Six companions go on a quest for the source of a mysterious stream - and find the world is bigger and more strange than they supposed.
- Phase One Travel from Monsoth → Tawasek → The Black Lake.
Oracle’s Choices:
- 1. Shall you continue this search and travel towards the mountains amongst the stars,***
- 2. Shall you find the one eyed man who waits by the grave of his mother,***
- 3. Or will you travel through darkness at the hand of [[The Boatman]] and give and receive your gifts.***
-
Phase Two Located in Nyth based on Oracle Choice 1. Travel to Twrseren, the tower with the girls.
-
Phase Three Locations via Mornaswydh. Trying to accomplish Oracle Choice 2.
-
Phase Four Choice three, I guess?
-
Phase Five The Finale
-
More Detailed Synopsis from one of Nathaniel’s Emails You have lived your lives in a world without magic. You were, by various means, brought together in the City of Monsoth at the Inn of the Twelve Spoked Wheel, and while most of you are most familiar with the Church of Mons, your actual beliefs vary. You know that upon arrival in the Monastery of Tawesek, The Abbot and his daughter (who just died having given birth; see chapter one of the book for details) strike you as odd and other wordly. You have come to suspect that the Abbot is one of Mons’ sons (Kevnis), who has somehow escaped from mythology into your real world. He goes to a Market town with seven (note the change) entrances, and dies in a small park in the center (see previous email). You believe him to be called the Foundling - though he also seems to have a name (Bryok) - and that he was destined to return, though where this town actually is in space is unclear.
You’re sent on a mission following a black stream trying to find the kidnapped child into the hinterlands, and find that the Abbot had a hut on an island with two poles - whom you suspect to be some version of Gorgomog (one of the God Kings you’ve heard of) and his sometimes Queen, who you believe to be names Mother Night / Mabnos / Morianoth / Gwenethen. There were also three beings who named themselves “Sea, Storm, and Stone”, whom you’ve associated with three enchantresses from a story or two. They sit around a well.
The Abbot said something about the Lake being an Ancient Evil, and you’ve witnessed The Black Water having problematic effects when living creatures are exposed to it. You continued traveling up river, where you met various “elementals” who all wanted to fight (and through whom runic messages - which you associate one with each of your characters - arrived, possibly sent by Silas’ sister. Or maybe a tree.), as well as a stone circle that seemed “defensive” in structure, though it seemed to be more about keeping things in, rather than keeping things out. You came to a “bear village” where they spoke of an ancient blackness coming out of the north, and they took you to a haunted tower where you think another of Mons’ sons - Osgog - was possessed, and whom you liberated from some darkness. The tower had statues on the first floor that you think are possibly Mons’ children. There were also a series of poems (written in books) that have received mixed interpretations, but you think might be Osgog’s notes on finding something evil. There’s also a poem that you finish with charcoal that allows you up into the top floor of the tower. You’ve posited that the evil might have been held in Gwrydh, a “prison” that held some freaky stones, which you traveled to by going under Cricket’s funeral pyre.
You ended up in a city on a waterfall called Caerosgog, led by a badger, which was in the midst of a festival, where the colors of choice seemed to be black and purple. You and the natives do not end up getting along. You go to the Black Lake, meet a guy named The Boatman, and hear that you have three choices from an oracle in the middle of the lake.
You choose Option 1, and head for a stone circle on an island attached to the city by bridge, and fight a pair of wintery beings. Cricket dies, Branwen is born, and you head off to … Nyth? You battle your dark selves in Gwrydh, find some weird partial humans who say something about being sentries, and end up in a place where seasons and topography seem intertwined. You end up finding Musk (from Tawasek), and think that he got his niece (the kidnapped child) and then gave her away - you think she’s maybe at this other tower.
You end up taking a boat controlled by the Sun King’s minions (is the Sun King Mons?), but escape to an Island with a tree that changes seasons. Run into some weird birds, play music on rocks, and then head for The City - whatever that is. You skip it (it’s besieged by the Sun King), and head into a very autumny woods. You end up at a Tower - where there’s a guy who spends a lot of time looking at the stars - in the mountains, where there is not one, but four little girls. Who school you (in more ways than one). Hopps is broken by the fact that “Glasses Girl” - whom you associate with Mons, because she’s doing math, and seems to be attempting to make a telescope, and suspect is therefore the “evil” of the story - is the ONE. You dump her off with Silas’ sister - who happens to be at a farm at the bottom of the hill, having gotten there by quoting poems from The Haunted Tower - and head for the big waterfall-into-space. You find a weird forest, and a weird Weathertop. Silas gets Arthen filthy with goose fat (not thundergoose fat), while Balthazar gets laid in a village that worships Gorgomog - who has historically been understood to be a rather darker character, and not someone you’d generally be in favor or worshipping (The God of Death?).
You end up being chased by more Sun King minions, find twin towers guarding the waterfall, run into Thom Yorke and Fiona Apple, and then Jack leads you off into the night sky.