Darkest Corners volume 2

Game Master Harakani

Yeah, absolutely!
Even if he needs to take an indefinite break, I'm happy to keep his seat warm.

It's easy to imagine things that might pull someone away.
Mostly it is that if he needs to take a break for a while, then I guess I'll assign you lot a sergeant from the wards in question. I'd rather not mess with the character he has established.

I third Ophelia's and GM's notion.

On other news, I do have a new job and a new Semester started at University. I will still check very regulary but depending on overlapping work loads from both job and studies, I may only post irregulary at times or need to take unannounced 1-3 day breaks.
If I know I'm up I'll try to keep things moving, but if I unexpectedly cause a hold-up, feel free to bot me.

I am truly sorry but I hope that is acceptable.(and hopefully sounds better than trying to force myself to assure a daily post, then feeling burned-out...)

I wouldn't want anybody to feel stressed about contributing to the game. There's enough times going on in real life. The game should be a fun break.

Yeah, let's just provide a reason for them not to be directly on the scene, so that if they show up again, they can burst in through the window to save the day.

A. On Fire B. Made of Spikes/Sharp Edges C. Coatey in Ewwie slime D. Glowing with eldritch badness

I would like to see that list get extended as we experience more things :)

as in E: consisting of pure electricity, F: looks like a small innocent child, G: is merely the extradimensional mouth opening of an otherdimensional beasty, H: looks like it would love to drain life via physical contact, I: looks like a team member that could reasonably be in this position.......

I and F would be fine to grapple. They would be in her "do not punch" list.

F could, however, lead to traumatized small citizens, and a lot of paperwork :) Especially if the real suspect gets away.

What? Diene is GREAAAT with kids. Best hugs.

What? Diene is GREAAAT with kids. Best hugs.

could you roll the R more? Like, "GRRRRREAT with kids!" and would you be willing to wear a tiger costume while hugging them? I got a business idea there... ^_^

Sorry, no can do, Diene prefers red, not orange.

you can be a tiger dressed as a flashy pirateninja, with red clothing and an undead martial arts parrot on your shoulder(comedy relief, his one move is dropping on someone with his fluffy beak)...

So, no combat!

Isama and Ophelia, if you head back to the station there'll be a message from the others saying where they're going and you can follow them in.

"I didn't know it was a crime scene!"

Really? Hmm ...

"I came in through the sewer and all the food was just lying around! That's a crime! Do you know how much human meat costs!"

So it did know that this was a crime scene :D

Gonna give Isama a chance to weight in about our next course of action, but I suppose there is no harm in syncing up with the other team : )

Yup. I think we should head over. Did have a question for Ophelia though.

I'm afraid I'm going away in 20 hours, and will be away for three days. Please bot me if needed as I do not think I will have internet.

Hmm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmm.

I think you went overboard in posting this in your threads. *Might* be a bit hard to bot you GM :P

/headslap!
Thank you for your honesty...

Botting for Darkest Corners GM "Well" said the creature handing over a +3 Vorpal Keen Wounding Sword "I did find this..."

More like

So, you all decide to celebrate solving yet another case in the last few days by a night at the bars. A little bit of celebratory toast turn into a full-fledged bar hopping evening.

When you wake up, the sun burns your sore retinas. Around you, people are crowding and eyeing you with a mixture of curiosity and awe. You blink and look around - the city around you isn't one you'd expect. In fact, you could almost swear that you were in Absalom, with the Starstone Citadel just a stone's throw away...

...and this strange jewel seems to be burning a hole in your pocket ...

Now that would be a bit silly GM'ing :P

(Also it might be hard for us to find any clues since we don't know who did the crime yet ^^)

If you guys *are* looking to hire/recruit this thing, I'll put together a proper avatar.

Diene's not particularly for or against it. Right now she's just sugar talking, though she's not outright lying either. If the guy wants to be an informant or a guard, Diene's not gonna turn him down.

Sorry for stepping on Daria's toes a bit. But Isama's a straightforward type. She'll be bad cop to Daria's good cop on this one :)

*shrug* No worries :) You guys feel free to step on my toes all you want. I'm small and used to dodge being stepped on. Also, used to working with what I got, to have the best shot at what I'm doing, not particularily caring about rules. So working as a guard, that may mean some "overruling" from co-workers or superiors may be necessary from time to time to keep me in-line ;)

Am I right that no-one identified the guide's creature type?
If so, I'm happy to allow an additional roll with all your new experiences.

