The Chocolate Egg Factory

Loose Threads Easter Adventure

Request for Aid

The Company arrives at a Village in the middle of a valley, surrounded by a typically beautiful Enchanted Forest. The Village lays near to a mountain, from which comes a smoke as if it were a volcano or as if there were a chimney.

The village are made of garish colored, beautiful houses. It is noticeable the intense trade, as it’s near a river and to the path that leads to the Valley exit, from where caravans of merchants come and go, taking advantage of the village as a trading outpost among themselves without the need to go to the Near Kingdoms.

One curious thing the Company will notice is that you can’t find cocoa or chocolate anywhere in the Village. The villagers will explain that this is not normal, not at all, as the famous Easter Egg Chocolate Factory is in a burrow under the Egg Mountain (the mountain where they could see the chimney). The smoke from the top is small for the time of year, and many of the villagers miss the activity of the Rabbits, since many of the villagers are themselves chocolatiere that worked for the Easter Bunny at those times, many learned the craft with the Rabbits or even with Easter Bunny itself.

The characters will then be sought by one of the Egg Factory Rabbits, who will take them to it: they will realize that, despite the small proportions, they can walk normally through the Factory.

The factory is huge, carved into more than half of the Mountain internals: one of the Valley’s natural waterfalls has been pulled from its course to feed the watermill which supplies power to the machinery, and part of the water is used into the boilers for the Chocolate conching and for other needs.

However the Company can see that the Rabbits are flabebrgasted, but not because of activity, quite the opposite: the lack of activity is making them touchy of such anxiety!

Then they are taken to a room that looks like the Factory’s control room, where they see a Bit Rabbit, with snowy fur, albino eyes and a small pink button of a leathery nose at the tip of the muzzle. He wears clothes as if he was a human, in a way that resembles the Alice in Wonderland’s White Rabbit. However, the characters will find that he looks a bit sick: his long ears are floppy and the characters may notice that his chees are not pinkish, as it should be, but rather green, as if he had eaten something that made him gone queasy!

Problem

“You must know about the Easter Egg tradition: every year I travel all around the Kingdoms, hiding chocolate eggs during the Easter season. This year, however, I’m not feeling very well. I think someone put some kind of poison on my food that made me sick, and I will not get well enough until the time I shoud hide our chocolate eggs. And, if that were not enough, I discovered that someone stole my Cookbook and cutted my chocolate supply lines, by robbing the caravans! Who could be doing this, I don’t know, but I believe that would be someone really selfish, to want too much to have all my chocolate eggs only for himself.”

  • Problem: Not only did the Easter Bunny fail to make eggs because of the raw material shortage, and he had the recipe cookbook stolen, but also something or someone managed to put him sick!
  • Solution: Recover the Cookbook, get the raw material and ready the Easter eggs!

Investigation

The Egg Factory Rabbits will always mention the fact that since some days they no longer received any cocoa, chocolate, and other raw materials for the eggs, just in the most critical time for the chocolate eggs manufacturing. Even looking upon to merchants from villages, towns, and even nearby kingdoms, they have discovered that any supply that anything that can be used on Easter eggs is cut off, to the point that even chicken eggs are being stolen. There’s a shortage on chocolate all around!

They Rabbits will also mention that goblins thieves were seen in the nearby Forest, that is Enchanted Forest as everyone knows. Those goblins attack occasionally, but not with the intensity and panache they had recently.

In addition, one of the biggest oppositor of the Easter Bunny, Rumpelstiltskin, was recently seen in the middle of the Forest. Usually considered petty, no one knows which are their goals.

As for the Cookbook, some of the Egg Factory Rabbits were taking him to Mother Goose when they were attacked by the goblins thieves and it was stolen. If it was not the Easter Bunny disease and the chocolate shortage, they could still make the eggs, adjusting the recipes slowly until they found the spot. It would reduce the chocolate eggs variety, but it would be possible.

If someone asks if any of the Egg Factory Rabbits could take on the role of the Easter Bunny, they will show the difference in size: the Easter Bunny is the size of a child, while the Egg Factory Rabbit are much smaller, rabbit-sized.

They will say that there’s a desperated measure that has never been taken: when the Easter Bunny had undergone into this Mantle, there was created a way a human being could to pass through it, through the Enchanted Clothes, magical garments created by the Fairy Godmothers for the Rabbit as a Emergency solution. A person who put on the Clothes takes up the form and some of the skills of the Easter Bunny until the egg distribution is completed.

Of course there are clauses about who can use the Enchanted Clothes, and they are not with the Egg Factory, but are under the caring of one of the Fairy Godmothers who made them, Mirana, who lives in the middle of the Forest. She is considered one of the wisest of the Fairy Godmothers, and therefore one of the most powerful, and she’s able to see through people’s heart: she will not allow anyone to wear the Enchanted Clothes for selfish reasons, but can help those who are selfless.

About the Enchanted Forest, everyone will say that it is Home of all kind of creatures, good and bad, and that there are Hospitality Laws that must always be respected, at the risk of suffering all kinds of tricks and deceives, from only mildly humiliating to potentially fatal. In addition, disrespect for such norms marks those that make them as Unworthy (a Curse that can be put on the Seventh Aspect of a character). Every villager knows some of the Laws, but none knows them all, as they vary from creature to creature. However, any knowledge can be useful in this case.

In-Between: The Stranded Forest

The Enchanted Forest surrounding the Chocolate Factory and the nearby village is the source of all kinds of game and food for humans, as well as firewood to warm the winter chill. However, it is also home to good and bad creatures of all kinds, especially in the Hidden Locations where the Fairies meet. Animals of all kinds can be found here, and many magical creatures also live here, as well as witches and monastic sages and other creatures.

