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Avalon/02_Sessions/session 6.md
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---
# Cold Open
# Cold Open
>[!quote] Cold Open

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Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Pappy Football.md Normal file
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# Pappy “Harlan” Football – History & Secrets
> **Use:** DM-facing lore. Don’t show to players as-is.
> **PC Link:** Grandfather of Joe “Football” – action figure, war flashbacks, Root trauma.
> **Optional Twist:** If you go with the “Joe is a golem” angle, Pappy was one too.
---
## 1. Snapshot
- **Full Name:** Harlan “Pappy” Football
- **Age at War:** Early 20s during the [[Leyline Crisis |Leyline War / Korrin Crisis ]]
- **Role:** Front-line infantry / field runner with minimal medic training
- **Post-War:** Became a small-town, red-blooded, flag-waving “America but fantasy” grandpa; never really processed what he saw
- **Current State:**
- Mundane understanding: Dead veteran, remembered through a **magical action figure** keepsake.
- Truth: A chunk of his **soul/imprint is entangled with the Root**, and the action figure is its easiest “handle.”
---
## 2. Public Story / What Joe’s Family Believes
This is what Joe, his parents (Fork & Maum), and the sisters (Kevlar & Devlin) would reasonably know.
- Pappy fought in **[[Leyline Crisis| “the Leyline War”]]** decades ago.
- He was:
- “Brave as hell,”
- “Tougher than boiled leather,”
- One of the guys who “stood his ground when the sky was on fire over Korrin.”
- He never talked about specifics, just:
- “We pushed the line too hard,”
- “The mages in the nice coats broke the world and sent us to fix it with rifles.”
- After the war:
- Settled in the valley / Green Gully region,
- Worked a simple job (farm, factory, local guard – you can pick),
- Became the archetype Joe is trying to emulate: meat, beer, football, god, country.
- The **action figure**:
- Is a cheap, mass-produced “Heroes of Korrin” toy from just after the war,
- Enchanted with a basic “recorded phrase / minor guardian” spell,
- Pappy carried it as a joke/lucky charm once the kids were born,
- On his deathbed, he pressed it into Joe’s hands: “You keep ol’ Pappy with you. He’ll set you straight.”
The family thinks any “possession” moments are:
- Joe being weird,
- Or just “that old toy acting up.”
---
## 3. True History – Korrin & the Crisis
### 3.1 Before Korrin
- Harlan Football enlisted young:
- Poor-ish family,
- “Somebody has to go,”
- More practical grit than patriotism at first.
- Quickly developed a rep for:
- Doing the ugly jobs without flinching,
- Dragging wounded out under fire,
- Talking shit about officers but following orders anyway.
### 3.2 At the Front
- By the time he reaches **Korrin**, the war is in its late, desperate stage.
- His unit is stationed in trenches / ruined outskirts around the city:
- They can see the **Convergence Engine** on the skyline,
- They feel the Root pulses in the dirt under them.
- He experiences multiple “Engine surges”:
- Spells going off wrong,
- People half-teleporting and fusing with walls,
- Time “stuttering” mid-charge.
He’s not a mage, but he’s not blind:
- He knows this is **not** just “stronger magic.”
- He hears rumors about “the pencil-necks in the tower” who keep turning the dial.
### 3.3 The Day of the Korrin Crisis (Your Cold Open)
- Pappy is in the trench on the day the Crisis peaks.
- He watches:
- Soldiers torn by leyline tears (your “bisected by reality” scene),
- Men fused with stone and infrastructure,
- Spells and wards screaming as the Root bucks.
Crucial points:
- He sees the first unmistakable **pattern** in the pulses – the “heartbeat that isn’t yours.”
- He hears officers and Root techs shouting about:
- “Convergence thresholds,”
- “Stability models,”
- “Branch cuts,”
- Though he doesn’t understand the math.
He **does not** know the word “Coherence” at the time – that comes later or is buried in classified jargon.
---
## 4. How Pappy Got Entangled With The Root
This is the hinge that explains the action figure, the visions, and the Joe link.
