Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

[Kaelan]

Have you ever known us to do otherwise?

When (if allowed?) dirt is at the scene he will try to identify what the cause of death was, apart from being torn to bits. I.e. animal, weapon, magic etc.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

It's your choice; you don't have to deal with every problem that crosses your path, in fact there are too many things in the air, too many loose ends to sort out, some of them are going to have to be somebody else's problem. However well or poorly that means they get dealt with.

Thinking about it (and if Eliska were able to fill you in on what happened to her when she went for that walk in the woods you might be able to put two and two together)- trying to do something about this is the domestic option, sorting out (hopefully) the inward problems.

Hunting monsters on the mountain is the outward choice, trying to protect the town and the barony from external threat. It's a question of priority.

Not that this isn't a disaster in it's own way- but it would be advisable for Dirt, if he is going to investigate, to go with somebody who can vouch for him, someone respectable.
Spoiler

When, if, Dirt gets to the body the first thing he notices- not being forensic or anything, he actually gets it on svartalfven culture- is that the boy, about ten years old, was neatly run through, efficiently killed, then dissected and disarranged after death- it looks too neat, too patterned, too much like someone deliberately trying to make it look like he was ripped to bits.

In fact, you hear someone shouting 'Alfred, where are you?' from out in the courtyard. Andrea, probably.

[Panzersharkcat]

"Aye. I do believe Andrea calls for me." He goes off to find her.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The courtyard is full of people milling about, most of them in states of confusion; Andrea has to elbow her way towards Alfred. she's in most of her armour- left off the fiddly bits- looks slightly dishevelled and wide eyed.

The wailing woman in the corner makes sense now, Andrea tells you exactly what happened- 'I don't know when it happened, don't know how it could have, there were armed guards- none of them are gone, at least they weren't at the time. I think two have run for it since though. Afraid they were going to be blamed- rightly or wrongly.

The Treasurer's men- look at them, they're in disarray- nobody's giving orders. The old man apparently just curled up in his bed and started crying. His eldest son's in shock but trying to do what he thinks has to be done, in the hall- but under the circumstances nobody's giving him time to mourn, or to think.

It's a shame for the lad- they're an ink- blooded lot and I don't mean that as a good thing, but he was above the common run. No real doubt that he was murdered to derail his family's prospects, no shortage of suspects either.'


Verone and Dirt are presumably off to inspect the body, if they can; some fast talk and looming is required, his status as a guildsman can help- the treasurer's family are for the moment in the rooms above the main hall of the Great Hall- if that makes sense- limited ways in and out; there's a priest and a couple of bodyguards already there, there's one of the treasurer's men nearby ranting and swearing vengeance on whoever did this, and a bloodstained woman bawling her eyes out in a corner.

'Use your magic.' the knight confrontsVerone, would be grabbing and shaking him if Dirt wasn't there to back him up. 'Find who did this- my brother's son will not go unavenged.'

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Tuesday, heaviest day of my week, I return and... Ah, crap.

OK, we are now effectively at least partly committed to this by default, to the point where hysterical assholes may come after us thinking we did it if we leave. But guys, in future please be careful about jumping on things, OK? Our present DM enjoys throwing more adventure hooks at us than we can handle, and the slow pace of the game makes it relatively easy for him to generate enough material to keep waaay ahead of us regardless of which hooks we take. So impulsively grabbing everything that looks like a Quest isn't gonna work. That just results in a CRPG-like situation where you have half a dozen Quests running at any one time, which in this setting means some of them get dropped and you're never doing what you'd like to be doing...

IC:

Larric can think of a nearly infinite number of things he'd rather do than go see a dismembered child spread across half the corridor (see Phobia: Dead Bodies). He will actually avoid the scene of the crime- doesn't want to see it, and isn't at all sure that's what he wants to know.

What he's going to do is trawl about the rest of the castle, looking at the people and trying to get at least a rough sense for who thinks what's going on. He's looking primarily for Dame Tamarin, but may find someone else who short-circuits that by stopping him first.

