The Old Clearing

Past Something Hollow · the fall send-off · bonfire, music, no cover

Placeholder art — to be replaced with fiancée's illustration.

The Place

The clearing the town's young people have claimed for every send-off anyone can remember. Tonight it's theirs: fire, music, cider, and the last warm-ish night before the long winter celebration.

Read aloudThe clearing opens up like a held breath let go. A bonfire roars in a ring of blackened stone, throwing sparks into air that smells of pine sap and roast fish. A makeshift pallet stage stands at the north edge, strung with elf-made crystal lights. Log benches arc around the fire; blankets, crates, jugs of cider. Above it all, tressym glide between the pines, screaming at each other the way cats do when they're having the time of their lives.

🎵 The Night's Sound

Feral and Brad's set for the clearing.

No playlist linked yet — send me the YouTube link and I'll wire it up here.

Arriving

Ask the party when they arrive — each choice opens different doors.

🌅 Early

Only the Creechville guys are around, holding down a log bench with cider. They want to know: how do you feel about people from the other half? Depending on the answer, they may let slip what they've seen of the other half's presence in the region.
Survival DC 12: fresh webbed tracks at the treeline, heading for the hollow east of the clearing.
Under the stage pallets glints Glimmer, a wild carbuncle hoarding bottle caps. Befriend it (Animal Handling DC 12) or offer something shiny.
Nature DC 10: the tressym overhead aren't playing — they're agitated, screaming at the treeline.

🌇 On Time

Zinlynn greets the arrivals personally and introduces them around, steering talk toward the duality of things — two halves of the world, two halves of the year. Then the toast: "To the fall that fed us, and the winter that'll test us!"
Fled's conspiracy corner: Fled Wetfeet holds court by the cider jugs, insisting the other half of the world never existed — "it's propaganda, man, foreign fear to keep us in line." Persuasion DC 12 to defuse; Insight DC 12 to see he's performing.

DMIf Dem is in earshot of Fled's rant, she's visibly stung: her parents lived those slums.

🌙 Fashionably Late

The party is in full swing. Ask each late arrival: who are you looking for? Make sure they cross paths — or conspicuously don't.
The ghost's circle: that awkward ghost has drawn a ring of onlookers — he's dancing, and he's astonishing. Nobody saw this coming. Join in (Performance DC 10) and he'll teach you the Hearthstep — advantage on your next Performance check.
Overhear Michael on his crystal flip phone, arguing: "I told you, she's not signing anything in the Allotment — I don't care what the advance is." He hangs up fast if noticed.
You missed the toast but walked straight into Fled mid-rant — pick a side or change the subject.

Party Activities

Arm-wrestling Joe Gar: big, bearded, undefeated all fall. Athletics contest vs. his +5. Beat him and the clearing erupts — the prize is the Gar cord: an empty feather cord, technically worthless, culturally priceless. You keep it only until someone challenges and beats you. That's how the Gars got it.
Knucklebones: 3d6, bet feathers, high roll takes the pot. A knot of townies plays all night by the fire.
The Finding Game: a pack of furries challenges volunteers to a scent-tracking game. Two-minute head start to hide in the woods; they hunt you (Survival +5 vs. your Stealth). Caught = charmed into growing a tail until next dawn. Evade ten minutes = win a tressym feather, tied into your hair on the spot.
Feather cords: the town's signature adornment. Tressym feathers tie on; each tells a story: found (luck), gifted (bond), traded (a deal), won (a deed). Kids trade them like pogs; adults wear their autobiographies.
Gentle Massive's game: the drummer sits apart, thumbs flying over a palm-sized crystal device, its screen full of glyphs in no language anyone speaks. Talk to him and, without looking up: "Hey, can you please give me a minute, I'm almost done." He is never done.

DM — Finding GameWhile hiding, give the PC one spooky beat — frog-eyes glinting in the dark that vanish when blinked at, or a chalk hobo sign scratched into nearby bark. If mentioned to the furries afterward: "oh, it's probably one of those hobos." The town knows the frog guys are in the woods and isn't worried. The players should be.

DM — Gentle Massive's deviceThe device reads as familiar elven crystal tech — but the game's language is in no known tongue. History DC 15: the language must be transcantine. The elves claim zero contact with the other half. Yet.

DM — PacingLet the party breathe for 30–45 real minutes. The players should like these people before the night turns — it makes the Croaking Dark land. When the energy peaks, move to the dance floor beat below.

Who's Here

The clearing's crowd. Portraits are placeholders until the real art lands.

Host of the night

Zinlynn Moonharvest

Elf singer-songwriter, this world's Norah Jones. She invited the party personally — tonight she's host, not headliner.

Right now: working the crowd, making introductions, building toward the toast. Later she'll pull the PCs onto the dance floor.

DM: She carries the ferry token ("they're still building") — do not reveal. She also has the star moss and the near-guitar-case-long pipe for the back-half transition.

F+B

DJs · pallet stage

Feral and Brad

Local producer duo — Pharrell-and-Chad types — DJing the party. They produced half the tracks they're playing.

