The Hunt

[Storminator]

"Wait Tira. It will be trusted in the woman's form, and we are strangers. I say we gather proof... I say we find the woman's body if we can. Then confront it."

Erais thinks of where an innkeeper's wife might plausibly hide a body... a cellar? a barn? stables?

Streetwise roll? 4 (roll) + 1 (CHA mod) = 5! Fail!

Erais immediately follows up on whatever stupid idea he just had for hiding a body... obviously offending someone.

PS

 

[LostSoul]

Oh, that's awesome. I'm going to escalate the situation with that failure.

Tira has a sudden flash of insight. She remembers a dog sniffing around, scratching at the floorboards under the porch. Maybe something was there...?

With the ritual done, the group heads over to the inn. Tira points out the suspicious spot, and Kathra's sharp dwarven vision notices something. A shape in the darkness.

You pry open the floorboards and find a large cloth bag, soaked with blood. Erias opens it, and reveals a middle-aged woman, her throat slit ear-to-ear.

Just then, the innkeeper steps out onto the porch. "What's going on here? What's all that noise?" He looks at the body in Erias' hands. He rushes down, pushes Erias back, and cradles his dead wife's body in his arms. "Oh, no," he cries. "No no no."

A crowd gathers to watch. You can feel the tension building.

Borden pushes his way through the mass of people. He looks at the innkeeper cradling his dead wife. His face hardens, and he turns his gaze to Erias.

"What have you done?"

Our tally is 3 successes, 2 failures.

 

[Storminator]

"I do Amaunator's bidding! The creature changes shapes. It left the daughter's body in the open - it didn't take her form. We sought the hidden body it replaced and found it. Thru Erathis' Eye I saw the creature in the catacombs, take us to the entrance!"

Diplomacy 20! (roll) + 1 (CHA mod) = 21! Hopefully I didn't make this into a Hard check!

PS

 

[LostSoul]

Borden stares at Erias. The cleric holds his gaze.

"Hold," Borden says. "Everyone calm down." He walks over to the innkeeper, and gently rests a hand on his back. "I need to have a look at her," Borden says to the innkeeper. "It will be alright."

The innkeeper backs off, wiping the tears from his face, leaving bloody stains. Borden inspects the body. The crowd tenses.

"The follower of the Blinding Eye tells the truth," he says, using the established code word. "These wounds are just like those that killed Connie." The crowd lets out a breath, but violence remains.

"Let's go into the catacombs and kill that thing!" someone screams. The crowd roars.

Borden holds up his hand. "Calm down. I don't want more to die today. I'll take six stout men with me, men without families who have been in the dark before. We'll guide Erias and his friends in there, and together we'll bring this demon to justice.

"The rest of you, go home. Erias is a good man; don't waste your anger on him. Save it till we can bring the demon back to the light."

The crowd cheers, but some are disappointed that their anger won't be sated right now. A dozen men volunteer their arms, and Borden turns half of them away.

Borden turns to Erias. "Shal Tal here will guide you to the entrance," he says, pointing to a heavy set young man. "Wait for us there; I'll return with supplies."

That was a Hard roll - I think I've established that these people are paranoid and xenophobic! But you pulled it off - what a great time for a 20!

(An Easy check would have been blasting them - going against Borden's level 1 Defenses would have been easier, and while you might not have killed him, a successful roll would have crippled him and broken the crowd. Borden would have fled, and the situation would have drastically changed.

I didn't tell you that because I didn't want to suggest any specific course of action. Maybe I should have - what do you think?)

So - I'm thinking that the next roll will take you into the catacombs. Don't feel like you have to do that, though. Also, because you have some guides with you, the DC should be easier - until they die, that is...

Tally so far: 4 successes, 2 failures.

 

[Graf]

Nice rolling!

Tira steps up beside Erias. Nice talking, you may even win some followers for your Blunted Eye god with this one.
Sorry, Blinded Eye right?

The half-elf smiles winsomely.

 

[LostSoul]

You follow Shal's Tal's lead to an old crypt built into the middle of the hill. The door is half-open, and you can feel the cold air within.

Kathra looks at the crypt. "Obviously dwarven make," she says. "I'll bet the whole thing was built by my kin."

Skamos replies: "In the days of the Bael Turath empire, dwarves from the mountains would often offer their services as mercenaries and engineers. This was cemented by the dwarvish Lord Kriegswarden in a formal pact, whereby the dwarvish lords would offer a hundred of their best tunnellers each year in return for forbidden secrets. Some say that these secrets led to the fall of Dwarhelm, but none who have gone deep into the ancient dwarven homeland have come back to tell any tales."

