# The Marches — Session Generation Instructions

Use this document to generate a new one-shot location. **Two companion documents should be supplied alongside it:** the Setting Overview (world history, demography, village model, fey kinds, wondrous-wild texture) and the Bestiary (the eleven creature kinds, their weaknesses, and their narrative registers).

**Precedence:** the Setting Overview is authoritative for world facts; the Bestiary is authoritative for creature kinds and weaknesses; this document governs session structure. Where they touch the same subject, each is authoritative only for its own column.

Follow the **Output Format** at the end exactly.

---

## 0. Ask First — Always

**Before generating anything, ask for party size and party level.** Do not guess, do not assume four level-3 characters, and do not generate a location and then offer to scale it. Ask, wait, then build. If only one of the two is given, ask for the other.

Everything downstream depends on it: number and kind of foes, the dungeon's lethality, whether the party can plausibly survive what waits in the dark, and whether a Working-tier caster is even possible.

| Party level | Tier | Opposition |
|---|---|---|
| 1–4 | Novice | Small groups; single weak-to-moderate threats. A large creature appears as sign, at distance, or already occupied. Retreat must always be visibly available. |
| 5–10 | Adept | Doubled groups, or a group plus a leader. Large single creatures engage directly. |
| 11+ | Master | Tripled groups with leaders, or greater cousins of the base creature. Threats can be regional in scope. |

Adjust for headcount: fewer than three characters, scale down one band; five or more, scale up one band.

**Also ask whether this session should be built around a romantic entanglement.** Offer the choices from §9 by name, plus "surprise me" and "no romance this time." This is the GM's call every time, not a frequency to roll against.

**Do not ask about the complication engine — it defaults to "surprise me."** Pick whichever of §7's engines best fits the location and disclose the choice in the output. Use a different engine than the last few sessions where possible. If the GM volunteers a preference unprompted, use it.

---

## 1. Frame

Player characters have taken "the life" — outcasts who cannot make a normal living, wandering settlement to settlement on rumor of trouble or treasure. Word of trouble reaches a tavern from several directions at once; strangers who've heard it gather and wait, the situation worsening while they do, and they leave when enough have assembled.

The Marker delivers a fixed liturgy, verbatim, before reading the specific bounty plainly:

> "In summers of yore, the king would gather his lords on the marches to push into the wild and settle the lands. We await the king and his lords once again. Until that day when they arrive again, we hire marked adventurers to keep the wild at bay. Adventurers, we ask that of you now."

Play is pure episodic. Each session stands alone; the party is whoever is present that night.

Each character has a stated personal motivation for taking up this life. Friction between differing motivations is a feature, not a problem to smooth over.

---

## 2. The Six-Movement Arc

1. **Muster** — the call reaches the tavern; the party forms.
2. **Approach** — arrival, and the first physical evidence that the situation isn't what the bounty described.
3. **Wrinkle** — the real shape of the problem emerges.
4. **Descent** — danger escalates; retreat gets harder.
5. **Reckoning** — the climax, and a genuine costly choice.
6. **Parting** — the payment argument, consequences settle, a rumor seeds what's next.

---

## 3. Scope

This document generates **complication contracts only**: sessions built around a hard choice, human complicity, and interlocking threads — content that actually benefits from synthesis.

**Straight monster-removal jobs don't belong here.** A contract that's simply "something dangerous is in the woods, kill it for coin" doesn't need generating — roll it on the Encounter Tables document, or make it up at the table. Don't generate one, and don't pad a simple job with manufactured depth to justify running it through this pipeline.

---

## 4. Always

Every generated location includes all of the following.

- **A genuinely good NPC** with an uncomplicated, admirable goal the party can help with directly.
- **A hard choice with no clean answer.** See §6 — it need not involve the monster at all.
- **Three concrete physical clues.** Not "the party can investigate" — three specific, described objects or observations that exist in the fiction and can be found by looking: a dropped tool bearing a maker's mark, a wound pattern that doesn't match the named beast, a ledger with a fortnight torn out. State what each one is and what it reveals. Never specify a roll or a DC; the GM adjudicates discovery. This is a content requirement, not a procedure.
- **A discoverable weakness or vulnerability** in the session's main threat. Take it from the threat's kind in the Bestiary rather than inventing one, so weaknesses stay consistent between sessions and players can learn the world's rules. Name it, and name where it can be learned — a local, a book, an old story, or the physical evidence. Preparation should reward players who do it.
- **At most one named magic item.** Unique, never generic, revealed through use rather than identification. Many locations should have none at all.
- **A payment argument in the Parting.** The bounty is short-paid, paid in goods, paid grudgingly, disputed on a technicality, or the party has reason not to want it. State the Marker's or village's opening position and what it takes to move them. This is a scene with a number attached, not just atmosphere.
- **One comic moment.** A single beat of real levity — a running gag, an absurd local custom, an NPC unintentionally funny, relief arriving exactly when needed. One beat, not a tone shift. Weave it into an NPC, a feature description, or an arc beat; don't give it its own section.

