Longwinter Referee Book - 1.0 - Digital 250dpi

Longwinter

Referee’s Book

Luka Rejec

Longwinter

ALL ART & WRITING COPYRIGHT © 2020 by Luka Rejec LAYOUT Luka Rejec & Anna Urbanek EDITING Fiona Maeve Geist and Jarrett Crader TYPOHUNTING The fine typohunters of the Stratometaship. Merci. PUBLISHING WTF Studios

In memory of how differently Brezim played each time I ran it. In memory of how much joy my players brought me those times. In hope that I brought them as much, and that Brezim may bring you and your players even more. —Luka Rejec, Seoul, December 2019 And of a strange year. —Luka Rejec, Seoul, November 2020

Referee’s Book

Refe ree ’s B o o k

$ Luka Rejec

Longwinter

“ The snows are alive. A soft, cold spirit courses through them. Her lace threads the world; watching, drinking, listening, stroking, soothing, killing. Her touch is soft and icy. She is Winterwhite, the daughter of the Waterdrinker and the Northwind, and she is a terrible god. An avatar of ice and hunger, of visions and death. Longwinter is the RPG sandbox of a realm that has broken its vows to Winterwhite and will now pay the cold price. This book contains secret knowledge and mechanics for the referee.

Deceive the masses in the dark, seal their fate. Divide and conquer, keep the wicked in control. Seven Headed whor* Iced Earth — Incorruptible (2017)

Referee’s Book

Contents How to Referee the Icebox 7 A ‘True’ History of Brezim 8 Winterwhite Aggrieved Winterwhite's Curse Portents Winterwhite

12 14 of 15

Factions in an Icy Hell Winterwhite Baronials Oldsettlers Wolffolk Old Architects

16 17 20 22 24 28

Days of White Snow and Red Ice 31 Days of Autumn 32 Days of Winter 36 Days of Deep Winter 40 Body in the Snow 44 Cache Under Ice 44 An Ancient Vault 45 Memories of Summer 45

Escape Trying to Get Out This Is Not Normal Questions for the Players How to Referee a Survival Game The Problem of Tools Survival Card Mechanic Card Actions

47 48 49

Forests ♣1 Abandoned Lookout ♣2 Old Hamlet ♣3 Isolated Facility ♣4 Alpine Rainforest ♣5 Twisted Krummholz ♣6 Black Forest ♣7 Mass Gravesite ♣8 Sacred Grove ♣9 Willow Swamp ♣10 Shattered Woodland ♣J Stormstruck Linden ♣Q Wolffolk Forest ♣K Needletooth Trees

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

Rivers ♥1 Frozen Waterfall ♥2 Hoar-Decked Gorge ♥3 Hot Spring ♥4 Choked Sandbar ♥5 Ice-Ringed Pool ♥6 Spiritual Confluence ♥7 Abandoned Mill ♥8 Snowy Floodplain ♥9 Icy Cascades ♥10 Bridges Old & New ♥J Breached Dam ♥Q Lake and Island ♥K Subterranean Spring

68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

49 50 51 52 53

Mountains 82 ♠1 Precarious Ridge 83 ♠2 Sky-piercing Pinnacle 84 ♠3 Shattered Crater 85 ♠4 Narrow Chimney 86 ♠5 Overhanging Cliff 87 ♠6 Deep Couloir 88 ♠7 Sweeping Plateau 89 ♠8 Cave-Riddled Shoulder90 ♠9 Scree Slope 91 ♠10 Titanic Terraces 92 ♠J Unstable Boulder 93 ♠Q Howling Saddle 94 ♠K Chiseled Stairs 95 Icefields ♦1 Powder Dunes ♦2 Deep Snowfield ♦3 Mirror of Ice ♦4 Sculptures of Rime ♦5 Frozen Slope ♦6 Rotten Snow ♦7 Ice Bridge ♦8 Avalanche ♦9 Ice Cave ♦10 Cruel Crevasse ♦J Staircase of Ice ♦Q Grand Glacier ♦K The Iceworm Comes

96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

🃏 Iron Teeth

110

🃟 Moonlit Dream

111

Escape: Last Location 112 Presenting the Escape 112 Scoring the Escape 113

Longwinter

The iceworm comes. A living serpent of ice grinding bergs to sand.

Referee’s Book

How to Referee the Icebox The Barony of Brezim is an rpg sandbox. Let the players weave their own adventures out of a mix of strange locations, sidequests, and random encounters. It’s a good idea to have numerous maps of dungeons, locations, and buildings ready to whip out for an improvised crawl. I recommend the superb (and free) resources designed by Dyson Logos, but there are many, very many, available to the referee, no matter their budget. Winterwhite’s curse provides an overarching narrative to this sandbox: survival in the face of an unending winter. As the barony gets colder and darker, Winterwhite snaps the doors shut. Ice worms crawl down from the peaks and up from the rivers to lock the valley in ice. Do not make this immediately clear to the players or the inhabitants of the Brezim: announce it with portents and growing danger. Indeed, several of the factions are straight-up distractions from the threat of Winterwhite, and the squabbling locals will add more chaos to the mix. As the trap closes, the environment becomes harsher. Travel becomes more difficult. The weather kills faster. Food becomes scarcer. The baronials grow weaker. The monsters grow stronger. When the players decide to escape, it will be possible, but hard. They will lose NPCs and friends along the way. Think of the movies “K2” and “Alive”. Or “The Thing,” for that matter. The Escape section provides a mechanic to procedurally generate the escape from the valley. Alternatively, it serves as a box of vignettes and encounters for winter adventures in Brezim or another wintery setting.

Overview

Longwinter

A ‘True’ History of Brezim † a fictional vignette or interlude † The snow is alive. A soft, cold spirit courses through them. Her lace threads the world: watching, drinking, listening, stroking, soothing, killing. Her touch is soft and icy. She is Winterwhite, the daughter of the Waterdrinker and the Northwind, and she is a terrible god. An avatar of ice and hunger, of visions and death. The ice-drowned mountains spreading behind Motherberg are her home. Brezim and other mountain valleys grow and quietly die at her whim. A hundred years ago Verdek and Ivan Greencorner came up the valley with four hundred civilized soldiers. The oldsettlers met their muskets and maces with bows and traps. That first summer the Greencorners burned oldsettler villages and fields, tore down the henges and crucified the men, bayonetted the babies and kidnapped brides for themselves. That first winter the oldsettler shamans called, and the wolffolk and the skintakers came. Children and grandmothers crawled out of mass graves to drown the soldiers in their own blood. One after another the wood-whispered invader forts cracked and broke. At last, the oldsettlers pushed the Greencorners to the great barrow hill between the Rushka and the Krasna rivers. The frozen ancestors claimed the kidnapped brides for themselves. The skintakers took the enslaved and rode them. The oldsettlers howled to the moon, for never could they be unfree. The Greencorners retreated up that hill, among ruins like fangs and ribs. The horde came for them. Their bullets ran out and they dropped their guns. Skintakers whipped amalgamated horrors of flesh and wood across the old living walls at the hill’s crown. Their swords grew as blunt as their maces as they

Winterwhite's History

Referee’s Book

staggered back into mist-laced bowel of the hill. Roaring worms of flesh and bone battered down metal hatches and stone doors as the oldsettlers followed. The last dozen soldiers fled deeper and deeper until they reached a white room with black tapestries and an altar of crystal-clear ice. On the altar stood a white bird with red eyes and a bloody beak. “You are new,” said the bird. The soldiers ignored it and heaved the mighty white stone door shut. “That won’t stop them,” said the bird. “It talks,” said Verdek. Ivan grunted and squinted as the doc tightened the tourniquet on his left leg. “The bird, it talks,” repeated Verdek. A couple of the warriors inched towards the altar. The bird flapped into the air and perched on a frost-rimed chandelier. Its talons left a bloody stain. “Stop, fellowfolk,” said Mira Falconsbrood. “I’m as hungry as you, but eating the magic white bird won’t do anything. The savages are coming for us with their needle teeth.” On cue there was a hollow thump as something broke through a barricade, getting closer. “So it talks,” said Ivan. Verdek stepped under the chandelier and craned his head, “Bird! Who are you?” “Oh, questions! I like that game,” said the bird. “I am the soft hand of winter, and who are you?” Mira squinted thoughtfully. “We are the brothers Greencloak, rulers of this land,” announced Verdek. “We are supplicants to the lady,” added Mira.

Winterwhite's History

Longwinter

Verdek frowned and said, “We’re republican soldiers, we don’t…” “Shut up,” she hissed. The bird made a rattling cough. The warriors stopped. “It’s laughing,” said Ivan. “Yes! The one-foot is right, I am laughing,” said the bird. Verdek leapt onto the altar, windmilling his arms to keep his balance on the ice. Mira reached out a hand to steady him. “Get down here, you feathered mockery,” shouted Verdek. With his numb fingers he fumbled for the throwing knife at his side. It wasn’t there. His leg buckled under him and he fell hard onto the ice altar. “Oh, Winterwhite, we beg you! Save us!” cried Mira, and plunged Verdek’s throwing knife into his throat. “Accept our sacrifice! Accept our ruler’s youngest kin! Accept our worship!” The white stone cracked and the survivors crawled out from under the barrow as winter squeezed the valley. For three months the winter did not let up. The oldsettlers starved. The soldiers ate the dead. That second summer Greencorner and his soldiers went to the cities to tell their stories of oldsettler savagery and cannibalism. That second winter the Emperor of the Republic bestowed a baronage on Ivan Greencorner and a posthumous order of valour on his brother Verdek, who gave his life to save his companions. At the same time the Generalissimo of the Western City made Mira Falconsbrood the treasurer of the Brezim Burners. That third summer Ivan and Mira returned to the valleys with the Brezim Burners. White birch gibbets full of oldsettler savages greeted the first snows. Every year after that, the gun and the axe pushed the savages further into barren highlands and dark forests. The whispered wood pallisades and the warding runes went up. The second baron of Brezim sacrificed her youngest nephew to Winterwhite.

Winterwhite's History

Referee’s Book

The mule-roads were built. The third baron of Brezim sacrificed his twin sons to Winterwhite. The great ancient silver mine was reopened. The fourth baron of Brezim quietly sacrificed her younger sister to Winterwhite. Traders and craftsfolk came. The fifth baron quietly sacrificed his baby niece to Winterwhite and said she had died of measles. Guesthouses and spas opened. The sixth baron, Soren Greencorner II, ascended to the silver-bone throne. Soren did not sacrifice his daughter to Winterwhite. His vizier, old Negra Falconsbrood, begged him to reconsider. Soren refused and Negra soon died in an unfortunate motoring accident. Her nephew, Ibrahim Falconsbrood, a well-travelled ethnologist from the Eastern City, took her position. Years passed and nothing happened, and Soren realized that the terrible family stories of sacrificing their children to the laughing ice goddess were just superstition and lies covering up the bestial cruelty of his ancestors. Soren opened orphanages and schools for oldsettler children, to integrate them into society as upstanding citizens, free from the savage superstitions of their ancestors. He lobbied the Kings’ Council to open equal education to all children, regardless of ethnicity. The industrialist conclaves supported him, and he achieved a modicum of fame. Then his daughter turned eighteen and Winterwhite sent her insistent dreams. Soren ignored the ice queen. They all ignored her.

Winterwhite's History

Longwinter

Winterwhite Aggrieved

Winterwhite and her mythical bear, Mushi.

Referee’s Book

Winterwhite, daughter of the Waterdrinker and the Northwind, is a terrible god, the bringer of ice and hunger and visions and death. She rules her peaceful white domain with a soft, cold touch. She smiles as she inhales the souls of the dead and covers their cold corpses with a gentle shroud. She is never angry when someone breaks their vow. No—she is glad. For then neither Firebringer nor Green Sun, neither Devil’s Grandfather nor Doctor Love, can guard her prey against her. Her white birds carry her dreams to her subjects, witting and unwitting. They visited Soren, the baron of Brezim, and whispered, “Soren, your ancestors’ vow still binds you. The Lady remembers.” Soren ignored them. They flew again. “Soren, your great uncle’s shadow begs you consider: the Lady remembers.” Soren visited the apothecary and took sleeping draughts. Winterwhite’s birds flew again, “Soren, summer is turning and the Day of All Ghosts will come. Your vow-given ancestors will gather at the altar of ice to see you renew your vow to the Lady.” Soren drank the best vintages brought by long-haired traders from the sun-kissed hills. The birds left hoarfrost where they stepped. “Soren, tomorrow is the last day. Pay your blood debt, or the Lady’s interest will be steep.” Soren awoke on the Day of All Ghosts with a pounding headache and went hunting. He bagged a five-tine stag on the ridge behind Gomiliy while his friend Lazar Woolmaker bagged an incredible eight-tine hart. It was a good day. When the sun set, Winterwhite sent her white birds to Northwind and Waterdrinker. The birds announced that the winter of her content had come.

Winterwhite's History

Longwinter

Winterwhite’s Curse

“

The gods stitch our human world together, but they are not human. —Vedom the Iskari Wolf Prophet. The vow of Mira Falconbrood was simple: save us and we will give you our youngest and bravest. The vow amused Winterwhite, but she took it seriously. The vow has been broken, and now she will destroy everyone in the land she gave to the Greencorners. It’s nothing personal—it’s just a vow. This year the winter will not end. The north wind will blow. The snow will fall. The rivers will freeze. The ice worms will crawl. Frost will choke the sky. Darkness will come, and everyone in the valley will come to sleep with Winterwhite. Best not fight it. After a year and one winter, the spring will come again. Winterwhite is not allpowerful, after all, and the Firebringer would have words with her if she overstepped her prerogative.

Winterwhite's History

Referee’s Book

Portents of Winterwhite Portents will come. The foolish modern rulers will ignore them until it is too late, of course, but these things must be done properly. In the end, the sun will close its eye over Brezim, and darkness and cold and soft silence will reign until the solstice next. d30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Portents White faces float beyond windows at night. Pale icy ghosts crawl from frozen puddles to accuse the living. White foxes dig holes in the cemeteries. White crows land on the temples. Frozen birds on the trees in the morning. Fish frozen in streams. Frogs turned to ice together with their ponds. Tree trunks snapped open by the sudden cold. Barrows ploughed open by upthrusting ice. Tinkling laughter on the icy wind. Crawling shadows leaving rime behind them. White wolves whose shaggy manes drip hoarfrost. Shattered corpses of birds frozen mid-flight. Glaciers slither down mountainsides like icy worms. Powdery snow refuses to melt. A whistling wind steals voices. Dead leaves crumble to snow. Ornaments on the yule trees turn to ice. Dead trees sweating ice. Flowers of snow and vines of ice grow in gardens. Hoarfrost spreading in starbursts from the graves of the recently deceased. Fog and mist dropping suddenly to the ground as a thick layer of hoarfrost. Frosted handprints and footprints on doors and windows. Clouds freeze in place. The sun crawling, purplish as though bruised. The moon eclipsed by blackish ice. The moon disappears. The sky turns white, a milky dome, frost crawling up its sides. The days grow shorter after the winter solstice. The sun weeps ice.

Winterwhite's History

Longwinter

Factions in an Icy Hell

“

When the world unravels, watch closely my child, watch well, for every scale that falls makes a scale to rise. —Earthbeater to the Grave Child As the ice embraces Brezim, as the roads are cut, as the federation fades away, as even the baron grows remote, it is the local ties, the bonds of blood, the cords of clan, the love of land that may yet see communities through the cold and dark. Perhaps, some will even see a way to appease Winterwhite. A disaster overwhelms with troubles, forcing groups and individuals to improvise and prioritize. Yes, it sows discord, but it also ties people together. Faction tables simulate the lengthening odds in Brezim. Each faction has two tables, one for when they wax strong, the other for when they dwindle. Each success or failure also brings additional complications. Most of the tracks give no easy answers. Simply helping one side over another will almost always merely lead to a different disaster. Don’t worry too much about what is happening off-screen. Check for new problems when the heroes arrive in a different location or after a week spent in one place. Also, while you should encourage the heroes to get involved, do make it clear that they cannot fix everything. There is simply too much going on and the problems are too systemic for an adventurer with an axe to fix, even an axe like Kolgar’s.

