[15.2 Spoilers] Keeping Tabs, Kennet
Author: Wildbow

[15.2 Spoilers] Keeping Tabs, Kennet | Pale

Unofficial Transcript:

KENNET Practitioners (Us)

Lucy Ellingson Verona Hayward Avery Kelly S.drop (stamped with Thunder Bay)

Lucy Ellingson:
First Witch of Kennet. Duelist & bearer of fang & smoke
Currently handling practice-related needs in the overcity, matters of the Innocent, tracking undercity denizens in the overworld, and coordinating directly with both the council & fellow practitioners.

Family:
[Diagram of family tree]
The Kingstons:
Ran(dy)&Barbie (Retirees, travel south most of the year)
Peter (fostered to 18), Renee (Fostered, Adopted, Distant), Martie (Fostered & Adopted), Roy (Bio), Heather (Fostered to 18), Vince (Fostered to 18, Distant)

The Ellis Family:
Grandad (Minimal contact), Grandmother
Jasmine

Roy+Jasmine
Booker (at University), Lucy

Implement: Wears the Eavesdropper’s Earring. An adornment implement that enhances her ability to hear whispers, boost sensory, personal and display-type practices.
[Picture of implement]
Made from Verona’s Awakening scissors & Ave’s memories.

Strong Connections:
Wallace (Boyfriend), Dr. Mona (Therapist), Melissa, Mia (Friends), Tymon (in Halifax)
School
GUILHERME
ROOK (Absent)
DOG TAGS (All but G.Father & Doe Absent)

Avery Kelly, S.drop:
Second Witch of Kennet, Path Runner and Finder.
Currently absent, living & practicing in Thunder Bay.
Working as liaison to a number of non-Kennet practitioners & Aware.

More to come in another installment

Verona Hayward:
Third Witch of Kennet, Dabbler in Shadow, in Half-light, in Shape. Current enforcer of the Undercity of Kennet, rescuing Kennet denizens & guests who pass beneath.
Not ruling over any area in particular, instead focusing on removing those who are problematic & establishing a system of rules & expectation.

Family:
[Diagram of family tree]
The Haywards: Gram (In a Home), Grandpa (In a Home)
Brett (Man baby), Grant

The Dunns
Gram, Grandpa
Sylvia (Lives in Thunder Bay)

Brett Divorced Sylvia
Verona

Connections:
Jeremy (Friend-boy, art pal & rude-stuff doer. Top tier.
Tashlist (The Best)
David (CAS)
Louise (I do chores, she gives me smokes (For the Undercity))
Peckersnot (Scouty boi)
Melissa (Friend, I guess) Has…
SIR (What a lad! Handsome!
Matthew Moss (Shitty home solidarity)

UNDERCITY
[Map of Undercity]

Bitter St. Witch:
The knotting makes her bent & broken, but she has a limited ability to practice augury. Her brothers act as her lieutenants, stubborn like only stupid people can be. She’s not dumb, tho.

The Vice Principal:
A cute facade belies a shocking ruthlessness. Creative, intense, distractable, fierce. Her ‘magic’ is making school faculty into brutes, knotting isn’t affecting her. Easy for us to work with.

The Foreman:
Big, brutish, racist, sexist, mean. Also enterprising. Started up the factories, makes a lot of local goods. Clothes & raw materials to trade to some Others. Knotting is making him tougher. Is only cooperating for now, to keep us from getting in his way. Will evict later.

Family Man:
Knotting made this guy super fertile. Was a weird but normal guy until something went off. His kids are growing up fast too. Don’t like him, but we haven’t been able to remove him.

Stuck-Arounds:
Minimally knotted, low-strength, high numbers, found all over the place. A constant nuisance. Teenagers & young adults, leaderless. They get bored & cause trouble.

KENNET Others

The Council: O.Gs. Were around for the start and are still around now. Council leadership.

Sir Toadswallow: Currently our council leadership, though we don’t have a lot of need for specific calls from a leader, & Miss is in charge roughly half the time anyways. T.S. is marshalling the goblins, a lot of the time, and is working in the background to get ready to launch his market. Not a fighter, but has a serious bag of tricks and a canny mind for how Others work.

Miss: Original leader of Kennet’s Council, has taken on a more supporive role since, second in command & a leader behind the scenes. Currently in Kennet, with self-appointed duties of watching the perimeter & of deflecting incoming problems & practitioners, a role that she’s had for a decade but which has changed a lot since the knotting came into effect. Rook thinks Miss is grieving.

