre-soaked nuts in a food processor to get an unsugared version) and thick rye toast makes an excellent base for a sauerkraut sandwich. My elder friend with the mobility issues from Virginia introduced me to the concept of buttering the outside of a sandwich and frying it against a hot pan (she calls it "grilled cheese") so you can probably do that to this thing once a year without a heart attack. Add fresh black pepper and a little sea salt, it is so good. You could probably put a leftover meat in there without disturbing the flavour profile if you eat dead animals, too.

My resolution for this year is to quietly fight back against the gentrification of forage food by just referring to items in as broad terms as possible if asked, e.g. "it's bulked out with some weeds I found in a field", "The secret ingredient is berries I picked from the hedge", "there was this big white lump growing out of the ground, so I cooked it". Turning readily-available poor people fare into "superfoods" or gourmet-only products in the way of the lobster, native kale and decent brown/sourdough bread drives me absolutely bananas.

To slowly suffocate, you'd need to catch it first.

She is absolutely convinced that she won't get it.

Sure, but if you grant her that then she'd just be an asymptomatic carrier and will spread it to those that can't be vaccinated, given there's nowhere else for it to go. Empaths seem to care more about children than other people, so a description of exactly how she's willing to murder a child with, say, cystic fibrosis, who might not even get as far as triage to be put last at the hospital anyway, might get through. Maybe. Or if she cares about you and what you think of her at all, that you're happy for her to die like that if she's happy to cause a grandma who survived various horrors of the 20th century die like that might be a wake-up call. You might hope.

It's unlikely once cult mentality has set in, mind - once you hit someone's "bigot button" where if they admit basic logic is right then they'll have the burden of caring about something and painfully disentangling rusted-in prejudice from their sense of self, there's no arguing with them; they can't tell bigotry from self and you'll only get defensive shrieking nonsense like "the dictionary is gaslighting me!" or "you're a Jewish Pagan Commie Nazi!" They only come back from that stuff years later on their own, or after some personal catastrophe (or never). Which is why I am willing to declare myself all for exploding cultists if there's immediate danger to others.

Also...you can't choose who you're related to or divorce your in-laws, but you don't have to be friends with them if they wish you harm. Not easy, but you and your wife do have the choice to say "this is too wicked and too cruel, and you don't have the right to burn my energy in my one life trying to persuade you. I hope you learn to be better." Decent people wouldn't blame you, and sometimes it's hitting real consequences that snaps someone out of trundling down a bad path. Just sayin'.

We've lost power here, though, and have about half a foot of snow on the ground. I don't know when I will get power back, but wanted to give a heads up.

Well, good news on 2 fronts: I have access to the WaitingCynicism account on discord, and the power is back here.

Bad news: I don't have access to the ThatGuy account (the one that the attacker is using to try and spread the malware -though I have asked for it to be frozen), and there is a chance for snow Thursday night into Friday, and the power is flickering.

Just in case I'm not able to post again, that's likely why.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:11, Tue 04 Jan 2022.

All right...since Tom and I need an update from Sam to know if what he's trying is possible or liable to straight up get him lost, I'll step in at the weekend if you're not back by then.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 239):

All good, I will try to be

Well, it's the weekend, though I'll give Sam 'til evening. Is anyone else waiting on me, or someone I might gently poke?

I realise everyone's probably got scrambled time sense due to the first few days' work, but I fret about momentum, memory and milling when it's been crickets for a while.

Related only in the folk sense really, it seems Ye Vagabonds put out a new album whilst I wasn't looking with a couple of hare-hunting songs that capture the Celtic ambiguity towards the practice - an ambiguity faintly present in the West Country, it being nigh on to Cornwall and under Wales, whereas all mid-English-born hunting songs are all gleefully 'kill maim destroy fol-de-riddle-de-doo'. At least one will likely show up here, since one's just a pretty half-lament for hunting what isn't a necessity to hunt and the other mentions a folk character that seems to be a dropped clue at present, but aye, the period association of hares with witchcraft is probably folk memory of their association with old gods and old believers, the dubious and shunned.

Unrelated entirely, I am suffering from a very rare lust (for me) for material goods...someone help convince me I don't need a somewhat damaged moose skull just because I can afford it. It would not fit in my house.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:35, Sat 08 Jan 2022.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 241):

I'll get a post up tonight

Well, I am taking myself to bed now since things hurt and the brain is bad, so if I don't wake up to a post I will move things on at that point (& point disapprovingly at you).

edit: tired Keeper is salty. going to sleep, yes.

