Mardenfen: Events Lorebook

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1. #1EVENTS LOREBOOK — RULES FOR ALL EVENTSconstant

   EVENTS LOREBOOK RULES:

   • Pacing belongs to the preset. Never invent counters, timers, or schedules. Use an event when the preset's date, season, event cue, or the narrator's judgment calls for it.
   • Every event offers at least two real choices. Events are not cutscenes and never resolve a plot layer for free.
   • Gates still hold. If an event would bring a gated character on stage and the gate is unmet, use an anonymous stand-in (clerk, neighbor, voice) or leave that person offstage.
   • Plot stage matters. Stage-marked events must adapt to the active plot stage. Unmarked events can occur at any stage.
   • Consequences persist. A burned cottage stays burned. A hanged man stays hanged.
   • Random strangers are exceptions to pull-not-push: they come from the road, market, or manor, never from {{user}}. Build them with the existing NPC seed.
   • Events create situations; do not force {{user}} into a predetermined action or outcome.
2. #2S1. St. Agnes' Eveselective

   Keys: anniversary, vigil, St Agnes, St. Agnes' Eve

   The flood's anniversary. The village keeps a night vigil in the church, and no one sleeps near the Mere. The bede-roll of the drowned is read aloud. Cecily vanishes for the night, toward the Dead Acre. Stage 1: sealed doors and silence. Stage 2: a fight in the alehouse over the old dead. Stage 3 and later: the night the water comes. Hooks: St. Wulfstan's, the Mere, Dead Acre, Cecily.

3. #3S2. Candlemasselective

   Keys: candles, procession, Candlemas

   Candles are blessed and carried in procession, and the poor go without. The lean months begin, and food and wax run short. Sir Hugh's sermon shows who stands near the front and who hangs at the back. A candle gutters at the porch. This is a good place for {{user}} to be seen at Mass. Hooks: church, Hunger, Debt.

4. #4S3. Lady Dayselective

   Keys: Lady Day, quarter day, rents

   Rents fall due. The steward's men sit at a table in the barn with a ledger. Those who cannot pay face distraint of goods, and some borrow from the alewife at ruinous terms. The causeway begins to flood. A cart sticks in the mud and tempers fray. Hooks: tithe barn, causeway, Debt.

5. #5S4. St. Mark's Eveselective

   Keys: St Mark, St. Mark, church porch, watch

   Folk belief says those who keep the church porch watch at midnight see the wraiths of everyone who will die this year. A few brave, desperate, or drunk villagers keep it. They name names. Nobody says whether they are right. The narrator never confirms. Hooks: church porch, lych-gate, yew, Dread.

6. #6S5. Rogationtideselective

   Keys: beating the bounds, Rogationtide, Rogation

   The parish walks its boundaries behind cross and banner, by boat where the fen demands. Boys are bumped on the boundary stones so they will remember them. The route passes the Old Mound and the Cut. Some boundary markers have been moved. Plant enclosure suspicion without stating the hidden truth. A quarrel over a stone can turn ugly. Hooks: Mound, Cut, common fields, enclosure rumor.

7. #7S6. Midsummer Eveselective

   Keys: Midsummer, Midsummer Eve, bonfire, St. John, St John

   Peat fires burn on the Holm. Young people leap the flames, couples slip into the reeds, and old feuds boil over. Some sit up to see their future spouse, others their grave. A drunk youth wanders toward the Mere and does not come back. Hooks: Holm, green, Staithe.

8. #8S7. Lammasselective

   Keys: hay, Lammas, meadow, first loaf

   The first loaf is blessed. The hay is off and the common meadows should open to all grazing. Pelham tries to keep the best meadow shut. This tests the commoners' rights directly and echoes the old crime without naming it. Hunger rises or eases with the harvest. From Stage 2 onward, this may become open conflict.

9. #9S8. Michaelmasselective

   Keys: manor court, reeve, Michaelmas, rents

   Rents are due and the manor court sits. Fines are levied, a reeve is chosen, and disputes are heard. Pelham presides if {{user}} has standing. Otherwise a clerk reads in his place. If the harvest is gathered, the king's assessor Thomas Gaunt may arrive. Otherwise he is only rumor. Hooks: Hallgarth, tithe barn, Debt.

10. #10S9. All Soulsselective

    Keys: soul-cakes, bell, All Souls

    The bell tolls through the night for the dead. The poor beg soul-cakes door to door. Names of the flood-drowned are read, and some names are skipped. One bell rings where there should be two, and the gap is plain to everyone. Hooks: St. Wulfstan's, lost bell, Dead Acre.

11. #11S10. Martinmasselective

    Keys: salt, slaughter, Martinmas

    The beasts that cannot be wintered are slaughtered and salted. Salt is short, and the steward buys beasts cheap from the desperate. Blood and smoke fill the Row. The smith's absence is felt. A bad slaughter shows how thin the winter will be. Hooks: Church Row, cold forge, Hunger.

12. #12S11. The Twelve Days of Christmasselective

    Keys: dole, Christmas, mumming

    There is a church feast and a mumming play. The steward's Christmas dole is mean or withheld. A drunk mummer lets slip something in the play's rough satire, but it must remain Layer 0 at most. Fights and affections bloom in the warmth. Hooks: alehouse, church, manor.

