Mshai the Vampire, Chapter 8

Mshai flees to Brittania

CW: assault, violence, murder, blood,

Intended for mature audiences

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Table of Contents

Previously…

Amrit the Vampire, Ch. 7

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400 AD. Constantinople, Eastern Roman Empire

Roll: 1d10 - 1d6 = 5 - 5 = 0 → Prompt #46.2

You flee again, this time to a far off enclave or colony. How do you use colonial rule to your benefit? Choose one skill: Occupier, Insurgent, Inconspicuous, or Gone Native along with an appropriate new name.

I was scared Chione would follow me so I fled yet again, with my true believers Mido, Lucia and Azad, going further and further west, to Brittania. There, I found Roman rule weakening as soldiers were withdrawn to fight more wars and the locals rising up again and again. I was able to provide assistance to the natives, those the Romans called ‘barbarians’ but were actually just Brittanians rising up against imperial rule. Through my assistance, they were successful in some of their attacks. Though they found my appearance strange, they allowed me to join them. I take the name Butu.

I take the skill Gone Native and take a new name, Butu.

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Roll: 3 - 1 = +2 → Prompt #48

500 AD, Brittania

I woke up, covered in dust. The cave in which I’d been sleeping had been sealed off with rocks. To trap or protect me, I didn’t know. I only knew I’d been asleep for a long time. I was able to move and shift a few of the rocks, making a small hole that I was able to crawl, slowly and painfully on my belly, out of the cave. I felt agony and exhaustion. A deep exhaustion that I didn’t think would ever go away. Without realizing, I leave my diary behind.

I lose my only resource, my Diary. I cross off all Mortals as dead.

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Roll: 4 - 1 = +3 → Prompt #51

My hunger overwhelmed me and I became a mindless animal hunting for food in the wilds.

I forget a random experience from the middle of my Memory list.

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Roll: 1 - 4 = -3 → Prompt #48.2

Azad found me! Somehow, he was still alive! He looked different, bulkier and his eyes were yellow. He said something in the Brittania wilds bit him and he changed but would not tell me more. He was happy to see me and explained that Mido, Lucia and him had been unable to rouse me from my slumber in the cave, so they’d blocked it up as a way to protect me while I slept. I thanked him for his continued service to me.

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Roll: 4 - 1 = +3 → Prompt #51.2

In my wild roaming throughout the forests of Brittania, I found companionship in something…different. I found a tall, bountiful tree that…spoke to me in some way. When I reached out and touched it, I could feel it’s life source. Home to birds and squirrels, it felt…restful. I found that when I spent time lying and sleeping beneath it’s limbs, that I felt…content. A peacefulness. I felt connected to this tree.

Photo by Jon Moore on Unsplash

I gain the resource Beautiful Tree.

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Roll: 4 - 1 = +3 → Prompt #54

My accent and way of being stood out whenever I went into populated areas. I was ridiculed and worse for being strange and different. Romans had long since abandoned Brittania and Saxons had invaded, taking over most of it. I remembered Chione, being attacked, buried and fleeing. I decided I wanted to be quiet, unassuming and escape notice in populated places.

I convert an old Memory into a skill for blending in, Inconspicuous

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Roll: 8 - 3 = +5 → Prompt #59

A man on a horse came upon me in the wilds. He was dressed as a man of battle, with weapons and armor.

I shied away.

“I know you, creature of the forest,” he said in broken Latin. He held up a battered journal, my old diary. “I found this in a cave and have been looking for you.”

“Why?”

“I was offered a few measly coins from a nearby village to find and kill the ‘monster’ roaming the forest, but when I found your journal, I realized you were much more than a monster. You’ve lived a long, long life. I want to know how.”

“And how would you help me?” I asked.

“For now, I offer a token to encourage a partnership between us.” He pulled off a silver ring from his right hand and tossed it to me.

I looked it over before putting it on. It would be nice to have someone to talk to, at least.

I create the Mortal Aedh, and gain the resource silver ring.

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Post-Chapter Notes

Things can happen so quickly in TYOV. A new location, a new name, and then a hundred years pass in the blink of an eye. It really gives you this feeling of being an immortal creature, spurred on by the prompts which force events in your life, losing your memories and resources along the way, meeting new mortals to lose them with the next prompt and then forgetting about them entirely. This game is so evocative. The theme and the mechanics work so well together. I can’t say enough good things about it.