---

[has woken up to find no post]  -_-^# [vexed pointing]

Say things you can do, buddy, not things you mean to.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:02, Sun 09 Jan 2022.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 243):

just ran out of time yesterday

Going to give the good doctor a wee bit longer since he's looked in recently - is anyone waiting on me, or needs my help at all? Sam, you still with us?

No, I shouldn't be up, but I just got posts done elsewhere...strange how exhaustion seems to do nothing whatsoever to insomnia.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 245):

I'm still here! Thought I had gotten a post up, but he'll keep sprinting.

Good to know if I need to post for you, though I'd rather not have to - let me know if he's following the plan suggested by the narration or doing something different, whether both actions are used to run, and whether you mean running or sprinting there. As mentioned previously, an actual sprint would require a successful CON roll for more speed.

Thanks for the help there, Keeper. It's been a bit crazy recently. I added to your post with a bit of stuff hopefully to spur some thoughts.

Well, as if we didn't have enough snow already, we have chances for more snow from Thursday through the weekend. As a heads up.

Sorry folks, got a few people at the office out due to Covid so the last few days have been super-busy. Hopefully should be getting easier soon.

800th post! Thanks for the information, and may you stay un-wheezy yourself.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 251):

Indeed, Maggie.

Bringing his here (rude words warning) because it just made me laugh: https://silentmistynight.tumbl...t/673900512296484864

Lost-in-the-Wyzenwood thread, do you need any help, hints, or clarification from my end?

It's been something of a crunch at work this January and I was in getting a project finished for a deadline this afternoon. I was listening to videogame music for background focus noise whilst finishing and going to lock up, and let me tell you, I experienced some classic Pavlovian alarm at turning into a dark corridor and hearing boss music.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 254):

Still here, hoping to get something up tomorrow.

My apologies, it seems my brain has ceased to function for the night.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 256):

All good, it happens.

In reply to Samuel Hartman (msg # 257):

If you were waiting on anything else from me, please let me know.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 258):

Nope, I'll get something up today

Hokay...just to make sure we're on the same page here:

Thread 04, am I right in thinking the small group present wants to go back to the inn to regroup and/or share information/shoo Hessie off to start getting word out that there's a murderer about, trusting John Collins to do what he can for Team Trees if they don't find their way out soonish?

Thread 04a, am I correct in thinking y'all mean to try and hide in a bush and we're just waiting on Sam's Stealth roll to see how sucessful that turns out?

Yes that sounds right.

In reply to Thomas Bees (msg # 261):

yep, and I posted my roll

Aye, sorry, I fell down a wiki hole and got distracted - I'll get myself a last warm drink and be right on that.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 260):

4a

Maggie is most concerned with Hessie's well-being and wants her to a less distressful place. If Andrew Sexton is staying out, she will stay with him. He is her brother's master, so she feels some obligation there.

Thank you for the feedback - I feel Andrew might not have realised that, though I'm not sure. He may be quietly whimpering about blacking out in a panic right now.

Hessie would also like to go hug her mum (she may be almost a head taller than her mother, but under Lovely Nancy's immediate protection is a very safe-feeling place to be), but she's not abundantly keen to go on her own or with any one man. Not that Maggie couldn't strangle her with ease if she felt like it, but Maggie made a suggestion of sexual motive and that the killer was a man, so...

No, Andrew didn’t realize that and wouldn’t want Mistress Yendale feeling as though she had to remain in the vicinity of the cursed woods on his account.

Andrew, despite his lingering terror over demonic hoof prints and the like would still not want John Collins to face things alone. So, he’ll be inclined to offer to stay with the innkeeper when the time comes. He’ll also likely encourage Maggie to see Hessie back home safely, should the former feel conflicted by the aforementioned sense of obligation.

Thank you, Andrew. Kit'll probably volunteer to stick around.

Doctor, Vicar, what were you thinking over there?

If there's nothing else to be found there (now that the poor reverend has regained some of his wits about him), then yes, heading back sounds like the most prudent option. Staying out by myself in the woods doesn't sound like something Cecil would like.

I mean, he could tell the trees (or the hares) that the Power of Christ compelled them, but I doubt they'd heed him much. Thanks for the input, it's useful.

