So my 2nd session is tonight. I'm the DM of course. I detailed the first session HERE.
To recap. I have a Lawful Evil ninja character from Cheliax who is hiding her background and alignment. She is playing it mainly as a scout, working for the Chelish government to acquire information on what the professor was researching. The other PCs have no idea she is evil, and I'm not entirely sure if the player intends to really play her evil. The evil nature of this shouldn't matter to this conversation.
However, the lawfulness does matter. In the first encounter one of the farmers tried to run and she was next to him. It provoked an AOO and she critted, slaughtering the farmer. I said that she stabbed him in his back, through his heart. I made the priest very mad at the entire party and am going with the negative 6 trust points for this. This has made a great plot hook as the party is trying to dig itself out of a hole.
So the player, talking to me over the week, is confident that he did the right thing. He said he attacked when Kendra made it clear that they had permission from Father Grimburrow to burry the professor here. Recall, that's part of Kendra's speech. That was the lawful trigger he needed and then he saw the farmers as underlings. He's been doing a ton of offline research on Cheliax and believes these are peasants, surfs, and should obey their masters. He sees nothing wrong with the fact that he killed this farmer - even while trying to flee. In fact, the rest of the party had to persuade him not to kill the other farmers - 3 of which had failed resists and were asleep (via Sleep spell).
OK so with that background. The player has decided he wants to find the "constable" who in this case I think will be the sheriff, whom they have yet to meet. He wants to ask the constable what would be an appropriate amount of blood money (TERM LINKED HERE) to pay to the farmer's family and ask him to deliver it. Again, and this is very important, he is not apologizing. This is his duty and the custom of the land he is from.
So the question I have for you guys is:
1: What do you think is an appropriate amount for a Ravengro farmer father. Should I look up the price of some farm animals (cows and such)? The number should have some justification behind it that this PC would buy into.
2: Can anyone come up, relatively quickly (like, today - game is in about 7 hours) any cool plot hooks.
- One I think I'll play out is have the sheriff explicitly use the word "apologize" to draw out from the player that this is not an apology. I want to hear him say it, and I want the other PCs to hear it.
- Should the sheriff make the PC deliver it himself?
- Should the family take the money and hire a few thugs to attack the PC who killed their father?
- Should the farmer "come back" as some form of haunt? What might that look klike?
- Should this gain some small amount of trust back? +1 or +2 so the total penalty is only -4/-5 or so?
The PCs were already accused of defacing the Harrowstone Memorial during Event 1, when the initial "V" appeared as they are outsiders who killed the farmer.
Send them ideas in! I'll let you know what I use and how it goes over! :)
Something else to note.
The bit on the Ravengro Jail explains that the sheriff has 4 part time deputies who work as farmhands the rest of the time. Perhaps the murdered "farmer" was one of his own deputies? And he locks this PC up?
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So my 2nd session is tonight. I'm the DM of course. I detailed the first session HERE.
To recap. I have a Lawful Evil ninja character from Cheliax who is hiding her background and alignment. She is playing it mainly as a scout, working for the Chelish government to acquire information on what the professor was researching. The other PCs have no idea she is evil, and I'm not entirely sure if the player intends to really play her evil. The evil nature of this shouldn't matter to this conversation.
However, the lawfulness does matter. In the first encounter one of the farmers tried to run and she was next to him. It provoked an AOO and she critted, slaughtering the farmer. I said that she stabbed him in his back, through his heart. I made the priest very mad at the entire party and am going with the negative 6 trust points for this. This has made a great plot hook as the party is trying to dig itself out of a hole.
So the player, talking to me over the week, is confident that he did the right thing. He said he attacked when Kendra made it clear that they had permission from Father Grimburrow to burry the professor here. Recall, that's part of Kendra's speech. That was the lawful trigger he needed and then he saw the farmers as underlings. He's been doing a ton of offline research on Cheliax and believes these are peasants, surfs, and should obey their masters. He sees nothing wrong with the fact that he killed this farmer - even while trying to flee. In fact, the rest of the party had to persuade him not to kill the other farmers - 3 of which had failed resists and were asleep (via Sleep spell).
As for Blood money? If I where the sheriff I'd say No you and I will go to them and you hand them the money and make amends. The amount? Your talking human life, and maybe she had children to feed, and other things an animal could not
OK so with that background. The player has decided he wants to find the "constable" who in this case I think will be the sheriff, whom they have yet to meet. He wants to ask the constable what would be an appropriate amount of...
When in Rome do as the Romans... he is not in Cheliax but Ustalov. Different country, different laws, different ways, different beliefs.
Kendra in no way ordered an attack. Her words upset the "thugs" and thus provoked them to attack. The party could just have easily stood about and let the Thugs take the casket. But to do that would not be lawful or good. In the case of my party they sat the casket down gently while words where being spoke as I gave a rest between each sentance to allow the party to speak or act... which I believe the AP says to do. The part then stepped infront of Kendra but did not make provoke movements.
Killing a townie is still killing them per the AP. If the townie was inherantly evil and when they tried to run away then I'd be a little more leniant as to killing them as they fled... i.e. m a troll trying to run away compared to a "fairly harmless person" is two diffent things. Lawful to me means that someone like a townie you would let go and report it to the sheriff to take care of. Father Grimburrow chewed out Gibs for his actions. To top it off the Ninja wanted to kill more.
So I'd go hard on him. He made the choice to play evil and he must learn from it. I'd say MAYBE let the party minus the ninja to regain trust, but he would be loathed and never fully trusted or treated as the others.