We are getting close to the end now. I would imagine two more chapters at most. Around Prompt 70 is when drastic things start happening and the final prompts, if you make it that far without losing all your resources/skills. It really depends on the dice how much longer Butu lives.

I did make another mistake last chapter, forgetting that my Diary also had to be a resource so I fixed it in this chapter. You can always get a new diary, but you have to make it a resource.

Looking forward to finishing this and moving onto something else. Not sure what the next solo game I plan to take on will be. There’s so many good options. One possibility is a Bladerunner RPG solo campaign, which would force me to use GME’s and tools to turn a group-focused TTRPG into a solo game, which might be fun. Sound off ideas in the comments!

• Name: Cassius, Amrit, Mshai, Butu,

• Time Period: 505 AD

• Location: Alexandria, Rome, Gupta Empire, Constantinople, Brittania

• Skills:

  • Performing rituals (X), Literacy (X), Ashamed (X), Humans are tools (X), Hiding (X), Fighting (X), Shapeshifting (X), Healthy Constitution (X), Feral (X), Bloodthirsty (X),

  • Diplomacy ( ), Torpor ( ), Skulking ( ), Gone Native ( ), Inconspicuous ( )

  • Humans are cattle ( )

• Resources

  • A modest home, Small gold statue of Osiris, Ritual scrolls, Potions, Servitors of the Lineage, Spear, Ruins, Diary Scrolls, Diary (battered journal)

  • Beautiful Tree

  • Silver Ring

• NPCs

  • Mortals

    • Amr, the high priest of the temple, dead by my hand

    • Jabari, my brother, a scribe, died during the time I was enslaved for a 100 years

    • Mido, a lowly peasant who wishes to become a vampire, was in my service in Alexandria

    • Hanan, a village woman who loved me and I forced her to kill her family, she burned my Diary Scroll and I forgave her, she fled with me to Italy when the army came for me

    • Seth, a Christian vampire-hunter trying to find and kill me

    • Anna, Seth’s daughter, a Christian

    • Mido, true believer and descendant of Mido

    • Lucia, true believer, feverish devotant

    • Azad, true believer, from Gupta Empire, young and strong, has lived longer than humanly possible, has yellow eyes

    • Aedh, Celt who found my journal and spoke to me, wanting immortality

  • Immortals

    • Osiris, leader of a secret cult, claiming to be a god

    • Chione, a female servant in the temple, who I accidentally turned into a vampire

    • Sekhmet, ancient egyptian vampire who enslaved me for a 100 years

    • Drusa, a strix, who recognized me as a fellow immortal, we fought and she took my spear but I managed to escape, she converted my companion to attack me but I escaped again,

• Marks

  • A hole in my chest that doesn’t bleed but doesn’t heal

  • Inhumanly thin

• Memory 1

  • 400 AD: A small group of true believers led by Mido, Lucia and Azad find and worship me.

  • 400 AD: I fled with my true believers from Constantinople to Brittania, and worked to join the natives resisting Roman imperial rule, taking a new name, Butu.

  • 500 AD: I find Azad impossibly alive but changed, we are happy to see each other.

• Memory 2

  • 380 AD: During my torpor, my body slowly feeds on itself, making me inhumanly and grotesquely thin.

  • 400 AD: My newfound emaciated form allows me to move and hide without notice.

  • 500 AD: Generations pass as I sleep, I wake up trapped and crawl my way out.

• Memory 3

  • 505 AD: Aedh, a Celt finds me and reveals he’s read my diary, gives me a silver ring to initiate a partnership, wants the secret to immortality

• Memory 4

  • 500 AD: My hunger overwhelms me and I become a mindless animal, hunting for blood and forgetting things.

  • 500 AD: During my wild hunts, I come to find a beautiful tree that calms my animalistic soul, I rest there often underneath it’s limbs and it brings me peace.

• Diary

• Lost Memories

  • Amr

    • 30 BC: Amr honors me with a small, golden statue of Osiris, I am grateful and display it in my house.

    • 30 BC: Working late with Amr at the temple one night, I am overcome with hunger and murder him, drinking his blood.

