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By popular request, I have returned to the scene of D&D after an absence of 4 years. My new players wanted to play in ravenloft, and this fitted me quite well, since I believe ravenloft is the only decent setting out there because adventures in it incorporate something that lack in other worlds: story and atmosphere.
To play in this world all over again fits me for another reason, that is, I have plenty of tested adventures under my belt, and in two weeks, I am going to do one of the best one I did.
The original idea for this adventure was inspired from the adventure suggestion section in the Ravenloft boxset, and it goes like this : the players are trapped in a huge mansion with a familly of aristocrats and their relative, and one of the girl gave birth to a sneaky, ugly little creature thats going to kill'em all, and they have to survive the night. Its a scenario ripped off from Alien 1, 3 and the movie The Thing.
So in the adventure, the PCs will be stuck in the manor with a dozen important different NPCs, all of them with a wide variety of personalities, and thus, they will all have a different interactions with the PCs. Heck, this whole adventure is based on how the players and NPCs will interact between each other, once the paranoia and distrust will be in place, and the more realist this interaction will be, the better. After all, if the players dont make allies, they'll probably be killed by a mourning father and a vengeful former-husband, or somebody else gone crazy out of fear.
Now, I consider myself a pretty good DM. I am a master at creating a believable, realistic atmosphere for the players, and they know me for making adventure caracterized by an intrigue inside a riddle wrapped into a mistery leading to a trap, all of it with a taste of moral ambiguity and choices. But where I suck is when it comes to impersonate NPC. I have the facial expression range of an inguana. Hell, toward the end of the night, after 4 hours of non-stop playing, I dont even bother to impersonate NPC at all. It just goes something like this :
PC : so I ask the highpriest " Oh, great warlord of Tempus, may I require another chance to bring back the head of this vile orc shaman who defiled our great temple ?"
DM : (using the same monotonous ton of voice I use for every NPC since the beginning of the campaign, may they be male of female) : The highpriest reply by saying that you had your chance, and snap your neck.
So here's what I tought : I have this player I know very well, who's a ****ing god when it comes to acting. He just love's it, and he's funny like hell when he does his interpretations. So just for this quest, I thought I could delegate to him the burden of playing the different NPCs. I will do the storytelling, atmosphere building, intrigue weaving that I'm good at, and he'll play the various caracters. How about that ? Is it crazy enough to work ? Did anyone else did it before ? Did it worked ?!? Do you guys have any tips ?
And here's another question. How should I design my creature ? I have a pretty good idea, but I think that if we'd brainstorm on it, we could come up with something great. It doesn't have to be an already existing monster. And dont give me any of this 3rd edition slang, I play on the good ol' trusty second one.
Right of the bat, it has to be growing and changing. Like in the book, it will probably be gaining 8 hp per hours, plus some other habilities. Also, it could move silently and hide in shadow very well, or, while we're at it, it could simply phase from shadows trough shadow instantaneously. That would make it suprising and sneaky. And it should be resilient, too. For exemple, it could regenerate at a high rate, or have acide blood that rapidly make weapons uselsss after 2 or 3 hits.
As for its appearance, it doesn't really matter : like the creature in Alien 1, it will be seen very rarely, and only in the darkness. And finally, it doesn't have to be that deadly, since the real danger in this quest isn't the monster, but the other bastards trapped into the manor, who are going crazy, ill-advised and reckless out of fear and paranoia.
And if you guys are interested, I could go deeper into the details of this quest, for the fun of developing it together. I know exactly every chapter of this story, but I haven't spent time yet to do the NPCs. Hell, I dont even have the map of the manor. :D
edit : I've browsed a bit this forum, and I'm suprised, there are no thread designed to develop adventures.
, I'll forward you to the FoS site, where many discussions of that nature are held.Just check the link in my sig
Joël
www.FraternityOfShadows.com
What a fun looking forum. I hope you guys are more active than here. =)
Patience is your friend...
If you ask me
Personally, I think it's stuff like this has been slowly but surely turning this board into a ghost town. There's not one damn thread where somebody doesn't swoop in and plug that site. And with a mentality like this:
The reason you haven't got many answers is probably because most of the community is over at www.fraternityofshadows.com and you'd probably get far more (and better) response there.
and
More than 75% of us here are Frat guys. What says you of your life and Rloft accomplishments??
it really is becoming a sort of suffering just to come and view these boards. And it makes me wonder as to the true intent of that place. Destroying one community like this in order to add to their own?
Anybody who has ever dealt with door-to-door salesmen and fanatical religious recruiter hounds can, over a brief stay here, probably draw an eerie comparison.
Then again, they do call themselves a fraternity...