Shal Tal looks bored.

Half an hour later, Borden arrives with his five men, kitted out in arms and armour. Each one bears a short sword and shield. He hands Shal Tal a sword belt, a shield, and a lantern.

"Are you ready?" he asks, and, seemingly in reply, a cold wind gusts from the crypt, as though the hill were exhaling.

So, I'm looking at you guys to suggest some way that you are going to track down the doppleganger now. Using the Borden and the men to help you explore will allow you to make Easy checks, but if you fail those, bad things will happen to them.

 

[Storminator]

Who is Shal? Besides the bad guy?

Holy symbol held high, Erais heads off down the first corridor. "Tell me, how often do your citizens come down here? Will I find anything out of place?"

Erais scans the floor for recent scuffs and the niches for disturbed bones.

Perception 7 (roll) + 4 (mod) = 11. I'm sure the clues lead that-a way!

 

[LostSoul]

Who is Shal? Besides the bad guy?

Shal is one of the redshirts with you. That name is confusing, I think I'll go back and edit it to Tal.

"We come down here once in a while," Borden says. "There are some valuables, and some relics for funeral rituals, but mostly it's young lovers wishing to avoid any gossip."

Erias scans the ground and spots some crypt moss that's been slightly disturbed. Borden picks up on it. "Good eye," he says. "That's fresh. I don't think any one else has come down here since last night. That will be our guide."

Borden leads you deeper into the darkness. The narrow corridors wind through the hill like a coiled serpent. Heavy stone doors line the walls, each one the final resting place of a long-forgotten Bael Turathian noble. Some have been forced open and everything within stripped; others are still sealed shut, as they were left millenia ago.

You come to a vaulted room, large enough that the flickering lantern can't quite dispel its umbral depths. At the far end of the chamber is a doorway, and you can just barely make out a set of stairs that lead deeper into the gloom.

Borden halts. "This is the farthest any one of us has ever been," he says. "Few graverobbers make it out of there with their lives - and those that do are broken by the experience."

Suddenly, a flicker of movement catches your eye. The shadows on the ceiling seem to move on their own accord. They take shape and form into an oily blackness, dripping down the walls and forming into two dark blots, barring the way you came.

"I hope you're on good terms with your god, holy man," Borden says as he draws his sword.

Okay, so we're going to use one roll to resolve this combat! Here's what's going to happen:

• You can make a skill check or an attack, or use a power. (I'm considering this whole skill challenge as one encounter, so you can only use encounter powers once each in this.)
• Success will blast those things away, and you'll take no damage.
• Failure will mean you take some damage and something else bad... but you won't die.
• You can narrate the actions of the NPCs in order to make your roll an Easy one.
• If you do get aid from the NPCs they will be in danger, and bad things will happen to them if you fail or if you succeed.

edit: Forgot to mention, you don't have to fight these things. You can flee with another check (and if you have some of the NPCs hold off the monsters, it'll be Easy!).

Either one of you guys can make the roll, or you can have one of the other PCs do it; but if it's Erias, let's let Tira make the next couple rolls!

 

[Graf]

Erias isn't rising to Tira's taunts. Must taunt better.

Tira looks sourly at the creatures. We don't need this now. You men up front keep your heads down and your shields up, we'll take care of this. Keeping her stronger powers in reserve she lashes out with eldrich blasts from behind the shields of the townsfolk seeking to take the creatures down quickly.

[sblock=OOC -- they wouldn't be red shirts if...]So Tira hit a 13.

This is one of the tricks with trying to model combat with the skill check system, different powers have different attack bonuses/damage ratios and attack different defenses.

Ex: If this were the elvin ranger I'd have a +10 to hit (and effectively to the check). Of course their attack only does 1d10 (low for a striker) and is vs AC.

All the warlocks attacks are +4, but vs things like reflex/will (and I have at wills that can target both). Not to mention fx/higher damage if I hit.

Not that I mind doing it this way. It's an interesting challenge.
I should have tried to make it a bluff check [/sblock]

 

[LostSoul]

Yeah, I see where you're coming from! Lesson learned.

Now - just so I'm clear - are you using the NPCs to help you, or not? The answer to that will determine success or failure. (I'm sure you can guess what the DC is.)