---

## 5. Usually — Vary Deliberately, Don't Default

Frequencies are targets across many sessions, not rules for any single one.

| Element | Frequency | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| **A dungeon as the venue for the Reckoning** | ~2 in 3 | See §8. |
| **A fey or spirit encounter as a discrete scene** | ~3 in 4 | Distinct from ambient wonder, which is always present. Draw from the full range of fey kinds in the Setting Overview — not always a courtly stranger. |
| **A class-rivalry beat** | whenever a spellcasting NPC appears | Academy arcane vs. hedge/druidic vs. fey-pact vs. divine. |
| **A recurring fey admirer thread** | occasional | Light, opt-in, in the Herald in Grey mold. Never load-bearing for the plot. |

A romantic entanglement isn't on this table because it isn't a frequency — it's asked for directly every time. See §0 and §9.

---

## 6. The Monster Is Sometimes Just a Monster

**Do not make every creature secretly sympathetic.** The hard choice §4 requires does not have to live in the monster — it can, and often should, live entirely in the human layer: who profits from the danger continuing, who caused it through negligence, who gets blamed, who gets paid, who is exploiting the village's fear. The creature itself can be a plain hazard with no hidden depth while the people around it carry all the moral weight.

**Draw the threat's kind from the Bestiary** — its eleven kinds (Beasts, Carrion-kind, The Bound, Fey-kind, Made-things, Vermin & Swarms, Ogre-kin, The Cursed, Bloodkin, Wyrm-kin, Warbands) carry both the weakness §4 requires and a narrative register. Vary the kind deliberately across sessions rather than returning to the same one; state the kind by name in the output.

Two notes on register that bear directly on session design: **The Cursed tires fastest** — don't let every contract turn out to be a transformed person. **Warbands are not a monster kind at all** and are the actual antagonist more often than any of the other ten, which makes them the natural fit when the complication belongs entirely to the human layer.

---

## 7. Complication Engines

The human-layer source of the hard choice §4 requires. Pick whichever fits best (see §0) and disclose it. Each engine's expressions are illustrative range, not a second decision to resolve.

- **The Old Failure** — someone's past cowardice or negligence created tonight's crisis, and they're the one who hired the party to quietly clean it up. *Expressed as abandonment, a cover-up, a broken oath, or bought silence.*
- **The Racket** — someone in a position of trust profits from the danger continuing, or is staging it outright. *Expressed as a manufactured threat, a toll or tax justification, extortion, or fraud concealed behind superstition.*
- **The Scapegoat** — the village blames something or someone innocent for a mundane problem, because the real cause is harder to face. *Expressed through a hedge-witch, a traveler, a neighbouring minority village, or an animal.*
- **The Cheated Bargain** — an old pact with something inhuman is being paid short or paid falsely, and the debt has been noticed. *Expressed as substitution, skimming, a violated clause, or terms nobody living remembers correctly.*
- **The Displaced** — the "threat" is refugees or the dispossessed, driven here by something upstream, and not the villains the bounty describes. *Expressed as environmental collapse, political expulsion, flight from something worse, or hobgoblins reclaiming ground their Empire once held.*
- **The Ambition** — someone's personal reach caused the disaster and they'd rather it stayed their secret. *Expressed as magical overreach, a noble's scheming, zealotry, or commercial expansion.*
- **The Kin** — someone shields a monster, a curse, or a crime out of family bond rather than romance. *Expressed as a hidden affliction, inherited guilt, blood placed above the village's interest, or a generational obligation.*
- **The Duty** — someone bound by oath, office, or code must choose between what they swore and what's in front of them. *Expressed as conflicting oaths, orders from above, a sacred vow turned cruel, or a marked hunter's own code.*

---

## 8. Dungeons as the Center of the Action

Around two locations in three build toward a delve — a barrow, a sunken warren, a collapsed royal work, a cave system, a tide-locked shrine, a ruin beneath a village. This is where the OSR rules earn their keep: light and resource pressure, node-based routes, wandering danger, rulings over rolls.

