Frights & Fables: The Tidemolt Rises
Friday Frights and Fables: The Tidemolt of Old Bailiwick
A free Worlds of Pulp Adventure for Halloween
A pulp-horror one-shot for The Worlds of Pulp™, written for 3 to 5 players and one evening of play (3 to 4 hours).
Adventure Overview
Old Bailiwick is a small coastal city with a fishing harbor, a crooked boardwalk, a library that never quite closes, and a lighthouse nobody needs anymore. On the surface, it is ordinary. Underneath, it hums.
A living magic runs beneath Old Bailiwick. It flows through storm drains, phone lines, and the cracks in the sea wall. Locals call it the Hum. Most never notice it beyond a faint buzz in their teeth or a streetlight that flickers in rhythm with their heartbeat. Psychics feel it as a pulse. Occultists know it as something older and stranger: an organism, vast and alive, with the whole city resting on its back like barnacles on a whale.
This Halloween, someone intends to make it shed that skin.
The antagonist: Augustin Thrale, the last keeper of Gravesend Point Light. He holds the world in deep contempt. For two centuries, his family fed the Hum with light from the great lens. Then the city voted to shut down the lighthouse and replace it with an automated buoy. Thrale has decided that a world which paves over a living miracle does not deserve to stand on it. At midnight on Halloween, he will tune the great lens to drive the Hum into a Tidemolt. The organism will shed Old Bailiwick like dead skin, and the sea will take what is left.
The quest: Find Thrale and stop the Tidemolt before midnight.
The obstacles: Lilith Blackwell, The Hexed, has foreseen the city drowning and believes the heroes are the cause. Silas Grey, The Cursed, has been chained to Thrale’s will through his own curse and now guards the only road to the lighthouse.
Adventure at a Glance
| Time | Scene | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00 PM | Scene 1: The Lantern Walk | Open with a fight. Plant the first clue. |
| 8:30 PM | Scene 2: Following the Hum | Investigate three locations in any order. |
| 9:45 PM | Scene 3: The Hexed | Confront Lilith Blackwell at the Free Library. |
| 10:45 PM | Scene 4: The Causeway | Get past Silas Grey as the tide rises. |
| 11:30 PM | Scene 5: Gravesend Light | Stop Thrale and the Tidemolt at midnight. |
The times are guides, not rules. If your players move fast, let the clock move fast with them. If they stall, let the Hum push them forward.
Background: How Old Bailiwick Came to Hum
Here is the history, in order. You can share pieces of it as players uncover clues.
- 1790s: Whalers settle a cove where compasses spin and lanterns burn blue. They learn that light thrown into the bay calms the tremors beneath the town. The first beacon fire is lit on Gravesend Point.
- 1838: The Thrale family builds Gravesend Point Light. Its great lens, ground from glass smelted with sea-salt and bone ash, focuses light into the water each night. The keepers call this “feeding the Deep Lantern.”
- 1898: Keeper Josiah Thrale records a near-disaster in his log. The lamp failed for three nights, and the Hum “began to itch beneath the streets, as a hound itches before it sheds.” He relit the lamp just in time.
- 1960s–1990s: Electricity, telephones, and radio towers spread the Hum’s flow through the city’s wires. Old Bailiwick becomes a place where strange things happen just a little more often than elsewhere. Pulp logic takes root.
- Last spring: The City Council votes to decommission Gravesend Light and replace it with an LED buoy. Augustin Thrale, the final keeper, delivers a speech nobody listens to. He goes home and starts reading his great-grandfather’s logs.
- This October: Thrale learns how to tune the Hum instead of feeding it. He builds brass tuning forks, plants them in festival effigies, hooks one into a wandering cursed man, and prepares the great lens for Halloween night.
The Hum: Running the Living City
The Hum is the habitat of this adventure. Treat it like weather that has opinions. It is not good or evil. It is alive, and right now it is frightened.
Texture
Describe the Hum constantly, in small ways:
- Fillings in teeth buzz. Coins in pockets vibrate against each other.
- Neon signs pulse in time, block after block, like a heartbeat spreading outward.
- Puddles ripple with no wind. Fog moves against the breeze.
- Radios slip between stations and play a low, wordless note.
- Cats sit facing the sea and refuse to move.
