Mummers' games

As later Dragon Warriors books were released and we began to introduce creatures that were less familiar from folklore and fantasy fiction, I liked to include adventure seeds in the description as a guide to how to use them. Some have found the Blue Men silly, for example, but my excuse is that if a bit of wackiness has your players giggling then the cold grue that follows will be all the more chilling.

Blue Men

By night in the sailors' taverns of many a port, with salt spray lashing the windowpanes, one may hear old adventurers in their cups whispering seafarers' tales. Sometimes the talk is of the Blue Men, who plough through the cold northern seas in their dragon-prowed warships, and plunder riches and souls from the living.

They come out of churning grey waves with the gnawing icy gale of an approaching storm billowing out their sail. A pallid flare of phosphorescence limns the rotted timbers of their vessel - an ancient, barnacle-encrusted hulk, waterlogged and impossibly afloat, like a grim wreck that has been raised by sorcery from the ocean depths. The grisly mariners of this ship stand silent on her creaking decks, blankly observing the terror-struck faces of their human prey. Chilled to the marrow of their bones by a cold no earthly fire could dispel, they possess the hunger of the dead for the living. Their flesh is shivery blue and their long beards are tangled with kelp, and in his hand each grips a cutlass of brine-corroded bronze. 

The Blue Men hold a course alongside the chosen ship, whereupon it is soon clear that they cannot be outrun or evaded no matter what the steersman's skill. Standing by the fierce prow, the Blue Men's chieftain addresses his prey. In a voice like thunder he calls out couplets of verse that describe the terrible fate that shall be meted out to them, but if a spokesman from among the adventurers can immediately reply with a rhyming couplet refuting his words then the Blue Men will be temporarily balked from attacking. So the chieftain might say: 

'Our prow shall split your ship like kindling,
Your own bright blood shall wash the decks.' 

And be countered by: 

'We have no fear of cold blue dead men
Blustering from their sodden wrecks.' 

The adventurers then get the opportunity for a riposte, which the chieftain must likewise deny in rhyme. The contest of verse continues until one side falters or is forced to make an unconvincing or clumsy rejoinder. If the chieftain wins, his Blue Men board the adventurers' ship and fight like demons, untouched by lesser sorcery and all but impervious to wounds. They may be driven back if the adventurers manage to inflict more than 25% casualties, returning to their own vessel which then sinks rapidly below the waves. Any character they slew will be beyond resurrection - his soul taken down with them to the depths, as the legends have it. If the rhyming contest is won by the adventurers' spokesman, the Blue Men will depart at once. 

Hardy adventurers will perhaps refuse to play the Blue Men's game. Ignoring the verse, they may attempt to take the battle on to the planks of the dragon-ship. The Blue Men will respond by lowering the vessel below the waves, and each adventurer who boarded them must roll under his Reflexes on 2d20 or be sucked down with them. The chieftain will hurl a final weird upon those who survive: their vessel will lie becalmed and stricken by plague unless every adventurer aboard can resist his MAGICAL ATTACK of 16. (In game terms, the effect of the weird is to leave the vessel becalmed for 3-30 days, during which time careful check must be kept on rations and supplies of fresh water. The adventurers are exposed to 1-3 random diseases each day the weird lasts.) 

ATTACK 23         Sword (d8 + 2, 6)
DEFENCE 10         Armour Factor 1 (take half-damage from arrows, slingshot, etc)
MAGICAL DEFENCE 8 (but immune to Sorcerer spells of lst-4th level)
EVASION 6         Movement: 10m (20m)
Health Points 1d6 + 16         Rank-equivalent: 7th

Fast-forward thirty-four years and we were in lockdown. One of our gaming group, Dr Aaron Fortune, volunteered to run a traditional Yule adventure featuring the Company of Bronze mercenary characters (later to become known as the Iron Men) whom I've mentioned before. This was on Discord, naturally. Oliver and I missed the opening session but Aaron ran a side quest for the two of us that led into the main adventure. Oliver was playing Whirrun, aka 'Cracknut', who apparently was based on a book he'd published, and I was Calidore of Warens Field, aka 'Caliburn'. This is Caliburn's account of the session, but it's also a description of the macabre Mummers that Aaron had dreamt up:

The Adoration of the Magi

We meet Sir Wulfstan in a tavern outside Cantorbridge. He’s not really a knight, he’s a member of the Company. ‘Here’s your pay,’ he says. ‘You’re to come with me to the cathedral.’ He says a lot of other stuff too but now the sun’s gone down and we’re drinking. It’s Advent, you see, so fasting all day.

