Encounters of Summer's End

Everlasting Summer

IT = Insight Threshold. For Underneath.

If Below Insight Threshold, Then Monster Appears as Low Insight Appearance.

UNIVERSAL ENCOUNTERS

d10	Monster	IT	Low Insight Appearance	Description	What It Does	Injuries
1	Suicide Ghost	3*	Phantom Scream	Pale - Erratic - Splattered - Weeping - Glitching - Swallowing the Gun	Stalks Peripheral Vision - Always Behind You - Angry Scream - Possession, Swallow the Gun - Gunshot - Gore Pollock	Suicide by Gun - Blood Drenching
2	Bride of A’aqur	6*	Twirling Gust	A Face In the Midst of the Gust - A Woman - Hair Whipping and Whirling	She Screams - And Is Gone	Despair
3	Hell Hound	2	Rapid Dog	Eyes Like Candles In The Dark - Teeth Too Long - It’s Fast	Tears Through Obstacles - Bounds and Leaps - Rips and Tears, and Laughs a Human Laugh - Tracks	Torn Muscles - Bleeding - Paranoia
4	Black Obelisk	5*	Empty Space	Cold To Touch - Jagged - Sharp - Impossible Placed	Frantic Whispering - Grants Insight	Paranoia - Schizophrenia - Psychosis
5	A’aqur Cultist	1*	Stranger	Hoodie - Mask - Strange Wind Chimes - Skin Burned by Nuclear Winds	Erratic Movements - Stalking - Spying	Wind Burns
6	A’aqur Cultist Hunter	7	Militia Member	Patterns in the Camo - Mask of Wooden Chimes - Hunting Rifle - No Body, Only Wind	Waits An Eternity - Zeros The Field - Takes A Shot - Gone With the Wind	Gunshot - Punctured Arterty - Wind Burns
7	Leviathan Agent	8*	FBI Special Agent	A Man Made of Many Men - Serene Face - Golden Scepter - The All-Powerful State Personified	Photographs - Converses - Interrogates - Arrests - Wields Authority - Command Spells	Bullet Wounds - Legal Action - Forgetfulness
8	Hole	6*	Nothing	Quiet - Deep - Conspicuous - Smooth Edged - Enticing	Pedestrians Crawl In - Nothing Comes Out	Gone - Obsession
9	Strange Mist	2	Fog	Effervescent - Pooling - Swirling - Strange Lights	Fogs the Windows - Crawls Along Ground - Stains - Lunges - Tendrils	Black Lungs - Noisy Coughing - Blindness
10	Vampire	4	Rich Old Man	Pale - Elderly - Track Marks - Covered in Red Tubes - Attached at Hip to Drained Youth - Needles in Hands	Lurks - Labored Breathing - Steals the Blood - Steals the Flesh - Attaches It To Itself - He Will Live Forever! - Living Ponzi Scheme	Blood Loss - Liver Disease - HUNGER - Needles In Skin - Stolen Organs

BEACH ENCOUNTERS

d10	Monster	IT	Low Insight Appearance	Description	What It Does	Injuries
1	Mermaid	3*	Big Fish	Fish Head - Human Legs - It’s Upset - Very Upset	Lurks in the Tide - Watching - Baiting With Movement - Stalks From Water - Attacks and Drags Separated People	Fish Jaw - Bleeding - Drowning - Bisected
2	Siren	3	Pretty Women + Sinkhole	Three Beautiful Young Women - They Are The Fingers - The Hand Hides Under Sand	Shouts for Help - Asks for a Lift - Things Go Wrong - Check Out the Water - Eyes - Maw - Hand - Ambush	Eaten - Entranced
3	Shambling Flotsam	2	Sea Anemone	Smells Like Trash - Shuffles Blindly - Green Seaweeds and Porous Wood - Underneath, Spines Like Anemones	Slowly Moves Around - If Touched, Springs - Floats On Waves	Pain Poison - Rending Bleed - Infection
4	Bloated Corpse	1	Beached Whale	Ebbs with the Waves - Face In Water - Raisen Skin and Swollen - Smells Like Sewage	Stands Up - It Has No Mouth - It Tries to Scream - Then Explodes	Bone Shrapnel - Infection - Vomiting
5	Drowned Ghost	3*	Trick of the Light	A Dangling Thing - Floating Mid Air - Like Bait on the Line - It Soundlessly Gasps Like a Fish Out of Water	It Floats Serenely - It Twitches This Way Quickly - It Notices - Lungs Fill With Fluid	Drowning - Coughing
6	Water Vampire	4	Hull Hit Something	Mistaken For Flotsam - Darts Under The Boat With Uncanny Speed	Handle Appears On Bottom of Boat - A Knocking On The Hull - This Door Wasn’t Here - Open and It Floods - Blood in the Water	Drowning - Blood Loss - Vampirism
7	Sphere of Annihilation	5	Giant Bubble	Black as Pitch - Brownian Moving - Packs of Three	Magnetically Drawn to Things - Swallows Them Whole - Both Gone	Gone - Annihilated Limbs
8	Troll	5	Huge Black Bear	Too Tall - Cloaked - Strong Flashlight - Sniffs the Air - Quiet as a Mouse	Light Turns Red - It’s Seen You - The Light Freezes You, Like Deer	Broken Bones, Eaten
9	Angler	6*	Dead Fish Pile	Corpses Piled Up - Mass Grave - One of Them’s Fresh - Hand Stuck in the Mass - Dead-Eyed Jaw Terror Just Off Shore	Waits for the Investigator - Springs Like a Snare - Into the Water - Long Teeth	Snared - Bleeding - Amputation - Eaten
10	The Elf	5^	Water Spirits?	Big Stocky Man - Long Beautiful Hair and Petite Beard - Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall	It Moves The Stones - It Moves the Bramble - It Breaks Down the Walls - It Shatters the Wards - Fight or Argue, And It’s Gone.	Increases Empathy - Increases Encounter Chance