Right now: behind the decks, keeping the clearing moving. Feral talks; Brad nods.

DM: "Brad" is provisional — easy rename. When the dance-floor beat hits, they shift the tempo on Zinlynn's cue.

Band · guests

Creechville

Touring band with Zinlynn, here as guests. Heatmiser vibe. Randall Robeschity (guitar, bleached-blonde ditz), Fled Wetfeet (bass, conspiracy theorist), Gentle Massive (drums, glued to his crystal game).

Right now: holding down a log bench with cider. Fled is holding court about the other half "never existing."

DM: Gentle Massive's handheld game runs on familiar elven crystal tech but in no known language — seed of the transcantine-contact lie. Fled's rant stings Dem if she's in earshot.

Arm-wrestling champion

Joe Gar

Burly, bearded, undefeated all fall. The clearing's unofficial strongman and its loudest hype man.

Right now: at the arm-wrestling crate, rolling his shoulders, daring challengers. Athletics +5.

DM: Prize is the Gar cord — empty feather cord, kept only until someone beats the holder. Joe keeps his own feathered cord separately.

🐾

Finding Game hosts

The Furry Pack

A pack of druids who run the Finding Game — a hide-and-seek scent-tracking challenge in the dark woods.

Right now: recruiting volunteers, explaining the rules, being extremely competitive about it.

DM: They wild-shape into self-invented fursona forms (cat ones favor tabaxi). Caught = grow a tail until dawn; evade 10 min = win a feather. Keep player-facing descriptions vague.

Uninvited regular

The Ghost

Nobody invited him. He materializes wherever the crowd is thickest and hovers at the edges, silent.

Right now: at the edge of the firelight. If the party arrives fashionably late, he's already drawn his circle — and he's dancing.

DM: No backstory, ever. The dance circle is the surprise; nothing about his dancing leaks before it forms.

Battle Maps

The Old Clearing — bonfire, pallet stage, log benches.

DM only: the hobo camp in the hollow east of the clearing — don't show the players until the stumble.

The Croaking Dark DM ONLY

Combat tracker

Run this fight from the tracker — pre-loaded with the warriors, Mudmother, Old Croaker, tressym, and the ritual clock, plus draggable tokens on the battle map.

⚔ Open Combat Tracker

The dance floor When the party's energy peaks, Zinlynn — or whichever NPC each PC bonded with most — grabs them and drags them onto the dance floor. The DJs shift the beat. The ghost spins past, ecstatic. Let it run for a song.

Star moss Zinlynn leans in close: "Come with me. I have something you really need to see." She leads them past the last string of crystal lights into the dark between the pines — then grins and produces a pouch of star moss (dried glow-moss, a local party tradition) and an extremely long pipe, almost the length of a guitar case. She packs it, lights it, shares it around. Laughter, confessions, the stars too bright overhead.

Mechanic: while under its influence — the rest of the night — a character has advantage on Charisma checks. The glow fades when adrenaline hits; the social ease lingers into the parley.

Read aloud — the stumbleThe pines close in. Woodsmoke and stew and wet mud on the air. Through the trees: a hobo jungle. Lean-tos of branches and torn tarps, a mulligan pot bubbling over a low fire, bindles piled by a fallen log, chalk hobo signs scratched on the crates. And eyes — frog-eyes catching the firelight. A lot of frog-eyes. A big female in a cloak of moss and fishbones rises slowly, staff raised — and a tramp's voice cracks across the camp: "They've seen us!"

Why they fight The bullywugs are tramps — rail-riding, river-working hobos, not beggars. The work dried up this year and they're starving, so Mudmother's crew planned a heist on Tressym's Hearth's winter stores. Mudmother added her own angle: she believes the hollow sits over a drowned shrine, and Old Croaker, a frog-spirit of the deep mud, must be honored for the job to succeed. Roll initiative. Mudmother shouts: "Turn around and walk, and nobody has to bleed!"

De-escalation: any genuine offer of food or work opens a parley — Persuasion DC 13 (advantage with real food on the table or vouched work). They're desperate, not evil.

The ritual (0 / 5) Each round Mudmother spends chanting at the mud altar: +1 progress. Disrupt: 5+ damage to her in one round, or topple the altar (Athletics DC 14) / douse candles → −1 (min 0). At 5: Old Croaker erupts at full strength. Altar destroyed or Mudmother down first: he erupts weakened (half HP, no Swallow, no Dread Croak), each remaining bullywug DC 11 Wis or flees.

Allies Tressym: top of round 2, 1d4+1 dive from the dark (+4, 1d4+2 slashing vs. a bullywug of the party's choice, then climb 40 ft.). They won't engage Old Croaker. A PC can whistle the town's call (three short notes) as an action for 1d4 more — once per PC.
Glimmer (if befriended): one Flash during the fight — 10 ft., DC 11 Con or blinded to end of next turn.
Zinlynn: no fighter — drops behind a crate, guitar case over her head. Drags downed PCs to cover.
Tuning: struggling → drop to 4 warriors. Stomping → Mudmother finishes a round early. Past round 6: 1d4 townsfolk arrive with pitchforks (morale event).