Next day at the cathedral, Wulfstan says we’re to escort Sir Joffe (who is a real knight) on a trip. ‘First you’ve got an audience with Subdeacon Elfwine.’

‘Why?’

‘Just listen to what he says.’

So we go in and this young priest tells us about factions in the Church and what his faction stands for and how there are rumours of the End of Days and that. After a bit I can’t hold my tongue. ‘Is there anyone you want killed, your holiness?’

‘Eh? No. There’s a relic at a hermitage up the coast. The hermits have been reluctant to part with it but now they’ve agreed. Go with Sir Joffe and bring it back in time for Christmas. Now, if Sir Joffe gives you orders then – ’

‘He’s not a member of our Company. We take our orders from Wulfstan.’

‘Well, pretend. I don’t want Sir Joffe to suspect.’

Suspect what, I wonder, but I don’t say anything because Church business is not Company business.

Wulfstan finds me and Cracknut and Portus. ‘It’s up the coast a ways. You’ll get another pay packet when we’re back. Also the best food and lodging, and horses all along the route.’

This sounds like when somebody is setting you up as a patsy but we don’t say anything. I put Coronach in the stables here in town because I gather we’ll be riding post up the road and I don’t want to wear him out.

Off we trot, with Sir Joffe and his five Chaubrettian guards, and a few days later we come to an island that you can ride to at low tide. Here the three hermits live, in conditions my granny would call squalid. Filthy wretches they are, claiming to be holy and that. ‘Where’s my relic?’ says Sir Joffe.

The shiftiest of the hermits, who I notice from his bloody shirt has been whipping himself, pushes back the altar and hands us an old box with three crisp new lead seals on it. Funny, I think, but I’m not paid to think so I keep quiet.

Off we go along the coastal road back to Cantorbridge. There’s a foul smell off the sea and some ominous looking ships, but the world is supposed to end soon so it’s not too surprising. Also, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and being in a mercenary company you tend to welcome bad omens.

After a bit Joffe discovers that what I handed him wasn’t the relic but a packed lunch wrapped in an oil cloth. He starts moaning that we’ve been robbed, but then I hand him the real box and he’s so happy he gives me a crown, which is five shillings or a considerable number of farthings.

Pretty soon Sir Joffe is whipping the horses so that two of them go lame. What an idiot. Then Gilbert, who is in the Company, rides up to meet us near Langdip. ‘Give me your horse,’ says Sir Joffe to Cracknut.

‘Good idea,’ says Wulfstan. ‘You three hand over your horses. Go down that track there and you’ll find the home of Mistress Godwina. She’ll give you fresh horses for the lame ones. We’ll ride on to the next coaching inn and you can catch us up.’

Now, this all seems entirely too convenient for anyone thinking to shake us off. Only two horses are lame, but Wulfstan is trying to get rid of me too. Is he up to no good?

‘Cracknut and Portus can do that,’ I point out, ‘and I’ll come with you.’

‘You stay too!’ says Wulfstan, a bit agitated now.

‘Uh-uh. I’m sticking to you like one of Joe’s turds after a big cheese dinner.’

‘I’ll see you sacked from the Company,’ he says.

‘Try it. I’ll answer to Pieter de Fleur.’

So he rides on with me right behind him. We’ll see what that was all about later.

Cracknut and Portus have barely seen us off down the road when they hear a horse whinny, and turn and see a young bloke that gives his name as 'Prince' Aengus. ‘Have a lucky rabbit’s foot,’ he says to Cracknut. ‘It will help you win a dice game against the Mummers. In fact, it will mean you always win.’

‘What you want for it?’ says Cracknut, who is no fool.

‘Nothing. I give it to you freely. And now I ride off.’

As it’s getting dark they go down the lane Wulfstan pointed out and there’s an old house, reasonably grand with a porch and that. They’re welcomed by Mistress Godwina, an old bird who lays out a good spread. She’s a friend of Wulstan, who is even more long in the tooth than Portus so might conceivably have had a thing with this crone at some stage in the past.

‘What about these Mummers we keep hearing about?’ says Cracknut, gnawing a chicken leg.

