The Message

Hail Woodwives! Happy June, and Happy Pride Month<3
(I learn amazing new history about this all the time, and as you might have guessed, we like learning about amazing History.)

We have new prompts and some story for the month, and as a reminder the Beast is still open for Auction, and the Weary and the Scrapper are still looking for a home. Maybe this months prompt will inspire someone to use this as a jumping off point for their story. And appologies in advance for Collins (the NPC), he's trying but sometimes he's a little dumb.

The WTA contest from last month is now closed as is the raffle, and we will get rolling and judging underway and let the winners know.

Good luck, and enjoy!

------------------------

“Right. So explain to me again what happened?” Collins sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to will away the beginnings of a headache. He enjoyed a good drink at a nice pub as much as the next fellow, but he wasn’t sure that anything about the Hind and Hound had ever been good or nice, and that was before…

Well whatever had happened in here had happened. The room was full of shattered glass, shaken patrons barely rounded up, and a great deal of spilled alcohol, thrown knives and several shots fired. His best guess at the moment was that the last batch of beer they’d broken into must have been contaminated somehow, because the entire thing sounded absolutely stark mad. He just hoped the lot of them would sleep it off.

“You heard me!” the old man spit when he spoke, flecks of it ending up in his greasy beard. “He turned into a….”

“No, start from the beginning.”  Collins groaned, dreaming of a nice hot cup of tea, or maybe a nice little pinch of gin.

The old man stared at him, his eyes flashing wildly as he struggled to find a starting point.

“I said it already.” He protested, vehemently. “Strange man we never saw around before came in. Thought he was a foreigner maybe but he talked alright. Funny ol’ clothes like maybe my dead grandfather woulda worn. Like uh….” He scratched himself, and Collins fancied he could see things jumping off him. “Like that uh, Rip Van Winkle fella, but he didn’t seem confused or anything and he had money. Fistfulls of it.”

This too did not appear to have been the case, as the baffled bartender had many things to say about the number of leaves and small flat stones that appeared where the money had been earlier.

“And he starts buying rounds, all friendly like and making conversation, all friendly and stuff… but real mad on to know if we knew any folk what had the funny cloaks, you know… the …. The….” he floundered, and under his breath whispered ‘them witchy folk, the ones that call themselves Woodwives or something like it, even the menfolk.”

He nodded several times at this, to emphasize how strange it was. “He was reallllll interested in them.” He reiterated, scrubbing furiously at his chin again.

“Thought it was a bit strange and said so, asked ‘im he he was lookin’ for one of their witchy little spells or something. He just… grinned… all funny like. Wasn’t a nice grin, it was a ‘I know something you don’t and it’s real bad’ grin. Made me not want to have another drink with ‘im. And he went “No. I don’t need their magic but it was… No… I don’t need their magic. Like maybe he already had some, and that wasn’t nice neither. Then Bill Mason, he starts getting nervous. His sisters youngest went off with a Woodwife and he been real protective of them since, and he goes ‘Hey why you lookin’ for ‘em.”

The old man shuddered, his ricketty hands casting about for the strong drink he would have had at the ready had he not been being interviewed by the police.

“Then it got bad. Real bad. Everything kinda got… dark… like the lights were all there but they didn’t do ‘nuff, and that man, he just kinda… grinned more, and sure as I’m standin here I watched damn antlers start comin’ out of his head and he goes “Tell them we are coming. Tell them their masters have a message for them, and that if they are wise, they will listen.”

Something about the old drunks tone made even Collins shudder, and not for the first time. Each person he’d spoken to had reported exactly the same message, in exactly the same words, their clipped words and accents seeming to be… brushed away, just for those moments, and they did not seem to notice. It was unsettling, but it had to be bad beer. Had to be.

“....And then he turned into a deer and jumped out the window when you tried to stop him?” Collins sighed, pushing down the superstitious urge to cross himself.

“That's right!” the man insisted, leaning forward fervently. His breath smelled… foul. Sour and yeasty and turned the policeman's stomach.

“Well…” He sighed, leaning back, away from the smell and closing his notebook. “We’ve taken notes and we’ll look into things obviously, though you’ll understand I’m reasonably sure there’s no laws on the book about a man turning into a deer, but trying to kill one in city limits might count as poaching.”

He forced a thin smile at the feeble joke, but it fell on deaf ears as the drunk man started to work his way up again, ignoring the polite suggestion that he might enjoy sleeping it off someplace dry.

A man who turned into a deer. Damned strange, but honestly ridiculous. A drunk hunter had probably brought one in tied up, and then let it go after they’d drunk too much and it had fled out the window. It would explain the tufts of fur on the glass, and the reports of others who had seen a red deer dashing down the road.

Not so much the couple who claimed that it had been ridden by a man, or the one woman who claimed it was a man from the waist up, and that it had laughed at her before vanishing into the park, but women were prone to hysterics, and the bar patrons were drunks, men and women alike. It would turn up nothing, he was sure.

He wanted to be sure, anyway.






----
PROMPTS:

1: a local dive in the City has been fairly well destroyed and is under something that passess for repair, at least enough so that the landlord can get someone new in. The Heart and Hind, whatever caused it, won’t be serving up questionable beer or food any time soon. Neither apparently will many of its patrons be rubbing shoulders with urban Woodwives. While a few are still devout defenders of Woodwives, most are badly shaken and move away muttering nervously.

If pressed, and unable to escape, patrons will reveal what they know about the strange man who purportedly turned into a deer.  
   - No special NPC's available, only what's listed in the above writing. 
   -Non English Woodwives: ... Surprisingly... similar events seem to be occurring near you, in equivalent sorts of locations. The same figure is described each time, though feel free to add local color or superstitious bent to opinions on a man who turns into a stag. 



2: Rumors about the Badner estate have not died down, in fact, on society circuits, they seem to be getting renewed interest as people discuss the social future, or possible ruin of one Robert Pendryg. Already controversial for having studied at the hands of a Woodwife, and known for his somewhat eccentric behavior and appearance, things have only gotten more scandalous as he has purportedly been courting that strange woman with the blue hair that he went to a party with. The very woman who is rumored to be involved in the disappearance of the -charming- Mr Quigley. Robert Pendryg is handsome enough to be sure, but how much scandal can truly be allowed in polite society? Especially if the stories that he’s been seen attending a woman from the circus are to be believed. Shirtless no less, like some kind of crass common laborer.
   -No Special NPC's available, though Rob can be talked to. Talking to others like Luna or Natasha is down to the players.  Trying to strike up conversation with Quigley is not recommended.

3: Speaking of the Badner Estate, ghostly activity seems to have, if anything, picked up. Could it be that visitors have gotten the attention of someone…. Or…. something?
   -Special Character available: Asa Badner will interact with visitors, see Xaotl for how he would react to your visitors choices.