The Rite of the Rack

The Rite of the Rack
Category	Story Event
Type	Story
Data ID	290204

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The Rite of the Rack is a Sunless Skies Story Event.

Story description[]

The shapeless idol looms over you. Someone has scratched jagged teeth around each of its holes, transforming them into many, many mouths. A heavy hook is affixed into the stone, just higher than you can reach, while at the base of the idol, two depressions have been dug into the ice. The first holds a knout, with hooks knotted in its thongs. The second holds a buckled strap of something like leather.

Trigger conditions[]

Area: Limbo
Frequency: Always (100%)

Interactions[]

Actions

Requirements

Effects

Notes

Enact the Rite of the Rack

Around the second depression, someone has cut the words 'HANG AND GIVE VOICE' into the ice. You can guess what you must do.

You Have Taken Part in a Well-Rite ≤ 0
Tale of Terror ≥ 3

As before, so again

The strap knots around your wrists. You put your back to the idol, stretch your arms above your head – and leap. The strap catches on the hook, and you hang there, feeling the wrench in your shoulders.

The wind howls through the idol's holes, pushing into your back. The discomfort turns to aches, then the aches to pain. You begin to shudder, violently. The hours inch by.

You're not sure when you start screaming. It began with a moan, you think, and burgeoned with a sob. A day or more has passed, and now you scream and scream and scream. Your voice grows hoarse, then ragged.

When it is gone, and your screams are marked only by the blood they spray from your ravaged throat, the devils emerge from their caves. They lift you off the idol, swaddle you in rags, and lay you on the ice. Then they depart. The rite is complete. You have sacrificed, and are no longer only yourself.

+15 x Terror
-3 x Tale of Terror
+1 x Well-Rite (if ≤ 0)
The Rite of the Rack = 1 [You have undertaken the Rite of the Rack.]
Endured the Rite of the Rack = 1

Game note: You may only be subject to one well-rite at a time. This one increases your Hearts at a cost of your Iron and Mirrors.

Forsake your current rite

Around the hole that contains the knout, someone has chiselled words: 'SUFFER IN SILENCE'.

You Have Taken Part in a Well-Rite ≥ 1

Scourged

Stripping to your waist, you kneel in the depression and take a breath. Then you apply the knout. Seven strokes on the left. Seven on the right. Your blood flows. Your cries are snatched away by the wind. The hooks dig deeper than skin, than flesh. They catch on an old bargain, dragging it out from your core. When you drop the knout, your well-rite is gone. You are only yourself again.