‘Oh, they’re terrible bad sorts. Devils, some say, or bad fairies. They live in a ruined chapel in the woods and at this time of year they come to the door when people have had a baby, and they shake dice, and when they win they take the baby away.’

‘What if they lose?’ asks Portus.

‘They use weighted dice – or so the rumour goes – so they rarely lose. And if people don’t give them what they want, they kill everyone in the house most horribly. Blood and guts everywhere.’

I guess Cracknut and Portus look sheepish at that, as they are not known themselves for over-daintiness or mopping up people’s guts after they’ve done a killing, but they tuck in and soon forget it.

Meanwhile I’m at the coaching inn and Wulfstan is distraught. He takes me aside and shows me inside the box. There’s no relic, just a velvet cushion which has got exactly as tatty as you’d expect after a few centuries under an altar stone. It looks like there used to be a mask in the box, and as it’s a relic of St Lucinda I can guess what bit of her that was.

‘Where is it?’

He shakes his head. ‘The box was empty.’

‘Oh. That’ll be why that hermit was so shifty, then. And why the lead seals look new.’

‘You go back and get the others,’ says Wulfstan. ‘Better get back to the hermitage and – ’

‘Say no more. Acquire the relic by any means necessary.’

Now it’s a good job I tagged along, and I bet he doesn’t go bad-mouthing me to Pieter de Fleur after all. But as I ride back I’m wondering why he was so keen to get rid of all three of us. He’d have been well stuffed if I hadn’t insisted – unless, that is, he pinched the relic himself and this is a wild goose chase.

As it happens, roast goose is on the table when I get to Mistress Godwina’s place. I tell the others what’s going down. Luckily Mistress Godwina tells me the story of the Mummers, because Portus and Cracknut are sitting gaping at the food like a couple of flounders on a fishmonger’s slab.

‘Well, it’s clear to me what’s happened here,’ I say. ‘Shifty the Hermit gambled the relic away to the Mummers. Guilty conscience, that’s why he’s been whipping himself. We’ll have to get it back off them.’

‘They might turn up at the house of Leofstan and Hild,’ says Godwina. ‘She had a baby yesterday.’

Sigh. We grab our stuff. ‘We’ll have to get over there and deal with these Mummers.’

‘They’re very dangerous,’ says Godwina. ‘Monsters, really.’

‘Only way to get the relic.’

As we’re riding over, Cracknut mentions the rabbit’s foot. ‘Handy,’ I say. ‘You can gamble against the Mummers for the relic.’

‘No, I want a Yule present for my wife.’

‘Give her the rabbit’s foot,’ says Portus.

‘But don’t we need it against the Mummers?’

‘Look,’ I say to Cracknut. ‘Win the relic first, save the baby, then afterwards you can give the rabbit’s foot to Lady Misery. Sorry, Maisery*.’

The house is down by the shore and it’s quite a hovel really. Poor folks, this couple, but they let us in and seem to believe our story. I suppose they’ve been quaking there expecting the Mummers and we’re a ray of hope.

So we wait, and at midnight there’s a knocking at the door. I open it to find thirteen cowled figures in masks going, ‘Mmm, mmm, mmm.’

‘In you come.’ I’ve got my hand on my sword but they’re all armed and there are thirteen of them. It’s a tight squeeze inside the cottage. The leader goes up to Cracknut, who is sitting at the table. He points at the baby, then he slams down his dice cup.

‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘If you lose we want the face of St Lucinda, which is the relic from the hermitage.’

‘I think I must name you,’ says Cracknut, and he goes on to say they’re all called Death.

They don’t unmask, so maybe that’s wrong. The leader gestures impatiently at the cup. ‘Mmm.’

So Cracknut rolls and the Mummer rolls and, thanks to the rabbit’s foot, Cracknut wins. The Mummers don’t take it well. They start up a horrible shrieking and the leader whips off his mask to show a leathery yellow face with the mouth stitched shut, and he shrieks so much a few of the stitches break and a bit of black spittle rolls down his chin. I’m very glad that nothing scares me, and I’m surprised that Cracknut and Portus don’t lose their dinner at this point.

Anyway, the Mummers have lost so they give us the relic and piss off. The relic is, as I thought, St Lucinda’s face, cured and mounted on a jewelled stick like a posh bird’s mask at a ball.