[White Haven]

"Not," Verone admitted with a grimace, "my area of maximum expertise, but let's see..." step one, cause of death. Ah..."

The mage paused as he looked down at the wreckage, adding, "Specific cause of death." A moment's more-delicate thought interceded as he looked at victim's uncle, "If I may?"

(Attempting to trace back to find as much information about the history of injuries and the cause of death, via primarily life magic. As much as anything Verone does is pure anything.)

[Kaelan]

Dirt will resort to his more practical skills of physician and surgeon.

As V. is present he can converse in svartalfven, which will make slightly easier, and reduce eavesdropping.

“This is a fraudulent corpse. Note, the deceased has been terminated and then dismembered. The abrasions and rendering has been done with tools, and thus hand, and not by tooth and claw. If the lad, for the I would put the body down to a young human, had been slain by the magical arts I would have presumed to have observed damaged emanating from within the body. A ‘detonation’ if you would prefer tearing the body apart. Far easier than pulling the lad apart from without, and mages tend to take the path of least resistance.
No, somebody slayed the lad and try to lay suspicions elsewhere. The question is why? To what end was this required, rather than slitting the boys throat and leaving him lie. I would suspect that in more political killings, and I doubt that this was about sending a message for why the deception?”

Dirt will look at the immediate area. For the body to be slain in this manner would have resulted in copious amounts of blood being shed. This area should be covered, otherwise the chances are that the body was killed elsewhere, and then brought here.

“My initial suspicions, and bear in mind that there is a high chance of error in this, is that the deceased was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He may of chanced upon seeing something that was meant to be kept hidden. The rendering was to throw off the scent. I don’t see this as a direct political assassination, though I have no doubt that various members will try to direct it to such an outcome. Either way Detrick had better scramble to the top of the pile quickly or I suspect we will see more of these killings. Once people start to blame ‘creatures’ for sudden deaths the total toll tends to rise.”

Dirt will then look up and scan the people looking on, including the guards and servants.

“The person(s) who performed this act would be covered in blood, or be skilled enough in magic to keep blood away. I doubt that they would be so kind enough to leave it on them, so my initial advice would be to look at who has had a bath recently and wearing relatively clean clothes. Might be worth checking out the fireplaces and garbage tips for discarded clothing. The other alternative is that we present this evidence and discard it into the hands of the local rulers and head off into the hills to slay the evil creature. If you were being particularly cruel you could always offer to head off to the countess for her aid. I’m sure she’ll take a favourable view on child killing. It would do wonders to her reputation should she apprehend the killer as opposed to being accused as it as the norm is at the moment.”

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Out of character first;
Partly, what's happening is just the nature of the beast; you are effectively on the floor of a trouble factory. A lot of people lost much, including their grasp on how life works, when the Twentieth stormed through. To quote P.J. O'Rourke, "Very simple bad things are not worth worrying about. Die, and that's that. it's when you manage to survive that things become more complicated."
You are the survivors, and this is the complicated bit. Some things will be resolved, some will cope, some will fade away, but there are too many people to sort everything out, and you can't do everything. The ones who think they can are a large part of the problem.
Besides, it's not when you're surrounded by chaos that's the worst bit. If you manage to make the situation simpler and smoother, that's progress. It's when the problems you face simplify themselves- such as, as is a political certainty in the medium term, the Zarthani armies come over the border- then you're really screwed.



Tamarin is in the temple complex, black jacket and skirt that she's hastily thrown a breastplate on over, armed, and in the middle of a quite heated conversation with another knight, two priests and several acolytes, yeomen, footmen and random bodies. She's being quite reasonable, and it's taking a strain on her.
'Yes, it is a terrible thing- an easy one to cease to think of and simply feel. Vow vengeance as loud and as often as you like, but if there's to be an end to this, if it is to stop, we must think who, why.' She's saying.
'It's obvious- the boy was killed to break his grandfather's heart, so who are his grandfather's enemies?' The man in the full armour says- a face Larric has seen around the castle before but not got his name.
'People who don't think cleanly and honourably as a true knight does, because what true knight would do such a thing?' she says to him- the yeomanry snort at the concept of a true knight- adding 'The outrage will be part of it, the finger of blame will start pointing at someone it is simply convenient to blame. Ah, Larric.'


