The Ninth Table

The group has existed for only four months, but its brief history has already changed its members. During their first week, they were mistaken for thieves and detained by the settlement watch. The Caller persuaded the reeve to release them by admitting they knew nothing of local law and offering work in exchange for shelter. Their first triumph was helping contain a grain-store fire, using a combination of modern practical knowledge and improvised magic. Their first major setback followed soon after: an attempt to test the relic caused a flash that damaged a small shrine and scattered its components. That incident, remembered as the Blue Morning, defined their public reputation. Some residents now call them useful oddities; others consider them a danger. Inside the group, Blue Morning ended the assumption that they could simply repeat the adventure stories they used to play. Since then, disagreements over home, history, and identity have become harder to laugh away.

Faction · Mixed

The Ninth Table

To some residents, they are strange but useful outsiders who helped during the grain-store fire.

Type: Displaced time-traveling…
Size: Tiny
Reach: Local
Base: A small unnamed settlement on a trade road

Overview

How it began

Before they arrived, the seven members were friends who met regularly to play fantasy roleplaying games. On what they remember as their final evening, they found a brass-and-glass object in a locked case beneath a rented hall. It resembled a prop from one of their campaigns, and they argued over whether it could be part of an elaborate game. One member touched its turning rings while another read aloud an inscription they believed was invented. The room folded into a white silence. They woke in a muddy ditch outside a settlement, in bodies that were recognizably theirs but not as they remembered them. Their clothing, voices, ages, and physical capabilities differed. They had no phones, no familiar landmarks, and no agreement about how much time had passed. They formed the group simply to stay together and survive.

How to know them

MottoCheck the map before you move.

EmblemA small copper disk stamped with a square table viewed from above. One place is left empty, and a fine crack runs through the disk like a split in a game board. The emblem began as a sketch on a scrap of packing paper and was copied onto their belongings.

Colours

Ink blue, Oxidized copper, Unbleached linen

Signs

A square table with one empty place
A cracked copper disk
Seven small marks beside one larger question mark

DressThey have no uniform. Most wear practical local clothes obtained through trade or donated by residents. A few keep one recognizable item from their former lives, though these objects are mismatched, worn, and sometimes painful to wear.

Standing

AlignmentMixed. The group leans toward protecting ordinary people, but its members disagree sharply about whether changing history is a duty, a danger, or an excuse to avoid grieving.

AgeFour months in this world; their remembered lives began in the modern era, but the year they arrived is uncertain.

WealthPoor. They have a small shared purse from local work, no reliable income, and no assets beyond their notes, a few useful tools, and the damaged relic.

What they say they want

Earn a lawful place in the settlement.

Help prevent harm where their skills can make a difference.

Return the relic to a safe condition and discover what it is.

Avoid becoming entangled in local power struggles.

What they are doing now

Find out what year it is by comparing calendars, reigns, and public records.

Recover the missing pieces of the relic without drawing the attention of powerful collectors.

Learn enough local customs to keep the settlement from treating them as dangerous frauds.

Decide whether seeking a way home is worth risking another uncontrolled jump through time or worlds.

Where it leads

The group's stated long-term vision is to find a safe way home and, if that proves impossible, build lives in this world without becoming a curiosity or weapon for someone else. They have not agreed on whether these are truly compatible goals.

How others see them

To some residents, they are strange but useful outsiders who helped during the grain-store fire. To others, they are reckless strangers whose arrival brought a dangerous light to the shrine. Their habit of arguing over ordinary choices makes them seem either unusually thoughtful or deeply unstable.

People

4 ranks

Caller

Nadi

Empathetic, composed under pressure, and prone to postponing decisions until she can hear every side. Her patience can feel like evasion to members who want a clear plan.

Caller1 member
Keeps meetings orderly, speaks for the group when a single voice is needed, and makes no binding decisions without the others' consent.
Keepers of the Record2 members
Maintain the group's shared account of events, compare memories, and mark what they know, suspect, or merely remember from games and media.
Hands2 members
Handle practical needs such as food, lodging, local work, repairs, and building trust with residents.
Lookouts2 members
Watch for the relic's owners, investigate rumors, and assess danger. The title is informal and often ignored.