I'm pretty darn sure I know what it is, but Diene's chill.

Know, retry: 1d20 + 7 + 1d6 ⇒ (2) + 7 + (3) = 12

Nope, still no idea :P

Since we're on an ongoing investigation, I would probably have cast heightened awareness the moment we start moving in the sewers...otherwise at latest when we arrive at the fungus.
Knowledge: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (20) + 11 = 31 Oh yeah, I'm pretty damn certain what it is now. The munching kind of gave it away.

Heads up - I'll be on mini-vacation until the 26th and I'm unsure how much internet access I'll have. But I should be able to update in the evenings : )

Okay,
I think we are getting caught up in this.
You want to check out more of these surge rooms. What are you looking for?

Mapping the sewers roughly would be possible - your guide could help - but in a network connectedness way, rather than a "125ft of tunnel going NNW" way.

What you have established is that a human-sized figure could maybe drag a body one at a time through these tunnels. It's unlikely that's how they were dumped. That suggests it was the manhole, or the dragger was smaller than human sized.

There's been a lot of dump sites, at about one per night. They have always been dumped in surge rooms. Given what surge rooms are, and what lives there, they would be a fantastic place to dump bodies.

Honestly, I want to know the location, so that we can

a.: look for a pattern,
and
b.: know if any of the surge rooms were re-used(our guide has not answered that one, I think)

if not b, but a, we could place observers/observe ourselves near other likely dump sites.

They could be in a different ward every time, or they could extend from a central point. Without knowing, it's hard to guess, but if the culprit expected not to get caught due to having such a great place to get rid of bodies, and just uses different places because he's careful, then there's a good chance there is SOME kind of pattern.

Or, alternatively, all of the places could have something in common, e.g. a side street close to a main traffic route where you could use a cart to deliver the bodies...

Also, while our "friend" munched the organic material, it could have been possible that we found something else, like some paper, or a cane with a name tag, anything really that could give additional information about the victims.

I can only speak for myself but I'm quite fine if you want to fast-forward our sewer trip and summarize for us what we manage to find out in applicable spoiler tags...

Yeah there's just not much to go on so it makes sense to look at as many of the crime scenes as possible. The half eaten shoe being a lead to where the victims are being taken from is a long shot that Isama had. If that's a dead end then so be it. With the sheer number of people being killed some neighbourhood somewhere has to be freaked out. Maybe we can ask other Guard posts to see if any non citizens have been making any reports that they ignored?

Yeah, I think maybe I'll ask everyone to put down what they want to know, and how they think they'll find out.
If there's an interesting adventure part to some of it, then let's roleplay that.
Having you roleplay through interactions with NPCs that actually can't help you is probably more simulationist, but as long as people are happy not to metagame ("GM is running the scene, it must be important") then I'm happy to ignore that.

If someone wants to volunteer to put the 'clues' up on a google doc or wiki or something, I would appreciate it. I'd prefer not to maintain it myself, as then either my bias will kick in (that's not important) or it'll hit the "gm said it, must be true" factor.

Examining shoe to see where the victims come from

Location of other dumps to see if there's any pattern

Interviewing beings around dump sites to see if anyone has seen the dumpers at work.

Touring spots which have furnaces hot enough to burn victims like the bodies have been.

Also, now that we have multiple additional dump locations, see if they share certain characteristica above-ground. E.g. a certain time of day where the respective areas are almost devoid of people.
Or they are away from any regular patrol routes. Or, as mentioned before, they have easy access to a larger street, for delivery of larger amounts of bodies(even if certain tools like bags of holding would make transportation easier, it's worth checking) etc...

So I guess we're hand waving through trudging through the sewer to find all the dump locations the ghoul knows of? Maybe we can gather enough bits of bodies to figure out where the victims are coming from?

Is there any rolls Isama can make to be able to map the sewer out and make a map of it later?

Diene's got no plan at this point.

Alright, I'll go with that.

