museum

[Praefection]

Background info. I was bored and brought my bardess to the Rest. Someone told me you can sing to items inside the museum and after I died this morning (oops) I took here inside to see what I could learn while she recovered.

This is my favorite loresong so far and I wanted to share since I don't know how many people have actually paid seen it. Kudos to whoever wrote the story. Moving.

The item: a bamboo flute
The bamboo flute, clearly a very old instrument, is the color of very rich butter. The area around the fingerholes is shiny from use. A crack runs along the body of the flute, rendering it useless.

Attached to the flute is a tag that reads, "This instrument is a classic example of elven flute-making during the era of the Kingdom of Elanith. It is said the owner of this instrument committed suicide when it was inadvertantly broken.

The Story:
As you sing to the bamboo flute you begin to feel it respond to your voice. It vibrates slightly, as if the pitch of your voice strikes some sympathetic tone in the flute. Involuntarily, your voice takes on the low, dulcet tones of a bamboo flute and creates a melody that is simple but achingly beautiful.

The melody seems to transport you to a winding lane lined with olive trees whose leaves are newly-budded. Scattered among the trees are a few small stucco cottages. The sound of the flute is carried on the spring breeze from the window of one of the cottages. An elven man...virile, in the prime of his life, with a tanned face that's pleasant more than handsome...walks purposefully down the lane. As he approaches the cottage from which the melody comes he slows down, caught up by the enchanting tune. He dawdles a bit, then proceeds slowly on his way with a happy smile on his face.

As you continue your song a buoyant, cheerful melody surrounds you. It lifts up your heart and yet, at the same time, inspires a feeling of tranquility. Once again you find yourself on the lane lined with olive trees. The trees are in full bloom. The same elven man walks quickly down the lane of olive trees, hurrying toward the sound of the music.

He stops in front of the cottage and leans against one of trees, clearly enraptured by the music of the flute. His eyes are closed, his right hand waves in rhythm with the tune, a joyful smile plays across his expressive face. When the tune ends he opens his eyes and tries to peer in through the window from which the melody came. He calls out softly, "Once again your music gladdens my heart. Come to the window so that I might see you and thank you properly."

From the window comes a soft, delicate woman's voice. "I thank you for your kind words, sir. And for all the kind, lovely words you've said over these last weeks. But I will not come to the window."

A softly romantic melody surrounds you as you sing to the bamboo flute. The song is wistful without being melancholy, yearning without being disconsolate, pensive without being forlorn. The image of the tree-lined lane slowly coalesces and you see the elven man sitting beneath the olive tree, his back against the trunk. Scattered on the ground around him are the first fallen leaves of autumn. A tear trickles down his cheek, but the look on his face makes it clear it's a tear of hope and joy, not of sorrow.

When the song ends the man sits still for a long moment, then slowly rises to his feet. He composes himself before calling out, "Dear, sweet lady, you bend my heart like the sun bends the flowers. You draw at my soul the way the moon draws the tides. Come to the window, I beg of you, that I may see you."

"Your words honor me," says the voice from the window. "But it is the music that moves you, not the musician. I will not come to the window."

You continue your song and shiver slightly as a chill breeze carries the sweet, harmonius flute melody to your ears. As before, you find yourself on the winding lane. The olive trees are nearly devoid of leaves. The elven man, his heavy caftan wrapped closely around himself and a scarf carelessly looped around his neck, leans against one of the trees. Despite the chill in the air, the cottage window is cracked enough for the music to carry out to the lane.

The song is a familiar elven ballad, a traditional tune usually played solemnly and pretentiously by young bards in the throes of unrequited love. It is now being played in a sprightly, lighthearted way that seems to gently mock the traditional approach while firmly embracing the true spirit of the song. When it is finished, the man smiles broadly. He calls out, "I've heard this song ten times ten thousand times, but today is the first I've truly listened to it and understood it. As always, you delight my soul and make my world a brighter and more genial place. Please, dear one, I beg you...come to the window so that I might more truly express my thanks and regard."

