TheNexusProject/TheNexusScuttlebutt
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The Nexus Scuttlebutt
by MelWong
- "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Kidney pie at Boddel's Eaterie actually made of human kidneys! Extra!"
- Street urchin Worthless Soot on paper-boy duty
- "I can't read, meself, but Shingle can and he says it's a load of bull's piss. But the paper's good for cleaning windows, it is."
- The Crazy Goose Lady on the Nexus Scuttlebutt
Up the north end of Sow's Trotter Lane on the edges of the Filth, wedged between Prints of Pleasure and Cobb's Flophouse, is a small two-story office, windows glazed over with a thin greasy sheen of soot, ink, and grime. Unlikely as it seems, that is the headquarters for Nexus' only broadsheet, the Scuttlebutt. Every night the creak and rattle of the office's one woodblock printing press struggles to overcome the moans and liquid slaps of messy sex going on in the establishment next door. Thrice a week at dawn the paperboys arrive to walk their prescribed routes, calling the headlines and selling the cheap papers to interested people in various districts of the city.
The Scuttlebutt has a sole scribe on staff, the renowned hedonist, nutcase and conspiracy theorist, River Lobster. The man is somewhat infamous in both the Filth and the Harlotry for the amounts of substances he can simultaneously abuse while still remaining conscious and capable of further debauchery. River Lobster strikes many people as something of a nutcase - he has a tendency to go off on wild tangents while raving and simultaneously imbibing huge amounts of hard liquor, and he considers nearly anything a possible scoop.
His nose for a story is either very keen or laughably poor depending on who you ask, as he has broken stories on The Rivergate Scandal, how Boddel's Eaterie is actually a front for a cannibal cult, or how the famous artist Sangurio Destheme is actually an emotional vampire draining the hopes and dreams of the groupies clustered around his front door. Needless to say, only the gullible read the Scuttlebutt for its articles and actually take it seriously. Most people assume that none of what he has printed is true, else he would have been assassinated long ago for his temerity. That is, perhaps, true.
The only reason the Nexus Scuttlebutt sells so well is because of its excellent advertising section. Anyone wishing to put out an advertisement in the Scuttlebutt need only pen their request clearly and neatly and pay tuppence per word for the advertising space. Every manner of thing has been advertised in the Scuttlebutt, including Tshugar's Annual Junk Sale and the opening of the latest amateur play at the Menagerie.
Rumours
- The Scuttlebutt actually contains ciphers to certain people in the know. Unravelling the code will reveal the secret identity of the Emissary.
- River Lobster is being paid to libel various members of Nexus high society periodically. To what ends, nobody knows.
Secret
- River Lobster is the pseudonym of Grynnar Sakthon Huntsman, a political agitator driven into exile from Port Calin. His debauched airs are a front - he actually is a keen investigative reporter, but he knows not veiling his stories in a thin veneer of inanity will get him killed quite quickly in Nexus.
Comments
Isn't that rather a lot of links? - EJGRgunner
I feel like the secret should be... I don't know, more flashy. *Shrugs.* ~ Manu
- Don't be ridiculous. Why, that's almost as silly as saying that the secret, "X is actually an Exalt" is incredibly overused!
~ Shataina
PS. Seriously, though -- and not to belittle your thoughts here, Manu; I just want to let MelWong know that there's more than one opinion -- I think smaller-scale, more flexible and unexpected secrets like the one for this entry aren't done often enough, and I have often thought to myself that MelWong's entries are really good examples of how normal, mortal Nexian lives can be interesting even in the sprawling flashy world of Exalted.