Matthew Moss: Was leader of the council in early summer, before we bound Edith. Isn’t in a great place to resume any kind of leadership, but offers input here & there. Mainly serves as our heaviest hitter, working in the Undercity of Kennet and unleashing the Doom more & more. The Doom is getting weaker, which might mean he takes on a role as a local practitioner soon.

Council Amendment:
Votes have been simplified. Those who stayed & helped and who have been with us for 2+ months get a full vote now. Sponsorships are being shifted around and changed to a kind of babysitting duty, for very new members & problem Others. Half votes are for new members and those on probation: Freak & Squeak, Cig, new goblins (by their choice), and Reggie.

Edith, Lis, and exiles don’t get a vote, by council agreement.

Inactives: O.G. Others who have a limited role or no role at all, for reasons.

John Stiles, “Carnivore”: Deceased. Remembered fondly by his comrades in arms, by local Others, and by Kennet’s practitioners. An Animus borne of spiritstuff and War, we hope his spirit lives on to know Peace, instead.

Alpeana: Working doubly hard with Kennet’s new normal. Alpeana helps by coordinating dream meetings for our local Others who can’t easily communicate, while keeping an eye on the spirit world since Edith is gone now. council meetings or vote much, given her schedule. We try to help and give her resources for making nightmares, plus candy.

Gashwad: Fiercely independent, not Toadswallow affiliated, he does odd work but it’s a coin toss whether he’ll be on board or he’ll get crabby and tell us to screw off. Usually he’s down for a fight, at least. His real talents still lie in blasphemy and screwing up existing systems. Sometimes babysits the smallest goblins/sells weapons and services in the Undercity.

Cherrypop: Cherrypop settled into a bit of a groove where she’s not the most stellar of contributors. The residents of the Undercity like her, at least. I like to think of her as keeping us honest: how we treat the least of us defines us.

Guilherme: Settled into Winter, Guilherme hasn’t left his cave much, which is the reason for the shift to inactive status. It seems as if he’s being exceedingly careful with the moves he makes, what he says, and how he deals with us. It seems as if he settled into a mentor role, not because it’s a big deal for him, but because it’s one of the last roles he really had.

Ken: Not technically ‘dead’, just discorporeated. Though an argument could be made Kennet is dying, now.

Members: Non-council/O.G. Others with full voting rights. Active & helping.

Crooked Rook: Very close to being a member of the council, just because of her talents. The liaison for new members, our jailor, and our tactician. A close friend of Miss. Rook is presently away handling some stuff in the vicnity of Kennet.

Currently Bound:
Bluntmunch, Ephing Bird, Bridge, Dog Meat

Goblin brute Bluntmunch, for assisting co-conspirators.

Ephemeral Bird, for stealing Yalda’s ring, helping Charles. (dubbed ephing bird or f’ing bird)

Bridge attacked the town and refused cooperation. May be helping Rook now, though.

Dog Meat was bound as it is too dangerous, uncooperative

Tashlit: Active in the Undercity, Tashlit can walk among the people there. Struggling to find a consistent role, she’s mainly support: backup for Verona, healing, and a listening ear. Verona did extend an offer for familiarship. No word yet.

Nibble & Chloe: Now some of our more reliable patrollers, they are active both in the overworld (at the perimeter) and in the Undercity, where they can interact with the populace, though they are still limited to the darker hours. They are eating well in the Undercity, but even with that, Chloe is still recovering from wounds taken in the fights against Witch Hunters. All the same, they thrive; it’s their nature to do best when things are worst.

Jabber: Jabber is getting more action lately, helping solve the issue of leaks from the Undercity. If we’re in school and an issue arises that the other Others can’t solve, standing policy is to drop Jabber on the situation. We’re keeping him in mind as an emergency power battery, knowing now that that’s an option. Jabber is technically not a ‘member’ as he can’t and doesn’t vote, but whatevs.

Montague: Montague is taking a back seat now as the perimeter is badly warped and further interference could be an issue. Our plicate spirit/spiritual horror is currently on standby as we have a good few problematic systems we might end up needing his help with.

Half-Votes

Reggie: Reggie is working for Rook in the capacity of an apprentice, doing odd jobs, learning from Rook in the gaps between. Philosophy, tricks, how to make tea, etc. On effective probation because they were an enemy of ours, they’re new. They remained behind when Rook left, tending her garden & spaces.