Random observation before I go to sleep - are we dealing with some sort of vengeful archon perhaps? Seems juuust a tab bit far fetched, but I thought I'd just throw it out here ...

Okay, clue is out - back to you.

Opehlia: Maaaaaaybe. How would you know?

Goodness, I hope not, because he's a tad out of our league.

I was quite...afraid of it. I think my halfling senses should tingle if it was him...
would an archon really dump bodies though? Rather than let them be consumed by holy radiance, destroying everything but the souls?

No, probably not. And I actually doubt it would bother to take time away from its holy quest to murder people over here.

But it was a funny thought :P

still is a funny thought.

Maybe it's a snapped individual who thinks it's his holy quest to murder people here, cosplaying as an archon?

Will be gone for a few days on family business. I'll try and post if able, but can't make promises. Should be back on monday, do bot as needed.

Ophelia totally missed the traumatic event thingy, so feel free to poke her if anyone feels she is asking too much : )

Right now I'm focusing on questions that might lead us to another witness (optician that made the glasses or whom he talked to).

That's Isama's last question for the guy. She really wants to let the man go soon.

I think both arguments have merit.
My view:
Bluff for secret message is fine for passing something along. In and of itself it doesn't really do anything, but it will stop them being able to quote you later.
That said, this message does sound like more of an Intimidate roll for actual interaction.

Simple example I'd have is the classic
"Nice shop. Real shame if something were to happen to it. Maybe you should buy insurance." Secret Message = "Pay us money or we will damage your shop".
Intimidate to actually get them to play along.
On the other hand, if pulled up in court the intimidator can honestly say "I never threatened to damage the shop."

I think in this case the secret message is (as I interpret it, and assuming she isn't involved, and nowhere near as prettily) "We know you made something. That something you made has been used in something bad. Give us a lead to go chase up that isn't you, and we will leave you alone."

It's a nice secret message. I'll allow it as an Aid on Intimidate for whoever actually rolls it. If someone goes 'good cop/bad cop' then I'll allow diplomacy.

Note this is not the optician. You were referred to Marya by the optician. This is a caster capable of crafting wondrous items. That means at least CL 3, and possibly much higher.

If you really want to restart the scene without entering the shop, fair enough - I sort of assumed that much. We can restart at the outside of the shop.

As said, I withdraw my action.

What I wanted was to come across as confident in a way that does not leave room to question why we're here.
Because as it stands, our case is pretty weak. In court, what we have would be taken apart, utterly.

So I wanted to fake having "more" in terms of facts than what we let on. To make sure she does not "hide" information, because we could already know about it, and are merely asking her for confirmation.

Your interpretation is pretty good, yes. Maybe the last part would be "Tell us what we want to know and we're gone right away, don't, and we'll have to conduct a more thorough investigation involving you and your business(because we know about you making this already and just need proof)!"

While I think that would be pretty obvious behaiviour for guard/cops following a lead, I can see how it could still be considered a threat, which is why I withdrew it. But it was really MEANT as a suggestion of compliance, to make things easier on everybody, and bluff confidence and assuredness to make it less likely she chooses to try and fool us, or withhold information.

No need to restart anything, Diene just said hi, and I'm not there. I've gone across the street, checking for a backdoor, and observing there, after casting message 3 times, to include all of us.

Guys, I've been sick - my IQ has halved, I think - and we're moving into Christmas. Sorry about the delays in responding, but I'm having trouble parsing where the group is "at" by text. Let me get my mind together and take a run up at it. I think I might go over this scene pretty quickly, get you back on the path.

That said, can I ask what people's availabilities over this period are likely to be?

Guys, I've been sick - my IQ has halved, I think - and we're moving into Christmas. Sorry about the delays in responding, but I'm having trouble parsing where the group is "at" by text. Let me get my mind together and take a run up at it. I think I might go over this scene pretty quickly, get you back on the path.

That said, can I ask what people's availabilities over this period are likely to be?

I've been in a similar boat, and have just recovering this week.

Summary:
Diene- Ask the lady politely, assuming she's probably not up to no good.
Daria- Spy on the lady, assuming there's a chance she's up to no good.

That seems to sum it up nicely.

I'm probably going to be available up and until christmas, then I'm going on a trip that will probably result in very spotty posting.