Choir of Flesh, Useful Tables 3

 

By the incredible Penny Melgarejo

In the supernaturally tainted millennium of 1000 AD of the game Choir of Flesh, players desperately seek resources to build up a base to survive the religious post-Apocalypse for just one more day.  Seeking out Incursions, a high-risk/high-reward area of resources, is one such action that can be undertaken.  Incursions are unlocked and found when 10 Rumors are gathered. 

Now, what are Rumors?  Rumors are a metacurrency in the main game loop that allows the Unbroken (player character) to find an Incursion during The Endless Travail exploration phase, once 10 Rumors are accrued. Rumors are defined on page 110 of the Choir of Flesh book. In the core book Rumors are abstracted and not detailed. My objective is to describe 30 Rumors in a way that are congruent with the CoF world.   

Example of Pareidolia. “Face on Mars” by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter, 1976 (left) and Mars Global Surveyor, 2001 (right).

In a number of entries, I invoke the idea of pareidolia, or seeing patterns in random images, as a driver for the player to write in what landmark for an Incursion they have found.  Alternatively, one could use the Descriptive Rumors Table as a list of spooky and supernaturally tainted environments for other mediaeval horror games. Special thanks to Splizwarf and Spookum on the Night at the Opera discord for discussion on the Acquiring Rumors Table.

Using the Descriptive Rumors Table

The entries on the Descriptive Rumors Table all describe an event or situation that directs the Unbroken towards the Incursion.  I suggest rolling once after gathering 10 Rumors to find what event leads your character towards the Incursion. Alternatively, one could roll twice upon accruing 10 Rumors and synthesizing both Descriptive Rumors entries into one roleplaying experience. 

For example, I rolled entries number 11 and 14 on the table.  I’ve decided to use the entries sequentially. My Unbroken, Malik the survivor who was once a healer, scans the skies upon hearing a grotesque croaking.  He sees a flock of birds, remade by the Flesh with bony exoskeletons, flying in a “v” over a nearby hill (entry 14). I rule that a small pot carried in one of the Flesh bird’s claws falls to the ground, shattering into a thousand shards.  The pointed shards of shattered pottery glow with a fierce red phosphorescence even in the daylight, creating a directional path (entry 11) that lead to the Incursion.     

Using the Acquiring Rumors Table with the Descriptive Rumors Table

Alternatively, you may want to have the information from the Rumor conveyed to your character in a method other than direct experience.  This is where the Acquiring Rumors Table comes in. Say Malik the once healer rolls a 1 on the Acquiring Rumors Table.  This prompts a roll a 04 on the Survivor table.  Malik encounters The Story Trader, and in a conversation, they convey to Malik the story of the Flesh-birds dropping a pot that created phosphorescent shards that lead to a supernatural Incursion. Using the Acquiring Rumors Table is an optional step as it adds complication. 

Acquiring Rumors Table [Optional] 1d6

1) You find the Rumor through conversation with a Survivor.  Roll on the Survivor table in the core book on page 106 to determine whom you are chatting with.

2) You directly encounter the Rumor.

3) You had a vison of the Rumor. This may be a holy vision, a hallucination after a bout of drinking, a waking dream while travelling, or something else.

4) You hear a description of the Rumor in a song.

5) You hear the description of the Rumor from an animal speaking to you directly or by overhearing two animals in conversation. 

6) You read a description of the Rumor in a book, on a scrap of parchment or graffiti on a wall. 

By the incredible Penny Melgarejo

Descriptive Rumors Table 1d30

1) A crude map has been scratched on the side of a wall in blood. Images of treasure and danger are salient.

2) Tens of mandrake-shaped flesh-roots stand outside their holes, like soldiers standing at attention, flanking a path that leads off to somewhere deviating from the main road. 

3) A bone harp with tendon strings growing from the ribcage of a violated knight vibrate musically as you move in the direction of the Incursion. 

4) Bloodstained pages from a Purifier’s journal depict a center of Divine corruption. 

5) Steaming blood from fresh corpses flows upstream and climbs walls in crimson rivulets in the direction of warping supernatural influences.

6) Etheric paeans of joy in cherubic voices rise in volume and clarity as you move in the direction of the Choir’s influence. 

7) Shattered steel and jagged shards of armor form the unmistakable outline of a finger pointing into the wilderness. 

8) Corpses bloated from eating infested grain have been entangled into one another, forming a line to another part of the corrupted land. 

9) Bulbous black flies gather in a buzzing cloud here, lazily leading you to a direction stinking of raw meat. 

10) A faceless mound of flesh shudders and moans, becoming increasingly red and inflamed as you move in the direction of further corruption. 

11) Hundreds of pointed shards of shattered pottery glow with a fierce red phosphorescence even in the daylight, creating a directional path. 

12) A white bandage flaps in the wind, caught on a fence. The dried blood inside has coagulated into the shape of a nearby landmark. 

13) A blackened body, stiff with rigor mortis hangs from a crude gibbet.  Wind whistles, but the body does not turn from pointing a rotting arm firmly in one direction. 

14) A flock of birds, remade by the Flesh with bony exoskeletons and making wet gurgling noises, fly in a “v” pointing the way over a nearby hill. 

15) Crimson moss on rocks and walls grow in images of the Cross, the shaft of each pointing further down the road. 

16) A smeared trail of old black blood, as if left by a dying Titan, crosses hill and dale, leading to parts unknown.

17) A path of human teeth colored white, grey, or yellow extends as if scattered deliberately towards some hidden meeting place. 

18) A field of bones stand in the muddy ground: femurs, curving ribs and multiple humeri. Each is tilted in the same direction as if brushed by a giant’s hand. 

19) Broken wagons and once useful furniture have been maniacally chopped to pieces but there is a noticeable image in the pattern of the wreckage, that of a local landmark. 

20) Smoke floats gaily towards a nearby forest from an immolated forge with stones that will not stop burning. 

21) A pile of corpses is covered with black, fuzzy toadstools. The fungus continues to grow in a line in the Earth, describing a meandering path that winds out of sight. 

22) A cloud of parchment scraps, each inked with a musical note, billows over the road; the chill wind clearly directing it to a final destination. 

23) A red haze fills the air, emanating from a nearby exploded tannery. It grows dense and cloying as if herding wanderers like a sheepdog towards a desired place. 

24) A swarm of locusts, bleached white against the ground, hum with the sound of a Holy hymn. They hop in unison, deliberately migrating towards an unnatural location.

25) Crumbling stonework of a castle forms unsettling symbols on the ground. Nonetheless, the image of a nearby landmark is strikingly clear in the decaying stone. 

26) Swamp reeds rustle and whisper incoherent snatches of conversation. The chatter of voices begins to articulate secret sins of loved ones as an unholy destination is approached. 

27) The carcass of a hound lies silently in the road, having reached its final rest. An ossified skeletal arm juts from the dog’s mouth, pointing forlornly but nonetheless with purpose.

28) Disembodied maniac laughter and moans are heard on the wind.  They rise to a terrible crescendo, then drop into an eerie expectant silence when travelling a particular direction.

29) The rays of the sun turn black as pitch and illuminate a monochrome outline of the land, when wanderers step towards a destined lair. 

30) Blood seeps from thornbushes wrapped around trees.  The density of blood speckled thornbushes begins to grow in every direction, save one.