The Van Witch example playthrough - Diary of Ecuánime the witch

ENTRY 001

Ace of Clubs

I want to refresh myself on this journey, since I stumbled on some good news. (1)

I was hoping that the readings I did for Anenqui back home were accurate, and luckily it seems so because he just let me know about being granted a community loan to create an autonomous business with a handful of some of our mutual friends who also wanted to jump into the wine business. (2)

The instructors at the academy have warned me about over-exhausting myself and treating this upcoming year as a marathon, not a sprint–so I’ll make sure to be careful about my workload next year. (3)

I need to make sure to not be terminally exhausted by the end of this year, because I promised Anenqui that I would help him if he ever got the chance to work on his dream. (4)

Yesterday I arrived in Citrus, a small port town on the western coast of this continent–the people and the atmosphere of the town felt very determined, or at least they didn’t seem distracted or too surprised when I drove into town. (5) 

The first person I formed a connection with in the first few days of my arrival at Citrus was Rose, an amateur musician, a gossip, a hedonist–and had a bit of an anxious tilt as well. (6)

ENTRY 002

King of Clubs

I want to express myself to the community of this settlement, which is why I had to step outside of my head for a day in order to deliver a heartfelt introduction and greeting to several various groups of people I bumped into early on in my second week of staying at the port town (with the help of Rose). (1)

Rose had connections to various musicians, who in turn had connections to many of the workers that are employed as dockworkers and sailors–I’ll have to look and see if I could help one of the autonomous crews assembled and milling about in town. (2)

I asked Rose and one of their close friends–an older musician named Kal–to take me around town, and to tell me where they think my abilities and voice would help the most. (3)

Kal discussed his life, and tells me of recent troubles he’s seen festering in some of the younger dock workers and sailors. (4)

According to Kal, the issue is that many of the democratic and autonomous workplaces here still have an unhealthy view of work that has been hurting the emotional health of the community. (5)

Rose tells me of other issues that popped up in just the previous month: one episode involving a shipment of laced drugs that has caused half a dozen musicians in the local scene to be sick; another episode involving the funding and logistics of a bankrupt festival; and yet another situation revolving around a haunted lighthouse. (6)

I told Kal that I would see how I could help and offered to go out for a beer and a meal later in the week to discuss the topic more, while also telling Rose to help me get in contact with the musicians who got sick (since that seems pretty pressing!). (7)

ENTRY 003

5 of Diamonds

I have lost a very personal item this week–my cherished friendship ring that my circle of friends and I commissioned from some crafters back home in the city, and I’ve been sulking this whole week as I’ve been trying to figure out what is making local musicians at Citrus ill. (1)

I’m worried about how Anenqui and the others back home will react when I tell them that I lost my friendship/circle ring. (2) Don’t tell anyone, but I spent an extra day trying to find that ring before properly working on the ill musicians mystery. (3)

Rose was very understanding–probably thought I was homesick or exhausted from travel–in my late response to follow up with the case; she brought over two local musicians home, friends of hers, who fell ill last week, to talk to. (4) ROLL 1D6 FOR DRUG KNOWLEDGE

MOD +2 (PROFICIENT)= 5 (+2) -> 7 TOTAL

They were called Gimena and Marco, and I asked them if they tested their drugs–they said that they don’t test each batch, but anytime they pick up, they do it for the whole batch. (5)

I asked them if they had any left, and they readily produced some that they said they tested after their incident to make sure the rest of their stash wasn’t tainted, and they said it left them puzzled since it tested clean. (6)

My mind was kind of elsewhere as I was asking them questions, and honestly it may just be an issue above my pay grade–so I decided to take the sample home and try to figure out if it’s the result of faulty testing kits instead, I’ve heard of issues like that pop up in the city when new drugs hit the streets. (7)

ENTRY 003A - JOURNAL #1

I took the sample of drugs back to my van for further examination–it may be anything at this point, and I was hoping to narrow down the list of problems we were looking at. (1)

I used my own medical supplies to try and test the batch to see if their testing kits were faulty, but nothing came through looking weird, still tested clean. (2)