Other key members

Marek Voss Keeper of the Record
Toma Hand and practical fixer
Kestrel Relic researcher and informal spellcaster
Petra Lenk Lookout and negotiator
Dima Hand and healer's assistant
Gidek Lookout and keeper of rumors

How they are organised

How it is runA close-knit circle of displaced friends with an improvised, consent-based leadership structure

Who comes nextThe Caller is chosen by unanimous agreement and can be replaced at any meeting. If Nadi cannot lead, the group has no automatic successor. Marek is the most organized alternative, but several members distrust his insistence on evidence over reassurance.

How they recruitThere is no open recruitment. The members may accept a temporary helper, but they do not promise that such a person can travel with them if they attempt another crossing. Before sharing the full story, they ask a prospective helper to keep confidence and explain what they hope to gain.

To join

There are no formal recruits. The seven members were present at the crossing and have not decided whether anyone else can truly belong.
A person who wants to help must respect the members' privacy, especially around their bodies, memories, and former identities.
Anyone entrusted with the relic must agree not to activate it without a group discussion, though this rule has already been broken once.

Operations

What they do

Surviving and finding work in an unfamiliar past

Researching the relic and the circumstances of the crossing

Recording historical details and testing uncertain memories

Helping residents with practical problems to earn safety and goodwill

Trying to negotiate a shared understanding of what home means now

How they do it

Take short-term work to earn food and local trust.

Compare memories with records, testimony, calendars, and material evidence.

Ask careful questions instead of announcing knowledge of the future.

Use magic sparingly and describe unfamiliar effects as accidents rather than claiming expertise.

Debate major choices late into the night, then occasionally act before reaching agreement.

Services for hire

Careful InquiryA meal, a safe place to work, or permission to consult local records
The group can investigate unusual claims by comparing witness accounts and looking for practical explanations. Their results are thoughtful but not infallible.
Relic ExaminationMaterials and the patience to supervise an uncertain experiment
Kestrel can examine unfamiliar magical objects and identify obvious physical features. This is a custom, non-canonical capability, not a guaranteed D&D spell or formal 5E feature.

What they can do

The members have broad knowledge of fantasy stories and tabletop game conventions, which can help them recognize genre patterns but can also mislead them about how this world works.

They are good at collaborative planning when they are calm, having years of practice discussing imaginary problems together.

Custom feature, not an official D&D 5E rule: Familiarity Is Not Mastery. Once per significant investigation, a member may propose a useful question or approach inspired by their former hobby. The GM decides whether it reveals a lead; it never grants automatic knowledge of a spell, monster, or historical fact.

What they have

A damaged brass-and-glass relic with several missing pieces

A growing, carefully marked record of local events and conflicting memories of their former world

Goodwill from the reeve and a few residents who benefited from their help

The group's knowledge of modern concepts, which is useful in small practical ways but often useless or dangerous when applied without local context

Where they are weak

They have no secure legal standing, wealth, or dependable access to the relic.

Their strongest knowledge comes from a world that may not share this world's history or rules.

They are emotionally unprepared for the physical and social changes of displacement.

They can be divided by nostalgia, guilt, and competing definitions of home.

As a tiny group, losing even one member to injury, capture, or departure has an immediate effect.

Territory

Headquarters

A small unnamed settlement on a trade road

KindBorrowed counting room

An unused counting room behind the settlement's grain store. Its warped table serves as a map surface, meeting place, and sleeping platform. The group has hung a blanket over the only window and scratched a rough timeline into one wall. The space is cold, cramped, and borrowed at the reeve's discretion.

Lands they hold

The borrowed counting room and its immediate surroundings

The settlement's grain store, where they helped during a fire

The footpaths and work sites where they have begun to build local trust

Outposts

The LoftA loft above a cooper's workshop near the settlement gateA fallback place to hide notes and sleep if the counting room is reclaimed. The name is simply what the members call the rented space.

Secrets

The big secret · GM only

Kestrel believes the relic did not merely send them backward in time. One of its rings appears to bear seven marks that match the members' initials, though none remembers seeing those marks before the crossing. She has concealed this because she fears it means the relic selected them, or that their arrival was intended. If that belief becomes public, the group could be treated as chosen envoys, dangerous sorcerers, or liars, depending on who hears it.

What they really want · GM only

Hidden plans · GM only

One member privately wants to destroy the relic rather than risk another attempt to go home.

