Little Town
Designed & Written by Gustavo Coelho
You can purchase this game here.
For this session of Little Town, I decided to play around with the system a bit more. If you solo play tabletop RPGs, then you know this is what often happens. You have the idea of what you want and find ways to bend and twist the mechanics to fit that. For me, it was the idea of having another character I controlled connected to the mystery who could have parallel scenes to my protagonist. I have them sharing a Clock so as not to complicate things, and as you’ll read, they meet reasonably quickly. I was thinking of how Twin Peaks presented Dale Cooper as its protagonist, but many characters had side stories that didn’t always intersect with what he was up to.
April 19
Scene 1 – Time Limit 9
Location: Magnolia Marketplace in the Bright Hills town square, morning
Mayor Eugene Buckley stands in front of a stall holding a rubber duck Elvis, complete with a painted black pompadour and sideburns, a bedazzled jumpsuit, and a small toy guitar hanging off its shoulder by a piece of ribbon. A tiny pair of sunglasses has been meticulously glued to the duck’s head. Mrs. Blanchard smiles at him expectantly. The mayor is well known for his extensive rubber duck collection, which, over the years, has come to fill the shelves in his office at city hall. Additional shelves were requisitioned, so now, if you are standing in the center of the mayor’s office, a 360 turn will provide an unbroken view of a variety of rubber ducks, broken only by the presence of the door and one large window behind his desk & chair.
“I’ll take it,” Mayor Buckley finally says to the delight of Mrs. Blanchard, who informs him that it will be $15.
Richard Robertson is moving through the crowd gathered late Saturday morning for the Magnolia Marketplace. The annual arts & crafts fair is held in the town square, at the center of which sits the storied courthouse. Lucy Hayward is at her pottery booth, selling a clay planter she sculpted to resemble an armadillo hugging whatever the buyer chooses to plant in it. She assumes Richard is coming to bother her again and leans back after the transaction, eyes following him through the crowd. Then, he turns left and heads off towards the concession stands.
The smell of slowly smoked ribs wafted over the crowd from that direction. Richard approaches town conspiracy crackpot Mikey Fletcher, who is finishing off a complementary plate from Mrs. Grimes. She went to church with Mikey’s family when he was a little boy and feels a twinge of sadness when she sees what has become of him. She offers him a plate of food or a few dollars from her purse whenever she can. Richard taps Mikey on the shoulder, who turns around to reveal a smear of barbeque sauce on the left corner of his mouth.
“What’s the haps, Richie?” Mikey asks between bites of the square wedge of cornbread sitting beside the rib bones.
“I…found something last night,” Richard explains. “I made a drawing of it, and I think you may know how to help me?” Richard sounds very unsure, and internally, he’s freaking out. Everyone knows Mikey is “crazy”, but what if he isn’t. The things happening lately seem to hint that this craziness needs to be dealt with.
The psychiatrist pulls a folded paper from his jacket pocket, checks over his shoulder, and shows it to Mikey. It’s a reversed crescent moon with a lightning bolt pointing down from the right corner, the same sigil carved into the wall behind Richard’s filing cabinet in his recently raided office.
(Investigate – Strong Hit – Meet a friendly NPC who knows something about the case)
Mikey looks the sketch over while taking another bite of cornbread. He nods slightly. “I have no idea what that is.”
Richard’s anticipation drops into disappointment. “But I know someone who might.” Mikey points over at a stall selling custom-painted postcards of the region. “Mrs. Norman. I guarantee she can tell you about this one.”
Lori Norman is a former elementary school teacher at Bright Hills Elementary who now, in her retirement, likes to make tiny paintings the size of postcards. She’s been featured in the city paper and even by one of the news channels out of Nashville. Richard remembers that she works part-time as a voluntary docent at the Watkins County History Museum. Her family’s roots go back to this place for nearly two centuries.
Lori looks over Richard’s drawing of the sigil. From time to time, she makes a noise that Richard can’t quite interpret as recognition or confusion. Eventually, she looks up, using her eyes to direct Richard to the postcards and then to the tin box marked “Money.” She looks at him over the top of her bifocals. Richard gets the picture and fishes ten dollars out of his wallet, netting him two postcards, one depicting the Riverside Hotel just north of town and beside the North River that flows out of the state park.
Lori explains this is a fire moon, a mixture of water & fire. Lori remembers some folk knowledge about it, meaning that the flow of nature was reversed. But also that what was happening could only be found beneath the surface, in dreams. There’s a place Richard needs to go; he knows it, the place where his trouble began.
The postcard’s painting becomes real, and the camera zooms in as we transition to our next scene.
Scene 2 – Time Limit 9
Location: Riverside Hotel, morning
Dr. Jasmine Bradley steps off the elevator and into the lobby of the Riverside Hotel. Last night, she rushed to Bright Hills based on what she had seen at the observatory. Jasmine couldn’t sleep and the hotel bar had been open late into the night. Sitting there nursing a glass of bourbon, she struck up a conversation with Professor Brennan. He said he was on sabbatical from the University of Kentucky, where he worked as a historian of the American South. She shared what she’d seen and began to relate stories about the indigenous people who had lived in this area long before the European colonizers arrived.
Jasmine spots him waiting for her in the lobby, looking just as eccentric as he had last night. Thick black rim glasses, a pipe hanging from his mouth, and a tweed sports coat. Brennan waves her over and asks if she got enough sleep. Jasmine replies that she did but was excited to get out into the woods, as Brennan has suggested, to see if they could find the light source she saw last night.
Brennan begins talking about the moon rituals one particular native group was known to perform. They believed, he states, that where the twin rivers met would allow a spirit to ascend into the heavens where they could dance with the moon herself.
