The Rumor Mill - Week 8

Now calling: week 8 of The Rumor Mill, where we delve into some rumors involving the transmission of information or its prevention. In many ways information transmission ends up as a meta topic, since uncovering secrets and communicating across long distances both lie at the heart of playing a remote role-playing game. From "how far am I from the ogre?" to "I need to let the rest of the party know what I found out right now," we can't play a tabletop game without communicating information.

For our purposes, we'll deal with topics found in the world around Fellport. I'm being vague in a few cases here, because some of this information may come up in a future game. No spoilers, as they say.

1d8	Rumor	True?
1	Sariel has worked at the Council House for centuries. She knows many secrets.	Yes1
2	Be careful what you say. Someone else listens whenever you cast sending.	Maybe2
3	I've heard that augury has been wrong lately. Do the gods even exist any more?	No3
4	Before the Arcane Night, people and cities could teleport across the world.	Maybe4
5	The Spell Exchange offers spells from across Beneterra for a reasonable fee.	Maybe5
6	Dragons gave the humanoid races knowledge. We've gone stagnant without them.	No6
7	Imperial-made steel remains strong, meaning we've lost metallurgical secrets.	No7
8	The Heroes of Fellport closed a portal, and disturbing dreams got worse.	Yes8

1 - In some cases she knows where the literal bodies are buried, but she maintains a low profile and avoids the public.
2 - Coincidences involving sending messages are up, leading people to groundlessly suspect extraplanar eavesdroppers.
3 - Just because augury tells you a truth you don't want to hear, doesn't mean it's wrong. What changed after casting?
4 - The Etheric Age produced many wonders, including teleportation, Back then a few cities flew, but they didn't teleport.
5 - They only have locations in Aldunleigh, Fellport, Ionia, and Imzilut. And "reasonable" is subjective for monthly fees.
6 - Dragons taught the elder races many things, but people can figure things out on their own without draconic influence.
7 - A secret society called Odin's Chosen focuses on finding and retaining secrets of metallurgy and mineral science.
8 - Well that's a curious coincidence, now isn't it? Maybe we'll explore this at some point in-game.

Part of T.W.Wombat's Lore 24 project, detailing the world around Fellport.
For all city posts, see the Fellport Index. For posts about the wider world, see the Beneterra Index.