The Wings of Rot is the sequel game to Ebon Wood Effigies by Yuigaron. I originally posted this series on my previous website in 2022. I have updated and edited the original posts. Wings of Rot is based on the Ironsworn RPG by Shawn Tomkin.
Begin a Session: 13, flashback reveals an aspect of another characterAlene Velez watched from the shadows as her cousin scrambled up the rusted rungs of a rickety escape ladder. The older girl had a large rucksack on her back, and a dark hood pulled over her head, but Alene had followed her from the small ramshackle house the girls' families shared with their grandparents. There was no mistaking the silhouette climbing the ladder. It was Selma, and she was leaving.
Alene moved silently, ducking in and out of shadows as she pursued her cousin. The girl had always been nimble and athletic, and managed to climb up the exposed beams of the old scaffolding with ease. Selma reached the top only minutes before Alene managed as well.
The older girl was waiting for her when she drug herself up onto the grated walkway. Selma's face was streaked with red, and her usual smile was down turned.
"You could have called out to me Lenny," Selma said, offering her cousin a hand.
"Where's the fun in that?" Lenny replied.
"Why are you following me?"
"Why are you leaving?" An unspoken "me" hung in the stifling air between them. Lenny refused to admit she was hurt, even if the feelings were boiling in her chest and threatening to spew out.
"I want more than this, Len. You know that."
"Just because you managed to get a scholarship to a topside school doesn't mean you can leave!"
"When you're older, you'll understand."
"I'll never understand, Sellie. How can you leave your family?"
Selma's eyes flowed with tears, but she didn't answer. Instead, she reached out and squeezed Lenny's arm before she turned and ran down the walkway toward the cracked concrete steps that led up to the bridge and road above.
Tears erupted from Alene’s eyes like a burst dam, burning like molten rock as they ran down her cheeks. She was angry at her cousin. She felt betrayed.
"I hope you never come back! Traitor!" she yelled after Selma.
The older girl stopped, but didn't turn back. After a moment, Selma vanished into the shadows. Lenny would not see her again for many years…1
Selma Belright, Occult Detective
Personal Case Journal
14 July, 1937
Monaþstone Upper EastsideLong nights. That's all I seem to get these days. Long nights, and very little sleep. On the night of 14 July, I was awake long past midnight combing through the official report on a case I closed just that morning. The Chief expected the report on her desk by morning on the 15th and, being the perfectionist that I am, I was nitpicking every comma and em-dash.
The Ghostphorescent lantern—a relatively new device, if simple in design—cast a pale violet glow across my dining table. The steady hum and click of its internal combustion was in perfect rhythm with the old grandfather clock I salvaged from an estate sale a year ago. I must have fallen asleep, because I went from reading about the electrocuted victims of my latest murder case to startling awake at the sound of a familiar voice calling my name.
In the flame of the lamp, a face writhed and twisted with each hum and click of the device.
"Selma!" the voice called, "Selma!"
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked back at the flickering lantern. The face, now familiar to me, continued to waver.
"There is not much time! Listen to me. I've seen them. The Lost. They are alive. For now. Find them. Find me. The Rift. Seek Reunion. Seek...Wings of Rot..."
The voice, and face, of my mother, faded to nothing.
I do not know how long I sat staring into the wavering flame of the lantern, trying to make sense of what I'd just witnessed. My mother had died only a few months before, and I had not been there. I didn’t even find out about her passing until well after the funeral. I worked hard to block the pain and regret from my mind, but sometimes…sometimes it was just not possible.
A knock on the door startled me.
As I approached the door, a piece of paper slid beneath. It fluttered along the wooden flooring and lighted on my bare foot. I stooped to grab it, then threw open the door. There was no one outside, but I felt as though someone was watching me intently. I padded out into the hallway but, hearing nothing, I went back inside and threw the lock on the door—just in case.
The paper was tattered, crumpled, and faded. An inked scrawl covered one side of the sheet, and I struggled to make out the cramped handwriting. Eventually managing to decipher it, I read it out loud.
“Moonshard Market.
Come alone.
It was signed "Lenny."
Ask the Oracle: Does Selma go now? 50/50 = 37, yes.Set A Course: 8 (+5 supply) vs 9 | 8 = miss (pay the price)
Pay the Price: 98, roll twice. 76, you are harmed; 29, your action causes collateral damage or has an unintended effect.
Action: Distract
Theme: HardshipThe streets of Monaþstone, unlike other large municipal centers across the Continent, were not well lit in the late hours of the day. The Ghostphoresence street lamps only possessed enough fuel to run from sundown to midnight and were only refueled in the mornings by the city's street crews. I walked along the cobbles to the dim glow of my standard issue torch, the same one that Detective Tiberius Remus used to carry. It was one of my few keepsakes to remind me of my mentor who disappeared over two years ago.
Remus' final message came only a few months ago, but I was no closer to uncovering how to bring him back to the present, or if it was even possible. I'd only shared the note with Chief Dashell, and she ordered me to keep it quiet and investigate the situation off the record. With the rapid decay and eventual demolition of Tubblebottom's Apothecary, I had very little in the way of hypotheses, and no hard evidence at all. Even the Echoes of the magical event had all but faded from the area.
Lost in my reflections, I didn't notice the scuffle taking place down a side street until I was nearly past. A voice cried out, pulling me from my thoughts and activating a sense of urgency. I turned my torch down the street, illuminating a large figure dressed in black. The person's face was covered by a hood and scarf.
"Monaþstone Bureau of Investigation, put your hands up," I ordered.
The hooded figure laughed, and shoved a thin, pale form into the wall. The victim thudded against the bricks and crumpled, completely lifeless. The dark form began to approach, stalking forward with a confidence that sent a shiver through my body.