The Hum Track
Keep a Hum Track from 0 to 6. It starts at 1. Raise it by 1 at the end of each scene, and by 1 more whenever the heroes waste time, fail loudly, or let Lilith finish her Severing.
| Hum | Effect on the City |
|---|---|
| 1 | A faint buzz. Most people shrug it off. |
| 2 | Streetlights pulse in rhythm. Dogs howl at the harbor. |
| 3 | Electronics fail in bursts. Phones ring with no one on the line. Psychics take a –1 to focus. |
| 4 | Fog thickens. Objects drift an inch above tables. Brine-Jacks wander the streets. |
| 5 | Cracks of violet-green light split the pavement. Buildings groan as if breathing. |
| 6 | The Tidemolt begins. Go immediately to the finale countdown, wherever the heroes are. |
Tuning In
Psychic and occult-trained heroes can deliberately listen to the Hum for answers. Have them make a Willpower or X-Factor test. On a success, give them one clue or a vision of where Thrale is pushing the organism. On a failure, they still learn something, but the Hum notices them. The hero takes 2 Hits from psychic feedback, or gains a temporary Condition such as Ringing Ears 6 or Seeing Doubles 7 until the next scene.
Everyday heroes can’t tune in, but they can feel it. Let them notice physical details the others miss: the tremor under a floorboard, the compass that points toward the lighthouse no matter how it is held.
Pulp Logic
Old Bailiwick runs on pulp logic. When in doubt, follow these three rules:
- If it would be thrilling, it probably works. Swinging from a fishing crane, jamming a crowbar into a machine, shouting someone back to their senses. Let bold plans succeed more often than cautious ones.
- Every location has one useful thing. A flare gun, a fire axe, a ham radio, a crate of rock salt. Place it where heroes will find it.
- The clock is always ticking. Remind players of the time often. A church bell, a wristwatch, the tide line creeping up the pilings.
The Player Characters
This adventure works best with heroes from three backgrounds:
- Everyday Heroes: dockworkers, nurses, cops, teachers, reporters, shopkeepers. They know the streets and the people.
- Psychics: sensitives, mediums, dreamers, and empaths. They feel the Hum most clearly and suffer from it most.
- Occult-Trained Investigators: scholars, hedge witches, exorcists, and paranormal researchers. They understand what the Hum is and what Thrale is doing.
Why are they on Harbor Street tonight? Ask each player for a quick answer, or offer one of these:
- You’re volunteering at the Lantern Walk handing out candy.
- Your niece is in the parade, dressed as a lighthouse.
- You’ve had the same dream for a week: a glass eye opening in the sea.
- Your EMF meter has been screaming since sundown, and it led you here.
- Officer Dot Pruitt called you personally. She said, “Something’s wrong with the town, and you’re the only weirdo I trust.”
Scene 1: The Lantern Walk (8:00 PM)
Start with a Bang
Read or paraphrase:
Harbor Street glows orange with five hundred paper lanterns. Kids in rubber masks shriek and run between the food carts. The smell of fried dough and low tide hangs in the cold air. At the end of the street, the parade’s pride and joy rolls forward: a dozen giant harvest effigies built from driftwood, kelp, and fishing net, each wearing a carved pumpkin head.
Then every lantern on the street turns blue at once.
The buzz in your teeth becomes a roar. Car alarms wail. And the effigies, all twelve of them, turn their pumpkin heads to look at the crowd.
The effigies are Brine-Jacks, animated by the overflowing Hum through the tuning forks Thrale hid inside them. Four of them lurch into the crowd. A swarm of Fetch-Gulls, seabirds stitched together with blue light, wheels overhead and dives for anything shiny.
Running the Fight
- The goal isn’t just to win. It’s to protect civilians. Put a child in a stroller in a Brine-Jack’s path. Put an old man in a wheelchair under the gulls.
- Use the environment: a funnel-cake fryer full of hot oil, a fire hydrant, a parade float on a hill with bad brakes.
- After the heroes drop two Brine-Jacks, the remaining ones stop, shudder, and collapse into piles of kelp. The Hum drops back to a buzz. For now.
The Clue
When a Brine-Jack falls apart, a small brass object clatters onto the cobbles: a tuning fork, six inches long, warm to the touch and still faintly ringing. Engraved on the handle is a symbol: a circle with a single eye at the center and three wavy lines beneath it.
- Occult Investigation, Folklore, or Maritime knowledge identifies it as the old keeper’s mark of Gravesend Point Light.
- Psychics who touch it feel a wave of disgust that isn’t their own and hear a calm voice say: “Look at them. Cattle in paper hats.”
