Werewolf: the Text
Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:26 pm
Game One:
The blackness of night lies like a scratchy woolen blanket over the tiny
hamlet of Zahnburg, a town of only nine souls, nestled in the deep
forests in the northern mountains of the Duchy of Hundenstein.
Hundenstein's principal exports are decorative beer mugs, intricately
carved cuckoo clocks, and police dogs. Its primary industries are
tourism and police dog training. It is renowned for its jagged peaks,
its dark evergreen forests, its relative inaccessibility in the Internet
Age, and its world-famous police dogs.
And tonight in Zahnburg, nine people sleep snuggled in their houses
under the cold, clear skies, the actinic stars, and the uncaring moon.
Only eight will awake.
~~~
The sun rises over Zahnburg.
Sleepily, the inhabitants begin to go about their daily rituals: the
trip through the freezing cold to the outhouses, stoking their hearth
fires back to life, selecting and choking the day's chicken.
Soon, the daily life of the village is in full swing.
Well, almost full swing.
With mounting horror, the villagers realize that the blind cuckoo-clock
carver, Lysander, never opened his shop this morning. With trepidation,
they open the door to the ramshackle apartment he keeps above his
shop. They behold a terrible sight.
Lysander lies sprawled on the floor, his eyes staring sightlessly at the
ceiling. This would not generally be too unusual, as Lysander often
drank himself into a stupor and then found himself too hung over for
intricate clock-carving the next morning.
However, in this case, his eyes are sightless not merely because he is
blind, but because he is dead. One leg is missing at the knee, and one
arm at the shoulder. His throat has been torn open, and blood splatters
cover the walls, floor, and ceiling. Even more horrifyingly, Lysander
has been eviscerated. His liver and heart have been eaten, the villagers
notice amid their mounting nausea, while his intestines gaily festoon
the room like macabre multicolored party streamers.
It would appear that the tiny hamlet of Zahnburg harbors a
werewolf. With mounting resolve, three brooms, and a bucket, the
villagers sweep as much of Lysander as they can find down the stairs and
into a wheelbarrow, which they trundle to the churchyard for a quick
burial.
That taken care of and the ordinary business of the day forgotten, the
remaining eight inhabitants gather around the town gallows. Only one
question remains to be decided:
Who's it going to be?
~~~
The mood of the crowd--if eight people can be called a crowd--has turned
ugly.
With hatred in their eyes, the townsfolk turn towards the local miller.
ChainGangGuy had spent his life grinding grain between stones to make
flour. So it was that the villagers chose to end his life. Eschewing the
usual gallows, they swiftly dragged the screaming ChainGangGuy to his
mill.
Someone kicked the chocks from the grindstones and lowered the lever
that connected the paddlewheel in the stream to the axle. The great
stones began to turn, inexorable as the sunset.
Bit by bit, the villagers fed ChainGangGuy into his own mill. The bones
of his feet were the first to go, shattering with a sound like popcorn
popping. The millstones glistened with his blood.
ChainGangGuy screamed and shrieked, but the villagers were
remorseless. His howls of agony persisted as his calves were crushed. He
bellowed as his knees were pulped, and then fell unconscious.
The villagers looked at each other and shrugged; the fun part was now
over, and they released his body to be mashed between the grindstones.
As the stones revolved, reducing what was once ChainGangGuy to a uniform
red pulp, one thing became clear: there was no sharp canine odor, no
fur, no last-second transformation into a wolf.
The remaining seven villagers looked at each other and shrugged, as the
millstones ground on.
ChainGangGuy was a peasant.
Now it is Night.
~~~
It's a foggy morning in Zahnburg. The usual morning sounds can be heard
through the dense fog.
But one is missing.
Everyone heard gsdgsd, the town printer and well-known alcoholic, at his
usual carousing the previous night: the singing, the shattering ceramic
jugs, the belligerent ranting, the copious vomiting.
Usually, when this happens, his groans the next morning, punctuated by
miserable retching, are audible throughout the village.
The townsfolk look at each other, and wordlessly march to gsdgsd's
house. They open the door. Nothing can prepare them for the horror
within.