In all honesty, a link in a signature is more than enough plug for the curious. And with that said, if we really wanted to go hang out there, then why would we start a thread on this board? Think about it.
It's a bloody shame that you don't, or don't care.
Contributing to Ravenloft outside of personal agenda is actually a good thing. And if you guys are deserving of the praise that has been heaped on you--
If it weren't for Wiccy and the other FoS guys, the scene would have degraded to a mere amoeba!!
--, then you'd help out posters in need on-the-spot, without resorting to cheap sales tactics.
I ask you all: Where do your true loyalties lie?
Take this as a challenge if you so wish.
[/END]
B~E,
First off, sorry for the above.
Second, for as long as I have played Dungeons and Dragons my group(s) have always switched off the role of DM, and only recently have we begun to discuss the idea of role-playing the antagonists of our campaign. One session will be the protagonist's point of view, the following will be the antagonist's. Hopefully, the attention to detail that comes with playing a character will bring the campaign to a new level. And your proposal sounds pretty similar.
I say why not? Use the talent that you have at your table; it'd be a shame not to.And if you're looking for help with the specifics of your creature feature, then post whatever details you do have, and hopefully we can help trigger something in your head.
*meditates* ok, the force showed me the way of peace. No need to feed a crimson Troll :P maybe it'll go away if it doesn't find food :P
Ok, B~E, first of all welcome. Although I like your story pretty much, the "creature" part is a bit corny for Rloft. At least *my* Rloft is more about subtle horror. However, the creature can have the "tauric" template from Savage Species or something like Half-Fiend with modifications. Now, about the player NPC impersonator, I've tried it out on a couple of occations and I mainly found out 2 difficulties.
1) The player who impersonates the NPCs has little to no fun at all during the game. He does something preconstructed so he tends to get sick of doing it soon (soon can be as far as 3 sessions in most cases). So, find something rewarding (cookies, DVDs, CDs, downright payment :P ) to entice him!!
2) The intermediate player is not you. As you said, you're a pretty good DM. That's great because (as you probably know) you invent things on the spot, interaction between pcs and npcs leads to new plot hooks for you etc. So, imagine a dialog where you'll have to stop this player every 2-3 phrases to correct him if he didn't respond exactly as you wanted or gave some wrong info/answer. In my case this slowed down the game to a halt, since i had to keep an eye on both the pcs and the n-pc.
How are these pointers for starters? Happy brainstorming!!! As for the creature, I have many, MANY sick ideas in my head
, e.g the pseudonatural template for something truly twisted. Last but not least, to a yellow ghost I'll have to say that it's always easier to put the blame on others rather than work to make things better, esp. when these others take the form of (you said it not I) religious sects.
More than 75% of us here are Frat guys. What says you of your life and Rloft accomplishments??
In every boards I have seen, forums publicity was never forbidden, but when it is done in that hars and blatant manner, it is promtly stopped.
How are these pointers for starters? Happy brainstorming!!! As for the creature, I have many, MANY sick ideas in my head
Firstly, thanks a lot for both of you for bothering to read through my long post, and to reply something very interesting and helpfull.
Concerning the two master idea, what will happen is that my friend will impersonate 4-5 of the caracters in the manor, and I will do 1 or 2 of the most important ones. His job will be to interact in an intelligent manner with the PCs, and my job will be to do the story telling and to coordonate the events to make a fun adventure.
This can work because this adventure wont be very complex. There are very few predetermined events and very few predetermined NPC encounter. I leave most of the development of the story to my PCs' unmatched ability to get into trouble and afterward escape certain death by a hair. My co-master will impersonate the NPCs as he see fit, according to the situation and to the NPCs' predetermined personality and goals.
I fact, I am ready to bet the success of my adventure on the flexibility of my story and my ability to develope a coherant and increasingly complex adventure on right the spot. I've done it before, and I feel comfortable with that. :D
Here's a rapide resumé of the chapters of the story :
- The PC run away from their devastated town (we have just finished a "prequel" campaign that lasted 6 weeks, which explain how their city got absorbed into Ravenloft, and it culminated in the city being overun by undead in a "Day of the Dead" kind of way. Its an adventure I'd suggest you do, very fun.)
- Due to the fact that they're fleeing away from the city, the PCs wander away in the forest, get lost due to the Ravenloft fogs, and during the day they get into a fight where it must become clear to them that they will not survive the night in this suddently hostile world.
- TAt 8 PM, they find the manor, and ask to spend the night there.
- The PCs interact with the NPCs. There will be between 6 and 10 of them, and this part will last between 9 and 10 PM, where the caracters will go to bed.
