The Bloody Hands (TriCubes Solo) Episode 5: Biting the Hand that Feeds You

 --A Mild Retcon, Another Mild Retcon, and a Whole New Framework Walk into the Bar --

It is a side-effect of the off-the-cuff and respond-to-oracles natures of solo play that many decisions are done in the moment, with a specific focus, and yet flavor and develop into an overarching plot. This is the meat of the stew. Every once in a while, something you did starts to stick out a bit and can either ignore it, retcon it, find a way to change it in game, or what have you. In this case, there are two elements I will slightly tweak from previous playthroughs of The Bloody Hands:

1. The primary imagery is still of the Resonance spreading like large soap bubbles across the land, and still there are the swirling effects, but I have gotten a bit tired of the cuteness of some of the naming and will default back to the language used in the Guardians of the Shadow Frontier micro-setting: The Veil. The *official* name will be the Veil, generated by and spreading out from Resonant Towers. "Bubbles" and some bubble-themed language will be more like colloquialisms, sometimes derogatory. Likewise, I am going to trim down some of the Wildkin and Darklings and such. They will be Outsiders, with some Outsiders being "...of the Dark". I'll keep Woodkin for the Wild-transmuted humans though. And "Gobs" are still in.
2. There was an idea never quite stated but implied that life in the Veil was free of the energies and creatures associated with The Outside. This will actually end up limiting some of the campaign hooks and such so I am going to say that is more marketing by the Order and not actually true. Stuff powered by chaos will be a bit like deep ones out of the ocean or some classic vampires in daylight - maybe not at their best but they can still punch through for a time. This is why there are Guardians and guards all over. 

Finally, since the last session I have developed a fairly extensive (but still relatively minimal) Expanded Tricube Tales Solo/GMLess Framework (currently in sort of a version 0.1 but coming along). This is the first session to fully use it so see the "Mechanics Notes" at the bottom to get some ideas on how. Now, on with the "show"...

-- The Town of Oakwood -- 

On the eastern [one-week-later-Doug: directions are hard!] side of The Ord Forest lies the town of Oakwood[1]. A burned out remnant of a frontier farming town. Even the buildings inside the Veil have never been fully repaired: showing cracks and scars of the Darkness that ate at them over the Five Generations. The people are hardscrabble. They came here years ago to make their own path and the time of chaos only reinforced that. The farms failed, so they took to other occupations: Campbell's Glass Forge provided decades of protection for its workers while Sapsuckers Brothel became a place of carnal comforts known for kilometers around.[2] Many of the townsfolk live in a bit of a haze, hungrier and angrier than other places. 

Oakwood actively dislikes the Arcane Order. Even after it was chosen by Hub to be an early testing ground for the Resonant Towers, Oakwood did not change their minds. Why should they, people of the earth, hunger, and toil, ever feel beholden to a town full of academics and authority figures? The fact that their magical "soapbubbles" are supposed to stop the chaos has done nothing to make life more livable for your average person. 

When Hub consultant Maro, a frivolous and vainglorious man, was found mauled and wrecked outside of Oakwood's Veil, not even The Order worried that much. People face bloody danger and risk death in The Outside. This is why the Veil was made. 

However, when a drunk and angry sex worker named Ulia was found mauled in a very similar way inside the Veil, the Order became concerned. Despite the lack of love lost between the two places, incursions of The Outside inside the Veil must always be investigated to understand the cracks in the technology. 

The team - now made up of Arden Ulet (Crafty Visionary Seer and Tactician, newly promoted to full Guardian status), Jalmar Dax (an Agile Beastmaster with his three animal companions), and newest member Natalia Wilson (a surly but Crafty Sapper specializing in destruction) - are assigned to the case and make their way to Oakwood.

They find themselves off to a rocky start. The chief of the guards, Dana Parades, is highly dismissive of The Order's lapdogs and only allows lodging for them because she feels she is required (and promises to file a protest). A lot of people are outright anti-Order with some of the glass forge folks actively taunting and bullying our team. One self-taught scholar, Manuel Bargos, is actively stirring up folks to oppose the investigation. If anything, this attack inside the Veil has helped convince Manuel that these soapbubbles are part of a conspiracy to control folk rather than an actual boon. 

-- The Investigation Struggles --

Arden talks to the mayor and is handed a box of Maro's notes, which are far too simple and few in number for Arden's liking. Arden manages to sneak back in and search through Maro's old office but finds there is nothing there. There seems to be no real conspiracy, no real hint that anything was going to happen.[3]

Jalmar is rebuffed trying to go out to a farm near where Maro's body was found and is confronted by Lorenzo Portillo, an angry and very aggressive farmer. Trying to not agitate the locals any more, Jalmar backs down. 