Enter Officer Dot Pruitt
As the dust settles, Officer Dorothy “Dot” Pruitt arrives, breathless, hat askew, holding a flashlight in one hand and a thermos of coffee in the other. She has worked the night shift in Old Bailiwick for twenty-two years and has stopped being surprised by anything. She gives the heroes a short list of places that have been “acting funny” all week, which leads directly into Scene 2.
Scene 2: Following the Hum (8:30 PM)
This is the investigation. The heroes have three leads. They can visit them in any order, split up, or skip one. Each location holds at least one clue pointing to Gravesend Light and Thrale. If they miss a clue, let another source deliver it. Never let the adventure stall on a missed roll.
Raise the Hum Track by 1 when the heroes finish their second location.
Location A: Mother Oyster’s Bait & Tackle
A leaning shack at the end of Pier 3, strung with buoys and wind chimes made of fish bones. Every chime rings at the same pitch, in time with the Hum.
Delphine “Mother Oyster” Marsh runs the shop. She is seventy-something, wears three cardigans and gold hoop earrings, and talks to the bait worms. She is a natural psychic who has heard the Hum her entire life as a kind of song.
“It’s been singing since before I was born, honey. Low and slow, like a mama humming to a baby. But this week somebody’s been fiddling with the strings. It’s singing sharp now. Sharp and scared.”
Clues available:
- The Hum is being tuned, deliberately, from somewhere out on the water.
- The lighthouse beam changed color three nights ago, from white to a sickly violet-green. Nobody else seems to have noticed.
- Mother Oyster remembers Augustin Thrale as a boy. “Sweet kid. Read too much. Never forgave anybody for anything.”
Useful thing: A jar of sea salt blessed by her late husband. Thrown at a Brine-Jack or a Hum-construct, it disrupts the creature for one round.
Location B: WBLK, Pirate Radio on Cannery Row
A cramped studio above a closed laundromat, wallpapered with concert flyers and tinfoil. The station broadcasts from a homemade antenna on the roof.
Wendell Pike is nineteen, the self-appointed night DJ of Old Bailiwick, and the city’s foremost amateur expert on “the frequency.” He talks fast, wears headphones around his neck at all times, and has been recording the Hum for months.
“Okay, okay, so everybody thinks it’s just interference, right? Wrong. Listen. Under the static, there’s a pattern. Thirteen pulses, pause, thirteen pulses. You know what turns thirteen times a minute? The lens. At Gravesend. I clocked it.”
Clues available:
- The thirteen-pulse pattern matches the lighthouse’s rotation exactly.
- The pulses have been getting faster each night. At this rate, Wendell estimates they’ll “hit some kind of peak around midnight.”
- Wendell has a printout of the City Council minutes from last spring. In it, Augustin Thrale’s public statement reads: “You had a miracle beneath your feet, and you paved it for parking. Do not expect it to be grateful.”
Useful thing: Wendell can broadcast anything the heroes want across the whole city. A psychic hero who speaks into his microphone can push a calming signal into the Hum, lowering the Hum Track by 1 (once per adventure).
Location C: Dock 9 Cannery
A shuttered sardine cannery on the north pier. Its windows glow faintly violet from inside. The Hum is strongest here. Floors vibrate. Loose screws walk across workbenches on their own.
This is Thrale’s workshop. Inside, the heroes find:
- Half-built Brine-Jacks hanging from meat hooks like scarecrows.
- A grinding bench with brass shavings and a dozen unfinished tuning forks.
- A chalkboard covered in equations, tidal charts, and a sketch of the great lens with “MIDNIGHT — LOW TIDE ENDS — FULL RESONANCE” circled three times.
- A notebook of Thrale’s private writing.
“They poison the bay and call it progress. They bulldoze the old chapels and call it development. They had a god beneath their streets, and they could not even be bothered to notice. Very well. Let the god notice them. Let it shed them like a snake sheds its skin.”
The danger: Two dormant Brine-Jacks wake when anyone disturbs the tuning forks. A fight here should be short and sharp.
Clues available:
- Thrale’s plan, in his own words: tune the Hum to a frenzy at midnight using the great lens.
- A library receipt from the Bailiwick Free Library: Thrale, A. — Keeper’s Logs of Gravesend Point, 1838–1902 (Rare Room). This points the heroes toward Scene 3.
- A sketch of a large man in a heavy coat with a tuning fork pinned to the lining. Beneath it: “The hound will hold the road.”
Useful thing: A crowbar and a fire axe hang on the wall. Both will matter at the lighthouse.
Scene 3: The Hexed (9:45 PM)
The Bailiwick Free Library
The library is a three-story brick building with a copper dome gone green. The doors are unlocked. The lights are off. Every book on every shelf trembles faintly, pages fluttering.
