The Rough Cut: A Shop, a Town, and a Name

Greybear, Wisconsin, autumn 2026. A northwoods paper town of eight hundred people on a bend of the Wolf River: one main street, a co-op, two churches, a school that doubles as the polling place, and the Bellow Paper Mill that has fed the town for a hundred and four years and is running out of pulp. Ash Street comes down to the water. On it stands Tice Cabinets — a long shed with a woodstove, a bench by the window, a spray room, a loft of drying lumber, and a wall painted in a dead man's hand: Measure twice, cut once.

The Rough Cut is a working-class trans story, which means it is a work story first. The player is a finish carpenter and cabinetmaker who came out at eighteen, left for the Twin Cities, apprenticed under a man who did not care what was under his shirt as long as the miters closed, and came back at twenty-seven because the shop was about to be sold for the debt. The town knows him as Dale Tice's kid and treats the rest as a subject nobody brings up — which is its own kind of arrangement, and not the same as acceptance. He binds before work, takes his shot every other Tuesday, and is saving for top surgery one commission at a time. The signature object is the Commission Board by the door: every job listed and moved from rough cut to finish, and every job a little money into the jar on the windowsill.

This scenario refuses the two easy versions of a small town. Greybear is not a monolith of bigotry, and it is not a warm embrace either. It is a web of favors and grudges where the same neighbor who deadnames the player will haul his lumber out of the snow without being asked, where the mill paid for the gym floor and the church roof and also poisoned the school well, and where a man's safety at the tavern depends on one loud fool and whether anyone feels like stopping him. The cruelty is casual. The decency is real. Neither cancels the other, and the player has to live in both at once.

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The Commission Board

Seven jobs on the chalkboard, each one a week of rent and a little toward surgery. Refusing a commission is a message to the whole town, and Crockett's own office cabinets sit on the board unpaid.

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The Day-Book and the Key

Your father's ledger has a margin note that does not belong to a carpenter: Crockett was here again. Ask about the well. A small brass key in the drawer fits nothing on the wall — except the toolbox behind the planer.

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The Well and the Vote

The rezoning vote is the first Tuesday in November. The mill wants the Ash Street parcel for its riverfront expansion, and the elementary school's well has tested wrong twice with the mill paying for both retests.

The Opening Dilemma: A Wedding, a Buyout, and a False Bottom

Eros Fable does not ship scripted openings. The engine builds the first turn from the scenario's world lore, its pre-seeded cast, and your character sheet, and it randomizes the adventure's start to any moment within one week after the scenario's canonical date. In Greybear, that means the mill shift is already running, the shop is already cold, and the board is already full.

The opening the engine aims for is one present person, one explicit want, one withheld piece, and a decision. Here it might be Hazel Ruiz coming down the outside stairs with two coffees and a question she has been avoiding; or Cal Duggan buying you a beer at the Wheelhouse and not drinking his; or Margo Bell standing by the toolbox for a while without saying why; or your sister Josie calling about the wedding and pronouncing your name a little too carefully. The mill's second offer is on the counter. Dr. Teller retires in three weeks. And the toolbox behind the planer has a false bottom you have known about for two years and never opened.

Protagonist Freedom & Attribute Guide

The default protagonist, Rowan Tice, is a suggestion. You may change the name, age, height, weight, skin, eyes, hair, and background freely. The scenario's default is a trans man recorded female at birth and living as a man — the character sheet's gender field reflects that birth record — but every NPC is written to pursue a protagonist of any gender, and same-sex encounters are fully embraced whenever you initiate them. The four attributes below are the ones the shop and the town will actually test.

STR — Strength

This is a hands trade in a mill town. Strength is muscling a bar top onto a truck, holding a beam while someone pins it, and being physically credible in a room where credibility is measured in shoulders. It is also what keeps you standing when a job goes wrong.

END — Endurance

Winter here is a season-long emergency, and so is grief. Endurance carries you through a bad job, a bad shift, a night at the tavern, and the five years of unanswered questions about your father without letting any of it break your hands.

PER — Perception

Perception catches the second well test, the missing shift card, the way Cal will not look at the mill gate, the change in your sister's voice, and the key that fits nothing on the wall. It is how you solve what happened on the catwalk.

INT — Intelligence

Falsified inspection reports, a right-of-way deed, a mortgage schedule, and a town-meeting agenda are all paperwork, and paperwork is how this town takes a shop. Intelligence is how you read the file, the law, and the men who wrote them.

The Cast of Greybear

Josie Tice Waitress and bride-to-be (25)

Your younger sister, marrying Davis Krohn on October 24, whose family has a farm and opinions. She loves you, calls every Sunday, and has never once corrected the Krohns when they assume you are her sister.

Arlene Tice Retired school secretary (58)

Your mother, halfway to accepting you for a decade, which is exactly halfway. She keeps the house on Cedar as Dale left it and keeps one thing of his that she has never given you.