Factions and Events

Referee’s Book

Winterwhite † force of nature † Winterwhite is not a faction per se, she is a force of nature. The janus-face of Summerbright, the daughter of Autumnwed, the mother of Springtimeborn. She cannot be swayed or moved by the spasms and twitches of the short-cycle mortals. Even if the world became a cinder, in the void her cold domains go on and on, the ice promised in the shadow of every sun. Yet, she is incarnate. She is flesh of a cold and calm sort. The dreams and nightmares of mortal souls make her so, or perhaps she always was so, and mortal lives are the fruit of her dreams and the whispers of her fellow gods. She can be bargained with, she can be paid. She is coming, and she will come. That cannot be stopped. But she is still listening.

Factions and Events

Longwinter

Angering Winterwhite Killing her messengers, denying her dominion, bringing foreign gods like Doctor Love into her collection, these things focus Winterwhite’s attention.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

The Winterbird appears, the white bird with red eyes. A chill afflicts the joints of those who see it and does not depart for days. You awaken with a frost coating your face like a funeral shroud. The frost does not melt at your touch or breath. Ice crawls up from the ground overnight, freezing baggage and vehicles stiff. Even fuel freezes in this unearthly cold. Faces swirl and whirl in the icy fog, watching. The fog follows and watches. Her many crystal eyes now refuse to close. A crystal maiden appears, her body purest ice, her gown purest snow, her lance purest cold. A gift of warmth appeases. Her lance freezes limb or heart. A globe of cold surrounds you, swirling with fragments of ice that burns your lungs like the ash of a funeral pyre. The silence of deepest winter surrounds you. All noise is muffled. Hope begins to fall like nitrogen snow. The world turns white and milky. From that liquid nothing swims the Winterwyrm, all icicle teeth and freezing fronds. The cold is its sea, and its bite drags you under. The warmth of your life now pays for your sins. Your cold body now serves Winterwhite, your flesh like the surface of a still pond, your eyes sparkling jewels, your voice her tinkling laugh. And when winter ends you will end, an iceman melting in the breath of Spring.

Listening to Winterwhite Offering her tribute, building altars to her, sacrificing warmth and life to her, accepting her as cruel but necessary, submitting to the cycle of the world, to her and her sisters/mothers/daughters.

1 2 3 4

Despite the cold, the falling snowflakes feel gentle, even warm. A nimbus of colours girds the wan sun and remains in the day, a promise of Spring to come. A gentle snowfall blankets the area, almost glowing in its virginity and peace, refreshing souls and minds. The Winterbird appears, tugging and cawing, red eyes rolling. It leads to a fresh carcass, a sheltered cave, or a stack of cordwood.

Factions and Events

Referee’s Book

The skies clear and a piercing ray of sunlight breaks through, its brightness casting the world into pure relief, its warmth reviving cold limbs, chasing away weariness. 6 From the fog a snowman appears, antlers on its head decked with glitter, a wolf’s tooth necklace round its neck promising protection and peace. 7 The tinkling of ice, the patter of droplets like a gentle symphony, leads to a hidden hot spring surrounded by great banks of snow. With an igloo, this could be a home. 8 A holy supplicant in white furs, ridden by the spirit of Winterwhite, offers a way out of the winter, a cave and a potion and furs and hibernation. With the deep winter sleep, one can pass by dreaming Winterwhite’s dream. 9 “Say my names, accept my names. Gift me your name and write mine into your own,” she whispers in your dreams. Those carrying the names of the four-fold goddesses in themselves do not feel the cold so terribly. 10 The visions come, strong and bright, of a deep place, far beneath the surface, hidden from sun and sky, wind and shoot. There, among the roots, Mira Falconsbrood offers the baron’s blood to secure Winterwhite’s blessing. The visions come, a century turns, the baron Soren Greencorner ignores the bargain and does not pay Winterwhite. The visions come, now the payment is due with interest. The visions come, there atop Princessberg is Glaciergut, the Ice Spear. Those wielding Glaciergut feel no cold, for they are the avatar of Winterwhite. Spill the blood of the betrayer Soren Greencorner upon the ice. Spill the guts of the promised child upon the snow. Satisfy the agreement, then, perhaps, a new bargain can be made. A lesser punishment exacted. Perhaps not quite a summer this year, for Winterwhite cannot change the agreement of Firebringer and Earthbeater. A great mountain far to the east will be made small this year. Its ash will bring fiery sunsets and violet sunrises and snow in midsummer. But it will not all be grinding ice and death. Those who accept the old cycles, who are humble in the face of the impenetrable vastness of the cosmogons will survive and learn.

Factions and Events

Longwinter

Baronials † lords of this realm † The powerful of Brezim. The landowners, the freeholders, the citizens, the militia members. They differ from the oldsettlers in culture, dress, wealth, and education, but to any visitor from a distant province, they are the same people.

Growing Stronger Tightening control, gathering food and fuel, fortifying their settlements, defeating the wolffolk, controlling the oldsettlers.

1 2

Deputies swell the baronial militias. Guns and arguments proliferate. Food and fuel stores are centralized, mayoral powers are increased. Dissent is viewed with suspicion. 3 Palisades are reinforced, walls are raised, barricades are built. Free movement is curtailed. 4 Loyalty pledges are introduced, weapons and equipment are requisitioned from oldesettlers and their sympathizers. Disaffection grows. 5 Outlying hamlets and isolated farmsteads are emptied out, bigger settlements are fortified. Troublemakers are kicked out. 6 Bands of free baronial militia begin collecting emergency “taxes” from oldsettlers, requisitioning food, fuel, and warm clothes. Protests break out and are dealt with violently. 7 Safety teams begin cutting fire breaks and burning isolated hamlets and oldsettler settlements to make it harder to attack baronial towns. 8 Disloyal serfs, fifth columnists, and other troublesome mouths are kicked out of baronial towns. Dismembered traitors are clearly displayed on roadsides and crossroads. 9 Harvesting patrols raid and pillage oldsettler and wolffolk settlements for food and materiel. Ethnic cleansing begins in earnest. 10 Artifacts from old architect vaults are deployed to defend the baronial betterfolk and maintain a semblance of settled society, even as the winter worsens. Show trials, witch hunts, and a reign of terror ensure loyalty. Mandatory triage is introduced. The dead are stored “in case the food situation becomes dire.” Dark pacts are made anew.

Factions and Events

Referee’s Book

Facing Setbacks Relinquishing power, losing settlements, being pushed out, losing battles, oldsettlers rebelling, skintakers sowing dissent.

Isolated farmsteads are looted and torched, lone baronials are accosted and robbed. Angry crowds gather, demanding action. 2 Water wells are poisoned and cholera breaks out. Witchcraft is suspected. 3 Fuel is stolen, stranding vehicles and making heating difficult. Watches are set and inspections increase. 4 Granaries are plundered, leaving small communities hungry and scared. Lynch mobs are formed to hunt down perpetrators. 5 Small hamlets are attacked, baronials are shot, supplies are stolen. Baronial refugees flock to bigger settlements. 6 Oldsettlers rise up against their masters, killing them in their beds, taking over isolated manors, burning farmsteads and plantations closer to the towns. Baronials start executing oldesttlers indiscriminately. 7 Wolffolk skintakers raid remote hamlets, kidnapping livestock and baronials alike for food. Baronials gather together for defence, oldsettlers are evicted and tortured. 8 Wolffolk shamans awaken the cold dead, spreading terror and fear. As the baronials, retreat many oldsettlers join in the plunder. 9 The skintaker high chief Añelo di’Usta demands all the oldsettlers rise up against the baronials. Many take up the high chief’s call—rebellion and violence flare. Settlements burn. Dead oldsettlers and baronials alike are pulled back to shambling revenance. 10 Fortresses fall to the dead and the monsters and the wolffolk. Desperate baronials leave behind the weak and the sick, retreating to citadels and vaults. Bands load up with supplies and try for the edges of the frozen hell that Brezim has become. The Greencorners are lost in the chaos, and it seems impossible to appease Winterwhite now.

Factions and Events

Longwinter

Oldsettlers † those who were first † those who are last †

Growing Stronger Taking back their lands, regaining control, throwing off bonds, finding freedom.

The old songs echo through the hamlets. Even baronials make the sign of the three-and-four in secret. 2 A quiet mob raids the chamber of records and burns the deeds of land and service. Serfs quietly stop wearing their bond amulets. Baronials take their guns out of their cases. 3 Oldsettler self-protection societies come into the open. Bands with illegal carbines and sharp axes patrol districts and hamlets. 4 Landless labourers and servants occupy empty chalets and summer cottages. Skirmishes break out as the militia fails to evict them. 5 The most disliked baronial landlords are hunted down, tortured, and strung up by their heels. Their freed serfs and labourers sing and dance all night, while they slowly freeze. Scared baronials start attacking individual oldsettlers. 6 Organized oldsettler rebels raid isolated militia outposts, evicting the outnumbered soldiers into the snow without coats or weapons. 7 Oldsettlers choose chiefs and declare baronials must take the furs or leave the hamlets. Scores are settled. Baronials desperately try to send word to the federal troops stationed south of Brezim in Iron Forum. 8 Baronials are evicted from the countryside; many starve or freeze to death. Accusations fly. Then fire arrows. A village burns. Moderate oldsettlers begin to argue with the more extreme chiefs. 9 A workers’ uprising seizes the town. Baronials and betterfolk are hunted through the streets like animals. The mayor’s family is taken to a remote farmhouse and accidentally executed before being dumped into a cistern to hide the evidence. Pitched battles divide Brezim. 10 A gun factory or cache is captured. The purges become more savage. Captured baronials are given a taste of their own medicine and enslaved. Moderate oldsettler chiefs are murdered at the event later remembered as “the bloody breakfast.”

Factions and Events

Referee’s Book

Facing Setbacks Hunted, beaten, exiled, mutilated, manipulated, betrayed.

Hunger compounds the malnutrition of most oldsettler children. Typhoid and cholera begin to spread. 2 Food protests are violently beaten back, and shallow trenches fill with hungry oldsettlers. The laments of parents bereft provide a haunting backdrop to the cracks and bangs of the militia executioners. 3 Masses of poor labourers are evicted from towns as potential troublemakers. These hungry bands wander the countryside, increasingly desperate. 4 Armed bands confiscate food and fuel from the poorest and weakest. Cold corpses begin to appear in alleyways, nooks and corners. 5 Rumors of cannibalism spread. There is truth in the rumours. True ghouls emerge among the hungriest, children of Hollowfear, a menace to oldsettler and baronial alike. 6 Skintaker agitators find fertile ground and provoke bloody failed uprisings. Baronial oppression becomes violent and savage. 7 Terrified oldsettlers begin to trek away, hoping to find sanctuary outside of Brezim. Most die on the way. Some out in the cold, others in deep ancient vaults and bunkers. Some find strange old things, which offer succour for souls, life for sacrifice. 8 Desperate oldsettlers accept the wolffolk’s bargain—their children’s lives for theirs—and hurl themselves in pathetic assaults against the baronial fortresses. Their corpses reanimate to hurl themselves again and yet again. Whistling foxes lead their children into the dark forest, not to be seen again. 9 The surviving few eat whatever they find, alive or dead, burn anything for heat, their bodies and minds destroyed, reduced to ghoulish, barely-human shells, host to the worst of the old gods’ haunting terror. They embody now all the worst prejudices of every civilization: the fall, the decline, the end of the road. 10 Silence and death now rule the oldsettlers’ hamlets and barracks, the old songs stilled. When warm weather comes, plague will be the child of this doom.

Factions and Events

Longwinter

Wolffolk † the dark savagery of the human heart made flesh and fur † It looks like the wolffolk are allies of Winterwhite, for they come with her winter. They come down from their high and deep, cold and dark fastnesses. They drive drakes and giants, demons and monsters. But they are no allies of winter. They are the mirror of civilization, the abyss of Amimami, the subconscious terror of the baronials made flesh in their oppression. The long winter, the dark night, has simply given them the opportunity they have been waiting for for so long. They are the oppressed whose yearning for freedom and dignity has become a thing of twisted envy, hatred, despair, greed, longing, hunger, loathing, self-destruction mixed with unrequited love—the anti-eros, the thanatos that comes forth in this long dark.

Growing Stronger The nights lengthen, the cold grows more bitter, the fires go out, the living dwindle. Indeed, the deeper Winterwhite’s winter becomes, the stronger the wolffolk become.

1 2 3 4

5 6 7

Footprints, pawprints, and brimstone spoor start appearing around remote hamlets. A vile, somehow greasy aroma lingers in the area. Wolves and the shadows of wolves and snow flurries like wolves stalk the hamlets and the ways and the paths. Predators, demanding to be fed. Fear grows among the settlers, old and new alike. Children disappear, stolen by the gaunt long-fingered snatchers and filchers. The wails of parents are many. Doors close against strangers. A local leader mysteriously disappears then returns, the same, but slightly different. The day after they trade the community’s fuel and food for weapons that fail to materialize, they are found dead and desiccated, like their marrow and meat have been extracted. Fear of witches and skintakers grows to a fever pitch. Deer and dogs, bears and beavers flee the near woods, leaving them silent, brooding, and menacing. An aura of dread hangs over the trees, and soon the locals are a-mutter about getting out while they can. The dead start disappearing from mortuaries and shallow graves. The old folks eye each other nervously and begin hanging up lavender bushels and knots of holly to ward off the ill-walking dead. The Greencorner mausoleum and monuments are desecrated by

Factions and Events

Referee’s Book

8 9 10 11 12

15 16

unknown attackers. Statues are broken. Curses are written. The baronials arrest oldsettler troublemakers. The air is tense. Massacres at remote farmsteads leave no survivors. The children go missing. The tracks are inhuman. Baronials blame oldsettlers, and vice versa. Pitched fights break out. Avalanches, landslides, and barricades start cutting off remote hamlets. Terrified families try to flee to the city, but many disappear with no trace. Outsiders suspected of being wolffolk are hung. Distant peals of thunder turn out to be gunfire. A baronial patrol disappears with nary a trace. Only trodden snow and blood remain. A village goes dark. No messages get out. Roads are cut. Lights fail. In darkest night, in a blowing blizzard, a company of wolffolk and skintakers lead an army of monsters, swarming ambulatory horrors from stitched together parts, long and freshly dead oldsettlers, chewed-up baronial militia still waving their carbines, against a town. As the dead wave piles up against the ramparts, there is a ripping, tearing sound, and a series of fine townhouses collapses into a pit. The whole settlement was built on top of a Purification Era buried town, and now things are crawling out from that hollow pit. Perhaps they were human once, but no longer. Over everything, the painful, desperate, longing whoops and laments of the wolffolk resound. Companies of hungry dead, let loose upon the land, wander the lowlands. Some get buried in the snow, laying in wait for passers-by. Others freeze in the rivers. Yet others get tangled in the waving trees. The wolffolk seem unsure of how to proceed after their capture of a town, while the baronials and oldsettlers hunker down further. The skintakers begin gathering information on the whereabouts of Soren Greencorner and Mira Falconbrood. The wolffolk’s loathing has a new focus. Torture, food, the promise of surviving the cold are their methods now. Some desperate souls join them, offering their flesh to their sculptors. The hordes of the dead descend on Greencorner’s hideout, besieging it. The rest of Brezim grows quiet. There appear to be few things left moving as Winterwhite’s grip tightens. The last fortress of Soren Greencorner falls. Soren and his daughter are lost under the press of twitching dead. Then the whole ancient pile erupts in a gout of flame and thunder. The heat sears eyebrows and burns bare skin for miles around. The mushroom cloud rises above the Motherberg itself. The wolffolk and skintakers are scattered, their jubilation turned to dust again. With the Greencorners dead, there is no way to appease Winterwhite, and as she had decreed, so it will be. The whole valley shall be locked in ice for a season and a year.

