Postcard from The Dark Peak · #6
The Bluebell Line
Van wants a murkcask out of the derelict mill at Beeley Wood — sealed, waterproof, left in the main room by someone he won't name. He was precise about what and vague about everything else. The one hard detail: this murkneet, before the exacid grubrun. When the exacids arrive to collect what the gutterball colony has recorded, anything still in that room goes with them. Including you.
Between you and the mill runs the bluebell line, held by a longleg. It won't stop you walking through. It will remember everything you take from the south side. And in the ruins, the gutterballs don't care who you are — they care what you think, and what you think about what you're thinking, and the gap between the two.
Field notes by Pip Rippon. In, cask, out — before the sixth Encounter roll.
What’s inside
- One Dark Peak location: Beeley Wood — the Dun path, the wood and its bluebell line, and the mill ruins
- Three creatures from the Bestiary — the Longleg, the Gutterball, and the Exacids
- One page of reusable rules (OSR-adjacent, 2d6, no prep required)
- A boundary you can cross but not un-cross: the longleg logs what you take from the bluebell side
- Passive Murk drain in the ruins: stay too long and the hive mind has a pattern on you
- A 2d6 Encounter Table — 12 results
- A full multi-step Exacid encounter: assess, bluff as maintenance staff, hide in the drainage channels, or fight a flanking pair
- Three outcomes: cask delivered, filed as an anomaly, or walked out clear-headed with no memory of picking it up
Format: A5 PDF · 15 pages · Free
The story behind it: The Bluebell Line, in Urban Myths and Hymns.
What’s waiting out there
What a gutterball is
A head-sized sphere with a wet stone surface and an aperture somewhere on the outside, always turned toward the most interesting thing in the room. It doesn't hurt you in a way you'd recognise as hurting. It records you. Physical attacks pass straight through the surface. Disturb one and every aperture in the room turns your way at once.
What you need
Two six-sided dice, something to write with, and one evening. No GM, no group, no preparation. It’s a solo tabletop RPG scenario: one location in Hellsborough and The Dark Peak, a handful of creatures from the Bestiary, and a very bad night.
Never played a solo RPG before? The first Postcard Adventure, Something in the Hole, has a complete example game you can follow once and have it.
When you want more
Every Postcard Adventure uses the same three stats, Grit, Wit and Murk. Foked is what they grow into: the full solo ruleset, where your stats are your flesh and your character carries every scar into the next job. The core rules are free.
