Plot Hooks for Fun and Prophet: The Possession of Ada Pomelo
Stipple by Constans after L Boilly. Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0)
In my ongoing Swyvers campaign, the party’s landlady Mrs Ada Pomelo is a recurring NPC. An unwitting medium, she delivers prophecies which set the tone and foreshadow the content of each session.
Mrs Pomelo sits somewhere in the middle of a Venn diagram between Dot Cotton, Mrs Brady and Mrs Hudson.
Whenever she receives cash (usually in the form of the party’s rent), Ada’s personality changes. Her eyes roll into the back of her head. The spirits speak through her, to give the players an esoteric riddle. For example:
A lonely maid hath turn’d a pretty pound
Bearing such respected men upon her
Now those great names undone are tightly bound
To find the highest price of all is honour
This led the party to steal the ledgers of a brothel, which they could then use to blackmail its patrons.
Ada has been loads of fun to write and play. So much so that I’m giving her a prequel as a player-character in a run through Brindlewood Bay. She’s a chain-smoking, no-nonsense badass, whose incipient spiritual sensitivities are one of her greatest strengths when it comes to uncovering paranormal activities.
She’s also a really useful writing tool. Here’s why.
Poetry
Claws rend pale flesh
appraisers find value in the rich man's crumbs
Wild eyes seek aid
a picture worth a thousand words in promissory notes
Teeth champ, spit flies
desperate breath is heaved into powerful lungs
Tongue tastes hot blood
syllables are formed and flow from unfamiliar throats
Ada’s prophecies are all in verse. It’s a rule I set myself to add some creative constraint. As a writer, it’s been fun to break out of my comfort zone and experiment with different poetic forms.
Plot
The Seraph on your shoulder has a dagger in your ribs
Never will he leave you while the least among you lives
His long arm collars swyvers and then feeds them to the pigs
For never will he see that it’s his own grave that he digs
Each prophecy gives the players something to latch onto. It could be a clue to someone’s identity, a location to investigate, a hint towards the importance of an item they’ve acquired, or an allusion towards the darker secrets of a more significant plot point.
Puzzles
My dog has four heads
How does he think? Terrible.
He can’t learn new tricks.
Crucially, it’s not blunt exposition. Because the prophecies are wooly, players have to spend some time unpicking the wording. Working out what it might mean becomes a mini-game in itself.
The woolliness also gives players the opportunity to miss or completely misinterpret things, leading to surprises and unexpected improv. But the misinterpretations themselves give you as a GM lots of material to work with. Sometimes they’re even better than your original plan!
