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What the River Owes: The Debt Repaid

The mud of the washed-out road clung to the wagon wheels like thick, wet mortar. Jost threw his shoulder against the timber. His boots slipped in the muck, and his chest heaved until the axle finally tore free with a wet, sucking lurch. Beside him, Volkmar let out a colorful string of curses that bled into a breathless, exhausted laugh. They rolled on from the Strutting Cock with the wagon bed crowded by fish crates and the Handler family. Jost walked and rode by turns as their bargain demanded. His spear hand rested near his belt, and the ache in his back served as a dull reminder of the road's toll. In the back of the wagon, wedged tightly among the cargo, Gretchen slept against her mother’s shoulder. The girl was worn paper-thin by a week that had demanded too much of her. Janderke would wait for the repair to the boat, then take the boat on the swollen Stir to Gersdorf and meet them there. Jost knew it that trip would carried its own dangers for the young man, but sensed Jander...
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What the River Owes: The Strutting Cock

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The Strutting Cock Jost winced as Heidi's voice cut through the stale air of the common room. “The room can wait! Take me to him now." Heads turned; eyes watched. Discretion was already dead. Josef, the innkeep, stopped mid-sentence and simply sighed, waving them toward the back. “Go on, then. Pit's not going anywhere." Before they breached the yard's threshold, Jost caught Janderke’s arm. “Keep your hand on the axe," Jost murmured, his eyes sweeping the muddy expanse, the stable shadows, the inn's rear door. “Take nothing for granted." Whatever rotted in that pit was one thing, but the dark around it was another. Caution cost nothing; carelessness cost everything. Jost hung back, watching the reunion unravel the family. Emmerich Handler’s pale hands seized the rusted bars before his cracked voice could form words. Heidi didn't just kneel; her legs seemed to give out, dropping her into the freezing mud. Gretchen peered down into the gloom. “Daddy...
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What the River Owes: Race Against the Noose

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The Stir wanted to carry them the entire way. Kessel's repair held, but the river itself seemed to possess a spiteful sentience: swollen, black, and running faster than Jost had ever seen it. It carried heavy storm debris down from the deep country, battering the hull. An hour in, a half-submerged snag caught the bow exactly where the fresh pitch sat. Jost felt the skiff list hard, his stomach dropping as Janderke swore and leaned his entire weight on the tiller to correct them. They fought to keep the skiff straight between them, wrestling the oars to keep the re-damaged bow pointed downstream, minimizing the water intake to a slow, dark trickle. What should have been a straightforward ride on a fast current stretched into five hours of agonizing, white-knuckle rowing just to steady the boat. Jost’s shoulders burned, the muscles spasming in the cold, while the oppressive, bruised sky of Talabecland offered no encouragement whatsoever. Jost used those grueling hours to tell Janderk...
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What the River Owes: Character Details of Jost Oberholtzer

The journalling work for What the River Owes  is grounded in mechanics found in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Second Edition (WFRP2). These mechanics directly influence the narrative and influence the characters over time. It may help for readers to see the character details being used in the mechanical decisions. You don't need to play WFRP2 or any TTRPG to get the basics.  WFRP2 is a percentile driven system: roll equal to or under the number and calculate a success or failure margin, “degrees of success or failure," for every 10 points under or over. For example, if Jost is presented with a test for Gossip, a Fellowship skill, I would roll two ten-sided dice (one die with “tens" and the other with “ones") and compare to Jost's stated Fellowship characteristic (Fel), 32%. If I rolled a 13 (10 and 3 on the dice) that would be 19 points under 32, or 1 degree of success. The same is true if I rolled 41 (40 and 1), 9 points over, or just a “flat failure," sometim...
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What the River Owes: The Man in the Pit

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The fire had begun to earn its keep by the time Josef reappeared with bread and bowls of something dark and thick. Jost had claimed the hearth without asking permission. His boots were off, his cloak steamed, and he had added three logs to the coals before anyone could object. Beside him, Janderke shifted his weight, his eyes tracking the innkeeper as if chewing on a question. “Herr Haarig," Janderke finally said, when Josef set the bowls down. “The men said there's a prisoner here. Some outlaw?" Josef's whole posture changed at the question. He straightened, wiping his hands on his apron with the particular pride of a man who'd been waiting all evening to be asked. “That's right. Heinz Gerber himself, locked up out back near the privy. A bounty hunter brought him in. Lars, he calls himself. Been raiding this stretch of the Stir the better part of four months, that one." He glanced between them. “Roadwardens come in two days to see him hanged proper....
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What the River Owes: Prologue

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The River Stir in Spring. The color of manure, swollen from rain and runoff, an odor of rotten vegetation, and thick with heavy debris floating on it or just beneath the brown-green water. Jost convinced his young friend, Janderke, to go fishing. Janderke owned a small row boat and often took it out on the River Stir for a small fee. Many locals in Tauer on the river would hand over a few pennies for time fishing. Janderke stood a half head taller than his elder Jost. Besides fishing, the both of them had something in common: formerly rich, and dead, relatives. But Jost had made his living fishing for more years than he cared to count and a small inheritance just made what accounted for his small vices more accessible. The day was cloudy and the dark clouds to the east suggested a lot of rain upstream. Thunder could be distantly heard. Janderke rowed the boat out to “ trunks," a collection of just above the surface rotting tree trunks downstream of the docks of Tauer. The “trunks...
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New Adventure Serial in development

I am currently editing the prologue for a new adventure serial here on the blog. This piece serves as a prelude to my upcoming guest post for the AtoZ Challenge in September. While that guest post is already drafted, I realized it would benefit from a practical demonstration of a creative process driven by the friction of randomness using Tabletop RPG (TTRPG) mechanics. While this method is not new, I hope to introduce it to writers looking to leverage externalized prompts to resolve story outcomes. Set in the grim “Old World" of Warhammer, the prologue introduces Jost Oberholtzer, a fatherly fisherman, and Janderke “Jan" Steuben, a young boatman. Jan owns a small rowboat on the River Stir, frequently taking Jost to well-known watering holes near Tauer, their small village on the border of Talabecland and Stirland. When severe weather forces them on a week-long journey nearly 100 miles from home, Jost must guide and mentor Jan as the young man is thrust into the cutthroat, da...
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