Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

[Feralgnoll]

OOC: Does my 2ap cast iron stomach allow me to eat whatever Dirt cooks?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Well, that's what he's using himself to eat it, I think, so- yes, it will. And it is actually quite good.

There are tracks and trails of a sort; not very good ones, usually actually consisting of bits of the ground where it is possible to not fall off. Given that you know roughly where to go, get down into the low ground and find a way- not easy.

This time, it's Tamarin's turn to fall off the side of a ledge- the ground gives way under her, she manages- just- to find something solid enough not to tumble away and scramble back up.

That, and crappy terrain, in mind; by the time that you all get to the valley/canyon it emanated from, being able to track the disturbances in the ground for the last part, there are people already there.

They look terrible. Half starved, clothes sagging off them, not focusing on this world, hearing something entirely different in their heads; apparently not used to daylight any more. Some paranoid and startling at everything- especially you- others lost in horrified resignation, knowing absolutely terrible things are going to happen but having lost the ability to make a difference.

These were, were supposed to be anyway, people of rank and status; the people who the lords of the baronies took with them to safety and shelter. That wasn't enough to hold them together- they look as if things were as bad down there as they were up here, if not worse. Refugees from a chamber of horrors.

The more sharp sighted and sorcerously sensitive can just about make out where the mouth of the cavern might be. Talking to the emergent, pressing straight on, what?

[Feralgnoll]

Do a quick sniff check for anything "off" about them.

[Simon_Jester]

Larric will be looking for a group who appear... less totally out of it. Preferably not individuals of high rank, craftsmen or junior clergy or the like. Paranoia is acceptable; Larric tries to look as nonthreatening as a man with a crossbow slung on his back can. He smiles broadly and turns on the Charm, appearing sincerely glad to see them (which he kind of is).

"Hullo there! Any news of Baron deVerett?"

[Make quick attempt to gauge mood of group. May offer them drinks from flask, if they look like extremely strong but foul-tasting liquor would be helpful in getting their amity and attention. This seems, prima facie, uncertain to me; Larric's the man on the spot and probably has a higher Human Perception score than I do to boot. I'll let him be the judge. If he badly misjudges this question, do not reroll the result under any circumstances; a failure would be amusing.]

[Panzersharkcat]

Meanwhile, Alfred is a bit thankful his face is hidden by his helmet. They don't really need to see him wrinkling his nose. Yes, he feels some pity but for the most part he is of the feeling they should get what they need from these wretches and leave.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

There are about a dozen scattered individuals out so far, not one group, and they do smell exceeding strange; sweat fear and misery, of course, but a lot of the normal smells are missing- the smells of clothing and washing, the smells of eating and working. They've been on an abnormal diet, eating food conjured by magic- that has left them with various nutritional deficiencies- for a long time, probably since whatever they brought with them ran out, and probably with intermittent bouts of outright starvation.

One man- a squire to judge by his tattered remains of a padded jacket- is carrying a saddle and talking to the horse he still imagines is under it, apologising for eating it and promising it'll get better soon. Probably not worth talking to.

There is a young man, about fifteen, and a woman in her early twenties, propping each other up; they appear to be stepson and stepmother, merchant class- and he is saying 'Was roasted haunch of papa really worth it?'

There is a priest, leading a small huddle of children and dependents; not much able to protect them at the moment, though, looking up at the sky and babbling, reconnecting with his god. Two of the children are fighting, one is throwing stones at the priest.

One, armoured in most of a suit of plate- missing the joints, and which fits badly because of the amount of weight he has lost, seems in the best state, and to be trying to look out for the rest. 'News, from the warty backside of Hell? What time of year is it? What year is it?'

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

I am going to be grading finals for the great majority of today- may snatch some time during a lunch break or the like, but that's about it.

IC:

In their state, a drink would probably kill them...

Larric bows his head to the armored man, speaking carefully and trying to keep the Charm up. "Er, four twenty-six, milord, it's been about four weeks since you went in.* I can see as it feels like forty years, but it's not, people at home will still be waiting for you. The country's still here, it's got some holes shot in it is all."