I meditated a bit to focus–both for my worry over my lost ring, and for my focus on this case. (3)

Meditation for a few hours let me finally come to terms with my ring–for now–and gave me renewed focus to work on this case. (4)

I wondered if the issue could be something else, so I meditated and probed samples of the batch with my magic, searching for lingering intent. (5) Exactly what I suspected: traces of jealousy and fear left in the drug residue, something is up here and it wasn’t an accident. (6)

I went back to Rose to see if I could get a hold of Gimema and Marco, and thankfully they were going to hang out and grab lunch this Thursday before the weekend hit. (7)

With a bit of time on my hands, I perused around some local restaurants and tried to get a better idea of the local music scene. (8)

The music scene here in Citrus is somewhat new, but very active thanks to a recent community grant bringing funding and resources for musicians in the community, which spurred energy and attention towards the music scene. (9)

There's been a series of informal competitions and one formal competition scheduled for local musicians to test their skills and see who would win the prize of a free all expenses paid trip at sea to record an album–thanks to a certain Mr. Glass, a retiree who used to work in the city as a medic. (10)

I’ve worked out some potential suspects, but to be honest, I do not want to start or continue any petty conflict–no matter how serious or dangerous–that involves these musicians, so I had a meeting with Rose to debate some solutions before planning a meeting with Gimena and Marco. (11)

After some mediation and planning, Rose and I decided on some protective wards–cleverly disguised as band merch and accessories for the musicians–and a batch of medicinal tinctures that could swiftly deal with the tainted narcotics I was given to study/examine, was a good enough solution for now. (12)

To be honest, I feel a little overwhelmed and out of my depth–and I can feel the disappointment from Marco and Gimena about the solutions we came up with for the situation–but something told me that I needed to resolve this with a quick hand, not a strong one. I wish the aftermath didn’t leave me in doubt. (13)

ENTRY 004

6 of Spades

I think that I managed to steer Citrus away from getting bankrupt from hosting their annual spring festival. (1)

I spent a morning serving Kal and Rose some of my favorite coffee (strong black coffee, rice milk, cinnamon, brown sugar, ice) as we talked about new potential issues that could warrant my attention and energy, and I settled on the spring festival dealing with financial and resource issues with a bit of convincing from Kal. (2)

One of the solutions that I suggested involved organizing a sort of potluck, as opposed to contracting food vendors, which satisfied Kal briefly but warranted other solutions as well. (3)

I also enlisted the help of some assistants–friends of Kal and Rose–to help me produce some jellies over the weekend for sale, which meant I would offer free goods to sell for the festival to offset some minor costs. I used up all the fruit and sugar I have available and made about four dozen (48) large jars of various fruit jellies in the span of several days. (4)

I made special smoking blends of cannabis, mint, chamomile, and hibiscus (to effectively make large batches) that I imbued with intent via some narcomancy rituals–to also offer another potential revenue source for the festival, and over the weekend we were able to make about a few hundred cigarettes made with the special festival blend. (5) 

Lastly, I offered my divination skills for hire by the villagers during the festival–my only stipulation being that I would get paid by being provided with some delicious desserts and breads I have seen in town. (6)

ENTRY 005

10 of Hearts

I feel that a family from Citrus requires my assistance. (1)

A large family has been having trouble dealing with the decline of the grandparent’s health, and it has been affecting both the parents and the children. (2)

I made sure to tackle this problem on a variety of fronts: (3)

I worked with my medicinal and narcomancy resources to offer the grandparents a way to safely ease their day-to-day pains so that they were able to interact with their family in a way they wanted to. (4)

For a few days out of the week, I helped the parents with errands in and outside of the household so that they were capable of spending more time for themselves, with their children, and with their elders. (5)

I spent much time with the children during the day teaching them how to make sweets, brew tea and coffee, and telling them stories. (6)

Truth be told, I still came to visit and make the family some food the following week–and thankfully, I’ve heard nothing but good news about that family from their neighbors now. (7)