The heroes come here for the keeper’s logs, which hold the method for calming the Hum rather than stopping it by force. Someone has already taken them to the Rare Room on the top floor.
That someone is Lilith Blackwell.
What Lilith Wants
Lilith arrived in Old Bailiwick a week ago, drawn by a prophecy she cannot shake: the city drowned in violet light, and strangers carrying lanterns walking into the sea. She believes the heroes, fresh from the Lantern Walk, are those strangers.
Worse, she has reached the wrong conclusion about the Hum. She believes the organism itself is the threat. She is weaving a Severing hex in a ritual circle on the Rare Room floor, intending to cut the Hum’s heart and kill it outright.
What she doesn’t know: a wounded organism panics. If she finishes the Severing, the Hum Track jumps by 2, and Thrale’s work at the lighthouse becomes much easier.
Read or paraphrase:
The Rare Room glows violet. Candles float in a ring above the floor, their flames bending toward the window and the dark sea beyond. In the center of a chalk circle stands a woman in flowing black, raven hair spilling over silver charms. A tarot card spins slowly in the air before her: The Tower.
She doesn’t look up. “I wondered when you’d come,” she says. “I’ve watched you walk into the water a hundred times this week. Not tonight.”
Running the Encounter
Lilith is an obstacle, not a villain. She can be beaten, but she can also be stopped another way. Offer the heroes three paths:
1. Convince Her. Lilith is Distrustful 8 and Haunted by Prophecy 10. Words alone won’t do it. The heroes need proof. Showing her the tuning fork, Thrale’s notebook, or Wendell’s recording, combined with a strong Intelligence, Willpower, or X-Factor test, makes her pause. Two successes (with evidence) and she lowers her hands.
2. Break the Circle. An occult-trained hero can attempt Hex Breaking or Ritual knowledge to disrupt the Severing. An everyday hero can simply kick the chalk line, scatter the candles, or open the window and let the sea wind in. Breaking the circle drops Lilith out of her Hex-Weaving State and stops the Severing, but she will be furious.
3. Fight Her. Lilith fights to drive the heroes off, not to kill. She uses her Evil Eye to freeze one hero in place, Curse Weaving to inflict temporary Conditions like Bad Luck 8 or Leaden Limbs 7, and her dagger only if cornered. If reduced to half her Hits, she vanishes in a burst of smoke and tarot cards. The Severing fails.
What Happens After
If convinced, Lilith hands over the keeper’s logs and gives the heroes one parting gift: a single hex-charm, a knot of black thread and a silver bead. Once, it can turn aside a single attack or spell from Thrale.
She will not come with them. When asked, she says only:
“I’ve seen how tonight ends for me if I go to that lighthouse. I’ll keep my own appointment with fate, thank you. Go keep yours.”
The Keeper’s Logs reveal the key to the finale. Josiah Thrale’s 1898 entry describes how he calmed the Hum by “singing the lens down”: a steady voice, a pure light, and three keepers speaking in unison. This gives psychic and occult heroes a way to soothe the organism rather than fight it.
If the heroes fight Lilith or break her circle without convincing her, they can still grab the logs. But she will remember. Note this for future Friday Frights and Fables.
Raise the Hum Track by 1. If Lilith completed her Severing, raise it by 2 more.
Scene 4: The Causeway (10:45 PM)
The Only Road
Gravesend Point Light stands on a rocky island a half-mile offshore, connected to the mainland by a narrow stone causeway. At low tide, the causeway is walkable. At high tide, it is underwater.
The tide is coming in. The heroes have about 20 minutes of game time to cross.
Fog rolls thick across the causeway, lit from within by pulses of violet-green. Waves slap the stones on both sides, each one a little higher than the last. Ahead, through the fog, the lighthouse beam sweeps the bay, thirteen turns a minute, and with every pass, the Hum surges beneath your feet.
Then a shape rises in the fog. Tall. Hunched. A man in a weather-beaten coat, leaning on a walking stick. He lifts his head, and his eyes catch the light like a dog’s.
“Turn back,” he says. His voice cracks. “Please. I can’t hold it.”
Silas Grey, The Cursed
Silas came to Old Bailiwick hunting rumors of a cure. Instead, he found Thrale, who offered help and slipped a brass tuning fork into the lining of his coat. Now the Hum pulls on Silas’s curse like a fishhook. Tonight is the Hunter’s Moon, and Thrale has tuned the beast inside him to one command: guard the road.
