The Rumour Mill: Shadows of the Scorching Wars

Overview

Read aloud

In Harford, the Rumour Mill grinds more than grain. Tonight the common room is full but quiet. One whole wagon of wheat, team and all, has vanished between the northern field and the mill: no tracks, no witnesses, no driver.

Karle Rumour stands by the empty silo door with his jaw set. Jered calms the workers. Saraj's honey buns are selling, but she is not smiling.

And at the corner table, a stranger in a grey travelling cloak has been asking the barmaid about old Gasgoine Rumour, and which side he fought on in the Scorching Wars.

A wagon of grain vanishes between the Rumour Mill's northern field and its silos, and nobody saw a thing. Strangers in Harford are asking about old Gasgoine Rumour and the war he never talks about. Someone wants something buried under the mill, and they are willing to burn the mill to get it.

A mystery that becomes a game of spies. The party follows a cold trail, finds a secret that could ruin the family that hired them, and has to decide who gets to hold it. Mostly investigation and talk, with one hard night of fighting. Four Level 1 characters; two sessions.

Setting

Harford is a market town on the Horsfield, in Hawthornfell Earldom, where the farmland road meets the forest edge. Three mills turn on the river; the Rumour Mill, a sprawling inn and mill at the river-road junction, is where every deal and disaster gets discussed. Upstream, a stone bridge built two generations ago carries the Witonbury road south across the river, with a Flame shrine at its middle where the town's war dead are named. Downstream is the old ford, the town's first crossing, and its common ground.

Witonbury, a walled town of Brockshire Barony, is a morning's ride south. Forty-five years ago the border between them was the Scorching Wars. Most people in Harford under fifty have heard the stories; few over sixty tell them.

The tone is quiet dread: lamp-lit rooms, whispered talk, strangers who are too polite, and an old man by the fire who knows more than he says.

The Rumour Mill: Shadows of the Scorching Wars

Player aid

The one-page handout for players. It prints on one page.

Print one per player. Nothing here is a secret.

The job. A wagon of grain has vanished between the Rumour Mill's northern field and its silos, in Harford. Karle Rumour will pay you to find it and whoever took it.

Who's who.

Name	Who they are
Karle Rumour	Factor of the Rumour Mill. Shrewd, exact, pays in Silver Boars.
Jered Rumour	His brother, the miller. The family's conscience.
Saraj Rumour	Their sister, the baker.
Mira	Saraj's apprentice. Quiet.
Gasgoine Rumour	Their father, seventy. Ran the mill through the Scorching Wars, and won't talk about it.
Edda Holm	The Crown Reeve.
Ned Coll	The Rumour Mill's carter, who drove the missing wagon.
Brother Aldo	Keeps the Flame shrine on Harford bridge.

The Scorching Wars. Forty-five years ago, the Earl of Hawthornfell and the Barons of Brockshire fought over the border farms between Harford and Witonbury. Both sides burned the other's grain. Harford's dead are named on a stone at the bridge shrine.

Rolling. Say what you want to do. The GM names the skill (or the attribute) and the tier. Read your target number for that tier from your sheet and roll d100: over the target number succeeds. Your chance is 100 minus the target number.

What the tiers mean (target numbers for a skill total of 45):

Tier	Target number	Chance	Feels like
Routine	30	70%	ordinary work for someone trained
Simple	40	60%	straightforward if you're prepared
Easy	50	50%	favourable, still needs attention
Moderate	66	34%	the usual real challenge
Hard	77	23%	risky, pressured or opposed
Very Hard	86	14%	severe opposition or awful conditions
Improbable	91	9%	at the edge of what's possible

Raw attribute rolls (senses, Faith, Strength, Discipline, Memory) use three quarters of the attribute (rounded down) as the total.

The bands.

You roll	Result	At the table
96–100	Critical Success	it works, with something extra
Over the target number	Full Success	it works
At it, or less than 20 under	Partial Success	progress, with a cost
20 or more under	Partial Failure	no progress
01–05	Critical Failure	trouble gets worse

Opposed checks. Your chance is your total ÷ (your total + theirs). 45 against 45 is 50%.

In combat. On your turn you get your movement and one main action (attack, defend someone, sprint, stand up, reload, use an item). Initiative is on your sheet. An attack or a defence needs a Full Success: in combat a Partial Success is a miss, or a failed defence.

Helping. Say how you help. A Full Success on your help check gives the leader +5; a Partial Success still gives +5, with a cost. Two helpers at most.

Hit points. After a night's rest, someone trained in First Aid or Herb Lore can tend your wounds (Easy, or Moderate without bandages or a healer's kit): all your lost HP on a Full Success, half on a Partial Success, otherwise 1 HP a night.

Statuses you might meet. Prone (melee and defence −20; a main action to stand). Bleeding (Endurance −2 a round until First Aid). Downed (unconscious until First Aid). Off-Footing (your next social check −10). Rattled (Discipline −10 on social checks for the scene). Marked Enemy (someone is working against you). Disgraced (caught lying in public: social checks in that town −25, and some doors there close).

Money. You start with your trade's starting kit and a small purse set by your social standing: from 2 Silver Boars and 5 bits for an outcast to 60 Silver Boars for a noble. 1 Boar = 10 Copper Skarns; 1 Gold Stag = 10 Boars. Prices are in Boars: rope 10, hooded lantern 25, oil flask 5, bandages 6, healer's kit 50, a cipher primer 12.

Running this adventure? Sign in as a game master to read its 7 scenes, encounters and GM notes, and to add it to a campaign. Scenes stay hidden from players, titles included, so nothing is spoiled.