"Maybe you and yours should come away a bit, and sit down? No armies right around here, nothing of that sort. We came up this way looking for Baron deVerett, people have been wondering where he'd gone ever since he left."
______________

*Yes, yes, fortnight-long "weeks." If it's more like eighty days since the Twentieth came through instead of fifty, he'd say six weeks, and so on- I'm not exactly sure, I'm actually working from the known time of Tamarin's husband's burial and tacking on another fifteen days or so as a margin of error.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The tale that comes out does so in broken fragments;

'deVerett, that snake in human form, I'm surprised he didn't literally- of course, you're of these lands.

Hm. well. none of us who were down there have much cause to treat each other with human brotherhood or much courtesy, they and we- oh. I am Peltar Berge, of Karvalheim.' baron Lucien deMarail's lands, up in the Silverroot Mountains.

'All three, the first we knew of this hold, barring the ancient rumour, was when a column of Kardren's men, wizards, portable altars and all, stormed through. We made to defend, they passed by entirely; from stragglers we found, they had clues, informations, an idea of what and where-

deVerett pursued them, reasoning they could not be allowed to have and to hold such a base in his lands- safety from, too, safety from the Imperial hordes; have they been?

My baron and the mobile force plunged in after them, for the same reason- we have the dwarfholds and old agreements, they are a sane people which is more than any who live coming out of that hell- pit can say, we had safety there if we chose it, and- oh, gods, so many more of us would be much less dead if we had.

Then the word came, and the refugees came, crowding into- most with nothing, needing everything, and nothing to be found.

All three barons fought each other, over it, in it, for it, and it cared nothing. Kardren was first, and took the choicest parts and the deep depths, deVerett fought his way to and took and kept the centre, we at the near fringe- but unable to escape, as the things down there awoke.

The fort the capstone and seal over a crawling pit of monsters, we diodn't know that, nobody knew that- except Kardren's court wizard, the man who found it and led us all there, and set about trying to win by using the power of the fort, which he could master by virtue of the blackness of his soul, by turning his own men into fighting monsters...

we fought them and they fought us, and children fought their parents for every scrap, and men chewed on other men's bones, and we starved and they warped and the things outside tried to batter their way in, and you felt every second as if the entire building was looking at you, watching you, grinning as we changed and died-

I don't care any more how bad things are here in the daylight. It can't be worse. So many turned out to be monsters on the inside...'

[Simon_Jester]

IC:

Larric looks somber and nods slowly.

"It's quite a lot less worse up here, I think, milord."

OOC:

Gonna wait to see what the others are doing before doing anything decisive.

[Kaelan]

Looking at the band of humans Dirt is feeling morally superior. Especially given the talk this morning.

"Baron is not good chief. Dirt see goblin who better tribe chief than baron. Human should stay out of ground. You like dwarf in forest."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Dwarves tend to cope quite well in wooded terrain most of the time; it's the terrain that often fails to cope with the dwarves, being usually much less forested afterwards.

Also,

Gonna wait to see what the others are doing before doing anything decisive.

-um? Guys?

Not to oversimplify, but the spectrum of choice boils down to-

i) wait here, watch the variously damaged emerge, and try to talk to interesting people as they pass by;
ii) selective hitting, pick fights and ambush people you don't like as they come up;
iii) use what you've learned so far and go somewhere else and try to exploit it;
iv) say 'bugger this for a lark' and go and do something else entirely;
v) down the rabbit hole and try to find one or other of the three Barons that are probably down there, and either a)play it straight or b) spin the truth to try to get something out of it;
vi) plundering expedition- into the fort and attempt to loot the place itself, the dead, or both;
vii); look for the hole full of monsters the fort was supposedly built on top of, and either fight or talk to them;
viii) something I haven't thought of.

Tamarin whispers to Alfred, 'ask him how it is that they can get out now.'

