Roll20 Journal Transcriptions

• Campaign: The 9th Gate - Saturday
• Copy type: Transcribed from readable Roll20 Journal handout views, with headings and wording retained.
• Source locations: GM Stufff > 9th lore > 9th Roles; GM Stufff > 9th lore > THE NINTH GATE — PLACES WITHIN THE GATE.
• Audience: Roll20 displayed “Show to Players” for both; each also displayed a “GM Notes (Only visible to GM)” heading, with no body text visible.

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9th Roles

CORE PERSONNEL (FUNCTIONAL ROLES)

Overseer Halbrecht

Use: Institutional legitimacy

Appointed directly under King Canaan’s authority

Signs transfer orders, review continuances, and releases

Never present during punishment or interrogation

Speaks in neutral, civic language

Truth: Halbrecht believes the Gate prevents instability. He is sincere — and wrong in a useful way.

Halbrecht is how the system convinces itself it is necessary.

Examiner Vos

Use: Classification and procedural pressure

Conducts interviews, assessments, re-assessments

Assigns labor, restrictions, privileges

Never confirms outcomes

Reappears unpredictably

Truth: Vos does not evaluate morality. He evaluates compliance under ambiguity.

Vos is not judging people. He is sorting signals.

Master Tormentor Rell

Use: Data through suffering

Oversees coercive procedures

Rarely interacts directly with prisoners

Pain is measured, logged, and compared

Truth: Rell is not cruel. Cruelty introduces noise. He seeks clean responses.

Suffering is not the goal. Clarity is.

Clerk Issen

Use: Continuity

Maintains records, rosters, movement logs

Knows where everyone has been

Does not know why

Truth: Issen is the most dangerous person in the Gate and has no authority.

The Gate remembers through Issen.

GM Notes (Only visible to GM)

No body text was visible in the Roll20 handout view.

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THE NINTH GATE — PLACES WITHIN THE GATE

The Ninth Gate is not a single space.

It is layered.

People inside it talk about places in vague terms, rarely with names. Not because names don’t exist, but because they don’t matter as much as function. Some areas are meant to hold people. Others are meant to use them. A few are meant to decide what happens next.

You will come to recognize these differences without anyone explaining them to you.

PLACES OF CONTAINMENT

These are the areas most people see first.

Cells. Intake corridors. Holding rooms. Spaces designed to keep bodies present and accounted for. Movement here is slow and deliberate. Guards are visible. Routines repeat.

These places feel watched, even when no one is looking at you directly.

This is where people sleep.

This is where people wait.

This is where time feels thick.

Most people inside the Gate spend more time here than anywhere else.

PLACES OF WORK

Not all areas of the Gate are finished.

Some spaces are being repaired, expanded, or repurposed. Old stone meets newer construction. Walls are stripped back to structure. Floors are uneven. Tools are left where they’re needed next.

People are brought here to labor.

Oversight exists, but it shifts. Guards rotate. Attention drifts. Noise and motion create moments where things go unnoticed.

This is where routines bend.

People talk more here.

Rumors circulate.

Objects pass hands.

These places are not free—but they are less complete.

PLACES OF AUTHORITY

There are parts of the Gate most people do not see.

Administrative halls.

Interrogation chambers.

Quiet rooms set aside for judgment, confession, or justification.

People lower their voices when these places are mentioned.

Some refuse to mention them at all.

Movement here is controlled.

Access is rare.

Silence carries weight.

If you find yourself near these places, it usually means something has changed.

You will not be told where you are within the Gate.

You will learn by how people behave.

By what is allowed.

By what draws attention.

The Gate does not announce its boundaries.

It expects you to notice.

GM Notes (Only visible to GM)

No body text was visible in the Roll20 handout view.

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THE NINTH GATE — THE CELL BLOCK

• Source location: LORE AND MORE > THE NINTH GATE — THE CELL BLOCK.
• Audience: Roll20 displayed “Show to Players.”
• GM Notes heading appeared with no body text visible.

You do not wake at the Ninth Gate. You become aware of it. Cold stone presses against your back or shoulder—never painfully, just enough that you register you have been still for some time. When you shift, the surface beneath you feels smooth, worn by years of contact rather than neglect. This place is not crumbling. It is maintained. The cell is narrow, but not cruelly so. Wide enough to lie down. Narrow enough that pacing would feel like a performance for no one. Iron bars face a corridor lit by a single torch mounted high on the wall. The flame burns clean and steady. It throws light across the floor and bars, but leaves the corners dim. You could see someone coming long before they reached you.

You remember the intake. Standing in a line that did not move forward so much as compress. Stone beneath your feet. Voices kept low. No shouting. No threats. When you asked questions, the answers were careful and procedural, as if no one present was allowed to improvise. You were asked your name. Something else was written down instead. You remember questions that didn’t seem to belong together. Some about your past. Some hypothetical. Some that felt meaningless until you realized they weren’t being asked for your benefit. The man who asked them did not react to your answers. He nodded. He wrote. He moved on. You saw others. Soldiers wearing King Canaan’s colors, their insignia removed with more care than you expected. People in fine clothes standing very still, as if unsure what posture was appropriate. Mercenaries who understood too quickly that strength would not matter here.

No one was restrained. After that, time stopped behaving normally. You were moved through corridors that felt longer than they should have been. Doors opened that did not look guarded. Guards did not watch you so much as ensure that you continued. Eventually, you were placed here.

Across the corridor, other cells line the wall. One is empty, straw undisturbed. Another holds a man sitting upright against the stone, knees drawn close, eyes closed. He has not moved since you became aware of him. Footsteps pass from time to time. Not patrols. Just movement. People going somewhere. A shallow bowl rests near the bars. Thin broth. Warm. Enough to keep you alive. Not enough to enjoy. It must have been placed there quietly—you don’t remember seeing anyone do it.

Sleep comes, but it never goes deep. Your eyes close at some point. You’re certain of that. But your mind never fully releases its grip on the space. When awareness returns, it feels less like waking and more like continuing. You don’t feel injured. You don’t feel rested either. Your memories are intact. You remember who you are. You remember the world outside these walls—cities, wars, banners, King Canaan’s rule. If anything, that knowledge makes this place easier to recognize for what it is.

The Ninth Gate. Not a prison. Not a dungeon. A mechanism the world uses when it does not want to decide yet.

At some point—there’s no clear moment when it happens—the corridor feels attended. Footsteps stop near your cell. A guard stands just beyond the bars. Plain armor. King Canaan’s colors, worn but intact. He checks the torch first, adjusts it slightly, then looks at you.

“You’re awake,” he says. It isn’t a question.

“You’ll be moved later. No schedule.”

He pauses, then adds, as if remembering something minor: “If you need water before then, speak now.”

He doesn’t rush you. He doesn’t pressure you. The moment feels ordinary—and somehow important.

PLAYER AGENCY BEGINS HERE

Do you ask for water?

GM Notes (Only visible to GM)

No body text was visible in the Roll20 handout view.