Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Good questions to ask, actually; most of the people who intend to stay here say that they are here because it's out of the way, not an established town, not a major target- in the event of anything else horrible happening. They'd move up deeper in the woods if they dared, some already have. Close enough to run back to civilisation, if they have to- and some are thinking about it.

Current news and other problems dovetail- there are all sorts of stories about units of the royal army that were cut to pieces by the twentieth and the remains have turned bandit, sightings of dark elves, disputed successions and small skirmishes everywhere- it sounds like Detrick has his hands full already in the north and east of the barony, simply hasn't had the force to spare to do much about the south and west.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Actual incidents permitting, you're maybe six, seven hours from Qulan, at mule plodding pace. Doing it properly would mean wibbling time would be much longer than that- closer to forty- eight. Unless something goes wildly wrong and you end up going over the Grumbling Falls in a raft, you have time, some time to spare, and a side order of time.

Adding and subtracting from mana pools- Eliska still has twenty of twenty-four, Larric is, after some rest, on thirty-two of thirty-six.

Looking at those numbers, the argument for subdual-by-healing-trance seems all the better; we'll have him safely out of commission for much longer than we need, and the spellcasters' power supplies are still above 80%. If we can't handle Dleamthayaran on that, with the elves' help if they keep their word, then I doubt we can fight him at all- in which case we might as well cut our throats now and be done with it.

And if we do end up going over Grumbling Falls... we can always tie Radulf underneath to cushion the fall. Going by his past performances, that should slow him down for a few minutes.



IC:

Larric looks a bit wary. "I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have a lot of trust for the sort of person who likes to cripple with false kindnesses. If it's a choice between healing a man crooked on purpose and just bandaging him up for the journey, it's better if the lady-" he tilts his head, indicating Eliska- "doesn't go out of her way."

[Kaelan]

OOC
forgot to actually meantion by point spends.

1 points stealth; 2 points X-bow, 1 point Axe. Will PM new CS

Sorry!

[Kaelan]

Looking at all the devestation left behind I'm beginning to wonder if the twentieth haven't caused more potential problems than they solved. I'm guessing that the resentment is going to linger for generations to come.

IC:
"I think they're just getting tired of Sir radulf always making a run for it. I'm sure they don't really want to inflict that much lasting damage on him. Its been a hard journey and I don't know about you, but I could do with a rest in a real building with proper food and drink - not this trail mix we've been chomping on."

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Looking at all the devestation left behind I'm beginning to wonder if the twentieth haven't caused more potential problems than they solved.

So is everyone else involved as far as I can tell, including the king on whose behalf they intervened, the people who sent them here in the first place, and their own damn commanding officer who's due to be getting her nose rubbed in the mess she's made by her superiors.

[Agent Sorchus]

"Healing and magic in general is a gift, and a crutch at the same time. A gift should never be abused, only used in good faith. It is also a crutch, one I am not too proud to make use of, but one that I would advise certain people not to rely on. We have been given knowledge of other ways of handling things for a reason.

He'll heal either way, and he shouldn't die before justice visits him as it is. I see no reason to make his time easier, and no reason to make it more of a burden. Besides maybe he will learn a little wisdom before this is over."

[Kaelan]

I think that by the time this is over Radulf will also be standing 3 feet taller as well.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Oh, now, this is interesting- can the six elves be trusted to keep their word? Can you tell? Dice have happened- and the results are problematical. Chiaela (the dark haired leader of them- that is the very short version of her name) and her friends seem- how do you know? Wierdly, elves that humans see tend to be the urban ones, the ones that want to interact with humans- in the countryside they tend to keep themselves to themselves.


Larric's instincts tell him that they can be trusted; that business with the tree- it would have killed them too, they weren't faking it. They're not overwhelmingly happy about what they expect they'll have to do, and they're a bit dour in demeanour because of it.

Bryan knows by now how good they can be, how long they get to practise and sharpen their talents at what they choose to devote themselves to, and an elvish liar can be an excellent liar indeed- but this doesn't sound like it. She doesn't seem as if she's trying to be something she isn't, if anything is wrong it's that Chiaela and her kin don't seem that optimistic about taking D. on.