The drive to the state park becomes increasingly stranger as Jasmine can’t help but think Brennan has taken on a more sinister tone, peeking at her from the corner of his eyes while he drives. She suddenly feels that taking this drive wasn’t a grand idea. Staring closely at his face, Jasmine notices the spirit gum holding on to his fake mustache is losing its grip.
(Run Away – Failure – Mark 2 Instability)
Jasmine attempts to open the door and jump out when Brennan stops at an intersection. No luck. He’s made sure her door is locked from the inside. That’s when he pulls the mustache off, the glasses, and a fake rubber nose. John Phillip Taylor, Richard’s former patient, escaped the asylum. He produces a snub-nosed revolver from his jacket, pointing it at Jasmine with one hand while he steers with the other.
“Just calm down, lady. You’re going to get to see exactly what I told you.” Jasmine pushes as far away from him as she can get while in the car, hoping for a chance to make a run for it, remembering the pepper spray in her jacket pocket.
They turn off onto a gravel road into the woods and drive for about fifteen minutes. Brennan/Taylor stops in a clearing where Jasmine sees a large wooden box that appears to be embedded in the ground at a crooked angle. The image of a grandfather clock flashes into her mind.
Taylor points his gun and orders her to exit. He has Jasmine walk in front and tells her to open the door on the front of the box. Inside is an intricate mechanism comprised of gears, cogs, and rotating symbols. The symbols show phases of the moon but include phases and shapes Jasmine has never seen before. It’s all on something like a clock face with only one hand that resembles a lightning bolt.
Taylor orders her to set it to how she saw it last night. She does as he says. Then he says to press the button under the clock face. There’s a polished wooden button there that sticks for a moment before slowly emerging after being pressed. Nothing happens.
(Brawl – Strong hit)
Jasmine takes this moment to slip the cap off the pepper spray, whipping around and hitting Taylor in the face. He screams and staggers backward, putting his hands over his face. Jasmine grabs a medium-sized branch lying in the clearing and hits Taylor across the back of the head, causing him to fall to his knees on the ground. He gets up quickly and runs into the woods, howling like an animal. Jasmine realizes he has the car keys, and now she’s got to figure out how to get back into town.
Scene 3 – Time Limit 10
Location: Twin Rivers State Park, afternoon
Richard pulls into one of the Twin Rivers State Park parking lots. He found one close to the stretch of road where Liza was hit. He retrieves a backpack from out of his trunk. Slides it on and begins hiking in the general direction she ran from. He hopes this leads to something.
After thirty minutes of walking due north, he stops for a rest. Light glints off of something on the next ridge. Richard works his way there and finds an old pick-up truck sitting on blocks, tires removed. He figures this was left here in the 1950s or 60s. A crumpled-up shirt with black stains sits on the driver’s side seat.
(Investigate – Strong hit. Clue: Stained clothes, grease, or blood.)
He grabs a stick and lifts the shirt out through the broken window. A faint scent of lingering smoke hangs around the crumpled shirt, suggesting a recent, unexplained fire. Yet, within this smokiness are subtle hints of floral notes, as if the shirt has been exposed to a strange combination of burning flowers, but something else herbaceous mixed in, something Richard cannot place.
He kneels there, trying to figure out what this means. Then, a weight strikes him in a blur, sending Richard tumbling down the hill. It’s a person, scuffling with him. The world spins. His body bruises as it strikes the ground in a whirlwind. The figure pummels Richard with fists and rushes away into the woods. Through partially swollen eyes, Richard can see a tweed jacket as the person vanishes into the woods, howling like a wounded animal.
Scene 4 – Time Limit 10
Location: Twin Rivers State Park, night
Jasmine is lost and finds herself back in the moon ritual clearing. However, the wooden box simply isn’t there anymore. Neither is Taylor. The moon is bright enough that she can discern the outline of things around her, but no detail. She carefully steps through the woods, trying to remember the direction the car came from.
After a few minutes of walking, Jasmine comes to a hill. There are lights in the distance. She sits down and slowly scoots herself down it. At the bottom, she stands up and keeps moving towards the lights. Her feet hit something. She kneels down, letting her eyes adjust. It’s an unconscious man. Jasmine shakes him awake. It’s Richard.
She notices his backpack busted open during his tumble. There’s a crumpled-up piece of paper. She unfolds it and sees, by the sudden generosity of the moon’s light, a drawing of the same reversed crescent moon. Whoever this man is, Jasmine needs to get him to the hospital and have a nice long chat with him when he’s better.
Jasmine helps Richard to his feet, carrying him toward the lights. They turn out to be the street lights that line the parking lot. There’s only one car parked there. She tries his keys, it’s his car. Jasmine loads him into the passenger side and heads back into town.
The camera lingers. A squirrel scutters by. It stops by a tree trunk. It steps forward and vanishes into thin air.
Scene 5 – Time Limit 10
Location: Frost Memorial Hospital, rainy night
Jasmine brings Richard to Frost Memorial. He’s given a room, and the doctor checks his vitals. Bruised & battered but no severe injuries. Richard eventually wakes and can talk to Jasmine, thanking her for finding him and bringing him here.
She pulls out the drawing and places it on the hospital bed. She says she saw this in the sky last night. And then again on a…clock (?) in the woods. Richard doesn’t know what she means by clock. Jasmine says it’s not there anymore.
Richard explains a bit. About his daughter. About her friend suddenly behaving strangely. The break-in to his office, which he never reported to the police. Jasmine thinks something big is happening in Bright Falls; she has no idea what that could be.
There’s a knock at the door. It is Sheriff Moore. He does not look happy; something heavy weighs on his heart. Deputy Brooks stands behind him.
“Richard…I don’t know how to say this…but you’re under arrest for the murder of Alex Reynolds.”
To be continued…
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