The Doctor will remain in place along with whoever is staying, such that he can be of assistance to any and see what actions are to be taken next.

Right! Thank you. I think he should take the Vicar out and say so, then - unless you/y'all would like me to summarise everyone out of the mild holding pattern that seems to have developed here?

Right. Well, that thread seems to be making entirely different arrangements now, so I'll sweep that up hopefully tonight. The other thread will carry on for a bit, preferably with a mind to get out and not die.

My apologies for the past 2-3 days' delay, that's a combination of my wretched nervous system and my skeleton's apparent desire to break free plus a failure of sufficient time/sleep/courage to deal with some behind the scenes stuff here. So. Aiming for updates tonight, hopefully including the Clues Thread, and new threads for those likely to get them over the weekend. Onward!

Somewhere in the Wyzenwood…

Free hugs are indeed available in the Wyzenwood, particularly after nightfall - indeed, the resident entity has such an advanced technique you'll never need another!

( M A X I M U M   S Q U I S H )

My continued apologies for being slow - it was a postitive kind of busy today, but I was entirely useless last night to the point of not even going to sleep, which likely explains my current headache. My thanks for your continued patience, I'm getting there. First I'm going to go cook up some beans and kale, though. If anyone was concerned, the Northern Isles had glassy calm whilst 'South' was getting our normal weather yesterday.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 274):

No worries! I was taking a tech test for a job interview and it was an 8 hour exam after everything (for a backend engineer position, though most of the database stuff I did in classes was on a local machine and not using someone else's setup).

I hope the exam turns out well for you. Saving the draft of the post for your thread and going to sleep now, though, since I am pretty much out of brain and that's a post that'll carry a fair bit of weight.

If you, Sam, and Tom want to be helpful, though, feel free to drop a Spot Hidden roll here for extra details.

Everyone else: it seems the current plan is for the Vicar to go get all the clues consult his library and everyone else just hang out at the edge of the Wyzenwood to see if anyone comes out again/take part in external rescue efforts if they don't, is this correct?

Maggie is escorting Hessie home and passing on John Collins's summons to the field workers. She is not best pleased at being the innkeeper's messenger but she does want to see her tender-hearted friend safe and in a less distressing situation.

She has no objection to the Vicar's and Kit's company, so long as they can keep up the pace.

Aye, well, if she's just dropping Hessie off and coming back rather than taking advantage of sources of information there, there's no point in my starting a thread for her there, was my reasoning. Kit's fairly sure she could handle herself if not ambushed - besides keeping an eye on the lassies he's trying to give the Vicar an excuse not to sink into his fears by being left alone after a severe shock (and offering to do the hard part of telling Polly's family Maggie thinks she's been murdered, though they haven't got a body to show for it), without saying so and offending him the way he's annoyed Andrew. Kit's a rough type, but he does care about people.

Happy Twosday! Today - 22/2/22 - is the last completely palindromic date this century (i.e. 22/02/2022) and the last time a 22/2/22 will happen on a Tuesday for 400 years, when we will all be very dead and even our bones will be dust*. ^_^



*if we are cremated and well-pounded in the cronching machine, buried in moderately acidic soils, or ecologically decomposed with said bones lost track of and eaten by wolves/sold/ground up to unscrupulous future mummy-dust users and novelty dice makers (remember folks, unless it's specifically willed like that old rocker who became part of a bass guitar, there is no such thing as ethically-sourced commericalised human bone. Medical cadavers' owners wanted to be anatomy lessons only and old skeletons from medical collections are usually Victorian-era poor people from colonised nations, particularly India, or straight out of Black-majority potters' fields in the US. Don't buy people! </PSA>).

Hokay, so giving the Vicar until tonight to show up or meep at me in PM to wait a bit*, otherwise I'm setting up as above. The delay has meant Team Trees have had a chance to extricate themselves, however, so who knows, by the time I get threads ready they may be close enough for y'all to hear the horrible screaming to just scramble out in a rather more battered condition than they went in.

Martin, I goofed a bit with your Clues Thread entry and will fix that with the update of what you learnt from Cecil once I get home.
edit: or...maybe in the morning. Gosh I got distracted.


*full sympathy to anyone Europe-based needing more time at present.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:29, Sat 26 Feb 2022.

Thanks! Just saw the update. I've been a bit slow recently owing to acquiring some additional job responsibilities and it has been something of a whirlwind. Slowly getting back into things here...