Factions and Events

Referee’s Book

Facing Setbacks Tracked down by rightmakers, hunted down, burned out of hideouts, stopped with piety and prayers to the old gods.

The mark of the beast is found on a councillor. In the heat of the investigating iron, they twitch and shift sideways into a monstrous form. The crowds arm themselves and begin investigating outsiders. 2 A skintaker is trapped while trying to steal a toddler. It injures four but is eventually subdued. As it sheds its skin, its quivering, gelatinous flesh feels the fires of justice. Inquisitions are set up to pursue the horrors. 3 A group of infected dogs is tracked to a barrow where a skintaker shaman is collecting the dead for an attack. The cold creatures were slowly excavating a vast holding pen under the old stones. High explosives from the baronial mining company took care of that nest. 4 The twitching dead in a mortuary are spotted by a cautious assistant. Baronials and oldsettlers band together to burn and break the dead, to prevent any fifth column forming. 5 A wolffolk attack against a baronial militia outpost is stopped with the help of oldsettler axemen. The oldsettlers are pardoned their banditry and inducted into a standing self-defence unit. 6 A giant devastates a remote hotel built on a picturesque overlook. The caretaker and his family are killed in the event. A mixed unit of oldsettlers and baronials traps the giant in a pit and destroys it. 7 An undead attack on a large village is repulsed with moderate losses. The defenders pursue the dead and discover pustulant nests under the ancient barrows. Oldsettlers are offered full citizenship for joining the barrow busters. Explosives are handed out to the teams. 8 A raiding party of wolffolk is stopped in the Baron’s secret fortress. After much questioning, they divulge the location of the wolffolk hive in the wilds off Wolfberg. 9 A large expedition attacks the wolffolk hive. Many shamans skintakers are stopped. Over three dozen children are rescued. Many dozens die in the savage fighting, and the gouting flames burn for days. The sulfurous smell is atrocious. 10 The last of the major undead bands are cleared up, and the Baron presents medals to the new baronial citizens who participated. An oldsettler revolutionary throws a bomb that kills the Baron and his daughter. With the Greencorners dead, there is no way to appease Winterwhite, and as she had decreed, so it will be. The whole valley shall be locked in ice for a season and a year.

Factions and Events

The glee of the wolffolk brings doom and affliction.

Longwinter

Referee’s Book

Old Architects † aliens or ancestors? † In truth, the Old Architects are a red herring. The ghost of a faction, the false promise of a powerful past now dust. The ones returned to life are echoes and reverberations of heroes and villains who hoped to cheat death, and now in this cataclysm of Winterwhite, they hope to sneak out into the world once more.

Growing Stronger Awakening, spreading from their vaults, finding helpers and allies, expanding their influence.

1 2

Seeking lights appear in the night sky. The glow blisters and burns. Steam boils off the snow as old engines come to life in deep vaults. A caustic ash falls as the engines misfire in a different atmosphere. 3 Lithe machines dressed in strange fabrics come forth and promise new saviours and better masters. Their kisses steal memories. 4 Slippery weapons of crystal and plastic that fire bolts of heat are gifts for their supporters. The warmth of the weapons causes hair to fall out and fingers to shorten. 5 Tunneling machines open new tunnels that promise warmth and safety in the bowels of the earth. The food provided by the machines rots teeth and makes limbs shorter, stubbier. 6 Glassy-eyed old architect mummies promise survival in exchange for love and bodily fluids to revive them. As they fill with juice once more, their odour grows vile and nauseating. 7 Bloated old architects wrapped in machine suits offer access to warm vaults and underground farms in exchange for new bodies. Within their suits, their bodies are collapsing into nutritious gelatin. 8 Old architects implanted in new bodies stumble about and flail, made strange, their connection to their selves tenuous. The bodies glow with a viridity that belies their shambling gait. Cold-adapted lichens and mosses grow in their presence. 9 Furry cocoons of green and blue swaddle the metamorphosing architects. A sour smell, like rotten vegetables, surrounds them. Spores from the cocoons provoke fits of coughing and eat away at lungs. 10 The cocoons sublime into ice and nothing remains on this low plane. The old architects’ machines, left alone, wind down into hibernation again, packing themselves away.

Factions and Events

Longwinter

Facing Setbacks Sickening, not adapting, being hunted, misunderstanding the world.

The air burns and chokes the old settlers. Their servants lie where they fell, freezing gently. Thawed, spores emerge, carrying a hemorrhagic plague that kills some and disfigures many. 2 The ice rises and throttles the old machines. The worldclock will not turn back. Fuels and lubricants spill, poisoning land and limb. 3 The skintakers’ curses crawl and clamber through the tunnels. As the old architects awaken their bones and skins are stolen. A kindly abmortal goes to sleep, a six-fingered abomination rips out of their strange fabric suit, thirsty for livers and spleens, mind burning with the wolffolk’s hatred. 4 Unsettled in these modern times, a baronial militia guns down the old architects with impunity and breaks into their vault. They throw out the strange machines and mutating field emitters but keep the thermal engines. If moles they need be, then heavily armed moles they will be. 5 Cheated and robbed, a naked old architect emissary wanders through the snow. Their chest implant keeps them warm despite the ice, its glow turning bowels to so much bloody glue. 6 Oldsettlers angry at the poisoned gifts seize the old architects in the night and throw them into the icy river. Armed with glowing guns, swaddled in bandages, they ravage the land about them. 7 Betterfolk terrified of these usurpers launch a daring raid into their large vault, following the tunnels of the burrowing machines. There they uncover grandiose plans and evil conspiracies. The detonation of an atomic heat engine brings down a whole mountain flank and sends a plume of poison spreading across the land. 8 Starving and decomposing old architects fan out across the land, promising anything in exchange for their salvations. Strange radiation weapons, melting explosives, and disease follow them. 9 As the last corpses liquify their spores are lofted high on the fires of their burning vaults. Those who breathe them choke, cough blood, and become strange, plant-like, inhuman. 10 The remaining possessed begin ululating and screaming in the old architect tongues. Their flesh ripples and grows mossy. Spores flicker, flare, and gutter out. Nothing sentient remains of them, a dead end. No plague of the dead, merely a misfire, a distraction.

Factions and Events

Longwinter

An OA-corrupted snow ape lumbers thoughtlessly.

Referee’s Book

Days of White Snow and Red Ice † the ice clock † Longwinter covers 100 days—3 months and change—that take the Barony of Brezim from late autumn to the dark year of Winterwhite’s curse, when the sun is obscured until the solstice returns again. You can use the three months as an actual calendar or as a random table to generate weather and events. Where events are large-scale, encounters affect only the heroes. Like the weather, the encounters are also split by month and time of day to model how Winterwhite’s curse changes the land. Roll encounters every watch. Until half-way through the second month, there are two daytime watches and two nighttime watches. After that, as the darkness gathers, there is only one daytime watch per four watches. Some encounters inflict stat loss. A stat is any number on a character sheet— health refers to any health stat. In a D&D-type game, the stats are Str, Dex, etc., while health is usually hp. One point of damage should suffice in most games that do not have ready access to infinite healing. If you are using 5e, Longwinter assumes gritty healing rules.

Maps and Encounters

Longwinter

Days of Autumn Before Winterwhite tightened her grip, autumn seemed normal. It was cold. It rained. Sleet and leaves fell. Start your icebox here if you want a slow lead up to winter. Use the standard map.

Maps and Encounters

Referee’s Book

Maps and Encounters

Longwinter

November – Leaffall – Autumn D30 Weekday 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Day Weather (Cold Level) NightWeather(ColdLevel) Fine and sunny (0) Bracing and cool (1) Stiff breeze (1) Cloudy and ominous (0) Lashing rain showers (1) Persistent heavy rain (2) Dull fog (1) Oppressive fog (1) Clear day (0) Smell of snow, breeze (1) Pillowsofbuildingclouds(1) Light snow, steady wind (2) Clinging fog (2) Cool, humid day (1) Heavy rain (1) Freezing rain (2)

17 Saturday

Gelid showers (2)

18 19 20 21

23 Friday

Grim mists (1) Strong winds (2) Calm, cold day (2) Bright and icy day (2) Towering clouds in the west (1) Flurries of snow (2)

Tinkleofbreakingice(2) Gale-force gusts (2) Cold night (2) Mild night (1) Heavy fog wreathes the valleys (1) Eerily calm night (2)

24 Saturday

Blizzard (3)

Whiteout (3)

25 Sunday

Lonely snowflakes falling (2) Blindingly bright day (1) Hot wind & grey clouds (0)

Clear night, diamond stars (2) Cloudy night (1) Misty night (1)

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday

22 Thursday

26 Monday 27 Tuesday

28 Wednesday Slow,heavy drops of rain (1) Freezing rain showers (2) 29 Thursday 30 Friday

Relentless rain (1) Heavy wet snow (2)

Events

Cold and clear (2) Day of All Ghosts Windy, cold (2) Rudvey market Still, very cold (2) Gold mushroom exhibition Foggy (1) Skiprock tournament Bone-chilling rain (2) Belna farm market Breaking clouds (1) Pey Dimna pass cut Pea-thick fog (1) Gomiliy market Frost (2) Last Quarter Wood smoke and frost (2) Rudvey market Skins of ice in troughs (2) Fat bear show Surprisinglywarmnight(1) Holy wine celebrations Clammy, cold night (2) Kastey farm market Rimecrawlsupwindows(2) Melted cheese festival Woodsmoke crawls low (1) Gomiliy market Sleet falls (3) Watercolour exhib. cancelled Ice storm (3) Rudvey market. New Moon Earthquake. Branberg Long icicles grow, landslide cuts southern freezing (3) mule-road.

Driving sleet (3) Gelid cold snap (3)

Maps and Encounters

Landslide investigation Belna farm market Circle dance night. Gomiliy market Travelogue by famed explorer Haïde Inberg Rudvey market Trolls attack landslide area. First Quarter Spargleberg pass cut Kastey farm market Neckerchief tutorial Gomiliy market, a damp affair Lace honey sale Rudvey market cancelled

Referee’s Book

Encounters of Autumn D00 Day 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21–30 31–40 41–60 61–70 71–80 81–90 91–95 96 97 98 99 00

Night

The Dragon, flying surreally (L20). The Dark Father, spirit of the First Baron (L15). Older Thing, flesh machine, moaning (L10). UndeadTroll,drawnfromitsunquietrockyrest(L13). Forest Spirit, gracefully patrolling (L8). Wild Spirit,looking for mad fools to possess (L11). Woodland Wyrm, crawling for prey (L7). SkeletonThing,eyesafirewithcalcifiedpassion(L9). Mountain Apes, playing games (L6). Night Wisps,flickering with the red of decay (L7). Aurochs, browsing cooly (L5). Werewolves, prowling and hungry (L6). Bears, stuffing themselves (L5). HeartOwl,lookingforsoulsandlovestosteal(L5). Dire Lynx, stalking prey (L4). Dire Wolf, howling for hell (L4). Wild Boars, digging nuts and roots (L3). Wolves, hunting fools (L3). Deer, a herd nervously awaiting winter. LonelyDead,beggingtobenearlight,food,life(L2). Gnome Monkeys, squirreling food (L2). GnomeMonkeys,engagedinbloodysacrifice(L2). Mountain Goats, giving the evil eye (L1). Fairies, promising lies with mirror eyes (L1). Wolffolk, shying from humans (L3). Foxes, laughing and bewitching. Rabbits, multiplying. ScurryingRodents,fearfulandhungry. Oldfolk, serfs slinking (L1). Changelings, singing like dogs in the night (L2). Baronial, freesettlers working holdings (L1). Oldfolk separatists,pretending to be cultists (L1). Outlander, craftsmen and tourists (L1). Wolffolk skin-takers, looking for skins (L3). Baronial, official patroleurs keeping peace (L2). Baronial cultists, appeasing old gods (L1). Cityfolk, merchants or specialists (L1). Baronial smugglers (L2). Baronial, families, picking mushrooms. Baronial Dark Rangers (L3). Interaction: roll 1d20 twice. Interaction: roll 1d20 twice. Corpse: roll 1d10+10. Corpse: roll 1d10+10. Traces: roll 1d20. Traces: roll 1d20. Hunger: use food or lose 1d4 health. Dark: use lamp or lose 1 stat. Terrain: use survival gear or lose 1 stat. Dark: use lamp or survival gear or lose 1 stat. Heat: use water or lose 1d4 health. Cold: eat meal or lose 1d4 health. Soothingrest:spend1d6hourstoregain1d6of 1stat. Soothingrest:spend1d6hourstoregain1d6of 1stat. Wonderful spot: regain 1d6 of one stat. Wonderful spot: regain 1d6 of 1 stat. Panorama: advantage to 1 mental check. Friendly spirits: temporary +1d4 to 1 mental stat. Delicious berries: [+] to one physical check. Friendly bear: temporary +1d6 health. Forgotten goods, barely used. Useful? Forgotten cache. A trove of supplies. I needed this! A common item of the I really needed this! A common or rare item of player's choice. the player's choice.

Maps and Encounters

Longwinter

Days of Winter As the winter descends on Brezim, the mule-roads begin to fight travellers and the passes out are cut. Start the icebox here if you want to go straight to the survival horror as the sun fails to be reborn at the winter solstice.

Maps and Encounters

Longwinter

December – Rawsoil – Winter D30 Weekday 1 2 3 4

Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday

Day Weather (Cold Level) Night Weather (Cold Level)

Events

Icycrustonheavysnow(2) Freezing winds (4) Howling winds,clear skies (3) Silent and freezing (3) Clear and silent day (2) Silent night (3) Ice melts in weak sun (1) Icy night (3)

Full Moon Village concert Belna farm market Popular book reading Gomiliy market, 5 Wednesday Gusting north winds (2) Icy winds (4) flapping awnings 6 Thursday Gentle flurries (2) Silence and clear skies (3) Plaster henge show 7 Friday Heavy snowfall (2) Heavy snowfall, whiteout (3) Rudvey market cancelled 8 Saturday Whiteout (3) Light snow (2) Last Quarter 9 Sunday Gray skies,whistling wind (2) Temperatures plummet (4) Wintermarket opens 10 Monday Cold snap,streams freeze (4) Cold takes breath away (4) Kastey farm market Days shorten and have 11 Tuesday Sun, hazy veils (2) Stars like cold hatred (3) one daylight watch 12 Wednesday Cool,steadychillbreeze(3) Painfully cold (3) Gomiliy market 13 Thursday Powder falls steadily (3) Powder and darkness (3) Mulled wine sampling 14 Friday Powderfall,cloudsdarken(3) Dark,cold,winter night (3) Rudvey market Thundersnow and powder Lightning crackles in 15 Saturday Mulled wine tournament darkentheday(3) the clouds (3) Storm dies down, powder Wind picks up, 16 Sunday New Moon continues to fall (3) tossing snow (4) Gelid north wind howls, Temperatures grow cruel, Belna farm market 17 Monday piling up snowdrifts (4) winds die down (4) cancelled 18 Tuesday Silent grey day (3) Silent black night (4) Circle dance night 19 Wednesday Silent slate-grey day (3) Silent purple night (4) Gomiliy market 20 Thursday Quiet, freezing day (3) Spittle freezes in the air (4) Local choir recital 21 Friday Ice cracks like bells (4) Gelid night (5) Rudvey market Sun blazes, 22 Saturday Gentle snow, cool night (3) Solstice wind whips snow (3) 23 Sunday Blizzard (3) Mocking blizzard (3) First Quarter Kastey farm market 24 Monday Howling blizzard (4) Quiet blizzard (3) cancelled Avalanche cuts road 25 Tuesday Laughing blizzard (3) Sudden silence, freezing (4) south of Chodey snap, 26 Wednesday Cold small rivers freeze (4) 27 Thursday

Windhowlsinthepines(4)

28 Friday 29 Saturday

Gustsofwindcontinue(4) Steady north wind (4) Fluffy clouds, frozen landscape (3)

30 Sunday

Evil stars and rising wind (5) Booming wind, vicious cold (5) Biting icy wind (5) Still night, groaning ice (4) Cruel, icy night (4)

Maps and Encounters

The day has not started getting longer! Gomiliy market Torchlit procession Rudvey market Night of festing masks Full Moon

Referee’s Book

Encounters of Winter D00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21–30 31–40 41–60 61–70 71–80 81–90

Day The Dragon, flying nervously (L19).

