Casting Shadows

This series of posts is intended to provide a quickly usable setting for busy GMs looking to run Daring Tales of Adventure or Hollow Earth Expedition.   Each serial installment for the setting, builds on, connects to, or in some way embellishes those that have gone before. Story seeds are liberally strewn throughout, and each entry features a location and a typical person to encounter there.

 This Serial Setting for the Ubiquity Roleplaying System focuses on the mysterious Windlet Islands, and those who make them their home.

9. The Tears of Lysette, The Glowing Reef, Windlet Island Chain

One of the more wondrous elements of life on the Windlet Islands has become known as the Tears of Lysette. A relatively new phenomenon, locals first noticed the soft blue florescence slightly more than a decade ago, not long after the disappearance of the Lysette for whom the smaller inhabited island in the chain is named.  Locals believe that the reef glows on nights of the full or nearly full moon. Although the phenomenon often does occur during these times, this is neither the trigger, nor are the instances actually linked. The belief that the reef glows under the full moon is much stronger than the actual perception of most people.

In recent years, young people have taken to pledging their love to one another on the white sandy beach on the South West side of Greater Windlet on nights when the tide and the dark shadow of the reef are lit with the glittering pockets of blue light now known as Tears. An almost ritual proposal has been evolving around the phrase, ‘None other but you,’ in reference to the last phrase anyone is supposed to have heard Lysette speak, on the very night she disappeared.

No official scientific study of the Tears has yet been done, but a few small mentions by Faipa, the museum curator, in academic journals have begun to attract interest.

Like with all brushes with the mystical, it is our nature to want to know the truth, then wish for the myth once truth has banished wonder.

The Company, under the direct order of the Administrator,  is working to implement and agreement with the local and migrant populations to protect and preserver the reef as a monument and natural wonder. This is complicated by the direct importance the reef plays in local fishing and culture.

Usual Characters: Eddie 

Known only by the nickname “Eddie” or by the less attractive pejorative sobriquet of  “Rummy” the most visible hard-luck case and victim of alcoholism on either island lives on the beaches. Despite numerous attempts to save him, dry him out, help him find religion, or otherwise get him off the beach, somehow, he always winds up out under the stars, lost in the inscrutable thoughts which keep him homeless and constantly craving drink.   

Eddie wanders from place to place, and beach to beach but tends to favour the South West beach over the others, particularly when Lysette’s Tears can be seen to flow freely.

Many workers and fisherfolk ensure that he gets food to eat, and has clothes. No one is really sure how he gets the rum he craves, or where he goes when he is not around. Some believe that he wanders off into the interior, but most see the pure madness of that. The jungles of the Windlet Islands respect nothing but force, not even insanity.

Eddie bothers no one, and rarely speaks above a whisper. His real name is not known. He is thought to have been a sailor, due to his many bizarre tattoos, and the way he ties knots from loose strands of almost anything almost all the time.

Eddie is very tall, and has grown to become very gaunt and weathered. His hair is long and thinning on top. It usually gets trimmed after another failed rescue attempt by well-meaning Samaritans, but once out on the beaches again it soon returns to its habitual wild, grey twine of chaos. His eyes are a watery blue, and his face seems dragged down by the scraggly weight of his unkempt beard. Despite the neglect and wildness of his appearance, he does not seem threatening, just broken.     than some enormous animal bite. It is not discussed.

Rumours:

Potentially heard in sight of Eddie or the beaches, or during a church or community group meeting

• He escaped from a ship of slavers and washed up here. His duties on the crew fractured his mind
• He goes out of his way to help weaker living things survive the perils of the beach
• Some of his tattoos are from stints in the military
• He can be heard mumbling in several unusual dialects, if you listen – some sound ‘South American.’
• He has prevented a few copycat suicides by young people seeking to drown their sorrows in the deep waters of the South West beach
• Music, particularly female singers, can lure him away from the beach to peer sadly in bar windows, or hotel windows before leaving disappointed
• His trips into the interior result in him returning with bits of gold he gives to the proprietor of the Tart Banana in return for rum
• He never gets sick

Truths:

Soon, more will be revealed!

Statistics:

Keep reading!

Related Articles

• Serial Setting I: Ubiquity ~ Week 1 from Casting Shadows (runeslinger.wordpress.com)
• Serial Setting 1: Ubiquity ~ Week 8 (runeslinger.wordpress.com)
• Serial Setting 1: Ubiquity ~ Week 4 (runeslinger.wordpress.com)