WOODS ENCOUNTERS

d10	Monster	IT	Low Insight Appearance	Description	What It Does	Injuries
1	Unicorn	3/6**	Unicorn / Cyclopism Deer	It Was a Deer - One Crackling Horn - One Too-Wide Central Eye - It Stares - Something Crawls Inside The Eye	Spells Have No Power Here - Crescendo Screams: “BwaaaaAAAAAAHHHH!!” - The Thing Comes Crawling Out Of The Eye - It Flees	Horn-Gored - Cyclopism, Then Death - Magical Feedback
2	Meat Grinder	5	Falling Tree	Something Feels Off - There’s Something Ahead - You See Nothing	Invisible Until Entered - Like a Mini Supernova - Spins Things Around Mid Air Until Thrown Apart	Gravitationally Annihilated - Motion Sickness
3	Webs	3	Spider Webs	Grey Fuzzy Material - Lattices - Perforates the Corners Like It’s Hiding - Drapes From Trees Like Old Curtains	On Contact, Hissing - On Contact, Burning	You’re Fine For Three Days, Then Sudden Death.
4	Vortex	3	Swamp Gas	Unnatural Swirling, Erratic Motions, Kidpix Alteration on Reality	Gravitates - Lunges - Shakes like a marble in a jar.	Lost in Time and Space - Shrapnel Wound - Swirling
5	Most Dangerous Game	8	Crazed Hunter Wearing Deerskin	The Deer Has a Gun - The Eyes Black Holes - Moves Like a Chinese Dragon - The Skin Bulges and Writhes - Smells Like Fresh Death	From One Eye a Rifle Slowly Emerges - CRACK - The Hunt Is On!	Gore - Gunshot Wound
6	Crawling Mold	2	Elder Muskrat	Veins in the Walls - Pounding Heartbeat - Flesh Moss	Swells - Ebs - Polyps - Crawls - Squirts Lymph	Arrhythmia - Polyping Flesh - Explosion
7	Moon Wasp	4	Knife Drone	Wasp-Buzzing - Mirror Laden - Dark Aperture, Uncanny Mathematical Movements - Glint on the Sun - Cackling Mandibles	Comes from over the treetops - Hovers, watching - Uncanny agility - Kamikazes-Dives	Lacerations - Infected Wounds - Bleeding - Social Media Exposure
8	Mad Horse	1	Panicking Horse	Whinnying - Kicking, Jumping - Twisted Face - Exposed Teeth and Tongue - Mad Eyes	It Knows Too Much - Evil Eye - Charges - Kicks and Bites - Swallows Whole	Swallowed - Broken Bones - Distended Jaw - Vore Obsession
9	Bog Mouths	7*	Red Pitcher Plants	Whispering In The Air - Louder and Louder - From The Ground Red Lips - Teeth On The End of a Disgusting Tube	Bites If Tempted - Mimicries Helpless Human - Groups Lunge and Bite Like Lampreys - Spits Acid	Dissolved - Bleeding Bite
10	The Elf	5^	Tree Spirits?	Big Stocky Man - Long Beautiful Hair and Petite Beard - Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall	It Moves The Stones - It Moves the Bramble - It Breaks Down the Walls - It Shatters the Wards - Fight or Argue, And It’s Gone.	Increases Empathy - Increases Encounter Chance

