Re: Mykka

From: Alison Place <alison_place_at_...>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 11:59:46 -0800 (PST)

        More thoughts on Mykka. I went back and found the full write-up for this and the last post, so I'm mostly up to speed. Some ideas are contradictory, but I shoved them in to expand on the choices.

        The 'Sleeping Beauty' explanations are a no-go to me, as your people have almost certainly found and buried Mykka's remains already. So her original body is dust and bones.

        Madman's Table is infested with numerous spirits (over 20). The secret history is that a long-ago member of your own clan went there on pilgrimage and went mad, killing his family and hanging himself. Not necessarily relevant to this particular scenario, but it's never mentioned what the pilgrimage was. Anyone got any good ideas that would dovetail with Mykka?

        As the spirits, among others, of your own clan, that makes it even more likely that Black Oak (or whichever clan you've installed as neighbours) is related to your heroband. Maybe this was the secret cause of the split between the two clans. Plothook for later, perhaps.

        Up until now, everyone has been forced to make do with declaring it no-one's land. It would probably take the efforts of the whole tribe to finally banish the ghosts to wherever they belong. So it may be more than you wish to take on just now, especially as Madman's Table is definitely not in the heroband's tula.

        But, if the final cleansing of Madman's Table is made the ostensible, perhaps even actual, reason for going there, then embodying Mykka becomes a wonderful extra touch that needn't be suspected at all by anyone except yourself.

        From the point of view of appearances, if I were to go the pregnant woman plot route, I'd probably choose a woman who was in her thirties or forties, just to lessen the incongruity of suddenly having a fifteen to twenty year old daughter. Probably an experienced priestess, who has enough self-confidence to actually do the crazy thing that she's being instructed to do, namely give birth near Madman's Table. Likewise, it makes her father (and Mykka had 'Try to Get Back to Daddy' - 8w) a lot more plausible in age.

        If she's in the opposing clan, then your lot interrupting or seeing a powerful women's ceremony will take some amazing roleplaying, because I suspect that every Ernalda and Ty Kora Tek priestess and initiate in the clan will be running interference from the ghosts and praying for the safe delivery of the child. A fair number of their husbands will also be standing guard, making sure that no-one else interferes. The other advantage that I see to this idea is that there's no advance build-up in the home clan for the same ceremony. Handy if you have to run the scenario very quickly.

        Maybe the Black Oak women might secretly ask the Cyrling (?) clanswomen to help out.

        OTOH, if the woman is from your own clan, then how is she going to get to where she has to? A quiet escort through Black Oak lands, maybe rendezvousing with some of their women? A desperate mother-to-be sneaking off and having to be brought back by the band before she's found and abducted by the other side? A negotiated progress, fraught with opportunities for the temporary truce to break down?

        I don't know anything about the history your campaign has generated, so all the options that I describe may not be possible. But I hope that these extra musings spark something satisfying for your players and yourself.

Alison



Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

Powered by hypermail