Cig: Cig is semi-free, monitoring Kennet, though with a tighter leash than before, with regular check-ins and careful watch, returning to bindings when a ‘shift’ is over. Seems relatively fine with this according to Miss’s dream discourse with them. On probations since he helped Edith.

Freak & Squeak: Currently Freak & Squeak are in a weird spot where they’ve set their allegiances elsewhere, working with the Vice Principal in the Undercity. They’ve also said that they would go to Avery and help her if the business with the Vice Principal fell through. So even if they weren’t new, we’d be cautious about membership. As is, they’re ambassadors & keep an ear on the ground for us, pretty much.

Goblins (In a rough descending order of size)

Butty McButtbutt:
Obscene in his smoothness

Ramjam:
Fights? Spit, nails, headbutts.
Girls? Spit, nail, head, butts.
Girls are great. Fights are great.

Nat (Snatchragged):
A fistful of nails
(and glass, and needles)
all day, every day.

Doglick:
Lick, hump, bite, kill. Not always in that order.

Kittycough:
Mad as a wet cat
Cuddly as a lawnmower

Bangnut:
Can fix a car while it barrels down the highway

Tatty Bo Jangles:
She has plans bigger than she could ever handle.

Biscuit:
Punch drink love
Smol goblin seeks Barney.

Peckersnot:
Snot for everyone.

Engine Head
A powerful if aggressive spirit. Seems to link machinery and violence. Road rage, industrial accidents. High power, moderate versatility, iffy on the cooperation thing.

Unveiled Skullbone
Surprisingly strong spirit of flesh torn away to expose bone, especially skull. Tied to nature, seems to link to ideas wild animals hold onto. High power, limited flexibility in uses, solid cooperation.

Lott
Complex spirit. Dwells on territory and turf as concepts, mixed in with a hypervigilant drug dealer’s mentality. Mid-high power, low versatility, okay cooperation so long as the echo part is happy. Great for the perimeter.

Blushstroke
Mid-high power spirit of flesh changing colors because of various factors like bruises, sunburn, engorgement, or rubbing up against stuff. Super versatile but there’s some trick to dealing with her we haven’t figured out. She works only sometimes and when she decides we’re doing it wrong she quits, goes home & knocks down her shrine.

Smoulder
A spirit of ambient smoke without much heat. Moderate power, moderate versatility, cooperative, but hungry for tributes. A lot of Smoulder’s effectiveness is from the indirect: no straight-on attacks or straight-on block, evade and blind, instead.

Boughbreak
A spirit with a branch. A standard spirit of shelter with a lot of defensive applications, moderate strength, not too versatile, but nice. But a lesser spirit is attached to her like a tumor and really wants to upend the whole process by destroying shelter and protections for minimal gain.

Dish
Named for the old timey ‘dish’ slang for pretty woman, she’s a spirit of dishware, intact or broken. Moderate to low power, but versatile, cooperative. Very finnicky about her shrine, though. Supplies clean water.

Footspur
A spirit of suffering agony from stepping on things. she’s moderate to low power, one-note, and not very cooperative, but when it comes to bringing power from the shrines to the perimeter, she’s second only to Lott in efficiency.

Legs
A spirit of lower limbs. Moderate to low in power, but very versatile, again. Can help go places faster, kick, whatevs. Is spidery in appearance which Lucy hates.

Long
A spirit of lengthening things, often in a flexible way. Follows a trend of middling spirits with high versatility. Good for acting as a midpoint between tougher shrines.

Nyeh
A spirit of the feeling of being perturbed. Low power but high endurance. Sticks around, helps practice, is uncooperative if tributes/shrine stuff is delayed.

Borrador
After a brief translation mishap, settled on this anyway, for the ‘bar a door’ similarity. (Verona is weird).
Borrador is a low power spirit in 90% of applications but if conditions are met it’s pretty fierce. Also helps with spirit world access and intimidating lesser wildlife. Might get really strong if given time to establish itself.

Grabsy
A spirit of theft and copping the occasional feel, became a complex spirit while we were building the shrine, which helped curb the gross part. Weak and one-trick, imposes a 13ish minute chase if he steals something off you (unless you let him have it), but could be pretty handy to have a thief spirit in a pinch.

Scatters
A Spirit of papers stirred by wind. No offensive capability, can be used to cause minor annoyance at best but she was quick to join when we started offering so we felt obligated.

Florescence
We thought it was a strong spirit because it was vivid and colourful but it might be the weakest. A spirit of fake flowers and plants, primarily digital ones. Like flowers in video games. It’s a struggle to get her to make fake flowers appear. At least she’s pretty.