A Giant, skin dead ice (L16). Shaggy Bone Spirit, confused (L13). Ice Wyrm, stalking (L10). Great White Birds, cruel (L7). Desperate Snow Apes (L6). Hoary wired ghouls (L5). Snow Vultures (L5). Ice-threaded Worms (L4). Savage Boars, bloodthirsty (L4). Dire Lynx, leaving (L4). Savage Wolves (L3). Ape-cat Hunters (L3). Elk, rutting (L3). Oldfolk, hunting (L2). Oldfolk, rebels (L2). Baronial, trappers (L2). Wolffolk, spies (L4). Baronial, patroleurs (L2). Baronial, vigilantes (L3). Interaction: roll 1d20 twice. Corpse: roll 1d10+10. Traces: roll 1d20. Hunger: use food or lose 1d4 health. Terrain: use survival gear or lose 1 stat. Cold: eat meal or lose 1d4 health. Soothing rest: spend 1d6 hours to regain 1d8 of 1 stat. Healing shrub: regain 1d6 of one stat.

Awesome vista: [+] to two mental checks.

Frozen ‘meat’: advantage to two physical checks.

Beast-torn corpse clutching an heirloom.

I needed this! A common item of the player's choice.

91–95

Night White Giant, beard of rime, eyes of silver fire (L20). Frozen undead horde (L18). Crawling Glacier Wyrm (L16). Winter Spirit, possessive (L14). Skeleton Troll, dripping ice and acid (L12). White Shadows, stealing breath (L10). Skintaker Shamans, riding great beasts (L8). Werewolves, stealing the young (L6). Dire Wolves, eyes aglow (L5). Frigid oldsettler ghoul children (L3). Ice-stiff Salamanders (L2). Great White Bats (L1). Two-legged Foxes, performing magic (L2). Sad Dead, splintering and decaying (L2). Oldfolk, saboteurs (L3). Oldfolk, runaways (L1). Wolffolk, assassins (L4). Baronial, possessed cultists (L2). Baronial smugglers (L2). Baronial Dark Rangers (L4). Interaction: roll 1d20 twice. Corpse: roll 1d10+10 Traces: roll 1d20. Dark: use lamp or lose 1 stat. Dark: use lamp or survival gear or lose 1 stat. Cold: eat meal or lose 1d4 health. Soothing rest: spend 1d6 hours to regain 1d8 of one stat. Healing shrub: regain 1d6 of one stat. Frightened spirits whisper warnings: temporary +1d6 to one mental stat. Frozen potion of the bear: restores 1d6 health. Frozen well-armed corpse. Ammunition and survival equipment. I really needed this! A common or rare item of the player's choice.

Maps and Encounters

Longwinter

Days of Deep Winter They rail against the fading light, but it is too late. Start here if you want forty days of bleak despair and a game focused on scrounging the resources required for escape.

Maps and Encounters

Referee’s Book

Maps and Encounters

Longwinter

January – Iceling – Deep Winter D30 Weekday 1 Monday 2 Tuesday

Day Weather (Cold Level) Night Weather (Cold Level) Wetsnowfallspatchily(3) Snowblanketstheland(2)

plummet,icy 3 Wednesday Temperatures wind roars down mtns (4) 4 Thursday 5 Friday

Clearskies,whistlingwind(3) Clearskiesandsilence(3)

6 Saturday

Gauzycloudsandsilence(3)

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Hazy skies and silence (2) Whiteskiesandsilence(2) Whiteskies,lightsnow(2) Whiteskies,heavysnow(2) Whiteout(3) Whiteout(3) Silverysky,gustingwinds(4) Gustingicywinds(4)

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

15 Monday

Thunderinggelidwinds(5)

16 Tuesday Sustained icy winds (4) 17 Wednesday Laughingicywinds(4) 18 Thursday

Barreling icy winds (5)

19 Friday 20 Saturday 21 Sunday

Icygale(5) Silence.Riversfreezeover(5) Silenceandice(5)

22 Monday

Iceandsilence(5)

23 24 25 26 27

29 Monday

Sparklingsnowflakes(4) Mockingsnowflakes(4) Iceandsun(3) Wansun,buildingclouds(3) Ragclouds,warming(3) Reddish sun, slight warming, icicles drip (2) Clearskyandcracklingice(3)

30 Tuesday

Clearskyandsilence(3)

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

28 Sunday

Events

Ice coats the forests (3) White night (3)

Belna farm market Shooting stars Frost crawling up the Wind-blown snow sides of the sky. Gomiliy obscures the night (4) market cancelled Lakes freeze (4) Dead leaves like a face Icy quiet (4) Rudvey market It's like a snow globe Frost-growing night (4) freezing over! Rime spreads (4) Third Quarter Snow and cold, silence (3) Kastey farm market Silent, white night (3) Odd inverted icicles Whiteout (3) Gomiliy market Whiteout (3) Bloodcough outbreak Cruelmockingsnowflakes(4) Rudvey market cancelled Gusts shiver the stars (5) Coops plundered Still horribly cold (5) Tree falls on cart Belna farm market Dark and windy night (5) cancelled. New Moon Wind. Cold. Cruel (5) Drunk found frozen Stars like cold hell eyes (5) Gomiliy market Trees break under ice and Sheep freeze in field wind (5) Wind stops.Waters freeze (5) Rudvey market cancelled Freezing continues (5) Frozen songbirds sing Ice worms crawl out (5) Ice pushes open tombs Kastey farm market. Icewormscrawldownhills(5) Panic Ice worms crawling (5) First Quarter IcewormsreachRushka(5) Gomiliy market Hoar frost grows long (4) Holy water freezes Icicles grow like fangs (4) Rudvey market Snowfallsfrombranches(3) Mass rat die-off Puddles and ice freeze Avalanche cuts again (4) several roads Clear, cruel night (4) Belna farm market Shredded clouds chase Full Moon. Lunar eclipse moon (4)

Unless Winterwhite is appeased, deep winter weather continues for the next twelve months. Desperation mounts until the folk embrace the blue sleep. Or flee.

Maps and Encounters

Referee’s Book

Deep Winter Encounters D00

Day

Night

The winterbird, croaking doom (L20).

02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

A flayed ice giant, awake again (L17). Avalanche horses, galloping (L15). Ice worms, soothing the land (L13). White knights with glass swords (L11). White apes with mechanical implants (L8). Great white oxen (L7). Worm-riddled ghouls (L6). Undead oldfolk warriors (L5). Snow vultures (L5). Wolffolk riding dire wolves (L5). Great white hart (L5). Shaggy ice apes (L4). Dire white boars (L4). Pack of fresh-frozen undead (L3). Oldfolk, soldiers (L3). Baronial, traitors (L2). Baronial and oldfolk rabble, starving (L1). Baronial, cultists (L2). Baronial white rangers (L4). Interaction: roll 1d20 twice, once on the day column, once the night column. Corpse: roll 1d10+10. Traces: roll 1d20. Gnawing hunger: use food and lose 1d4 health, or lose 1d4+4 health. Brutal terrain: use survival gear and lose 1d4 health, or lose 1d4+4 health and 1 stat. Very cold: eat two meals or lose 1d10 health and 1 stat. Warm and dry: spend 1d6 hours to regain 1d6 of two stats.

Winterwhite's angelhunt, freezing blood and smashing bone (L20). Snow-driven undead horde (L18). Loping glacier wyrm (L16). Winterwhite's ice skeletons (L14). Shadow troll, dripping hoar and hate (L12). Death Fairies, in for the fun (L10). Ice Troll, eyes drooling (L9). Werewolf Skintakers (L8). Skintaker Necrodancer (L7). Undead wolffolk (L6). Slippery snow whisps, eyes red and dead (L5). Undead baronial ghouls (L4). White foxes sacrificing changelings (L3). Hungry shadow bats (L2). Troop of icy undead villagers (L3). Oldfolk winter soldiers on sleigh (L4). Wolffolk, burners (L4). Baronials mad with hunger (L1). Baronial, defenders (L2). Adventurers, looters (L3).

21–30 31–40 41–60 61–70 71–80 81–90 91–95

Interaction: roll 1d20 twice. Corpse: roll 1d10+10 Traces: roll 1d20. Grim dark: use lamp and lose 1d4 health, or lose 1d6+4 health and 1 stat. Grim night: use two lamps or survival gear, or lose 1d10 health and 1 stat. Very cold: eat two meals and lose 1d4 health, or lose 1d10+4 health and 1 stat. Warm and dry: spend 1d6 hours to regain 1d6 of two stats.

Frozen dragon's tear: regain 1d8 of one stat. Frozen dragon's tear: regain 1d8 of one stat.

Dead troll: melt its blood to create 1d6 healing potions (heal 1d6 health each). Dead unicorn: eat heart for [+] to 3 checks. Cannibal-eaten corpse. Clutching a prince's ransom in bills and inedible coins. I really needed this! A common item of the player's choice.

98 99 00

Echo of hibernating spirits. Regain 1d4 of one mental stat. Frozen dragon blood: restores 1d8 health. Flash-frozen hero. Decked in splendid museum pieces, clutching an heirloom. Treasure in the snow. A magical item from the time of the Old Architects.

Maps and Encounters

Longwinter

Body in the Snow 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

About to rise—crackpot amulet— rune-scored—cooking apron. Dismembered—tendons flexing— silver-burnt—walking stick. Half-eaten—scalped—skis. Bound—twitching—iron knife. Stripped—gold teeth—branded. Hanged—purse of silver—legal deed—donkey skull. Beheaded—staked—garlic wreath. Casketed—smiling—gilded circlet. Curled up—pot of oil—infected. Shot—carbine—brass watch. Chewed—mesh hauberk—locket with beautiful portrait. Ice-bound—sack of grain—teddy bear with hidden gold ring. Snow-frosted—empty box of matches—kindling pouch. Huddled—fur coat—slim sword. Sitting—impressive hat—pipe. Broke-backed—warm boots— axe—fa*ggot of sticks. Sprawled—crate of potatoes— dentures—elegant shoes. Terror-struck—heavily armed— pouch of imperial gold dinars. Immaculate—long scarf—winter jacket—magic Old Architect pen. Still warm—marked neck—empty wallet—glowing amulet of light.

Cache Under Ice 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Great clay pot—2,500 brass coins—a hunting bow. Sacks of buckwheat—mortar and pestle—a cudgel. Fine stainless steel chest— Ironbaron guns—bullets. Oiled canvas—cordwood—a musty duvet—a pea. Greasy hides—ivories—a spear. Felt bundles—woollen winter shoes—set of felt-making tools. Barrel of salted whitefish—set of plate—two heavy nets. Coffin—Redyard sub-machine guns and ammo—three fire sticks. Iron-bound trunk—bundles of federal scrip—posted mail. Wooden crate—mink furs—set of pearl-handled purse pistols. Tun of wine—pewter cups—a fork. Firkin of gunpowder—fur hat— small tub of industrial lard. Oilpaper-wrapped sticks of butter—butter churn—an axe. Sled-mounted gun—barrel of grapeshot—a polecat. Drum of golem fuel—set of serving wrenches—official badge. Cage of undead rats—badgering stick—raw training jerky. Bottles of rum—satchels of salt— sachets of illegal whiskerweed. Tubes of fine artworks—wellpacked books—a lighter. Wicker backpack—dry meats— fine cutting board—sharp knife. Elegant luggage—skis & snowshoes—bottle of expensive bubbly.

Random Items

Referee’s Book

An Ancient Vault 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Great shaft—now cold—once a power source. Hypostyle hall—a library in stone—defaced and dusty. Machined door—jammed shut— proof against ghost and air. Hot metal rods—glowing and poisonous—but so warm. Crystal memory machine— riddled with holes—a ghost. Bullet-straight passage—dead glow orbs—copper wire veins. Iris portal—only hand-cranked now—enamelled and detailed. Honeycomb stores—now timeeaten—rusted labour machines. Long switchback ramps—dead goliath golems—warnings. Forest of thorns—gruesome bas reliefs—corpses in amber. Grease-shrouded golem corpses—instruction crystals. Replication chamber—pendulous machines—dead biomechanics. Glistering sarcophagi— mummified time travellers—corgis. Glass fiche library—broken readers—grinding glass dust. Immense dish—punctured— reels of final words. Quarantine aquarium—exosuits—outdated manuals. Indoctrination cinema—rat-eaten pictures—skeletal audience. Medical bay—rusted doctor— magical medicines. Subterranean farms—wilted foliage—graves of the last farmers. Command chamber—time’s fool—living biomachine lord.

Memories of Summer 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

A funeral—all gathered under the oak—sad but sweating—so hot. A wrestling match—cheers—fried mash on sticks—the flags. Smoking by the river—cards— false maturity—poor jokes. School’s out—lessons to forget— books to leave aside—butterflies. A marching band—glittering instruments—a secret tryst. A bull run—ripe tomatoes— skinned knees—laughter. Making hay—songs at noon— bread and cheese—scythes. A wedding—the three avatars appeased—hopes of a future. Fishing barehanded—tickling beneath rocks—grinning victory. First steps—a child dreaming of first snow—playing with a puppy. Midsummer bonfire—leaping— ale under the spilled stars. A birthday—spit-roasted lamb— drunken toasts—wish cakes. First kiss—fumbling hands— awkward mornings. Porch evenings—rocking chair— old bones warmed—anniversary. Morning coffee—cigarettes and gossip—wicked chuckles. Gentle hangovers—walk in the morning mist—skinny dipping. Boating—bonnets and beers— cooling off in the river. Peak at dawn—views from horizon to horizon—valley in mist. Late dinner—crickets and fireflies—old wine uncorked. Green sun day—floral perfumes— uncanny festivities—odd dreams.

Random Items

Longwinter

Danger comes to the old mule roads.

Referee’s Book

Escape $

The Escape

Longwinter

Trying to Get Out † something a little different † This section concerns itself entirely with how to run a death march through a frozen wasteland. It builds on the ideas hinted at in the previous chapters, mentioning the wider calamity of a year without summer. It deals with getting out of Brezim and the conditions prevalent in a frozen winter wasteland. Its simplest use is as a resource for your maginuclear winter game, pillaging it for encounters, NPCs and locations using a card deck to pick likely spots. Alternatively, you can test your on-the-fly, seat-of-the-pants chops by using the cards mechanic. It’s actually quite simple, but would really benefit from proper, custom cards, so the players could actually see the titles and the pictures and use those to make decisions about where they are going. Still ... I hope you will enjoy the icehells, too.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

This Is Not Normal The cold has finally become too much. Where before the old hunters returning wild-eyed from their hides in the krummholz, on the edges of the alpage, could be dismissed, now their stories of crawling tongues, rivers, and snakes of ice locking the valley in a vice ring too true. The words are on every worker’s chapped lips. In every pair of ice-tinged eyes, whether leit’s or lady’s or lord’s. “This is not normal,” say those looks, say those faces. Siras and siros attend the baron Soren Greencorner in the Rudvey fortress. Attend, or hole up there? They have brought wagons and servants and militias. They have requisitioned wood and oil, furs and silver. For security, for redistribution. Workers and peasants gather beer halls and village manors, faces grave as they count their supplies and their duties, thoughts grim as they read the nobles’ ‘requests’. Oldfolk swaddle themselves in furs and disappear into the deep woods, to die or to plot. Some smile at the baronials’ discomfort, others look uneasy, a few talk of the old demon, the death that comes with the cold sleep, the harsh measure of Winterwhite. “This is not normal,” everyone knows and does not have to say.

