Bizarre Bazaar: Tankard's Idylls

Tank slaughters the last duergar, then chews the throats out of the other three, ensuring their swift demises. No sooner has he finished than his rage floods out of him, leaving him exhausted and battered. The world swims, and then goes black.

Several hours later, Tank returns to his senses, still in rat form. The stench of death is all around. Drying blood mats his fur and squishes between his hairy toes as he stands. The bodies of the duergar lay scattered where Tank left them. The tunnel is silent, and Tank is alone again.

[sblock=ooc]Well, I didn't expect that to happen. Oh well; let's run with it and see what happens.

Nonlethal damage heals at 1/hour. Tank is currently at 22/22 HP, with 21 nonlethal damage.

Your move.[/sblock]

Tank takes a moment to focus himself and tries to resume his familiar shape.
1d20+0=15 A moment's frustration later, he moves on.
Tank double checks to make sure the dwarves are indeed dead. After confirming that, Tank drags all the bodies into a neat row against the tunnel wall and begins to search their packs, dumping the contents out.

OOC: You said that tank needs to make a Will save when he changes to animal form, have you been rolling that, or do I need to?

The duergar packs are well equipped with tools of restraint: shackles, manacles, ropes, whips, and nets. They each wear chainmail and carry a padded greatclub, the effects of which Tank is quite familiar with. The leader's neck is adorned with a small silver medallion, depicting a gauntleted fist gripping a pair of shackles. When Tank tips over his pack, a small shower of gold coins falls out.

ooc: 45g.

[sblock=alignment follies]This is highly confusing. Here's what the lycanthropy description says:

SRD said:

However, each time he changes to his animal form, he must make a Will save (DC 15 + number of times he has been in animal form) or permanently assume the alignment of his animal form in all shapes.

Once a character becomes aware of his affliction, he can now voluntarily attempt to change to animal or hybrid form, using the appropriate Control Shape check DC. An attempt is a standard action and can be made each round. Any voluntary change to animal or hybrid form immediately and permanently changes the character’s alignment to that of the appropriate lycanthrope.

Click to expand...

There are two things that are unclear about this.

First, what are the alignment(s) that you might be changing to? The animal form in question is a dire rat, which the SRD claims is always true neutral. Fair enough. What about "the appropriate lycanthrope"? The wererat stat block says always LE, but right above the text I just quoted is a table showing preferred alignments for common lycanthropes, where it lists wererats as CE. Which alignment does Tank take, if he deliberately changes to hybrid or animal form? It matters, because if it's LE, Tank loses access to some of his barbarian abilities.

Second, there are two events in there that can "permanently" change your alignment. But neither of them are one-time events; you could involuntarily change into animal form, and then later voluntarily take hybrid form, and vice versa. Are we to believe that Tank will be swapping back and forth between N and CE/LE? Surely that's ridiculous.

Given this mess, and the fact that I'm really uninterested in forcing alignment change on a player, I'm strongly inclined to just throw up my hands and forget the whole mess. No alignment changes needed; Tank just stays as he is. Any judges watching, what are your feelings on the matter?

For now, we'll just ignore the idea and carry on; if we later decide we want to play alignment roulette, we can deal with it then.
[/sblock]

Tank stuffs his newfound 'wealth' into as few packs as possible. After that, he eyes the largest of the dead dwarves and tries to undress the corpse with his paws, trying to find suitable clothes.

Tank tries to remember if this is the second or third night of the full moon.

OOC: RE: Alignment Follies
The CE alignment on the table is likely an error, those are inevitable if you don't have archons or devils spellchecking your product. That would sentence Tank to a LE alignment if he chooses to take a lycanthrope form.

However;

SRD said:

Alignment
Any. Noble creatures such as bears, eagles, and lions tend to produce good-aligned lycanthropes. Sinister creatures such as rats, snakes, and wolves tend to produce evil-aligned lycanthropes. This is a reflection of how these animals are perceived, not any innate quality of the animal itself, so the alignment of the animal form can be arbitrarily assigned.

Click to expand...

That last line means that you are well within your DM powers to just asign a N alignment.

I say we just go with that unless the Lew judge(s) want to set or honor a precedent.

The packs are fairly compact, so it's hard to consolidate them much farther than they are already. Getting things back into them with paws and teeth, especially the coins, is a time-consuming and frustrating task, but eventually Tank manages to get the packs back in some semblance of their original condition.

[sblock=pack contents]Let's say that each pack contains a net, 50' of hemp rope, a pair of manacles, a bedroll, three days trail rations, and a whip. The leader's pack also contains 45g in loose coins and 10 ft of chain. I make that 30 lbs per pack, and 32 for the leader's with the chain in it. There is also the armor and such, still on the dead guys. What is Tank going to take, and how is he going to carry it?[/sblock]

[sblock=alignment]Well, if I'm going to pull rule 0 on this one, then I'm going to just ignore the whole mess. No forced alignment change. [/sblock]

OOC: Does that mean that I can embrace my new lycanthropic abilities with impunity during this game?[sblock=If DM says "Yes"]Then Tank tries to assume hybrid form. 1d20+0=15
That would nail the DC and give Tank claws that work as well as hands. Which means that Tank can finish stripping the Dwarves of their valuables, wrap a crude skirt around his hips and venture out of the cave with all of the dwarves' possessions. Of course, Tank would not leave without severing their heads for trophies. These heads would be hollowed out and scraped clean so that Tank can enjoy his three new Dwarf skulls (which would be stuffed into a pack).[/sblock][sblock=If DM says "No"]Tank camps out with his new gear, nibbling on a corpse when he gets hungry. Tank is waiting until morning, when he will resume his Orc form.[/sblock]

ooc: What the heck, let's go with "Yes" and see where it gets us. Though I have to say that it's starting to look like Tank is trending towards evil all on his own.

Through an effort of will, Tank forces his bones to shift and grind their way painfully into new positions, skin stretching and splitting and reforming. When it is done, he finds that he can stand again on two feet and grasp things again in hands that, though hairy and beastlike and tipped with vicious claws, are serviceable enough.

Tank goes about the bloody work of procuring trophies. The only cutting tools on the bodies are small eating knives, so the process is slow and the results stinking and messy. After several hours, Tank emerges from the cave. He is wrapped in a crude kilt festooned with fresh skulls only slightly less gore-stained than he himself is, and carrying an awkward, heavy bundle of possessions.

The sun is reddish, not far above the western horizon. The sound of metal on stone can be heard faintly in the distance.

Yay! Walk towards the sound, sniffing the air for any familiar scents.

Following the sound, you come over a rise and see a large number of dwarves, at least a dozen, excavating the very hillside where you and your friends fought the undead archer... was it really only a day ago? You don't recognize any of the dwarves by sight or scent. They have not spotted you yet.

Tank continues towards the group until he thinks he's been spotted, or until he thinks he's close enough for them to hear him shout. "Greetings, excavators! A good day to you and your kin! Do not be alarmed by my looks, I have fallen victim to a curse. I assure you, I am house-broken, and I mean no harm to you." If unchallenged, Tank stops just outside their work area, expecting to continue conversation.