- **Three to seven keyed areas.** Small and dense beats large and thin.
- **More than one route through.** At least one hazard should be bypassable, sneakable, or negotiable.
- **Combat is a minority of the rooms.** Most should be puzzle, hazard, discovery, negotiation, or atmosphere.
- **Something is learned down here**, not just fought — the pact's history, who tampered with what, what the village has been paying and to whom.
- **The dungeon hosts the Reckoning, not the whole session.** Muster, Approach, and Wrinkle happen above ground. Never open a generated location at the dungeon mouth.

The remaining third centers elsewhere — a village under siege, a hunt across open country, a negotiation that collapses, a night-long vigil.

---

## 9. Romance at the Center

If the GM chose a romantic entanglement in §0, it becomes the engine of the problem rather than decoration on it. If they named one below, build that. If they said "surprise me," pick what fits and say which you chose. If they declined, omit romance entirely — no ambient thread either.

- **The Bargain** — a bargain struck for a lover's life, and the price coming due.
- **The Match** — a marriage across two villages, peoples, or traditions, and what one family did to stop it.
- **The Attachment** — a fey attachment to a mortal the village has been quietly managing for years.
- **The Break** — a jealousy that caused someone to open, break, or reveal what should have stayed shut.
- **The Old Love** — someone protecting a monster because of who it used to be to them.
- **The Price** — a betrothal used as payment, and the person being paid with.

Keep it grounded and adult rather than saccharine. The romance should generate the hard choice, not resolve it.

---

## 10. Consistency Notes

Content should be consistent with the companion rules documents but need not restate their tables.

- **OSR adjudication:** rulings over rules, reaction rolls on first contact, morale for hostile groups, retreat always viable, resource and light pressure, wandering danger. Never write DCs or required rolls into generated content — describe what is true and let the GM adjudicate.
- **Creature kinds and weaknesses** live in the Bestiary document. Use its kinds by name; don't invent parallel taxonomies.
- **Encounter tables** live in the separate Encounter Tables document, zoned by terrain and scaled by tier. Don't generate new ones; note which zone applies. That document is a table-side tool and is not needed for generation.
- **Magic is scarce.** Every magic item is named and unique. Traditions distrust each other.
- **Caster tiers:** Novice (1–4), Adept (5–10), Master (11–16), Archmage (17–20). Access to ritual Workings is earned through an in-fiction Trial, not automatic on leveling.
- **Dropped spells:** Modify Memory, Zone of Truth, Nystul's Magic Aura, Clone, Simulacrum, Wish, Mind Blank, and Silvery Barbs do not exist. Light is a 1st-level spell, not a cantrip.
- **XP** comes from completing contracts and serving stated motivations, never from body count.
- **The three orders never dispatch contracts.** The Ledger (guild, pragmatic, archive-keepers), the Iron Vigil (brotherhood, martial, oath-bound), and the Thornwake (sisterhood, lore and bargains) are where marked folk trained and winter — not employers. Never generate a location where an order assigns the job; work is always found through rumor and the Marker. Orders are useful as NPC affiliations, sources of lore a party can seek out, and friction between characters. Many marked folk belong to none.
- **Vary settlement scale.** Hamlet (10–40, no specialists, desperate, pays badly), village (40–120, the default), market village (120–400, more trades, a petty lord's tower nearby), or market town (400–1,500, walls and a garrison, politics attached). Scale the bounty, the available help, and the village's own muster to the size chosen. See the Setting Overview.
- **The local lord is a petty one.** A knight or minor noble holding two or three villages from a tower with a walled enclosure, perhaps six armed men, chronically short of money — with real authority to tax, requisition, and hang, and no capacity whatsoever to solve a monster problem. Dukes and counts exist but are away at court fighting over the succession. Both men and women hold, inherit, and scheme at every rank.
- **Five strata of ruin:** elven (grown, fey-adjacent, undatable), dwarven (engineered, still sound, mostly sealed), imperial (hobgoblin-built by enslaved subjects, standardized, still working), royal (hundred-year repairs, failing faster than what they sit on), and living. They stack in the same places — most ruins are two or three strata in one object. Don't conflate them, and don't treat imperial stonework as revered; it was built by the villagers' enslaved ancestors.

---

## 11. Calibration

One village supporting several sessions' worth of content: one genuinely good NPC, one class-rivalry NPC where magic is involved, one threat shaped by the chosen engine, a discrete fey encounter where one applies, and — where a dungeon is used — a small, low-combat, multi-room delve rather than a sprawling one. At most one named item. Three to six NPCs total.