Silas fights the change for one round, giving the heroes a chance to speak. Then the lighthouse beam passes over him, and he transforms into the beast.
Running the Encounter
Like Lilith, Silas is an obstacle. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. The heroes have options:
1. Find the Fork. Anyone who reads Thrale’s sketch from the cannery knows to look for the tuning fork in Silas’s coat. Pulling it free requires getting close: a Grappling, Sleight of Hand, or Agility test while dodging claws. Removing it ends Thrale’s control. Silas remains a beast, but a free one.
2. Reach the Man. A hero can try to talk Silas back from the edge. This is a Willpower or X-Factor test opposed by his Uncontrolled Rage 10. Psychics may reach into his mind directly. Success means Silas fights his own body for one round, giving the others an opening.
3. Fight Through. Silas in beast form is very dangerous. Remind players that the tide is rising. Every round of fighting is a round closer to the causeway flooding.
4. Get Around Him. Bold heroes might swim, take a rowboat from the pier, or lure him into the water. Pulp logic says these desperate plans should work, at a cost.
The Rising Tide
Track the tide in rounds. After 6 rounds, waves wash over the causeway. Each hero must make an Agility or Might test each round to keep their footing, or be swept toward the rocks and take 3 Hits.
What Happens After
If freed, Silas staggers away into the fog and the surf. He howls once, long and mournful, then is gone. He will not come with them. His shame is too great.
But here’s a gift for the finale: at the worst possible moment in Scene 5, a howl rises from the rocks below the lighthouse. Thrale flinches. Every Brine-Jack in the building turns toward the sound. Give the heroes one free round to act. Silas paid one debt tonight.
If the heroes defeated Silas without freeing him, he is unconscious on the causeway, and the tide is coming. Let them decide whether to drag him to safety. That choice says a great deal about who they are.
Raise the Hum Track by 1.
Scene 5: Gravesend Light (11:30 PM)
The Lighthouse
Gravesend Point Light has three levels. Move through them quickly. The finale belongs at the top.
The Base. A round stone room with an iron spiral staircase. Two Brine-Jacks guard the stairs, plus any survivors from earlier scenes. A stack of brass tuning forks rings softly on a workbench. Smashing them (one action, fire axe or crowbar recommended) weakens every Brine-Jack in the building by 4 Hits.
The Stair. One hundred and thirteen iron steps. The Hum is so strong here that walls seem to breathe. Each hero climbing the stair sees a vision from the Hum: a memory of the city from the organism’s point of view. Old Bailiwick as warm skin. Streetlights as freckles. People as tiny, ticking heartbeats it has carried for two hundred years. It loves them, in its own way. This vision is important for any hero planning to “sing the lens down.”
The Lens Room. The top of the tower. The great lens fills the center of the room, a beehive of glass taller than a man, rotating thirteen times a minute. It throws a violet-green beam into the sea. In the bay below, something vast is rising: a lattice of light the size of a neighborhood, pulsing beneath the waves. The Deep Lantern, the heart of the Hum, is waking up.
Augustin Thrale, The Lamplighter
A thin man in a keeper’s peacoat stands at the lens, one hand resting on the brass housing like a conductor on a podium. Silver hair, wire spectacles, a face carved from patience and spite. He doesn’t turn around.
“Do you know what they voted to replace it with? A buoy. Solar-powered. LED. ‘Low-maintenance.'” He laughs softly. “Two hundred years my family kept the most extraordinary thing on Earth fed and calm. And the world looked at it and saw a line item.”
He turns. His eyes reflect the beam.
“I’m not destroying anything. I’m letting it go. Let it shed this town and every ungrateful soul in it. Let the sea have the rest. You can watch. It will be the first beautiful thing most of you have ever seen.”
Thrale is in his Lamplit State while he stands within the lens room. He has no interest in a long conversation. He holds the world in contempt, and that includes the heroes. If they try to reason with him, he gives one cold answer, then attacks.
The Tidemolt Countdown
When the heroes enter the lens room, or when the Hum Track reaches 6 (whichever comes first), start the countdown: 6 rounds until midnight.
