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Message: <blockquote data-quote="reason" data-source="post: 394826" data-attributes="member: 6022">Stolen BonesThe real world intruded; I was hoping to have polished off the plot seed inserts for the Enierd by this time. Oh well; it'll happen within the next week or so. In lieu of that, I thought I'd talk about Stolen Bones, a Spirits of Rock and Sky scenario.Stolen Bones is of the breed of scenario that I like the most. A set of character-driven events unfold and the PCs are thrust into the midst of it all to do as they will. This sort of scenario can be very challenging if poorly written; the PCs have the freedom to do more or less as they please. A scenario of this ilk consists of:1) Unadulterated Timeline:             a) what happened before the PCs arrived            b) what would have happened afterwards if the PCs had not turned up2) People, Relationships and Personalities that drive conflict and interest3) Plot Hooks that entice the PCs to get involved4) The What-Ifs: guidelines for the most common PC paths that allow GMs to improvise.Some GMs get upset when the PCs trash their plans/plots, but that's just part of the game. It's best to view the Unadulterated Timeline as a big pile of blocks to be knocked down in a pleasing way. That's the challenge; for the players and the GM to get to a satisfying destruction of what might have been.LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATIONI find that my GMing style benefits from a fairly narrow focus on a few NPCs in any given story; it also helps if the area in which the story takes place is remote or otherwise isolated. That way, the PCs have less incentive to simply leave.Stolen Bones takes place in and around the Godward Wohken community of Hei. The undulating rock plains between the Gap and the Realm of the World Crafter are sparsely populated. Small, fairly remote communities like Hei are the standard. They are quite unlike the much larger Gap communities. Families and Brotherhoods are smaller, politics more personal. The most religious Wohken worship the World Crafter and make pilgrimages to the Realm.PLOT HOOK AND ISOLATIONStolen Bones starts of with an embarrassingly direct plot hook. While traveling Godward of the Gap, the PCs are ambushed, pursued and surrounded by tens of Underdwellers. This is horrible and strange, such large and violent groups so far from any Mouth of the Underworld that the PCs have heard of....the Underdwellers appear as strange, glowing shapes against the purple-tinted darkness. They leap and run and lope towards you, their forms seeming to appear and vanish with hollows and rises of the rock...With nothing to expect but to run or die, the PCs instead have a strange bone forced on them....many Glowing Ones have surrounded you and closed off any path that might have led to escape. Most are agitated and breathing heavily. The rock about you is thick with the blue-green reflections of their divine light, smothering the Light of Io Hejin. As they close in on you, even the stars fade into the suddenly black Sky. The Glowing Ones shout at you and among themselves, while several gesture with their bone blades and sharp clubs. Some wear torn clothing that could only have been crafted by a Wohken. The wind now seems chill indeed, but it does not disturb the Underdwellers' matted lengths of hair. Why are they not attacking? One steps forward, the largest of them. Under the bones of his armor, his skin glows intensely along the crossing lines of his ritual scars. He twists his face and growls unintelligible speech at you, jabbing his finger away from you as he does so. Two of the other Glowing Ones shout in the same speech, but this scarred Underdweller silences them with angry gestures. The Glowing Ones to either side of this evident leader seem barely restrained, and one is trembling with anticipation. The leader in the bone armor slams his fist into his chest three times. "Reruk," he growls. He says it again. Then he takes a bone that was hanging from his armor by a thong, tears it free, and throws it at your feet...Circumstances herd the PCs into nearby Hei, menaced and cut off from other communities by these terrifying Underdwellers.Once in Hei, the PCs will have a chance to meet with the leaders of the community. They will gradually find out more about the events that led to their encounter on the open rock......but more of that later.</blockquote>

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