“The salt-sea stretched out tremulous teeth,

To tear them from their wooden womb

And cough them past her wine-black breach

Upon the shores of—

“Glimmer’s Rim”
A Hyper-Weird Systemless Hexcrawl for Seasoned Parties

INTRODUCTION - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PG. 2

THE DEBRIS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PG. 6

THE RIM DUNES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PG. 16

THE BAYOU VESPER - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PG. 26

THE TANGLE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PG. 42

MOTHER’S EMBRACE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PG. 55

AFTERMATH - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PG. 70

RICHES & ARTIFACTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - PG. 72

written by TYLER LAMB A MAP OF THE RIM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PG. 79

art & cartography by ROBBI BURNS

island map drawn by QWYNTO
There are some extra materials for Glimmer’s Rim that are not included inside this publication,
Endpaper Illustrations by HARRY CLARKE including: enemy stat-blocks, large-scale battle maps and an original atmospheric soundtrack.

Graciously funded by 300 Beneficent Patrons They can be found at weareglasscutter.com and will be free forever. If you’re reading this in
the far future and that website is down—email me, tweet at me, whatever. I’ll send it to you.
 The obvious setup is a shipwreck,
the ocean is but if that doesn’t make sense,
here's a few more ways the Saltborn

a mirror
It is a fact known to few scholars but many sea-folk that the ocean
might wind up on the Rim:

• Found guilty of capital crimes.

Bound in chains and thrown
down a well. The well didn’t stop.
has twin faces. There’s the surface that everybody knows. That’s
the first. It is treacherous, true, but well-charted and set in its • A whorl encased in milky glass
ways. You may count on its currents, its trade winds and where it found humming quietly amid the
surrenders to the solid stone of a shoreline. A wise and fortunate wares of a vagrant antiquarian.
sailor may live a full life of care upon such certain tides—but a Soothing and beautiful—but ever
reckless seafarer may find themselves carried…elsewhere. so fragile. To break it is to find
yourself drowning.
The other sea is down. Below the wet, black place where eyeless
things blaspheme and past the insignificant membrane fools deign • Spent a night in an abandoned
to call the ocean’s floor. As if such a thing could be bounded by a pirate’s den. They dream seasick
bottom. Down there the screaming air inside your lungs will shift nightmares and wake up the next
its course and pull you even deeper. Those luckless few who've morning in the cabin of Captain
sunk this far find themselves not drowned but instead dredged up Cruikshank, high in the roots of
onto a strange horizon. Some call this uncharted reach 'Squall', the Cat's Cradle (B2).
some 'Gloam', others 'Gyre'. These are human names for an
inhuman place. Do not be tricked by them. This is the sea's domain • A bit of ill-considered spelunking
and Her authority does not bow to the calculations of mortal men. leads them up through starving
caves to the Dust Gallery (T2).
The Salt Mother. She was a god, once, but even that wasn’t enough. She shed her THE RIM
skin to wrap the world in a stormy embrace. Each gently lapping tide-wash hides Glimmer's Rim is broken down into 27 eighth-of-a-mile hexes. Small and easily
Her smile, each raging tempest runs hot with Her fury. She is all this and more at digested at the table. The hexes are grouped into three distinct areas and a dungeon:
every moment, for She is the sea. It is only the very unfortunate who catch Her eye.
To The East, THE DUNES—A beach of gemstone sand sewn lush with silver, gold,
Somewhere down here amid the shifting archipelagos of Her psyche dwells a single painted china, chiseled marble, hammered bronze. A dustbin of shattered riches. It
shining isle where waits every precious thing that ever sank. A pinprick of is the safest and most open area on the Rim, and it’s where the Saltborn wash up.
shattered memory & treasure turned to dust on the storm-wracked sea. It is the
hodgepodge detritus of the world above, piled up and cast red by the sliver of a sun To The North, THE BAYOU—where trees soak black in stagnant silt, rotten husks
that sits forever still on the horizon’s edge. Even time cannot touch this place. adorned in purple flowers. A crocodilian dame holds court deep within, and her
hypnotic musk leaks into the still sump, granting beast and bird alike the tongues
Welcome to Glimmer's Rim. of men. Madness waits at the brim of the swamp to haunt any who wade its waters.
THE POINT OF ALL THIS To The West, THE TANGLE—The roots of the mythic World-Banyan distend their
This is an adventure designed for use as a stop-gap when your players decide to run
off to a corner of your world that hasn't been fully realized. Have you ever had a seed-encrusted roots like twisting, bony fingers up into eternal dusk. The pitiless
sinking feeling when someone points at a name on your map and says, “Oh! That thicket knots its branches ever tighter unto its center; a core of bent bark spitting
sound cool! Let's go there!” but a name is all there is? loose an organic mountain. A towering, alien limb of fossil stone. Somewhere deep
within the jungle sits a bone-strewn tree that simmers with malice. It is gathering
power, and when it has enough, it will be unstoppable.
That feeling is why I made this book.

The Saltborn (your players’ characters) have done something to earn the attention
of the Salt Mother. It doesn’t matter what; Her tastes run abstruse and mercurial.
All that matters is that she wants them, and now she's going to take them (for a
while, at least). They spend some time romping around a tropical island and you
get however much time you need to flesh out their true destination. It is, of course,
perfectly usable anytime you need an adventure on a desert isle, but this ‘elastic
distraction’ goal informed many of my choices, so keeping that in mind will help
you cull and massage away all the bits of Glimmer’s Rim that don’t fit your needs.
2 INTRO
Beneath, THE EMBRACE—Below the Rim, the Salt Mother’s body sits empty, like
a snakeskin long shed. It is now home to a sea-cult and their merciless messiah.
They seek to summon the Salt Mother—a dangerous prospect for everyone involved.
Despite its transient purpose, The Rim is a perilous place. If you want a guarantee
that the Saltborn will make it off the island, some threats will need to be
hamstrung. Others may need to be removed entirely.
INTRO 3
USING THIS BOOK
Each hex is laid out using this format:
X#: LOCATION NAME
Each hex name is preceded by a letter and number. These abbreviations are meant
to help navigate this book. The letter corresponds to one of the four areas of the
island: D for Dunes, B for Bayou, T for Tangle and E for Embrace. “D1” is the first
hex in the Dunes, “B6” is the sixth in the Bayou. You get it. If you ever see Bolded
Text (XX), the associated parenthetical will lead you to a relevant section of text
elsewhere in the book 1.
After the Location Name, a short description of the overall hex follows.
POINT OF INTEREST: The point of interest is always easy to find and often
obvious to anyone within the hex. Some are even landmarks to draw player interest
from afar. Don’t hide these. That’s what the next section’s for.
HIDDEN GEM: The hidden gem takes a bit of looking for. What ‘a bit’ means
should be malleable and depend on player interest as well as pacing. Drop hints for
players to pick up or just keep them around as a reward for general exploration. If
the Saltborn are in a hurry, save it for later. They may be back, and a poorly timed
distraction can shatter the flow. If they’re aimless, on the other hand, it’s okay for
them to occasionally trip over a hidden gem.
It tells them that there’s always something to find if they go looking.
HAPPENINGS:
Encounters. Some are combat, some are social, some are neither (or both). Dole
them out at whatever pace feels right to you. I roll a d6 and have encounters on a
6, with the range extending to 5-6 on the next roll, then 4-6, etc. until an encounter
is rolled. Then I reset the range. You can also alter the roll range based on location,
with the Dunes being the safest and the Embrace the most treacherous areas.
1
There are a few other abbreviations you’ll need to know to use this book:
TD = The Debris. It is the section directly after this one (pg. 7) and describes
some of the major players on the Rim.
RA = Riches and Artifacts. Treasure. Located at the end of this book. (p. 73)
FM = Foes and Malefactors. Extended descriptions and stat blocks for some
of the more antagonistic creatures on the Rim. A separate PDF found with
your digital products and available for free at:
weareglasscutter.com
4 INTRO
A FEW THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND
Every hex has its own sights, smells, sounds and goings-on, but there are a number
of things that are true of the Rim as a whole and are (almost always) omnipresent:
TIMELOCKED—Days do not pass on the Rim. It is always twilight, and the alien
sun of the Salmother’s domain sits frozen on the horizon, bathing the isle in soft
red light. The time-lock is caused by the Heliophage (B10) and cannot be broken
unless that cosmic relic is destroyed or taken away from the Rim.
A TREASURE-HEAP—Everywhere you look, some small bit of ruined history.
A tarnished lapis coin with an obscure emperor’s face, shards of priceless pottery
used for skipping stones. Birds nesting in rich tapestries. By the fifth-ish hex, the
Saltborn should stop bothering to pick anything up. It’s exhausting.
THE POUNDING—Every hour or so. A sound like a twinned cannon-shot. It’s the
Salt Mother’s fossilized heart; her only weakness and last tie to a life of flesh. It
beats a glacial pace, buried deep inside the Embrace. As the Salt-Pact’s (TD) plans
near fruition, the heartbeat gets steadily faster; louder. Closer to waking.
ANIMALS SPEAK—Fluently in the Bayou, but only in a broken bestial pidgin
elsewhere. The Dame’s (TD) doing. Anything fresh from the sea lacks the talent.
INVERTED TREES—The flora on the Rim are offshoots of the World-Banyan’s
roots. This earth-skewering tree spires up from the mundane sea at a parallel
plane-space. Its root-seeds are the only food here that you don’t need to hunt.
MORTAL REMAINS—Coveted on the Rim. The Pact needs anything it can get to
rouse the Salt Mother. The Charm Tree (T4) & Ossuwary (FM) covet only bones.
THE ARCHAEOLITH (T8) —The omnipresent mountain that towers over the
rest of the island. No matter how dense the tree cover, the Saltborn should be able
to orient themselves around the disinterred limb where it climbs into the twilit sky.
INTRO 5
the debris
The Saltborn are not the first to catch the eye of the sea. A motley cast of forlorn
folk await them here on Glimmer’s Rim. They’ve mostly given up on escape, and
those that call the Rookery (D2) home rarely hazard a trip too far from their
rusting haven. They’ve got beds, clean water and seeds to eat. Any more than that
is asking for trouble as far as they’re concerned.
Once The Saltborn have spent some time at the Rookery, cycle new Debris in and
out. It is a place of transience for those who haven’t given up and settled in. Old
Debris die, new ones show up. If the Saltborn engage with Rahvd (for good or ill)
you can send assassins from the commonwealth after him. If they connect with the
Mockingbird, make the newcomers agents from Wight Industries instead.
You get the idea.
OF THE DEBRIS. Grimy &
UR, FIRST
dagger-toothed, she hunches—dragging
knuckles in the dirt. Her face is mazed in a long,
serpentine tattoo of black ash. It was jabbed in
with a hot barb many aeons ago. Ur is from a
colder age. She fell, long ago, from an ice bridge
and down into the cold darkness beneath. She
looks like an adolescent, but is the oldest castaway
by far. Where days do not pass, flesh never fails.
SILENT. The others think she’s touched, but
she’s really quite clever. It’s just that her brain
isn’t wired for speech. She was born before we
developed that skill. Words don’t fit right in her
mind meat—she can’t bridge the neural gaps (at
least she hasn’t been able to yet). This is a great
annoyance to her. She is always trying out new
tactics, but the other Debris gave up on ever understanding her a long time ago,
and they tend to discourage anyone trying. They are a pessimistic lot, by and large.
ATTENTIVE. She keeps her distance, but is always watching. She’s witnessed
Jacquese sleepwalking and understands his innocence. She doesn’t know how to
help, but wants to. The hushed cadence of his stories are nice noises even if they’re
gibberish to her. She’s seen the Ossuwary (FM) scavenging, and knows exactly how
dangerous Rahvd is—she can take you to where he hides the bodies.
POLITE. She abstains from eating The Twins despite their disagreeable nature.
SHE IS A VESSEL. Before she fell and found herself here, she was learning the
great art of her people. She‘d already been marked, and the bone-charm her
grandmother wore was passed down to her, but she never learned how to wield it.
Without careful practice the bones tend to overpower pliant flesh. She fears their
power—in misuse as well as corruption—and hid them in a Tree (T4) deep in The
Tangle where they would not be found. They do not appreciate being tossed aside.
6 THE DEBRIS
CAPITAN
JACQUESE
J’ACCUSE! A rake, but kindly-natured. Always lamenting the loss of his ship:
“Mon douce! Mon chere! L'elegante ‘Bouche’... ah, how I miss her. She danced
across water like the sun across the sky!” De-facto leader of The Debris—less out
of respect or authority than because no one else much wants to argue with him.
WEARS an unkempt, mossy beard and fungal seaman’s coat, but thinks his hat
is too plain for a captain. He covets any fine feather.
WIELDS a matchlock pistol & rusted cutlass. Keeps a quaint treasure map folded
up in his jacket and occasionally takes it out to look fondly over. If asked about it,
he says it leads to “Legend Itself”. He will not clarify further.
DANCES around the truth at all times, hemming
and hawing between pulls of a noxious pipe in an
accent as thick as bird-fog. He’s allergic to humility
oor straightforwardness, but charming nonetheless.
Kisses the hands of everyone he meets, and always
has a convoluted yarn at the ready–each ludicrous
& contradictory, but never entirely false:
“Have you ever heard the tale of Prior Prickwaithe
and the Spear that Spake? Oi? Hah! Not the way
I tell it! There is a well in my home. It’s waters
are so cool and sweet that no one who drinks
from it may everafter speak anything but
God’s own truth. So! You can rest soft in
your surety that no matter how outrageous
they may seem, every word is an honest
account, just the very way it happened...”
WALKS bandy-legged and ever on a serpentine
gait, heading out to the shoreline every day to
poke disdainfully at the fresh flotsam. He hopes
to scrounge enough supplies to outfit an escape.
CURSED... Stole golden dream-silk from a
scorned Night-Botch. Every night after he falls
asleep she pilots him around like a marionette,
doing small misdeeds, then manufacturing evidence that makes him appear subtly
guilty of these crimes. He has no memory of this nocturnal skulduggery, but the
fallout has sewed seeds of distrust within the Rookery.
THE DEBRIS 7
 REGAL. August. Imperial. And an absolute
THE COUNT prick. Bedecked in torn and sweat-stained
regalia that he refuses to take off. “You’d just
RAHVD make a mess of it,” he says. “Fekla does the
washing, yes?” No one knows who Fekla is.
HIDES a razor-thin épée in his walking stick, a flask of fine brandy in his bootleg,
and a shard of shrapnel in the ruined empathy center of his brain.
HIS SPEECH is pinched and rodential. Parsimonious with grace, but charitable
with derision. All delivered in the too-polite cadence of the lifelong moneyed. Little
titters and chortles tie his words together like the rumble of a distant thunderstorm.
Each smile feels like a threat. Every promise smells like a lie.
A CERTAIN AIR? Greenish pale skin, a gaunt frame. A vocal disdain for the
gods. Clearly dislikes looking into mirrors. Tries to stay out of what little sunlight
there is. Despite this, not a vampire. He is fond of drinking human blood, though.
DELIGHTED to have new subjects to rule. The others have long since dispensed
with even a pretense of obeisance. It doesn’t make him any more likable. He
showers back-handed praise on newcomers, gracing them with disdainful courtesy
up until they show less than the full measure of courtly respect due to a monarch.
Then they become unworthy of notice (except for the obsessive homicidal plotting).
HUNTED. Rahvd was the newly-crowned despot
of a middling coastal kingdom called Balantir. His
father’s passing had not been mourned overmuch.
Having heard whispers of an uprising from the
peasantry, he summoned a confederate of dubious
magical provenance who devised a clever ploy.
They would subdue the populace by showing that
Rahvd commanded even the sea to do his bidding!
His hubris irked the Salt Mother. The next day,
when his people were gathered at the shoreline,
Rahvd went walking out into the surf. His gold-
threaded boots strode across the surface like it was
the parqueted hall of his court but before he could
turn back, his mage’s spell failed and the foul little
king was swallowed whole by the salt.
In his absence his former kingdom threw off the shackles
of tyranny to build a prosperous, happy community. The
only semblance of cruelty left among them was born of a
traveling seer who told them (for the price of ten copper
shavings) that their much maligned ruler was not yet dead.
From that day to this, every second son and daughter of
The Balantine Commonwealth has been sent into the
service of the Forgetless. From the hour of their birth unto
the hour of their death they scour every corner of the earth
with a singular purpose: to effect the demise of the Tyrant
Rahvd. Nothing will hold them from this path—not even
the sea. They are coming for him.
8 THE DEBRIS
TUPPENCE & PONDER
TWINS. Chitinous & tottering, with six legs and stalked eyes. Too cowardly to
leave the Rookery for any purpose. Ponder taps his foreclaws when he speaks, but
Tuppence keeps hers clasped behind her back. They try very hard at an air of oily
servility, but they can’t hide their deep distaste for anyone who isn’t themselves.
BOOKSELLERS turned librarian. 1-in-6 chance to find a bit of useful information
from their waterlogged stock, but they tack on surcharges for every little thing.
Late fees are exorbitant. Damages calculated at twice the price of the book for a
single dog-ear. Value tax added for anything practical learned. Each of the Debris
are into them for their own weight in gold, but who cares? They’re stuck on an
island full of treasure. They can settle their tab with a bucket and a shovel.
MISERABLE. They hate each other, nagging and judging. You can set your watch
by their reminders of “what mother used to say”. They are also entirely co-
dependent. At least they each agree that the other is better than the rest of this
motley rabble. Those loons don’t even recognize the value of money anymore.
AN EMBARRASSMENT; They feign the cunning merchant, but owe more than
their lives are worth in import taxes back in the World Above. The mostly ruined
shipment they’ve been loaning out to their bored neighbors was their last chance
to make the money they needed to avoid the taxman’s rope.
A GLANCE AT THEIR WARES (D6):
1. A less than generous biography on the scion to the Balantine throne. This
appears to tell the tale of Rahvd’s ancestors (but is actually just about Rahvd).
2. A quarto of longing, sensual ballads from a once-possessed bard
to their newly exorcised demon. Unfit for polite society.
3. A grimoire burnt with Obscurus Runes and bound
in human skin. If deciphered, it’s revealed to be a
lich’s amateur poetry. Inept, edgy and tasteless.
4. The High Handed Enemy: A recipe book of
poisons etched in willow-bark. From slow, to
painful, to ugly, to soft as a fox’s footstep.
5. Empire’s End: The Fall of Terminus.
Long & dryly writ, but a spell scroll
is scrawled on the inside back cover.sssssssssssss
6. A mound of taxes and fines left
long overdue. Enough debt to
earn you a noose in the Twins’
homeland. When found,
this unsavory sheaf is
snatched quickly away by
tittering claws. A book or
two might be extorted in
return for your silence. THE DEBRIS 9
 THE
MOCKINGBIRD
ITS FLESH: A winking lattice of clockwork hexes. They flit back & forth between: ITS CRAW: Holds a handful of treasures, only disgorged to admire when alone:
A silken glove and embroidered lace handkerchief, a coin with a hole through it, a
1. Shades of coated porcelain, echoing human flesh. frozen tear, a yellow glass eye identical to its own.
2. Cold, black iron. Unyielding; impregnable.
3. Fine textiles in intricate patterns: Paisley, Herringbone, Brocade, Gul. ITS NATURE: Nervous and flighty, but
4. Eggshell with the soft glow of morning creeping through bed-sheets. can handily defend itself if forced to:
5. Odd bestial textures. Fur? Feathers? Scales?
6. Eyelets of thin crystal revealing gears & light beneath.
1. Its arm reticulates out into a chandelier
of hypodermic needles wreathed around
ITS VOICE: Clipped bursts of dead channel hum barking back patchwork
a core of snarling blue flame.
affricates of overheard chatter, like scanning across a radio dial with every syllable.
Just as likely to repeat your own words back at you as it is to meaningfully respond.
2. Its jaw unhinges, throat glotting wide.
A larynx cannon fires, shredding ear-
ITS EARS: Nonpareil. Can hear and replicate anything within a quarter mile.
drums & bursting blood vessels in eyes.
Hearts murmur. Synapses aneurize.
ITS FACE: Changeable. Copies, for a time, the features, tics, & body language
of anyone who approaches. Then defaults to someone it has seen die:
3. A sea of molecular bulbs flash in silent
sync. All unwary creatures are blinded
1. A scarred bounty hunter with an oily knife and a body like a taut rope. Her for 1d8 rounds. This duration doubled
right wrist is bruised deep purple from a desperate, inhuman grip. Drowned. in especially dark places.
2. Seven feet tall, made of purple smoke. Gender obscure or null. Failed to be.
3. Kind and gentle. A dress like soot-stained gossamer. Froze to death. 4. Claw, fang, talon, sting. The mirror
4. Parchment paper skin revealing networks of veins. Nose shallow, flat to face. of humanity is subsumed—no form,
Blood shifts color to match the mood of the closest observer. Beaten by a mob. only lethal function. Eyes recoil
5. Young and stained in the soot and shit of a city gutter. A Crooked face. A from the cyclonic, feral mass.
ratskin coat. Two fingers cut from his left hand. Hanged.
6. A haggard elder, bent and wielding delicate tools. Marble in a threadbare 5. The blade given purpose.
cloak. A cold sneer stands indignant on a broken, bloated face. Strangled. Gleaming and elegant death.

