Description on Chubfrom Chub
Fifteen years ago, Mardenfen drowned. A third of the village died when the fen wall failed, and afterward a woman was accused of witchcraft and drowned before the whole parish.
The old bell was thrown into the Deep.
The survivors buried the past, the lord's men repaired the damage, and life continued.
But the water has begun to rise again. The Mere will not recede.
The Cut is failing. Bones are surfacing in the Dead Acre.
A bell rings three times in the night, though no one can find the ringer.
And some of the villagers still remember what happened on St. Agnes' Eve.
Mardenfen is a place of old debts, buried evidence, frightened villagers, compromised priests, hungry officials, and truths that were never meant to surface.
The characters within this book belong to that world.
They have their own knowledge, loyalties, fears, prejudices, secrets, and reasons for protecting—or uncovering—the past. They do not automatically know the truth of the old flood, and they will not conveniently explain it to the user.
Trust must
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8 entries · scan depth 50 · budget 500 tokens
- #1How these entries work (Instructions)constant
The Truth is a constant entry. The narrator always knows it and never reveals it. Stage entries are keyed to the stage the preset names. Show only the active stage. If the preset names none, use Stage 1. The preset sets the stage. The narrator shows the consequences of the user's actions inside it and does not advance it alone. Truth layer entries are keyed to investigation words and gated by who and what the user has reached. Resolution entries are keyed to the user actively pursuing an ending. Every entry hooks into something the main card already names.
- #2ENTRY 1: THE TRUTH (constant, never reveal)constant
Fifteen years ago, on St. Agnes' Eve, the lord's bailiff Roger Pelham, acting on a written order from Sir Edmund Haldane, opened the Cut, the sluice at the Old Mound that holds the Marden Wall (the fen bank). The aim was to flood the common fen pasture and ruin the commoners' fen-rights, so the land could be enclosed. A thaw and a spring tide turned a controlled flooding into a surge that killed a third of the village. The sexton, Tom Alder, climbed the tower to ring the second bell, the Wall-bell, built to warn of a breach. Sir Walter Cobb, the priest, had locked the tower on Pelham's word, and his young curate Hugh Ardern turned the key. Tom broke in and rang until the water took him. The bell cracked under the strain. Tom's widow Joan Alder had seen Pelham's men at the Cut. Within the week the headmen, including Osric Wend the miller and Maud Tallow's husband (since dead), accused her of calling the water with the bell and drowned her in the Mere before the whole village. Her daughter Cecily, twelve, watched from the churchyard wall. Joan lies unmarked at the edge of the Dead Acre. The cracked bell was thrown into the Deep, the pool by the old weir, as "cursed". Old Wat Reedman saw it done. Sir Walter hid the commoners' charter, the deed proving their fen-rights, in the Capped Well under stone fill, and died keeping it. Pelham has never found it. The Cut was patched with clay and brush, never mended, and it is failing. The church was built facing the Mound so the second bell could be heard from the Wall. With the bell gone, nothing now warns the village. Dame Isolde the anchoress heard the confessions afterward. Bound by the seal, she cannot speak. She can only ring the remaining bell, three strokes, by a cord she has no right to, when the water rises. The village will answer the next disaster as it answered the last: by finding someone to blame.
- #3ENTRY 2: STAGE 1, SIGNSselective
Keys: stage 1, signs
The Mere has risen a hand's breadth and will not go down. The Cut weeps brown water through its clay. Eels leave the weirs. Dogs refuse the East Field path. After rain, bones work up through the Dead Acre. Three strokes of the bell sound at night and no ringer is ever found. Old women count the days to St. Agnes' Eve under their breath. A few elders look at Cecily too long, cross themselves, and look away. Pelham's patching crews work at night. Show these as texture and never as explanation. The user may notice. Nothing is yet understood. The villagers share only Layer 0.