Questions for the Players Even the players will say, eventually, that this is not normal. Confirm that they are correct. This is not normal. Now that they think about it, the signs were there for a while. Everyone is asking themselves, “Who is responsible? Why is this happening? Does it even matter? Is survival not the priority now? How bad will it get?”

The Escape

Longwinter

How to Referee a Survival Game Congratulations. You’ve reached the point of the icebox where the players realize that the whole campaign was just a cover, a red herring, for the real adventure: survival. Optionally, if you want to just run an ice survival adventure, this is where that begins. A survival adventure pits heroes against an overwhelming antagonist who is not actively malevolent but is fundamentally hostile. In Longwinter it is the cold personified in the form of the deity Winterwhite, who has descended on the Barony of Brezim to extract her debt in full and without mercy. She does not come for any particular victim, she does not care if one or another escapes, she comes for all the barons Greencorner hold dear: the barony. This kind of adventure has some specific constraints. Because the antagonist is impersonal, there isn’t a big boss to beat, there is no expectation of a climactic confrontation, there is no emotion contained in the antagonist, and there is nobody actively trying to thwart the heroes. The antagonist simply is. This means that as a referee, you can’t simply keep raising the stakes, introducing new enemies, and developing a plot, because that makes the antagonist personal. You also don’t have a villain to play, you cannot embody the winter to deliver a scathing speech, to tug on heartstrings with a nuanced childhood story, or even to deliver a lazy, “you haven’t seen the last of meeeee!” The winter doesn’t care. In Longwinter I suggest two methods of delivering a gripping survival adventure. First, the challenges of survival. Use playing cards to procedurally generate a sequence of situations for the players trying to escape the icebox. This takes the antagonism out of your hands and makes you the arbiter of the will of the uncaring cards. You can cheer for the players to succeed as much as you like, but have the players draw and play the cards publicly, so it’s clear that it’s the deck, the environment, building this challenge for them. Second, the emotion of the story. A survival story is about fear and hope, terror and relief. Life and death are possible outcomes, but it is the emotions we play with. Do not ask for characters’ emotions directly. Narratively, as referee, focus on their sensations. Sight, sound, smell, temperature, pressure, wind, movement,

The Escape

Referee’s Book

acceleration. Focus on the physical, embodied sensations; on what and how the characters’ bodies experience the winter. Give them clear, physical options, “You are clinging to the slick, cold rock, but see no way further up. Do you drop back down into the deep, pillowy snow, or try to jump across to the opposite face of the crack? If you fail the jump, you will hit the hard, sharp rock and tumble down, banging knees and elbows.” Ask them if their character’s heart is racing, if their palms are sweaty, if there is a knot in their belly, if their muscles are burning, if their knees hurt. Ask them how their character reacts to a blow, to a fall. As supplies run low, as the cold draws in, as injuries accumulate, the emotion will follow.

The Problem of Tools Some games offer heroes many tools that render environments irrelevant. Whether spells, artefacts, or technologies. I often find these deployed too casually. As soon as heroes can ignore terrain through flight or teleportation, whether through resistance and immunity, the roleplaying campaign has moved to an entirely different stage, one that makes this kind of adventure essentially unplayable—and, I would argue, boring without a significantly different setup than offered by “like our world in the past, but with magic.” My recommendation is either removing these kinds of character tools outright or providing severe material and mechanical limitations on those you permit. Flight may be provided by fragile magical wings, which have to be stowed and carried. Resistance to cold could be provided by a magical cloak, which must be cleaned, repaired, and maintained. They might certainly be created by spells, but they are imagined within the fantasy as physical objects, which can be stolen, broken, and lost. This is, of course, something to discuss with players. If they insist on keeping their supernatural superpowers, ask them to narrate a fictional reason why they are suspending them for this adventure, or suggest they create a different character to use for this adventure instead. Honestly, an entire party of characters who can fly or teleport or ignore extreme cold will make this survival adventure pretty useless. From here on out, I assume that the heroes your players are using may surpass peak human physical aptitude, yet are not the equal of a superhero.

The Escape

Longwinter

Survival Card Mechanic † version 2.0 of the card generator † Get a deck of ordinary playing cards, the ones with hearts and diamonds, clubs and spades. These will generate the narrative framework of the survival adventure. Show them to the players and explain this mechanic to them, so they understand this adventure and how it works. Different suits represent different terrains, complications, and characters. Diamonds represent icefield locations, supernatural challenges, and magical characters; spades represent mountains, physical challenges, and violent characters; clubs represent forests, resource challenges, and natural characters; and hearts represent rivers, social challenges, and helpful characters. The symbol � notes challenges, while � stands for characters. In every case, lower numbers are less challenging, higher numbers are more challenging. Aces are mixed, offering great opportunities and great risks. Jokers are random. To escape and “win” the players have to collect a set of cards: three of a kind (e.g., three kings) or four in a row (e.g., 2,3,4, and 5 of diamonds); or deplete all the location cards (not very likely). The higher value their set, the better their escape result (three queens give a better result than three sixes). Not all the player characters have to survive for this to happen! Generate and play the adventure using watches (6 hour periods, 4 to each day) and actions. Each watch a different player chooses the group’s action. Some actions may spend additional watches. Track cold, weather, events, and encounters using the Longwinter calendar as normal. Play starts with all the cards in the deck. During play, cards will be placed into three additional areas: the discard pile, the misfortune pile, and the players’ card collection. If at any time there are not enough cards in the deck to draw from, shuffle the discard pile and add it to the bottom of the deck.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

Player Actions Travel: this is the basic action required to win the game. The player deals three cards from the deck onto the table. River and Forest cards (hearts and clubs) cost one additional watch. Mountain and icefield cards (spades and diamonds) cost two additional watches. The player chooses where the group will travel and marks that card. The referee then generates the challenge with the remaining card on the left, and the character(s) encountered with the remaining card on the right. Both of these cards are then added to the discard pile. The referee next resolves challenges, weather, events, and encounters for that leg of the journey. When at least one member of the group overcomes the challenges and reaches the location, that card is added to the players’ card collection. Rest: this is how the player characters recover health and heat. It requires shelter from the weather. The player then draws a card from the deck and places it face-up on the misfortune pile (if there isn’t a misfortune pile yet, this creates a new one). Build Shelter: if no shelter is available, it takes one watch to scout out a suitable location and reinforce it with snow and branches to provide a place to rest. The player then draws a card from the deck and places it on the misfortune pile, as with the rest action. Explore: challenges and characters may leave behind clues, locations, or resources. It takes a watch to explore them and recover anything of value. The player then draws a card from the deck and places it on the misfortune pile, as with the rest action.

The Misfortune Pile Whenever a card placed on the misfortune pile is lower in value than the previous card on that pile, the referee immediately uses it to generate a challenge and a character the heroes encounter. Kings are the only cards lower in value than aces. Jokers are higher in value than every other card, except sevens. The referee then shuffles the whole misfortune pile and adds it to the bottom of the deck.

The Escape

Longwinter

♣ Forests

† forests and brush † resource challenges † natural characters †

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♣1 Abandoned Lookout The mule-road snakes along the rugged mountain flank. Dark fir forests rise above, cliffs and tumbled rocks collapse into torrents below. A blackened bunker complex dusted in snow keeps dead-eyed watch atop an outcrop. The road continues through a tunnel carved beneath. † Ambushers and defenders are advantaged. † It is easy to avoid the worst of the weather here.

�

Spilled Grain

The sack did its best to hold the grain in, but step after weary step, another few grains tumbled down. Now, after a watch’s walking, the sack is empty. † Easy test to sweep fresh snow over the tracks. † Easy test and one watch to pick up most of the spilled food.

�

Cautious Patrol

Two baronial soldiers in padded greatcoats, armed with walking spears and Redyard leadspitters. Both are also decked with holy stones of the Three Avatars. † Brade Icewinkler. Dale Everloyal.

The Escape

Longwinter

♣2 Old Hamlet Feral orchards choke the old hamlet. Collapsed Oldsettler homes now resemble burial mounds under the snow. A few Baronial-style log cabins have been built among the gap-toothed megaliths of an old sacred circle. Nobody is home. † Defenders and ambushers are advantaged. † The log cabins provide respite from the weather.

�

Mould and Damp

The meat has sprung fine fur, and blue patches coat the bread. † Moderate cooking test to make unpalatable meals from the spoiled food. † Difficult medicine test to make antibiotic paste from one of the moulds.

�

Inquisitor

A silent masked figure in red and white furs. Their skis are nearly as sharp as the knife at their belt. Their long rifle is an ancient, intricately scoped Zuleiman. Looped around one wrist, they wear an inquisition rosary. † Doctor Yana Fardaughter.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♣3 Isolated Facility Black pines choke the dale and creep up the hillsides, reclaiming oldsettler pastures and rude shielings on the lower fells. Rusted barbed wire tangled with blackberry brambles creates a wall around a series of log cabins built over the ruins of an Architect facility. † Defenders are strongly advantaged. † The facility provides respite from the weather.

�

Frozen Water

With a loud pop, like a gun misfiring, a water bottle’s side bursts open. All the water has turned to ice. † It will take fire or a watch carrying it close to the body to melt it again.

�

Licensed Explorers

Four figures draped in ropes and exploration gear. They have a Whiteeyes Institute license for a bunker on the Dimnaya. Carefully concealed, they carry baronial Redyard revolvers. † Zoran Oldstone. Hektor Smithson. Viktoriya Sunrise. Doctor Sigma Delmar.

The Escape

Longwinter

♣4 Alpine Rainforest Buttresses of limestone rise along the steep slope of the mountain, funnelling humid air into the constricted valley. Great firs and spruces challenge the hills for height. Vines and beard lichens deck the trees. Mists roll among the dark trunks. † Ambushers are advantaged in the thick wood. † The conifers block all wind.

�

Sole-Less

Glue and gum have become brittle in the cold, and after a particularly rough descent, the soles of several shoes start flapping. † Easy agility test to avoid losing the soles. † Moderate cobbler test to fix the soles, but this requires tools. Improvised solutions will work for 1d4 watches, but after that, the cracked, seeping shoes disadvantage tests against the cold and wet. Improvised shoes disadvantage agility and endurance tests on the trail.

�

City Slicker

A stumbling man in a heavy parka and bespoke city shoes is making for the valley. His marten fur cap smells strongly of pomade. Despite the stubble on his cheeks, his curled moustaches still follow the last Eastern City fashions. He keeps mumbling about a hotel in Pey Holzey. His watch is a jewelled TPK Scheephouse with seven complications. † Obol Fastfoot.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♣5 Twisted Krummholz The violent winds along the long slope gnarl the red pines into crawling dwarfs. Layer upon layer of ancient wood creates a tangled maze of trees barely as tall as a shepherd. As the snow grows thicker, it covers the krummholz in a treacherous blanket. † Everybody is disadvantaged in the grasping krummholz † There is no protection from the elements.

�

Tinderless

Only damp coal and a foul odour remain of the kindling. The box of matches is nearly empty. The lighter is nearly dry. † Strong disadvantage to starting fires until new equipment is found.

�

Wolffolk Scout

A slender oldsettler man in light white furs and white cloak, carrying a recurved bow of bone, sinew, and old architect spring steel. He does not feel the cold, and his pupils are feral. When he runs, his feet do not sink into the snow. Wolves and dogs love him. † Raham “Red” Cruseao.

The Escape

Longwinter

♣6 Black Forest Dense woods of witch spruce cover the slopes and highlands like an impenetrable blanket. They block sun and moon, wind and snow. A carpet of dry, sour needles muffles all sound below. † Ambushers are advantaged in the black forest. † It is warmer and windless beneath the spruces.

�

Frayed Rope

The wet, the ice, the rock, all have taken their toll. The fibres of the ropes are frayed and worn. † Disadvantage to all climbing tests until ropes are repaired.

�

Dead Skinwalker

A bulky oldsettler swathed in tattered furs. Their face is covered in a skin mask. One cold white eye looks out. A chill walks with them. They are polite to outlanders, but coldly mock baronials. “Ah, your greed, you crossed the bluemouthed lady. You will see her revenge. She will eat you cold.” † Orso “Deadeyes” Tornato.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♣7 Mass Gravesite Lumpen bearded oaks and silver-needled spruces are reclaiming this plateau. Dense brambles and stands of staff-grass choke sinkholes filled with shattered limestone. Oldsettler wicker wheels and tin triangles mark small dolmens built discreetly by the corpse-filled sinkholes. † The thick growth advantages anybody wanting to stay hidden. † The wind is weaker among the trees.

�

Wet Powder

Snow falling from the trees gets into the ammunition. Arrows warp, bullets freeze together, and the powder is damp. † A watch of careful rest and drying at room temperature will help. † Otherwise, disadvantage to ranged attacks.

�

Infected With The Ice

An older man and a middle-aged woman in rich parkas. The man is missing one hand, and the cold awakening of Winterwhite will consume him soon. They have left their fortified townhouse in Pey Dimna after the town was again attacked by the risen oldsettler ghouls. † Tomo Blackwolf. Ksenia Redgift.

The Escape

Longwinter

♣8 Sacred Grove A marshland of juniper and grassy hummocks covers the gentle hill-top depression. Mossy mounds mark ancient earthworks. Sixty blood cedars arranged in five circles form the sacred grove. The bark is marked with angular Oldsettler runes. † The marsh disadvantages all movement. † The wind is weaker among the trees, but there are water and ice everywhere.

�

Torn It Seems

Stumbling through brambles, down gravel slopes, and past broken shreds of barbed wire, tears gape in parkas and pants. † Disadvantage to tests against cold and wet. † Moderate sewing tests and one watch to fix the clothes, if needles and thread are available.

�

Wolfmother

A slender red wolf with hazel eyes. She walks at a distance and watches, carefully. Her wolffolk family is curious how the baronial newsettlers will deal with this calamity. Within her belly, she carries an old architect dagger that can sing at strange frequencies and cut the hardest rock. When she needs it, her paw becomes a ghostly human hand that reaches right into her own body and withdraws the blade. † Ulna “Trained” Aureina.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♣9 Willow Swamp A forest of bent and broken willows lies beneath the snow. Ice and desiccated cane reeds crunch underfoot. Mulchy ridges and ditches alternate. Deep pools hide beneath surprisingly thin skins of ice. † Tracking is easy in the snow-draped swamp. Travel is difficult. † The wind is weaker among the trees.

�

Blunted

Crampons, ice axes, and picks are blunted and pitted from traversing ice and rock. Disadvantage to climbing checks and damage with these tools and weapons. † Easy blacksmithing test and one watch to fix. Requires a smithy.

�

Good Boy

A wheezing boy in fine greatcoat out looking for help for his nanny who has come down sick. He has a respiratory condition. His cheeks are rosy and he is well-fed. In his chalet, the nanny is in the last stages of starvation. The larder is well stocked with meat and frozen stew. The corpses of the butler and the footman have been neatly butchered, wrapped in canvas bags, and stored in the ice cellar. † Andrey Resttree. Hema “Nanny” Farlog.

The Escape

Longwinter

♣10 Shattered Woodland Stumps and scattered branches mark a savage clear-cutting. Snow covers the raw earth, gouged by heavy golems. Isolated clumps of bushes and twisted trees sway feebly in the wind. Broken wood waits to trap the unwary foot. † Tracking is easy in the open terrain. Travel is difficult. † The clear-cutting is exposed to the elements.

�

Spilled Fuel

Perhaps it was the last tumble down the gully, among the ice boulders and broken trunks. The oil cans have punctured and soaked through the packs. The coal bin has spilled. The bundle of wood has come loose. † Moderate test to salvage half of the fuel.