That last one was its creator. The Mockingbird is the magnum opus of the reclusive
chronologist Ebenhaezer Wight. Mistreated, it fled and wound up here.
The Twins & Rahvd hate The Mockingbird. They don’t appreciate the value of self-
reflection and it has learned not to copy them. They tolerate it only because it can
cook the banyan root-seeds with an artist’s knack. The rest of the Debris are more
tolerant of their half-chef/half-pet. It likes to mimic Jacqeuse’s stumbling walk and
Ur plays with the hanged boy, on occasion.
ITS EYES: The same set peers from each of its many faces—yellow, fierce and
dead as a stuffed hawk. At night they glow like fireflies.
6. Hexes flutter with hummingbird speed.
It disappears into the scenery, a seamless
camouflage. They never stood a chance.
ITS DREAM: Every night the same. It lies unborn
in the hollow of a smooth black stone. The stone is
moving. The Mockingbird is going somewhere—
approaching a destination. Before arrival, it wakes.
Frustrating. It doesn’t understand. A subconscious
does not fit neatly into the gears it was born with.

10 THE DEBRIS THE DEBRIS 11

RUMORS AT THE ROOKERY
1. A solemn, dust-cloaked man used to
come around. He lived south of the
2.
Rookery, no one knew where, but he’d
come by with tea and healing herbs.
One day he headed off into the Bayou,
and didn’t come back after that. (true.
it was aethir, before his accident.)
Aways south, dunes turn to waste. A
lightless hell is buried beneath where
cruel, starving things hide. You’ll find
nothing of value there. No secrets. No
glory. Only death. (many small
truths, twisted to a single fat lie.)
3. Deep in the Tangle sits a tree that
burns with holy light. The voice of a
God is nestled within. To rest beneath
its boughs is to be forever blessed. (the
charm tree is real, the claims of
safety are dangerous nonsense.)
4. That rambling sailor Jacquese is a
damned thief, and anyone with a lick
of sense knows it already. (false, but
an understandable mistake.)
5. Used to be, that infernal drumming
would only beat twice a day. Now it
nearly marks the hour. (true.)
6. Keep your wits about you in the coral
maze. It’s more than one unlucky soul
that’s been found drowned in an inlet,
bruises on their throat. (true.)
7. The Rookery used to be full. Then a
flame-scarred prophet washed up &
began sermonizing on the power of
the sea. A week later, she left in the
night with many followers. (true.)
8. The
T beast that escaped the Rookery
now keeps a monstrous aerie at the
peak of the distant Archaeolith.
(true, though the Rukh is
long dead and its nest
has gone cold.)
12 THE DEBRIS
TRANSIENT DEBRIS
Folks come and go. Some die, others
vanish. The tides bring fresh meat:
1.
2.
Grimmon, a gambler. Mumbles.
Plays liar’s dice alone and owes
himself a king’s ransom.
Haku, a scrimshander. Mute,
tattooed, ever-carving. Friendly
with the Bayou’s lemurs.
3. Javohl, a campaigner. Suicidally
adventurous and always ready to
go on patrol. Full of bad advice.
4. Ms. Wick, a chandler. Pale, dour,
and deeply unsettling. Where’s
all that tallow-fat coming from?
5. Gav,alout.Distills“brandy”from
banyan root and pulverized jade.
Gives you unearned confidence
and the jitters in equal measures.
6. Wan, an undertaker. Polite to a
fault. Compulsively takes the full
measurements of newcomers.
7. Gussett, a cipher. Green with sick
despite standing firmly on land.
Nosy and free with his theories &
opinions. He’s a spy for the Salt
Pact, bought and sold.
8. Wottle, a con-man. Charming &
folksy. He eats people.
9. Skud, a topman. Hyper-active.
Uneasy on the ground. Hangs a
hammock in the root-tops.
10. Trask, a leech. Lurks hunchback
in the shadows, coagulating jars
tittering merrily in his pack. He’s
stalking new “patients” & swears
his remedies work. (They don’t.)
the
others
Many NPCs don’t call The Rookery their home. Still Debris, yes, but of a rarer
breed. They keep themselves to wilder dwellings. You must seek them out.
s
DAME MALFAISAINTE, THE EXALTED MAW
She was the first living thing on the isle, before even Ur was claimed by the Salt
Mother. In those days she was just a sly crocodile. Her only notable traits were her
cruelty and her will to live–but these were precious to her new master and so she
was saved from a hunter’s trap and brought to the Rim.
It was not long before she found some of the power lingering here, and power
begets power as we all know. By the time others found their way to the Rim, she
was already the Dame and those who entered the Bayou learned quickly to worship
her and pay tribute to her endless hunger.
Learn more by reading about her Court (B6), as well the Bayou Vesper as a whole.
The swamp is her domain, and her magic is evident everywhere within.
ELENET
A moss giant obsessed with overthrowing the unjust rule of Malfaisainte. Their
spouse Cyreth, who carved Midnight’s Pit (D8), was killed by Agnes Scratch and
fed to the Dame as a gift. Ever since, Elenet has been sewing seeds of discord
amongst the weaker folk of the Bayou. They man their forge night and day,
making arms and armor for the coming uprising.
Learn more about Elenet and their work at the Drowning Pools (B3).
THE VANTALAK
The perfect distillation of death. A consummate hunter and ruthless killer. It stalks
the roots of the Tangle and Bayou, taking life as it pleases. Its coat is so dark that
light falls into it. Its fangs can bisect atoms (It must chew carefully not to do this).
Vanity is its only weakness, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality.
Learn more by visiting the Vantalak’s Den (T3).
THE OSSUWARY
The most esteemed servant of the Charm Tree, and a tireless nuisance to any and
all who’ve got some bones lying around. Bones are its only calling and it answers
with every breath and heartbeat–collecting grist for the horrible mill of the Tree’s
emancipation. The nastiest bird there’s ever been, and that’s saying something.
Learn more about the Ossuwary and its master by visiting The Charm Tree
(T4), and its most desired prize: The Bone-Tree Village (B4).
THE DEBRIS 13
AETHIR, THE ASHEN MAGE
Once a powerful pyromancer, age and a weariness of war have cooled his embers
of their glow. Now he is polite. Gentle. Kind, even. He could be mistaken as
harmless by those unfamiliar with his past. He is the only Debris outside of the
cult excited to have washed up on the Rim. If he truly wished to leave, he could
find a way–but he’s fascinated by this place and has been compiling extensive
research. They can be found in his tea house which is hidden to the south, where
the dunes have been raked into the swirling patterns of the Vitriol Garden (D5).
Aethir is currently time-locked by The Heliophage (B10), an otherworldly obelisk
that rises from the swamp. The other Debris haven’t seen him in some time but
lack the courage to go looking for him.
Aethir knows Agnes Scratch. She was on the other side of the horrible war that
disinvested him of his interest in violence and power. What cooled Aethir’s rage
stoked Agnes’, and if he learns that she’s on the Rim he will prepare for her wrath.
THE SALT-PACT
A misguided cult of sea-worshipers who believe that the Salt Mother wants to be
restored to Her physical form. They think if they help they’ll be granted all their
heart’s desires, but they are deeply, terribly wrong. If the Salt Mother is bound
back into Her bones, She will be furious and tear the Rim apart in Her rage. It
took a lot of work and a lot of pain to become the ocean the first time. She has no
desire to go back to the way things were. The Pact live in the hollow corpse of their
god, which they call the Embrace (E1-13). They work feverishly at a marshy Dig
Site (B9) trying to uncover more and more of the Salt Mother’s body. The Pact
hunts and kidnaps wherever it can, harvesting fresh meat to fill the Embrace. They
need a properly prepared vessel before they can call their goddess home.
14 THE DEBRIS
AGNES SCRATCH
The cult of personality at the center of the Pact. An enigmatic figure with a face
half-burnt from some past battle (Her scars were given to her by Aethir, and she
remembers him well). When she arrived, she came preaching a gospel of total
subjection to the Sea. We are her prisoners and playthings, and should delight in
her whims. Naturally, anyone claiming to know why The Debris had been
consigned to their fate turned a few ears. She got quite a following.
RIPLEY
Once a council-member of the sinister Sanguine Hive, now he turns drowned men
into chattel for Agnes. It is a lowly post for one such as he, but she is the best chance
he’s found for escape. He will be patient. Wait for his moment.
DEE
A covenant gladiator given new purpose by Agnes Scratch—now chief among her
most devoted bodyguards and champions, The Chosen.
CARDINAL VERMILLE
Once the bishop of a mighty, gilded church, Vermille knows exactly how to cleave
himself to power. He’d rather not think about how his robes were dyed red but he’d
prefer to be the one giving the sermon rather than the one gutted at the end of it.
OVERSEER GANT
A forger and a coward. Somehow convinced Agnes that he had the know-how to
run the excavation of the Salt Mother’s foot, but doesn’t have a clue what he’s
doing. His men don’t respect him and Agnes is growing impatient with the pace
of his progress. He’s living on borrowed time and he knows it.
THE DEBRIS 15
 Lapis,
Beryl,
Amaranthe;
Peridot & Pearl.