Dr. Simone Teller Physician (47)

The only physician in forty miles and the one who has kept your prescription alive with a rural-clinic workaround and two favors a year. She retires in three weeks and has not told you where that leaves you.

Hazel Ruiz Large-animal veterinarian (31)

The new vet who rents the apartment over the shop, leaves her boots on your bench, and sits on your worktable at night. She wants more than coffee and has started to wonder why you always leave before morning.

Margo Bell Owner of the co-op hardware (60)

Your father's oldest friend and the woman who gave you your first credit line. She stopped by the shop a week after Dale died and stood by the toolbox for a while without saying why, and she will not be the one to tell you to open it.

Cal Duggan Night foreman at Bellow Mill (37)

Your father's closest friend and the foreman on the shift the morning Dale died. He carried a box out of your mother's garage when you moved back and has never once been inside the shop since.

Wendell Crockett Owner of Bellow Paper Mill (62)

The mill owner who wants your Ash Street lot and has made two polite offers. He paid for your father's funeral flowers, stood at the back of the church, and has begun mentioning the old right-of-way through your east wall.

Kyle Foster Carpenter (25)

A carpenter who worked two jobs on your crew and got left off the third after an argument nobody reported. He tells a running joke at the Wheelhouse about a woman he used to work for, and he wants you to look at him while he tells it.

Etta Pike Retired, gardener (79)

Your neighbor across the river, who watches the mill gate the way other people watch television. She buys your offcuts for kindling, pays in tomatoes, and once mentioned that she sleeps badly and is often awake before dawn.

Toby Renn Furniture restorer (33)

Another trans man back in town to settle his mother's estate, and not stealth about it. He shops in town in a way that makes your own care feel suddenly loud, and he wants a friend and a look at your loft.

Starting Possessions, Inventory & Economy

You begin with 480 Money: cash, folded checks, and a jar on the windowsill that every job moves a little toward a number written on a card taped to the lid. Greybear runs on handshakes and thin margins. The mortgage falls due the fifteenth of November, the rezoning vote is the first Tuesday, and the first hard freeze closes the river road.

  • The Commission Board — a chalkboard of jobs from rough cut to finish, including Crockett's own office cabinets, which he has not paid for.
  • The Shop Day-Book — every job in your hand for two years and in your father's for twenty-eight, with a margin note about the well.
  • The Shot Log — injection dates, vial counts, and a prescription that runs out in January, with the surgeon's price circled twice inside the cover.
  • The Small Brass Key — it fits nothing on the wall, which means it fits the toolbox your father told you never to bother opening.
  • Work Binder and Loose Tape — hand-washed, air-dried, and kept in the loft, not the shop.
  • Dale's Half-Ton Truck — a rust-belted workhorse with a lumber rack and a bed toolbox with a false bottom you have known about for two years.
  • The Surgery Jar — four hundred and eighty dollars toward top surgery, and every job on the board moves that number.

Desire, Disclosure & the Adult World

The Rough Cut runs high heat, and the body the player is building is the engine. The acts are named plainly: sex in the loft on a stack of moving blankets with the stove going; a first night with someone who has never touched a trans man and is generous and a little clumsy about the binder; being ridden slow in the cab of the truck at the boat launch with the windows fogged; a handjob in the spray room with the fan on; oral, anal, hands, toys, a strap the player uses and a strap the player takes. Bodies are written honestly — the binder coming off, top surgery as a goal rather than a given, the shot every other Tuesday, the way a man can be shy about a chest that is not what he wants it to be and proud of the same body in the same hour.

Casual encounters are available from the first week — an app with two other users in the county, the Wheelhouse at closing, a mill hand in a truck. The first full encounter with a named character lands around the first third of the arc, after a trust is earned: Hazel learning the truth and staying, Toby's unguarded friendship, Margo's decades of kept silence, or Cal's confession. The most intimate scene is reserved for after you decide what to do with the file.

For this protagonist, consent is not only sexual — it is who gets to know, who gets to touch, and who gets to call him what. A partner who is told and stays is the erotic center of the story; a partner who is not told is a wound waiting. The threats here — Kyle's tavern jokes, Crockett's lawyers, a night at the boat launch — are written as threats, not flirtation. Eros Fable is uncensored, and everything in this world is open to the player, with consequences that are physical, social, and permanent.

Running the Shop: Three Tactical Tips

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Open the toolbox before you take Crockett's money. Two polite offers are a clock, and the terms get worse once the vote is on the agenda. Read your father's file first — the well, the discharge pipe, and the shift card are the only leverage you will ever have over the man who holds your mortgage.
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Buy Hazel's trust with the truth, not with distance. She already knows you are leaving before morning, and she has decided it means something is wrong with her. Tell her before Kyle or the Wheelhouse tells her for you; a confession you choose is a bond, and a revelation you do not is just another Greybear rumor.
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Give Etta a reason to say it out loud. She was awake at four in the morning five years ago and saw two men on the catwalk and one truck leave. She will not volunteer it and she will not lie. Bring her the firewood, the file, and a direct question, and the whole case breaks open.