Back in town, Natalia tries to get into the brothel to see if she can talk to any of the sex workers but is shut down immediately. She eventually notes a few of the men and women leave after their shift and follows a young woman to her home and is surprised to see a fairly stately townhouse that has been repaired and polished, standing out as place of money. [4] Natalia decides she wants to learn more.

-- The Panicked Outsiders and Finally Progress --

While trying to find some clue as to what happened, and knowing his team keeps getting turned down while trying to help, Arden starts to investigate the glass forge and finds a scene of conflict going down. A man and woman (with their small children) are arguing about getting their pay while several people from the forge and shouting accusations. This is the Galith family, literal outsiders who moved recently to try and make a life under the protection of the Veil. However, some folk are blaming them for some the troubles going on and they are trying to flee.

Arden uses himself as distraction to give the family time to get out of the crowd and flee town. Unfortunately, Arden finds no sign of them when trying to locate them a short while later and is forced to make his way back into town. [5] 

Jalmar has found a rubble filled ravine on the edge of the Oakwood veil. The shape and debris prevent the Veil from going all the way down to the ground. It might explain how whatever creature of darkness did the attacks got in (but where is it now!?) and so he digs through and tries to find any clue. Instead of signs of a creature clawing into and out of rubble, he finds a small cracked vial of some powdery red substance. He pockets to take back to Arden. [6] 

Meanwhile. Natalia goes for the direct approach. She knocks on the front door and asks to talk to the young woman of the house. Her and Lucy hit it off almost immediately. Natalia asks about Ulia and finds that Ulia was acting different in the week before she died. Are others acting different? Yes, a few. Why does Lucy think this is....? 

At this point, Lucy decides to go all in on trusting Natalia. There's a new drug around Oakwood - Blood - that a few people are trying. Lucy's brother Stefan was actually pushing it on the sex workers. Not maliciously but because Stefan thought it was helping them to perform. Now Stefan is nervous that Blood has something to do with these deaths. Lucy tells Natalia to go the OLD Madrigal house. Stefan is there with his associates. He can't break free from his entanglements but Lucy swears he is a good guy who thought he was helping until he realized he was not. She wants Natalia to save her brother. [7]

-- The Team Follows the Leads --

Natalia goes to old Madrigal Manor and sees that the old house is half in and half out of the Veil. Not seeing any activity in the house itself, she looks around and finds the old family graveyard (used for years by the whole town) and a large, Madrigal chapel which has been gutted out and turned into a drug den for the production of Blood. A large man, the Madrigal cook, is leading the operation with several of the more well-to-do youths being roped into working for him. Natalia breaks out a few panels to get access to see the activity. After a bit, she watches Stefan and the other youths head out on some errand. 

While this is going on, Arden has triggered vision while holding the vial of powder that Jalmar found. He can see a bubbling pool of the same bloody ichor they have witnessed being used by the creatures called The Bloody Hands (and the material the river of Arden's visions is filled with). The Portillo farm is not the location of the source, but is a shield for it. Jalmar goes out and confirms the farm is largely a fake: many of the plants and animals are poorly cared for and some of the fields are actually fakes with wires and stakes making it look like a fuller crop. In his vision, Arden realizes this drug - Blood - allows dark energy to flood the user's body and mind. It gives you a rush, lowers inhibitions, but also risks letting too much in if used too often. 

He and Arden confront Lorenzo and take down the farmer and tie him up. They find the pool out behind the farm and Arden confirms it is exactly the same bloody ichor. They try and staunch the pool, mostly managing to cover it for now, and Jalmar smashes up a lot of the equipment. 

They then sit and wait. Lorenzo said there was to be a pick up tonight and so Arden and Jalmar will be able to expose more people involved in this (not realizing Natalia has already cracked it wide open). 