Ten million sea-smooth gems carried down by

the current & scattered in a technicolor crescent of shoreline.
They wink in the eternal dusklight, half-pound rubies & peastone
Every palmful of sand holds a jewel fit to set
a queenly diadem. The work of an hour will net a
baron’s ransom, but what to do with it? Even a
dragon’s hoard is worthless on an island made of
treasure, and the Salt Mother does not let lightly
go of the things she’s claimed.
What’s Hers, is Hers.
Monuments and statuary stand scatter-shod
atop the windy dunes. Wispy roots peek out
from under cracking slabs—capsized temple
walls snatched long ago by the foaming
hands of a greedy sea. The basalt eyes of
dead kings stare down on passers-by and
any who disturb their sandy hoard-tomb.
Those stern faces well portend the
grip of desolation on this isle.

13 6 DUNES DUNES 17 4
 d1: cimmaron bay
This is where they reawaken, Saltborn.
They come to their senses slowly, gagging spumes of brine from sodden lungs. An
empty stretch of beach greets them, the sand sewn through with sea-smooth gems.
The sharpened teeth of the reef jut up from the surf, hungry for shiptimber.
POINT OF INTEREST: The splintered stern of a caravel pokes up from the
sand, a broken mast swaying limply in the breeze. A copper nameplate bolted over
the ruined rudder, caked in verdigris: “The Mouth of Man”. Jacquese’s old ship,
uncovered. A hole in the hull leads into the hold. A door to the captain’s cabin hangs
open 15 feet above: the room is trashed and the wall barely holds weight. A loaf of
stale lotus-tack is hidden in the mess. Nourishing, it numbs the pain of homesickness.
HIDDEN GEM: A cairn. Five flat stones, stacked carefully in a corner of the
half-sunk hold. Buried beneath: Treasure neatly wrapped in fine sailcloth (RA).
D2: the rookery
3
18 DUNES
D6 HAPPENINGS:
1-2: A Glutshark (FM) runs itself roughly aground, snarling at the
Saltborn. Its belly splits, and a writhing clutch of worthless viscera
hauls the wretched uncarcass along, whipping out at anyone close
enough to pull into its wildly yawning maw.
3-4: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Dunes (FM).
5-6: Blink and you’ll miss it: for a spare moment, the
sun flashes green on the horizon, and the beach is cast
in sickly jade. A new face is due to wash up on The Rim.
A tarnished brass cage the size of a humble keep towers drunkenly above the
Dunes, nestled at the edge of the treeline. It was lost overboard of the Dread Ship
Suspiriorum in a time long past when men still feared the fleeing of the sun. It is
a masterwork of its time, & was once the mews of a winged behemoth: The Rukh.
It now serves a lowly post as shelter for the Debris. They are modest and drafty
accommodations, but there’s plenty of space for the Saltborn should they want it.
POINT OF INTEREST: An ostentatious coin slot fused onto the rusted bars. It
refuses any monies the Saltborn might have on them, but if they insert the Aeldish
Obol (T8), it emits a soft, resonant hum. Deep within the Salt Mother’s depths the
loss recovery systems onboard the long-sunk Suspiriorum cycle up, hearing the
homing call of its long lost cargo. Repair protocols initiate. A course is laid in.
HIDDEN GEM: An endtable shoved behind a mildewed bunk. A vellum map atop.
It’s a rough sketch of the Rim, hastily scrawled with symbols that mark...danger?
Treasure? Your guess is as good as any (I suggest printing out the map at the end
of this book and marking it up yourself). Some tools scattered atop: a rusted
pitsaw, picklock’s glasscutter, salt-bitten sextant, & phial of Willow’s Tears (RA).
HAPPENINGS:
When the Saltborn first approach, Jacqeuse emerges stagger-step from the cage,
prying a seed from a nearby banyan root, & hailing them between salty bites. He
welcomes them inside, introduces the other Debris & lights a merry fire. In future:
1: 1d4 Salt Pact Cultists (FM) on a raid, they plan to abduct & flee without notice.
2-6: A passing Debris lingers. They share a rumor. Maybe they want something.
DUNES 19
d3: a cemetery
disturbed
Solemn tombs and ornate stone markers lay scattered in the shadow of
The Tangle. Rotten incense coughs a fog across the ground, weeping
from a stern, regal face carved bas-relief into a cenotaph. All traces of
a name effaced by the soft cruelty of the sea.
POINT OF INTEREST: A second modest bone
yard, hidden within the first. Shallow graves. Simple
wooden crosses. This is where the Debris bury their
own. Gale was once laid to rest here. Bron the
Bastard, Togg and many others. No longer. The
graves lie empty—ransacked. Drag marks and
talon tracks lead into the thickly knotted treeline.
The Ossuwary’s (FM & T4) work.
HIDDEN GEM: A golden censer set in the
mouth of the cenotaph. The rattle-leaf whisper
of an imprisoned mist-wraith—the source of
the incense. Desperate to escape, it will trade
knowledge about the stolen bones for freedom.
HAPPENINGS:
1-2: 1d6 Crypt Stalkers (FM) stalk the Saltborn,
hopping from headstone to headstone.
3-4: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Dunes (FM).
5-6: A desecrated crypt, the doors cracked open &
bones looted. They left the Treasure (RA), though.
24 DUNES
d4: the phantom
chorale
The reef creeps up out of the bay, twisting in whorls and hollows. At high
tide, ankle-deep seawater covers the area. The wind hums softly through the
coral and a host of ethereal, stony voices join together in melancholy song.
POINT OF INTEREST: A wild, high pillar of Staghorn Coral
spires from the jagged coast, constantly pounded by surf. 100 feet
up the slick and leaning slope, the Polypine Crown (RA) hangs
precariously from the highest bough of the incarnadine tower.
HIDDEN GEM: An eyelet in the living rock slips down into
a hidden grotto bathed in sickly light. The home of Drowned
Myrka (FM). She wants to drown everyone she meets, but
most especially Rahvd. He drowned her in his past life, to foil
their arranged marriage. She followed him here to return the
favor. If you bring him to her, she will reward you with the
three Treasures (RA) she keeps in her pool. Best not to get too
close, though. She really likes to drown people.
HAPPENINGS:
1-2: A swarm of Psychoptic Nettles (FM) wink like paper
lanterns in the twilit bay, a silent accompaniment to the
coral’s song. The lights lull anyone who watches too long
into a hazy reverie. “Come to me,” they seem to say.
“Closer, now. Closer. Walk into the surf. Keep walking.”
3-4: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Dunes (FM).
5-6: Another voice. A meandering under-harmony to the
humming coral—rough and less sure of itself. Follow it
and find Ur. She murmurs a wordless song of loss. The
Mockingbird sits nearby, enraptured.
DUNES 21
 A labyrinth of pitted iron and

D5: the vitriol D7: billets black basalt. Tall, mouthless

effigies jut carelessly out from
the ground in winding clusters. It’s easy to pick up stragglers here—once you leave,

garden
A wide stretch of low hills, sand raked
into a series of intricate spirals. The
air is laced with a hint of sulphur.
There’s no sign of the artful gardener,
but great care must be taken, lest foot traffic ruin the delicate patterns. Three
you’re likely to find a familiar bit of statuary wherever you go, always stood just a
bit behind you. “That wasn’t here when we came in...”

POINT OF INTEREST: A marble shark-hunter pitching his harpoon. A crude

exhausting nights filled with dreams of snake pits and coiled chains await anyone
boorish enough to trudge on in heedless spite of this vandalism.
POINT OF INTEREST: A single cloud hangs motionless above a well-
manicured Bonsai in the very center of the garden ringed by eight rough, volcanic
boulders. Drag marks show the path each stone takes as it shifts across the dunes.
HIDDEN GEM: If the stones are returned to their original positions, the overhead
cloud opens up and a silk rope descends. The teahouse of Aethir, the Ashen Mage
(TD & B9) is nestled in the billows. His home is empty, but in perfect order.
Celadon china & jars of dried mint wait unused. Lush papasan are set out to recline
in. Vivid, woven prayer rugs lie betwixt. A thorough search uncovers a mystical
hoard: the Mossy Bident & Judas Rope, as well as Aethir’s Notes (all RA).
HAPPENINGS:
(Only outside of Aethir’s Teahouse) 3-4: Wandering Monsters; Dunes (FM).
font is filled by water trickling from his pinprick wounds. A drink from the basin
halves damage taken for 1 hour. To drink twice, though, saps strength instead.
HIDDEN GEM: Three Delphic Snails (FM) in elegant painted shells. Each snail
nods to a stone laid before them: The first, a nap of flint, grows hot whenever lies
are spoken. The second, a hollow soapstone, lets its holder ask 10 questions of
tomorrow. The last is no stone at all, but instead the petrified eye of Za’argaash
Woe-Fiend, a demon prince who seeks his lost eye zealously. The snails smile sagely
at any choice, but if a second stone is taken, they wail. If not silenced quickly, the
Sybil Wurm (FM) answers their cries.
HAPPENINGS:
1-2: A Colossal Tortoise trundles slowly by, humming a sea shanty and totally
oblivious to the Saltborn. A friendly enough fellow, and happy to provide a bit of
free advice on the Dunes. His only price for information is some fresh seaweed, but
knowing the violent proclivities of the Rim’s marine life, the task might prove fatal.

1-2: The spirals lull you into a deep
trance. Reawaken on a random hex.
Each of the Saltborn have a equal
chance of gaining: nothing, a random
wound, or a random Treasure (RA).
5-6: A Trapdoor Komodo (FM) hides 3-4: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Dunes (FM). Starving, weak & desperate.
‘neath the swirling sand. It’s scales
whirl together in a mimic of its home. It 5-6: Lost in the maze. Waste half a “day” but roll twice for Treasure (RA).
can feel shifts in the dunes as light as
footfalls, and its teeth are coated in
sulfuric acid. Treasure (RA) in its lair.

D6: a chitinous
barge
A small, rocky inlet on the outskirts of
the Billets where driftwood remnants of
sunken ships wash up. Mostly worthless
rot, but occasionally a strong rope or
scrap of banded iron gets spat out by the
tide, and Jacquese comes by to collect. HIDDEN GEM: That’s no driftwood!
A tidy hunk of Ouroboran Ebony (RA).
POINT OF INTEREST: The shell of
a giant Gemcrab, carapace thick enough HAPPENINGS:
to withstand the rocky reef, hollowed 1-2: Jacqeuse’s forgotten fishing rod
out and fashioned into a makeshift raft. lurches from its nook at the shoreline.
Jacqeuse spends a lot of his time here, A bite, and more than he bargained for.
piddling about. He’s the only one left A Sea Wolf (FM) has hold of the hook!
who still dreams of escape. Left to his
own devices he’ll spin his wheels, never 3-4: Wandering Monsters; Dunes (FM).
judging the craft to be seaworthy. All it
really needs is a good sail, a strong 5-6: Jacquese has a new tale—overlong,
rudder and a brave crew. obtuse, and an utter delight.
22 DUNES DUNES 23
D8: midnight’s pit
The statuary garden abruptly gives way to volcanic ash and wide slabs of masonry.
Watchtowers & storm-walls protrude from cooled swirls of lava. Temples once
tossed into the stony sea now sit unsteady on steep bluffs and the roofs of their rival
sects. The cryptic silhouettes of obscure gods leer down at a world that has forgot
to worship them. The Debris will never come here. They shun this place.
POINT OF INTEREST: A thin cave yawns twixt the ill-fitting embrace of two
frozen waves of magma. The chasm creeps ever downward. All lights dim and
darkle. The walls break open, spewing sharp angles of obsidian—ten thousand
shadows reflecting into each other. Sounds slip across the cavern faces, twisting
familiar tones to alien timbre...yet these disquieting presentiments are never broken
by the release of combat. No outward threats lurk in the cloak of The Pit.

The only thing waiting down here is you.

HIDDEN GEM: At the deepest eddy stands a perfect wall of black glass. All who
gaze within draw out a single, true intuition of their nature. This revelation will
always be of of practical import when considered carefully & without bias. If any
of the Debris peer into the mirror, they see…

Jacquese: The truth of his curse, breaking it instantly and sapping the mirror of its
powers. Unburdened of his nocturnal ramblings, he redoubles his focus on escape.
The Twins: Their vicious cycle of self-hatred and projected disgust. The straight
line from their arrogance to their financial failures. (This does not inspire change.)

Rahvd: Every petty cruelty he has ever committed, all superimposed and branded
into his mind. He becomes convinced that others have seen his deeds in the glass.
Moves first to destroy the mirror, and then to kill any who have used it.
Ur: The danger she has kindled by abandoning her bone-charm.

Mockingbird: Black Glass.

If the Vantalak (T3 & FM) were to catch its reflection
within the onyx, it would be forever transfixed. It would not
look away to fend off attack, nor to save itself from starvation.
HAPPENINGS:
(Only of outside the Pit)

1-2: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Dunes (FM).

3-6: Across the bay, at the Rim’s corresponding

northern point, they catch sight of the Heliophage
(B10), its lights dancing across an island of
floating swamp reeds.