- At 11 PM, the girl give birth to rapidly growing monster. The wretched thing kills her, and whoever else was present in the room.
- NPCs start dying, and only a few PCs (not even all of them) knows its a monster.
-As a result, the PCs interact with now paranoid, fear-crazed and mourning NPCs.
-The PCs kill the creature, leave the house, all before 6 AM, in time to watch the sun rise and get breakfast.
Here are the few encounters I have prédetermined :
- When the girl give birth and is immediatly murdered by her little freak, one of the PC will arrive on the scene before everyone else, then the creature will jump on him, spill some blood on him, and manage to run away. Then, the father and husband will arrive, to see their girl murdered in a most grusome manner, and the PC, a stranger, covered with blood. Impending justice will follow.
This dramatic event will set the tone for the rest of the night, and it will be up to the PCs to convince the familly that their friend is innocent. This will probably result in himbeing locked up, by himself, in a dark room, until dawn.
- At some point, the mother will eventualy take her own life in front of one of the PC.
- the majority of the remaining NPC will start of scared by the murder, but will still be more or less neutral toward the PCs. Their behaviors will evolve depending on how the PCs try to gain their trust to survive the night. So the father and ex-husband will probably be the first NPCs to distrust the heros, and more may follow.
Oh, and screaming constently that its the newborn monster thats killing everybody wont help your credibility. =)
- a certain level of paranoia will reign between the players, for only one or two of the heros will have seen the monster.
- I'm tempted to trow in a minor poltergeist, who's never directly seen, but presence always felt in the forme of the usual moving objects, shape only seen at the corner of the eye, footsteps, ect.
And thats is all. I trust the rest of the story will evolve by itself, powered by the dinamics of the PCs and the NPCs.
Also, does anyone have a sugestion on why the girl gave birth to a monster ? I am tempted to use the good old "Terribly Familly Secret Involving Vistany Curse". Even if it isn't original, my players are new to ravenloft, so its alright.
As for the creature, I have many, MANY sick ideas in my head
Yes mister, I'd like to hear your ideas, all of them. All I really want is a devious, seldom seen, sneaky creature. It could be everything from a dark naga to an ooze. With a twist or two, of course. =)
My players are as follow : a pure necromancer, level 2, a thief/entropist level 3/2, an ex-priest of tempust, level 5, who was at one point tricked by an NPC to kill his own highpriest, and a 4 level thief, but he's going to be the co-master.
Ok, B~E, first of all welcome. Although I like your story pretty much, the "creature" part is a bit corny for Rloft. At least *my* Rloft is more about subtle horror. However, the creature can have the "tauric" template from Savage Species or something like Half-Fiend with modifications. Now, about the player NPC impersonator, I've tried it out on a couple of occations and I mainly found out 2 difficulties.
Tauric ? Half-Fiend ? You've lost me already =P
My Ravenloft campaing isn't really concerned about subtle horror. Of course, I dont trow in giants and orcs and dragons, but I keep the number of monsters limited, and from the gothic departement.
Really, the focus of my campaign is to creat a story filled with believable NPCs, intricate enough so my players always have many choices in what they whant to do or not, and those are usualy ambiguous, choices between the lesser of two evil. Their choices and freedom are their own worst ennemy.
But of course that kind of philosophy isn't necessary ravenloftian, it could be applied to any setting.
Also, does anyone have a sugestion on why the girl gave birth to a monster ?
What if you pulled a modified "Rosemary's Baby"?
The woman, dazed perhaps due to constant administration of sedatives, was a part of a sinister cult summoning ritual that was performed by the others in the house, all of which of course are hiding this terrible little secret from the townsfolk. The basement of the place, a wine cellar perhaps, is used every night to perform their rituals, and is chock-full of secret doors, demonic decor, and what have you.
And the blood on the PC is too perfect, maybe even planned by this cult (masterminded by the husband/"dad"), and the other cult members play their parts to a tee, pretending to be horrified and all that jazz.
But what could the ultimate plan be?
PCs as the nourishment for this bastard child/monster? Maybe the thing needs to consume X amount of flesh to accelerate its growth into mature form...
The first thing that springs to mind is hags who can replace human babies with infant hags, and they work well in a cult. It is not too much of a stretch to assume that a hag could replace a baby with something else entirely.
This might lead to a more optimistic story where the mother doesn't die and her baby is elsewhere and the players -if they play their cards right- might even be able to rescue the infant and reunite mother and child.
It's a bloody shame that you don't, or don't care.
(...)
I ask you all: Where do your true loyalties lie?
Take this as a challenge if you so wish.
IMHO, the Ravenloft online community these days is much too small for this kind of bickering.