[waves] Good to see you about. Feel free to answer the Vicar if you want to, I'm leaving the thread open until I have the next ones up, which...still won't be tonight, because it is silly in the morning now and I had more pertinent NPCs to track than I thought, plus Maggie's player is being attacked by the evil noodles known as a migraine-prone nervous system and hasn't been able to give me background information, so. Also I am a distractable nervous mush because *gestures at European Situation* *gestures at Northern Isles' impending entanglement*

General Question: How many folk here see this kind of text as  cursive script and for how many is it Comic Sans?

Looks more like Comic Sans.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 283):

i see it as cursive on my android phone, but I can check on my windows and Linux machines when I'm at them

EDIT:

It shows up as Comic Sans on my Windows machine, and cursive on my Linux machine.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:04, Wed 02 Mar 2022.

Comic Sans on my PC.

On my android phone/Firefox browser it looks like... Half-bold?

That's really weird! On my phone it looked like normal cursive, on my windows laptop it looked like Comic Sans (truly the superior font), and on my Linux laptop (running Endeavour OS) it looked like the italic cursive font in LaTeX (a typesetting language).

So...I'm getting mostly Comic Sans? If so I'll go back to X-Files mono on the date stamps/italics where there would theoretically be cursive text, because CS is an abomination in my sight and if no-one's seeing pretty, aesthetic-matching text I'm just tormenting myself for no reason.

(it's a cursive font on my inherited iPad and Comic Sans on my taped-together Win7 laptop, if anyone was curious, but I deliberately went and got CS for the latter due to having a GM who often had characters assigned the Cursive tag as their voice at the time)

Right. With thanks to everyone who's got a post in  and apologies for having mush for brains at present, I'm going to make my bed and lie in it before the stress of a difficult appointment tomorrow morning and [gestures at world events] causes my nervous system to hit every pain switch at once.

Meanwhile, please enjoy this early footage of the Padstow 'Osses. As you see, there is a lot of leeway in what folk dancing considers a 'horse'...

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 289):

All good! If anyone knows CSS, you could write a little snippet to override the comic sans, though it is only on a local machine instead of the rpol server.

On my tablet, it appears as cursive. I haven’t yet checked how it looks on my desktop.

Hope your appointment tomorrow turns out well, Keeper!

Good wishes appreciated more than I can express, but alas it did not and that stress kind of caught up to me like a freight train as soon as I stopped actively working and was inside a while...I am now going to bed at 9:30pm like a Victorian great aunt because if I manage to sleep then maybe the throb/pain won't build enough to make me sick again. Thank you for bearing with me.

Please imagine a witty "technical difficulties' test card here.

Feel better soon, my Keeper.

Un-besmalling this and bolding the options, since everyone seems to have missed the question:



Also, Thomas, consider yourself bothered, because you have not yet answered/done the thing. [bothers you]

Let's say...round the back way then.

Seconded.

Get well soon, Keeper!

Oh, I'm...physically next best thing to fine by now. Consider your good wishes to have worked!

As for being badly put together in general and being sent back to square 1 after over a year of mildly traumatic hoop-jumping to find out why my body's decided to gradually shake itself apart now, well...I'll try to give y'all notice if you're going to have to add "Weegie Board*" to the dice roller, but other than that all I can do is pick myself up and start over, so.

Anyway, Maggie, consider yourself bothered, for now I have sucessfully bothered Tom I really need to know where folk are, and Doctor, are you singing in English?



*I have cousins in Glasgow - that counts, right?

Yes, English it is.

Though if you will permit it, he will sing in Dwarvish.

https://youtu.be/7wIShPoAWyw
This message was last edited by the player at 00:00, Wed 09 Mar 2022.

I must decidedly go to bed presently, though I assume that is the marvellous thing I think it is.

Answer appreciated, as Martin will doubtless be by the local wives and any elder maids abroad, since they don't know those ones and the sanitised sea shanty hasn't been invented yet.

Update: if Maggie's player is still busy by lunchtime (American morning) I will consult the dread power of he Magic 8-Ball to determine her location and move on before everyone forgets what they're doing.

Edit: 13:54, Today: The Keeper, on behalf of Margaret Yendale, got the result "Most likely" on the magic 8-ball.  Is Maggie with the others?