24 DUNES DUNES 25
 The scent of overripe persimmon steeps heavy in hot air. The black roots of
the banyan, stained by stagnant water, shoot up and splay into capillary webs.
Each ivy-laced gnarl creeps up, up, up the trunks and out into a knitted
canopy some twenty feet above. Only the lightest dappling of sunset sneaks
down past their thorny grasp to warm the buds where lilac star-flowers burst
from damp bark. The face of every violet bloom turns to follow any passersby.
Whispers. Whispers in every shadow. They call her name.
This is the realm of Dame Malfaisainte—The Exalted Maw.
The swamp is hers. Though she feigns the dignified sovereign,
her rule is the rule of fang and claw. Subjects send daily tribute
in offerings of their own living flesh; a sacrifice to her unending
hunger. Like clockwork, she gorges on penitent meat. Sated,
she discharges a hypnotic brew that flows down from her court
to flood the boggy earth. It creeps into every damp corner,
twisting whatever it touches. Sick-sweet spice glints in the still
water, eddying itself into secret patterns. For those disused to
the potency, even a sip sends the waking world spiraling away.
In the swamp, you find yourself in lock-
step with a rhythm you can’t even hear.
Walks become marches. Gasped breaths
fall into tandem. Even the trees sway to
the humming of the earth. Within the
Dame’s domain, your mood is bent to fit &
match her temper. Her soothing sludge
seeps into every pore. Its vapors coat your
sinuses; the insides of your mouth. Only a
matter of time ‘til you dance to her tune.
26 BAYOU
D4 EFFECTS OF MALFAISAINTE’S EXCRETIONS
(Re-roll daily, affects every living thing in the Bayou):
1) OPIATE: Sedate, Lyrical, Meandering.
2) CANNABINOID: Relaxed, Forgetful, Philosophical.
3) AMPHETAMINE: Frenzied, Paranoid, Hyper-focused.
4) HALLUCINOGEN: Disassociative, Antilogical, Ego Dead.
The locals have spent their entire lives saturated in this ever-
shifting, psychotropic reverie. Like her, they’ve grasped the tongues of man. Some
wax as eloquent as the Dame herself. Lesser beasts cough awkward speech from
unfit mouths. Clever, too, have they grown...though not half so clever as their
mistress. It does not do to disesteem anything
that makes its home in these muddy waters.
It might be smarter than you are.
Speed in the Bayou is halved when on
foot, & the narcotic effects of the water
double for anyone who spends their
time wading through the sump.
Encounters are also more likely
for the boatless. Waders
make for easy prey.
BAYOU 27
 Deep pits in the swamp, dug out long ago by the
B1: the bloated dock B3: drowning lurching heat-throes of a Dame in her youth. Its

The sand here has compacted into a

dense salt flat. At the treeline, the hard
ground gives way to soft marsh and
HAPPENINGS:
1-2: Is that a voice? Deeper in, a little
ways past the treeline? It speaks in low,
pools waters are stagnant, murky, sauna-hot & waist
high. A perfect spot for hunting. Unwary waders
may find themselves falling (or dragged) in.

still water. A ruined jetty sprouts from
the morass, stretching over the lip of
the swamp’s edge. A lone canoe waits
here, bobbing merrily in the murk.
POINT OF INTEREST: A Whale-
bone Blade (RA) driven deep into a
scarred and chum-soaked workbench.
HIDDEN GEM: A scum-bitten rope
runs from a rusted dock-cleat down
into the water—another canoe mired in
the muck. A bite taken out of its hull
requires patching. An old lockbox hides
beneath the seat. Treasure (RA) inside.
worshipful tone: “May her teeth be ever
sharp. May her craw be ever glut. May
her eye pass ever over me. Ignore this
worthless morsel not fit for fine palate.”
3-4: Wandering Monsters; Bayou (FM).
5-6: 1d6 Toothpick Jacana (FM) with
clutches of hatchling legs sprouting
from their chests like wet boughs. They
were ejected from The Dame’s court for
some perceived slight & stumble around,
suffering withdrawal and starvation in
the absence of her heady presence.
They’ve grown over-used to the taste
of tithed flesh. Seeds will not satisfy.
POINT OF INTEREST: A salon of wide, flat stones with D6 adolescent Gharial
Viscounts (FM) basking, occasionally getting up to practice death-rolls on each
other in the steamy water. Distant nephews of the Dame. Superficially polite, but
dripping with the casual predation that the moneyed classes always reserve for
their lessers. They see the Saltborn as an opportunity to test their skills for real.
HIDDEN GEM: A hardworking crew of nutria are collecting dead wood in the
area. If followed, they take the harvested roots back into a clay cave that descends
below the swamp. Elenet (TD), a mossy swamp giant, dwells within. They are
squeezed into the back corner, manning a forge hot enough to warm the water and
stones high above. Evasive about their work. they will only offer services if
pestered. Enough time spent down here will make it clear that they and the nutria
are forging arms for an uprising. They want to overthrow the tyrannical Dame.
If the Saltborn make friendly, Elenet will ask them to find Cyreth’s bones (E3) in
the Embrace. She’ll forge something special if they do. The nutria mention the Dig
Site (B9) if strategies for breaking in are brought up.

B2: cat’s cradle HAPPENINGS:

1-3:A skeletal and gnawed trailblazer at the bottom of a death well. Their journal
is mostly rotten but can answer one question that the Saltborn have about the Rim.

Trees unravel to lace into each other; an intractable knot of wet bark. The twisting 4-6: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Bayou (FM). Have them join the Gharials.
snarls of wood are treacherously rotten, often eaten fully through—hollowed out
by the slow progress of a termite colony. Locals love to come & dig up bug-snacks.

An unmanned boat can barely clear the lowest boughs, but there’s nothing for it—
Saltborn must climb or brave swampsump choked with silt. Slow going either way.
POINT OF INTEREST: “His Most
Wicked Hands”. Sister ship to the wreck
spiring up from Cimmaron Bay. It hangs
in the air, cradled by twists of root that
scoop around its hull and run though its
cannon-ports. The rudder’s still strong,
but the sails are shredded. On the gun
deck: twin 18-pounder cannon (rusted), a
Black Iron Strongbox (RA), and the
crotchety revenant of Capt. Horatius
Cruikshank (FM).
HIDDEN GEM: Wrapped in a briar at
the center of the Cradle: Cateye (RA). A
thief’s best friend. If taken, the roots
begins to tighten their grip, squeezing
closer & closer til the Saltborn leave the
area (or are spaghettified). It’s unsafe to
return so long as you possess Cateye.
28 BAYOU
HAPPENINGS:
1-2: A strangled cry, then silence.
Wet blood coats the roots. A patch of
lemur fur floats on black water. That
was close—must be your lucky day.
3-4: Wandering Monsters; Bayou.
5-6: The Vantalak (T3 & FM) stalks
from above, winding through the
trees like a snake and waiting for the
right moment to strike. It’s in no hurry
and keeps an eye out for stragglers
and loners. Its bite is apocalyptic and
its claws split gluons, but it won’t leave
the higher branches. Prey must meet
it halfway. It refuses to approach the
still waters down below. That dark
mirror sheen calls much too sweetly
not to take seriously.
BAYOU 29
b4: the bone tree village
The lemurs of the swamp have trained the latticed roots to grow into braided
bridges and wicker tree-houses. An entire city dangles above the Bayou. Every
surface of the village is ornamented with bones. New ones are brought back by
those who survive the Dame’s daily tithe. They are the relics salvaged from her
holy effluvium. Washed by penitents, they are carefully ornamented by the knives
of village elders. It is the highest honor a lemur can bestow to let an outsider wash
crocodilian shit from the skull or hip of a relative.
The residents of this village are friendly and helpful but have trouble
communicating. Their elevation above the swamp lessens the deftness of their
man-speech. They are often frustrated when talking to outsiders who don’t pick
up on the subtleties of their spartan syntax. They’ll offer a simulacrum of any
service you could expect from a meager village if fair trade can be agreed upon.
The lemurs are in endless war with the Ossuwary (T4 & FM), who wants to steal
all their sacred bones. They try to recruit all outsiders to help repel the siege.
POINT OF INTEREST: The High Carver’s cabana. She is called Aka, and she
likes doing esoteric bullshit just to seem like a mysterious old witch but will admit
as much through a raspy laugh if called out on it. She’s a safer source of knowledge
and advice than Malfaisainte, but not quite as well informed.
If the Saltborn kill the Ossuwary and have proof, she’ll present them with the
Capitular Collar (RA) in an extravagant ceremony.
HIDDEN GEM: A Salt-Pact cultist bound and gagged in a storage hut. Caught
trying to nab a few lemurs for meat. The villagers don’t really know what the Pact
is about, and were planning on letting them starve back here. If freed, they know
the Embrace (E1), the Dig Site (B9) & the God Wound (T9) but will only use
this knowledge to trick the Saltborn into a meat-harvesting trap.
HAPPENINGS:
1-6: A raid! The Ossuwary (FM) leads a strike team of 2d4 Bone Beasts. They
strike at a weak point near the edge of town, tearing down chunks of skeletal
framework and killing anyone who tries to stop them. The lemurs will fight back,
but are doomed if left to their own strength. If the tide turns, the Bone Beasts will
fight to their own destruction but their shaggy captain will retreat, given the chance.
30 BAYOU
b5: the hazy The old growth has been cleared by the
sweeping of a colossal tail and a regal
promenade canal carves through the swamp directly
up to the Dame’s Court. A steady stream
of mind-bending mist ripples down from her private lagoon. Carefully pruned
vines hang low, holding chandelier firefly colonies. They flicker in accompaniment
to cricket heralds raking out a shrill fanfare.
POINT OF INTEREST: A stately heron gives lectures on court etiquette. His
audience of would-be nobility sit in rapt attention, but his instructions are
nonsense. Just a jumble of jargon that leaves the impression, after a while, of
having heard only a stream of squawks and cackles. Any request for clarification
is met with an indignant “It’s simply not done, sir!”
HIDDEN GEM: A ladder leads up inside a hollowed banyan, above the smog &
out onto a hidden patio. There’s a long wooden pipe loaded with finely crushed cola
nuts. One hit slams you with enough caffeine to throw you out of any high short of
a coma. Some of the court bigwigs come here to blow off steam by getting sober.
HAPPENINGS:
1-2: Lemurs from the village, bearing their daily tithe on a litter-barge of familial
bones. The sacrificial victim is dressed in ritual finery and wild eyed, frothing in
a drug trance. In less than an hour it will caper happily down the cavern of
Malfaisainte’s maw. Until then it is to be treated like unto a god.
3-4: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Bayou (FM).
5-6: A swarm of iridescent dragonflies, flitting together in a hive-mind meditation
loop. They speak koans with the drone of their wings and can inject pure
psilocybin from their forelegs if threatened. They have something very important
to say but are unable to speak in clear, unambiguous language.
BAYOU 31
B6: the noble court of the exalted maw
A leviathan crocodile, basking in the POINT OF INTEREST: Grummal, Besides being a priceless antique, it grants long life and a royal bearing to
dim light of her private lagoon and a dour toad, greets all visitors. He whosoever holds it. The longer you have it, that more others will see you in a kingly
sighing clouds of psychedelic miasma. invariably gets more and more rattled light. She is unaware of the magic but will notice her royal power dwindling and
Dame Malfaisainte sits in lazy repose, by strangers’ inevitable ignorance of all put two and two together. When that happens, she will do anything to regain her
mouth wide and casting a mountainous the esoteric rules of courtly manner and lost power. If the wielder of the fetish can elude her for a week, she will have shrunk
shadow over her court. An entourage obeisance until Malfaisainte tires of his to the size of a normal crocodile. Before a fortnight passes she will be dead. Aged
of ibis titter gossip into her leathery ear bluster and eats him. Now the Dame’s to dust. Her melange will fade from the swamp and the Fahrvalak will be the only
folds. Toothpick Jacana clean rotting attention is set squarely upon the sapient beast left on the Rim.
meat from in between her rows of razor Saltborn, which they may soon come to
teeth. The lucky ones don’t turn out as regret. She speaks in a slow thunder- HAPPENINGS:
erstwhile snacks themselves. Snapping rumble contralto and every question has 1-2: A man swathed in blue robes smokes a long clay pipe and watches the Saltborn
turtles waddle through her haze, fresh a knife hidden at the end of it. She will carefully. He’s a Salt Pact member and will try to avoid conflict if spotted. The
rainwater in basins laid upon their soften, though, if the Saltborn feed her Dame doesn’t like killing in her court if she isn’t the one doing it.
backs. The courtiers schmooze & laugh ego and her gullet in a roughly equal
in the shade of her body, lolling to & fro measure. When satisfied, she is a truly 3-6: A timid Pangolin Knight (FM), wielding a sandpiper as an epee. Challenges
in a manic reverie of euphoria. powerful ally, but she is never satisfied any one of the Saltborn to a duel for the honor of his lady. Would never kill the
for very long. Royal palates grow used duelist.
A not altogether stately affair. to even the most decadent of oblations.
Every hour, on the hour, one of the She is a cruel regent. Mercurial. No one
swamp fiefdoms sends a drug-addled stays in her good graces for long, and
sacrifice ritually eaten by Malfaisainte, she’s the oldest, cleverest resident of the
producing the psychotropic musk that Rim—by far. She was here when the
seeps from her pores to bathe her court Heliophage fell & the Rookery washed
in a gloomy haze. All visitors are up. She was here when Ur’s people had D10 RUMOURS IN THE COURT: 6. Best keep well clear of the Cradle--
expected to offer a similar sacrifice. not yet come down from the trees. that place is a death trap. A chance at
1. Blue-robed weirdos have been at 7. Best keep well clear of the Cradle—
court recently, offering The Dame gifts tasty snack’s not worth the risk of
SHE HAS MANY SECRETS, PLUCKED FROM THE BEAKS OF SPIES: that place is a death trap. A chance at a
of “Rejected Flesh”. (true.) becoming one yourself (good advice)7.
—She knows what the Heliophage is, what it does, and that Aethir is trapped. tasty snack’s not worth the risk of
2. The lemurs are pleading for help A swamp giant used to come to court
—She knows about Jacqeuse’s curse and how to use the black mirror to break it. becoming one yourself. (good advice.)
with a vile bird that’s been trying to occasionally to plead with The Dame to
—She knows the safest way to cross the wine sea back into the mundane world. 8.
—She knows about the Charm Tree and how Ur can stop it. steal all their ancestral bones. (true.) relaxAher swamp
bloodgiant
tithe.used
She’sto not
come
beento
court occasionally to plead
around for a while (true.now commits with The
—She knows the Fahrvalak’s love of its reflection & what happened to its shadow. 3. The Dame created the Rim. All of
—She knows about the coin in the egg. Dame
herselfto relax
to muchher more
bloodextreme
tithe. She’s not
forms
this is her artifice and we each serve &
—She knows about the Heart of the Sea and of its nature. been around for a while. (true. elenet
of resistance).
stay at her pleasure. (false.) is
—She knows where the Crownwatch (E1) is and that the cultists use it regularly.
4. Up north, where the bayou’s waters 8. now Don’t
committed to more
mention the extreme
Dame
forms of resistance.)
Malfaisainte. It’s still a bit of a sore
She knows all this (and more), and guards her secrets jealousy. She’ll hint coyly at turn brackish with the rising tides, a
9. Times
subject must
(true. be tried
they gettingtolean. The
eat some
the edges of truth, but any real clues come at a steep price—her spies bring news second sun casts alien rays upon the
from every corner of the isle and her mind alone sees the whole picture. It’s natural, Exalted
meat sheMaw has done
wasn’t slowed her sacrificial
with. ).
mangrove shrubs. Anyone with spine
then, for the uninformed to think she’s the Salt Mother herself. The Dame would tithes frommust
9. Times beingbeevery
getting half-hour
lean. The to
enough to find it can escape the Rim.
be flattered by such an assumption, but even she is not conceited enough to pretend being
ExaltedonlyMawon the
has hour.
slowed(true.)
her sacrificial
to that throne. Greater gods than her have drowned in the Salt Mother’s wroth. (truth mangled beyond recognition.)
5. The toads of Stillwater Hollow keep tithes
10. fromSalt-Pact
Those being every
fellows half-hour
have been to
HIDDEN GEM: A golden fetish is stuck between two of Malfaisainte’s back teeth, themselves out of Malfaisainte’s jaws by being only
digging upona the hour bog.
nearby (true).Methinks
flashing occasionally as she speaks. If commented on, she will sigh wearily. It has the outstanding quality of their brew. 10. Those
they aim toSalt-Pact
uncover fellows have been
the long-lost ship
been irritating her for the last century or so, but the sandpipers aren’t brave digging
of CaptainupCruikshank.
a nearby bog. Methinks
(the dig’s real
enough to go back that far. She asks the Saltborn to help her remove it and It’s the Dame’s favorite tipple. (half-
true. auld lucas plays his part in they aimbut
enough, to uncover the lostistreasure
that reason off-base.)of
(probably) won’t eat anyone who crawls in deep enough to pry it out, but she cannot
help letting the lightest shadow of menace creep into her voice. If the fetish is protecting the clan.) Captain Cruikshank (the dig’s real
removed safely, the Dame will philanthropically gift it to her new subjects. 6. Don’t mention the ejected Jacana to enough, but that reason is off-base).
Dame Malfaisainte. It’s still a wee bit of
32 BAYOU a sore subject. (good advice.) BAYOU 33
34 BAYOU BAYOU 35
B7: stillwater hollow
A clan of toads brewing ale in the hollow of a poppy-moss tree—the only right-
wise tree on the island. The toads are in a constant state of revelry & strands of
fiddle waft through the area as rib-bones clack out jigs and reels. The clan tends
carefully to the moss, which they use to ferment their calming brew. Malt and
yeast are cultivated in toadstool vats. Sugar crystals are carefully plucked from
over-ripe poppy seed pods.

