VENISON

Late Albion lies fallow. Workers are huddled into squalid cities of machines, while the aristocracy retreat into their manse-enclaves in the deep, lonely countryside. What villages that remain after the Clearances would be resigned to a slow death of barren soil and deprivation if not for the work of poachers, who stalk into the estates of the lords, to plunder their wealth and hunt their game.

Your village lies on the border of the Blakesmouth Estates - a cluster of private lands as large as a county. The thick surrounding forest makes for excellent hunting grounds, and its unmapped interior has led to all kinds of wild tales about what lies within. Some say the old lords have forsaken the place entirely, leaving plant and beast to grow wild and fey. Others claim isolation and decadence drove them mad, and that the manses within are now home to acts of unspeakable depravity.

As a poacher, all you know is that the game-meat here fetches exorbitant sums from clandestine buyers - it is said to be delicious beyond measure, but you must never, ever consume it.

Venison is an RPG scenario for Luke Gearing's Violence system, written as part of Violence Jam. It's by no means a complete thing on its own, and anybody running it will likely have to put in at least a bit of legwork to get something playable. I hope to revisit it in the future and give it a hexcrawl and bestiary it deserves.

Physical copy available as part of the Violence Collection, available via Spear Witch