-- Tragedy and Chaos -- 

While waiting for the pick up, an unfortunate series of events take place. First, people working at Campbell's glass forge have become increasingly agitated because some workers strung out on Blood have taken to theft to pay for their habit. As a large group, goaded a bit by Manuel, go to storm down to the guard house to confront Dana and the guardians, they happen to run into Stefan and his group that are on the way to Portillo farm to pick up supplies from Lorenzo. The forge workers know these men are the ones pushing Blood and so openly and angrily confront them. The two groups clash and people start furiously attacking the youths. [8]

Natalia is on her way back to the guard house to wait for Arden and let him know what is up. However, Lucy runs up to her and says that Stefan is being assaulted by what is essentially a lynch mob. Natalia tries to intervene but fails and by the time the crowd clears out a little bit, the two young women find Stefan is dead and Stefan's body is being held by a crying Manuel. While the two ran in different circles, it is not so large a town that they did not know one another. They were not close, per se, but they shared drinks and nods here or there. Manuel is deeply upset to see his anger towards the Order being taken out on one of Oakwood's youth. 

Unfortunately, as the riot grows, several people are now blaming the Madrigals and both addicts and non-addicts alike are heading as an angry mob, often fighting with each other, to storm the townhouse. 

Natalia makes a madcap dash back into the graveyard. punches out the cook, grabs several bottles, and then heads back to the townhouse where she climbs up on the front balcony and shouts to the crowd that the Madrigals are victims, too. To her surprise, Manuel also shows up and backs her up. He says the town must come together. They might need not The Arcane Order but they do need to unite. 

Unfortunately, right as the pair of them are getting through to folk, dozens of people in the crowd are triggered by Blood and turn into monsters of the dark. They grow fangs and claws and attacking folks nearby. 

Arden and Jalmar, having heard screams in the distance and quickly making their way back towards town, join Natalia and various people of Oakwood trying to take these people down. Arden keeps screaming not to kill them but not everyone is listening. There a good number of dead on both sides. 

What's more, when Natalia goes back to the farm to destroy the pool, she finds that several of the barrels of the ichor are missing and the Lorenzo has escaped. Whether on his own or through some accomplices, she cannot tell. She also can wreck the pool for a time, but chances are whatever the real source of bloody ichor is...it will emerge again, somewhere. 

-- A Temporary Solution and some In-Roads --

Arden stays in town and works with equipment from the glass forge to work out a temporary cure for the Blood sickness. People are suffering from coming out of their addiction but Arden's tonic should stop the Dark from building up so much they shift into ravenous creatures. Their bodies can flush the drug from their system...eventually. 

Arden finds Manuel at the forge and asks him to join The Order. Matthew Calderon - the corrupt senior Guardian that was actively trying to serve The Dark and work with The Bloody Hands - is proof to Arden than someone has to watch the watchmen. People like Manuel, passionate and distrustful of authority, can be exactly the thorn that keeps The Order more honest. To his surprise, Manuel readily agrees and will travel back with them and apply to join The Order under Arden's recommendation. 

Natalia talks to Lucy and finds out that the Madrigals are definitely staying in Oakwood despite being the target of the mob. She says the family has claimed to take care of the town for generations but have mostly spent that money on themselves and their businesses. Instead, she is now going to take the money and work on repairing buildings, building up new businesses, and getting some of the farms back in working order. [9]

Overall, Oakwood still does not trust the Order, still dismiss the value of Veil, and glad to see the guardians go but at least they respect these three for doing what they could. There are a lot of funerals, a lot of sick people. A lot of grief. But there is some forward progress. 

-- Vibe Check, Notes, and new Truths --

For a session that floundered so much trying to figure out what was up (and trying my best to keep it a mystery instead of just ruling: "It is zombies, they are coming out of some old graveyard or something..."), I ended up having a lot of fun with the second half of the story. It was personal, it was emotional, it was challenging to tell. I had to toss out some assumptions but I also had to just fill in some gaps. 

Manuel was originally going to be an older man with a bone to pick. Once I rolled on the table and got that he was a vain youth the image shifted entirely. He's the kind of stressed out kid that hangs out on a college campus and shouts about hegemonies while getting burgers at the caf. Despite being head-strong and a provocateur, he is still a teenager and has a lot of growing to do. His change is right up there with Lucy Madrigal and the vial of drugs from turning this session into something more than just a quick creature romp I thought it was building towards. 

The biggest misstep was the Galiths' plotline. Though it was a happy accident. This took my focus on the "main character" Arden and his more by the book detective work and tied it up for a few scenes which meant I had to find something for Natalia to do...leading to a more interesting plot. Right now, my explanation for why the Galiths were fleeing Campbell's is because Papa Galith (unnamed, otherwise) was making some of the equipment (on the downlow)  used by the cook in the chapel to make Blood and the forge workers knew this and took Papa and Mama Galith's wanting to leave to be a sign of admitting the deaths were related. As of now, they have fled back into the Outside. I have no idea if they will resurface, probably not. 

