Postcard from The Dark Peak · #8
What the Ripperwing Circles
This is not a job for someone who solves problems with their hands. Bevel Crook needs to know who meets Hordrön's emissary at the Burbage millstone at murkfall — a face, at distance, in the murk. Nothing more. You go there. You see who it is. You come back. You are not seen.
A ripperwing runs a circuit overhead, and it works on a three-pass protocol: reconnaissance, test, commitment. A morivarid sweep spirals inward across the open ground, cleaning the air — and you are in the air. The emissary talks directly to the ripperwing. Every violent thing you do announces you, and the moment you are announced, the meeting moves somewhere you will never find it.
Field notes by Pip Rippon. Three detection points and it's over. Spend them carefully.
What’s inside
- One Dark Peak location: Burbage Edge — the track head, the hollow, and the millstone outcrop
- Three creatures from the Bestiary — the Ripperwing, the Morivarid, and Hordrön's Emissary
- One page of reusable rules (OSR-adjacent, 2d6, no prep required)
- A detection-point system instead of a combat clock: this is a stealth job, and any fight costs you two points automatically
- The ripperwing's three-pass protocol — recon, test, commitment — and a tightened circuit on the way back
- A 2d6 Encounter Table — 12 results, scored on how visible each one makes you
- Four outcomes, graded by how many detection points you carry home: paid in full, paid half and followed, paid nothing, or found on the moor and cleaned
Format: A5 PDF · 14 pages · Free
The story behind it: What the Ripperwing Circles, in Urban Myths and Hymns.
What’s waiting out there
What a ripperwing is
A hunter with a two-metre wingspan, patient, and already watching before you reached the moor. It reads motion and heat. Slow movement passes for ground-level life. Running triggers an immediate committed strike from above. The first pass is reconnaissance. You may not notice the first pass.
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.