From the narrowly cracked window comes the woman's soft, cheery voice. "You are kind, sir, and I am honored by your regard for my playing. But I will not come to the window."

Instead of leaving, the elven man steps behind the olive tree and draws his caftan tighter around himself. A moment passes before he hears the cottage window being closed. He quickly steps out from behind the tree, a tremendously bright smile on on his face...a smile that quickly fades and turns to revulsion.

Standing in the window the obese, bulbous-nosed elven woman holding the bamboo flute sees the man's expression change. She quickly steps away from the window.

You quietly, tentatively continue your song but the bamboo flute no longer responds. You see again the winding lane lined with olive trees in first bud. You again see the stucco cottages scattered cozily among the trees. But the cottage that once held such music is boarded shut. Dust covers the windowsill. The soft breeze carries only silence.

[Praefection]

Found another good one for those with a darker side.

The item: a metal ring shirt

At first glance this appears to be a shirt of very flimsy chain mail. Further examination, however, reveals the garment could never have been intended to protect the wearer. The small metal rings which comprise the shirt are much too thin for that. Nor would it have been possible for the wearer to don the shirt alone. Oddly-shaped metal clamps line the back of the shirt and the backs of both sleeves.

A tag attached to the metal shirt says, "This is Lingba's Shirt. In 4605 M.E., during the First Elven War, a number of local smugglers, elven patriots and elf sympathizers secretly aided the Elven Nations in their war on the Turamzzyrian Empire. One of the sympathizers was said to be the daughter of Lingba the Tailor. She was captured and interrogated under torture by Emperor Krellove's personal Inquisitor. She died on the third day of interrogation.

Late in that year, the Inquisitor was captured by elven sympathizers. Lingba constructed this shirt and, according to legend, forced the the Inquisitor to wear it for nearly thirty days.

The story:

Your song moves in rhythm with the beating of your heart. Another rhythmic sound joins in...a liquid sound. The sound of oars propelling a boat through the water. As your vision becomes more clear, you become aware of a wide, moonlit river. A smuggler's wherry, its oars muffled, moves almost silently through the river shallows. A half dozen cloaked figures man the oars. In the stern, a short figure stands, one hand on the tiller, his eyes searching the shore.

At a signal from the man in the stern, the oarsmen ship their oars. The sternsman guides the wherry into some reeds, where it disappears from view of anybody who might be traveling on the river. While one man secures the vessel, the other oarsmen gather around a large bundle in the stern. They lift it onto their shoulders and scurry into the night.

Darkness enfolds you as you sing to the metal ring shirt in your hand. The smell of mold and mildew mixed with the primal stink of a salt marsh fills your nostrils. As darkness shifts to murkiness, you realize you're in a smuggler's boathouse...a dark combination of dock and bunker. The cloaked men all stand around the bundle, which lies on the floor. The short sternsman steps forward and unties the bundle.

The bundle wriggles and jerks until a face is revealed. A terrified face, gagged with a filthy rag. The sternsman pulls the cloth off the man. He is as firmly bound as smugglers are capable of binding. The sternsman reaches down and removes the gag. "Please, please," the bound man pleads in a parched, croaking voice. "I'll pay any ransom you ask. I'm a wealthy man. Just don't harm me."

In a calm, soft voice, the sternsman says, "We want no ransom." "Information, then," the bound man says. "You want information. I can give it to you, I can tell you anything you want to...." "We want no information," the small sternsman says. "I'm an important man," the bound man says, weeping. "The emperor will search for me. If you release me now, no harm will come to you. I've not seen your faces. I don't know your names. I'm no danger to you if you release me."

The small sternsman removes the hood of his cloak. He leans forward so the light shines fully on his grim halflings face. "My name is Lingba," he says quietly.

The smell of mildew and salt marsh is now cut with the scent of sweat and terror. The man from the bundle is now clad only in a pair of stained breeches. His arms are outstretched, tied with strips of leather to ringbolts normally used to tie up boats. Once again, his mouth is gagged. His eyes, however, are still able to scream. The halfling Lingba carefully dresses him in the metal ring shirt and begins to fasten the clamps in the back.