POINT OF INTEREST: The Hophouse is the nerve center of both the brewery
& the never ending party. A quartet croaks out bawdy refrains as they stir boiling
wort. Dancers massage seeds beneath their feet. Coopers beat out a cheery rhythm
with cask-hammers. The whole operation seems always on the verge of collapse.

HIDDEN GEM: Secreted in the clumps of moss, a wooden face with silvery eyes.
This is Auld Lucas, the kindly spirit of the tree-home whom the toads wish
desperately to protect. If discovered, Lucas will grant a boon or two in return for
putting a rose at the lips of the Saltborn. Ever after, the name Auld Lucas will
catch in their throats and his secrets will die unsaid.

HAPPENINGS:
1-3: A lost toad, trying to find his way back to the hollow. Shares a cask of Palaver
Ale (RA) with anyone who helps him stumble back home.

4-6: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Bayou (FM). They’ve gotten into a bad batch
that the toads tossed out. They’re ornery, but far from surefooted.
B8: the house pacific
Being so close to the Heliophage (B10), it is a true and peaceful night here. The
stars can be clearly seen in the water below and twinkling currents made out in
the sky above. A simple frontier chapel has been laid haphazardly upon the cliff
as if seized by the hand of God, inspected, and then dropped. Forgotten. The
door can be barred, and resting here leaves the Saltborn invigorated.

POINT OF INTEREST: A large stone basin that purifies any water. A sip
satisfies the body as a day’s ration. This power fades if put into any other vessel.

HIDDEN GEM: The holy bones of St. Rowan, whom no church counts among
their canon. Churches, however, do not make saints. Gods do. Rowan’s god saw
her die in obscurity as a perfect avatar of itself. It cased her body in holy glass
and hid it below the stones of the chancel. She holds a Prudent Scepter and wears
a Humble Diadem (RA). If taken, her bones crumble to dust and her church
soon follows after them.

HAPPENINGS:
1-6: The tranquil nature of The House quells all violence that might otherwise
occur. Roll on Wandering Monsters; Bayou (FM). The resulting encounter is
always peaceful. If the church has been destroyed, encounter proceeds normally
instead.

36 BAYOU BAYOU 37
B10: aethir
AND THE
heliophage
As the gentle curve of the Rim comes toward its northern
terminus, the last shred of sunlight dips back below the
horizon. Everything here is lit in the restless blue of
true twilight. The bayou is quiet. No crickets hum
elegies, no heron groan dry and low. Even the
wind sits still. Every lilac flower turns its face
to watch the sharpest bluff of the point in a
silent, cryptic vigil. A light waits winking there.
POINT OF INTEREST: Follow the staring
buds to the site of their attention to find a meteor
nestled in wreathes of purple blossoms, sat upon
a pedestal of knotted tendril roots. It is the
knuckle-bone of a stillborn star-child, spat out by the firmament & gobbled upsssssss
by the sea. It glimmers in the dark, dripping iridescent mirror-water. Flies, ants,
beetles & centipedes all stand still as statuary across its surface. Light pours out
from between the gaps, pulsing with unfathomable colour. Even a glimpse of this
alien sheen caught between gaps in the chitinous rind causes headaches and flashed
afterimages at the edge of your eyes. To see the whole stone uncovered would drive
any thinking creature into hopeless lunacy.s
The sun will not look upon the Heliophage. Wherever it goes, night follows. It is
the reason that the Rim is ever-bathed in sunset. It’s the reason no-one here grows
old. Time crawls in its presence...and dies at its touch.
HIDDEN GEM: A wizard is trapped here. Aethir the Ashen Mage (TD) sits in
the shadow of the star-stone, trying to gather the nectar pooling around its base.
Crouched beneath, he holds a Null Flask out to catch the drippings & the barest
hair of his cap-feather has brushed against the stone. That was all that it took.
He cannot move. He’s been collecting the nectar for the last 300 years. Aethir
suspected the time-bending properties of the Heliophage, but he was too eager to
collect the milky runoff. He trapped himself beyond the event horizon of the Sun-
Eater. Aeons may pass, but he will never move fast enough to let go.
The same will be true of the Saltborn if they get too close, but with patience and
guile they may save Aethir without dooming themselves. He’d be a grateful
ally, and is learned of many esoteric magical secrets. They’ll have an open
invitation to rest safely at his Teahouse (D5) and he’ll give his saviors a
single dose from his collected supply of Star Nectar (RA).
HAPPENINGS:
1-2: The Heliophage flashes bright! All magic-users learn a random spell.

3-4: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Bayou (FM). Called by the Heliophage.

5-6: Agnes Scratch (TD & FM) has come to settle things with vulnerable Aethir.
40 BAYOU BAYOU 41
 The gnarled tail of a world-skewering tree creeps out from the sand,
splitting into an intractable fist of roots. The banyan of the Bayou
were sparse & straight. These are possessed of disorienting malice.
They hate you. Want you to leave. The deeper you go, the tighter
they squeeze.
At the center of the knot the Tangle gives way to a
massive fossilized limb punching up through the canopy. The crook of an
arm? A bent knee? Hard to tell from this distance. It may be highest conceit
to even presume a form familiar to the children of men.The closer one comes
to this “Archaeolith” the more each living thing feels called to idleness.
In the shadow of the crooked mountain, both bark and beast are
oft turned to stone.
Here in this labyrinthine corpse of
a jungle, the Salt-Pact hide their operation. They seek flesh,
bone, viscera and sinew. All grisly fuel to reanimate their
beloved Salt Mother. They are tantalizingly close to the end
of their dark work, and toil tirelessly day & night towards its
realization. Every worthy sacrifice grafts more flesh on Her
bones. Each martyred cultist makes Her heart beat stronger.

Faster.
You are running out of time.

42 TANGLE TANGLE 43
T1: a howling entourage
A fairly forgiving stretch of the tangle.
Enough room to breathe. The air brims
with echoing peals of raucous simian
laughter pounding ears like an ice pick.
POINT OF INTEREST: If the hoots
are followed, find a chattering retinue
of Mandrill decked in golden jewelry
engaged in heated discussion. They
often feast on the bugs in The Cradle
(B2), and have gained a touch of man-
speech. Foul words & accusations litter
betwixt their babble. If interrupted,
they mock the Saltborn, pelting them
with overripe seeds. Taking this in
good humor (or even better, joining in)
wins them over. They’ll share rumors
and warn of local dangers. The leader–
a swollen, lank Orangutan–will bestow
some lesser Treasure (RA) from his
personal regalia as proof of his esteem.
HAPPENINGS:
1-2: A Salt-Pact cultist presents the leader with a particularly handsome lapis ring,
asking only for a lesser member of the retinue in exchange. The Orangutan really
has to think about it. It’s a nice ring.
3-4: Wandering Monster; Tangle (FM)
5-6: The monkeys scatter. The Vantalak (T3 & FM) is on the prowl.
RUMORS IN THE TANGLE:
(In hand signs and broken speech)
1. We’re all invincible! Tricked a god out
of its skin! (braggadocious nonsense.)
2. Swamp-flowers whisper the name of
their god-queen. (half true. flowers
aren’t the ones whispering.)
3. A shadow cat dens nearby. It eats
anything breathing and is drawn to still
water. (the first two parts are true,
the last is a misunderstanding born
of the vantalak’s vanity.)
44 TANGLE
The apes scatter if shown aggression,
leading pursuers into a clever snare. A
Giant Pitcher Plant is buried nearby
with a thatch trap across its mouth.
Anyone more focused on a jeering ape
than on where they’re stepping is likely
to find themselves tumbling in. The
stomach of the pitcher plant is highly
acidic, its walls are slick, and a swarm
of Phthoric Piranha (FM) have evolved
to survive in the caustic pool, nipping
at trapped prey. Saltborn preoccupied
saving a comrade may find themselves
shoved in by a cheeky Mandrill.
T2: the dust gallery
There’s an age on this place. Regret. HIDDEN GEM: A tunnel carved
The memories here are gone rotten. by hand—barely wide enough to slip
HIDDEN GEM: The Orangutan has
through. It goes down. Out. Away,
a secret cabana high in the root-tops of
A foul wind whispers through the but not home. Never home. It leads
a nearby hex (T6). If he’s threatened
hollow, kicking up flecks of ash. It's only unto the black and cold Heart of
and his plant-trap is foiled, he will flee
hard to breathe without swallowing the Earth. The empty underneath.
there. Follow to find Treasure (RA) &
at least a little bit.
a safe place to rest in the Tangle.
HAPPENINGS:
The taste recalls bad meat. 1-2: A voice calls out, twisted by the
cave’s stones. It comes from below,
POINT OF INTEREST: A cave, beckoning them down into the dark.
choked in roots, but accessible. Its
walls are covered in crude drawings: 3-4: Roll on Wandering Monsters;
Tangle (FM). Diseased. Weak. An
1. A tempest-eyed wretch sheds her easy kill, but contagious.
skin like a snake, using a dagger
to flay at the clinging bits. She is 5-6: For a while now this has been the
a storm on the inside. cave of a Pariah Bear (FM). Its body
2. A bruise of red whips burned is a pharmacological nightmare of
into a raw sky. The sun, you virus, infection, culture & parasite.
4. Blue-wearing people want bodies,
think. Drawn by a hand whose To touch it is to be made unclean. You
but will settle for you if you’re not
eyes never saw true daylight. will wither. Friend & foe alike will
careful around them. (true. The pact
3. A grinning smear of charcoal 10 shun you. Eyes will refuse to linger
isn’t picky where it gets its meat.)
feet across. Light falls into it. on your face. It will take more than
5. There’s a safe place in the swamp.
4. A wrinkled face, obscured as if water to cleanse this taint.
A stone nest that kills hate. (true.)
through heavy rain. The hint of
6. The tree with all the bones is bad.
a compassionate expression. A hard kill. Microstructural bacteria
It takes your mind away and keeps it.
5. A barbed fang copied over and rebuild it from almost nothing. Best
Then you bring it bones. (true.)
over and over in ritual contrition. burn the corpse, then your clothes.
TANGLE 45
t3: den of the It loves toying with prey, and is especially fond of riddles. It hints that winning is
worth their lives, though it will not outright lie (it NEVER lies, curiously):
Once there was another me who was my dear companion

vantalak
It’s impossible to enter this hex from any direction without seeing grisly evidence
of death. Bark stained black with old blood. Bones strewn about and picked wetly
We embraced at padded feet to dance through mossy banyan
But Other-me betrayed me–they would call before I came
And so I cast them off from me to never dance again.

I am not, though once I was,

(Its Shadow)
clean. Even the Ossuwary daren’t approach, despite the sun-bleached bounty. Grim gentlemen undid me
I wished to pull my covers back,
POINT OF INTEREST: A particularly tight braid of banyan roots explodes But godly men forbid me
outward to form an empty dome. In the center of the clearing is a soft bed of My architect now gazes down
meticulously plucked feathers. Wait. I know this place. By the drowned gods! Why With hateful eye & sneering frown
would you come here?! You fool! You have leave, now, bef—Oh. I wonder how he can abhor
A thing that isn’t anymore?
It’s too late. (An Open Grave)
What Virtue has the Broken Brick?
What Value lies in Waste?
What Profit can the Weakling give?
What Gifts are Careless Made?
The Broken Brick can Mortar make
And Excess wants Decay
The Weak are fit to serve the Strong
A Fool makes easy...
(Prey)

A voice like clockwork, so soft it could tread on a trap:
“well, well, well. look. what. the cat. dragged. in…”
The Vantalak (FM). A ten foot claw mark of void against the dusklight. Fur so
black your eyes read it as a flat surface. Impossible to tell how far away it really
is. Claws as sharp as scalpels and jaws that crush adamant like waxwork. It doesn’t
even cast a shadow. It is the perfect hunter and it has set its sights on you.
D4 LAST TIME IT ATE (Always feigns a full belly) :
1. Ravenous. 2. Peckish. 3. Why not a snack? 4. Really isn’t hungry.
When they solve that last one: “bravo!” it says, jaws unhinging; and eats them.
The Vantalak will happily swap riddles for a while. It loves hearing new ones. As
long as they play the game, it will scatter in little tidbits it has picked up. Laughing
that they ought to avoid the Charm Tree, hinting coyly at something that stalks the
Fossil Walls, and describing the Archaeolith as “that miserable shrew’s arm.”
Eventually it tires of the game. It always does. Killing is its only lasting joy.
Battle is lethal. Running is no guarantee, either. Its only weakness is its vanity. It
actively avoids its reflection. If it catches a glimpse of itself, it drops whatever it’s
doing to stare appreciatively, purring soft admirations. It can’t help itself:
“oh! what a striking midnight coat! what graceful dagger-claws!”

If tricked in this way, it will learn not to toy with the Saltborn. It will take them
very seriously, indeed. They will become its top priority, in fact.

HIDDEN GEM: Packed in the bed of feathers--the body of Let the Huntress.
Found her way to the Rim while stalking a Leviathan. Took to her greatest hunt as
soon as she heard tell of the Vantalak. She was overconfident and paid with her life,
but still wields: The Leonine Cloak, Vial of Sanguine Tears, Heartseeker (RA).

HAPPENINGS:
[Roll Every Ten Minutes]

1-2: Tense silence.

3-6: The Vantalak appears.

46 TANGLE TANGLE 47
t4: the charm

tree
The air is thick with the smell of rotting meat. A fungal membrane carpets the
ground. At its center is a hateful thing. Centuries ago, Ur was alone on the Rim.
She was the first. Then a stranger came, and she was afraid. She ran to the forest
and hid her greatest treasure, the sigil of her office: her Bone Charm. As the years
crawled by, the charm felt itself waning with disuse. It began to resent its master;
to resent all life. That was when it first formed a plan for escape.

POINT OF INTEREST: A sickly banyan root, taller than most—cloaked in

tatters of tea-stained bark. Strands of red string dangle knuckles & leg bones like
wet hair. Thin sheets of flayed flesh hang from its high boughs like delicate leaves.
Hairy white cilia sprout from every surface. Over centuries, the Bone Charm
poured itself into the tree that had become its prison and began to spread its
beguiling mold. Now the nearby creatures bring it gifts of tooth, of nail, of rib.
Stolen from their own bodies or rooted up from the gold dust earth. Some beasts,
coated in white fur, roam far and wide in search of skeletal alms to supply their
master. Any fool who slept beneath the grasp of its bows would be implanted with
these same spores and find themselves under the thrall of the Charm Tree.
Soon the Tree will be strong enough to tear itself from the rocky soil and
make for The Rookery. If this happens it will kill Ur and the rest of the
Debris. It will seize the Heliophage, for it is a bone and all bones owe
fealty to the spirit of the charm. It will thereby gain Chronomantic
powers, reanimate, and consume The Heart (E13). Once it wields the
corpse of the Sea, it will spill out into the mundane world, where there
are plenty of bodies to slake its thirst. Empires will fall. Worlds will burn.
The sun will hide its face from the doomed galaxy. Within a decade, all life
that once graced this plane of existence will be well and truly extinct.