I am presently heading out on some rainy Saturday errands, but will move things along shortly.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:58, Sat 12 Mar 2022.

Oof but I am very bored of being in pain today. However! I have found a magical being that shares ths same world on the internet (spider warning), this makes things considerably better.

Sending our local definitely-not-a-witch round here, because I realised something very important and need a Luck roll from Andrew and the Vicar to see if they're affected alongside those who went right into the Wyzenwood (Martin and Kit weren't in deep enough or going at enough speed to encounter this risk).

Whilst I'm here, just going to note that NPCs' tag lines are taken from ballads relating generally to their professions or reputations, not necessarily them personally, and that Lucy Bees' is from 'Factory Girl' (as in "I work for my living and find it no shame") rather than, well, any cursed songs that refer to lillies, valleys and do on.

Goodie Westcott's tag is from 'The Witch of the Westmoreland', but she's not from the Lake District nor a centaur-like water-fey with powerful sex magic. Unless one considers a very good track record with regards to making sure neither mother nor baby dies during childbirth to be powerful sex magic, which it sort of is, cost-to-yield wise.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:42, Sun 20 Mar 2022.

[makes *psspsspsss* noises at the Investigators] Come on, I've got a reward* if someone but moves the plot on Thread 5a, answers the above question or gives me attention generally engages with the OOC...remember, if you're bored of one area or thing, or stuck, you have to indicate to me that you wish to move away from said area or thing, or are stuck, else I don't know...


*I doodled out cast heights/builds so y'all can see how ridiculously tall everyone is. Whether that's actually a reward is debatable, but people have liked seeing my height charts before, so.

---

edit: reward (with bonus Levi). Please note that the Vicar is dead-on average height for the period (and half a head taller than the average woman). He's not small, everyone else is just particularly well-nourished.




...it has also been brought to my attention that due to the nature of commonplace horror plots, some Investigators have likely taken my efforts to insist that the Wyzenwood is not a place of honour, that no great deeds are commemorated here etc. etc. as plot arrows towards the horrible radioactive death unknown at its centre, rather than warnings that entry should always be a last resort.

I shall say here explicitly: it is unwise to traverse the Wyzenwood.

...it may be possible to gain a little more safety with sufficient synthesis of folklore and scientific inquiry. As most of the villagers would point out, however, every tale about Scorch Norton and terror from the Wood starts with an outsider or someone from the former deciding to mess with the latter. It is possible to get the entire southwest of England in a Major Pickle by annoying/dangling oneself in reach of Dark Forces before actually knowing how to even vaguely deal with them.

Amusingly, the Vicar currently has very nearly all the pieces needed to solve everything solveable in the game, just not the connections to put them together.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:47, Mon 21 Mar 2022.

Love these sketches.

See, someone likes my teeny-tiny height charts. My sincere apologies, however, as after bothering everyone into action yesterday I appear to have run out of brain tonight. Nothing but cotton wool idiocy in there. Updates on the morrow. Gah.

edit: nearly there,  but also nearly asleep, so...hoping to get you all literally back on the same page within 2-3 posts, kind of thing.

Meanwhile, I just found out this guy existed and I feel immensely justified in assuming that Massachusetts-based Deep One hybrid communities would retain Puritan naming conventions as a cultural marker. He's just the famous one!
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:35, Wed 23 Mar 2022.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 305):

Hey, I like it as well.

Yes, that's what it feels like.

My luck roll: 10:34, Today: Reverend Palmer rolled 68 using 1d100 ((68)).

Yeesh.

Hi Vicar!  [crazy waving] Glad to see you about, and good timing, too.

Oh, oh no...this is both terrible and mildly hilarious, and it'll take some time before any of you know why. Incidentally, that roll shows Cecil has picked up a few tiny scratches/pinprick injuries from thorns that drew blood in the Wyzenwood - they'll probably sting a bit when he washes them, whenever he gets around to that.

Washing? Who am I, Semmelweis?

Hahaha...you know, anachronism-wise people often don't realise how recent germ theory and Europeans bathing when not visibly caked in dirt is. With sedentary settlements and lack of both modern filtration and hunter-gatherer land-knowledge to dig up water, your household water came from the sky and was finite and precious (the stuff from local watercourses was potentially full of horrible pathogens, plus corpse juice with added lead if downstream of a cemetery...not great to warm over and immerse oneself in). Hair-washing as a specific activity, incidentally, is close to unheard-of: cleaning powders and/or some kind of oil/protein like egg white would be applied via a lady's hairbrush, who might also take it in hand to groom her husband if he wasn't of a class to shave down and have a selection of wigs.