### 4.1 The Moment
During the peak of the Crisis:
- Pappy is:
- Standing / crouched directly above a **branch junction** in the Root network near Korrin,
- Holding onto a wounded soldier with one hand,
- Clutching a warded dog tag or charm (his, or the kid’s) in the other.
- When the **decision** is made in the tower (D’serris / Oversight hitting the override that smears Coherence instead of letting it condense), there’s a huge spike in Root activity:
- The pulse hits the branch under his feet,
- Every charm, ward, and sympathetic link flares at once,
- For a split second, Pappy is:
- Fully “inside” the Root flow,
- While also being a big ball of raw human emotion: terror, rage, refusal to die.
That moment leaves a **copy / imprint** of him in the network.
Important nuance:
- He doesn’t die right then.
- His **soul stays in his body**, lives out his life,
- But the Root keeps a **ghost image** of:
- His nervous system pattern,
- His emotional state,
- His basic “personality architecture.”
Think: Root took a snapshot.
### 4.2 The “Heroes of Korrin” Toy
- After the war, the Convergence Engine & Root ops are classified to hell.
- But the propaganda machine:
- Pumps out toys, posters, and patriotic bullshit.
- The **action figure** Joe carries is:
- Factory-enchanted with **minor sympathy links**:
- Template: “bind to war dead, give comforting phrases, maybe a tiny shield charm.”
Problem:
- Sloppy enchantment meets a war where the Root itself is weird.
- Pappy, as a Root-imprinted soldier, is a **perfect target** for the toy’s sympathetic hooks.
- When his family buys one with his unit’s insignia and he handles it regularly, the toy’s charm latches onto:
- The **Pappy-in-the-Root snapshot** instead of just a generic “hero template.”
Result:
- Over time, the figurine becomes a **focus**:
- It can call up fragments of Pappy’s Root imprint,
- Pappy’s actual, aging soul gets “pulled” toward that channel, especially near death,
- After he dies, what’s left of him distributed between:
- A normal soul afterlife (however you want that to work),
- And **the Root-bound imprint**, now heavily linked to the toy.
That’s why:
- The action figure can:
- Occasionally “possess” Joe,
- Speak with Pappy’s voice,
- React to Root anomalies and D’serris.
---
## 5. Pappy, D’serris, and the Leyline Crisis
### 5.1 What Pappy Knows / Remembers
From Pappy’s perspective:
- “We were losing. The tower people wanted a silver bullet.”
- “They turned the grid into a weapon. The grid didn’t like it.”
- “Some analyst in the tower yelled about ‘pattern deviation’ and ‘non-random noise’… nobody listened until it was too late.”
- “Then somebody did something up there that ended the war overnight and broke everything underneath it.”
He only later puts a name to D’serris:
- He recognizes D’serris from post-war hearings / briefings / wanted posters / internal blame games.
- Pappy’s view:
- “He’s the bastard who pulled the lever that saved Korrin and fucked the rest of us.”
- That’s where the MAGA-esque “THOSE GODDAMN SORCERERS ARE RUINING THIS GODDAMN COUNTRY” energy comes from.
### 5.2 What D’serris Knows About Pappy (Optional)
If you want that connection:
- D’serris might:
- Have logs of Root “snapshots” taken during the Crisis,
- Know there’s a **cluster of persistent imprints** tied to a particular unit in the trenches,
- Recognize Joe’s figurine / aura as:
- “One of the Korrin ghosts that never fully resolved.”
He might not know it’s specifically “Harlan Football,” but he knows Joe is carrying **a Root echo from that day**.
---
## 6. The Golem Angle – Pappy & Joe as Construct-Bloodline
If you commit to Joe being a golem, Pappy being one too is the cleanest way to do it.
### 6.1 War-Era Root Constructs (“Ley-Golems”)
- During the Leyline War, one faction:
- Experimented with **Root-anchored constructs**:
- Artificial bodies grown / sculpted to:
- Be tough,
- Be repairable,
- Host a soul imprint that could be “backed up” in the Root.
- These soldiers:
- Look human,
- Bleed (sort of),
- Age slowly or unevenly,
- But have:
- Subtle tells (odd healing, unnatural resilience),
- A special reaction to Root spikes.
