Oi

 

(Oi is the setting for Oi! Tales of Bardic Furry by OMEOW. Check it out by clicking here!)

 

Other Appellations:

 

The Bard Universe (Alpha), Universe 22115 (Universe 161)

 

Fox Harmonic:

 

Omni-Mu-Eta

 

Astral Connection:

 

L1 D1

 

Oi has a very faint connection to the Astral, faint to the point that supernatural occurrences may seem like nothing at all and perfectly mundane phenomena may seem divine.

 

Caution Rating:

 

0

 

Multiverse Activity:

 

Inactive

 

Keywords:

 

Observe Only, Quantum, Analog, Sleeping

 

As with the Yue Kingdom, Oi appears to us as a “phantom” universe, one whose informational structure is open to us and yet cannot interact with our own in any meaningful sense (outside STCs (spontaneous, temporary crossovers), but STCs are the exception to every rule). We can observe Oi, but we can’t interact with it, and it’s a shame, they could use some medicine and technology.

 

Complicating matters is the fact that the information we get from our ARGO probes isn’t of the best quality. There may or may not be supernatural occurrences in Oi. We honestly can’t tell one way or the other. The best we know is that given their slight Astral connection, it is possible, probable even, but not definitely so.

 

Description:

 

The time is 360 AD, the place Ireland.

 

To be specific, the place is a village called Oi.

 

Oi is an old village. It’s not prosperous enough to develop beyond a few herds of sheep and fisheries, but not barren enough to fade away. It’s stones have been washed away and rebuilt for generations. The sea gives to Oi and the sea takes from Oi. They say the sea is the blood of the people of Oi. They say that the village was founded by Faelan the Seal Man who caught the Salmon of Knowledge years before the legendary Finn McCool and let it go back into the sea. They say that Oi’s chief (and only) druid can swim as fast as a dolphin and talk with the whales. They say that his second daughter is a selkie.

 

And they may be right.

 

Oi is a strange place in many respects.

 

It has one slave, a Roman won in a game of dice with pirates. It has one druid named Star Seal who spends most of his time high on psilocybin. It is ostensibly under the rule of Tara, yet professes its independence from Tara’s taxes at every turn.

 

It’s chief export is a seafood dish called “squelchy urchin surprise,” which ARGO anthropologists assure us is actually quite delicious.

 

It has no cows, warriors, taxmen, or bards.

 

Until now.

 

Bryan, a newly-fledged Master Bard, has come to Oi to ply his trade…only to find the chief druid’s eldest daughter braining him in the head with a rock and denouncing him as nothing more than cheap Tara propaganda.

 

Then the druid announces that he’s offering him the same daughter’s hand in marriage believing that it is what the cosmos wants him to do.

 

Call what a Bard does magic, call what a Bard does music, Bryan is going to have to become the best there is at what a Bard does if he wants to make Oi a new home for himself.

 

ARGO Note:

 

“Should their speech sound like this? Everyone sounds pretty modern in how they talk for bronze age Hibernians?”

 

–ARGO researcher Book

 

“It’s good, it’s good,  don’t worry about it. Something with the probes, probably.”

 

–ARGO linguist Thompson 

 

Individuals of Note

 

Bryan the Bard

 

 

Student of Ollamh Firbus and recent graduate from the Bardic academy of Tara, Bryan was not prepared for Oi but recently got on the village’s good side by standing up against the Tara tax collectors and inspiring the people to revolt with the power of jigging. He’s now an accepted member of the community, but while he no longer has to worry about them, he still has to worry about Star Seal’s daughters. The eldest has been promised to him, but he can tell she isn’t interested in him like she is in Servius, Oi’s Roman ex-slave. The youngest is cute and they’ve had moments together, but the prospect of her being a selkie weirds him out.

 

He leads Oi’s band, which is composed of himself, Aideen, Rhiannon, and Servius. The four of them have as much drama between them all as any group of rockstars. It seems rockstars are lightning rods for drama regardless of the aeon and universe.

 

Keep rocking on, Master Bard.

 

Raw Power 1

Durability 1

Speed 1

Sanity 4

Intelligence 4

Skill 6

 

Star Seal the Druid

 

 

Does Star Seal have magical powers? Do the magic mushrooms help? That’s hard to say. We’ve seen him swimming alongside whales and even holding onto their flippers. He’s even launched himself out of the water like a dolphin. He seems to have some sort of supernatural affinity with sealife. He warrants further observation, that’s for sure.

 

Raw Power 1

Durability 1

Speed 1

Sanity 1

Intelligence 8

Skill 9

 

Servius the Slave

 

 

A Roman slave who Star Seal won from pirates in a game of dice, Servius was the acerbic factotum of the community until Star Steal granted him his freedom during his first Solstice. Now he hangs out with the village as a proper member of the community.

 

Though he doesn’t like to talk about it, he’s an ex-gladiator, and probably the best fighter in the entire village. He’s also extremely gifted with the pandura, the Roman lute, and plays it even better than Master Bard Bryan.

 

Raw Power 4

Durability 5

Speed 5

Sanity 4

Intelligence 5

Skill 8

 

 

Aideen the Hurling Captain

 

 

Aideen was going to be the next to lead the village until her dad decided her half-sister Rhiannon was a selkie and selected her instead. She was going to pursue a relationship with Servius until she found him sleeping with her best friend and blitzed out of his mind on the same drugs that turned her father from a wiseman into an eccentric clown. She was going to beat Bryan’s brains out for being a Tara shill until he proved himself to the community.

 

Aideen’s life is as tempestuous as she herself is.

 

Captain of Oi’s hurling team by virtue of being the best player in the village, Aideen is a rough and tumble sort of gal with enormous insecurities which she treats with the time-honored therapy of beating the shite out of people with a hurling stick. She is one of the pillars of the community, and though her fiery personality may be caustic, it is also as inspiring in its own way as much as Bryan’s music, Rhiannon’s singing, or her father’s visions.

 

Raw Power 3

Durability 4

Speed 5

Sanity 2

Intelligence 2

Skill 6

 

Rhiannon the Selkie

 

 

Aideen’s sweeter, younger half-sister. Rhiannon teaches the children of Oi the stories of their people and how to swim. She had eyes for Servius until she saw that Aideen was interested in him, so she’s been chatting up Bryan instead, which is a complication and then some as her father has promised Aideen to Bryan and Bryan himself is a little uneasy around Rhiannon. When Rhiannon rescued him from the sea, he thought he saw her…transformed. Changed. Metamorphized into something not human but humanoid, a girl with dotted seal skin, black fish eyes, and sharp teeth…

 

We don’t know what his problem is. A lot of people find Thule girls very cute.

 

Is Rhiannon a selkie? Maybe. Her father believes so, and belief in her magical bloodline placed her in line to lead the village over Aideen, who would have otherwise been next owing to her age. It’s been a point of contention between the half-sisters ever since. And she does have webbed fingers…

 

Raw Power 1

Durability 1

Speed 1 (6 in water)

Sanity 6

Intelligence 4

Skill 5

 

Crossover Notice!

 

Over in Earth AD, government agent Nina Leven took a time machine into the past to, as she put it in her debriefing, “eliminate the Satanic Illuminati controlling the planet before they take root!”

 

We’re obliged to inform you that Earth AD is not controlled by a Satanic Illuminati, just a regular Illuminati.

 

Given that she was able to travel into the past of her world and leave behind evidence of her activities (and how!), it seems that the Oi universe observed in this file, Universe 22115, is a causally linked universe with Earth AD.

 

In other words, Oi is the past of Earth AD. Who would have thought? Earth AD’s Astral connection was evidently much smaller in the past just like how our own was.