Spiteful Spate

It is a foul night out on the heath, the sickened bellies of the clouds hurling down their rainy bile in black torrents which streak the moorland. The group of weather-weary adventurers ride past the rain-whipped tarn bent over their horses, clutching cloaks close to them, bent over the reins. The hooves splutter through the spitting churned mud that only thickens with their passage.

The falls are so strong that their thunder can be heard for miles, and the adventurers pass with tredipation by the powerful surging force and on into the valley below. The only things unextinguished by the skywater are the firefly lights of the village by the sea. And that's where they are headed...

It's about an hour later that the innkeeper greets the bedraggled strangers and gives them lodging away from the awful night. The village's people are still up, watching the swollen river.

In the darkness of the early hours, the deluge worsens and the village is flooded. The adventurers must save the village people from crumbling houses, deadly currents and undercurrents, surges as the river is replenished by further rain, carrying them to safety on higher ground.

The adventure could be continued by considering the after-effects fo the flood: homeless refugees must be housed and fed; the village may be rebuilt, but what kind of defences could be put in to prevent it flooding again?

This plot is dedicated to those that lost their lives in the village of Lynmouth in the devastating flood of 1952 and to the bravery of those who saved the survivors. It is a dramatic realisation of these events.