---
From BE's initial post:
edit : I've browsed a bit this forum, and I'm suprised, there are no thread designed to develop adventures.
It is in fact at this that I was answering, i.e. there are many threads about adventure development, ideas requests and follow ups on the FoS site.
Câlisse ;)
Joël
This might lead to a more optimistic story where the mother doesn't die and her baby is elsewhere and the players -if they play their cards right- might even be able to rescue the infant and reunite mother and child.
O ho ho, meeeeeeeeeeerry Christmas!!!1!1! Man, have you got any idea how twisted, sick and abominable this scenario really is??
Mother and child reunite...The curse is completed...enter disgusting, unholy, blasphemous, unworldly union and we have a winner!!!!
A new menace, "mommy and brat" in one!
Boys, you people have some forum issues to straighten
...
:omg! you're a girl!! 
And you want to DM in Rloft??
...Will you marry me? :inlove:
Ok, seriously now, I have a bad feeling that you give them too tiny a room to move. It's a common mistake (it took me 3 years to overcome it) called railroading. You just want them through your story your style.
Be prepared for the unthinkable.
Still I think it's a bad mistake to let one person roam over your npcs but, it's your head.
Now, on the creature, you have to think about the plot behind it's creation. *For example, in Rloft there's an Incubus on the loose, spreading offsprings around. So, one idea could be that the certain girl is an "innocent" of remarkable purity so our beloved "Caller" couldn't get it right and the foetus auto-aborted itself. So, imagine a
...Oh damn!! Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians!! Just realised you play 2nd ed. Ok, mainly in this case the creature is half-demon, half-undead, like an atropal but on a lesser scale.
*Another case is like you said the Old Vistani curse, but in this case things get nasty as you have to figure out the whole story from scratch, since curses are rarely vague and in most cases are strongly tied to the original event (maybe one ancestor or the ex-husband impregnated a Vistana and then caused her to miscarry by violence? You figure it out).
* One idea ripped from Crimson_Ghost's theme (cheers mate!!)is like I said the pseudonatural template (unfortunately it's 3rd ed slang) but with a protean twist. The cult worships Gwydion (you know, the guy trapped in the shadow rift) so the baby is something like a protoplasmic mass, a blob generally speaking that constantly (and according to adaptability) changes shapes and presumes the most fit for survival form. This gives you the opportunity to have anything you want at any time. Also, it adds a certain Mythos twist (anyone read Horror of Dunwich?).
How are those?? Hope I pleased you ma'am!!
(1) There are obviously pros and cons to dual DMing. The pros are really good NPC performances for an adventure that is largely built upon conflict between the PCs and the NPCs. The cons are keeping things going with having to stop play and "huddle" with your co-DM to work something out you haven't expected or plotted out, you will need to empower your co-DM to handle a wide range of dialogue within parameters of what you expect to happen. I believe the pros outweigh the cons but in my experience this will require more prep-work to really wow your players and will limit your ability to adapt things on the fly.
One good technique is develop "anchor points" that the storry will steer toward. It sounds like you've started towards this in your last post. Ideally an anchor point should be designed to come about do to events beyond the PCs ability to control. The more you need a PC to "be seperated from the party" or other horror flick standards the rockier footing your adventure will be on. I've written more about this under point #3.
Assuming you have a solid list of anchor points the next step is create an "NPC Bible" for the people your co-DM will be playing. Things to include are a (i) brief background, (ii) the NPCs personality and one or two quirks to readily distinguish them from other NPCs (eg. drywashes hands when nervous), (iii) goals during the course of the adventure and (iv) specific reactions to the events in the plotted anchor points. (For example the childs birth is an anchor point, saying that the father wants to blame the PCs for the disaster is that NPCs reaction). Methodically doing this in some detail for every NPC and giving it to your co-DM will keep the two of you in tandem. Though more work than I am personally willing to do for most occasions I have seen it done very well by other people.
(2) The creature can really be anything if no one is going to get a good look at it - all it needs is an attack mode to kill people and a means to avoid detection. You can also take the stats from one creature and redesign the "skin and musculature" to create a different effect. Taken to an extreme the "numbers" of your baby could easily be a beefed up flumph with the ability to turn invisible a couple of times per day. It can look like anything you want.
The key thing for this adventure (in terms off the monsters abilities) is that the monster can't be readily confronted until it chooses to come out. That means mobility and stealth are at a premium. Anything that can move silently & hide or go where the PCs can't is a good candidate. Given the levels of your party I'm drawn to the phase spider (perhaps with reduced potency to its poison). It could look like a spider, look like a spider with a baby's head (and fangs) or look "ettercappy" (or something else) but IMO this fits the bill of what you need in a critter and is about the right level of difficulty for 4-5 level PCs plus maybe an ally or two. If you want to build it up over the course of the adventure you can start with the stats (plus phasing) for smaller monsterous spiders and scale up to the end result.