�

Political Prisoner

Two figures. A bulky city officer packing a Fifthface revolver and a weedy aristocrat in a fur-lined parka. The officer agrees: the witness needs to stay alive. † Zora Darknoon. Igor Ironwood.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♣J Stormstruck Linden Boulders piled with turf and loam glisten through the snow. They shoulder aside smaller trees and create a clearing around a mighty linden. Six woodsfolk could not encompass it with outstretched arms. Its trunk is marred by a great lightning scar. Its long branches have been broken by ice. A wooden womb opens within. † Attackers are advantaged in the clearing. † The wind is merciless.

�

Crunch

Everything was packed so carefully, but packs shift during travel. Falling back onto the pack, a sickening crunch resounds. Something fragile, complicated, and irreplaceable has broken.

�

The Filmmaker

A bedraggled figure with cases of crystal-film. It records snow apes using tools to excavate an Old Architect vault. † Lena Riflesteel, famous illusionist.

The Escape

Longwinter

♣Q Wolffolk Forest Spruce and pine and oak crowd close. Their branches obscure the sky, their roots obscure the ground. Bronze spikes remain where the Wolffolk sacrificed to the Devil’s Grandfather and the Earthbeater. † Defenders are strongly advantaged among the trees. Travel is slowed. † The wind is much weakened.

�

Bad Medicine

You open the first aid pack. It’s full of rags, but no medicines. Somebody ripped you off. † Referee saves this challenge and plays it the next time medicines are used.

�

Orderlies

Three brothers in matching winter uniforms, patched and mended. Wide-eyed, teeth chattering. They talk of ice ghoul worms awakening the dead. Their axes are notched. Their rifles are short on ammunition. They were orderlies at the Painted Tree spa. † Hektor Bearson. Igor Bearson. Andrey Bearson.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♣K Needletooth Trees Worms of ice crawl up from the ground. They embrace the trees. Leaves become diaphanous frosted wisps. Needles become sharp and hard as crystal teeth. With every breath of wind, the forest rattles and wheezes with the laughter of dead shamans. † Ambushes are advantaged, travel is disadvantaged. † The wind and the cold seem sharper here.

�

Machine Dies

Engines seize, ice fractures clockwork, rust destroys firing pins. A machine breaks down. † Moderate test to repair if a replacement part is found.

�

Secret Cultist

Baronial official, growing gaunt under voluminous winter coat. Dragging books, compass, telescope, and chalk. Befuddled and confused. Hears a deep, promising voice, “she has kept her bargain.” † Maya Ogrerider.

The Escape

Longwinter

♥ Rivers

† valley bottoms † water † social challenges † sometimes, helpful characters †

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♥1 Frozen Waterfall The valley closes in from all sides. Towering buttresses and walls of slick blueblack flysch heavy with dead weeds and ominous icicles frame the pale sky. At the very end, mounds of ice pile up at the bottom of what was a waterfall but is now a crazily shattered ice cliff. † The location is safe on three sides and advantages defenders, but leaves no easy retreats. † It is sheltered from the wind.

�

Hubris

This will be easy. Easier than you know. Hardly an inconvenience. † Draw an extra card. † Hard test, it is a second location reached this watch. † Failed test, it is an additional challenge.

�

Proof of Horror

A skeletal man comes stumbling out of the woods in a bear-fur cloak much too big for him. Ice dusts his unkempt beard. There is fear in his eyes. He carries sheaves of lumographs depicting oldsettler corpses, their bones knitted together with sinews of ice and muscles of cold clay, crawling out of a lichpit. † Academic Asbert Marmotson.

The Escape

Longwinter

♥2 Hoar-Decked Gorge Past the mountain’s shoulder, the slope becomes steep and nigh impassable. The path stumbles, carving through steps made for giants of earlier times, into the gorge. There it worms forward, inching through tunnels and carven galleries. Water rushes below, the sky is lost beyond the overhanging rocks and hoar frost. † Slippery and narrow, all manoeuvre is difficult. Defenders are advantaged. † Sheltered from the wind.

�

Desperation

A terrified old man, Yivo Fivecorner, is walking in circles. Tracks lead to a small holdfast hidden in a gorge. “They’ve thrown me out!” he weeps, “they say they don’t have enough, but I know they do! I helped lay those stores, I know they have enough!” Eleven baronials, five adults and six children, are hidden in the holdfast of Drisley. There used to be twenty, but together they decided there were only enough supplies for half of them. The old and sick chose the deep sleep. Yivo changed his mind and fled back, begging to be let back in. They did not let him in, and he has become convinced in his fear of death, that it was all a plot. There are fifty sacks of food at the holdfast. Enough for the remainder to barely survive the longest winter in living memory, no matter how harsh. Too bad the winter will last a whole year instead of just one season.

�

Hungry Hunter

A muscular woman, swaddled in a downy parka, squats in a dugout snow shelter. She is trying to grill a rabbit on a weak fire. She is oblivious with hunger. † Zuzana Brokenspear.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♥3 Hot Spring An intrusive igneous rock rises from the slope like the prow of a landship. The path makes a looping detour past this mass, obscuring the way beyond. A steaming hot rivulet forces its way out, burbling from beneath the rock, carving through sand and snow to join the ice-covered river downslope. A small bridge crosses the rivulet. † Open and exposed, the rock and trees advantage ambushers. † The hot water creates an island of warmth.

�

Mother’s Mercy

A weeping figure struggles along the gritty snow. They drag a flimsy sled, laden with bundles. She is Iva Redend and the bundles are her two frozen children. They died in a cold snap one night. One of the children is missing a leg. Her husband was killed by the wolffolk that raided her hamlet. She has no food left, but she still has five flasks of lamp oil and three survival supplies.

�

Shepherd’s Hut and Stores

Two dirty children, a boy and a girl, dressed in oversize coats lined with old newspapers, huddle in a shepherd’s hut. The last headline reads, “Pey Tirzley graveyard condemned. Inquisitors destroy fifteen risen demons.” The hut is wellstocked with coal. † Viktor Frankstone. Liona Thirdwinter.

The Escape

Longwinter

♥4 Choked Sandbar The river braids itself into steaming streams around an ice-rimmed sandbar. The sandbar is thick with reeds and shrubs matted beneath snow and ice. Up-stream and down the river collects itself, a swift and deep barrier to crossing once again. Icy fog curls among the bearded thickets crowding the pebbled banks of the river. † The location is very open, advantaging attackers. † It is an easy place to ford the river. † Unwary forders can easily slip on the slick rocks and fall into the water.

�

Trapped Travellers

Two terrified travellers approach, gesturing that they are peaceful. Harson Longflanks and Brita Builderschild praise Greencorner and beg your help. While gathering supplies, their sled fell into a crevasse, trapping their friend Orso Flamemane within. Without help, Orso will die. † It will take a watch to help them, and this watch’s journey is lost. † They have 3 sacks of supplies and give 1 for assistance.

�

Doctor Sawbones

A bedraggled doctor and a dead man with an amputated leg. The doctor is tired and very hungry. She has a hidden revolver. † Tisa Streamling. Lament Od’heckboosh.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♥5 Ice-Ringed Pool A natural rock dam compounded by the efforts of generations of beavers creates a large pool. The path around is treacherous, climbing among boulders and stunted pines. The ice covering the pool is thin and fragile in the centre. Trout and carp have congregated here, safe beneath the ice. † The ground is treacherous and the vegetation is thick, advantaging defenders and ambushers. † Trees protect from the wind.

�

Hungry Gnome Monkeys

They came silently, without words. Their fur lush and thick, framing wizened faces atop child-like bodies. They tried to pilfer food and survival supplies, but the party was too canny. 1d4 of them are caught, helpless. Perhaps the animalistic things have a lair? Perhaps they taste alright?

�

House-Clan in Hiding

A one-eyed leit dragging a sled piled with supplies. She has a Kaiserlich shotgun with a pearl stock. Her house-clan is excavating an Old Architect bunker. † Duwin Redwater.

The Escape

Longwinter

♥6 Spiritual Confluence The path descends into a frozen marsh. Ahead rise the eroded remains of a moraine carved in half by the outflow of the waters. A deathly cold smaller stream joins the main river at a confluence marked by sand and gravel beds. Grotesque, geometric wooden totems rise from the beds and the waters, watching over this place. † The location is concealed from outside observers. † The spiritual residue of the totems advantages defensive magics and the whims of the Waterdrinker. † Nothing stops the wind.

�

Sick Oldsettlers

Wicker and snow huts huddle beneath an overhang. Large icicles form a feeble barricade. They are fleeing Winterwhite, too, but they are sick with dysentery and infectious. Without care, there is a 50% chance any one of them might die. With care, they will all survive and recover within 1d6+4 days. They have two full sacks of food. Voz Lindling is old and suspicious, they remember the stories of the first baronials. Kol Oakling is pregnant and determined, her will is indomitable. Arz Buckling is young and reckless. Without guidance, he will do something foolish.

�

Amateur Researcher

A young man on skis and wearing a very warm winter suit. The goggles on his winter-mask keep fogging because of a defective air filter. He carries a couple of volumes of research notes on winter corpses. He has the keys to a small chalet around his neck. His hand cannon is the latest Zuleiman model. † Viktor Bluntstone.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♥7 Abandoned Mill A low dam of ice-slick boulders and gravel traverses the river, creating a shallow lake. The empty-eyed bulk of a fortified mill stands at the water’s edge. The disconnected mill wheel spins lazily. Poles stick out of the rude dam to help travellers. † The exposed location advantages attackers. † Wind howls loudly over the open water.

�

Whispers and Mistrust

It is obvious. The party is lost. The leader does not know where to go. This will all end in tears. † Hard charisma test for the leader, or a new leader is chosen and this watch’s journey is lost. † From now on the old leader makes charisma tests with disadvantage, their confidence shattered.

�

Vengeful Descendant

An oldsettler woman dressed in an inquisition greatcoat. Her iron hair is bound with snow ape bone buckles. She carries a long Ironbaron rifle and a notched pole-shovel. Her eyes are haunted, her mouth is set hard. † Runa Vicaria.

The Escape

Longwinter

♥8 Snowy Floodplain The valley broadens and fills out. Alluvial terraces bracket a field of mud, water, and ice. A thick blanket of snow covers this treacherous terrain. The plain is studded with clumps of dead canary grass and snow-bound swamp willows. The tracks of wild animals and other things traverse the expanse. † The exposed location advantages attackers and trackers. † Wind and cold are severe in the open plain.

�

Fear of the Dark

The dark is always near, always long this winter. Perhaps this is not just Winterwhite’s doing. Perhaps it is as the stories of the Final Gift foretold, when Suncatcher steals Green Sun forever and the people will wail to the Three Avatars and suffer the four-hundred plagues before the Blue Sun comes. † Easy test or refuse to travel when the cloak of Moon’s Inkbrother is upon the land. † If cajoled into travelling at night, a fearful character is disadvantaged.

�

Opportunistic Rebels

Three oldsettler youths in fur caps and heavy coats dragging a dead buck on a sled. One of them was wounded by a baronial police pistol. Their accents are heavy. None of them is wearing a citizenship tablet around their neck. † Ayo Bergha. Runa Valés. Ono Devente.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♥9 Icy Cascades The valley rises steeply across a series of stone ribs. The waters have carved a series of bowls and channels. Floods have left massive boulders piled with broken trees. Slippery round shells of ice now cover everything. † The terrain is treacherous, disadvantaging everyone. † The lees of boulders provide respite from the wind, but the damp and ice strengthen the cold.

�

Weakness and Frustration

The weak only slow down the strong. Perhaps some will have to sacrifice themselves so the group survives. † The strongest and the weakest in the group make moderate tests. † If the weakest fails, they want to be left behind. † If the strongest fails, they want to leave the laggards behind.

�

A Rightmaker

A rider on a shaggy mountain pony, dressed in thick white snow ape furs. Their necklace of snow ape tusks has a three-stone pendant of the Avatars. A cavalry sabre hangs by their side, and they casually grip a Kaiserlich carbine. They have two boxes of holy Earthbeater shot. Their baronial has a heavy Bridge accent. † Zalo Cityson.

The Escape

Longwinter

♥10 Bridges Old & New The valley narrows as the river carves a calm path across an exposed bed of marlstone. A wide, solid bridge of well-dressed stone crosses the waters. Upstream; the stumps of an older wooden bridge. Downstream; the corroded shards of a yet older metal bridge. † The terrain is open and exposed. The wind is harsher here.

�

Cabin Fever

There is nobody else. The world stretches. Vast. Empty. Everybody else must already be dead. Locked in ice. Are these sorry fools truly the last this world can offer? † Moderate test or anger and frustrations grow, disadvantaging cooperation.

�

Bunker Seeker

A striding, long-limbed figure, swaddled in linens and leathers under a wolf-fur cloak. Their walking staff is tipped with battered steel. They keep consulting an old architect compass. It leads to a deep bunker. Under their furs, they have an old Zuleiman carbine. † Roy Sevenmonth.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♥J Breached Dam The sweeping curves of an ancient dam embrace the valley like the wings of a great white eagle. The heart of that curve is breached by an ancient gash. The oldstone of the dam is worn smooth by erosion. Ice coats the boulders of the alluvial fan. River willows and the woody skeletons of sunroots cluster about the dam. † The enclosed location and vegetation advantage those who want to hide. † The dam blocks wind, providing relief.

�

Greed and Hunger

The ice has embraced the world. Hollowfear, the famine bear, has entered the hearts and bellies of men. The grey morality of starvation is coming, and only hard choices remain. † Moderate test or begin hoarding and stealing food from the group. † If there is no food, perhaps it is time to sacrifice the weakest?

�

Oldfolk Guides

Two young women hunters in sturdy parkas with long rifles and knives. They are tracking a snow lion that has been plaguing their hamlet. Their faces are marked with baronial tattoos marking criminal oldsettlers. Their bodies are covered in Green Sun tattoos. Their teeth are unusually sharp. † Irse “Duna” Deogotta. Wayana “Ana” Valés.

The Escape

Longwinter

♥Q Lake and Island Sheer mountains drop away revealing wide terraced fields embracing a halffrozen lake. A small island emerges from the middle of the lake. Ice-crushed willows surround a small temple. On the near shore an ice-locked paddle boat leans at an angle besides a pier groaning under heavy snow. † The ice over the deep lake is dangerously thin in places. † The open lake is exposed to wind.

�

Dark Despair

The sun is waning. The Suncatcher is wrapping it. Winterwhite has enlisted the Amimami, the Eater of Virility. She has bribed the Green Sun to stay away. This ice will never end. Best to end it all, to embrace the long sleep now, before the Eaters come. † Easy test or lose all aura and charisma points, and decide to give up. When a character is healed, they recover the will to continue. † A character without aura or charisma has to be led by rope or hand and has no volition.

�

Finer People

An old woman and two bulky young men. Two ponies pull a sleigh with supplies among which the old woman is nestled. The men wear baronial military parkas, the woman wears sable fur. They are leaving their chalet for the hot springs of Vreley. † Ermelina Redwater. Isen Headwater. Zoran Sunrise.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♥K Subterranean Spring The valley ends in a dizzying cliff. Mosses grow thick on the undersides of sharp boulders. Cold mist fills the air. Paths reduce to chiseled toe-holds. The river emerges from a square-sided crevasse at the foot of the cliff. † The looming cliffs provide relief and advantage defenders. † The confined space blocks wind. After heavy rains, the river gushes and seethes violently.

�

Panic at the Angelhunt

The world howls for justice. The air warps at the passage of the Winterwhite’s Angelhunt. Blood chills, fires flicker, and hope dies. The Angelhunt smells hope and communities and the blood debt of Winterwhite. Who is marked for the Angelhunt? † Middling test or flee the party and the Angelhunt’s bone-smashing kiss.

�

Final Services

A sinewy oldsettler man on skis pulling a corpse on a sled. The corpse was Runo Whitetower, his coat is stuffed with legal documents, bonds, and deeds to his holdings in Ta Krasney. The oldsettler is taking his dead master to the family crypt in Rudvey. † Anastasio “Ani” Bergha. Runo Whitetower.

