Postcard from The Dark Peak · #3
The Third Stack
Someone wants a package carried into the gruizeyard and handed off at the Third Stack — three old industrial chimneys at the edge of a former steelworks, dead centre of crosslander territory. They didn't say why it has to be you. You took the job anyway.
The crosslands don't run on the organic network the way Hellsborough does, which means the things that usually keep to a pattern out there don't. A ripperwing has been circling since before you noticed it. Somewhere in the stacked dead gruizers, something is clicking, looking for a host, and it does not intend to ask first.
Field notes by Pip Rippon. Keep moving, and don't stop for the clicking.
What’s inside
- One Dark Peak location: the gruizeyard and the Third Stack, crosslander territory
- Three creatures from the Bestiary — the Crosslanders, the Ripperwing, and a disassociated Symbiot
- One page of reusable rules (OSR-adjacent, 2d6, no prep required)
- A 2d6 Encounter Table — 12 results, including a network that logs you without warning anyone
- Three outcomes: handoff made, downed in the gruizeyard, or bonded against your will
- Pip Rippon's field notes throughout
Format: A5 PDF · 15 pages · Free
The story behind it: The Third Stack, in Urban Myths and Hymns.
What’s waiting out there
What a symbiot wants
Bonded properly, a symbiot is a companion — a slow, mutual thing, built over time, and the crosslander clans keep them close for good reason. A disassociated one skips every stage that makes that survivable. It doesn't ask. It finds the nearest warm thing and takes what its last host was carrying, unfiltered, all at once. You may not have the words for what arrives.
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.