You see, an alcoholic printer accumulates a lot of fucked-up paper that
he can't use. And when you combine that with years of puking blood from
hemorrhaging ulcers irritated by cheap potato vodka, and a personal
philosophy that regards tossing a sheet of grimy newsprint over the top
of a puddle of bloody puke as a thorough housecleaning, then you've got
a room that's a hideous paper-mache construction, like a giant hornet's
nest, made of congealed blood, matted paper, and alkie vomit.
In this monument to a vile life lived badly, the corpse of gsdgsd barely
registers; even with the face chewed off and the stomach removed, it's
far less grotesque than the surroundings.
The stomach must have been full, too. Unsteady, bloody wolf prints weave
away from the open back window towards the forest. Halfway to the dark
trees, a puddle of wolf vomit, with a single eyeball floating in it,
testifies to the potency of that cheap vodka.
Someone lights a torch and tosses it into the house, which goes up like
an alcohol-impregnated hornet's nest. A thin rivulet of molten lead
trickles from the burning printing press and flows sluggishly down the
gutter.
The six that remain assemble under the gallows. Someone will pay for
what happened to gsdgsd. But will it be a werewolf?
~~~
The villagers lay hold of the screaming, flailing Ice Cream Jonsey. To
think they'd all trusted him as their tanner for many years, and here he
was, probably a werewolf.
Well, they'd soon see about that.
They stripped him naked and tied him firmly between two trees at the
edge of the forest. One of the other villagers triumphantly passed out
the collection of knives that ICJ had used to flay the animals whose
hides he'd cured over the years.
They started on the wrists and ankles, just inside the bonds. The
villagers didn't have a lot of practice, though, and even if he's
restrained, it's difficult to meticulously flay someone who's struggling
and screaming in horrific agony. As he lost blood, ICJ's strength ebbed;
his twitching and writhing grew fainter; his shrieks diminished to moans
to a breathy whisper, and then silence.
When the villagers looked up from their grisly work, they noticed
something. All three of Jonsey's eyes were open, staring sightlessly,
including the one in the center of his forehead.
The villagers had killed their seer. Only five remained: two werewolves,
three peasants. All of them knew that come morning, there'd be only
four. And then there'd be no more peasants than werewolves, and then
there'd be no more peasants.
Then it was night. Then it was morning, and that's exactly what
happened.
Werewolves Have Won
The blackness of night lies like a scratchy woolen blanket over the tiny
hamlet of Zahnburg, a town of only nine souls, nestled in the deep
forests in the northern mountains of the Duchy of Hundenstein.
Hundenstein's principal exports are decorative beer mugs, intricately
carved cuckoo clocks, and police dogs. Its primary industries are
tourism and police dog training. It is renowned for its jagged peaks,
its dark evergreen forests, its relative inaccessibility in the Internet
Age, and its world-famous police dogs.
And tonight in Zahnburg, nine people sleep snuggled in their houses
under the cold, clear skies, the actinic stars, and the uncaring moon.
Only eight will awake.
~~~
The sun rises over Zahnburg.
Sleepily, the inhabitants begin to go about their daily rituals: the
trip through the freezing cold to the outhouses, stoking their hearth
fires back to life, selecting and choking the day's chicken.
Soon, the daily life of the village is in full swing.
Well, almost full swing.
With mounting horror, the villagers realize that the blind cuckoo-clock
carver, Lysander, never opened his shop this morning. With trepidation,
they open the door to the ramshackle apartment he keeps above his
shop. They behold a terrible sight.
Lysander lies sprawled on the floor, his eyes staring sightlessly at the
ceiling. This would not generally be too unusual, as Lysander often
drank himself into a stupor and then found himself too hung over for
intricate clock-carving the next morning.
However, in this case, his eyes are sightless not merely because he is
blind, but because he is dead. One leg is missing at the knee, and one
arm at the shoulder. His throat has been torn open, and blood splatters
cover the walls, floor, and ceiling. Even more horrifyingly, Lysander
has been eviscerated. His liver and heart have been eaten, the villagers
notice amid their mounting nausea, while his intestines gaily festoon
the room like macabre multicolored party streamers.
It would appear that the tiny hamlet of Zahnburg harbors a
werewolf. With mounting resolve, three brooms, and a bucket, the
villagers sweep as much of Lysander as they can find down the stairs and
into a wheelbarrow, which they trundle to the churchyard for a quick
burial.
