1501 The Ruins of Chancton

Barely discernible remnants of pathway crisscross the hills—signs of ancient habitation here.

• Terrain: Hills (2), Table Downs
• Lost/encounters: 1-in-6

Wretching Bridge

A dilapidated bridge spans Kewen’s Creek. It rocks and groans when crossed, but remains intact.

Ruined Hamlet

The Downs Road descends a gently sloping hillside and passes through a small cluster of ruined buildings centred around a rocky pool (see Healing Spring).

Ruined buildings: Rude homes, barns, and workshops, their stone walls crumbling and wind howling through their gaping orifices. The place has lain in ruins for over 1,000 years—interior furnishings are long decayed. Religious characters may note that there is no sign of a church or graveyard among the ruins.

Skeletal inhabitants: The ruins are littered with the intact skeletons of the hamlet’s former human inhabitants, posed in the midst of day-to-day activities: pushing a wheelbarrow, digging turnips, tiling a roof, fetching water from the pool, weaving woollen yarn, and so on.

Speaking: If anyone speaks within the hamlet, the skeletons animate. (See The Dead Rise.)

The Dead Rise

When awakened by speech, the deceased inhabitants (30 skeletons — DMB) unfreeze from their poses, dust off their decaying rags, and haltingly approach living visitors.

Greetings: With the sound of rattling teeth, the skeletons address visitors in Old Woldish (speakers of modern Woldish understand the odd word). They welcome visitors to their hamlet, which they refer to as “Chancton.” They ask visitors where they hail from and invite them for refreshments in the tavern and a barn dance later that evening.

Refreshments: PCs who accept the skeletons’ offer are led into a half-collapsed building and jovially served empty mugs of “Chancton ale” and empty plates of “sausage stew.”

If asked about their history: It becomes clear that the skeletons have no idea that they are dead and no memory of their fate. If confronted with this fact, the skeletons laugh amiably, either dismissing the visitors’ “fancy Brickenwilde humour” or warning that their senses have been addled by “too much time spent in the Tolmenwode.”

Barn dance: PCs who remain until evening may join the skeletons in a dance in a cobweb-filled barn, accompanied by the din of a broken fiddle and spoons clanking on rusty trays. The skeletons are eager to dance with visitors, and may even make marriage proposals to eligible PCs.

Moonlit bath: The evening’s festivities culminate in a “recuperative bath” in the rocky pool at the centre of the hamlet. (See Healing Spring.)

Staying the night: If PCs enquire about overnight accommodations, the skeletons offer them straw pallets in the tavern’s mostly-intact back room. They proudly refuse any payment. The remainder of the night passes uneventfully.

Leaving the hamlet: Whenever PCs decide to leave the hamlet, the skeletons wistfully bid them farewell, return to their regular tasks (digging, building, weaving, etc.), and eventually stand once more still in death.

Healing Spring

In the centre of the hamlet, a spring bubbles up, forms a shallow pool ringed with boulders, then flows in a small stream to join with Kewen’s Creek to the south.

Bathing in the pool: Lawful characters who bathe in the bubbling waters are blessed with either the curing of a disease (including magical diseases) or the healing of 1d6+1 Hit Points. Non-Lawful characters are not affected; nor, sadly, are the dead.