CornDale (Realm) and the Unicorn Craze

This is a GM Full Disclosure page from the old Everway Campaign. The Players never saw this. It was a prepared twist to throw in their path if and when they ever went to CornDale (such as if diverting to save Ham Leg's Gate from the Ogre).

CornDale (Realm) and the Unicorn Craze

CornDale is suddenly all abuzz with talk of Unicorns - it’s this centuries mass hysteria. The changes listed below represent things going on that the players won’t have expected.

Usurper Force: Public Assembly
Normal: Working Together Towards A Common Goal
Inverted: Violent Mass Hysteria

Ludicrous Tone: The theme of CornDale is now faddish zaniness. It’s a goofy place, and the players will no doubt either get a real kick out of it or desperately want to end this madness.

Horse Hats: The locals have taken to adorning their horses with spiky helmets in an attempt to make them look like Unicorns. It’s a little silly to see some big draft horse with a unicorn hat and pearlescent-enameled saddle blankets.

Hats: The don’t stop with horses, the people have begun crafting spiked or towering hats for themselves. Unicorns are the rage, so anything you can do to add an aspect of that to your own appearance is a plus. 3-foot hats and pointy helmets are the fashion of the hour.

Pikes & Lances: Everyone carries one of these, the taller the bigger. Pointed walking sticks, spears, javelins, are all in fashion. If the pike is white, gold or pearl, so much the better. Most are too long to wield effectively without training, and no one here has that training. The mayor of every village has a 10-foot (or longer) pike or two.

Purity of Color: White, Pearl, Gold and Emerald are the 4 most popular colors this season, in the order listed. Clothes, makeup, and even houses are almost exclusively those colors now.

High Towers: The taller your home, the more status you’ll have. People keep adding flagpoles, lightning rods, pikes, etc to the roofs of their A-frame houses. Others are hard at work trying to build towers and crow’s nests, but with little architectural experience, the results have been ugly and a little dangerous.

Abandoned Fields: No one is interested in farming anymore. They’re all caught up in the exploits of the Unicorn. The fields lie untended, the food spoiling on the vine. Come winter, this will prove disastrous, not just to Corndale but also to the lands they traditionally trade with at harvest time.
Instead of farming, they’re making bigger hats and houses. Every so often a group gathers to go hunt Hyenas, but generally speaking they chicken out, head back to town and brag about the one that got away.

Two exceptions: Only two communities aren’t caught up in the Unicorn madness. These are Ham Leg’s Gate and the village of Laughter. In the former, Ogres have subjugated the locals. In the later, the population is actually were-hyenas and they’re rather smarting about the whole Unicorn situation.

Purple Steel, Protector of CornDale: So where is the grand protector? He’s outside of Ham Leg’s Gate, waging a personal guerrilla war. He’s sworn to liberate the village, but is no match for the Ogres. So he stays just outside of stone-throwing range and creates traps and defensive earthworks. Every few days he manages to tempt or goad an ogre to wander out of town alone and leads them into a trap. He’s downed two of the beasts already, and wounded a third badly.