The Garden Wall
Impressions: An empty sky, with no moon and the wrong stars. Ankle-deep water, cold and black and brackish. The wall itself, a hedgerow that seems to stretch forever. The tangled and verdant roses, thorns and vines that grow from the wall. The looming mangrove trees on the far side. The dead watching you from the trees.
The Garden Wall is the barrier that separates this world from the next, as described by the necromancers and spirit-callers who make it their business to meddle with it. No one knows how old it is, or where it came from, or what came before. The wall itself resembles that hedgerows that farmers use to divide their fields, but no one knows if it was made by someone or if it has always been. If there was a before, it is not recorded.
Whereas most otherworlds draw nearer when the moon is full, the Garden Wall is the opposite. It is easiest to reach when the moon is hiding its face.
| 1d6 | Anchor |
|---|---|
| 1 | The Tangle. The mangrove forest that grows on the far side of the Garden Wall. Some say that every mangrove tree in the world is part of the Tangle, that the right path through the wrong forest under a new moon could take you straight to the land of the dead. |
| 2 | The Far Shore. The near side of the Garden Wall is sometimes called this. The “shallows” of the land of the dead eventually give way to deep water, that much is certain. If you could sail that ocean, would it eventually take you back to the waking world? Or somewhere even stranger? |
| 3 | The Gardener. Amongst necromancers, the question of who or what planted the Garden Wall is foremost. There are many who do not believe that such a “gardener” even exists. Within the answer to this mystery lies the truth of mortality. Who divided death with a wall? Did they do so to keep the dead in, or to keep something else out? |
| 4 | Blood. The Garden Wall bristles with sharp thorns, eager to draw the blood of the living. The smell of warm blood will draw the desperate dead from the Tangle, thronging and begging for a taste. Without living blood, a dead person can’t muster the strength required to climb back over the wall and into the waking world. |
| 5 | Faltering Craft. Magic doesn’t work in this place. Spell, alchemy and enchantment alike falter or fade as they near the Garden Wall. Those who are capable of working magic describe the experience of reaching for a familiar power and finding only a yawning emptiness that greets them. |
| 6 | Taking Root. No one knows what lies at the heart of the Tangle, or beyond its borders. That journey is for the dead alone to make. It is known what happens to the dead who lose hope and give up, though. Plenty of necromancers have seen the sapling mangroves that grow from those who have collapsed and taken root. |
Calling the Dead
The Tangle is filled with the dead. If you stand before the Garden Wall and call the true name of one who has passed, they may hear you and and come.
Name up to three strings: profound, important bonds or memories that bind you to the dead one even beyond the veil of death. Both the speaker and the dead one’s player must agree that the strings named are enough to conjure them with. If the dead one is a player character, then their player has final say. If it’s a non-player character, then the GM has final say.
Make a desperate roll against the risk the dead one does not hear the call, starting from your Resolve. Each string you were able to name adds 1d, but also adds an additional risk: that one of the strings you named is broken forever, causing both you and the dead one to forget it.
For example, if you have Average Resolve and were able to name 2 strings, you would roll a total of 3d. However, you’d be rolling against three risks: the risk that the dead one does not hear the call, and the risk that either of the two strings is broken.
The one you call by their true name is bound to remain until you dismiss them, but they are not compelled to obey your commands or to answer your questions.