That is what I would do
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I think the Sheriff would be horrified and/or very angry at this outsider trying to "buy off" his crime, buy off the death of a resident.
However, punishing the PC will NOT endear him to the town - why would he want to help this town later?
Make it obvious that this was not a lawful act in the slightest.
"I don't know where you're from, but here we don't go killing hard-working people."
end the conversation with the sheriff with "I've got my eye on you."
If he is at all remorseful, give the group back one trust point.
Yeah. I like the idea of almost forking the Trust.
One thing is that only a few people saw who killed the farmer. When Father Grimburrow came, he made it clear that he accused the entire party of this. Perhaps when the PC comes to the sheriff tonight the sheriff goes "oh, so you're the one who did it. we didn't know which one was to blame."
This could lead to: imprisonment (that'd be fun!), trial, outcast, and other fun stuff. It would also divorce the other players from his actions.
I'm really leaning towards having the ghost of the dead farmer somehow come to the PCs for help to help his family. Thereby somehow earning a bit of the trust back. Perhaps his family is being haunted or something . . .
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Unless you are wanting to ostracize the player and get rid of this character, I would use imprisonment as a last option only. Doing so would only get him to hate Ravengro. The trust points lost for having been convicted and imprisoned would also have an effect.
If the character is going to stick around, don't separate the trust points. This splits the party and is specifically warned against in the AP.
However, if the character decides to leave, and the player either leaves or makes a new, non-evil Chelaxian, character, then have almost all of the blame on the character that left.
You don't want this to really screw up the start of this campaign.
A friend of mine suggested that the dead farmer begin to haunt the killer PC, but only visible to him (I suspect one would do this like the Father Charlatan encounter, where certain spells would reveal the ghost following the PC). Then have the PC eventually deal with some rapping spirit haunts or something to that affect which, in time (perhaps through the spirit planchette) the PC learns that the farmer-father has left a family that is undefended now.
Perhaps the family house is now going to be affected by a haunt or something and without the father there, his family is left helpless. My friend suggested having the PC have to earn the trust of the widow, through a ghost-whisper type of story "tell her I'll always remember that picnic on the bluff", things of that nature.
I'm not trying to make this more complicated than is necessary. But just having the PC cough up some money, or just having the money refused and the sheriff give the guy a warning isn't going to settle well with my players. I really think I need to construct some sort of resolution to this story arc and it should have to revolve around the fact that this PC took away the bread winner, a probably sole strong adult male, from the family. Bringing in the haunted nature of the area, is a plus and a non-stressful way to introduce the experience of communicating with haunts.
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A friend of mine suggested that the dead farmer begin to haunt the killer PC, but only visible to him (I suspect one would do this like the Father Charlatan encounter, where certain spells would reveal the ghost following the PC). Then have the PC eventually deal with some rapping spirit haunts or something to that affect which, in time (perhaps through the spirit planchette) the PC learns that the farmer-father has left a family that is undefended now.
Perhaps the family house is now going to be affected by a haunt or something and without the father there, his family is left helpless. My friend suggested having the PC have to earn the trust of the widow, through a ghost-whisper type of story "tell her I'll always remember that picnic on the bluff", things of that nature.
I'm not trying to make this more complicated than is necessary. But just having the PC cough up some money, or just having the money refused and the sheriff give the guy a warning isn't going to settle well with my players. I really think I need to construct some sort of resolution to this story arc and it should have to revolve around the fact that this PC took away the bread winner, a probably sole strong adult male, from the family. Bringing in the haunted nature of the area, is a plus and a non-stressful way to introduce the experience of communicating with haunts.
I love the idea of the farmer haunting the player. Make it a residual intelligent haunt. Make it where he cannot sleep. In tine the PC would suffer and it fits the AP. If he learns his lesson then maybe give him a way to stop the haunting. Make him convert his ways or something that does not hurt being a Ninja but makes him more understanding of life. That once he kills he must say a prayer or be tormented, or convert his alignment. Better yet, the haunt posses his sword or armor. Making him hit less effectivly or hit more often.
OK ok ok cool. Thanks guys. We're all circling the wagons around the notion of a haunted ninja/scout PC. What might this haunt do - how might he, over time, help this haunt? For now, particularly for tonight's session, I don't have to worry too much because I can just start manifesting this haunt. Other times, I'm going to have to let this player start to learn to deal with it and put the farmer to rest.
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OK ok ok cool. Thanks guys. We're all circling the wagons around the notion of a haunted ninja/scout PC. What might this haunt do - how might he, over time, help this haunt? For now, particularly for tonight's session, I don't have to worry too much because I can just start manifesting this haunt. Other times, I'm going to have to let this player start to learn to deal with it and put the farmer to rest.
Well, while the "Thug" was wrong in their doing, the haunt will never conceed this. If the player wants to get the "Haunt" off his back he must repent and go help the family out by farming and admitting he was wrong in taking the "farmers" life in the way he did. Maybe he must do 10 good deeds and I do mean good. Or make 10 sacrifices but not in the form of a living creature, maybe 10 swords that he has slew evil with. You can do many things. but make him suffer like I mentioned lower is to hit and damage or his AC by 1. And then explan that as his sword "SHOULD" have done more, for some reason his sword seemed to be pulled away at the very last. Or a hit that should have missed connects to him. He is after all haunted and the ghost is doing this to him. Give him nightmares in simple messages.