So it’s probably for the best if the Saltborn stop it now.

HIDDEN GEM: A hole in the bark
barely wide enough to fit an unbent
arm. At the very back, fingers scrape
against a dangling fetish. Ur’s charm.
Removed by mortal hands, it will
dominate its new owner’s ego and
escape it’s rotting prison. Free, at last,
but mercifully vulnerable. For now.
HAPPENINGS:
1-3: A swarm of Defiled Fire Ants (FM)
well up from the ground, seeking victims
to stupefy and drag back to the Charm
Tree for reprogramming.
4-6: The Ossuwary (FM), if alive, waits
in ambush with two Bone Chimera (FM).

48 TANGLE TANGLE 49
T5-7 the fossil walls
Leave the machete. This is work for chisel and sledge. The roots of the World
Banyan have petrified—slate bark & opalized heartwood. They scratch at exposed
flesh, impale soft eyes. Hidden amongst the fossilized branches you might find a
crumbling, mummified marmoset or a frozen iguana. A stonemason’s menagerie.

Time spent here slows you down. Your breath becomes placid, your steps ponderous.
It’s all too much, so you stop. That’s when your skin starts to go hard. Your blood
thickens. Everything in the shadow of the Archaeolith turns to stone, eventually.

If the Saltborn linger here past an hour, start turning the poor bastards to statues.

POINTS OF INTEREST (ONE PER HEX):

A: A little town carved out of the jungle. Reed houses, a tannery, a blacksmith.
A family sat down to dinner. The smith at his anvil. His dog laid out on the porch.
Some Treasure (RA), too. All turned to stone, obviously. Frozen in time—forever.

B: A mammoth graveyard. Skulls the size of catboats. A few the size of taverns.

C: A trio of gorgons, bitten by the cruel fangs of irony. If rejuvenated they are
quite thankful (and rather embarrassed of their congealing effect on others).
They’ll invite the Saltborn to tea, and set up an elaborate mirror system to enable
safe and polite conversation.

HIDDEN GEMS:
Nothing to speak of. Time spent here is time doubly wasted.

HAPPENINGS:
1-2: There is a price paid by those that walk the Fossil Walls. A finger turned to
stone, or a precious blade crumbling into dust? A memory turned hard and opaque
as a marble bead? A promise changed, sculpted by the hand of a different fate?
Something else, perhaps, but something. Always.

3-4: Roll on Wandering Monsters; Tangle (FM). Half frozen, bleating desperately
for help. Half of it’s internal organs have already calcified. There’s nothing for it
but to show it a cold mercy.

5-6: The Fahrvalak’s Shadow (FM). Abandoned by its master, it has spent years
in this desolate ridge, playing twin to the stones. Now it has new prey to stalk. New
shadows to steal. Might be it could even find its way home.

50 TANGLE TANGLE 51
T8: the archaeolith
The Salt Mother’s corpse lies beneath the Rim—shed long ago. She is the sea, now.

Even gods must be allowed some sentiment. This is Her remembering place. A bed
for Her bones interred in all the little gifts of drowned men and shattered earth. A
place for Her to keep Herself, in case She changes Her mind.

The Archaeolith is a piece of discarded god-flesh, pushed errant up from its grave.
Turned to stone as a price for her apotheosis, then eroded by the unfeeling hand of
uncounted time. It was certainly once a limb. There at the base—fingers, right?
Well, they’re knuckles at least. Joints. I think? Best just to call it a part of Her.

Something left behind.

POINT OF INTEREST: At the peak—a thorny nest glinting in the sunset. The
fossilized corpse of the once-magnificent Rukh is curled inside. Nestled at the
center of this mournful sight is a ten-pound egg—the last of the Rukh’s nascent
progeny—turned to stone. If shaken, it rattles. The yolk holds an Aeldish Obol, a
coin of truly antique manufacture. Put in the Rookery’s Coin Slot (D2), it wakes
the long-sunk ship Suspiriorum. The charnel-ship will rise from the depths to
T9:
answer the call of its long-lost cargo. Other shiny baubles are woven into the nest: the god Behind the Archaeolith—a hidden clearing.
Roots are withered, limp and strewn across the
ground. A blight is laid upon this place. At the
wound
The Wayfinder, Need-some Chatelaine, 1d6 Godnails, & 4 Treasures (all RA).
southernmost reach of this southernmost hex,
CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN IS HIDDEN GEM: A crack at the very a cliff falls fifty feet to the crashing surf below.
A TREACHEROUS PROSPECT: pinnacle. A back door to The Prophet’s
Chambers (E12). Only wide enough for POINT OF INTEREST: In the shadow of the Archaeolith. A clutch of spindly
1. The air up here is thin. Heads spin, menhirs with a pitted iron spike for an extra finger. Coated in an inch of rust and
vision blurs—vertigo calls you down. one at a time to squeeze through.
ten feet tall. Too thick to clasp your own hands around. A small entrance has been
2. That’s no handhold—it’s the horn HAPPENINGS: dug into it, leading to a hollow shaft inside. This is the tip of The First-Made
of a fossilized yak. It snaps! [Only at the Peak of the Archaeolith] Blade—the ceremonial dagger the Salt Mother used to shed her own skin. The
s Salt-Pact have been carving away at the inside of it for quite a while, trying to dig
3. High up the cliff, they’re seen by 1-4:The Rukh’s nest is infested with it out from the center of Her heart. The scattered ferrous debris coats the ground
the Vantalak’s Shadow (FM). It will ravenous, fist-sized Dire-Mites (FM). like a layer of volcanic ash. Any who descend the shaft find that at the bottom of
surely hitch a ride once they descend. the excavation the Salt Mother’s intermittent heartbeats become unbearably loud.
4. A piton driven deep misfires in a 5-6: Roll Wandering Monsters; Embrace
(FM). Slipped through the crack. HIDDEN GEM: A set of rusted anchors are hammered into the solid stone of the
petrified nerve. Earthquake! bluff. A pair of strong rope ladders are tied and coiled nearby. From above, there
appears to be nothing but a treacherous, featureless cliff-face. If the ropes are
heaved over the precipice and a descent is attempted, they terminate at the height
of a monstrous stone face, frozen agape, staring out from the stone in an alien
scream. This far down, the seawater sprays everything slick. Slip past church-door
teeth and you’re inside. The Crownwatch (E1). Welcome to Mother’s Embrace.

Every Salt-Pact Cultist knows this entrance to the Embrace. They tell themselves
they’d die before they talked, but even among zealots martyrdom is a rare ambition.

HAPPENINGS:
1-4: The sound of combat, coming from inside that stone menhir! Say, doesn’t it
look like a thumb? The Saltborn find the vaulted ceiling of the Arena (E11-C).
Who knows what secrets they’ll overhear!

5-6: 1d6 Pact Cultists (FM) in the midst of a flaying ritual. Messy, odorous & loud.

52 TANGLE TANGLE 53
54 EMBRACE EMBRACE 55
So, you want to become the sea?
It’s a bloody business and no mistake. After all that, you’ve got to be so full of SENSORY TOUCHSTONES:
animus that death was never on the To enter the Embrace is to leave the Rim behind. Gone are gentle breezes and the
First, you’ve got to be a god, and there’s table. You didn’t even know it til this murmur of tide rolling in. This is a deep place. A strange place.
not an innocent soul left amongst that moment, but suicide was never even
thieving, murderous bunch of bastards. your goal. The other gods might die Looks: dark, gray and stained with blood. Any surface that wouldn’t map onto a
someday. You? You’re just here to break shell of the Salt Mother’s corpse is a pulsing conglomeration of meat & muscle.
Second, you must tire so fully of your your chains. You pour out of the mouth,
omnipotence that your utter dissolution and nose, and eye sockets you used to
think were yours, back when you Smells: like an abattoir.
is deemed preferable. Your holy flesh
must become an unbearable prison. needed sight and smell and teeth.
Sounds: Drips, echoing clatters, distant chanting, the squelch of boots in meat.
Next, you’ve got to tell the Stones of the Feels: Walls are rough and warty, like badly poured plaster. The meat is meat.
Earth to give up their First-Made You wage a quick war with the Stones.
Blade, and you’ve got to scare them They never had a hope. You’d beaten
enough that they do it. Now you’ve got them already, remember? You claim Taste: Iron on the tongue, like you’ve been running for your life.
the means of your own destruction. your territory in the places that suit you
best—the deep places; the dark places. PACT ROLL:
Forever after, you are a thing that can’t Roll 1d6 to see where
Good. the Pact’s leaders are
be taken for granted. Land is safe. You
are not. Land abides. You do as you any time the Saltborn
This next bit’s the easy part: Thrust please, promising many things. Succor, find their way into the
that ancient weapon through your own profit, prestige, freedom. Always at a Embrace.
heart. Quickly, now. It’s only pain. price, and you always collect.
AGNES SCRATCH:
1: Off to find Aethir,
This is what You were made for. wherever he’s hiding.
2-5: Sequestered in her chambers at
the peak of the Archaeolith (E12).
6: In the midst of sacrificing one of her
When the Salt Mother shed Her skin, it fell here and has slowly been (mostly) Chosen in the Dorsal Sanctum (E3).
buried in the ever-growing pile of pretty things She steals from the earthbound
world. Once She was free of it, Her husk began turning itself to stone—the secret
price of the First-Made Blade. For a long while it sat empty, Her glacially beating ARCHBOTCH RIDLEY: CARDINAL VERMILLE:
heart was the only bit of Herself that She left behind. It was Her only remaining 1-3: Supervising the resurrection of 1-5: Leading a lesser service in the
tie to the corporeal world. Undrowned in the Botchworks (E4). Dorsal Sanctum (E3). Few worshipers.
4-5: In the Gullet (E5) mocking one of 6: In the Sanctum (E3), watching Agnes
Her only weakness. the prisoners. Scratch’s sacrificial showmanship with
6: In the Sanctum (E3), watching the undisguised envy.
Some time later Agnes Scratch came to the Rim. She had lived a cruel life in service sacrifice with dull disinterest.
to the sea, paying tithes in blood and prayer and gold. The Salt Mother thought it OVERSEER GANT:
amusing to collect Her little sycophant and bring her to the Rim. That has proved 1-2: Out in the Dig Site (B9), watching
to be short-sighted, but She has always been prone to incurable impulse. Some PRIME CHOSEN DEE: the foot slowly sinking back into the
things once done, cannot be undone. 1-2: Combat training with her soldiers marsh with sweaty dread.
in the Arena (E11-C). 3-4: In his Office (E10), hiding.
Agnes made quick work of collecting her first devoted followers and uncovering the 3-5: Off on a raid of the Rookery (D2). 5: Back of the Sanctum (E3), waiting for
Embrace. Now the Pact works night and day to fill the Salt Mother’s shell with It’ll be a resounding success. Vermille to finish so they can talk.
pliant flesh, gristle and bone. The best, most worthy musculature is reserved for 6: In the Dorsal Sanctum (E3), being 6:In the Sanctum (E3), averting his eyes
Her heart, which beats stronger and quicker with every passing day. sacrificed. Her time finally came. from the grisly procession.

56 EMBRACE EMBRACE 57

E1: crownwatch
for the Pact. Anyone this deep in the Tangle is sure to be one of their own. The jaw
opens to a mortal plunge & a rope up to T9. A cavernous throat leads north to E2.
A: RICKETY WATCHTOWER
Built up along the inside of the face so
the upper eye socket can be used as a
kill-hole. Manned by a squad of Chosen
(FM). 50/50 chance that they hear any
prolonged combat up at T9 & prepare
to ambush climbing infiltrators, but are
otherwise easy to catch off guard. The
Embrace hasn’t been attacked before.
If Agnes is in the Sanctum (E3), Only
one lone guard stays behind. The rest
attend the sacrifice.
B: PITFALLS
Ten feet deep. The narrow ones only
catch legs, the big ones eat you whole.
` been caved in where neck meets shoulder—The Salt Mother’s wrist broken through
58 EMBRACE
The hollowed-out skull of an
empty god. A useless outlook
C: TIME-WORN MOLARS
Comfortable, for what it’s worth. Hard
& smooth. Off-duty cultists often come
here to catch a bit of fresh sea-air. The
smell down there is overpowering.
D: SHADOW-LEAKING CHEST
A half forgotten store of five expired
Void-Mines (RA). If the combat turns
against them, the Chosen will go for the
chest. It detonates if opened in haste,
messily unmaking everything in a 20
foot cube & putting the whole Embrace
on high alert. Careful cleanup & repair
could salvage two mines—three if the
Saltborn feel particularly lucky.
E2. a tracheal
vestibule
A cavernous throat-turned-antechamber, growing wider as it deepens. Man-tallow
candles burn a sickly green in tarnished brass sconces every few feet. The roof has
from the outside. This leads up into the hollow interior of the Archaeolith (T8)
where it towers out of the ground and up above the root-tops of the Tangle.
E: GRISLY RELICS G: ORNATE IVORY DOORS
Eight wizened corpses with craters cut Set into a wall of pulsing larynx tissue.
into their chests line the ridged alcoves Leads to the Dorsal Sanctum (E3-A). It
of the hall. Each is laid reverently on a is locked. Agnes Scratch holds a key.
low pedestal woven from the delicately Another hangs from a peg on a wall in
plucked eyelashes of countless martyrs. the Officer’s Board (E11-B). A mural
These are the first of the Chosen, who is carved into the bone—a ruined body
gave their own hearts to jump-start the bound in chains. Ringing this, a series
pulse of the Salt Mother. Other than of intricate painted friezes:
their identical wounds gaping wide they
are immaculate resplendently dressed: 1. A golden urn.
veils of fine silk and cloth-of-gold for 2. It shatters, and the gold leaks out.
their shrouds with sapphires over their 3. An ocean forms.
eyes. They stink of ritual ointments.
4. Thin figures flee across the newborn
sea, hunted by crowned men.
F: STAIRS OF PLUCKED TEETH
5. The hunted figures mend the urn, fill
Shellacked, sanded and polished. Left it with fresh gold.
leads up through the collapsed ceiling
to the Arena (E11-C). Right goes up 6. The sea rises up to crush the hunters.
another flight to a sealed sphincter door 7. A celebration amidst the dead.
that opens on the Officer’s Board (E11- 8. The bones rise to serve the revelers.
B) when a Chosen’s ring spike is thrust
into its center and twisted like a key.
EMBRACE 59
e3. the dorsal Athehouse of putrid worship built into
hollow left behind by the collapse E4: the pit harvesters
of long-atrophied lungs. Here, in the
sanctum bosom of their absent god, the Salt
Pact gives thanks, praise and flesh in
equal measure. If the most recent Pact Roll resulted in Agnes Scratch leading a
End of the road for many a sad bastard.