Rohal's gut is telling him not to trust them. They have their own agenda, and you are all probably much more sacrificable to it than they're going to admit.

William doesn't have all that much to do with them usually- their race has it's criminals, and a disproportionate amount of them think it no big deal to steal from, lie to or cheat a human; they could turn on you, as easily as you turned on your breakfast.

Alfred has a quite severe attack of paranoia [human perception critical failure]- what's preventing these elves being the ones D. had running around under his command, from being his covering party? Go on that road with them and you are all going to your execution.

Eliska isn't quite as anti- but from the seminary, from being told something of other faiths and their achievements and works, there are groups of elves who consider humans to be just another species of mammal, and all flesh to be warpable and mutable, all form only temporary. They are not your friends, Chiaela must be a good liar if she's restraining her normal arrogant streak, and they probably will turn on you, double cross you at some point. In fact, the best possible outcome for them is if you rid them of their troublemaker, then they avenge him by turning on you.

Thus, at least, are the opinions of the dice.

Oh, the Twentieth- find one fo them to ask; there are still a few oddballs dotted about the place. Doing anything before you all- with a bandaged Radulf, in some pain, and six elves walking- head off?

[Kaelan]

William is good to go.

[Simon_Jester]

In Larric's case the dice line up pretty well with the way I'd figured him- magic leaving psychic imprints would make it hard to disguise any really fundamental deception from someone who's gotten a chance to jump in and work closely with you on a magical effort. If someone points out that the elves view the party as expendable, he'll probably nod ruefully- 'ain't that the way of it-' but he doesn't expect to be actively betrayed. So having them along still beats not having them along.

[Panzersharkcat]

He'll go because he doesn't have any real choice in the matter but he'll keep an eye on them. Before going, he stretches a bit.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Alfred stretches a bit- nothing falls off. So far so good.
The results of such things are not binding, by the way; that's just how the character's gut is moving. Alfred has probably just done a really bad Han Solo impresion, but kept on going anyway.

On foot then, on the road, the elves spread out on either side. Woods to your north, keping a careful eye on those; plenty of opportunitites for ugly moments, suspicion, things moving- most of them quite probably simply people, they not willing to take a chance on you. The village, surprisingly intact, lots of empty houses though, the inn- carrying on or stopping?

To the south, farming land, a couple of small hamlets, farmhouses clustered together, people, animals- there's a problem. The elves have just stopped, gone to ground, apart from one of them who's looking up at the clouds and evidently in a world of his own. Chiaela moves over to him, prods him, points him at what he should be looking at.

Taking it all in- farm, small two or three room cottage, pigsty, sheep pen, walled vegetable garden, two large barns; no animals moving. No people moving, either. Woodsmoke, yes, maybe too much. Rapid rhythmic clanging, audible when you stop moving and strain to hear it, someone either smithing or playing a drum, metal on metal but very fast. Smell of electricity in the air.

One of the elves, the one Larric was talking to- Oindal, apparently, a couple of syllables cut out of a longer name- motions you all back, takes a stick, reaches out at full stretch with it to do somehting- you can all see he's pointing at what looks like a small slate.

Thinks better of it, draws back. 'He's here. Hereabouts. Left a trap-' the slate- 'and a trail.' Alfred's the first to realise that's what it is, and to think; hold on a minute...

'I think,' Caeoindhalbainn- easier to just call him Oindal, isn't it?- 'he wants us there. Wants us to go that way.' Pointing at the farmhouse the clanging is coming from.

Options, opinions, actions?

[S.L.Acker]

Bryan gives up trying to convince them to heal Bryan up in a way that might work ending by saying, "It's not my magic so I'll let you do things your way. I was just trying to make things easier at the expense of a soon to be dead man's comfort."

He then takes a position near the head of the group with that thought that a man in armor might be good enough to keep the more minor threats away. Once the sounds are pointed out he halts and tries to listen to them. Having what he can hear of the distant sounds listened to the explanation given he takes a moment to think and get a gut feeling on things.

