Sodalis: The werewolves are using the babies of peasants that they have already killed. The peasants who survived the attack and are cooped up in the temple can identify the children as such.
Drothgery: This tactic will not be used repeatedly. I wanted to get over to the players just how sick, screwed up, twisted and generally corrupted by dark power the master werewolf is. Most of the foes in the campaign would balk at the concept of using baby-armour, even the really powerful organisations; but the werewolves are beholden to no such organisations, nor even the basic guidelines of civilisation and sanity.
Limper: The werewolves IMC don't really have any true connection with real wolves - real wolves hate them as much as humans do, since the lycanthropes are the product of an unnatural corruption of humans. They couldn't care less about a puppy.
Mirzebah: They do have the possibility of a win, but it is simply in the nature of the current foe that this is the sort of thing he would try out. Don't worry, I'm not trying to screw with my players heads.
Laiyna: Your words are true, however the party has already expended a large number of spells and since they did not expect this situation, they have not really memorised such things. What spells they do have left are not really very suitable for the task at hand. The lycanthropes do not have SR, at least, and they do not have any intention of pausing in the middle of combat just to kill the babies; they're using them primarily as a morale advantage over the enemy, and to prevent the militia opening fire with ranged weapons.
ANyway, here's what has developed of the situation (it's an online game on a messageboard, so it progresses slowly). Kale, a rogue/ranger, has opened fire using Precise Shot to try and pick off werewolves without harming the children, and is trying to exhort the militia to open fire; not because he doesn't care about the children, but rather because he knows the werewolves *have* to be stopped or everyone, including the children, dies. Burl, a necromancer with his typically practical view of death, has declared that the babies are as good as dead anyway, and was about to attack the oncoming band with firebombs, but Cord, the dwarven monk, stopped him from doing this, which would almost certainly kill several children. Wyshira, the cleric, hasn't actually seen the situation yet; all she saw was the NPC Inquisitor get blasted by a lightning bolt, so she's run over to him to administer aid. If she can get him back on his feet, he should prove valuable support since he still has many spells left.
That's the situation at the moment; effectively, it's confusion but already several moral stances have been taken by the players. I'll write the next post soon for them, and see how their actions pan out.