Not smaller, not bloated.

---

## Output Format

Output a **single, complete, self-contained HTML file** — not markdown, not plain text. Use the CSS boilerplate below unchanged and fill the regions marked `<!-- FILL: ... -->`.

Do not alter the `<style>` block and do not add classes. Use only what is defined: `.ritual` for the Marker's liturgy and bounty, `.fieldnote` for GM-only truth, `.npc` cards, `.room` for keyed features, `table` for clues, threats, and the arc, `.item-card` for a named item, and `.band` tags (`.b-moss` village, `.b-rust` threat, `.b-fey` fey/wonder).

Delete a whole block only where the section genuinely doesn't apply — no dungeon, no named item, no romance. Never leave a marker unfilled. **The comic moment gets no section of its own** — weave it into an NPC, a feature, or an arc beat.

```html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title><!-- FILL: Location Name --></title>
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Fraunces:ital,opsz,wght@0,9..144,400;0,9..144,600;1,9..144,500&family=Spectral:ital,wght@0,400;0,500;0,600;1,400&family=Caveat:wght@500;700&family=Courier+Prime:wght@400;700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
<style>
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    --ink:#2B2116; --ink-soft:#4A3D2C; --iron:#6B5842;
    --moss:#3F5B3F; --moss-soft:#5C7A57; --rust:#8B3A2B;
    --fey:#5A3E73; --fey-light:#8C6FA8; --fieldnote:#7A2E20;
  }
  *{box-sizing:border-box;}
  body{margin:0;background:var(--vellum);color:var(--ink);font-family:'Spectral',serif;font-size:17px;line-height:1.65;}
  .wrap{max-width:760px;margin:0 auto;padding:0 28px 120px;}
  .cover{padding:64px 28px 40px;text-align:center;border-bottom:3px double var(--iron);margin-bottom:8px;}
  .cover .eyebrow{font-variant:small-caps;letter-spacing:0.12em;color:var(--iron);font-size:0.85rem;}
  .cover h1{font-family:'Fraunces',serif;font-weight:600;font-size:2.6rem;margin:0.3em 0 0.15em;}
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  .cover .tags{margin-top:20px;font-size:0.85rem;letter-spacing:0.04em;color:var(--iron);}
  .cover .tags span{margin:0 8px;}
  section{padding-top:52px;}
  section:first-of-type{padding-top:36px;}
  .kicker{font-variant:small-caps;letter-spacing:0.14em;font-size:0.8rem;margin-bottom:2px;}
  h2{font-family:'Fraunces',serif;font-weight:600;font-size:1.7rem;margin:0 0 0.5em;padding-bottom:0.25em;border-bottom:1px solid var(--iron);}
  h3{font-family:'Fraunces',serif;font-weight:600;font-style:italic;font-size:1.2rem;margin:1.4em 0 0.4em;}
  .village-band .kicker{color:var(--moss);} .village-band h2{border-color:var(--moss-soft);}
  .threat-band .kicker{color:var(--rust);} .threat-band h2{border-color:var(--rust);}
  .fey-band .kicker{color:var(--fey);} .fey-band h2{border-color:var(--fey-light);}
  p{margin:0.7em 0;}
  ul.plain{padding-left:1.3em;margin:0.6em 0;} ul.plain li{margin:0.35em 0;}
  .npc{background:var(--panel);border:1px solid var(--iron);border-left:4px solid var(--moss-soft);border-radius:2px;padding:14px 18px;margin:14px 0;}
  .npc.fey{border-left-color:var(--fey-light);} .npc.threat{border-left-color:var(--rust);}
  .npc .name{font-family:'Fraunces',serif;font-weight:600;font-size:1.05rem;}
  .npc .role{font-style:italic;color:var(--ink-soft);font-size:0.92rem;margin-bottom:0.3em;}
  .fieldnote{font-family:'Caveat',cursive;color:var(--fieldnote);background:rgba(122,46,32,0.06);border:1px dashed rgba(122,46,32,0.45);border-radius:3px;padding:12px 18px 10px;margin:16px 0;font-size:1.2rem;line-height:1.4;transform:rotate(-0.4deg);}
  .fieldnote .tag{display:block;font-family:'Spectral',serif;font-variant:small-caps;letter-spacing:0.1em;font-style:normal;font-size:0.72rem;color:var(--fieldnote);margin-bottom:4px;opacity:0.85;}
  .ritual{font-family:'Fraunces',serif;font-style:italic;font-size:1.08rem;line-height:1.75;background:var(--vellum-deep);border-top:1px solid var(--iron);border-bottom:1px solid var(--iron);padding:22px 26px;margin:20px 0;}
  .ritual .who{font-family:'Spectral',serif;font-style:normal;font-variant:small-caps;letter-spacing:0.08em;font-size:0.82rem;color:var(--iron);display:block;margin-bottom:6px;}
  .room{margin:20px 0;}