Speaking in svartalfven makes everyone in the room- except those lost in grief, the boy's father's sister and her servant- look to the ogre. Apparently a couple of them speak a few words, including a tall thin fairhaired man in a green and brown arming jacket- mud and grass stains instead of deliberate camouflage, but they serve- who looks at Dirt and says 'You really don't know? Who this is, why, where?'

[Simon_Jester]

[thinking]

Wait, what? Oh.

[I infer that the Tamarin's body language and intonation do not indicate that she is specifically trying to single Larric out as someone who'd rip a little boy to pieces, and that this was merely an unfortunate act of timing]

He turns to the knight. "Ah, begging your pardon, milord, but wouldn't it make more sense to figure which one person killed the boy, and work up the chain from there? I suppose you could do it the other way round, name everyone who might have wanted to break the treasurer's heart like you said, and go after all of them... but we'd be locking up half the important people in the whole castle if we did it that way. You'd run short of jailers, and the real killer'd probably get away in the scramble."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

She realises that just after it's out of her mouth herself; 'Oh, I'm sorry, Larric, I didn't mean you, that- I, ah. Hm.' Looks quite embarrassed; a couple of the yeomanry look amused. 'I meant to talk to you last night anyway, about- her.
And wouldn't we have to start figuring, in any case, with exactly that notion of who wanted to do it? If it was as brutal as it's said to be, a shorter route might be who could.'

[Simon_Jester]

"Milady, I don't know who... wanted to do it." He shivers. "We might guess all sorts of names, but... if I were making a list like that, it wouldn't be 'list of people who might want to kill the treasurer's grandson.' It'd be 'list of people I don't like.' Wrong way to find the person who really did do it, especially if someone's trying to make it look like someone else did it.

That's what I meant before. I'm sure any of us can draw up a list of people we don't like, pick the top name, and say "He did it!" That's a terrible way to find a murderer." He scratches his head, then quirks a bit of a smile. His peasant accent deepens a bit. "Unless... unless there really is only one person who could possibly ever do it, then we'd know who he was and we could go after him right away." He looks at the male knight. "Is that what you had in mind, milord? Rounding up the only bad man in town? That sounds awfully clever. It would save us a lot of time, and no mistake."

[Kaelan]

a tall thin fairhaired man in a green and brown arming jacket- mud and grass stains instead of deliberate camouflage, but they serve- who looks at Dirt and says 'You really don't know? Who this is, why, where?'

"No, I only arrived yesterday. Truth be told all you humans tend to look alike."

On a side note, any info on the amount of blood present and the appearance of the onlookers?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Tamarin looks very disappointed to hear Larric talk like that. 'I thought your man at arms was the social rebel. The entire point of being the nobility is that we are supposed to be better than that, that rank has its' responsibilities- we are obliged to seek the right, however hard it be, in mind as in body; to look past the easy answers. Not all of us succeed, but the ideal has to be there- now more than ever.' Debatable whether she's trying to convince Larric or herself, actually.

'The problem is that the treasurer's one of them.' the male knight- Sir Donadd- says, meaning one of those who do not always succeed. 'Using his age as an excuse to, frankly, do his best to steal the Barony blind knowing that, infirm as he is, it would not be the act of an honourable man to call him out on it- notice how his eldest son's been keeping a very low profile of late? Something like this was always possible, but it was him that should have been called out- a fair fight with a forty year old man, not midnight butchery of a ten year old boy.'

'I would hope that there are very few people at hand who could do such a thing, that the list of people disagreeable enough to do that would be a short one.' Tamarin adds. 'Cross purposes are one thing- and I have no great reason to love the family myself for that matter- but we get to the state of crossed swords for something, for right and responsibility. Hatred isn't enough, it can't be- but this was very clearly done out of hate. Someone that capable of hatred, of being purely against, should at least stand out.'

