[Circle of Hands] Venture Prep: Anselborg

[Nyhteg]

Hi

Here's my current prep for our third session of CoH.

I have to point out up front that in trying to describe my thoughts and notes for this post I've ended up with far, far, far more backstory and detail than I created in actual preparation. I was 'ready to go' with a brief, visual idea of the town, the nature of the threat and a thumbnail set of notes about the NPCs, whys and wherefores. So, if I was simply prepping rather than 'writing a post about my prep' this would be about about a tenth of the size and far less 'storied'.

Well anyway, here's what I've got:

Dice rolls: 6-3-4

Rbaja Presence in Rolke

Location
I'm imagining a largeish, fortified mountain town, set high in the wooded foothills with a commanding view of the valley below. Stone walls and buildings, wooden and stone watch towers at the gates. Fairly close-built houses. Above it, the mountains rise steeply and massively, the distant snow-capped peak mostly wreathed in cloud, its flanks all dense, dark, ancient pine forest. The people here herd goats on the high meadows; graze morose, hairy cattle and cultivate a few crops in the valley below; they raise sturdy, stocky ponies for draft and travel; they hunt and forage in the woods; they mine and smelt ironstone from in a few locations higher up near the town. I'm calling the place 'Anselborg' and I see the town as a solid, long-standing grey presence, hunched defiantly in the face of the mountain elements.

Rbaja Presence
Initial thinking and rulebook-browsing brought me to the Yoggoth, which I immediately identified as a whole bundle of horrible fun.

My first thought is to consider where the thing has come from and what it's doing now.
Putting it already right in the town might be interesting, but I'm thinking it wouldn't give a lot of scope for normal social-integration and C vs 12 rolls if everyone's running around in terror trying not to get eaten alive...so I've tried to come up with something previous to that point.

I imagine a backwoodsman, a seasoned hunter and tracker, living high in the forest above town just as his father, grandfather and great-grandfather have before him. I'll call him Wieland Engels. He's got a home up there but he doesn't exclude himself from the town - coming down to trade mushrooms, meat and pelts, to socialise and to guide folks around the hunting trails on a pretty regular basis - he just prefers life in the woods to life surrounded by walls.
He has, let's say, a wife, a couple of daughters and a son. He'd have liked to pass on his skills to the son but the lad was born simple and is, not to put too fine a point on it, as dumb as a rock. So Wieland started teaching a small group of menfolk from the town some of what he knows. One or two at first, rising to a group of six, usually taught in ones or twos. About three years ago, Wieland stumbled on a rocky pool, hidden high in the forest. Small, dark, deep and curiously warm, the pool just so happened to have an Rbaja zone sitting at the bottom of it. Long story short: he bathed in the pool repeatedly and over time became Rbajafied into a black wizard.

In the ensuing months, Wieland's little study group become far more like a secret cult. He began to cast spells on himself and on his students to aid their hunting and tracking, and to demonstrate the power of Rbaja and his own mastery of it. As a given student gained Wieland's trust and confidence, they were introduced to the pool and allowed to bathe as a kind of initiation to Wieland's inner circle. At the time of the venture, only two have experienced the pool, although neither has yet gained any magical power from it.

However... Losing his mind by degrees to black Tallies and his own growing ego and isolation, Wieland was recently convinced by a summoned Imp to call a Yoggoth into existence as an ultimate act of dedication to Rbaja. Five nights ago, with the aid of his acolytes, he duly murdered his entire family in sacrifice and summoned the beast outside his forest home. The Yoggoth promptly ate him - and served him jolly well right, too I guess. His erstwhile cult-members fled back to town with their lives, if not their minds and consciences, intact.

So. I'm imagining that one night soon afterwards, the watchmen suddenly see a cold, ghastly fog start to crawl out of the tree line above Anselborg. Faint sounds of breaking branches and worse are carried on the wind from higher up the mountain. A day or so later, birds and animals begin to panic and flee downslope, as if from a fire. A small party is sent to investigate. They return dead - literally...as zombies...  The chieftain of Anselborg sets about reinforcing the mountain-side defences and prepares for an undead attack, or worse.

Dangerous Location
The ruins of Wieland's house sounds good for somewhere specific.
The forest in general is also not a place to go idly gallavanting around in.

NPCs
Rodolf Hartmann: Wieland's senior student - early 30s, a true believer; wants to see his teacher's last act reach fruition in the destruction of the town. Has effectively taken up Wieland's mantle and commands the loyalty of the other five students. He is more than happy to agitate and act against the Knights if they start to get too involved. Toughest NPC.

Kinge Hartmann: Rodolf's wife - oblivious to the truth of matters but, at the outset at least, fiercely loyal to her husband.

Manfred Gert: Wieland's number two -  a little younger than Rodolf but unlike him and the other students, Manfred is wracked with shame and horror at what he has done, seen and helped set in motion. He is too terrified of the other five students to speak out against them, but yet too guilt-ridden to abandon the town to its fate...

Tripwire
Not sure. Got a couple of candidates so far.

- If his wife is harmed then Rodolf's several prior dips in the pool finally kick in and he turns wizard. This is kind of cool-seeming...but adding a wizard is almost certainly waaaaaay too much Rbaja action for one venture. :) Maybe he involuntarily summons a demon or something? Turns into a Beast perhaps..?

- If they realise that Wieland's cult has been discovered, Rodolf and his fellows will go into 'anarchy mode'. They will start by setting fires and opening and sabotaging the town gates and see where the mood takes them from there.

That's it.
Thoughts welcome.

G

[Ron Edwards]

OK! Here are some suggestions which I hope illustrate the points outlined above.

1. Rodolf is too much of a reboot of the crazy original bad guy. You killed that guy for a reason, so don't resurrect him as his number-two. Make Rodolf into a different person who has hopes and dreams. It's not like the yoggoth actually needs any help to get to the town and devour it. In fact, you already have the guy stated in your prep - the chieftain! He's all about standing his ground and fighting as a community. And if his wife wants simply to flee, to organize the community to do so as fast and safely as possible, then there's your soap opera.

2.  If you go with that suggestion, then the tripwire becomes a lot easier ... perhaps something along the lines of the community finding out about the cult-group (and its survivor), which would instigate lots of slaughter among them, not necessarily always directed toward actual perps. Basically ripping the community apart for real.

See, that's all nothing but fun. Manfred's presence is perfect to put the tripwire out there ... but not necessarily to be found/tripped either.

[Nyhteg]

Mm. Yes, those are definitely better than my ideas.
This process has not become obvious to me yet. There's still some bit I'm missing but I'm keeping going til I find it. :)

So...soap opera...how do you create that in prep when you have three components and only one NPC per..?

G

[Ron Edwards]

In the case of three components, each NPC should be problematically positioned toward one or more social ranks, whichever one(s) you want, including his or her own. Playing this kind of situation typically results in rapid ascensions, so you end up with a bunch of named NPCs anyway.

(This is different from "local tensions" because in that case, more than one social rank as larger units are clashing.)

[John W]

This scenario sounds really fun!
J