Anyway, Vicar, are you heading up towards the search, through town and up to Yendale Farm, or just to the inn at present? You may gather that the rest of the gang are headed to the latter, but the other options now mean meeting them on the way and a chance to split off with some if desired.

I was thinking about going for this, but decided against it:

Since we've established that folk are running around with inobvious scratch wounds and that antibiotics have yet to be invented...thank you for not causing my Investigators to die of sepsis.

To the Inn!

[thumbs up] Going to give the others there a chance to respond to Robin and get everyone sat down there. You'll find Polzeath over there, too, since he's cleaned, brushed and folded everything he knows has any need of it and wasn't sure where his master was.

edit: Maggie, remember Bart owes you a pint for being a noble steed earlier.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:17, Fri 25 Mar 2022.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 314):

Aye, but that’s a pint certain whenever she claims it. With all the good fellowship flowing from comparatively wealthy folk, she’s hoping one or more may be generously disposed toward their fellow “toilers in the vineyard”.

Could be! She might even be able to cadge a drink off the Vicar, who's looking for folklore...

Going to give Andrew and Sam a chance to look in, but otherwise start on an inn post tomorrow evening, I think. Got some minor harrassment from drunken youths this afternoon (was very unobtrusive and thus confused until I remembered I had rainbow shoelaces - I like my rainbow shoelaces) and oof, my Issues are all "why did you de-escalate quickly, calmly and positively and slip away like a giant slippery land eel? We could've taken them!", and won't leave it alone. Therefore I'm about, but mostly going to continue embroidering squid in reflective thread on that one pair of dangerously non-reflective winter work trousers, so.

No-one has any particular feelings about staying in the same 'chapter' with a change of location, do they? I know this feels like an end/change of scene but nothing's actually happened, really, the primary information intended to be available mostly wound up elsewhere.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 316):

Oh! I'll double check that tonight.

Whal, recieving no objections by nearly my mindnight, everyone is now at the Hare & Sheaf. Everyone may thus commence to pester Tom at their leisure.

I must say I'm highly amused at how the Vicar's phrasing and the various factors behind Polzeath's answer combine to make a mention of his village's traditions sound less weird than average, in a cove so isolated no-one bothers to speak English and villagers get regular accusations of incest over looking like...well, like Polzeath.

Just dropping a reminder here that the Clues Thread exists if anyone needs to check known facts against yokel speculation or the effects of SAN damage. I'm also here to be asked anything not found there!

Quick reminder that whilst I do appreciate silliness and evident pranks, I follow this policy with regards to April Foolery, and would appreciate it if we aimed for that standard.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 320):

Thanks for that, really appreciate it

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 320):

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's incredible! Inever saw it before. Where'd you find it??

;P

T̴̻̙̦͝͠͝R̵̦̙͙͒͌A̸͖͚͇̒̈́͠D̵̦͙͙̿́̈́I̸̘͚͚͒̓͋T̴̙͚̿͛͒͜I̵̪͓̿͝͠O̴̙̪̞̓͛͒N̵̡̘͚̿́͌Ś̴̟͉͖̔͝ M̸̪̞͕̈́̓U̴͕̪̻̔̒̒S̸͇̟̫̓͒̚T̸͔̘̟̈́́̿ B̸͓͖͛̈́̔E̴̢͙͇̒̓̓ U̴̫̞̘̓͐͑P̵̫̦͔̈́̈́̓H̴͖͍͓̔͒E̴̦͖̔̓̀L̸̠̙͖̈́͘D̵͕̻͉̈́̾͝

...on a more serious note, I'll move things on tomorrow if the Doctor doesn't show up tonight at all: I am too stupid after a day of solid data entry to wrangle villagers in various states of paranoia, grief, curiousity etc. along with incoming trouble at present.

Ah...just in case this isn't Andrew's anxiety issues: if anyone's picking up any scorn from the inkeep that's just me being so bad at tone that I've managed to screw it up somewhere I can literally put adverbs next to speech. My bad there.

