The unnamed old crab-man
Ancient red-brown shell. Twenty-two years tending the offerings at
the Tidal Mark — placing cracked shells in
congregation-circles and yellow flowers on dark moon nights, the
line stretching forty yards along the waterline.
He has no name in the play record because Vothrog has not yet asked
and no one has yet given it.
The encounter
- Turn 10 — Sat in the shadow of a collapsed archway twenty
feet back from the tidal mark, watching Vothrog and Krah-Moh
approach. Reaction roll → neutral but willing to be
approached. - Turn 11 — (OOC pause; character sheet check.)
- Turn 12 — Vothrog cast Speak Truth to the Wretched,
spending 1 HP, and spoke plainly: that Cheth had said what was true, that Vothrog believed it too, and
was not going away. Krah-Moh relayed. - Turn 13 — The old man rose, walked to the oldest
offering on the line, touched it with a flat claw, then looked
at Vothrog directly for the first time and clicked a single short
phrase. Krah-Moh raised his open claw in a relay-ready gesture. - Turn 15 — The old man recognized the veth-cheth mark
on Krah-Moh’s shell — a wave-scar conferring transmission, which
could only be given by someone who carried Cheth’s congregation
forward. Through Krah-Moh he revealed that Cheth appears to be
alive, somewhere distant, and Krah-Moh came from that direction
and was marked by him.
Status
Fragile ally. The shift from neutrality to alliance happened in
Turn 15 when he understood that Vothrog had also understood
what the mark meant — and was not going away.