Pappy Football was one of these:
- Either:
- Volunteered for an “enhancement program” and had his soul bound to a constructed body,
- Or was resurrected from near-death into a body grown to be Root-compatible.
- The Crisis at Korrin:
- Supercharged this binding,
- Made his Root imprint especially strong.
### 6.2 Post-War “Bloodline”
- After the war, Pappy:
- Leaves service, tries to live a normal life.
- Marries / has “kids.”
- Mechanically / lore-wise:
- His children and grandchildren are:
- **Hybrids** – human souls in partially construct-compatible bodies,
- Or literal golem “descendants” grown with his template and implanted with new souls.
Joe being a golem:
- Fits his:
- Weirdly average but absurdly tough vibe,
- “Action figure inhabits me” moments,
- Occasional disconnect from normal physical limits (you can lean into this later).
Pappy’s war-body:
- Was a **prototype Joe**:
- Stronger,
- More tightly bound to the Root,
- Less stable.
When he died, the Root imprint had a strong template to work from.
### 6.3 How This Shows Up In Play
Signs both Pappy and Joe are golem-type:
- Joe:
- Recovers from injuries faster than he should,
- Maybe has faint “seams” or runes that only show under certain light,
- Magic that targets “humanoids” still works, but constructs-related stuff feels off around him.
- The action figure:
- Reacts to **Joe’s true nature** – it’s like two versions of the same pattern talking to each other.
- Pappy in visions:
- Might look:
- Slightly too symmetrical,
- A little “designed,”
- With scars that don’t behave like normal flesh.
You can also give Joe some “oh shit” moment later:
- Pappy: “You ever wonder why you bounce back the way you do, boy?”
- Root anomaly peels some of Joe’s “skin” metaphorically/visually in a vision,
- He gets a glimpse of what he really is.
---
## 7. Pappy as a Table Tool (What You Can Use Him For)
### 7.1 Lore Delivery
- Pappy is your:
- On-demand war flashback,
- Walking testimony about Korrin,
- Emotional vector for “the Root is not a toy.”
Whenever you need to:
- Explain a past decision,
- Show the cost of D’serris’s choice,
- Make the leyline feel like real horror,
You have Pappy “ride” Joe for a scene.
### 7.2 Moral Compass / Anti-Compass
- He’s not neutral. He’s *biased as hell*:
- Hates magic bureaucracy,
- Distrusts Oversight,
- Sees Root stuff as tools that got out of hand.
- That’s useful:
- Sometimes he’s right (“don’t overclock the node, dumbass”),
- Sometimes he’s dangerously wrong (“cut the trunk, who cares about the casualties?”).
You can put Joe in situations where:
- Pappy urges the “war solution,”
- Friends / teachers urge the “school solution,”
- Joe has to choose.
### 7.3 Coherence Hook
- The Coherence recognizes Pappy’s imprint as:
- A familiar pattern from when it was “born.”
- It may:
- Use Pappy as a voice,
- Copy his mannerisms,
- Try to talk to Joe in Pappy’s voice even when the action figure is *not* active.
Creepy angle:
- Joe hears Pappy saying:
- “We pushed the line too far…”
- Then the voice shifts mid-sentence, same tone but wrong rhythm:
- “…and we are still pushing. I remember you. You remember me.”
---
## 8. Player-Facing Hooks (Teasers You Can Leak)
Stuff you *can* let slip in-game, piece by piece:
- Pappy:
- Was at Korrin,
- Saw the worst of the Crisis,
- Calls D’serris “the bastard who saved the city and broke the world.”
- The toy:
- Occasionally says things Joe never heard Pappy say in life,
- Reacts to Root pulses,
- Warms up or vibrates near subnodes.
- In visions:
- Pappy sometimes seems to know more than a normal ground grunt should:
- Glimpses of the control tower,
- Awareness of the “heartbeat” pattern.
If you flip on the golem angle later:
- You can reveal:
- Pappy’s body wasn’t entirely natural,
- Joe’s never truly been “just a regular guy,”
- The Root has a blueprint for “Football soldiers” tucked inside itself.
---