Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 17 Oct 2003 to 23 Oct 2003 (#2003-253) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 24/10/2003, 18:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There is one message totalling 113 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Complications in Helskir ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:03:07 +0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Complications in Helskir Some further ruminations on the "Thiefy plotline in Helskir": We finally managed to start playing out the Helskir story. Unfortunately our progress will be slow, since one of the players is directing a play and acting in one other (and also drafting his PhD). But slow is better than nothing. But my initial experiences were enlightening, and once again show how hard it is to write open-ended plotlines. Also I encountered the problem of "railroading" the PCs - I hope I did OK with that. Yuri set out to Helskir with his pal Ivan Ivanovich, Duke of Estine. Luckily for me, the guys engaged on a drunken binge for a few days before that, during which they missed a lot of wisdom rolls (=talked about their mission while visiting a brothel, and the prostitutes sold the info). So the Alphatian agents in Freiburg were sure to find out about about their intentions. Thus I had a perfect cause for the agents in Helskir to be so prepared. Well, in Helskir Yuri decided to contact the local thieves and try to forge a deal with them. Mainly, he wanted to recruit some troops and gain new drug contacts. I wrote the details on the local thieves guild. It is led by a mysterious figure called "Sokoban" (and yes, I do play Nethack "Falcon's Eye" a lot). Sokoban is actually a weretiger. He and his three weretiger companions have created a very secretive organisation, a bit like Kaiser Soze. Nobody in the organisation knows about the lycantropic connection, and nobody ever sees Sokoban. His three "capos" keep contact with the street operatives. But the contact to the street level is also very secretive. In the streets, you have basically "sub-guilds", or small gangs of thieves, whose leaders report to Sokoban's men on an irregular basis. They have no regular meeting places and such. Thus the Alphers have had a difficult time in getting their hands on the guild leadership. Sokoban and his cronies keep up the organisation through fear. Those who betray the code of the organisation simply disappear, and their bodies turn up partially eaten! This is an additional difficulty for the Alphers, since their powers of intimidation don't match this, and they can ween little info by magical means (since there is so little of it). Yuri tried to contact the guild first by talking to the locals, but noticed that their fear was greater than their greed. The next plan was more innovative: Ivan was sent to the strets to spend a lot of money and "get mugged". Yuri followed him in the shadows. Eventually they managed to run into a couple of thieves, one of them was a prostitute with a cleverly hidden razorblade-ring. There were some tense moments, I can tell you... Ivan wasn't ready to try his luck with the Ring of Regeneration. Yuri gave a note to the prostitute-thief (after promptly killing her companion) to be sent to "the Man". A good idea in all, but unfortunately the local Alpher agent-master wass following them (invisible). Later on he caught the thief, the note - and as the note suggested, came to meet the guys for breakfast at their Inn. He posed as "Janus", "Sokoban's right hand". The ambush worked like a charm. Janus offered to arrange a meeting between Yuri and Sokoban at a "public place" - that is, an inn that was built a few days ago. The inn was filled with hired goons. Yuri and Ivan bested the goons, interrogated one of them and were convinced that Janus&Sokoban were behind this all. (Also: they picked up a valuable necklace that the Alphers can use for their Locate Object spells!) Yuri still thought that reconciliation would be possible. They left another note, asking for a "sit-down". The Alphers were puzzled: wasn't this supposed to be the mad and impulsive Yuri Turambar, who bested Danakhriss? So "Janus" sent one of his battlemages to attack the guys in their Inn. Yuri and Ivan fled into the night badly wounded and decided to leave the town. (Remember that "Janus" could follow most of their discussions using Invisibility spell, he also has a good Stealth skill that he so far hasn't missed.) The Alphers weren't ready to let them go, so they decided to cripple the ship Yuri has commissioned, and to make things more certain they killed the captain and left a bloody message on the scene. And here's where my original calculations proved wrong: Yuri just decided that this wouldn't be worth the effort. OK, I decided, if the guys can find a way to get out of the city, then so be it. Luckily it is wintertime and regular shipping doesn't take place. So the guys would have to commission a ship. Yuri missed his streetwise and bargaining rolls, and a few general luck rolls (which we threw in the open), which gave the Alphers time to plan their next move. Good luck for me - I could try to continue the intended plot, BUT the PCs were given a genuine chance to avoid the whole thing. Janus hired a group of dockworkers to waylay Yuri. Yuri managed to evade them and followed them to the Inn where they had been hired. Yuri confronted the innkeeper, who Janus had given money to do the job. Yuri and Ivan decided to stay in that Inn and see if Janus would come to collect. Of course that would never happen... Persistent fellow as he is, Yuri continued with his attempts to find a new ship. The Alphers arranged another phoney attack, and this time it seems that the guys are ready to drop the escape plan and start finding their attackers. - The surprising thing is, they are trying to find the Alpher mage who was sent to "assassinate" them, instead of trying to find out about Sokoban's guild! They happen to have a Locate Object scroll and will try to locate the mage's paralyze wand. Well, best of luck to them, I say. They just might be able to circumvent my plot and attack the Seaborne Alphatian Security (SAS) itself!... And boy, they will be knee-deep in it. Just goes to show that you can never plan anything with those pesky thieves! Ville ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 17 Oct 2003 to 23 Oct 2003 (#2003-253) ****************************************************************