"Stop right there."
"I don't think so, Ghosthunter," a harsh, masculine voice replied. "You showed up at a really bad time."
From somewhere inside their large overcoat, the figure drew a long piece of wood, tapered to a sharp point on one end.
My mind began to race, scrambling to find a way out of this situation. Instead of decisions, my brain merely spun through various visions of my brutal murder.
Suddenly, the crumpled victim began to move. At first its limbs cracked and angled in a grotesque approximation of a four legged spider. It skittered forward, twisting its frail form until it was somehow standing on its two legs.
Face Danger: 4 (+3 Edge) vs 9 & 5 = miss (Pay the Price)
Pay the Price: 77, you are harmed (Endure Harm -2)
Health: +3/5The big man heard the movement at the same time that he began to process my widening eyes. He turned, impossibly fast, and launched the stake like a spear toward the rapidly approaching figure. It leaped over the projectile and spun through the air, landing hard on my chest and driving me to the ground.
Its face was sickly white, with black veins spidering beneath paper thin flesh. Its black lips parted to reveal a mouth full of inch long fangs. The smell of decay and blood overwhelmed me, and I fought back a retching scream. Sharp nails dug into my shoulders as the creature began to lean down toward my neck.
Just as suddenly as it attacked, it shoved me back into the cobbles and leapt off of me with a hiss. The large man in black charged toward me, the stake now in his gloved hand.
Endure Harm: 10 (+4 health) vs 2 | 9 = strong hit (shake it off, +1 health)
Health: +4/5"Dammit, Ghosthunter!" the man cursed. "You let him get away!"
"What the hell was that thing?" I asked, shaking on the ground.
"Don't tell me, you've never heard of the Vrykolaka, Ghosthunter."2
"The Vrykolakai are a myth."
"Did you imagine that one then?"
The big man extended a hand, and I took it tentatively. He pulled me to my feet like I weighed nothing.
"Take off your coat," he ordered.
New, and different, panicked thoughts flooded my mind. The uncertainty and fear must have shown on my face, because the man took off his hood and pulled down the scarf, offering me a tight lipped smile.
"I'm not going to hurt you, but I need to look at the claw wounds on your shoulders."
"Who are you?" I asked, while shrugging out of my coat.
"You can call me Hunter."
"Alright, Hunter. What were you doing in a dark alley with that...thing?"
"What do you think, Ghosthunter? I was trying to kill it before it had a chance to feed."
"Who do you work for?" I'd heard rumors of these vigilantes who believed they were hunting and destroying monsters. But I'd never met one before.
"I work for no one, and serve the people. We are not so different, you and I."
"Except what I do is legal. And I don't threaten strangers in the dark."
"I was only trying to scare you off. I was not going to harm you."
"I wish I could believe that."
My breath caught in my throat as he pressed his gloved fingers against the deep lacerations from the Vrykolakas' claws. The pain was sharp and sudden, but I could tell the wounds weren't deep.
"Good news is, I don't think the monster had time to inject his toxin. Your wounds aren't reddening, and they," he leaned in and sniffed my shoulder, "don't smell of it either."
"What toxins?"
"Vrykolakai possess a potent neurotoxin that renders their prey completely inert. You cannot fight or cry out once they have injected enough of the stuff into the bloodstream. It is a common myth that they do so by biting, but this isn't accurate. Most Vrykolakai victims are scratched or gouged first. The biting—eating really—happens later. The victim is still alive, of course."
Hunter delivered this information like a university lecturer. I admired the oratorical skill such a delivery required, and envied those who possessed it. But now, hearing what he had to say and witnessing what I had, I only wanted to get away from the alley.
"Thank you, Hunter," I said, slowly backing away from the imposing man. "I'll just be going."
"Home, I hope," the big man replied, pulling his scarf over his nose and donning the dark hood.
I turned and jogged quickly back into the open space of the high street and resumed my journey, now jittery from the events of the night, to the Rift.
The remainder of my trek was uneventful and I arrived at Corring's Bridge, the steel expanse connecting the twin hills of Monaþstone and concealing the smoking ruins of the Rift from the eyes of the populace, a half hour later. Despite seeing no one else, I could not shake the feeling of being watched.
The path to the Rift's entrance was covered in overgrown bushes, vines, and littered with trash. No one came here by choice, and very few of the denizens of the Rift ever came to the surface. I found the rusty iron ladder, remnants of a much older bridge, right where I expected and began my descent.
Memories of a time so many years in the past rushed into my mind as I cautiously descended the ladder into the hazy shadows of the Overhang. I was still trembling from the experience in the alley, and my panic only increased as I recounted the last time I saw Lenny, of her anger and hurt. I wondered what could have possibly made her ask me to come back after all these years. Reconnecting with my cousin, who I loved dearly, was almost as daunting as the knowledge that Vrykolakai prowled the streets of Monaþstone.
I pulled the Begin a Session move from Ironsworn: Starforged.
Vrykolakai (Greek βρυκολακαι) are undead creatures from Greek and Slavic folklore. The etymology is uncertain, though an old book by Henry Tozer (1869) written about his journeys in the highlands of Turkey, posits that the term originates from an early Sanskrit term vrka which designates wolf (Tozer, 82), of which the modern (19th c.) Greek is clearly connected to (though, to Tozer, it has lost its connection to lycanthropy). Tozer suggests that the Greek term ultimately derives from “a Slavonic source [vukodlak]” (Tozer, 82) but that the idea was present in Greek folklore exhibited by the attested term katakhanas (Katakan, for those familiar with the Witcher).
Great opening. Looking forward to the next instalment.
Eric, you never disappoint! Keep going! I’m loving the story already. 😊😊