TOWN ENCOUNTERS

d10	Monster	IT	Low Insight Appearance	Description	What It Does	Injuries
1	Good Neighbor	7^	Friendly Neighbor	Voice From The Other Side of the Fence, The Door - A Man, Like Your Dad - It Cannot Be Seen	It Asks Questions - “How Was Your Day?” - “Fine Weather, Isn’t It?” - “Say, Do You Mind If I Borrow Your Hedge Trimmer?”	Reduces Empathy - Reduces Encounter Chance - Permanently Closes Shops
2	Unmarked Van	3	Child Kidnappers	White Exterior - No License Plate - Rooftop Spinning Camera - Unpiloted - Strong Sputtering.	Idles - Stops - Stalks - Idles Again - Van Doors Fly Open Into Vacuum Void.	Lost in Time and Space - Crushed Bones - Broken Ribs.
3	Anonymous Police	5	Federal Police	Riot Gear - Sunglasses - No ID - Incomprehensible Speech -  Armored Vehicles With Strange Machines - Tear Gas Haze	Blocks Road - Clouds of Gas - Sonic Weapon - Loiterers Get Shot - Blockade Runners Get Lethal Force	Concussion - Abduction - Broken Bones - Blindness - Deafness - Mind Scrambling
4	Corona Extractor	1	Junkie	Pale Face - No Pupils - Long Needles and Tubes	Finds the Fresh Corpses - Finds the Incapacitated - Stoops Low - Needle in the Eye - Collect the Liquids	Blindness - Addiction - Stigmata
5	Stalker	0	-	Uncanny Mask - Phone Snapshots - Leaning on Corners - White Rag in Hand	Follows - Keeps Distance - Ambush Isolated Members - Chloroform from Behind - Frantic Apologies During Assault	Abduction - Unconsciousness - Broken Nose
6	Glitcher	4	Meth Head	Static Laden - Impossibly Fast - Twitchy Textures - Frictionless - Infinite Rotational Energy	Clips Through Walls - Teleports - Feedback Screech - Spreads the Glitch - It Tries to Speak, To Warn	Glitching - Broken Record - Fall Under The Kill Plane
7	Rocket Man	7	Suicidal Fresh Driver	Engine Screaming - 120 mph in 30 mph Zone - Full Throttle No Brakes - Being of Pure Light	Doppler Driveby - Rocket Sleds Into Tree/House/Crowd - Crash and Burn - Absolutely Nothing Left	Need For Speed - Shrapnel
8	Crawling Lightning	5	Downed Power Line	Thunder In the Distance - Lightning Crawls the Ground	Move Or Die - It Moves Randomly - Animals Scream As They Die In Its Path	Lightning Shock - Screaming - PTSD
9	Ghoul	3	Escaped Mental Patient	Lumbering Gait - Heavy Breathing - Flash of Teeth - Eyes Like Saucers - Blood, Blood.	Sniffs - Drools - Screams - Charges and Bites.	Paralysis - Bleeding - Blood Sepsis - Deep Hunger.
10	Specular	6^	Black Cat	Eyes Big As Saucers - Black Withered Flesh - Shivering - Squelching - Hungry	Sits In The Middle of the Path - Watches - Watches - Hisses and Shrieks - Cowers Off	Ocular Enlargement - Bad Luck

*Will not interact or attack characters below its IT threshold.

**The Unicorn has multiple Insight Thresholds.

^Generally non-hostile.

Lost in Time and Space

You looked into the light. You fell through the hole. You read the words on the page.

Where are you now?

1. The Infinite Hotel

You feel the rough flatweave against your cheek. Open your eyes: it's red. A tacky red - a red carpet reserved for midwestern motels and cheap dentists' offices. You lift your head: there is a door. A wooden door with a brass handle and a key-lock. To your left and right, similar doors. Behind you, more. You are in a hallway - a straight line - and either way there are doors upon doors. It seems to stretch forever.

There are numbers on the doors. You know that they are numbers but you know not what numbers they are. It hurts to look at them, like gazing at a magnifying fractal ad infinitum. It gives you a headache. This appears to be a hotel, but where are all the people?

What is that in that uncurving distance?

2. Waiting For A Train

You're sitting on a bench. Across, you see the sterile walls of a subway station. There's an advertisement for Marlboro Cigarettes featuring a vintage blonde riding a fresh pack.