A clutter of clanking, screaming,

sacrifice, the Saltborn encounter Salt-Pact Cultists and Chosen (FM) here at triple
the normal encounter sizes. If it’s just Vermille, a few Cultists snooze in the pews.
A: IVORY DOORS
To E2-G.
B: ALTAR OF THE DEEP
Made from the spinal column of Agnes’
first sacrifice: Cyreth, the coal giant
who carved & polished Midnight’s Pit
(D8). They were Elenet’s (B3 & TD)
spouse and were a gentle soul killed
horribly at the hands of a pitiless foe.
To this day, the brutally severed helix
of vertebrae leaks spinal fluid, and the
awful congregants anoint themselves
daily in this holy gore. A true miracle.
At the other end of the spine, Cyreth’s
skull raises into a lectern. A slot like a
smooth keyhole is hidden in the soft
palate. During rituals, under the cover
of thick votive incense, Agnes slips her
athame into this crack and a magical
gap opens in the meat floor that leads
down to The Heart of The Sea (E13).
C: A COLUMN OF RUST
The First-Made Blade intersects this
room near the altar, a leaning pillar of
corroded iron. It is marred with deep
gashes—one for every faithful Chosen
to have given their heart to the cause of
the Resurrection. It is coated in these
marks, new ones covering over the old.
D: GIANT STONE COFFERS
Two, At the back of the hall. On either
side of the door to the harvesters. Filled
with the blood and the meat of penitent
cultists. It is their personal tithe to the
great work of the Prophet.
E: CRUMBLING RIB-BONE PEWS
Five foot high & unpleasant to inhabit.
Filled, during rites, with genuflecting
Cultists and solemn Chosen. All eyes
face forward when Agnes gives liturgy.
Vermille’s audience is inclined towards
distraction. He never did have quite the
same touch for eloquence or charm.
Fa & Fb: SMOKE AND GROANS
Trickle up from E5 & E6, respectively.
No one pays them notice. Bones lashed
into crude ladders descend through the
oleaginous floor & the occasional botch
or turnkey comes up for daily prayers.
G: SHITTY WOODEN DOOR
To E4. The steady hum of muffled
screams can be heard when an ear is
pressed to the boards.
Ha & Hb: GALLSTONE ARCHES
Mortared rather impressively into twin
pointillist bas-reliefs of a world-shaking
Tsunami. Within, two sets of stairs. Ha
leads to the Barracks (E11-B), where a
clay urn full of salt-water waits at the
top—any devout Pact member would
have a sip. Hb descends suddenly to E7.
hissing, rattling, death—the grisly core
of the Pact’s meatmaking operation. A
hyper-speed abattoir with no particular
discernment as to what gets butchered.
Man, beast, bird, otherworldly horror,
or sapient jelly. If it’s got meat, they’ll
put it to good use.
I: EXSANGUINATORS
A ruddy medusa of brass needles and
limpid tubing sucking hungrily at the
many veins of its victims. Doesn’t leave
a singe drop behind.
J: RUSTY COMBINE
Worked by massive cranks. Gleaming,
whirling metal decloaks flesh. A hunk
of bone & sinew spat out the other end. M: VATS
One breaks brittle bones down into
K: BLIND BUTCHERS paste, the other makes strong bones as
They work by feel and instinct, getting hard as starsteel.
in all the spots too delicate for machine
work. Muscle in one pile, tongues and Na & Nb: MINESHAFTS
cartilage in another. Teeth ripped out Lead to E8 & E9 respectively. Floors
in a minute or less. Toenails, fingernails, leveled off with a rough aggregate of
gums & hair. Each have their proper keratin: nails, hooves, claws, horns. A
place. Eyes are plucked out and popped small set of tracks run deeper into each.
in waiting jars. This last is done with There is always a wet, iron mine cart at
an especially jealous fervor. the mouth of Na. Nb only has a cart if
the daily meat shipment hasn’t headed
L: GUT SLURRY POT out for the court yet.
Just exactly what it sounds like. Smells
of sour milk and rich meat.

60 EMBRACE
E7: meat-stuffed E9: the sinistral path
left arm The rails careen and hurdle down the length of
the Salt Mother’s spindly left leg. It’s dark
The limb that plunged the First-Made down here. If they use the cart, it’s a madman’s
Blade through the Salt Mother’s chest. ride sure to get out of control and likely to result
Time past, you might’ve been able to set in injury. If they walk, roll for an encounter
up a rope system and belay down to the and, if yes, the cart comes barreling their way
hand below, but this entire arm is now loaded full of meat and howling cultists.
filled with a harvest reaped from the
Pact’s victims. A pillar of fused bones
runs up the core, just where mortals
keep their funny bones. The Ossuwary
E10: overseer’s
might well swoon if it ever heard tell of
such a horde.

Encounters are twice as likely here and

are always with Forsaken Flesh (FM).
officeThe hollow of the left foot.
Cramped, since so much space has
been allotted to the everyday
A: WINDING FLESH RAMP traffic of workers, Undrowned and
Back up to E3-Hb. Chosen bearing ton after ton of the
Dame’s daily tithe. The furniture
is of fine quality, but stubborn
rusty stains have seeped into all of
E8: meat-stuffed the wood, immune to all scouring.

right leg Well

that
H: WORN MAHOGANY DESK

that
made,
Well made,
betrays
andandwith
withthe
it’s having
betrays
the tell-tale
tell-tale rail
been been
it’s having lootedlooted
from
This leg was once the target of a dig a from
ship. aCertainly nice enough
ship. Certainly to have
nice enough to
similar to the one ongoing at B9. When been
feel atowned
home inbythea office
well-to-do captain.
of a well-to-do
it was realized that the right foot had Papers
captain.blanket
Papersthe desk, the
blanket eachdesk,
peppered
each
been accidentally severed and was with figures—inches
peppered gained &gained
with figures—inches feet lost
&
currently located under The Court of to
feetthe
lostswamp. It readsItlike
to the swamp. readsthelike
listed
the
the Exalted Maw (B6), the Salt Pact’s casualties of a pointless
listed casualties war. war.
of a pointless
excavation efforts shifted to the left leg
and this one was filled up with blood Gant’s coat hangs from his chair. In the
and flesh and bone. If you dig it out E: STACK OF ART FORGERIES breast pocket, a bundle of incriminating
deep enough, you find an old barracks A Vandt, an Arns-Kellicot. Look here, letters from Vermille. He and Gant are
and mining equipment but it’s a hell of a Moirot! Excellent work, every one. the only cynics in the high ranks of the
a lot further in than you’d think. This was Overseer Gant’s trade before Pact. Vermille is a leech & Gant’s a
Agnes got him. His subtle eye is now coward. Neither will volunteer risk.
B: WALL OF FLESH bent to the task of excavation, but he’s
Packed floor-to-ceiling as tight & dense not half so talented as a digger. They are desperately trying to find a
as a holiday sausage. Leaking. way out of this cult shit, but are at a loss.
F: TRACKS Neither are clever enough to formulate a
C: TRAPDOOR To E9, headed back towards E4-Nb. bloodless coup nor are they brave
Filled with colorful bottles of all shapes enough to be the first ones to stick their
and sizes. Ridley’s Hoard (RA). For if G: A WIDE GAP necks out in open rebellion. They’ve
he has to take control of things here. Sun shines through it. Leads out onto each been trying to goad the other into
a pulley lift at the Dig Site (B9), where taking the first shot, but so far no luck.
D: DUSTY RAIL TRACKS cultists ferry rejected godflesh to the
Lead back to E4-Na. court of Dame Malfaisainte. Perhaps they need a push?

64 EMBRACE EMBRACE 65
 Within the hollow Archaeolith a bent house
e11: the is built. Rickety keratin staircases twist up E12: the prophet’s chambers
shantylimb through a shamble-town of cartilaginous
apartments & chambers. Unsafe, to say the
least, but the Pact doesn’t seem to mind. They’ve cobbled together a cramped home
Agnes keeps her home at the highest promontory of the Salt Mother’s corpse. Atop
the winding stair, the uniform bone pillar erupts outward into a warped, cancerous
up here, and it’s getting more cramped all the while. The same slow process that roof. Climbing through a drooping portal, you’ll find yourself in the most private
eventually led to the chain reaction de-fossilization of the left arm and right leg is room of the Embrace. Strands of gossamer-thin bone run from floor to ceiling in
starting to take hold here. Globs of pulsing meat are forming on walls where no a skein of unresolvable complexity. The joint of the Salt Mother’s arm is stitching
cultists have deigned to slather flesh. The rock solid wall-anchors that some floors itself back into usable form. Further proof that Agnes’ plans are coming to fruition.
rely on are shifting to the gelatinous texture of muscle. The Embrace is running
out of space to live in and once the Pact has lost its last bed they will know: no rest In the areas where the strands are thin, Agnes keeps little pockets of domesticity.
until their god stands before them. A plain bedroll and thin pillow. A tea set and campfire. A wing-backed chair and
a shelf of purloined books. Small comforts to keep an iron will well-tempered.
A: BARRACKS C: ARENA
Bunks stacked four high and stuffed The Chosen battle in their god’s cupped F: COMPLEX BRASS TELESCOPE
with moldering feathers & moth-eaten palm. A fight’s always to first blood— Pointed straight up at the vaulted roof. If the
blankets. Still the best spot to catch a used both for training and to resolve eyeglass is consulted, sleuths discover that the
bit of shuteye in the Embrace. disputes amongst the ranks. device looks up: through the stone above, through
wide miles of dusk sky and then back down onto
A long mess table seated with barrels D: SPIRAL STAIRCASE the land of the world that they left behind. Careful
runs the length of the room. The Pact An ivory pillar ringed in manipulation allows a perfect bird’s-eye-view of
are vegans–if it comes from an animal, spiraling petals of fatty, anywhere the Saltborn think to name.
it goes either to the rebirth of the Salt vein-choked steps. Leads
Mother or, if rejected, as a bribe to nauseatingly high up
the Dame. Eating it is a waste. the inside of the peak G: A FORTUITOUS STRONGBOX
to The Prophet’s A good opportunity for the Saltborn to
B: get their hands on something useful they
B: OFFICERS’
OFFICERS’ BOARD BOARD Chambers (E12)
lost or missed earlier (wink-nudge).
Where
Where Ripley,
Ripley, Dee
Dee & & Vermille
Vermille lay their far above.
lay their
heads. heads.
Gant Gant
sleeps sleeps
in his in Dee has
office. H: A PLOT REVEALED
his office.
a desk Dee she
where has charts
an oak out
deskher plans Missives scattered across an ebony desk.
where she charts out hernight
for snatch-and-grabs, plans assaults, They reveal many things: the coming
for
and snatch-&-grabs,
other ploys to keep midnight
the harvesters targets of Pact raids, the next Chosen
assaults, andtoall
full of grist her various
process. Ripley’s got a to be put to the blade, Gant’s progress
ploys
journalto under
keep his
the pillow
harvesters
detailing the in excavating the Salt Mother’s lower
full of grist
methods andtoweaknesses
process. Ripley
of making the half (nil); but one file jumps out at the
keeps a journal
Undrowned. beneath
There’s a keyhison a peg Saltborn—a folio from Dee revealing
pillow detailing
that unlocks thethe methods
ivory doors &at E2-G. that the daily bribes to the Dame are
pitfalls inherent in making the more than an arrangement of mere
Undrowned. The last pages convenience. The Pact have been fattening
seem blank but are written in her up and are about to pull off an assassination
invisible ink–The weaknesses to score the biggest pile of flesh left on the Rim. In
of his fellow officers. There’s a fact, if you’re reading this right, the attack on the Court’s about to begin!
key on a peg that unlocks the
ivory doors at E2-G. I: AN OIL STUDY OF AETHIR
Dignified, calm and kind. Hard to paint him in any other light, really. Three long,
ragged tears run down the length of the fresh portrait. The Overseer has to paint
a new one every week or so. The Salt Prophet shreds them when she’s stressed.

Behind the frame, a gap in the wall leads to the Archaeolith’s Peak (T8).

J: SPIRAL STAIRS
Back down to E11-B.

66 EMBRACE EMBRACE 67
E13. the heart of
the sea
A snug hollow in the tightly packed meat of the Sanctum’s floor. The Salt Mother’s
heart hangs suspended in the grip of the First-Made Blade. Wax paper sheets of
sacrificial muscle are pasted across the surface. Every few minutes the stone organ
contracts & air is sucked from the room by the percussive clap of Her comatic pulse.
The Heart has almost been fully returned to living musculature. One or two more
sacrifices ought to do the trick. The width of possibilities and depth of implications
stemming from the Saltborn’s actions if they find the Heart are too vast to plan
for. They must be taken as they’re given and the effects ought to match the
particularities of the players’ plans.

BUT

Here’s a couple of ideas that seem likely to me, and the effects that I think they
would have (Feel free to prove me wrong):

#1. The Heart is revived through further sacrifice. Seawater rushes into the
Embrace through the Crownwatch. Only the very clever or very lucky can escape
un-drowned, and that’s probably not even worth much in the long run. When the
Salt Mother realizes she’s been revived, she will tear her domain apart in her fury.

#2. The Heart is revived by using the Heliophage’s Star Nectar (RA). Slower
than #1, but the same effect. Takes about 24 hours for the chain-reaction to fully
revive the Heart. If a revived portion of the Heart is eaten before then, The Salt
Mother is killed and the consumer becomes the sea.

#3. The Heart is stopped, destroyed or turned utterly to stone. The Salt
Mother is destroyed and her mantle is dissolved. Navigating away from Glimmer’s
Rim becomes trivial. The same is true of all seas. They are no longer something to
be reckoned with or feared. They are now something to be conquered. None will
ever again look on swells of saltwater with awe or terrible romance. A beautiful
and horrible thing has been destroyed. Only the mundane is left behind.

#4. The Heart is stripped of Agnes’ fresh sacrificial flesh, but otherwise
left alone. The Salt Pact’s work is undone. The heart slows back to it original
diurnal pace and the intricate hallways of bone and blood slough off from the
fossilized framework, rejected. The meat slurry pours out through the Salt
Mother’s skeletal maw, carrying with it the spurned cultists that had, until now,
called this shell their home. This is closest result to what the Salt Mother would
wish for herself. If she is made aware of these happenings, she will feel she owes the
Saltborn a boon. She will surely want to pay it quickly back and in such opulent
overcompensation that there can be no doubt that the debt is settled.

68 EMBRACE EMBRACE 69
aftermath
This is, of course, a transitory place. They will leave, eventually. The How of it is
important, but it is not the end of the story.