Assuming he feels that things are as the elf says Bryan will ask, "Larric, what do you think the chances that a lightning arrow might set that house on fire? Might be best to force him out and face him down back here."

[Simon_Jester]

"I'm no soldier, but I doubt an umpty hundred year old man makes a habit of staying cooped up in farmhouses while men with axes come in looking for him. I'd think he's somewhere else, and the house is a trap. Might be best to avoid the place entirely- where do you fine gentlemen think he might hide around here, to watch us go up in a puff of smoke? More likely that he'd be found in the best handy hiding pl- no, wait, the second best hiding place, so he can see who goes to the best one in case we've thought of that. Something like that, anyway."

A smell of electricity- does Larric sense any great potential in or around the farmhouse? That might be the obvious nature of his trap.

[Panzersharkcat]

He tries to observe for more details before gathering up an action.

[Kaelan]

William readys his crossbow.
"When you're hunting a wild animal in its den, you don't rush in. You smoke it out. Larric, in view of the trap and lack of other people are you up to starting fires this time as opposed to putting them out?"

[Simon_Jester]

"He's a hunter, not an animal, that's not his den, that's his decoy..."

Larric is thinking a bit- in particular, trying to work out whether he can improvise a fire arrow quickly (say, a minute) from the alchemical supplies left to him in his baggage. He's not really enthusiastic about pinpointing himself as a magician, against a target that he suspects to be totally insignificant, on the off chance that Dleamthayaran doesn't already know- because the elf is likely to point the first arrow his way.

[Kaelan]

OOC
- somethings up with my browser a.t.m. - It didn't show the 3 posts above my last (otherwise I wouldn't have repeated S.L.A.'s request)

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Guys? I get the browser problem, but I feel like some people aren't thinking this through very well. This is not a dungeon crawl- we're not marching along a set of railroad tracks looking for a mindless ogre in a cave guarding a treasure chest. The terrain is open, people can move freely along the road and the land around it. Our opponent is not a big dumb brute, he's supposed to be a powerful and cunning fighter with a lot of combat experience.

Just because the DM mentions a building doesn't mean that the elf is inside that building. Saying "oh, the DM mentioned a building? Go in and smoke our enemy out of it!" is making a lot of big, bad assumptions.

Try to think "dueling snipers in the ruins of Stalingrad" for your mindset, not "plod along the track until the enemy jumps out in front of us waving his arms and yelling."

[Kaelan]

OCC

Thinking dueling snipers leads me to head towards the conventional solution - denial of vantage points. A conventional military solution to a sniper in a skyscraper is not to storm the building to hunt him down, but to just level the building with him inside it.

IC
William will be looking around the village, in particular at the outskirts for potential vantage points where our elusive elf could see our reaction.
"The building may be trapped, hell - all of them probably are. I say lets just burn the entire place to the ground and skirt around it. If he wants to attack he will, and if he's going to slink away the chances are we're never going to find him. He's not our problem or part of our objective to get Radulf to trial"
"So what, he may be borderline insane. Given what's been happening around here the past few years a doubt there are many sane people left. If his Kin want to take him down that up to them. I'm not getting paid to take on a fallen elf hero - hell, I'm not even getting paid to transport Radulf over there to trial. Just a vague promise of a reward"

Speaking of Radulf - william checks to see if he's still in captured mode, and not breaking free again mode....

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

OCC

Thinking dueling snipers leads me to head towards the conventional solution - denial of vantage points. A conventional military solution to a sniper in a skyscraper is not to storm the building to hunt him down, but to just level the building with him inside it.

We don't have the firepower to level the scenery. Arguably, we don't and he does. Also, perhaps I got you thinking over-simplistically again.

THE REAL SITUATION ON THE GROUND is open countryside with farm cottages dotted about, presumably clusters of bushes and trees here and there. If D. wants us to go to one of the cottages, the odds are that the cottage is boobytrapped and we shouldn't go there. But D. himself has no reason to hide in any of the cottages, when there is plenty of open terrain to give him room to maneuver.


IC:

To the south, farming land, a couple of small hamlets, farmhouses clustered together, people, animals- there's a problem. The elves have just stopped, gone to ground, apart from one of them who's looking up at the clouds and evidently in a world of his own. Chiaela moves over to him, prods him, points him at what he should be looking at.