'You can think so, but off the top of my head I can think of at least fifty people who could do that- although maybe not in the way it was done.' Donadd points out.


The accidentally camouflaged knight looks at Dirt, finds no trace of guile- manages mostly but not entirely to hide his own surprise. 'The grandson of an important man, the acting treasurer. How does that tie in to your theories?'

There is, indeed, a lot of blood. It's a relatively small room he was killed in- a bed, a wardrobe, a table- and there are bits strewn around it, most of the blood on the bed, some splatter- but not enough, as if it leaked rather than was forced out, and then some of it was splashed around to make up for that. Some of the onlookers crowding in are now slightly stained, true.
Fifi's noticed something interesting- peering out from behind the shield- it's not feeding time, she's getting a little twitchy with the smell of blood in the air but trusts Dirt to look after her- and she's looking at the window frame. On checking, Dirt finds scuff marks, dislodged moss and ivy.

Forgot to add; Verone's probing finds something interesting, too- lots of things that aren't there. There simply isn't the disturbance, the spoor that there should be from a violent death like this, the traces left by an intruder. Somebody did quite a good job of not leaving a trail.

[Kaelan]

Castles tend to be small, how small is the window. Also, how highs the room and what kind of difficulty are we talking about climbing up to here. Dirt will also check for other easier ways to the window from outside, i.e. other windows as opposed to climbing from the ground all the way up.

"Current theory, someone killed the lad and then had a bad case of 'cover up who did it'. Not knowing many humans I can only go by elvin and ogre methods. That would normally involve placing a head in a bed or writing an obscene note on the wall in entrails. I am assuming that you humans don't normally go around ripping young children apart to send a message."

[Simon_Jester]

Tamarin looks very disappointed to hear Larric talk like that. 'I thought your man at arms was the social rebel. The entire point of being the nobility is that we are supposed to be better than that, that rank has its' responsibilities- we are obliged to seek the right, however hard it be, in mind as in body; to look past the easy answers. Not all of us succeed, but the ideal has to be there- now more than ever.' Debatable whether she's trying to convince Larric or herself, actually.

'The problem is that the treasurer's one of them.' the male knight- Sir Donadd- says, meaning one of those who do not always succeed. 'Using his age as an excuse to, frankly, do his best to steal the Barony blind knowing that, infirm as he is, it would not be the act of an honourable man to call him out on it- notice how his eldest son's been keeping a very low profile of late? Something like this was always possible, but it was him that should have been called out- a fair fight with a forty year old man, not midnight butchery of a ten year old boy.'

'I would hope that there are very few people at hand who could do such a thing, that the list of people disagreeable enough to do that would be a short one.' Tamarin adds. 'Cross purposes are one thing- and I have no great reason to love the family myself for that matter- but we get to the state of crossed swords for something, for right and responsibility. Hatred isn't enough, it can't be- but this was very clearly done out of hate. Someone that capable of hatred, of being purely against, should at least stand out.'

'You can think so, but off the top of my head I can think of at least fifty people who could do that- although maybe not in the way it was done.' Donadd points out.

"I'm sorry, I was... I spoke out of turn. Too much ill-spirit and mud-headedness last night. Please forgive me." He turns to Dame Tamarin.

"But unless there is only one very bad man in town, and no one could have hired him to do it... making a list of who might have done the killing isn't going to be enough. It was just yesterday night that poor- what was her name, something-la... was nearly burned in her own bed, and look how many fingers were being pointed then. Who'd be looking into this in normal times, trying to find who'd done it, the sheriff?"