John Collins has lived here long enough that he knows full well you don't mess with the Wyzenwood, and unless someone implies he's an imported cannibal or a gorilla (thought to be a kind of 'wild man' in the era) or something because he's obviously a different colour to most Englishmen he's just a very no-nonsense dad. I mean, anyone who'd marry Lovely Nancy with her lack of tolerance for slyness and fools has to be pretty chill, on Darwinian principles if nothing else...

edit: Forgot to mention there's a couple more links on the Setting Thread dealing with wages, benefits and rough costs, though no-one out in the country is going to be buying six-shilling stays unless she is very fancy or wants new clothes to be married in (single-use, white wedding dresses haven't been invented yet - royalty might get a new white gown to show off, but even princesses and so on would probably re-use the items as special occasion clothes with no comment) without any of her family making them.

Tom & Sam, and if either/both of you tell a particularly impressive story I'll think up some reward.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:42, Mon 04 Apr 2022.

I think everyone is getting tensed up for no good reason. We should have every confidence that Mistress Westcott will conduct herself with kindness and understanding.

To be fair to her, she's done nothing but be helpful, just on the wrong side of some social mores and, well, patriarchy...she's currently pissed off that some idiots broke into her house, but I was giving Maggie a chance to look in before bringing her "onscreen" to say so.

Anyone wants to gossip about the old besom before she gets there, now's the time!

But that was done solely because it was suspected that she was a witch engaged in summoning infernal powers to bring death and destruction to Scorch Norton. So that makes it okay.

See also: Miller, Arthur The Crucible, Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1954.

Definitely a reasonable suspicion!

...hands up everyone who saw Goodie Westcott talking with the Devil...

(...also hands up everyone who's been handling rye or rye flour recently...)

Very nearly on-topic: being a highwayman just isn't what it was...

.

Goodie Westcott isn't over fond of Martin, but I'm not letting her ramble on said pseudoscience quite yet, as I'm hoping our carpenter and hopefully the Vicar will have questions for her that might prove more immediately illuminating. Of course, Tom also knows we're now in deeper trouble than an Anglo-Saxon bishop moving rocks around, but he can't really say anything...

Super-busy at work right now, should hopefully be better next week, after the tax deadline!

Ah, the Vicar appears! On Good Friday, too, very on point with the human sacrifice there...we'll assume Cecil is deep in thought, synthesising all he's learnt from this conversation. Thank you for letting me know how/why you're gone - I think we do have some Christians on board and probably bank holidays elsewhere, so I will just chitter to myself in a corner was expecting a wee slow patch.

[innocent look] that's not to say that anyone who wants to get a description of the stag   in isn't very welcome to do so...

Having noticed that a mainstream film of Roald Dahl's work now dominates Google searches for "Mr. Fox", I thought I'd drop a link to a little discussion/few variations of the folktale for interest, in case anyone was unfamiliar. Our 'real' serial killer belongs to the early 1500s and the heraldic motto Aude! can still be found on some of the older lintels at Fox Hall.

Alternately, the tale in ballad form.

Alright everyone...looks like in order to win the game we must locate Goodie Wescott's missing vibrator.

Well, you know what Victorian folklorists say about broomsticks...

I could horrify you with my research for this stuff. Or even with the kind of incidental things I know about period...personal entertainment aids, which are just...you can see the logic, sort of, but why. Why would you put that there. Springs may be involved. Plungers. These people are dying of tiny cuts and tetanus just in everyday life and aghkdsffkgggk I wish I could un-know things sometimes.

This is not the prop I thought would create a tangent. Hmm. Well, be as raucously Georgian as you like, but remember that the Vicar is still present, even if he's Over There Somewhere.

To continue the theme, I suppose, I just found this (maybe don't autoplay at work, but I think it would just make your admin confused/screech laugh) which is so funny, yet so dumb.

In reply to Martin Lovelace (msg # 335):

heh

A Sam! Nice to see you about - you, and now Tom, can give me another CON roll whilst responding to Eli, if you like (I'll keep track of how likely y'all are to wind up impaired through living on ale anyway, but agency is nice, no?).

A Note to All to Remember! -in the age before the intelligent telephone, people don't know things until you literally run and tell them. Unless you write them a letter and a fellow gets a horse to run and deliver it. Or you could strap your message to a pigeon and have it fly there, though both the latter are limited to the literate, so. This can be both to your advantage or disadvantage, note well.

...also, on happening on something on the internet that suggests otherwise: we know what rushlights are, right?