Postcard from The Dark Peak · #5
Twelve Beats Per Minute
The Loxley Overhang is a path most experienced crosslanders have quietly stopped using. There are several reasons for that, and if you count the pulse rate on the yellow-wagtails along the wall, you'll have a rough estimate of how many of those reasons are currently aware of you.
A coordinator is paying well to retrieve an oilcloth packet from a scout's field kit, four hundred metres along the path in the canopy stretch. The kit is there. The scout is not. Nobody mentioned the curlbeak. And at the far end, where the Overhang becomes proper road, something eight feet tall with four arms is standing on the line, watching, deciding whether you are interesting.
Field notes by Pip Rippon. Get the packet, get back to the junction — before the sixth Encounter roll.
What’s inside
- One Dark Peak location: the Loxley Overhang — the junction, the flagged path, and the canopy stretch
- Three creatures from the Bestiary — the Yellow-wagtail, the Curlbeak, and the Xaexs
- One page of reusable rules (OSR-adjacent, 2d6, no prep required)
- A "count" mechanic: the wagtails' pulse rate tells you how many are aware of you — and stacks the Encounter Table against you when the number climbs
- The Curlbeak's three-call system: the calls tell you where it was, the silence tells you where it is now
- A 2d6 Encounter Table — 12 results
- A warden you cannot fight, only retreat from — a soul-read that costs Murk every round it can see you
- Three outcomes: packet delivered, downed on the path, or observed for a little too long
Format: A5 PDF · 15 pages · Free
The story behind it: Twelve Beats Per Minute, in Urban Myths and Hymns.
What’s waiting out there
What a yellow-wagtail is
A bioluminescent lure bird, smaller than you'd think for something this dangerous. It sits at the distance that reads as interesting rather than threatening and waits. The tail tip pulses in the murk — barely visible in murklight, highly visible once the light has gone. By the time you notice the pulse, the count is already running. Each bird beats once every two seconds at rest. Faster means the pack has agreed on a target.
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.