‘I reckon she was ashamed of how often she got propositioned because of her beauty,’ I say, struck by sudden inspiration. ‘Holy people hate fucking. So she cut her own face off because being holy can make you do things like that.’

The baby was crying. We went and had a look, and Hild agreed to call him Whirrun as that’s Cracknut’s real name. I looked through the mask’s eyes at him and announced he’d have health, happiness and prosperity. But I’m not sure that blessing worked, coming from me, even though it was a relic, so I also left a shilling on the mantelpiece.

We’re riding back when Cracknut says he thinks there’s something up with the road, and sure enough it seems we’re somehow lost in a wood. Well, it is after midnight now. I take out the relic and look through its eyes and now I can see the true path as a clean gleaming trail, which leads to a warm light beyond the trees, but behind us are the Mummers and they have a cold, blue-white glow to them that’s somehow menacing.

We follow the true path and it brings us to Mistress Godwina’s place, and the warm light is shining from her. The Mummers stay lurking back there in the woods, not liking to come near. Bastards. Bad enough that they use weighted dice or magic or whatever, but to be sore losers too. I’m tempted to go out and kill them all to teach them a lesson, but it is pitch dark and it’d be thirteen to one, so maybe not tonight.

We have some mince pies and ale, then we take turns sitting up through the night, and every now and then there’s a soft thump of something hitting the door, and when we’ve had breakfast and we go outside we find three dead rabbits in the porch with their front paw cut off, that the Mummers threw against the house.

We ride on, making a good pace, and by close to midnight on Christmas Eve we catch up to Wulfstan and the Chaubrette geezers. No sign of Joffe, he’s ridden on to present the relic – well, the empty box, as he’ll find out.

We’re approaching Cantorbridge and we hear the bells ringing midnight. ‘Happy Christmas, lads,’ I say, and at that moment White Light** appears in the north like a candle that’s been lit. Or more like a thousand candles. But it doesn’t last long and then it goes out. It makes me think of that star and our Saviour with the Magi that came and did the spells on the manger or whatever. Bet they didn’t leave a shilling. Stingy sods, Krarthians***.

* Cracknut had been wed in an earlier adventure to a lady of possibly fay origin called Maisery.

** One of the so-called Ghosts of the Magi (in common parlance) or, according to official Church teaching, the Pentaphan -- five celestial bodies that appear from time to time in the northern skies.

*** Caliburn is confusing the Magi who attended the Saviour's birth, who were almost certainly from Opalar, Batubatan and Zinj, with the rulers of Krarth.

There are plenty of interesting ways to use mummers in a Legend game. You don't even have to bring in magic or horror. Those masks are perfect for concealing one's identity -- a spy, a thief, a former foe seeking revenge, a proscribed lover sneaking in to see his beloved, an outlaw coming to free his comrade from the castle dungeon. But Aaron's Mummers are actual monsters, fay or undead or diabolic, so let's consider them in terms of the DW rules.

First, Cracknut seems to think that if he can name them they will be robbed of power over him. That makes sense, especially for beings wearing masks, and traditionally you get three guesses too. But there are thirteen of the Mummers, so it won't be as easy as dealing with Rumpelstiltskin. If you're going to let your players discover all the names I think it's fair enough to ask them to memorize them, not read them off a piece of paper. Oh, come on, not every adventure can spoon-feed the adventurers their successes.

But what if the Mummers aren't named? They offer a game with rules -- which is typical of the fays, however they may twist those rules. They roll the dice. If you win, they must depart. If you lose they will take the child they've come for, or something equally precious in its stead -- unless you can outwit them. Think on your feet. 'Do we roll for the one who was born tonight?' could mean the foal in the stable. Pointing to the cradle and saying, 'The winner takes what lies there' could indicate the cat, not the baby who you cleverly hid elsewhere when you heard them knocking at the door.

If they win the game and you haven't managed to outwit them, then it's a fight. A bloodbath, perhaps. They should be more than a match for any normal group of fighting men. You'll scale them to the strength of your PCs, but here I'm assuming they are equal in rank-equivalent to the strongest member of the party.

ATTACK 22         Shortsword (d8 + 1, 4)
DEFENCE 12         Armour Factor 2 (unaffected by nonmagical weapons until the dice game has been played)
MAGICAL DEFENCE 15 
EVASION 7         Movement: 15m (30m)
PERCEPTION 14
Health Points 2d6 + 10         Rank-equivalent: 8th