Another has begun keeping a separate journal of possible historical events, intending to intervene if the group can prevent a disaster they remember from their old world.

The group's most capable spellcaster is concealing that the relic's activation felt less like an accident and more like something answering them.

Smaller secrets · GM only

Gidek claims he heard a voice say, 'Your turn,' during the crossing. He has never told the others whether it sounded like a person, a game master, or his own thought.

Marek has found a local historical account that appears to contradict one of his strongest memories, and has not yet shared it.

Petra has considered leaving the group to take a steady job with a caravan. She has not done so because she worries the others will interpret it as abandonment.

The group keeps an old set of dice in a pouch, but nobody agrees which member brought them or whether they came through the crossing.

What insiders say · GM only

Trouble inside · GM only

They agree that they were friends before the crossing, but disagree about what friendship requires now. Some want to preserve their old personalities and habits; others feel those were tied to lives they have lost. The players who were confident leaders at the table are not necessarily capable leaders in this world. The members with useful magic or physical skills have gained practical influence they never had before, creating resentment. They also argue over whether their memories are evidence: one insists their old world was real, while another suspects that years of games have blended into memory. No formal vote can settle questions of identity or the cost of changing history.

Crimes · GM only

Plot hooks

4 hooks

1
A Face at the Door
Low to moderate; centered on roleplay, trust, and identityReward: A personal connection, shelter, and a clue about the member's altered body
Personal: A resident recognizes one member's new face as resembling a missing local relative. The resemblance is unsettlingly close, and the resident asks the member to attend a family meal.
2
The Light Before Dawn
Moderate; investigation and negotiationReward: Local trust, payment, and evidence about the relic
Local: The reeve asks the group to investigate who entered the grain store before the Blue Morning. Evidence suggests the relic's light may have been triggered by someone else, but the likely witness is afraid of the shrine wardens.
3
The Buyer with the Old Papers
Moderate to high; social choices with potentially violent consequencesReward: Access to historical records, money, or a lead on a missing relic piece
Regional: A traveling antiquities buyer arrives with a description of the relic and an offer to purchase it. He claims his family has guarded it for generations, but his records place it in a different country only decades ago. The group must decide whether to bargain, flee, expose him, or use him to learn more.
4
Seven Versions of Tomorrow
High; extended investigation and a consequential choiceReward: A possible route home, a chance to alter history, or knowledge of who marked the relic
Campaign scale: A damaged fragment begins showing events from the group's remembered future, but each vision differs depending on who holds it. If the group follows one vision, they may prevent a local tragedy while making the others question whether their memories are reliable.

Work they offer

1Find a missing component of the brass-and-glass relic before the antiquities buyer does.

2Help a household settle a boundary dispute using a record one member believes comes from the future.

3Escort a healer to a nearby hamlet where the group can hear a rumor about another person with an unfamiliar accent and strange memories.

What gets in the way

Their modern memories are vivid but not perfectly consistent. Stress, sleep loss, and disagreement over what happened before the accident have begun to erode their confidence in one another.

Their new bodies do not match their old self-images. Each member has a different way of coping, from denial and jokes to grief, fascination, or anger.

The group lacks money, local language fluency, and reliable knowledge of the era. Their confident references to future events can sound like nonsense or prophecy.

Every attempt to use familiar game terminology risks exposing how little they understand the world's actual magic.

They have only fragments of the relic that brought them here. Repairing it may provide a route home, but nobody knows what else it might change.

Rumours

1True: The group came from far away and has no kin in the settlement.

2True: Their relic caused the blue flash that damaged the shrine.

3False: They are seven heirs to a buried throne, hiding their royal names.

4False: Their odd expressions and changing accounts mean they are possessed.

5Partly true: One of them can predict events. Some apparent predictions are merely guesses based on modern knowledge, while others come from uncertain memories.

The Ninth Table

The Ninth Table

Overview

How it began

How to know them

Standing

What they say they want

What they are doing now

Where it leads

How others see them

People

Caller

Other key members

How they are organised

Relations

Operations

What they do

How they do it

Services for hire

What they can do

What they have

Where they are weak

Territory

Headquarters

Lands they hold

Outposts

Secrets

Plot hooks

Work they offer

What gets in the way

Rumours

Media

Turn The Ninth Table into a sheet