[Simon_Jester]

This past week has been finals exam week for me- a brace of long days and one or two stressful short ones, with relatively sharp limits on how much I can do in a day without staying up enough past my bedtime to make me a damned menace on the road driving to work. I don't know where Panzer and Feralgnoll go to college but I strongly suspect they're in the same boat.

White Haven, well. Verone's been asking him "but what's my motivation," I think.

We'll get caught up, but trying to get everything done fast is... not realistic.

[Feralgnoll]

OOC: I am at UC Davis, so I just finished Midterms.

I was also hoping to get more of the "social characters" actions. Rohal isn't the charm your pants off rouge type. He is sort of a hermit. gruff but nice.

OOC 2 Can I heal people? I have some basic skills for helping people Herbalism 6, Physician 6, Musical instrument 8 (violin) , Scrounge 8, Surgeon 8, Apothecary 6,

[Panzersharkcat]

"How is it that you can get out now?"

Meanwhile, he ponders if he can try to seal the hole full of monsters the fort was built on top of. Failing that, see if they can be reasoned with. If not, fight. If too powerful, run away.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I know; I'm just having fun- want to do things, want to move, want to see things unfold. Yoda would tell me to have patience. (You know what I think of him.)

As far as healing people goes, the balance is positive, but not by much. All the medical skills are there, the trilogy- Physician to diagnose, Surgeon to operate and Apothecary to medicate- but at levels that do not speak to much more than elementary ability. Still, better than default and arguably a lot of these people need any help they can get. (More emerge in dribs and drabs up the hole- there's no organised movement yet. It's right there, they seem to be walking out of solid rock- one even tries to get back in aftersomethig or someone left behind, and can't.)

Anything complex or tricky is likely beyond him, but within Rohal's compass he can do some good. Herbalism and Apothecary probably the most useful- there are some physically injured, but what's wrong with most of them is systemic, usually dietary, and palliative treatment- alleviating the symptoms- will help. (Dirt's stew would possibly be too rich for them, too much of a systemic shock.)

The people emerging are a mixed bag of civilians, camp followers and some soldiery, mostly in deMarail's colours- what of them are sufficiently unstained and intact to tell. A handful in deVerett's- no sign of any of Kardren's yet. So far deVerett's people look basically healthier but more spaced out, more heavily affected in mind than body.


Good luck with the results.


Ah, right. Alfred asks Peltar, and gets another quite disjointed tale- something about a band of lunatics that managed to break into the fortress a little while ago, and tried to decoy the monsters away long enough for everyone to escape- but that didn't work, and he's not quite sure what happened next;
there were a lot of dark rumours, something about sacrificing to the spirits of the fortress- or possibly the monsters- and those who weren't involved heard only disjointed whispers; they were waiting to go when something drastic happened, all the corridors lit up in thaumic flares, and word was passed from the Baron- supposedly, and this would be deMarail- to run, now, get out while it was possible. They did.

[Simon_Jester]

To heck with Yoda, your problem is just that you only have a few players as hyperactive as you are. If you really want things to move fast, go take all that energy and hunt up a few more yourself.

Not to oversimplify, but the spectrum of choice boils down to-

i) wait here, watch the variously damaged emerge, and try to talk to interesting people as they pass by;
ii) selective hitting, pick fights and ambush people you don't like as they come up;
iii) use what you've learned so far and go somewhere else and try to exploit it;
iv) say 'bugger this for a lark' and go and do something else entirely;
v) down the rabbit hole and try to find one or other of the three Barons that are probably down there, and either a)play it straight or b) spin the truth to try to get something out of it;
vi) plundering expedition- into the fort and attempt to loot the place itself, the dead, or both;
vii); look for the hole full of monsters the fort was supposedly built on top of, and either fight or talk to them;
viii) something I haven't thought of.

Just to size things up in hopes of getting some OOC conversation:

Options 4 and 8 (go away, and/or do something the DM hasn't thought of) are wild cards- nothing much to be said about them in general as opposed to in particular.


