TREMULUS a narrative game.

[Priest]

I am going to slightly rearange the order of the creation system, as I feel it is better to know some of the details of the story before completion of characters. It's not going to change your characters much, but it will give you some foresight and allow you to tinker with your characters slightly armed with some knowledge of who,where, what and when.

So please answer the following questions;

WHAT YOU THINK TO BE REAL about the town of Ebon Eaves and its people?:
 Are the locals friendly? A
 Do they exhibit strange behaviour? B
 Is it an old community? C
 Does the town have a tragic past? D
 Are there any secret societies? E
 Are the landmark buildings in disrepair? F
 Is the economy in decline? G

You MUST ANSWER YES to three and ONLY three.
JOT DOWN YES ANSWERS.

WHAT WEIRDNESS HAVE YOU HEARD about the town?:
 Have strange lights been seen in the area? A
 Is there a history of ghost sightings? B
 Has an incident of mass murder ever occurred here? C
 Have there ever been reports of flying creatures? D
 Have there ever been rumours of dark rituals? E
 Is there a history of madness amongst the townsfolk? F
 Are there any old ruins or buildings in or about the town? G

You MUST ANSWER YES to three and ONLY three.
JOT DOWN YES ANSWERS.

WHO IS Hezekiah Mason?
 What is Hezekiah Mason famous for? Is he a famous artist, musician, writer etc.
MAKE A CHOICE and write down what it is.

WHAT IS YOUR CONNECTION TO Hezekiah Mason?
 Distantly related.
 Friend.
 Peer group.
 Business dealings.
 Rivalry.
 Enmity.
 Other (specify)
CHOOSE ONE, and ONLY ONE from the above. If you choose OTHER specify what that connection is.

WHAT STORIES HAVE YOU HEARD about Hezekiah Mason?
 He is said to have sold his soul to the Devil. A
 People say that he has been seen in the company of a strange cloaked figure. B
 He keeps odd hours. C
 Lights have often been seen floating on the water of the lake near his house. D
 Strange noises have been heard coming from his house in the dead of night. E
 It is said that a succession of strangers have been seen coming and going from his house. F
 Other (make one up)
You MUST CHOOSE three and ONLY three from above.
JOT DOWN YOUR CHOICES , IF YOU CHOOSE OTHER SPECIFY WHAT.

Please note down your choices as A,B,C etc in the different categories and pm them to me. From the results I will extrapolate the details of the town and Ezekiah Mason.

[Priest]

I have created a synthesis of details from the answers I have got. Dr P has yet to supply his answers but I've gone with four out of five anyway. From here we begin the tale.

The date is 1926, and Ebon Eaves is one of many small New England towns to the west of Boston.

Here is what you know of the Town of Ebon Eaves;
• The town of Ebon Eaves has small population of a few hundred.
• During the war it lost a lot of young men to the fighting, as a result the town has since then begun a rapid decline into obscurity.
• Previously affectionately known as ‘Patriots Point’ due to its heavy involvement in the war of independence, something commemorated in the plaque outside the town hall and the bronze which depicts the town’s most famous son Colonel Ebeneezer Hallet dying whilst defiantly holding aloft a patriotic flag during the siege of Boston, and the later civil war. Ebon Eaves has been desperately trying to escape from that tag in the years following 1918.
• Local legend has it that the town, or rather the cemetery, was the scene of a gruesome bit of grave robbing a few years back. It seems that a young woman was so distraught on the loss of her baby to whooping cough that she had to be restrained after exhuming the corpse. Later she was incarcerated in a local sanatorium, during which time she slaughtered several other patients in a most horrendous fashion. Her husband was susequently discovered with his heart torn out and missing. The woman in question, a Susan Franklin, was tried for the murders of the patients and her husband, found guilty and hanged. It is said that on certain nights she can still be heard weeping for the dead child.
• Today it is known for two things. One, being the home of the famous peace campaigner and preacher – Deacon Justice Jones. And two, being home to one of America’s finest composers and novelists, Hezekiah Mason.


Here is what you know of Hezekiah Mason;
• He is a famous composer, playwright and novelist. His most famous works are the opera, ‘Lucifers Claw’and a rather infamous play, ‘The Cage’, both of which show an unnatural obsession with the darker side of human nature.
• It has been rumoured that these works, as with most of his other novels on the supernatural, are based on real life episodes from his past. Although he claims that the situations he describes were in fact told to him by a friend he refuses to name.
• A man of few friends, his abrasive personality and fixed ideas makes making enemies easier. However there is no denying his business acumen, which if not bringing friends to his table, assured him of many grudging admirers.
• He lives alone, apart from several cats and an ocasional housekeeper, in a large, rambling house on the outskirts of the town. A situation that many people have sought to change over recent years.
• Due to his love of solitude and privacy, he has been the source of many lurid stories. Such as having sold his soul to the devil, being seen in the company of strange, inhuman looking characters at odd hours, and even having a hidden stash of gold somewhere in his house at Ebon Eaves.

These things are common knowledge easy to find out, and may be true or false time will tell. You may have ideas on changing your characters to take account of the knowledge, this is fine as long as you don't alter the profession or make radical changes outside of the original Playbook.

[Supercape]

Looks great! Would you like us to do a short bio/background for our characters? I'm not going to change anything crunch wise but might add a slender piece of flesh to the mechanical bones?

[Priest]

As you wish.

[Supercape]

I think I might just let that come out in play if thats ok with you.

[Priest]

I think I might just let that come out in play if thats ok with you.

Fine

[Papa Gateau]

If you have space for The Devout - I'd like to chip in too.

No worries if you're full, I'll watch from afar.

[Priest]

Trust

Each character has 5 (the number of players) trust points to distribute over the course of the first few sessions depending on how they interract with the other characters. At this moment each player has 0 level of trust in each other (you barely know each other) as you interract and begin to (hopefully) trust each other you distibute those 5 points to show your trust in another player. Trust cuts both ways, but not necessarilly evenly. For example, the Detective who thinks The Professor hung the moon, while The Professor remembers him as a student who didn’t live up to his potentia; or Anne Dewar falls madly in love with James Crawford and trusts him implicitly (+ 2), however Crawford is indifferent to her advances and gives her little trust (0).

What Trust Means
-3 Wouldn’t sleep in the same house as them.
-2 Wouldn’t turn your back on them.
-1 Find them shifty.
0 Casual acquaintance. No real opinion positive or negative.
+1 A good friend, trustworthy.
+2 Close friend, trust with important personal matters.
+3 Inner circle, trust with your life.

Group Dynamics
You may increase your Trust in someone by 1 at the end of each chapter. If you do, you must reduce your Trust in someone else by 1 as well. Whenever you survive a story arc (whether you succeed or fail), you increase your Trust in a fellow survivor by 1 (without reducing your Trust elsewhere) or gain 1 Lore. This ebb and flow of Trust should be reflected in the narrative.

Secrets
When your Trust in someone will exceed +3/-3, the player must tell you a secret truth about their character, and you gain a point of Lore. Reset Trust to +1, 0, or -1 based upon what you learn (as you view them a bit differently now). You’re under no obligation to keep their secret. If you ever reveal it, and the confider finds out, they reduce their Trust in you by one.

The Circle of Life
When a character dies (or goes horribly insane), each character may reassign any or all of their Trust points, as they reevaluate their present relationships with those still living. This should happen during a narrative lull, not in the middle of a charged situation. Anytime a new playbook is introduced into the story, they may reassign Trust as well.