“How An Entanglement Roll Defined the Very Nature of The World”
So, weeks and weeks ago, the Dark Roots, a Tier 0 Crew, decided to pick a fight with the Leviathan Hunters (I believe I recounted the tale on here) for various reasons. Needless to say, it did not go terribly well, but the important part is, Wulf, the Cutter, actually fought on even footing with a Leviathan Hunter (sort of two although the second one was just kind of standing around) for a while before retreating. We rolled Entanglements as usual and got Demonic Notice.
Turns out, a water daemon called Orca observed this happening, appeared before Wulf and offered him a bargain: he kills Arrik Hague, the only retired Leviathan Hunter in the city, and he will provide his service to Wulf. Wulf accepted and got branded by Orca. At the time, I did this minutes after we finished the Score and had no idea what was going on here: why the daemon wanted him dead, why he was the ONLY retired Leviathan Hunter, etc. etc.
Cut to weeks later and they finally decide to deal with this Arrik Hague. Queue lots of Gather Info Downtime Actions. They learn that Arrik Hague goes to the Devil’s Tooth, a pub in Coalridge, every night of the week, drinks, goes home. Every Thursday, a strange woman in a robe visits him. They learn this woman is, in fact, Lady Councillor Adele Delera, who they had crossed paths with before (they burned her house down) and for some reason, she is giving him cash. From observing him in the Ghost Field, the Whisper notices he has this strange mantle of black fire…
By the way, still, I have no idea what’s going on. The only thing I came up with in advance was that Delera visits him every week.
Then, my players start rapidly speculating. Are Leviathan Hunters human? Is there something that Delera wants him to keep quiet about? And, of course, why is he only retired Leviathan Hunter? These were just a few among others, none directed at me, all giving me a lot of immediate food for thought.
Going into the final plan, which ended up just being “rush him” in essence, I put 75% of the credit to my players for me having such a clear picture of WTF was going on.
You see, the Leviathan Hunters have a dark secret. Taking one page from the Grey Wardens and another from the Jem’hadar, they are addicted to Leviathan Blood. It’s what gives them their almost supernatural prowess (my Whisper decided that each individual one was “the main character of Skyrim”) and it’s what keeps them in line.
The most interesting part however, is that after a certain period of Leviathan Blood consumption, when a Hunter dies, they turn into a demon. I haven’t decided whether all demons were Leviathan Hunters (or people who consumed Leviathan Blood) but Orca definitely was. I’ve also not decided how Leviathans relate to this…maybe they were once human…
But, even down to becoming a demon, every Leviathan Hunter is cursed with silence. They cannot divulge a word of the true horror of their fate. But! Arrik Hague learned how to break that curse. And that is why he had a Councillor buying his silence. As for why Orca wanted him dead? Well, that should be obvious. Arrik Hague has consumed Leviathan Blood far longer than any Leviathan Hunter who has ever lived. But in order for one to find out what that might mean, well, he has to die.
Questions!
1) How do people create compelling and challenging foes? With Arrik Hague, I set him up with a 8-segment “Defences” and another 8-segment “Flesh” but the players pretty much tore through him right up until the end (when one player got stabbed through the chest and another got turned into a pile of ash). When they roll 6s, it doesn’t seem to matter whether he’s an actual Leviathan or a street urchin.
2) Are healing clocks always 8-segments? With the pile of ash, myself and the player agreed that he would just die on a Desperate “snake-eyes”. With the stab through the chest, I asked the player to resist Fatal Harm. He reduced it to Severe Harm. But that’s an eight segment clock. At most he could fill 4 of that clock (he filled 3). Does that mean he still has Severe Harm and is essentially out of action next session?
1) First, consider effect factors. If Hague has major advantages of quality, potency, and scale (I’d say he does) then by default the poor PCs do zero effect. Even on a crit, they do nothing to his clocks. If they’re forced to engage anyway, someone can try a setup action to bump their effect up to limited — but to even attempt that, they need to know what to do. How do you make this thing vulnerable? If they don’t know, they’re screwed.
This is the main thing. In order to conflict with someone like this, the PCs need the right fictional positioning. They can’t just “attack him”. When they try that, you say that he swats their weapons aside, grabs one of them, and breaks their spine in two. [This is what I’d do if he was a Demon.]
They don’t get to hurt him just because they rolled a six (anymore than they can knock down a building by attacking it). Effect factors are the key.
2) Healing has been changed and codified in the new PDF (v5).
3) Yep. But, with two downtime healing actions (and/or additional help from other PCs) he can fill all 8 segments in one downtime.
Also, I have to say, this series sounds AMAZING. Well done.
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John Harper Thank you! For both the answers and the compliment. We’re having a lot of fun with it. The now deceased Hound is excited about giving the Spider a spin.
The other thing that makes an opponent frightening is when they they are proactive instead of reactive. This was actually mentioned somewhere else recently, but an opponent like Hague should likely take the initiative and be attacking the PCs even before and between their rolls. If they want to avoid him literally ripping them limb from limb they’re going to have to spend armor and roll resistance until they’re running seriously low on stress.
Dylan ^_^ I’m curious to hear how the Spider works out for him!
Stras Acimovic I shall let you know!