The First Inhospitable House In The West

A short adventurous situation well suited for starting a game of Talislanta

Note: If you’re playing in a more down-to-earth setting, make all the guests human.

Why is Everybody here?

For a one-shot, the players have been hired by Tyranus, the Arch-Magician of Cymril, to retrieve the mask of an ancient priest king of Khazad from LaTurr, a famous Sarista soldier of fortune. The mask is said to grant „power over the minds of men“. Should Tyranus have it? It’s a one-shot. If it isn’t, though, probably not. Should the players have it? Also no, but will they be tempted to keep it? Hopefully!

They are to meet LaTurr in the First Inhospitable House In The West, a notorious inn at the edge of the Werewood.

What’s up with LaTurr?
The mask lets the wearer appear as the person or creature the onlooker most desires. If you wear it, you can’t take it off again unless you die.

LaTurr arrived, checked the inn with a spell, sensed several hostile presences, put on the mask, found out that she can’t take it off anymore, couldn’t see any effect, hid on the toilet. While she’s panicking, the zombie approaches.

What’s with the zombie?

It has followed her here from the tomb of the ancient priest king and will stop at nothing in order to get the mask back. It is rotten, stinks, is immune to magic, and will continue to fight everything in its way, even if blown to pieces, *especially*, in fact, if blown to pieces, because the pieces will keep fighting on their own. Fire will kill it eventually, but until it does, the zombie will be an unstoppable *burning* zombie.

The Werewood
A damp and dark forest. Water dripping. A flutter in the distance. A musky smell of life and death. It is very cold. You are cold and miserable.

The Inn

A large house made of wood. It is half sunken into the wet earth. It leans into the top of a giant snail, the lower part of which is buried in the ground. At the core of the snail shell, there is a secret entrance to the underground gnome kingdom.

There is a brightly painted wagon in front. A giant lizard, obviously the draft animal,  nibbles at some branches.

A huge nighthawk is sitting on the roof of the house, contemplating the pack lizard. It is Shamou’s familiar, Yair. Shamou is inside the inn.

Things to be found inside the wagon: a crystal ball, contraceptive herbs, an incomplete set of Tirak cards and a very nasty looking dagger made of bones. Yes, it is LaTurr’s wagon. She is nowhere to be seen.

Inside the inn

Cloyingly sweet pipe smoke. Charred beams. Animal heads on the wall. They look suprised. A fire. Too warm. A dusty cembalo in one corner. A couple tables, covered in carvings by bored and/or psychotic guests, quite literally „rumor tables“

Things to be gathered from the tables: Oonik does blackwights, there are gnomes in the basement, find a treasure at the bottom of the toilet, the eggs are inside the clock, don’t eat the shrooms, EREK’MUL, Murr knows how to do your meat.

A clock with no hands. It goes tick…tock… An uneasy silence otherwise.

Beide the clock, a sign on s door that reads „TOILET“.

So, cozy by Werewood standards.

On the menu:  a perfectly harmless mushroom soup, fish of the day (very spicy), apple pie, sweet white wine, chai tea, suckwood (to suck on, highly addictive), beer (the only bad thing on the menu, tastes like piss, may actually be piss)

„People“

Oonik, owner of TFIH
Giant Bog Snail

Wants: A partner to procreate. Their eggs are already inside the clock, but they need a couple more fluids.

Is: a real mensch, a language nerd, immune to magic, currently under the ceiling.
Saw LaTurr for what she is.

Murr Has-Your-Tongue, the cook.
A Klave warrior

Wants:To taste every spice in the world at least once.

Is: Naked but for his tattoos, a leather apron and a huge knife, a damn good cook, a fucking fighting machine, tender, sensitive to smells. Has not yet seen LaTurr, but if he did, would see her as a beautiful young man from the Southern Spice Islands.

Ululi, a gnome prince
Wants: To prove his worth to his father, King Ebru.
Is: Talkative, nervous, afraid of blood and dead things.
Ululi was sent here by his father via the tunnel in the basement to get the mask „by any means necessary“. He saw LaTurr as a beautiful female gnome who might like a sensitive guy, but may also be an agent of his father’s enemies.

Shamou, the beastmaster of the Northern woods
A Dhaka hunter

Wants: To find the tomb of the last great beastmaster of old and learn his secrets. It is said to be located in a cave in the Werewood, guided by the animals of the forest. He is after the mask to rule over the animal guardians.

Is: Sleek, taciturn, haunted by nightmares about an unnamable thing making *him* the prey that has to run, secretly longing for a home and a family.
He saw LaTurr as a shadow out of the corner of his eye, and is half intrigued, half afraid.

Jaspis and The Voice From The Black Ice

A mirin and her ice-giant lover

Jaspis wants the mask to rule over her home land and kill all her enemies, who exiled her for loving a giant. She is: ruthless, a mighty witch, helpless and stupid as s puppy when it comes to her lover.

The Voice From The Black Ice
Wants: To sacrifice Jaspis to his dark god once she has given up everything for him — the mask being that last thing. He then will have zero scrouples to push her in front of the first zombie immune to her magic that trudges along.
Has: An immense hammer adorned with blue diamonds called „Killer Whale“, an amulet given to him by Jaspis, which protects him from the warmth and which he will die without, a truly black soul that literally sticks inside his skull as a black stone.

So what do we do?

Players arrive, ask around, knock on the toilet, the zombie comes.