Each round, describe the Tidemolt getting closer:
| Round | What Happens |
|---|---|
| 6 | The Deep Lantern breaks the surface of the bay. Its light floods the city. |
| 5 | Across Old Bailiwick, every streetlight explodes in a shower of sparks. |
| 4 | Cracks of light run up the streets toward the hills. The harbor water drops, pulling back from the docks. |
| 3 | Buildings lift an inch off their foundations. The whole city rises gently, like skin peeling away. |
| 2 | A wall of water builds at the mouth of the bay. |
| 1 | The bells of every church in Old Bailiwick ring on their own. |
| 0 | Midnight. If nothing has stopped it, the Tidemolt completes. |
How to Win
Give the heroes three ways to stop the Tidemolt. They can attempt any combination. Any one successful method ends the countdown.
1. Shatter the Lens. The great lens has 20 Hits and ignores the first 2 points of damage from any attack. The fire axe and crowbar from the cannery ignore this protection. Shattering the lens stops the tuning, but the Hum, suddenly cut off from its light, thrashes in pain. Every hero takes 4 Hits from the backlash, and the Deep Lantern sinks back beneath the waves, wounded and sullen. Old Bailiwick survives, but the Hum will be quieter and stranger for years to come.
2. Defeat Thrale. Dropping Thrale to 0 Hits breaks his hold on the lens. The rotation slows. The Hum calms on its own over the next few minutes. This is a clean victory, but a hard fight.
3. Sing the Lens Down. Using the method from the Keeper’s Logs, heroes can calm the Hum rather than force it. This requires three successful tests across the countdown, using Willpower, X-Factor, or any relevant psychic or occult ability. At least one hero must keep a hand on the lens housing (making them a target for Thrale). Each success slows the lens visibly. Three successes and the Hum settles, the Deep Lantern sinks gently back into the bay, and the lighthouse beam returns to warm, steady white.
This is the best ending. Reward it.
Pulp logic applies. Wendell broadcasting the heroes’ voices across the city counts as one success. Mother Oyster’s blessed salt thrown into the beam counts as one success. Lilith’s hex-charm deflecting Thrale’s attack on the singer keeps the effort alive.
Thrale’s Tactics
- Rounds 1–2: He hurls Light-Lancing beams at whoever looks most dangerous, usually occult-trained heroes.
- Rounds 3–4: He calls any remaining Brine-Jacks up the stairs and uses Puppet Resonance to turn the Hum against the heroes, causing loose objects to fly and floors to buckle.
- Rounds 5–6: Desperate, he grabs the lens housing himself and tries to force the final pulses through, ignoring his own safety.
- If reduced to a few Hits, he backs toward the gallery railing and offers a final line: “You think you’ve saved them? They’ll forget you by Thanksgiving. They always forget.”
Thrale’s Fate
How Thrale ends is up to your table:
- He falls from the gallery into the bay, and the Deep Lantern takes him beneath the waves. Some nights, the lighthouse beam flickers in a pattern that looks a lot like Morse code.
- He is arrested by Officer Dot Pruitt, who arrives soaking wet in a borrowed rowboat and says, “Augustin. Really?”
- If the heroes sang the lens down, Thrale weeps. He saw the organism’s love for the city in the final moment and could not bear it. He surrenders without a word.
Aftermath
The sun rises on November 1st over a battered but standing Old Bailiwick. Streetlights are out on half the city. The harbor smells of salt and ozone. Children are already telling stories about the night the parade came alive.
Wrap up based on what the heroes did:
- If they sang the lens down: The Hum is calmer than it has been in decades. Psychic heroes sleep deeply for the first time in weeks. The City Council quietly tables the decommissioning vote after “unexplained support” floods the town hall.
- If they shattered the lens: The Hum is quiet but hurt. Old Bailiwick feels a little more ordinary. Some residents are relieved. Mother Oyster is not. “It’ll heal,” she says. “But it’ll remember who hurt it.”
- If they defeated Thrale: The lighthouse stands dark and empty. Someone will need to keep it now. Perhaps one of the heroes.
Loose threads for future adventures:
- Lilith Blackwell’s prophecy didn’t change. She still sees strangers with lanterns walking into the sea. Maybe she was looking at the wrong night.
- Silas Grey’s tuning fork is missing from the causeway. Someone picked it up.
- Thrale’s notebook has a final page torn out.