Taking it all in- farm, small two or three room cottage, pigsty, sheep pen, walled vegetable garden, two large barns; no animals moving. No people moving, either. Woodsmoke, yes, maybe too much. Rapid rhythmic clanging, audible when you stop moving and strain to hear it, someone either smithing or playing a drum, metal on metal but very fast. Smell of electricity in the air.

One of the elves, the one Larric was talking to- Oindal, apparently, a couple of syllables cut out of a longer name- motions you all back, takes a stick, reaches out at full stretch with it to do somehting- you can all see he's pointing at what looks like a small slate.

Thinks better of it, draws back. 'He's here. Hereabouts. Left a trap-' the slate- 'and a trail.' Alfred's the first to realise that's what it is, and to think; hold on a minute...

'I think,' Caeoindhalbainn- easier to just call him Oindal, isn't it?- 'he wants us there. Wants us to go that way.' Pointing at the farmhouse the clanging is coming from.

IC
William will be looking around the village, in particular at the outskirts for potential vantage points where our elusive elf could see our reaction.
"The building may be trapped, hell - all of them probably are. I say lets just burn the entire place to the ground and skirt around it. If he wants to attack he will, and if he's going to slink away the chances are we're never going to find him. He's not our problem or part of our objective to get Radulf to trial"
"So what, he may be borderline insane. Given what's been happening around here the past few years a doubt there are many sane people left. If his Kin want to take him down that up to them. I'm not getting paid to take on a fallen elf hero - hell, I'm not even getting paid to transport Radulf over there to trial. Just a vague promise of a reward"

Speaking of Radulf - william checks to see if he's still in captured mode, and not breaking free again mode....

Larric looks at William as if the man's going through a bout of delusional insanity, and would be seriously tempted to slap some sense into him if William weren't bigger than he is.

"What? I mean, yes, if he doesn't want to attack us let's not go, but... burn out dozens of houses just to... gah!"

[Kaelan]

"think of it as a public service. We wouldn't want some poor villager to wander into a magically trapped building".

[Feralgnoll]

Rohals guts tell him that the elves are not to be trusted. mmmm.

He will become a little more sulky and growly, but not so far as to affect the mission.

the field reminds him of the hunt, and he will add in,

"we could lead a scouting party out to draw the enemy out, then the rest of our pack could attack from the flanks cutting off escape"

all this of course accompanied by deep sniffs into the air to try to pick up the maniac elf.

00C what direction is the wind blowing?

[Kaelan]

"If you want to have a flanking group I suggest that the horsemen do it, unless you think you can run down an elf."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The wind is blowing, relatively gently, from the southwest, the road runs west to east; your scent was blowing across the farmhouse earlier, for what little it's worth, you'd have to circle round- probaly beyond bowshot- to get a really good sniff.

Good guide, incidentally- smelly things are usually done downwind, you can tell from the position of the pigsty that the prevailing wind is that direction too, which makes trying to get into the scent of it to see if you can smell elf rather a futlie exercise; you'll smell pig. Which may actually make it a good place for D. to hide- or a good place for him to get you to think he's hiding.

There's something interesting there, though; something has definitely been magically hidden. To those with the right quirk of sight- any decent supernatural alertness- it's a blind spot, the eye just leaps across it, can't quite settle on it; a frustrating feeling, like something should be obvious but isn't.

A worryingly large blind spot, meaning it's probably an impressive something, but hard to say what. A trap, a shield, a weapon, a means of escape, could be any- or several.

Chiaela's looking at it, and most of you can tell that her reaction is 'Oh, crap.' She says mainly to Rohal, 'Scouting party? The proper human term for what I think you mean is closer to "Forlorn Hope".
I think it's tolerably likely he will be there, because against spell resistant, arrow dodging people, it probably will come to the sword eventually- and that's a good place for him to fight in, he can shoot as we approach then use the buildings to avoid having to face too many of us at once.
I believe you may be right; someone is going to have to go and find out. The closer they get without being shot at, the more likely it is that it's a trap.'