Lakeina - D100 Lake rumours Vol 5

Four tables of rumours that might be true. This one is a hundred that are not, free, system agnostic, and each one printed with the person who tells it and who they tell it to, because a lie is a rumour with a face, and the face is the hook. In the earlier volumes a rumour led somewhere. Here it leads nowhere, and the scene is the liar: who needs this believed, who they need to believe it, and what happens to everyone when it stops being believed. The ferryman, to anyone who asks the fare twice: the far shore is painted on the mist. The priest, from the pulpit, once a year: nobody has drowned in this parish in living memory. The sexton, to grieving families: the lakeside plots are the driest ground. The lantern-maker, to customers: the hoods are for the wind. The coroner's ledger, in the expression column, in every line for two hundred years: peaceful. Some of these are tolls, some are careers, some are love, and one or two are public works, and the lake, which hears all of them, has never corrected a liar and has never forgotten one. The red rule, for the fifth time. True, about you, in your hand, tonight, and now: the nines are yours. Every red entry is a lie one of the player characters told, at some point, for a reason that seemed good, and it has been circulating since, and it has grown. The one you told a widow to be kind. The one you told the council under oath. The one you have told everyone, for years, about not being afraid of the water, which the water has believed, and intends to test tonight. Fifteen pages in the Lakeina house style, every entry labelled with its teller and audience so it drops straight onto an NPC. Readers of the earlier volumes will recognize a few of the things being lied about and will know, for once, which side of the lie the truth is on. No volume needs another. Free to use at any table and in your own published work. If a shore where everyone lies about the same water sounds like somewhere you would play, it exists. Lakeina is our complete solo roleplaying game of the drowned lake, pay what you want, the Red Letters are its adventure line, and volumes one to four of this table are on this same storefront, also free. Five hundred rumours, and one of them is true. The lake has not said which.