Speaking of, I am pretty sure "glass forge" is the wrong word but I *still* like the ring of it. 

Someone who will resurface is Lorenzo. I am not sure where and not sure when but the concept of a drug that allows people to channel Darkness is too useful for the themes in this campaign. Like the fact that the "black flame" arc was actually a couple of Insiders (Rogers and Calderon) using The Bloody Hands for their own good, this one stands to be similar: Blood will be something provided to Insiders rather than something pushed upon them. 

--Mechanical Notes --

1. The core of this was a roll of 5, 5, 5 on the Guardians sheet itself: people are found chewed up with zombies/ghouls as a possible culprit, the place was "Oakland Village" (which I swapped into The Town of Oakwood), and the complication was that folks are opposed to the Order. 
2. "The Glass Forge" came out from a roll of a location - 4, 5 = office/workhouse - and I figured a place where people smelt glass and work on crafting jars and other glassware (probably a lot of which gets sent back to Hub) had a nice ring to it. The other location was 4, 4  = nightclub/brothel and the latter made more sense in the rust-belt-meets-gritty-western atmosphere of this adventure. Sapsucker is a silly name that was created while rolling on the image oracle and getting the tentacles (2,2) which felt WAY too on the nose and a potential rabbit hole I did not want to chase. I did a free-thought exercise from tentacles to sucker to sapsucker and it had the right kind of cynical but funny vibe: a tongue-in-cheek hint of services offered but also a warning. 
3. The session was off to a rocky start right along with our rebuffed heroes. Every attempt and check tended to fail any time it might progress the story. Arden got into the town hall, he found the notes: but oracle checks to see if there was definite evidence came back no. Jalmar had some run ins with Lorenzo but never found clues. Natalia kept losing her rolls trying to play nice with townsfolk. 
4. At this time this represented the first major shift towards an actual narrative after I had fished and flailed about trying to pluck at threads and kept getting stuck. I made up a character - Lucy Madrigal - and did a couple of quick tests to find out the general wealth of her family, getting they were quite well to do. "Does the family know about her working at Sapsucker?" Yes, and... with a fairly high level of "yes". At this point, I realized my burned out rust-belt town idea was a bit too grimdark and shifted it to Sapsuckers being a place, like the glass forge, where some of the old money had built an alternative which had allowed farming families to survive. The Madrigals (I'm sorry, Encanto, blame the dice on this one) actually put a lot of work into building it up and keeping it safe. Lucy is not a sex worker but a person managing it but even then it is considered a positive place to work. Just one that is enveloped in the town's overall despair and lack of upward progress. 
5. This whole little odd misstep was inspired by getting an Ace, generating a new urban event (3,2 = fleeing people), testing a complex question to see what they were fleeing (5,4 = punishment) and then not having it attach to any open plot or thread. At the time, I dedicated Arden to this thread because I felt that I could center the game around it...only once more all the little pokes and kneadings kept leading to things I could not really slot into the story as a whole. Once Arden whifffed an easy test to find them in The Outside, I decided to let them go for now. I came up with explanation as to why they were fleeing but it was more to just cross the thread off the list. 
6. This moment - Crime Scene Clues 6,3 = traces of drugs - is where this session finally clicked (over an hour into playing). I started out irritated by this result and nearly re-rolled but after a minute I figured if the more traditional/expected concepts I was working with weren't actually getting me anywhere then I could go and try something unexpected. If it is zombies then the drugs can be a catalyst (either something that marks people to be targeted a reason why someone might have chosen their victims). Or...it can be something else. I went with something else as you will see. 
7. This is a variety of oracle tests and table rolls. The most important to note here being "Is a ringleader of this operation a Madrigal family member who has trapped Stefan? No, but... it is someone know for a practical skill." Rolling on the Urban people table I got "chef/cook" which I took both figuratively (the person behind the drug production) but also literally (he worked as the cook for the Madrigals, hence his access to the family and his corruption of the family business). 
8. Very nearly back to back Ace cards lead to this. Both generated urban events - 6, 1 = theft/mugging and 6, 2 = traffic collision - which were adjusted to make up these events.
9. Two oracle checks were used here. For Arden's offer, "Will Manuel accept the offer to join The Order?" I got a Jack of Hearts so fairly sizeable "yes, and..." For the question about Lucy and the Madrigals, I got a 3 of Hearts so a fairly sizeable "no, and..." I think it adds some balance. Got a 2 of Clubs for "Will the townfolk like the Order more, now?" so a pretty straight up "No".