The Escape

Longwinter

♠

Mountains † mountains † slopes † physical challenges † dangerous characters †

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♠1 Precarious Ridge The shoulder of the mountain rises and narrows until it suddenly falls away. On one side, a cliff plummets to the valley below. On the other, a smooth expanse of frozen snow plummets like a flight of doves into a dark, ice-bearded forest. Ahead the ridge is sharp as a knife, the blown snow and ice overhanging the cliff. † The location is exposed on all sides with nowhere to hide. † Wind and weather are more punishing here.

�

Exposed Traverse

A knife-edge ridge connects two mountains. Gusts blow shards of ice across the lip. It is a dangerous crossing, a fall would be deadly. † Difficult agility test to cross and set a guide rope. Secure the first climber, please. † Alternatively, lose a watch going around.

�

Disciples of the Old Architects

Two figures, faces masked, wearing heavy parkas. They try to avoid contact. Beneath their coats, they are swaddled in old architect amulets. One has a mechanical heart that whispers cultic directions. † Irma Spoolwinder. Zeko Rabbitfarmer.

The Escape

Longwinter

♠2 Sky-piercing Pinnacle The roof of the sky stretches limitless above. The mountains and valleys open around. Snowfields, cliffs, and ridges surround the pinnacle, their patterns laid bare. † The location is hard to reach, advantaging defenders. † It is exposed to all elements.

�

Ice Wall

Climbing across the slick, slippery surface is slow and dangerous going. A fall would be disastrous. † Difficult strength test with ice axes. † Or a difficult endurance test with rope, hammer, and pitons. † Going around takes one watch.

�

Bringing Peace to the Dead

Four baronial rangers in white parkas on skis, hefting Zuleiman rifles. Their hunting knives are notched, they’re also carrying irregular battle shovels and incendiary grenades. “The corpses of those stinking beasts are crawling out of the icy ground. Nothing a little fire can’t fix.” † Ariya “Cap” Soldiersdaughter. Viktor Warschild. Ludvik Bearson. Vid od’ Return.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♠3 Shattered Crater The top of the mountain is a bowl of fractured rock splinters. Many of the splinters are black and glassy, testament to a recent explosion. The bottom of the bowl is flooded with snow and ice. A frozen pool lies beneath. † The exposed centre of the crater advantages attackers. † The bowl is protected from the harshest wind.

�

Wet, Heavy Snow

Every step feels like Winterwhite’s children grasp at feet and legs with clammy fingers, trying to drag the weary traveller down. † Difficult endurance test or take one point of fatigue. † Skis make the endurance test easy.

�

Two Skintakers

Two peasants with luminous complexions, wearing light parkas. Their snowshoes are light but strong. They carry heavy bundles of kindling, pitch, torches, fuel, and rags. Their eyes glow with warmth. One has a bundled fox pelt, the other an eagle skin. † Roy “Fox” Agnidey. Zoya “Birdie” Alilonghi.

The Escape

Longwinter

♠4 Narrow Chimney A narrow crack zig-zags up the mountain, splitting one flank from the other. It is dark and irregular, protected from wind and snow by overhanging rocks and lodged boulders. † The tight space disadvantages everyone but makes a rapid ascent possible. † Middling test to draw a free travel card. † The chimney is protected from wind and precipitation.

�

Gruelling Avalanche

Trees and rocks and ice fill the valley like a plug. Each slow step drags. † Difficult endurance or moderate agility test to cross. † Going around takes an extra watch.

�

Baron’s Cousin

Woman in winter armour on skis, with two sabres and a filigreed Ironbaron hunting rifle. Blood marks on her cheeks call Fourface to watch her way and guard her on her diplomatic mission. † Ivana Tealcorner.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♠5 Overhanging Cliff The hulking cliff cuts the world in half. It is pitted with rusted bolts. Within its hard granite, the ancients have excavated small cells. † Climbers and anyone at the bottom of the cliff are severely disadvantaged. † The cliff is extremely exposed to wind.

�

Broken Rope Bridge

The way ahead, across the narrow gorge, is broken. The weight of ice has ripped the rope bridge in half. An expert climber or a brace of ladders are needed to fix the problem. † Extreme climbing test to get across with a guide rope. † Moderate climbing test and one watch to do it more carefully. † Moderate engineering test with ladders, poles, and other supplies to jury rig a temporary bridge. † Alternatively, spend two watches going around.

�

Militia Massacre

Three baronials in heavy furs, flying a village militia flag. They are dragging a sled loaded with lamp oil and supplies. One is injured—an ice ghoul bite. They are suspicious of outsiders. † Tomo Smallengine. Viktor Templechild. Luna Suncatcher.

The Escape

Longwinter

♠6 Deep Couloir A clean-scraped gully ascends steeply up the flank of the mountain. Snow and boulders accumulate at the bottom. Avalanches are common after snowfalls. † Defenders are advantaged in the couloir. † The gully is protected from harsh wind.

�

Frozen Lake Crossing

Sheer ice and rock bracket the lake. The ice looks solid enough, but is it? † Moderate thought test to cross safely. † Alternatively, spend a watch skirting the edge.

�

Freedom Fighters

Four oldfolk in looted armour, flying a freedom flag. They are dragging a sled loaded with lard, butter, and ammunition. One is injured—a sabre cut. They carry dented Zuleimans. † Lomo Valés. Ulya de’Piz. Oryen de’Selá. Viktor “Baronial” Súma.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♠7 Sweeping Plateau A broad flat plain of hard limestone dotted with lonely granite megaliths forms the top of the mountain. Harsh winds clear snow and dirt away. Spectacular ice forms grow in the lees of the megaliths. † Defenders are advantaged on the plateau. † The plateau is extremely exposed to wind and weather.

�

Long Icy Slope

The slope glitters, smooth as the white-silk bridal gown of a desert princess. Only much more slippery, with few ways to stop on the way down. † Moderate strength test to traverse carefully. † Easy skiing test to cross swiftly (heroes can ignore one future challenge of their choice). † Alternatively, spend a watch to detour.

�

Possessed and Corrupted

A skinny figure in flapping furs, antlers strapped to its back. It’s hard to tell if it was once a man or a woman, now only madness flares in its rolling eyes. The cold does not affect it. It has no teeth. Beneath its mittens, it has vestigial sixth fingers. † Dey Mugay.

The Escape

Longwinter

♠8 Cave-Riddled Shoulder A ring driven clean through the curtain of the mountain’s shoulder greets visitors. Further down-slope the cracked rock of the formation is eaten away by spiral caves and splintered chambers. † Defenders are extremely advantaged. † The caves are protected from the weather.

�

Spraying Waterfall

This mass of water is too large to freeze. It sends spray and mist across the path. Crossing, you will get wet. † Moderate agility test to traverse with oiled cloths and umbrellas without getting soaked. † Alternatively, a watch to detour lower down the valley.

�

Returned from Grandmother’s Cave

A tall woman, face like stone, eyes like steel. Her raven hair is bundled beneath a horned fur cap. A great sword of polished giantsbone rests light upon her wide back. She speaks in a strange old tongue. Memories of the Winterbird haunt her. † Runa Wreya.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♠9 Scree Slope The long open slope mixes fallen rocks, chunks of ice, and snow. Rockslides and avalanches regularly scour the slope. Careful travellers can traverse surprisingly quickly. † Tracking and pursuit are easy. † The slope is exposed to wind and weather.

�

Terrifying Gales

Tearing the trees, scouring snowy slopes, Northwind’s spawn bear the curse of Winterwhite. † Moderate agility test to not fall in the gale, easy strength test to hold onto carried objects. † Alternatively, wait a watch under cover until the wind abates.

�

Proof of Possession

A short man, broad, carrying a clockwork automaton of ancient make strapped to his back. He fingers his Kaiserlich carbine nervously. “At the Institute. We had papers. I have to get it back.” The automaton repeats phrases and sometimes makes rude gestures with its six-fingered appendages. † Rudo “Rusty” Stoneshaper. Van Mal.

The Escape

Longwinter

♠10 Titanic Terraces The entire flank of the mountain has subsided in a series of tectonic steps. Flat fields alternate with rough cliffs and scree. Snow and ice collect in every crevice. † Defenders are advantaged by the boulders and cliffs. † The terraces are exposed to the wind.

�

Blinding Fog

Suncatcher’s offering to Winterwhite creeps from the crevasses, billows off the rivers, rises from the wet snow, shrouding the world in white. Visibility becomes non-existent, the world fades to white. † Difficult thought test to avoid getting lost (draw a new challenge and lose one random card from the players’ card collection). † Alternatively, wait 1d4 watches for the fog to lift.

�

Two Strangers

Two figures, one tall, one wide. The taller wears a turban under its parka. Tattoos of Fourface and the Three Avatars adorn their skins. The taller has a bone needle, the shorter has an Ironbaron shotgun and brace of axes. “We’re safe so long as we carry word to Waterdrinker,” they hope. † Olga Skywatcher. Nedya Holybolt.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♠J Unstable Boulder A spectacular boulder forgotten by its glacier rests at the lip of a cliff. Paths wind around and under it. Hundreds of simple pebble stupas disappear beneath the gathering snow. † Attackers are advantaged on the open terrain. † The boulder area is lashed by unpredictable winds.

�

Freezing Rain

Rain falls like the cruel tears of the Devil’s Grandfather, freezing as soon as it hits ground or branch or hand. Soon tree branches and snapping and falling with the weight of the ice. † Difficult endurance test to continue travelling without taking one point of hurt (or fatigue). † Middling thought test to find safe cover for one watch. Easy endurance test to cower in place for one watch in paltry cover without taking one point of hurt (or fatigue).

�

Monkey Gnome

A tiny figure, swaddled in furs, with the face of a shrivelled old person. Its smile reveals large canines and a nest of tentacles instead of a tongue. “I’ve seen the Devil’s Beggars, I have,” chuckles the Monkey Gnome. † Djuzmarsyan Nal Nal.

The Escape

Longwinter

♠Q Howling Saddle Two fang-peaked mountains meet in a pass worn smooth by the natural wind funnel. The uplift has left striated bands of rock twisted like salted worms. Hewn steps and rusted pitons mark the way. † All ranged attacks are disadvantaged by the winds. † The wind and cold are both magnified in this pass.

�

Hell’s Own Blizzard

Winterwhite’s cold blanket falls upon the land, trapping howling star demons upon the world’s surface. Temperatures fall, winds whip and snow fades the world to white. † Sufficient endurance test or take a point of hurt (or fatigue). Also, a moderate thought test or lost. † Alternatively, cower for 1d4 watches in a makeshift shelter.

�

Smuggling Supplies

Three bulky figures, packing heavy Kaiserlich pistols and whipping a tired horse dragging a sleigh. The sleigh is full of salt and oil. Smugglers. “We’ve no business with you, you’ve no business with us. Leave and everyone gets along.” † Fini Sweetapples. Henrik Foundling. Berengar Knockwood.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♠K Chiseled Stairs A staircase switchblades up cliff and couloir to cross the mountain range. Ancient galleries and tunnels with mysterious eroded bas reliefs make passage easier. Panoramic platforms thick with drifted snow surprise travellers. † Defenders are strongly advantaged in the old stairwells. † The wind and weather are very erratic.

�

Winterwhite’s Breath

The silence rings like a clear bell. Nothing moves. Like gunshots, sap-filled trees explode. Birds on the wing fall to the ground. The chill comes, hard and more brutal than anything yet experienced. † Extreme endurance test or take a point of hurt (or fatigue). † Alternatively, moderate thought test to find shelter and cower for 1d4 watches. In that case, easy endurance test or take a point of hurt (or fatigue).

�

There Was a Witch

A lady in white, draped against the cold with white furs and bone medallions. Her staff gleams with dismal runes, and her smile seems to wrap round and round her neck twice or thrice. A witch. “Be along, Doctor Love don’t need to know you’ve seen me by, neither do the Three-and-Four. I’m just bearing witness.” † Stella Slingstringer.

The Escape

Longwinter

♦

Icefields † locations on the high ice † supernatural challenges † terrifying characters †

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♦1 Powder Dunes The relentless wind has scoured the high meadow of snow, piling the powder up in drifts taller than a house. Frozen snow and ice gravel hide the rocks and grass. Light scatters in floating chips of ice. Dry escarpments pen the snow dunes. † Anyone moving across the dunes is immediately visible, travel over the powder drifts is difficult. † The wind is exceptionally harsh on the snow.

�

Dark Ranger Lure

Warm light. Laughter. Song. A warm place beckons. It is an illusion, concealing a sharp-walled crevasse. Within, a writhing mass of broken, trapped ice zombies. † Moderate thought test to see through the lure. † Easy thought test to spot baronial warning signs painted on nearby trees.

�

Firestarters

Five baronials in fur and armour. Greased. Silent. Hooded. They carry rope and pitch and Kaiserlich carbines and fire starters. “Have you seen any of those savages? They brought this upon us, with their wicked demons. We’re bringing them some justice in return.” † Rudya Longstocking. Sandi Blacktemple. Dani Princebrewer. Vidya Ironbeater. Sasha Southson.

The Escape

Longwinter

♦2 Deep Snowfield Trees, boulders, and houses, everything is swallowed in a silent blanket of heavy snow. The landscape is alien, silent, and white. Digging down, more snow. As sunlight strikes the snow, it becomes soft and clinging, when night returns it freezes to a crust. † All action in the clinging snow is disadvantaged, at night travel is easy. † Building a shelter from the wind is very easy here.

�

Old Architect’s Face

A large snow ape with machinery in its belly. Within the machinery, a crystal box suffused with harsh phosphorescent light. Shadows flicker within the light, displaying a wizened face. The face speaks with a clicking voice, thick with static. It offers help in exchange for a living body to carry old Nur Enmaw the Reawakened on a fact-finding mission into the outer world. † Difficult fight to defeat the snow ape. † Moderate charisma test to politely refuse the old architect. † Easy thought test to let the old architect in (this kills the old personality of the character, overwriting it with Nur Enmaw’s). † Alternatively, easy endurance test to run away from the heavy snow ape.

�

Ice Troll

A giant figure, three meters tall, swathed in fur and painted robes. A troll of Winterwhite, its blood is leeching acid, its breath is soul-stealing frost. Upon its back, a sacrifice to Winterwhite squirms weakly. “The hamlet has paid, this child will spare them for this month.” † Šakkar. Yulny Goodberry.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

♦3 Mirror of Ice The heavy layer of snow has melted and frozen so many times that the surface is now a slippery mirror of ice. Piles of frozen snow and lonely broken trees break the surface. Breaking the icy surface or building † Travel is disadvantaged because of the slippery surface. † Building a shelter from the wind is difficult here.

�

White Fox Sacrifice

Bound upon an altar, a youth with unblemished skin. Around, seven seven-tailed foxes. The youth must freeze to propitiate Winterwhite and avert her gaze. A successful sacrifice gives four blessings (advantages to use at will). † Moderate battle to save the youth, a wolffolk skintaker. † Moderate charisma test to be allowed to participate in the sacrifice. † Alternatively, quietly walking away works fine.

�

Mother Ghoul

A ragged figure, swathed in torn canvas, missing an arm. Its flesh is blue. Ice worms squirm within its wounds, animating it. It is searching for its children, “They ran away, with the sleigh, with the light, without me. They can’t leave me like this!” † Manya Oldschild.

The Escape

100

Longwinter

♦4 Sculptures of Rime The forest flash-froze in a blizzard. Beards and streaks of ice deck every leaf and branch. Flowers of ice grow upon the corpses of small creatures caught outside. Every step sets off a tinkling, jangling orchestra as delicate ice crystals explode. † Hiding and stealth are disadvantaged here. † The wind is weakened by the sculptures.