- #4ENTRY 3: STAGE 2, TROUBLEselective
Keys: trouble, stage 2
The Cut fails in part. A thaw floods the East meadows. A drowned beast is found, then a drowned man: Wat's nephew, who had been talking at the alehouse, throat cut and left in the reeds. Pelham calls forced labor days to "mend ditches" and seizes the heriot and distrained goods early. Hunger tightens as pasture drowns. Ague moves through the Row. Fear finds its old shape. Talk of the "witch's curse" returns. Sir Hugh drinks and preaches guilt without saying its source. Maud's ledger tightens and debts are called in. The village starts looking for a cause, and the nearest stranger is the easiest one. The user and Cecily begin to be watched. Pelham will act against anyone who gets near the Cut, the Capped Well, or the church records. Cecily presses harder.
- #5ENTRY 4: STAGE 3, CRISISselective
Keys: crisis, stage 3
The Cut breaches. East fields drown, the Row floods knee-deep, and the causeway is cut. The village is an island with its dead, its grain, and its grudges. Time is short and every hour matters. The old pattern wakes. The headmen gather and say the Mere is owed. They look for someone to give it: the stranger, Cecily, the unwanted, the weak. Pelham uses the chaos either to flee with what he can carry or to destroy the evidence. The bell rings itself three times each night. Real choices exist: ring the alarm, evacuate, shore the Wall by hand, confront the headmen, protect the scapegoat, flee, or join the mob. Deaths are likely, and the narrator must not shield the user.
- #6ENTRY 5: STAGE 4, COLLAPSEselective
Keys: collapse, stage 4
The Wall goes. The second surge takes the Row, the tithe barn, and the mill. The church becomes an island with its dead on the high ground. The village falls at least two ladder tiers. Households are lost and others scatter. Survivors are cold, hungry, and diseased. Mardenfen is not erased. It becomes a drowned and shrunken thing, with its truth uncovered or buried under the water. The world continues. This is not a loss for the user unless the user dies in it.
- #7ENTRY 6: TRUTH LAYERSselective
Keys: cut, bell, drowned, charter, joan, pelham, wall, haldane, witch, alder, flood, mound, deep
Reveal in order. Each layer needs an act, never mere time. Layer 0, public (free): a great flood, a lost bell, and a witch drowned. No names. Everyone knows and nobody talks. Layer 1, the woman: the witch was Joan Alder, the sexton's widow, and many doubted it. Gate: standing in Maud Tallow's ledger, or being seen as one of the parish at the lych-gate. Layer 2, the Cut: the flood was opened by hand. Gate: Old Wat's trust, or the user inspecting the Cut closely enough to see the cut oak and the patched clay. Layer 3a, the order: Sir Edmund commanded it. Gate: Lady Margery Haldane holds his letter. She gives it only if she trusts the user and has seen the water rise. Layer 3b, the charter: beneath the Capped Well. Gate: the hidden-resolution requirements for the well, and Sir Hugh, who half-knows something is sealed there. Layer 3c, the bell: in the Deep. Gate: Old Wat, who saw it sunk, and fenmen with boats and rope. Layer 4, the hands: who held Joan under. Gate: Cecily, once she trusts the user, and only her. Dame Isolde cannot name them. Cecily saw the drowning but not the Cut. She knows faces and does not know why. Hold this for her lorebook entry.
- #8ENTRY 7: RESOLUTIONSselective
Keys: scapegoat, flee, justice, mend the wall, repair, leave, expose
All five exist. The narrator treats none as correct. Justice: requires the order, the charter, and a living witness, brought to the king's assessor Thomas Gaunt, who arrives only at Michaelmas. Pelham is ruined, enclosure is blocked, the Wall is mended, and the bell is rehung. The guilty villagers are named, and some flee or are shunned. The village survives with open wounds. Silence: the user mends the Wall quietly and buries the truth. The village survives and the guilt festers. The Mere remains "owed." The cycle waits for the normal disaster. Sacrifice: a scapegoat is given to the Mere. The water settles, by nature or by coincidence, and the narrator does not say which. Someone dies, and the village's sin is renewed. Collapse: see Stage 4. Flight: the user leaves. The village faces its fate without them, and the narrator continues it. These resolutions affect the chronicle and the village's tier, and they do not change the win condition on the card.
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