Archived GM Notes: This page is unsealed GM-notes pertaining to PRPG2. It is not canonical to PRPG2. It main contain contradictions (even with itself), and preliminary ideas that were merely written down as I thought of them, for later consideration. The absence of something mentioned here from the canon does not necessarily mean that the party "missed" it, it could have been mooted for other reasons or simply discarded by me.

SOME KIND OF PUZZLE IN THE THIEVES DEN 19 Corn 3355 - Daybreak

Vicinity

The players made their way to an abandoned farmhouse for shelter (abandoned because of Crystal Forest encroachment.) They will be woken by whoever is taking the dawn watch, presumably, who will see a pony, Motif Index, approaching. Lord Index and his Vampire-Breezie Companion, Fairy Tail. If the party doesn't hail him as he flies over the trail, he will probably take the initiative.

Motif will introduce himself as a professor, and may if it comes up volunteer his backstory (not including the part about making a deal with Risen Bones - he will claim the breezie is resurrected, rather than undead, even though such magic is vanishingly rare.) It's two days roughly from the crash site to Fort Junechase, after which there are safe and well-maintained roads, although no transportation. He has heard that the Mound area is unsafe to pass at night from another traveler, a mendicant monk (a disguise, not a real monk) and that they should stay at a certain inn in the suburban ruins (it's the ruins of a mall). Actually, this is a den of thieves and bandits preying on Hackmore Parish and the "monk" was one of them, headed to Crystal Cliffs (to convert those horrible pirates) was one of their number.

Motif's magnum opus: A Legendarium of the Isle of Yore in the Early Postcatastrophic Era.

CategoryGMNotes

LAUGHTER LEGEND Related to a pony who used an empty cauldron to perform stage magic in a time of famine. Note that the legend does not call the cauldron a cauldron by name.

The mall / thieves den will not immediately be overtly hostile to the party.

Professor Index clears his throat and begins to tell a story: Long, long ago, there was a terrible drought. The crops failed, and ponies went hungry. One mare was so frustrated with her inability to get any food to put in the big cooking pot hanging over the fireplace that she threw the pot out the door. The flying pot almost hit a wandering minstrel, who was down on her luck since she had traded her instrument for a meal the week before.

MI: "Why'd you throw that pot at me?!" she shouted.

MI (as householder) Because what use is it having a big pot like that these days!

MI (as minstrel): Well, then, do you mind if I take it? MI: Now, of course, the clever bard already had an idea --

Fairy Tail: Ooh! I remember this one! It's the one where they eat the minstrels, aye?

MI: Wha -- no, that's not even an ancient legend.

MI: Anyway. So the bard, she got an idea, and soon enough she started buying up all the pots she could with her last few bits - which was a lot, because ponies had no use for them. She set the lot of them up in the village square, organized by size, and started to beat them with a stick. Well, of course, it made a lot of noise. Everypony came out to see and hear what was going on. At first, they laughed, and thought the bard was crazy.

Fairy Tail: ... they _thought_? Is this a different bard from the one in the wooden duck story?

MI: ... Um. Well, I don't know. The jovial bard who seems insane is a common character motif, but, uh -- anyway. So the laughed, but that was okay, the bard wasn't discouraged. She kept beating on these pots, and eventually she started to make some passable music. Somepony even gave her an apple. Another gave her a place to stay for the night. And they were all a little happier, because she had taken their minds off of the famine for a while.

He seems to be done with the story.

Fairy Tail: ... but they all starved anyway.

MI: What?! No! Well --

Fairy Tail: Okay, fine, they didn't _all_ starve; the ones who resorted to cannibalism lived. The end.

MI: Sweet princesses Tail. That's not how it ends...

Fairy Tail: Oooh, and I suppose the ending is that the bard did a chocolate rain dance and everypony lived happily ever after, then?

MI: If they starved or not isn't the point of the story! MI sighs.

Mound: ruins.

Country: scrubbrush.

The road is not a well-traveled one, to be sure.

The Mound is a ruin which was less subject to scavenging and reuse in the dark age than others, owing to its remoteness. The dusts have largely covered the ruins.

A few ruined fragments of great pre-catastrophic towers jut from the ground irregularly into the sky, a thousand years of dust on their windward side formed into rolling hills. Many more have fallen, becoming oddly-angular outcroppings. Perhaps in a few more centuries, only an expert will be able to tell they are not natural formations.

A light rain, unusually, will appear. Foreshadow by mentioning clouds. Motif Index will consider the rain auspicious. "Such fair auspices for our journey!"

There is a mendicant on the road. Said mendicant is actually a spy for the den of thieves, as this road is not well-traveled. "Alms, alms for the afflicted..." "The Watcher judge you kindly, friend." "The Watcher will judge us for our deeds." Yellow Mendicant wearing black boots up to her gaskins, dusty brown barding, and a wide-brimmed hat. Shrugs if asked her name.

The den of thieves is an underground bar with lots of little siderooms and lots of opportunies to be shanked. It's a fallen over office building on top of a mall, and has been refitted so that ponies can go about the inside of it in directions other than what was intended by the builders. There's gambling going on, and weapons and stuff for sale, and illegal magic. A rogue mage named Ruby Ruse is with them, and Reverend Zed, a zebra. Ruby Ruse also has her four-armed dagger-throwing monkey, "Waldo the Bearded"