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Dirt arrived in the middle of the night so he's got a reason for this- to refresh your memories, the 'castle' is a two ring concentric, (my favourite design), an outer wall, with a bridge across to a smaller mound with the gatehouse, and some workshops, storehouses, barracks and stables along the inner side of that wall, an inner ring wall higher with much the same on the inside of that;
and three large buildings in the centre, the small window/arrow slit, thick walled keep, a proper military castle with thick walls and confined passages awkward for an ogre (it was actually built with wards embedded in the walls, but they have long since fallen into disrepair and uselessness);
the more recent, more open plan and lighter great hall, which is where the murder was, which does have windows large enough to climb in and out of, and some ornamental stonework which probably makes it easier;
the temple, which includes alcoves/rooms/wings for all the gods and is probably more defensible than the great hall actually.

This room is on the second floor of the great hall, easy for the skilled, an amateur could do it but would probably make enough noise to be noticed. There are other windows- but checking, most of them are to rooms occupied by members of the family.

'This is...not normal, no. You don't suppose that's who it was, an intruder, an elvin assassin? It's a more comforting thought than the obvious.'


Tamarin says to Larric 'Part of the problem- we're all frayed enough to snap at each other over misunderstandings, the normal bruisings of fate magnify into wounds that fester, little things grow out of their normal proportions and lead us all to be worse than we might otherwise be. Confronting the Countess, you have more reason than most for an unsettled spirit.
Any kind of list would only say who to look more closely at, and normally it would indeed be the Sherriff doing so, but I expect he'll be struggling to avoid being blamed first and foremost.'

[Simon_Jester]

"Who could look at this, who no one would think guilty, or likely to have had any hand or on the side of this? Priests? Maybe not just any, but some..."

[Larric is particularly thinking of the priestess of Chelet he met night before last. He is categorically not thinking of Krylanyans, they'll just make the whole thing worse somehow. How much of the clergy of Valdemiron is left, given that DeVerrett presumably took a large chunk of it with him?]

[Kaelan]

"unless someone has deep pockets or a lot of clout I very much doubt that this is the work of an elf. No, my gut tells me that this was done by someone closer to home."

Dirt will look out the window to see if he can work out a general size of the intruder based on the plants that were disturbed. On that note, dirt will try to talk to the plants to see what they can tell him. After that dirt will pass on his findings to V. and thus the rest of the party.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'You have a notion there that- yes, it could be so. Someone driven enough that they don't really focus on people any more, see past them, us, to some greater good, willing to make a sacrifice like that- a sacrifice of someone else's child- I've known priests and paladins like that.' Tamarin states.

'I'd want much surer ground to take my stance on before I accused any of them, though, something good enough to convince others to stand with me against them- that's what it may come to. They're not above the law, but the strength they could bring against you for falsely accusing a just man, or justly accusing a deranged renegade, is worth being wary of.

In fact, the more I think of it the more it seems it could thus have been; a cold, clear thinking human sneaks in without being noticed, summons a creature or a demon capable of unbelievable frenzy, shields it from notice, dismisses it after the hot blooded deed is done, sneaks out again. Perhaps too neat to be true.'


Dirt gets from the plants a sense of when. Intruder probably a medium tall human, longer limbed than average- what the pants communicate (dimly, vaguely, as always) is that it was probably actually done by daylight; they felt the sun, feebly, not long after dawn, then a brief moment of body heat, pressure on a few. The sunlight came first. Body's colder than that- been dead for longer than that; it doesn't add up, but they are sure.

[Simon_Jester]

'You have a notion there that- yes, it could be so. Someone driven enough that they don't really focus on people any more, see past them, us, to some greater good, willing to make a sacrifice like that- a sacrifice of someone else's child- I've known priests and paladins like that.' Tamarin states.

'I'd want much surer ground to take my stance on before I accused any of them, though, something good enough to convince others to stand with me against them- that's what it may come to. They're not above the law, but the strength they could bring against you for falsely accusing a just man, or justly accusing a deranged renegade, is worth being wary of.

In fact, the more I think of it the more it seems it could thus have been; a cold, clear thinking human sneaks in without being noticed, summons a creature or a demon capable of unbelievable frenzy, shields it from notice, dismisses it after the hot blooded deed is done, sneaks out again. Perhaps too neat to be true.'

