Friday, February 5, 2016

Sometimes Bear Eats You!

My Wednesday IRC game Volant Vanilla - a terrestrial Tolkien-inspired fantasy game run using Volant rules - went strange on me. Two sessions ago, a young dickwad lord and his retinue/posse popped into a local tavern and was a complete dick to the serving wench waiting on the PC party, as in he wanted her right then and lords don't have to wait. This royally pissed off the party, of course. Then one of the characters, an elf healer, decided to intervene. She seduced the lord and brought him upstairs to a room that was presumably rented by the quarter hour.

Meanwhile, downstairs, things went sour fast. What looked like a looming bar brawl changed when somebody on the Party drew steel. Suddenly, three of the lord's people were dead and two were badly wounded, while two of the Party were badly wounded. There were arrows flying! In a bar!

Upstairs, things went worse. I knew the elf was not actually attracted to this POS, but I was expecting her to sap him and embarrass the hell out of him. Instead, she sliced his throat... while he was on top of her! Premeditated murder! Assassination! And of the son of the local Duke in the bargain! I was hoping he would be an ally, but not this time! And their mission was to bring this country into a possible alliance, or maybe at least separate them from allying with their enemy...

Last session I took the other group - each player has two characters, so we can split up as necessary - on a simultaneous jaunt, partly because they needed some things, and partly to give everyone time to cool down and rethink.

This session, they argued over how to handle things. They could run away to an enemy of the Duke in another city, they could attempt a coup d'etat and take out the Duke and place one of themselves on the throne, or they could admit to the charges - they were totally true after all, give themselves up, and throw themselves on the mercy of the court. The elf decided to give herself up, which kind of decided the others in that way too.

Now the brawl-turned deadly will probably turn out OK. These things happen in bars, and there was no apparent intent to kill. Things just got out of hand. Weregild will be levied, families of the deceased appeased, and PCs will be contrite. These things happen. Nobody intended murder.

But the elf? She certainly planned it. She openly seduced him - there were plenty of witnesses - and then sliced his throat. No other wounds. It's cut and dried - no pun intended! There is no realistic doubt she will be judged guilty, and if guilty, she'll hang. Hell, she'll be drawn and quartered. I am trapped. I hate when that happens!

Meanwhile, the party's mission is off to a terrible start!

2 comments:

  1. Maybe the Elf's player will create a really cool replacement character? Yeah, I'm kind-of grasping for straws.

    I think it is cool that the player realized the PC's actions were a problem and chose the unusual (for PCs) solution of admitting her guilt and allowing the mill wheels of justice to grind.

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    1. Yes, exactly Gaston's Hat! Very cool of the player! I can't really fault anyone here, except myself. I thought I knew what was developing, and was wrong. :O

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