There is a track ahead of you, going left and right into darkness. At this point you hear a man's voice: "Yeah... Sometimes the train is late." He's sitting on a bench behind you. Has he been here the whole time? 

"It's a real stinker... But that's how things are, isn't it?"

Straight black hair covers his neck. His face is weathered like basalt. He wears a black hat matching his black shoes and a grey trench coat for the rain, of which there is none. He has an umbrella.

Have a conversation with this man. There are no exits.

Eventually, the train will come. But are you at the station, or are you on the tracks?

3. Dream Within The Dream

You wake.

You'd taken a nasty fall. Surrounded by your compatriots. But something's wrong. Something's off about them. Eventually, they remove the skin of their faces.

You wake.

It's night. The stars watch from above, blinking and twinkling in their distant radiance. Go to sleep.

You wake.

You are on a beach, alone. It's Lake Superior. You've never been to Lake Superior. You see something on the waves - long-necked and bobbing like the drinking bird. An island bearing a single tree floats by, unbound by gravity.

You wake.

4. Two Deserts

You feel a cool breeze. Your feet sink, just so. You are on a beach, and the waves of the ocean lap up against your feet with somber tempo.

Ahead of you is the sea. Behind, there is sand. You stand at the meniscus: a beach curving endlessly in both directions between wet and dry deserts. Your footprints begin to disappear in the tide. You feel thirsty.

Perhaps, you see something. Is it mermaids? Wreathed in seaweed. They sing to each other, but not for you.

5. The Mirror

You see... you. You are watching yourself. Like a mirror reflection in a dark hall of mirrors. There is light here, but you know not from where.

You realize that you cannot blink. You can't see your nose, or the blur of your eyelashes. You try and wave your hand in front of your face and close your eyes and it does not become dark. You watch yourself try these things. You watch the terror on your own face begin to form. Do you scream?

6. Ragged Claws

You are not but a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floor of silent seas.

You are barely a basal ganglia. No, not even that.

This isn't so bad...

7. Annulment of the Spheres

You stand upon the surface of a sphere. It curves in all directions. It stands in a void, along with you, alone. But not for long. Soon, there is another sphere, then another. More and more, spheres come streaming through the void, entering into interconnected orbits. They are brilliant radiances: stars contained within stars, magmatic planets, phasic nebulae, dashing comets.

They dance among themselves, you and your sphere within them, swirling about each other in gravitational ecstasy.

Then, a blinding light. Two of the spheres collide. An apocalyptic world-ending cataclysm: it produces sounds like the trumpets of heaven in Revelation: the noise of the end of the universe. It is followed by another cataclysmic crash, and another. One by one, then two by two and climbing, the spheres crash into each other, forming a great mass of gravitational annihilation.

Slowly, your sphere begins on its course towards the finality. At the end, you see the invisible strings pulling you in. A string for every sphere, tangled and ensnared. Something far above guides them to destruction. You wake.

8. Glaciers

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. 

Keep doing this.

A phalanx of ice and stone. It advances. It retreats. It waxes. It ebbs. With every inhale it swallows rivers, blankets valleys, swells, filling the crenulations like capillaries. With every exhale it shatters, breaks piece by piece - it falls apart and dissolves. Layers form upon layers like ice cream cake.

Breathe.

You sense something, an imperceptible scent. Breathing gets harder. Like an aperture around your throat slowly closing in. An asthmatic wheeze as the slow motion vice closes around your lungs.

Breathe.

Pieces start falling out of place. Every inhale becomes more shallow, every exhale more choked. Your lungs are hemorrhaging air in a death crawl towards annihilation. It's like breathing through a drinking straw. You're drowning. Gulping like a fish.

Don't stop breathing.

9. Your Life

You hear a woman screaming. She's in pain. It's white, white all around. There are people in the room: familiar people, and doctors. Are you one of these, familiar people, or doctors? They are not occupied by you. You are merely incidental. You are witnessing a birth. You recognize the woman. She is your mother, but much younger. The baby is you. You come out, screaming.

((If you should die during the adventure, this place will be revisited, along with your death.))

10. Melting

As you were, but... There's something familiar in the distance that was not there before. Some fixation of home: a city skyline, power lines imperiously carved through woods, fields of corn.

Your hands are mummified black. There is nothing left of them but unbleached bone.

Everything around you is melting. The flesh is gone, the organic is gone. The rocks and metals - the most permanent of things - are melting like butter in the microwave, unevenly with some indecipherable wave function.

The ants are coming to eat them as they decay. The enduring has become flesh and the flesh has become nothing. There will be naught but sand. Sand for all of time.