The ability of the underground monsters to menace this many knights and priests and so on (deMarail's, deVerett's, and Kardren's alike) suggests that operating in isolation we'd have an incredibly hard time dealing with them. Negotiation might work, but we've nothing definite to negotiate- and no clear idea what the rights and wrongs of their interaction with the human refugees was. Was there some kind of war between the two sides? Who started it? Remember, the monsters live down there; they might reasonably view a few thousand human warriors barging in as an attack.

So we definitely need more information before we go chasing after option 7.


Option 2 sounds interesting but we don't know who we want to fight yet- if we see any demented zombies lurching up out of the hole we can fight them, but while the babbling loony refugees may LOOK like demented zombies, I'm pretty sure they're actually not.


Option 3 is interesting- but where? All we'd gain is a slight lead on someone else and the only information we have is that the barons are alive. Which is potentially useful... to people we don't know because OOC we don't know enough about the local political order to figure out what levers exist for us to pull.


Option 1 maybe for a while, see if we can get the lay of the situation in a bit more detail- if we can find any of deVerett's people who have their wits, that might help. Verone has healing magic, if we can get him back into the game.


But I think ultimately we might want to try for a hybrid of plan 5A and plan 6. 5A can have a side order of plan 5B if Panzersharkcat feels up to helping to convince the baron we're his friends by telling him all sorts of interesting things about the situation topside. Plan 6 is a good idea too if we can find anything worth looting without dying. To Verone (speaking up for him), there's First Age magical knowledge down there, and probably some psychotically elaborate poly-elemental wards.

Both plans 5 and 6 revolve around our ability to get down there in the first place.

What do you think, guys?

[Kaelan]

I say we stick to the original plan and find the Baron. If this means going into the caves to drag him out so be it. We can review the situation when we find him (dead or alive).

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Going player hunting? Maybe- but who? I'd like to hear more from a couple of the ones I've already got, in particular- Sorchus is out there somewhere, been online recently without posting,
and White Haven? Did Verone's last lot of XP even get spent- I don't think they did; mechanics aside, (and apart from the immediate possibility of "down a hole",) where is the character going- what direction to you want him to develop in, what possibilities to chase, what goal to aim for? How do you want this to go?

Is there anyone else reading who would like to give it a shot? In the mean time, two- three counting Tamarin- voices for go down and see.

[Feralgnoll]

I also agree with finding the Baron

[Panzersharkcat]

Alfred votes for going down and seeing. Not his preferred choice of just trying to seal the damn thing, baron be damned, but he'll take it.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

So- because I actually want to know- are the in character words, here? Specifically what argument Alfred is using for wanting to basically wall his theoretical overlord and a fairly large number of ill, deranged and damaged people up and leaving them to die; that's not really the sort of thing you can just pass off with a shrug.

(Apart from the fascinating consequences if it could actually be done, which would be fun in a totally chaotic kind of way, this would be an excellent way to experience the wonderful world of outlawry.)

Tamarin's actual statement is 'Smell the wafts of air coming out of the cavern...ancient and dessicated, and baked for millennia. I don't want to go down there; I do believe we must. I think that as a relief party, to help those who would not otherwise make it, to hold the way open- what I want has to take second place to what honour calls for.'

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: His reasoning is that it's best to seal those monsters inside to keep them from coming out again, even if they have to trap his theoretical overlord inside. The sort of monsters that can take down all those people are too dangerous to be allowed to wander freely and if they decide to leave, that's going to be trouble. Alas, his sense of honor overrides utilitarian concerns.)

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

I didn't actually say "Larric thinks X," I said "Simon thinks X," as it were...

IC:

Larric's not a knight, but... He shrugs, and smiles strangely. "We said we'd go looking for the baron, didn't we? And who knows, milords- we might be lucky. There might be nothing troubling them down there right now. They're making it out, no?"

[Kaelan]

Dirts words are "we go in. Find baron man. If cave close dirt dig up. Make new cave hole."

OOC - on a side note, how well do ogres see in the dark in this game world?

[Simon_Jester]

"Lot of digging. How about we get a little closer, milords, and see what we can see? The magic doesn't seem to want to let us in..."