That taken care of and the ordinary business of the day forgotten, the
remaining eight inhabitants gather around the town gallows. Only one
question remains to be decided:
Who's it going to be?
~~~
The mood of the crowd--if eight people can be called a crowd--has turned
ugly.
With hatred in their eyes, the townsfolk turn towards the local miller.
ChainGangGuy had spent his life grinding grain between stones to make
flour. So it was that the villagers chose to end his life. Eschewing the
usual gallows, they swiftly dragged the screaming ChainGangGuy to his
mill.
Someone kicked the chocks from the grindstones and lowered the lever
that connected the paddlewheel in the stream to the axle. The great
stones began to turn, inexorable as the sunset.
Bit by bit, the villagers fed ChainGangGuy into his own mill. The bones
of his feet were the first to go, shattering with a sound like popcorn
popping. The millstones glistened with his blood.
ChainGangGuy screamed and shrieked, but the villagers were
remorseless. His howls of agony persisted as his calves were crushed. He
bellowed as his knees were pulped, and then fell unconscious.
The villagers looked at each other and shrugged; the fun part was now
over, and they released his body to be mashed between the grindstones.
As the stones revolved, reducing what was once ChainGangGuy to a uniform
red pulp, one thing became clear: there was no sharp canine odor, no
fur, no last-second transformation into a wolf.
The remaining seven villagers looked at each other and shrugged, as the
millstones ground on.
ChainGangGuy was a peasant.
Now it is Night.
~~~
It's a foggy morning in Zahnburg. The usual morning sounds can be heard
through the dense fog.
But one is missing.
Everyone heard gsdgsd, the town printer and well-known alcoholic, at his
usual carousing the previous night: the singing, the shattering ceramic
jugs, the belligerent ranting, the copious vomiting.
Usually, when this happens, his groans the next morning, punctuated by
miserable retching, are audible throughout the village.
The townsfolk look at each other, and wordlessly march to gsdgsd's
house. They open the door. Nothing can prepare them for the horror
within.
You see, an alcoholic printer accumulates a lot of fucked-up paper that
he can't use. And when you combine that with years of puking blood from
hemorrhaging ulcers irritated by cheap potato vodka, and a personal
philosophy that regards tossing a sheet of grimy newsprint over the top
of a puddle of bloody puke as a thorough housecleaning, then you've got
a room that's a hideous paper-mache construction, like a giant hornet's
nest, made of congealed blood, matted paper, and alkie vomit.
In this monument to a vile life lived badly, the corpse of gsdgsd barely
registers; even with the face chewed off and the stomach removed, it's
far less grotesque than the surroundings.
The stomach must have been full, too. Unsteady, bloody wolf prints weave
away from the open back window towards the forest. Halfway to the dark
trees, a puddle of wolf vomit, with a single eyeball floating in it,
testifies to the potency of that cheap vodka.
Someone lights a torch and tosses it into the house, which goes up like
an alcohol-impregnated hornet's nest. A thin rivulet of molten lead
trickles from the burning printing press and flows sluggishly down the
gutter.
The six that remain assemble under the gallows. Someone will pay for
what happened to gsdgsd. But will it be a werewolf?
~~~
The villagers lay hold of the screaming, flailing Ice Cream Jonsey. To
think they'd all trusted him as their tanner for many years, and here he
was, probably a werewolf.
Well, they'd soon see about that.
They stripped him naked and tied him firmly between two trees at the
edge of the forest. One of the other villagers triumphantly passed out
the collection of knives that ICJ had used to flay the animals whose
hides he'd cured over the years.
They started on the wrists and ankles, just inside the bonds. The
villagers didn't have a lot of practice, though, and even if he's
restrained, it's difficult to meticulously flay someone who's struggling
and screaming in horrific agony. As he lost blood, ICJ's strength ebbed;
his twitching and writhing grew fainter; his shrieks diminished to moans
to a breathy whisper, and then silence.
When the villagers looked up from their grisly work, they noticed
something. All three of Jonsey's eyes were open, staring sightlessly,
including the one in the center of his forehead.
The villagers had killed their seer. Only five remained: two werewolves,
three peasants. All of them knew that come morning, there'd be only
four. And then there'd be no more peasants than werewolves, and then
there'd be no more peasants.
Then it was night. Then it was morning, and that's exactly what
happened.
Werewolves Have Won