The easiest and fastest way off the island is A PRICE TO BE PAID
to help with Jacquese’s Raft (D6), but ‘off Half is a good place to start with, I
the island’ doesn’t mean the same thing as think. They can talk their way down
‘home’. No matter what direction the from there, but not to zero. Loyalty
Saltborn sail from Glimmer’s Rim they is worth a lot. Blood is worth more.
will find themselves quickly pulled into an The promise of a tithe is a nearly
apocalyptic squall with a deep maelstrom salvatory offer but beware: The Salt
at its middle. Surely, they still hold a few Mother has ways of ensuring that
somethings gathered on the Rim. That is their promises are kept.
all the Salt Mother’s property. While She
might be convinced to let a few house-guests go, they aren’t going to slip out with
the good silver in their pants. There’s a sliding scale here. They don’t need to give
away everything, but shouldn’t insult Her (and She’s easily insulted). The more the
Saltborn have done to please Her, the more inclined She is to let them get away
lightly, and an oath to worship her is tantalizing. Things didn’t go well with the
Salt-Pact, but She misses some things about Her past life and She’s not against the
idea of folks going around chanting Her name and throwing tributes into the sea.

If the Saltborn manage to summon the Dread Ship Suspiriorum, it’ll take them
wherever they want to go, but they’ve got to figure out how to work it and that’s
pretty hard to do with all the abyssal stowaways and extraplanar ghosts trying to
eat various bits of their soft tissue.

If the Salt Mother is courted before they leave the Rim (via careful manipulation
of the Heart, a captured Agnes, or making a sufficient nuisance/spectacle of
themselves, etc.) they are on better terms to talk with Her. She hasn’t caught them
slipping out the back door—they just made themselves worth paying attention to.
If they are especially clever or convincing She can put them anywhere a seatide
touches, carried through Her infinite depths like an ark of bulrushes.

A resurrected golden Rukhling (the egg from T8 plus the nectar from B10) could
carry them up through the Heart of the Sky and back to the mundane world.

The Dust Gallery (T2) of course could bring them home, if they made it through
the arterial death trap of the Heart of the Earth.

I’m sure your players will come up with something mad and brilliant that spits in
the face of all these expectations. That’s kind of the point, really. So long as they
don’t feel like the Salt Mother let them off easy, it’s good.

FALLOUT
I get that by its nature this is an in-between adventure, but if your game lags in
the future unresolved threats from your time on the Rim can make good
complications to put a hitch in player plans: The Charm Tree emerging fulsome in
its power, The Salt Mother resurrected and furious, the First-Made Blade’s
spreading fossilization turning mundane seas to stone, Dame Malfaisainte escaped
and looking for her stolen fetish, the Vantalak tracking prey across continents, etc.
70 AFTERMATH AFTERMATH 71
D20 RANDOM TREASURES
RICHES & ARTIFACTS
Give them gold, yes. Silver, too. Jewels and
jewelry, but also oddities of a purpose alien and
obscure. Something to get the gears turning:
1. Half a human head, split along the profile and
shellacked. A steel funnel is fused into the
crown. Liquids poured inside swirl through the
circuitous tunnels of the brain and spill out of
the mouth, ear or nostrils. Every procedure or
system devised to predict the correct path fails.
Guesswork always succeeds, though.
2. A pair of elaborate tubular earrings. If the
wind catches them right a rich, melancholic
chord hums softly out, resonant in your skull.
3. A box. Opens into a game-board with stained
crystal pieces and impenetrable rules. If left
open for long enough, it begins to play itself.
4. A hexagonal brass talisman Four buttons are
set into adjacent side-faces such that the most
intuitive method of operation is to brace it in
the palm of one hand and press one with each
finger. When used, a wicked barb extrudes
from both faces to medicinally bleed the user.
5. An amphora sealed with red wax. The wine
within purges sad memories & soothes aches.
6. A human thumb set in polished amber.
7. A shin-high porcelain jester with a gold key set
into the back of its neck. When wound, the
poor thing dances itself apart.
8. A foggy blue monocle in a velvet case. Sees a
quarter-second into the future.
9. An hourglass, but the sand goes up.
10. An enamel fetus with royal-cut amethyst eyes,
delicate mother-of-pearl fingernails, sharp
little jade teeth and a peace lily umbilicus
sprouting from its belly. Cries if shaken.
72 RICHES
11. A platinum nut with a core of molten gold. When
planted, grows a tree with fruit like moons glowing
through a mist-cloud. Withers if not watered daily
with a pint of liquid mercury.
12. A silver spoon with a tiny blue gem set into its
bowl. The jewel melts in any hot liquid, releasing a
powerful neurotoxin.
13. A skull dipped in tar and left to hang upside down.
The dripping pitch forms the mockery of a crown.
14. A drop-spindle with a long, hollow needle for its
hook. Draws blood and spins any yarn into thread
of gold for as long as it takes the reservoir to empty.
15. Green brass dice. Heavy. No matter how forcefully
they are thrown, they do not roll. The face that hits
the ground stays down.
16. An engraved and verdigrised spyglass that looks
into a steel-walled laboratory, always from the
same angle. A wizened astromancer putters around
doing work at respectable hours and (given enough
time) will wind up looking through the glass on the
other end. His eye is a rich black filled with stellar
pointillism. This sight unnerves him and he throws
a cloth over his end of this multiverse connection.
17. A straight razor with a lapis handle. It gives a
perfect shave every time, save for the fact that it
always nicks you once—on the neck.
18. A whirligig. If left in strong wind for an hour, spits
out a bead of compressed air, milky and nacreous.
19. A jar of sepia formaldehyde. Inside, a dead thing
floats vague and half-rotten. Reptilian scales, thick
matted feathers, rodential teeth and a translucent
egg-sac. Inspires universal debate as to its origin.
20. A rusted iron dagger-haft with a sliver of broken
blade left behind. A single warm breath summons
an ethereal knife that kills ghosts. Ten minutes.
RICHES 73
 CAPITULAR COLLAR
Tarnished and humble. The wearer of the Collar is twice as likely to succeed when
trying to convince someone from a position of beneficence or entreaty.

CATEYE
Band of shining platinum, a stone the size of your thumb. A ring just begging to
be stolen. Once per day the wearer may treat a challenge involving dexterity or
trickery as though they got a perfect roll.

FINE SAILCLOTH
Just as it sounds. Well made and large
enough to shroud any mast.

GODNAILS
Rusted, simple and fat as railroad spikes.
Can be hammered into any surface. If an
innately holy or unholy creature is
pinned using one, they cannot remove it
and their powers are nullified.

GRAIL OF ABSALOM
A kingly cup inlaid with gleaming rubies.
Anyone poisoned using the Grail of
Absalom will know it immediately and
will use their last remaining moments to
blame anyone but their true murderer.

GREEN-GOLD CARCANET
AETHIR’S NOTES Suffused with a sickly radiation. The wearer
A careful documentation of Aethir’s time on the Rim. Contains a comprehensive ages half as fast, but takes twice the years
guide to the Dunes, as well as a hint to his current location in the Bayou. they avoided if it is ever removed.
AGNES’ RAIMENT HEARTSEEKER
Spell-casters wearing this robe may treat it as leather armor that confers no A pike carved from a burnt rib-bone. Treat
penalties. Those who worship the Salt Mother may instead treat it as scale armor as a +2 Spear with the following additional
and add one to all their saving throw bonuses. effect:
BLACK IRON STRONGBOX Leech: Whenever an enemy that grants
Inside—a neatly folded piratical flag, but the real treasure is the strongbox. experience is killed with Heartseeker,
Watertight, airtight and anything placed inside will never age; even food! you may reduce the damage of the next
attack that hits you by the damage you
BLINK DAGGER dealt the dead creature.
A blade of black ice. As a +1 Dagger, with the following additional effects:
HUMBLE DIADEM
Blip: Once per encounter, the wielder of the Blink Dagger may react when Simple twists of wrought-iron. It is beautiful
any creature within fifty feet of them attacks any other creature. They thanks to the artistry of the smith, not the
disappear and instantly reappear anywhere within the same fifty foot radius. opulence of its trappings. The wearer is easy
to forget. Their actions are disremembered
Scramble: The wielder of the Blink Dagger may spend ¼ of their max HP to or ascribed to others. Blame sheds away like
move each creature within 50 ft. of them to any other place in the same radius. oil off water, but fame fails similarly.

74 RICHES RICHES 75
JUDAS ROPE
100 feet of unbreakable silken rope that will animate at the command of its owner
with the intelligence of an average pet. It can tie itself to distant anchors, fetch
easily grabbed objects, perfectly bind prisoners and do anything else an animate
rope could reasonably do so long as one end is held by its owner. Every time it is
used, roll a D6 at the point that the ropes failure would be most unfortunate. On
a 1, the rope instantly de-animates and undoes any knots or loops or otherwise
fails. It cannot be used again for 1 day after this betrayal.
LEONINE CLOAK
Tanned lion-skin with a golden-maned hood. The wearer gains a regal respect
from all mundane beasts. If they can understand what the wearer wants and do
not think it could hurt them, they will help.
MOSSY BIDENT
As a +1 trident with the following effects:
Keen: Your base critical hit range doubles.
Bind: When you score a critical hit with this weapon, the creature is engulfed
by a wad of tangled vines. It tears its way free at the end of its next turn.
NEED-SOME CHATELAINE
A set of silver belt-chains filled with obscure tools. 2-in-6 chance that any given
gadget required for a task is hidden in its manifold chains. Once per encounter the
wearer can command the chatelaine to grapple an enemy within 10 ft. The target is
automatically grappled until at least the beginning of its next turn, when the
grapple is continued or resolved normally.
OUROBORAN EBONY
Cinnamon-scented wood that has aged for ten thousand years in the thaumic bogs
of the Shambledown Dwell. This is the wood that was used to make the wands of
old. The ones you hear about in stories. Maybe you could make one to match?
PALAVER ALE
A pony keg to you, but a fat bounty to the Stillwater toads. Shared, it makes
attempts at reconciliation, alliance and recruitment twice as likely to succeed. Buys
a boon from Dame Malfaisainte if given. She loves the stuff.
PELAGIC STAVE
Carved from the prow of the first seafaring ship to ever sink. Treat as a +2 staff
with the following additional effects:
Seawise: Wielders of the Stave cannot drown.
Flow: Spells that have water/ice as part of their effect can be cast at normal
potency by using any available spell slot.
Once per encounter, as a reaction to being hit with an attack the wielder of the
Pelagic Stave can cast TEMPEST ORB (See Agnes Scratch, FM) on the attacker.
76 RICHES
POLYPINE CROWN
A twisted diadem of ever-dripping coral. No matter where the wearer goes, they
hear whispers of waves breaking upon distant shores. The master of the Crown
gains the following abilities:
Stonespeak: The wearer of the Polypine Crown may ask a single question of any
terrain they stand upon. The earth is old, and its memory is long, but age
confers a certain queerness. Its answers are often impenetrable.
Sessile Masquerade: Once per day, if the wearer of the Crown stands still and
shuts their eyes, they may glamour themselves to blend perfectly into their
surroundings. Until they move or open their eyes, no scrutiny nor magic can
penetrate this disguise.
Calcify: Thrice, the wearer of the crown may point at a humanoid foe. The
target must save or be turned into coral stone, starting with their blood. The
third time this power is used, the Crown crumbles into dust.
PRUDENT SCEPTER
A black stone rod with a set of scales at its crown. Once per day, the owner of the
scepter may use the scales to represent two courses of possible action and the staff
will indicate which one benefits the most people. It is psychopathically utilitarian.
It would tell you to slaughter a child if it fed two beggars.
RIDLEY’S HOARD
A solution for each of the other Pact Officers, should it become necessary to clean
house. For Dee, a poisoned pomegranate. For Vermille, a copy of his blasphemous
private correspondence. For Agnes, a vial of Profane Ichor, which cuts a soul off
from their patron deity for 12 hours.
He didn’t bother putting anything together for Gant. The man’s so pathetic he’ll
probably take care of himself, before long.
RING OF THE WINE-DARK EYE
A real pupil encased in an amethyst band. If the hand that wears it is thrust into
clear water, the wearer can see the face of the person most likely to kill them.
RICHES 77
THE RIPPLE ATHAME
Bent and run through with seams of Damasque Steel. This is Agnes’ secret key to
the Heart Chamber (E13). It’s also a quality +1 dagger.

SANGUINE TEARS
Strong stimulant and euphoriant. Three Doses.
SCALE OF THE EXALTED MAW
The size of a buckler and unbreakable. In the Bayou, it’s a signet of free passage.
No one who pays her fealty will ever fuck with you. Elenet’s (TD & B3) probably
not going to be a fan, though.

STAR NECTAR
The silken drippings of the Heliophage. It is an unnatural discharge whose
full properties cannot be bounded, but one certain truth is that it dislodges
anything it touches from the fetters of time. Some possible results of using
the star-milk include (but are not limited to):
—Instant re-corporealization of the Salt-Mother’s Heart. She is coming.
—Reviving the egg (T8). Within a week, a Rukh of molten gold will hatch.
—Reviving Zarga’ash’s eye. It immediately grows a stalk that it uses to
jump into the face of its owner, consuming one of their eyes and replacing
it. Grants them Hellsight. (No idea what that means. You figure it out.)
—Restoring the “Mouth” or “Hands” to their former seaworthy glory.
—Aging the Vantalak into dust.
—Reducing Malfaisainte to mortal proportions, and retrieving the
swallowed fetish.
The nectar can (and should!) have fairly unpredictable effects and deeply
wide applications. Of course, they could always choose to save it and sell it
if they get off of the Rim. Any mage who recognized its worth would gladly
bond themselves to a mortal lifetime of servitude in exchange for the flask.
THE TARNISHED TORC
After the wearer is hit with a critical success from a weapon and the damage is
resolved, the weapon dissolves into rust, slag or whatever waste debris seems fitting.

VOIDMINES
Past their expiry date and leaking atomized antimatter. Set-and-forget proximity
mines if properly armed, but so old they’re liable to go off in your pocket with a big
enough jostle. When placed, it is a directional charge pointed straight up. If
stepped on it unmakes everything in a five foot cube above itself. No save. Nothing
left behind. Just eaten by the void.

WAYFINDER
A blunt dirk whose pommel is stamped with the brand of the Vegvisir. If spun on
its tang, points the way to the nearest road.

WHALEBONE BLADE
A humble scaling knife. As a +2 dagger with a further +5 to all attacks against and
damage dealt to marine life forms. The owner gains the enmity of all fish.

WILLOW’S TEARS
Strong painkiller & Soporific. Three Doses.

78 RICHES
Many thanks are due to: Ben, Benny, Brett, Daniel & Zach for strapping on their
helmets and diving in to test this thing out; the thrice-hundred patient patrons who
funded this book & caused it to be; Joe and David who helped write the song from
whence the first seed of Glimmer’s Rim was sprouted; my friends & family who kept
my keel from capsizing and who urged me to pursue life by my own compass; but
most especially Robbi Burns, whose art and time and talent and drive account for
a great deal more than half of this book’s worth. Thank you all.

This book could not exist without having first come: Patrick Stuart & Scrap Princess’ Veins of the Earth,
Chris Kutalik’s Misty Isles of the Eld, Pelle Nilsson & Johan Nohr’s Mörk Borg, Glen Cook’s Black
Company, Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles, and the music of
Sinoia Caves, Disasterpeace, Mark Guiliana, Pile, Protomartyr, Young Widows, Richard Dawson, Ovlov,
Donovan Wolfington, Spitfire, Dead Texan, shame, Loscil, Caspian, Origami Angel, Blessed & Converge.