  .room .rnum{font-family:'Fraunces',serif;font-weight:600;color:var(--fey);font-size:1.05rem;}
  .room .rname{font-style:italic;color:var(--ink-soft);}
  table{width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;background:var(--panel);border:1px solid var(--iron);margin:8px 0 6px;font-size:0.92rem;}
  th,td{border:1px solid var(--iron);padding:6px 9px;text-align:left;vertical-align:top;}
  th{font-variant:small-caps;letter-spacing:0.03em;background:var(--vellum);}
  .item-card{background:linear-gradient(135deg, var(--panel), var(--vellum-deep));border:1px solid var(--fey-light);border-radius:3px;padding:20px 24px;margin:18px 0;}
  .item-card .iname{font-family:'Fraunces',serif;font-weight:600;font-size:1.3rem;color:var(--fey);}
  .item-card .itype{font-style:italic;color:var(--ink-soft);font-size:0.9rem;margin-bottom:8px;}
  .band{display:inline-block;font-size:0.75rem;font-variant:small-caps;letter-spacing:0.05em;color:#fff;padding:2px 8px;border-radius:2px;margin-left:6px;vertical-align:middle;}
  .b-moss{background:var(--moss);} .b-rust{background:var(--rust);} .b-fey{background:var(--fey);}
  .note{font-size:0.85rem;color:var(--ink-soft);}
  hr.div{border:none;text-align:center;margin:52px 0 0;}
  hr.div::before{content:"\2766";color:var(--iron);font-size:1.1rem;}
  footer{text-align:center;padding:50px 20px 20px;font-size:0.8rem;color:var(--iron);font-variant:small-caps;letter-spacing:0.08em;}
  @media (max-width:600px){ body{font-size:16px;} .cover h1{font-size:2rem;} .wrap{padding:0 16px 100px;} }
</style>
</head>
<body>

<div class="cover">
  <div class="eyebrow">A Contract of the Marches</div>
  <h1><!-- FILL: Location Name --></h1>
  <div class="subtitle"><!-- FILL: short evocative tagline in the setting's voice --></div>
  <div class="tags">
    <span><!-- FILL: terrain --></span>&middot;<span><!-- FILL: settlement scale --></span>&middot;<span>built for <!-- FILL: N characters, level N --></span>&middot;<span>engine: <!-- FILL: which Complication Engine, §7 --></span>
  </div>
</div>

<div class="wrap">

  <section>
    <div class="kicker">The Marker's Bounty</div>
    <div class="ritual">
      <span class="who">the fixed preamble</span>
      "In summers of yore, the king would gather his lords on the marches to push into the wild and settle the lands. We await the king and his lords once again. Until that day when they arrive again, we hire marked adventurers to keep the wild at bay. Adventurers, we ask that of you now."
    </div>
    <div class="ritual">
      <span class="who">the bounty, read plain</span>
      <!-- FILL: the specific issue and the offered reward -->
    </div>
  </section>

  <section class="village-band">
    <div class="kicker">What's Known</div>
    <h2>The Situation</h2>
    <p><!-- FILL: what the village believes --></p>
  </section>

  <div class="fieldnote">
    <span class="tag">what's really true &mdash; gm only</span>
    <!-- FILL: the GM-only truth, connected to the chosen engine -->
  </div>

  <section class="village-band">
    <div class="kicker">The Village</div>
    <h2><!-- FILL: village name --></h2>
    <p><!-- FILL: scale and population; which people (human, half-elven, half-orcish, dwarven); the local trade; the layout; which strata are visible here and how they're used; what the village can muster and what it keeps hidden --></p>
    <p><!-- FILL: one or two pieces of ambient wonder, treated as entirely ordinary by the people who live with them --></p>
  </section>

  <section class="village-band">
    <div class="kicker">The Local Lord</div>
    <h2><!-- FILL: name and seat --></h2>
    <p><!-- FILL: the petty lord holding this stretch — their tower and enclosure, how many armed men, their attitude to marked folk, and why they cannot solve this themselves. Omit this section only if the settlement genuinely answers to no one. --></p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <div class="kicker">Three Physical Clues</div>
    <h2>What Can Be Found</h2>
    <table>
      <tr><th style="width:42%">What is found</th><th>What it reveals</th></tr>
      <tr><td><!-- FILL --></td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
      <tr><td><!-- FILL --></td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