"I wouldn't say 'greater good,' milady. Anyhow, some priests I'd trust, some I wouldn't. I was wondering who we could trust enough to ask to help us. And... talk of demons isn't something I'd want to bandy about without evidence. You know Tanner? He said he was headed that way to look into things. That might tell us something."

[Anything he thinks, or doesn't think, about the ogre's abilities, he keeps silent about.]

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'Yes,' Tamarin days, 'I suppose believing that it was a monster and not a man would be the easy option. We have no priest of Dnor, there is a temple but the man himself...' She pauses, trying to think of a sensible way to put it. 'Shielding and ferrying so many to the lands of the dead so quickly, one after the other- it cost him his wits. He's wandering in the woods somewhere.
There's something cold about the Valdemironi, theirs has always been a demanding god with little pity for the weak or the defeated, their view has always been that politics is a dirty game- if they help, it won't be for the memory of the dead, or for justice.
Chelet, yes, [I'm going to have to look a long way back to find the name of the priestess myself, bear with me]- she could console the bereaved and determine the guilty, although it would fall to others to bring the perpetrator to justice. Or the artist; strange, but many of the gifts of Urphalion are about scene setting and motives and potential- used for the purpose they could divine a great deal, although you would be hard put to find others to listen in good faith.'

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

I don't think you ever stated the name of that priestess.

IC:

Larric nods. "That's a point, the priests of the artist-god, I hadn't thought of that. The goddess-" he rewinds a bit- "that goddess, now that it starts to come together in the head, the priestess was the one I was most hoping to talk to was Chelet's. Sound sensible to you, milady? Perhaps we might go looking for her now, rather than later."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

That makes sense, and you do- leaving Donadd behind, but with most of the yeomanry and Tamarin's people covering you both. Mother (yes, it is appropriate for a priestess of the god of family and community) Pola was in the main temple- hall of their complex, because that is where they teach and where they look after the orphans, (of which there are too many)- but she has been taken aside by someone who got to her first, and is basically telling her all about it and commiserating about what a terrible tragedy it was.

Dame D'Avariel. Listening to her is an education in acting- she can't possibly be as sincere and well meaning as she sounds, because she sounds absolutely sincere; tricks are one thing but this is far beneath anything called civilisation, an ugliness too far, the servants of the goddess of war would be overjoyed to help their less militant fellow religious- all with such conviction, and so obviously the right thing to say, that Larric has to go back to first principles to avoid swallowing it whole.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Ah, complications! Joy.

IC:

To Dame D'Avariel, not unfriendlily*: "Hullo, milady. Fancy seeing you out and about so bright and early, in a more public theater and all. Had you gotten around to telling the Reverend Mother who you think did it?"

He's hoping to at least ring a small alarm bell in Mother Pola's head- Remember, this is a Krylanyan, however sincere she is or may be, she probably has an angle under there somewhere...

*If it wasn't a word before, it is now.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Happy Friday the Thirteenth...
yes, it's complicated. Eliska actually has the largest single piece of the puzzle, and could tell the group if she was anywhere to be found, instead of with her nose buried in what appears to be the holy writ of the war goddess, and periodically making 'oh' and 'oooh' sounds.

'Oh, Larric. Oblivious as well as shy? Am I going to have to put on a special display, just for you?' Dame D'avariel says; Tamarin frowns, Mother Pola looks unpleasantly surprised.

Recall that this morning, one to the things that woke Larric up- shortly bedore he decided to have a nice long lie in- was sounds of clanging from the courtyard, of a morning practise session that basically involved her being the centre of attention and showing off.

Dressing as she does, that probably really is her normal state; it was talking to the would be hero in private that was the anomaly, the deliberate move.

'Obviously you're looking for someone with no conscience, but also and more importantly able to do terrible things by stealth- a much smaller pack of wolves in wool. Ability, first.
Whenever something like this happens, I always start with suspecting those at the top, and work down, so start by considering who it couldn't possibly be.'