Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer

2026 revised version. Medieval Lord Ritchie is tasked with delivering his family’s crucible sword to sworn enemies as a peace offering meant to save his royal bloodline. Along the journey, he encounters a series of surreal and seemingly disconnected events that fracture his sense of time, memory, and control. As the possibility of wizardry looms, a notion he loathes, Ritchie begins to question whether he is being manipulated or unraveling from within.

After a drunken attack in a public house, Ritchie awakens alone in a room and is pulled into a disorienting passage between past and present. Facing his imminent death, he is driven back to the origin of his torment, revealing the true scope of his living horror.

Inspired by a short story selected by the late Rutger Hauer for his 2004 contest, the screenplay explores psychological horror, vengeance, and the fragility of perception. Ritchie’s earlier life as a pirate, detailed in Breaking on Cave Island from the Giant Tales: World of Pirates anthology, further illuminates the roots of his descent into madness.