"I made this shirt for you," Lingba says. "For the Imperial Inquisitor. For the man who tortured my daughter to death. She was a good child, my daughter. She cared nothing about the elves or your war with them. She cared only about accompanying the man she was to marry, an honest smuggler trying to earn a living. For three days you tortured her. Three days."

The inquisitor pleads with his eyes and tries desperately to speak around the filthy rag in his mouth. Lingba watches him coldly, then tightens the clamps on the back of the shirt. "You notice how your bare flesh bulges through the small metal rings," Lingba says quietly. "It's important to tighten the shirt just enough...not too tight or too much flesh protrudes, not too loose or there's not enough flesh." Lingba looks up at the inquisitor's face. "Not enough flesh for what, you wonder? For this...."

Lingba takes a small fishing knife from his belt. He begins to slowly scrape off the flesh that bulges through the metal rings.

The smell of mildew, the stink of the salt march, the scent of fear have all been washed away by the cloyingly sweet smell of blood. The inquisitor is still strung up between the boat rings. He appears to be wearing a fuzzy red shirt. The small metal rings of Lingba's device are hidden in bloody tissue.

Lingba, standing on a small crate, pours runny gruel into the inquisitor's mouth. The halfling's face is drawn and grim, his eyes bloodshot and nearly lifeless, his cheeks grizzled with a new beard. He puts down the gruel bowl and leans in close to whisper in the ear of the inquisitor.

"Three days you tortured my daughter," he says, and his voice bears little resemblance to the soft voice heard earlier. "Today is your eighteenth day. You must eat your gruel because we have twelve more days to go. Ten days for every day you hurt her."

He slowly gets down from the crate, walks behind the inquisitor, and carefully tightens the clamps on the shirt. Raw flesh bulges through the small rings. Blood oozes slowly down the inquisitor's breeches.

Lingba stares long and hard at the fishing knife on the counter. Almost against his will, his hand reaches out for it.


The only sound you hear as you resume your song is an annoying buzzing. Green-headed flies swarm the smuggler's boathouse. Most of them churn around the bloody hulk of a figure strung between two boat rings. The others are clustered around the body of a small halfling man hanging from the boathouse rafters.

[ElanthianSiren]

That last one is awesome. I never knew you could sing to items in RR.

-Melissa

[Skirmisher]

That last one really is.

Far surpasses what I have come to expect, and it was just there quietly sitting.

Yeesh...makes me wonder how much better so much more could be.

COL should be so dark.

Great loresong there.!:yes:

[ElanthianSiren]

Absolutely, I think this is one of the tightest, best-written lore stories I've seen in GS. I'm going to explain why... from a book on plotting that I own.

Taken from: 20 master plots by Ronald B. Tobias.

Master plot #6 Revenge
Checklist points

1. The protagonist seeks retaliation against the antagonist for a real or imagined injury.

2. Most (but not all) revenge plots forus more on the act of the revenge than on a meaningful examination of the character's motives.

3. The hero's justice is "wild," vigilante justice that usually goes outside the limits of the law.

4. Revenge plots tend to manipulate the feeling of the reader by avenging the injustices of a world by a man or woman of action who is forced to act by events when the institutions that normally deal with these problems prove inadequate.

5. The hero has moral justification for vengence.

6. The hero's vengence may equal but not exceed the offense perpetrated against the hero (punishment must fit the crime).

7. The hero should first try to deal with the offense in traditional ways, such as relying on the police -- an effort that usually fails (missing in this plot, but since the guy is the grand inquisitor, we can assume it would have failed).

8. In historical revenge plots, the hero generally pays a high price for his vengence.

Each of these points is addressed in that tiny snippet of lore. That is like writing a master plot in a page. Kudos to whatever GM wrote that.

-Melissa

[MxPx1483]

Wow, Bradach really is fantastic (I think it was him that made the museam, or was it Jharra?) Might you have any more of those loresongs that you could share?