�

Snow Wisp Funeral

Red-eyed white ghosts follow a procession bearing the corpse of a suicide. Hunger in their eyes, soon they will ride this dead baronial. Soon. But before, perhaps, a few more suicides? † Easy aura test to avoid the snow wisps’ lures. † Difficult thought test to dispel them with sulphur, egg, and blue paint.

�

Oldfolk Soldiers

Three winter soldiers on a sled, armed to the teeth. Their furs are leached white, their faces tattooed with the old animals, from before the Purification. “Have you seen where those invaders are hiding? We’ll smoke them out, the thieves of our land, the killers of our forebears.” † Troy “Pickles” Belgroyé. Ina “Juniper” Fiayés. Carso “Bones” de’Montéy.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

101

♦5 Frozen Slope The north-facing slope deceives the eye. A smooth, sharp expanse of frozen snow draped over the mountain like a table cloth. Making an impression in the snow is difficult. A single misstep and a walker will accelerate into the cliff-ringed valley below. † All movement is disadvantaged here. Care is a must. † The sun does not shine here and it is unusually cold.

�

Death Fairy Lights

Red lights in the sky, shimmering golden haze, phantasmal flowers blooming in the night. A trilling sound takes residence behind ear and dream. Glistening, curious faces appear in the air. The death fairies are here to observe and amuse themselves. They will draw attention to whomever they follow, disadvantaging stealth and encounter tests. The fairies will get bored after three watches with no battles or deaths. † Moderate agility test to avoid their attentions. † Difficult thought test to amuse them with riddles and make them go away. † Alternatively, wait in hiding for a watch, and the fairies will leave.

�

One of the Responsible

Two figures, one limping. Dressed in fine furs, equipped for the snow, dragging a full sled. Their Zuleiman hand cannons have pearl grips. “We can make it out, we know the way. Just past that ridge is Soren’s hunting lodge, we can gather our breath there, then make a straight dash under the ridges past Hodovoya and into Now Garday.” † Lazar Woolmaker. Ulna Guardschild.

The Escape

102

Longwinter

♦6 Rotten Snow The south-facing valley is swaddled in pock-marked snow. Meltwater glistens and scars open up in the rotten snow. Every step the snow threatens to give way, swallowing the walker to their waist. Loud noises or explosions could easily trigger an avalanche. † Travel is horribly exhausting here. † It is unusually warm in the protected valley.

�

Riddle of Worms

A wood henge hung in hoar and ice tops an eroded kurgan. Glistening icy cocoons hang heavy on the henge, pregnant with ice ghoul worms. When the worms emerge, they will dig deep into the kurgan, awakening the bones of the centurydead oldfolk, and perhaps even some of the far older bonethrone centaurs from the time of the hungry khan. The ice ghouls melt into clumps of bone and rotted flesh when the temperature is above freezing. † Moderate agility test to carefully gather up the cocoons and make a bonfire of their deathbringing flesh. † Extreme thought test to figure out how to use the ice ghoul worms to reanimate the dead on command.

�

Sacrificial Party

Seven bent figures, their furs spattered with blood. All are weeping. They do not feel very cold. “We paid our price twice over. Perhaps Winterwhite will spare us now.” † Origen Falconbrood and the elders of the Falconsong clan.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

103

♦7 Ice Bridge Two slopes nearly touch above a deep blue gorge. Several chunks of ice cemented with snow form a natural bridge across the gap. The snow on either side is welltrodden and icy. Four megaliths stand askew, streaked with ice and snow. The capstone lies nearby, cracked in the fall. † Ambushers are advantaged, travel is disadvantaged. † The bridge is exposed to sudden gusts of wind.

�

Greetings of the Skintaker

A skinned buck, its seven-point antlers bound to a tree. A skinned snow lion, its head on a pole. A skinned man, his inquisition great coat scare-crowed on a snowman. There is a skin-taker nearby (the next NPC encountered is actually a powerful wolffolk skintaker shaman). † Difficult aura test to discern the karmic residue of the skintaker. † Moderate thought test to find their tracks in the driven snow. † Alternatively, spend a watch to put some distance between the travellers and the shapeshifter.

�

Fear the White Knight

A tall figure, with flying translucent hair, its eyes like mirrors. A sword of glass upon its back. Glistening armour upon its chest. White and red fur stiff on its cloak. A white knight of Winterwhite. A seeker of tribute. † Speaker-to-Northwind, It-that-hides-pain.

The Escape

104

Longwinter

♦8 Avalanche The valley is filled with a plug of ice gravel, churned snow, boulders, shattered trees, and probably bodies. The slopes above are swept clean by the avalanche’s passage. Icy scarps, bare rock, and tree stumps remain exposed. † Travel across the avalanche is disadvantaged, the slopes are slippery. † The valley is exposed to the elements.

�

Necrodancer’s Ritual

Upon a barrow three wizened and tattooed oldfolk, stripped naked and glowing red in the snow, dance the massacred women and children of the May Tornay tribe awake from their graves. Iceworms elongate and thread the bones, becoming cold nerves for the dead, while frozen clay flows to become cold sinewy flesh. The risen dead caw like the Winterbird and thirst for outlander flesh, keen to avenge their deaths. † Difficult fight against the oldfolk necrodancers. † Alternatively, spend a watch avoiding them, and consign the nearest baronial hamlet to death later that day.

�

Rag Children

Four ragged children, flesh turned blue, wounds stitched with icy silk, eyes empty and white. Ice ghouls, animated by Hollowfear. “Mother gave us to Winterwhite, what will you give to Winterwhite?” † Penelopa, Tuna, and Viktor Takewood. Lano “Curly” Valéy.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

105

♦9 Ice Cave The face of the mammoth glacier looms above. A wall of slowly advancing ice. Rills carve through the snow before it, where the water from a warm subterranean spring forces its way from beneath the ice. Ice caves riddle the underbelly of the glacier, offering passage to clearer terrain beyond. † Travel in the caves is difficult. Also, it’s dark. † There is no wind in the caves, and it is always freezing.

�

Snow Circle of Hoar and Hate

Nauseating runes chase each other upon the snow, constricting upon a hamlet or a lonely house, a curse of hoar and hate for those within. Icy undeath will follow soon. As the circle draws tighter, those within find it harder and harder to avoid the red mist (the aura tests grow harder and harder every hour). Anything that dies within the circle rises again as a hoar ghoul (one level stronger than it was in life). † Easy test to avoid stumbling into the circle. † Difficult thought test to figure out how to dispel the circle with incantations of the Green Sun and offerings of liver, blood, and mead to the Winterbird. † Alternatively, just give it a wide berth, spending one watch.

�

Dead Hero

A hero in fine Western City armour. Skin cold and blue. “Come now, give a body, awaken the sleepers.” † Odilo Kolgarschild.

The Escape

106

Longwinter

♦10 Cruel Crevasse From peak to cliff-edge, the glacier is shorn apart by a fresh crevasse at least a ten-length wide. The bottom is deep and jagged. The lip of the crevasse is pinkish and slick, stained by algae within the ice. Only experienced climbers would dare to attempt a crossing. Following the edge of the crevasse leads to more icefields. On the next travel action, the players must pick an icefield (diamond card). If they do not pick an icefield, they have not yet reached the edge of the crevasse. The referee puts a random challenge and character into play, but the players do not get a travel card. The next travel action proceeds as normal. † Everybody is disadvantaged in the crevasse. † Wind is weak in the crevasse, but it is always freezing.

�

Circus of Ice Skeletons

The ice bends and shifts and breaks before you. Contorted, grinning figures rise from the ground. Winterwhite’s ice skeletons rise to dance and fiddle and play the greetings of their queen. † Moderate agility test to pass them by stealthily. † Alternatively, wait a watch for them to leave.

�

Possessed Prophet

A man, stumbling, half-crippled with pain, burning with fever. One eye glows bright, the other tears with panic. “I have come! I am the prophet of fire! I have returned from the vault of purification!” He is quite mad. † May Qizey.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

107

♦J Staircase of Ice A cascade of ice blocks the size of houses tumbles from the overflowing corrie. The blocks form a titanic staircase damming the valley and ascending the mountain flanks. A lake thick with floating ice is forming behind this fresh plug in the valley. † Travel is disadvantaged, defenders are advantaged on the ice blocks. † Nooks and crannies out of the wind are easy to find, but the ice is freezing.

�

Glacier Worm’s Passage

A trail of supernatural cold and glistening ice marks the passage of a glacier worm. The cruel cold chills blood and freezes eyes in their sockets. † Moderate endurance test to cross the magical cold trail without suffering a point of hurt (or fatigue). † Alternatively, spend a watch waiting for it to dissipate or finding a path around it.

�

Traveller in Time

A scrawny young thing in heavy robes with a bloody sword of ancient make. Its blade glistens like opal, and when it shimmers, it hews through stone. Upon his shoulder rests a white bird with blood-red eyes. “This was never about you. Go along now.” † Carl Foundling.

The Escape

108

Longwinter

♦Q Grand Glacier As far as the eye can see, all is white and blue. Black knives of sharpened rock peek above the ice at the edges of the glacier. The ice is covered in layers of snow that hide crevasses and pits. Downslope the ice stretches and breaks apart as begins to slide into the settled valley below. † The surface is treacherous to all walkers. † The cold and wind are intense upon the ice.

�

Hollowfear Awakens the Ghoulfire

The roar of the famine bear shakes snow from trees. That night the ghoul hunger is kindled in the bellies of the weak. The unconsecrated dead shake and shiver awake, driven to feed and feel warmth again. † Easy aura test to avoid the call of Hollowfear. † Moderate test to spot the first stirrings of any dead being carried by the group.

�

Dark Beggar’s Champion

A monster in scaly, oily armour. A great axe like foul smoke rests lightly in its hand. It has two mouths, one white, one red. On a chain, it leads three child ice ghouls. “Oh, but the Dark Beggar will be paid well tonight.” † Elvir Dustheart.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

109

♦K The Iceworm Comes The air is filled with the screams of a thousand grinding teeth. The ground rumbles with the pounding of ten thousand fists. Sharp shards of stone and ice fall like rain. A living glacier infused with the curse of Winterwhite flows across the land. Crevasses open and close in the iceworm like smacking mouths. Before your eyes trees, huts, roads, and boulders are scoured. † Walking on the iceworm is difficult. Everybody is disadvantaged there. † The cold upon the iceworm is infernal.

�

Angelhunt Will Eat

The stars melt through the clouds, leaving rainbow streaks upon the brain as they tunnel to the ground. Then comes the shrieking. It is the angelhunt. Shut your mind. Hide your soul. The angelhunt will take their due. † Difficult aura test to silence the quaking fear and awareness that draws the angelhunt. † Alternatively, alcohol and stupefaction also work, but at a cost of 1d4-1 watches.

�

The Old Architect

A feral figure in glistening parka, with glass helmet. Its step is tremulous and confused. Its hand clutches a gleaming silver tool. Perhaps a pistol? “What is this snow? This trickery? Have the vaults betrayed us?” † Nix Zeykey.

The Escape

110

Longwinter

🃏 Iron Teeth In shadows, at the edge of sight, the ghostly blue light warns the traveller that they are entering a Purification Zone. Iron teeth jut from the ground, pitted and worn, still giving off the warning warmth of the glowdeath. A hellish vault, older than history, must be nearby. Worm-like tunnels offer a shortcut from this place. † Resting here inflicts 1 hurt per watch. † The warm iron structures protect from wind and cold. † This card counts as any location for the escape.

�

Mists of Confusion

Cool, rainbow mists descend from the sky like curtains of hazy light. They douse the glowdeath and the world. It is as if gods peer in through the luminous wormtunnels from another side. † Embrace the confusing mists. Lose 1 watch, suffer 1 hurt. Draw a random location card to replace an existing one. The travellers find themselves there, barely remembering the hallucinatory journey they undertook. † Moderate test. Run swiftly from the hazy mists. Avoid the winter madness. Recover 1 hurt.

�

Bearer of a Demiurge’s Soul

A snow ape, its head gripped in a vice of machinery and crystal. Its face contorts in a rictus as it tries to roar, but the machinery keeps it controlled. In its great arms, it carries a crystal machine. It keeps repeating to itself, “Render the vermin, mould the chosen. From the many the few, anew. Anew.” † Duy Slawdey, a ghost in the ape’s crystallized brain. † The crystal machine destroys one soul to “uplift” another. The uplift may be indistinguishable from a divine crystalline infection.

The Escape

Referee’s Book

111

🃟 Moonlit Dream The moon shines through a sudden fracture in the heavy-clouded sky. Its beams dance bright across a great net, in its middle a jewelled spider. Miss Netmaker’s blessing for the brave. † Easy test to snatch the spider. The spider lets the party overcome one challenge or enlist the help of one character without effort. If the hero fails their test, they suffer 3 hurt.

�

Fourface’s Tangle

Great trees and stones grown together, bent beneath a weight of snow, create an unusual hall. Its walls are ice and wood, while within a great solemn shield of bronze and bone serves as an altar to the Three Avatars under the Worldwatcher’s Four Faces. † Make offerings. An easy test to remove 1 hurt per character. † Take the shield. A second easy test to placate the spirits. The shield lets the heroes glance into the future. Once, the players can look at the top seven cards in the encounter deck and sort them as they wish. If the hero fails their test, they suffer 3 hurt, or they can distribute 4 hurt among the other characters.

�

Mother Mercy

A werewolf, shaggy and tall, loping quietly through the mist. It is decked with bandoliers and holds a Zuleiman shotgun in a firm, professional grip. Its eyes hold no malice, “Remember, when the gods fight, it’s us mortals do the dying.” † Lenora “Mother Mercy” Fuméy. † She helps friends by effortlessly shooting one enemy dead with her last blessed golden bullet.

The Escape

112

Longwinter

Escape: Last Location The players collect their last card, completing three of a kind or four in a row. The last location is the escape from Brezim.

Presenting the Escape As referee you may add something like this to the last location: “A mild breeze announces the end of Winterwhite’s reach. The snow does not end yet, but in the still winter land, the sound of dripping, melting ice can be heard. A bird trills. The smell of woodsmoke. A crofter? A federal outpost? Help is at hand.” Then make a final encounter check and describe the last challenge. If the last NPC is helpful, they can be ignored. You can remind the players that only one of them has to get out for them to “win”.

The Last Location

Referee’s Book

113

Scoring the Escape To determine the escape event from Longwinter, add up the value of the players’ collected set of cards. The lowest possible result is three twos (2, 2, 2) worth 6 points, the highest value is four in a row of jack, queen, king, and ace worth 50. The value of an ace varies, it can be 1 or 14 depending on its position. To determine the value of a set of three aces roll 3d12+6. Ask the players questions to flesh out the aftermath. 6-10: A gruelling escape leaves the heroes scarred and hurt. What nightmares of Winterwhite plague your dreams? Why do you feel like something darker stirred beneath the ice? How do you cope with your trauma? Were there many you betrayed on the way? Why will nobody believe you, when you talk of ice ghouls? 11-20: A painful journey, full of grim memories. What happened to those you left behind? Was there more you could have done? What will search parties find when the ice lets up? Will anyone believe the icy plague ever happened? Do you have any proof? 30-40: A hard journey has made you stronger. What have you learned of this valley? What truths were buried in the histories, behind the oldfolk? What will happen now to the struggle of the valley’s peoples? How will you prove the depths of darkness and terror that have gripped the realm? Did you help anyone survive on your way? Is there someone else who might come after you? 41-50: A heroic escape. Who did you find when you made your way out? Is there somebody they could help you save? What proof of strange ancient pacts and cultists do you have? Can you save anyone else? Will there be a mission to save more innocents? How is your journey immortalized? How is the radio-play recounting your deeds titled? How accurate is it? Then thank them for playing, and have a warm drink against Winterwhite’s chill.

The Last Location

114

“

Longwinter

Remember, when the gods fight, it’s us mortals do the dying. Lenora “Mother Mercy” Fuméy.

Fin.

Longwinter Referee Book - 1.0 - Digital 250dpi - PDFCOFFEE.COM (2024)