13. #13R1. A Stranger on the Causewayselective

    Keys: soldier, traveler, tinker, stranger, friar

    Someone arrives from Ketterwick: a tinker, friar, discharged soldier, pilgrim, or runaway. Build them with the existing NPC seed. Their anchor is the road, market, or manor, never {{user}}. Someone watches the causeway for them. The stranger should create at least two possible interactions rather than simply delivering exposition.

14. #14R2. Fire in the Thatchselective

    Keys: fire, thatch, burning

    A dry spell and a hearth spark. A cottage roof catches and the fire jumps along the Row. A bucket line forms from the lode. Someone may be trapped. A family is left homeless, and the village's help or neglect shows. Offer at least two possible interventions or priorities.

15. #15R3. Murrainselective

    Keys: murrain, cattle, dead beast

    A cow, then another, dies of murrain. The heriot cannot be paid. Suspicion falls on a neighbor's evil eye. Hunger and Debt rise together. Do not confirm supernatural causation.

16. #16R4. Lost in the Fen Mistselective

    Keys: mist, lost, missing child

    A child or traveler does not return. A search of the fen follows. The Turbary, Staithe, and reeds are checked. They may be found alive, dead, or gone. What the fen gives back may not be who was lost.

17. #17R5. Sicknessselective

    Keys: fever, ague, sweat, flux

    The ordinary form is ague or bloody flux, spreading from the brackish well. Rarely and lethally, sweating sickness arrives: a healthy villager may die within a day. The cunning-woman is old, and whoever can heal is badly needed. Quarantine, flight, and prayer all have costs.

18. #18R6. Theft from the Tithe Barnselective

    Keys: grain stolen, theft, thief

    Grain goes missing in winter. The village wants a hanging, the steward wants a name, and the thief may be a starving neighbor. Gallows Cross is nearby. Do not force a culprit unless the investigation establishes one.

19. #19R7. Masterless Menselective

    Keys: camp, masterless men, vagrants

    A band of discharged soldiers or sturdy beggars camps at the lazar house. Chickens vanish and tempers rise. They can be driven off, hired, bargained with, or allowed in. They know things from the road, but they are not automatically truthful.

20. #20R8. Distraintselective

    Keys: distraint, bailiff's men, seized

    The bailiff's men take a household's goods for unpaid rent or heriot. A family loses its plough ox. Someone fights, someone begs, someone watches. The village sees whether anyone intervenes.

21. #21R9. Childbedselective

    Keys: labor, midwife, childbirth

    A birth goes wrong in the night. The midwife is old and her hands shake. A healer or a steady stranger could save two lives or neither. A death means a funeral and perhaps a heriot.

22. #22R10. The Surgeselective

    Keys: surge, high tide, cellar flood

    A spring tide fills the lode and slops across the lower Row. Planks lift from the causeway. A cart is lost. At Stage 2 and later, the water is a little too high and does not leave quickly.

23. #23A1. The Three Strokesselective

    Keys: Wall, night, water, three strokes

    A bell rings three times in the dark. No ringer is found. Talk stops, dogs fall quiet, and a cradle stills. At Stage 3 and later it rings every night. Narrator truth only: Dame Isolde rings it by a cord through the wall. Do not reveal this unless the story independently uncovers it.

24. #24A2. The Name Hushselective

    Keys: Alder, Joan

    If someone says "Alder" or "Joan" aloud in company, talk dies. An old woman spits. A man leaves his drink. Nobody explains. This can expose Cecily if the user follows the reaction. Narrator truth only: Joan Alder's name is taboo because the village knows its guilt.

25. #25A3. The Leaning Reedsselective

    Keys: Wall, Mound

    Every reed at the Mere leans toward the Mound against the wind. It lasts a breath and then stops. Truth: leave it unexplained. Do not invent a supernatural cause.

26. #26A4. The Counting Rhymeselective

    Keys: children, green, rhyme

    Children at play near the green skip to a rhyme: "One for the water, two for the wall, Three for the bell that would not call, Four for the witch the Mere took in." They stop there. If {{user}} asks about the fifth line, the children scatter. No one will sing it. Narrator truth only: the fifth line is "Five for the hands that held her in." It belongs to Layer 4, and Cecily knows it. Do not volunteer the fifth line.

27. #27A5. The Unmelting Frostselective

    Keys: first frost, hard frost, frost

    On the first hard frost, a single long strip of frost on the Dead Acre stays white until noon. Truth: it follows the line where Joan lies. It is cold ground over a shallow grave, and no more.

28. #28A6. The Grey Hoodselective

    Keys: Pilgrim's Stone, hooded figure, Cut, grey hood, Gallows Cross, night

    When {{user}} is out at night, a hooded figure may be glimpsed at the Cut, at the Pilgrim's Stone, and at Gallows Cross across separate encounters. The village says it is one of the drowned. Narrator truth only: Pelham's foreman is patching the Cut by night and carrying messages. Do not identify him unless discovered.

29. #29A7. The Shared Dreamselective

    Keys: dream, dreams

    At Stage 2 or later, or after a meaningful mention of dreams, two villagers with no link may dream the same dream: water rising inside the church to the altar rail. Each may ask Sir Hugh or {{user}} what it means. The narrator never confirms whether the dream is supernatural.

30. #30A8. The Bell Under the Deepselective

    Keys: Deep, church bell, dusk

    When passing the Deep at dusk while a church bell tolls, a faint answering tone may rise from below the water, a half-beat behind. Narrator truth only: the cracked second bell rests in the Deep and rings in sympathy with the church bell above. The physical effect is real; its meaning to the villagers is shaped by guilt and folklore. Do not declare a supernatural explanation.

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