  • Chione

    • 30 BC: Chione and I begin a secretive romantic partnership, I show her some of my scrolls and read to her.

    • 30 BC: Chione sees me bloodied and we fight, I end up turning her into a vampire like myself.

  • Mido

    • 70 AD: A peasant called Mido has been following me and wants to be like me, he enters into my service.

  • Jabari

    • 30 BC: Jabari has dinner with me in my home and we discuss our worries about the war and what will happen between Rome and Egypt as Octavian’s army approaches the city.

    • 30 BC: Jabari witnesses me drinking blood from rats and discovers my condition, he promises to help me, bringing me potions.

  • How I became a Vampire

    • 30 BC: Osiris performed a dark ritual, pulling my heart out of my chest, consuming it, and having me drink his blood, I have changed into a Vampire.

  • My life before a Vampire and the decades soon after

    • 30 BC: Publicly, I am Amon, priest of Osiris, responsible for performing rituals at a temple in Alexandria, privately I am part of a secret cult led by a figure claiming to be Osiris.

    • 70 AD: A creature or goddess, Sekhmet the Bloodthirsty, enslaves me and uses me for dark purposes for a hundred years, I finally use a ritual to escape her clutches.

    • 95 AD: I find solace from my hunger in observing human lives in Rome, it brings me peace for a time.

  • My Time in The Qattara Depression

    • 70 AD: Disgusted with myself, I flee to the Qattara Depression to seclude myself from society in a cave

    • 80 AD: A woman named Hanan finds me and visits me over the years, becoming a close companion, I force her to kill her family when she resists me.

    • 85 AD: Hanan burns my Diary Scroll in anger, I do not remember what I’ve lost and I forgive her.

  • Fleeing to Italy

    • 80 AD: I find a new outlet in painting the walls of my hut and finding some peace within the beauty.

    • 85 AD: A group of mortals attacks me and burns my hut to the ground, I kill them all in their sleep as revenge.

    • 90 AD: An army comes after me, I flee with my things and Hanan to Italy and take a new name, Cassius.

  • Drusa

    • 95 AD: In a small Italian village, another immortal, a strix named Drula, attacks me, takes my spear and I hide from her.

    • 95 AD: Drusa turns Hanan against me, Hanan uses my old spear to nearly kill me, I express how ashamed I am and she can’t finish the job, I flee.

  • Shapeshifting

    • 303 AD: I drink centuries-old potions and gain a new skill, shape-shifting, which helps me elude hunters and find prey to feed on.

    • 303 AD: To sustain and increase my shape-shifting abilities, I train my body but lose bits of myself the more I shape-shift and lose a Memory.

    • 305 AD: I lose myself in my animal instincts and bloodthirst, hunting and slaughtering with wild abandon.

  • Influence in Rome

    • 295 AD: Over 300 years, the Servitors of the Lineage, created by a servant I did not remember, Mido, serve me and my interests as I grow in wealth and influence in Rome.

    • 303 AD: I kill a Christian after reading his bible and help turn the Roman aristocracy against Christians.

    • 303 AD: A Christian vampire-hunter named Seth comes after me.

  • Going through the motions

    • 310 AD: I find myself uninterested in human concerns and live only to hunt, kill, feed and sleep.

    • 340 AD: I forget specific details of some of my memories.

  • A weakness

    • 400 AD: I emerge from my grave to face a man wielding a Wootz steel blade which burns when it slashes me, I kill the man and drink his blood.

  • Chione returns

    • 340 AD: A vampire from a forgotten memory, Chione, attacks me and takes my servitors away, leaving me bloodied and broken.

    • 360 AD: Chione and her servitors bury me underground and leave me to suffer, I spend years in agony.

    • 400 AD: Chione found out I returned, so I fled to Constantinople to begin a new life as Mshai, the street sweeper.

  • Fleeing to Gupta Empire

    • 305 AD: … expose me as a… …and I flee to the Gupta Empire and take a new name, Amrit.

    • 305 AD: I use diplomacy and manipulate humans in order to increase my wealth and…in this new land.

  • Anna

    • 340 AD: I find a female vampire-hunter named Anna, descendant of Seth, and help her when a couple thugs attack her.

Next Chapter → Chapter 9: Butu is Trapped