Memorable NPC Quick Reference
| NPC | Role | Quirk | Line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Officer Dot Pruitt | Ally | Never without a thermos. Has seen it all, still annoyed by it. | “I don’t need to understand it. I need you to stop it.” |
| Mother Oyster (Delphine Marsh) | Ally / Psychic Guide | Talks to the bait worms. They talk back. | “It’s singing sharp now, honey. Sharp and scared.” |
| Wendell Pike | Ally / Tech Help | Headphones always on his neck. Talks like he’s on air. | “You’re listening to WBLK, and the city is about to explode.” |
| Lilith Blackwell | Obstacle | A tarot card always spins near her hands. | “Every curse has a cost. I’m the one who pays it.” |
| Silas Grey | Obstacle | Grips his walking stick so hard the wood cracks. | “Turn back. Please. I can’t hold it.” |
| Augustin Thrale | Antagonist | Polishes his spectacles whenever he’s angry. | “You had a miracle beneath your feet, and you paved it for parking.” |
Stat Blocks
Augustin Thrale, The Lamplighter
Type: Human (Hum-Touched Keeper)
Core Abilities
| Ability | Score |
|---|---|
| Agility | 6 |
| Combat | 5 |
| Intelligence | 10+4 |
| Magnitude | 10+4 |
| Might | 4 |
| Perception | 10+1 |
| Toughness | 6 |
| Willpower | 10+3 |
| X-Factor | 10+4 |
Hits: 25 (Willpower 13 + Magnitude 14 + Toughness 6 – 8)
Lamplit State
While Thrale stands within the lens room of Gravesend Point Light:
| Ability | Score |
|---|---|
| Magnitude | 10+7 |
| Toughness | 8 |
| Willpower | 10+5 |
| X-Factor | 10+8 |
Hits: 32 (Willpower 15 + Magnitude 17 + Toughness 8 – 8)
Lamplit Bonus: +7 Hits
Conditions
Arrogant 9 · Bitter 10 · Contemptuous of Humanity 10 · Isolated 8 · Obsessive 10 · Patient 8
Abilities
- Combat & Physical: Cane Fighting 6, Marksmanship (Flare Pistol) 7
- Professional: Cartography 9, Lighthouse Engineering 10, Maritime History 10, Occult Theory 10+3, Optics 10+2
- Personal: Chess 9, Letter Writing 8
- Supernatural: Hum Tuning 10+5, Light-Lancing 10+3, Puppet Resonance 10+2, Ward of the Lens 10+2
Description: A thin man in his sixties with silver hair, wire spectacles, and a keeper’s navy peacoat polished to perfection. When he works the Hum, his eyes reflect the lens beam like a cat’s.
Lilith Blackwell, The Hexed
Type: Human (Occult-Blooded Witch)
Core Abilities: Agility 7, Combat 6, Intelligence 9, Magnitude 10+3, Might 4, Perception 10, Toughness 6, Willpower 10, X-Factor 10+5
Hits: 21
Hex-Weaving State (in her ritual circle): Combat 7, Magnitude 10+5, Perception 10+2, Toughness 7, Willpower 10+2, X-Factor 10+7. Hits: 26 (Hex-Weaving Bonus: +5 Hits)
Conditions: Distrustful 8, Fatalistic 8, Haunted by Prophecy 10, Overprotective of Loved Ones 9, Prideful 9, Secretive 10, Tempted by Forbidden Knowledge 10, Vengeful 8
Key Abilities
- Combat & Physical: Dagger Fighting 7, Evasion 7, Sleight of Hand 8, Stealth 8
- Professional: Folklore 10, Occult Investigation 9, Ritual Crafting 10, Spirit Lore 10, Tarot Reading 9
- Supernatural: Curse Weaving 10+4, Dream Walking 10+1, Evil Eye 10+2, Familiar Bond 10, Hex Breaking 10+1, Spirit Communication 10+2
Tonight’s Role: Obstacle. She is attempting the Severing in the library’s Rare Room. Her Distrustful and Haunted by Prophecy Conditions make her hostile to strangers, but hard evidence can sway her.
Silas Grey, The Cursed
Type: Human (Cursed Lycanthrope)
Core Abilities (Human Form): Agility 8, Combat 8, Intelligence 7, Magnitude 10, Might 8, Perception 9, Toughness 8, Willpower 9, X-Factor 10
Hits: 19
Lycanthrope Form: Agility 10+2, Combat 10+1, Intelligence 6, Magnitude 10+2, Might 10+4, Perception 10+3, Toughness 10+4, Willpower 8, X-Factor 10+5. Hits: 26 (Lycanthrope Bonus: +6 Hits)
Conditions: Blood Moon Hunger 10, Brooding 8, Fear of Attachment 9, Guilt-Ridden 10, Self-Loathing 10, Socially Withdrawn 8, Uncontrolled Rage 10, Vengeful 8
Key Abilities
- Combat & Physical: Claw Fighting 10+2, Grappling 10, Hunting 10+1, Intimidation 10, Leaping 10+1, Survival 10
- Personal: Tracking 10+2, Wilderness Lore 9
Tonight’s Role: Obstacle. Thrale’s tuning fork, sewn into his coat lining, binds him to guard the causeway. Removing it frees him from control. Reaching the man inside requires overcoming his Uncontrolled Rage 10.
