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PRP NOTES Hy-Brasil: The Grim Fortress

Apr 11th, 2019
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  1. INTRO
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  3. Once everyone has paid the price in Blood and Spirit to the Sanguine Engine, the Perilous sets sail upon the astral seas. She'll speed along quietly, cloaked in shadows and mist to avoid any unnecessary encounters as the crew sails out into the Deep and Far. It provides an eerily silent backdrop to anything transpiring on or below deck.
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  5. Eventually the Astral Seas give way to the River of Time, one of the few lost paths by which the realm of Hy-Brasil remains accessible. The River of Time is wide enough for maybe two longships to pass by one another without their hulls scraping, but only barely. Surrounded on either side by dense seemingly impenetrable and inscrutable woods, a slow creeping dread rises up from the river waters and tugs at the edges of the ship and anyone who might linger there too long.
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  7. Having been given leave to journey to and from the realm, the Perilous and her crew will not have to face the psyche-rending puzzles of the Goblin Lochsmiths from before, nor the test of will administered by the Knight of Sorrow. No, none of that to contend with! Instead, all they'll have to do is navigate the Path of Brambles that runs from the Last Garrison to the Grim Fortress. The Bramble Path is never the same journey twice, but as this is all but Ferdinand's first time making the trek, no one is likely to notice.
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  9. The Perilous finally sails silently up the river into a tributary shallows, dropping anchor and laying down gangplanks so that the crew can disembark. And its is here and now that our story REALLY begins!
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  11. ENCOUNTER: SAGE AT THE GRIM FORTRESS
  12. The sage to Lady Mariana of the Grim Fortress makes their way into the room, dressed in a cowled cloak, and wearing a plague mask. A PLAGUE MASK?! The sage eyes the crew from behind the mask, then sighs softly. She gestures for everyone to be seated. And begins to speak.
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  14. "Some women, some men, and most children know that dreams leak. A lifetime of thinking it that way in your sleep can make a drawer on a drafting table three or four inches wider on a side. But there are longer lives than ours. And longer dreams."
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  16. "There is a Red King, and he is terrible and he is tall. He wears a red crown. The long red years have made him strange and he hides from the sun, sleeping, his strange dreams making unseen days stranger. Sleeping, he dreams of ruin and of distortion - of a Grim Fortress /reversed/ and /red/. When he opens his red eyes in the red night there is his red land - inverted, rigid, and wrong."
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  18. "There is a cruel Heart Queen. She is in a different place, on a different mountain, sleeping in a different wooden box but she also is hiding and dreaming. She dreams into being a world unending, unbeginning, with wonder and murder, disruption and unreason. And melancholy green gardens where the light was once always golden on a shining white Gateway Castle. And it is there now. And hers."
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  20. "Their realm, their home, has many names. Voivodja first among them, but now they have come to our woods and our shores, and the name has changed as their dreams spill onto ours, running over them like a river of blood. Zeu orb. Orb Dumnezeu. Isten Vak. Many, many names now take shape, but all of them are the Land the Old Ones Refuse to See. The Place of Unreason. And? They. Have. Come. For. Us."
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  22. END SCENE!
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  24. ENCOUNTER: NAGEIRE (ROSE)!
  25. This large (30 foot tall) creature has the body of an enormous serpentine flower, with the head of a beautiful elven looking child nestled amidst its petals. Though seemingly anchored to the ground, it drags its coiling body through the forest by means of spindly, clawed-tipped arms. This particular breed is a Rose Nageire, sometimes known as a Thornchild. And it does not look happy!
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  27. INTERCEPTED COMMUNIQUE
  28. To my most clever and unfortunate Threel Highly, Red Knight of the Highest Order. I send greetings from the tower behind the well. This past season has been dense with the breeding of unexpected events. I trust that news of recent events here has reached you, and I likewise trust you received the unusual device I sent earlier, for otherwise you would be entirely unable to read the words I now set down. Though I am indeed made weary by the strain of maintaining this deception, I see the necessity in it, as I am certain, do you. It is vital that you investigate the Blind Mirror. To do otherwise is to risk what little you have left. Your most humble servant, Ozwick. PS - Othros incara ex'na glarr amnata!
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  30. ENCOUNTER! THE RED ROOK!
  31. The red rook is a hulking 15' tall grotesque. From a distance, it might seem that it lies inert. The rook possesses a gruesomely frowning domelike face, and spindly arms and legs like afterthoughts. The rook sits atop a palanquin, held up at each of the four corners by an invisible unseen force.
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  33. The rook opens is eyes and mouth, looks the crew over, and a riddle comes tumbling out past its lips:
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  35. ABIGAIL: I sail a misted sea, my face ever-changing, examining a silver world. WHO. AM. I?
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  37. ETHAN: I press my face to the wet walls in the dark, seeking salt and sugar. WHO. AM. I?
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  39. STERLING: You appear when I break. WHO. AM. I?
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  41. CODY: Five brothers wearing transparent masks, crowded warmly, wrapped together in cloth and in leather. WHO. ARE. WE?
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  43. MOONMAUS: When I scream and spit, people come to visit, smiling. WHO. AM. I?
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  45. ENCOUNTER: RED PAWNS!
  46. The red pawns that hold up the palanquin supporting the red rook suddenly drop the palanquin and move to engage the crew. Their lower legs have been replaced with long, lean needles, letting them stride at 15 feet tall or more across the land on those long sharp needles that serve as legs, impalong the earth mercilessly beneath them no matter the surface.
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  48. As the pawn is defeated? It turns into a swarm of red gnats! The swarm turns away from the crew and flies off! Eventually? The swarm stops and drops to the ground in a shower of bloody droplets, taking the shape of an inert ordinary-sized red chess pawn. Curiouser and curiouser!
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  50. As the pawn is defeated? It turns into a swarm of red scorpions! The swarm remains facing the crew, chittering menacingly and advances!
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