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.