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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertsconley" data-source="post: 9627468" data-attributes="member: 13383">Scourge the Demon Wolf continued.The Village[ATTACH=full]401421[/ATTACH]Aside from two, the other groups arrived at the village of Kensla. One of two things always caught the attention of the PCs, the open air tavern on the village green in the center, or the Temple of Delaquain, goddess of honor and justice, up on the hill above the village. Most groups opted for the tavern.If they went to the tavern, they met old Harnic, who is "retired" and basically looks after the Broken Keg Tavern for the village. He will get Tomas, the village reeve, for the players. The roleplaying varies, but the reeve fills them in on the specifics of the killings. He will also send for the parish priest, Elder Anselm, and the village elders to include them in the conversation.  At some point, the reeve will talk about the most recent killing, which took place on the village outskirts, where an elderly couple was killed. [ATTACH=full]401423[/ATTACH]Reeve TomasThree of the groups went to the church first and spoke with Elder Anselm. The priest is certain that the Beggars are behind the wolves and the killings, and he begins pushing the PCs to mount an expedition to drive them away. If Elder Anselm is summoned to the tavern, he will make the same point. While Tomas the Reeve agrees that the Beggars hanging around are a problem, he is sure that they are not the cause of the problem. All of the groups caught on that there is considerable tension in the village. And all of the groups didn't side with Elder Anselm and were uncomfortable with the anti-Beggar rhetoric. [ATTACH=full]401422[/ATTACH]Elder AnselmMany groups had to work hard roleplaying-wise to get the villagers to accept their leadership and authority. A significant exception is that if the villagers are made aware of the bandits, which sows a lot of doubt among the villagers and gives the PCs the upper hand socially easily. However, if it revealed that the Beggars were acting as fences for the Beggars, the opposite happened. However, all of the groups were able to get the villagers to the point where they accepted the next step was further investigation, starting with the elderly couple's cottage, talking to the Beggars, and patrolling the countryside.The day usually winds up with several things, the PCs investigating the Elderly couple and finding out that it was a bandit attack. Tomas the Reeve introduces them to Yoluf, a local trapper who knows the countryside well. And finally, the Reeve housed them in the empty manor house where the bailiff and his family lived.A small number of groups were tasked with examining some of the bodies. It takes convincing to get Elder Anselm to let them into the catacombs. When this happened, they confirmed that the Elderly couple suffered the same wounds as the Peddler, but they will also see that it is clearly not the case with the bodies, despite their decomposition. For the groups that did this and who were thinking that bandits were the cause of the problem, this confirmed that there was more going on.Usually, we moved onto the next day, but one group had a thief who decided to rob the temple because he thought Elder Anselm was an naughty word. During the heist, he was caught outside by a small group of wolves and was forced to run and climb a tree until morning.  [ATTACH=full]401424[/ATTACH]At many points in the adventure, I will do a round robin asking each player what their character is doing at particular moments. Then adjudicate accordingly. When I do this for the first night, the players in most groups say they just sleep for the night. For the group in the previous paragraph, the thief player said, I am going to rob the temple. So I roleplayed it out, it took about fifteen minutes to resolve, and the rest of the players enjoyed being witnesses to his misfortune. This group was a bunch of friends who regularly played at the game store where I was running the adventure.As for the wolf encounter, the Demon Wolf has a small number of wolves keeping an eye on the village. If a lone villager is out by themselves, they will attack.  Since the bailiff's dismemberment, the village generally doesn't go out at night, and when they do, it is always in small groups. The thief was the first person out alone in a long time. Also, keep in mind the wolves have been supernaturally dominated by the Demon Wolf, so they are far more canny and aggressive than they otherwise would be.  For the group with the thief, the whole incident was a significant clue that something was amiss with the wolves, warranting further investigation. The next post will cover what happens the following day.</blockquote>

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