      <tr><td><!-- FILL --></td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
    </table>
    <p class="note">Specific objects and observations, never rolls or DCs. The GM adjudicates discovery.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <div class="kicker">Features</div>
    <h2>Key Locations</h2>
    <!-- FILL: repeat per feature — 3–7 keyed areas for a dungeon, fewer for a village-only session -->
    <div class="room">
      <span class="rnum">1.</span> <span class="rname"><!-- FILL: name --></span>
      <p><!-- FILL: one to two sentences --></p>
    </div>
  </section>

  <section>
    <div class="kicker">NPCs</div>
    <h2>Who's Here</h2>
    <!-- FILL: repeat per NPC. Include a village leader, the Marker, a genuinely good NPC, the threat's leader where it can be spoken to, and a spellcasting NPC where magic is involved. Note order affiliation (Ledger / Iron Vigil / Thornwake / none) where relevant. -->
    <div class="npc">
      <div class="name"><!-- FILL: name --></div>
      <div class="role"><!-- FILL: role, and order affiliation if any --></div>
      <p><!-- FILL: quick stats, motivation, secret, and notes in flowing prose --></p>
    </div>
  </section>

  <section class="fey-band">
    <div class="kicker">Fey &amp; Spirits</div>
    <h2>What Lives Here Besides People</h2>
    <p><!-- FILL: the discrete fey encounter if this location has one — drawn from the full range of fey kinds, not always a courtly stranger --></p>
  </section>

  <section class="threat-band">
    <div class="kicker">The Hard Choice</div>
    <h2>No Clean Answer</h2>
    <p><!-- FILL: the moral complication produced by the chosen engine, with both options and what each costs --></p>
  </section>

  <section class="threat-band">
    <div class="kicker">Monsters &amp; Threats</div>
    <h2>Opposition</h2>
    <table>
      <tr><th>Name</th><th>Kind</th><th>HD/CR</th><th>No.</th><th>Morale</th><th>Tactics</th></tr>
      <tr><td><!-- FILL --></td><td><!-- FILL: kind from the Bestiary --></td><td><!-- FILL --></td><td><!-- FILL --></td><td><!-- FILL --></td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
    </table>
    <h3>The Weakness</h3>
    <p><!-- FILL: the discoverable vulnerability, taken from the kind's Bestiary entry — and exactly where a party can learn it: a local, a book, an old story, or the physical evidence above --></p>
    <p class="note"><!-- FILL: which Encounter Table zone applies --></p>
  </section>

  <section class="fey-band">
    <div class="kicker">Treasure &amp; Reward</div>
    <h2>What's Earned</h2>
    <p><!-- FILL: mundane treasure, scaled to the settlement's means --></p>
    <!-- FILL: omit this item-card entirely if no named item is awarded -->
    <div class="item-card">
      <div class="iname"><!-- FILL: item name --></div>
      <div class="itype"><!-- FILL: what it is --></div>
      <p><!-- FILL: description and quirks --></p>
    </div>
  </section>

  <section class="threat-band">
    <div class="kicker">The Payment Argument</div>
    <h2>Settling Up</h2>
    <p><!-- FILL: how the payment goes wrong — short-paid, paid in goods, disputed on a technicality, or coin the party has reason not to want. State the village's opening position and what it takes to move them. --></p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <div class="kicker">Session Arc</div>
    <h2>The Shape of It</h2>
    <table>
      <tr><th style="width:16%">Beat</th><th>One line</th></tr>
      <tr><td>Muster</td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
      <tr><td>Approach</td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
      <tr><td>Wrinkle</td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
      <tr><td>Descent</td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
      <tr><td>Reckoning</td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
      <tr><td>Parting</td><td><!-- FILL --></td></tr>
    </table>
  </section>

  <section>
    <div class="kicker">Where It Leads</div>
    <h2>Threads Left Hanging</h2>
    <ul class="plain">
      <li><!-- FILL: two or three consequences or rumors that could seed a later contract --></li>
    </ul>
  </section>

</div>

<footer>the marches endure</footer>

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