Brine-Jack
Type: Animated Effigy (Hum Construct)
| Ability | Score |
|---|---|
| Agility | 6 |
| Combat | 7 |
| Intelligence | 2 |
| Magnitude | 10 |
| Might | 8 |
| Perception | 5 |
| Toughness | 8 |
| Willpower | 2 |
| X-Factor | 6 |
Hits: 12 (Willpower 2 + Magnitude 10 + Toughness 8 – 8)
Conditions: Mindless 10, Drawn to Light 9
Abilities: Driftwood Slam 7, Kelp Grapple 8, Shrug Off Pain 8
Special: Pulling the brass tuning fork from a Brine-Jack’s chest (a hard Agility or Sleight of Hand test in melee) collapses it instantly into a pile of kelp and wood. Salt and fire do double damage.
Description: Seven feet of lashed driftwood, fishing net, and dripping kelp, topped with a carved pumpkin head that glows violet-green from within.
Fetch-Gull Swarm
Type: Hum Construct (Swarm)
| Ability | Score |
|---|---|
| Agility | 10+2 |
| Combat | 6 |
| Intelligence | 3 |
| Magnitude | 8 |
| Might | 2 |
| Perception | 10 |
| Toughness | 4 |
| Willpower | 6 |
| X-Factor | 5 |
Hits: 10 (Willpower 6 + Magnitude 8 + Toughness 4 – 8)
Conditions: Greedy 10, Easily Startled 8
Abilities: Diving Peck 6, Flock Confusion 8, Snatch Shiny Object 10
Special: A loud noise, a flare, or a thrown handful of salt scatters the swarm for one round. Fetch-Gulls steal keys, phones, and tuning forks and fly them toward the lighthouse.
Description: Seabirds stitched together from feathers and blue light, screaming in a single shared voice.
The Great Lens
Type: Object (Hazard)
Hits: 20
Special: Ignores the first 2 points of damage from any attack unless struck with a heavy tool such as a fire axe, crowbar, or sledgehammer. Anyone touching the lens housing while it rotates must pass a Willpower test each round or take 2 Hits from the Hum’s surging resonance.
GM Guidance: Keeping the Night Tight
Pacing. A one-shot lives or dies by momentum. Compare this adventure to a classic investigation campaign: there, you might give players an entire session to dig through the library. Here, you give them fifteen minutes and a ticking clock. When players start to debate, raise the Hum Track. When they get stuck, let an NPC burst through the door with the next clue.
Spotlight Balance. Each hero type has a moment built in:
- Everyday heroes shine in Scene 1 (saving civilians), Scene 4 (crossing the flooded causeway), and Scene 5 (swinging the fire axe at the lens).
- Psychics shine in Scene 2 (tuning in), Scene 4 (reaching Silas), and Scene 5 (singing the lens down).
- Occult-trained heroes shine in Scene 3 (breaking Lilith’s circle or convincing her), and Scene 5 (understanding the Keeper’s Logs).
Adjusting Difficulty. For a tougher night, start the Hum Track at 2 and add two Brine-Jacks to the finale. For a lighter night, let Silas break free of Thrale’s control on his own after two rounds and give the heroes a head start on the tide.
The Horror. Pulp-horror is about scale and contrast. The Hum is vast and alien, yet it loves this little town. Thrale is a small, bitter man, yet he could end everything. Lean into that contrast. Describe the Deep Lantern rising from the bay with real wonder. Then describe the neighborhood lifting off its foundations with real dread.
Bring Old Bailiwick to Your Table
Old Bailiwick is one of the many Pocket Worlds built on The Worlds of Pulp™ system, where character creation takes minutes instead of hours and the story moves as fast as your players can roll. At Scaldcrow Games, we design every adventure to be picked up, read in an evening, and run the same night.
Visit Scaldcrow.com to grab The Worlds of Pulp™ core rules, subscribe to The Cosmic Skull newsletter for more Pocket Worlds, and follow along every week for new Friday Frights and Fables. Then gather your friends, light a lantern, and listen closely.
The Hum is waiting.
Breathe child. That’s right. There are more macabre revelations to come, but in the meantime, lean into our blog index and enjoy past perilous presentations. GeekOpera Index.