This scroll is based on the premise of the game of Chinese Whispers. For those who don't know what this game is about, it's basically a rumour game where everybody sits in a circle, someone whispers a sentence to the next person, who then passes it on to the next and so on until you get the last person who says out loud what the sentence he/she heard was. Often as not, the sentence that the last person thought he/she heard would be a really skewed version of the original sentence.
The basic format is this: First, some brief text (roughly one line in length) is put down. Then two or more versions of a rumour/tale are given based on the text. Of course, since the theme is rumours, the more versions given, the merrier.
At the suggestion of Dossta, this is now a Wiki. There are now two ways one could contribute to this: 1) contribute an particular scroll entry like me and Shadoweagle have done; 2) contribute a seed text and then wait for others to add rumours. Also, for ease of reading, I think the best way to separate out different seed text is to put a horizontal separator in between them. The syntax for this is {hr} where {s is replace with <s. Only one tag is needed. If still unsure about this aspect, just click Edit and then go to HTML mode to look at my code.
Example:
'In a far away shore, there's a place whose name translates to the City of Gold in the native tongue'
Rumour 1: 'Laddie, I'm tellin' ye, there be wandrous placez at ta 'hata end of ta sea. A city of gold, wif' even ta roads paven ta gold. There be sa-vages livin' there, thou, what tha eat ta tongues of enemies, be them beasta or man.'
Rumour 2: 'Legend tells of a city on a far away shore that is built entirely out of gold and houses the greatest achievements of the Alchemages. If only it could be found, then secrets- the recipe for turning lead to gold being the least of them, that drive the ancient culture of Xartholht could be brought back to the light again.'
Another example (humorous one inspired by this ):
'Mnogos, a traveling scholar, digging up the roots of totemos that he encounters.'
Rumour 1: 'You know what, in that book I was transcribing I came across a reference to this travelling scholar by the name of Mnogos who went around digging up the roots of tomatoes that he encounters'
Rumour 2: 'May Mnogos come and dig up all of ye plant roots, ye thieving scroundrel' (note: To the populace, Mnogos had become associated with a demon who would visit farmers and be a pestilence in that he would be digging up all the roots of plant lives that he lays eyes on)
'There've been more wolves than usual along the old path lately; you should probably only travel along there in the daytime! It's like there's something out there in the woods driving them mad.'
Rumour 1: 'Aye, travel not the old path m'lad! There be a crazed ranger out there, driven mad by the woods. They say he runs wit' a pack of giant wolves and preys on travellers at night for their supplies! Jimmey done seen 'em just th' other week an' he says the man's eyes glowed red an' he wore the hide of humans to pay them back for skinnin' the wolves!'
Rumour 2: 'Out on the old path? Yeah, I heard that when the night is bright with the full moon, a fey beast; half wolf, half man stalks the road. They say there's an ancient keep somewhere in the woods near that path, and a great king of ages past hunted down hundreds of wolves for sport. It is said a dryad cursed the king, turning him into a wolf - his own men hunted him down and killed him. Now, when the moon is full his spirit returns and stalks travellers.'
'There's a crown, made of Fools' Gems'
Rumour 1: 'And so King Fedroas ordered a Fool's Crown to be made out of Fools' Gems, as befitting such a fool of a king as Crohatus, and gifted it to him before sending him away on exile on a remote island'
Rumour 2: 'This is the Crown of Fools, the heirloom left by the First King of Sydknon. As the one who has accomplished what was deemed the impossible task of uniting all of Sydknon, he commissioned a crown to be inset with Fools' Gems, to remind his descendants that with persistence, the most plain will shine one day'
P.S. I should really thank Muro's comment for inspiring this particular entry and hence the whole of this scroll.
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? Responses (8)
Nice! This scroll will be useful if a GM has some basic information to give to PC's and wants various townsfolk to have different versions (with variable truth) of the tale. The PC's will have to work out the truth from the exaggeration.
I didn't know that that excercise was called that. But I think it's pretty common knowledge that all rumours work this way. So this very short submission didn't really offer much, for me at least. In order to avoid being a total party pooper, I will abstain my vote on this one, especially since I don't know the voting practices regarding these 'scrolls'.
Well, you can vote anyway you want, there's no standard voting practice for scrolls if that's what you mean. Personally, I will judge a scroll based on the underlying concept and the quality of the scroll entries and I think most ppl share this.
Right, it is short at the moment, I will be adding one scroll entry tmr.
Ah, in that case I'll revisit this one day, when it has gotten more content then.
'Round here, this game is called 'Telephone' and works much the same. The only point against this sub is that it can be highly game-specific. The rumors that one GM needs aren't going to coincide with existing entries on this scroll very often. Unless the intention was for people to provide the seed rumor, and other members contribute rumors as replies? That could be kinda cool, but would require advance planning.
I see what you mean with the game-specificness, esp. if you want to use this scroll to be in accordance with Shadoweagle's suggested usage. When I posted this, I was actually thinking of these being more background material (as I'm wont to think of them, given that I'm a non-gamer).
Your idea on someone posting the seed rumour and others contributing replies would be fun. I guess in that case, I would turn this into a Wiki. Okay, I think I will do it, makes this scroll more useful and fun.
Update: Turned this into a Wiki based on comment from Dossta. Updated instructions on how to separate seed text and accompanying rumours