Aspects

Monsters

Hazards

Denizens

Secrets

The Enchanted Forest is home of many mystical creatures who may need help. The Hospitality Laws are something to be taken very seriously. However, every situation where the characters help some of these creatures can grant the characters some help aftr. However, when characters violate the Laws, they may end up imprisoned, cursed, or even with their lives under risk!

In fact, there is a whole community of people who are Accursed, unable to return to their homes because of the curses imposed because their disregard for the Laws. The characters may wish to rescue some of them, but this will be complicated because of the powerful forces involved.

Snags

Rumpelstiltskin and The Easter Rabbit Cookbook

The main key to the mystery involving the disappearance of chocolate loads to the Rabbit Egg Factory is Rumpelstiltskin.

This Goblin is one of the most selfish of all of them, to the point that even among these evil creatures he is considered an outcast. Intelligent and manipulative, not infrequently he has reached the point of using those of his own kind for his own goals.

Recently, he grew into the ambition of power over the Kingdoms near the Easter Rabbit Egg Factory. However, he realized that dominating all realms through force would be impossible. The Kingdoms are far more powerful than the Forest people. And even if he could get some of the Goblins to fight at his side, he would be crushed for sure.

Therefore, he would have to dominate them via cunning.

And it was when he found out about the Enchanted Clothes and began to formulate his scheme.

First, he ordered his Goblins Thieves to steal all Chocolate and other raw materials that the Rabbits from the Chocolate Egg Factory asked for: either from local caravans or from those in the distant Golden and Silk Road that crosses the Desert to the the Kingdoms of the East, he made sure that not a gram of chocolate reached anywhere in the Near Kingdoms and, indirectly, the Chocolate Egg Factory.

Then he put one of his Goblins, under disguise via his mystical illusions, inside the Egg Factory, that managed to steal Easter Bunny’s Magic Cookbook.

By reading it, he began to develop a kind of magical chocolate, extremely tasty, but which induces anyone who eats it to submit themselves to Rumpelstiltskin. Making those eggs and testing them on children he imprisoned and used as guinea pigs, the results were even better: the children themselves eventually became Goblins under their will.

At last, what he needs now is somehow steal the Enchanted Clothes. He knows that they are with Mirana the Fairy Godmother, but he doesn’t want to deal with her himself, because he knows Mirana is extremely powerful.

So he made his disguised goblin at the Egg Factory contaminate the Easter Bunny’s food and water with a light but long-lasting poison that would make him sick for a long time. Now he’s just waiting for someone unsuspecting to go to Mirana’s house for the Enchanted Clothes and get them, so he can steal them and and use them to become the “Easter Bunny” for long enough to spread his Magic Eggs and put everyone in the Valley under his will!

The Enchanted Clothes

Mirana, the Fairy Godmother, is the one behind the whole idea of ​​the Easter Bunny. After discovering about a certain human family that helped others through this ancient myth, she decided that she would offer them the option to continue this mission, making them enchanted creatures with very long life and the shape of the Easter Bunny.

For this, she worked with her friend, the Sugarplum Fairy, a magic similar to the Santa’s, where from time to time a person has the option to become the Easter Bunny, based on accepting the Easter Clause (similar to Christamassy Santa Clause) when wearing the Easter Bunny Enchanted Clothes and so taking his Mantle. Beside to the one that was used by the current Easter Bunny, there is a small-scale variant of the same Enchanted Clothes one she keeps for emergencies.

Mirana will be very rigid and severe to test those who wants to use the Enchanted Clothes: she knows the powers it gives and the doors that it opens, in every sense, since many of the Kingdoms follow the Easter Eggs traditions. But if you allow someone to wear the Enchanted Clothes, she will make clear the station that he now have.

The Enchanted Clothes look like a great Rabbit Costume, something like Alice in Wonderland’s White Rabbit Costume, with Checkered Jacket and White Pants, made from (and smelling of) rabbit fur. Once someone VOLUNTARILY dresses, he takes on the Mantle of the Easter Bunny. In the case of Enchanted Clothes with Mirana, the magic has a limited duration: until midnight after Easter. Only characters who volunteer and have no other spells, curses or promises under them (in short, those who have no Seventh Aspect) can take on the Easter Bunny’s Mantle (albeit temporarily). The only exception is if someone made a Promise to the Easter Bunny: that person can take the Mantle because it is considered a rewritting of the Seventh Aspect.

NPCs

The Easter Bunny

Mirana, the Fairy Godmother

Rumpelstiltskin the Goblin

The Old Hag

The Doppelgäenger

The Doppelgäenger does not have a normal set of stats: it assume the doubled character’s statistics as their one, with the following differences:

If for some reason the original character dies or otherwise becomes unable to go forward, the Doppelgänger may fully assume its identity, but with the Tension changing to “Identity Crisis - “ followed by the original Tension. The forces are for Original (with Bonus in Override and Penalization in Defense ) and Double (with Bonus in Create Advantage and Penalization in Attack);

Doppelgäenger while populations are considered Solitary, Mysterious and Magical. They are torn between help people in danger by assuming their identity as a form of protection, and Stealing the identities of others, killing them in the process. Every Doppelgäenger has Good (+3) Empathy or better

The Man with the Donkey Head

This Man with Donkey Head has been treated by many to be one of the strange magical beasts that inhabit the Forest. However, he is actually a former Lumberjack who unknowingly knocked down a tree that was home of a Pixies community. They accursed him with a donkey head, but when they went to make him a complete donkey, the Fairy Godmothers intervened and told the Pixies that he already had enough punishment. He seeks redemption, trying to convince passerbys about who he is and if they can help him on lifting his curse.