With the phase spider you get the added bonus of finding the victims exsangiunated at some point. If PCs haven't seen it its always good for the (in this case misguided) "Its vampires!" moment. Unless they're wrapped up in cocoons/webs. Either way, won't that be nice for the PCs to ffind!
(3) Geting the tension up to a high level is potentially hard because the PCs have the option (presumably) to flee the house or do something odd like camp on the roof if things get freaky enough - something that never happens in the movies but can easily happen in game. Don't know your players, some are more altruistic than others. Now from what you write the PCs are supposedly fleeing something in the forest to begin with so that might help keep them inside. You might also want to give them another reason to stay. One of the best ways I've found is to make them want or need an NPC. For example if only Dan the druid can cure the poison oak that is afflicting the party then they have a pretty good reason to try and keep the druid alive...and if Dan is unwilling to leave the house, and unwilling to help the PCs unless they help him "fight the unatural evil" the PCs might just have to stay. It also gives them a relationship with an ally to manage. There are zillions of variations on this theme.
Keeping the tension going means controlling the tempo. I believe most great horror writting comes in stort storries and novellas such as the storries of HP Lovecraft or the Mist by Stephen King. (Yes, King writes a lot of bad trash too, but the Mist is a gem and even approriate to the adventure you want to run). Generally its hard to keep dread and terror going over longer pieces. The best way to keep the tempo going is to have an "anchor point" ready to spring at any point that play slows down.
It will help if several of them can come in any order and are based at different locations (perhaps started by a scream from the basement, kitchen attic etcetera). It will also help if the triggers are designed to take place "off stage". For example one of the NPCs cracks and starts attacking people. It probably ought to be foreshadowed with angry/paranoid dialogue. PCs arrive to find two NPCs in a death struggle. Who started it? Whom do they help? Does one of them have a dark agenda? Now the PCs also have a mystery (or at least questions) to solve once the combat ends. Other points can be a lot simpler as when the PC sees "something" scuttle across the ceiling in the reflection of a mirror. Probably no dice will need to be rolled but people's attention has been ratcheted back up.
One thing to avoid is "anchor points" that have to happen when PCs do "X". Sometimes is can be hard merely to herd the PCs to a particular location, but trying to split up the group is often impossible. One infamous module in the RPGA's Living Death campaign required a group of 6 heros to be scattered in an attack and for a doppleganger to capture and then replace one PC when they all relocate. In tournament play inevitably the PCs clove togther when threatened ("Go off by ourselves?!? We're sticking togther - there is strength in numbers!"). This effectively trainwrecked the module in a variety of different (though interesting!) ways.
Its often possible to achieve similiar (incriminating) effects by staging events "off stage". For example you listed getting blood on a single PC to throw suspicion on him. Instead you migh consider having blood smeared on the bed assigned to them or even on any gear the PCs may have left in the bedroom. Or imagine the party returning from some disturbance to discover that not only have dribbles of blood led the maid to the Necromancer's bedroom but that his (no doubt icky) spellbook has been laid out too. Now he has to explain the infants/mother's blood while explaining that he's not "That kind of Necromacer..." Good luck to your PC on that front! :evillaugh
That's about it for my post midnight musings. Hope something in there is useful for you! Its sounds like you have the core of a great scenario. Let us know how it unfolds.
-Eric Gorman
- The NPCs inhabiting the mansion were directly taken from the game Clue, only reimagined to fit in a medieval setting.
For exemple, Colonel Mustard was a retired military officier with a drinking habit, always looking for an excuse to reminisce and recollect about his past military exploits. Dr Plum was an abscent-minded mage and herborist, and so on. Characters like Mrs Peacock or Mrs Whites didnt have to be changed much.
It toke maybe 90 mins of gameplay and interaction for the players to realize that the setting for this adventure was an homage to the game. They thought it was a nice touch, and it also made them realise pretty quickly that they were dealing with a "whodunit" sort of adventure.
This allowed for paranoia to settle in even before a single murder had been committed.
- The quest was in real-time, more or less. We began playing at 8 pm, and we finished at 4am, when they finaly killed the monster.
- The monster was inspired by the Chaos Beast, from the first Monster Manual. Except that not only would its attacks twist your body in terrifying and random ways, like a Chaos Beast, but its very presence would affect its surrounding in a similar fashion: spells would react in apparently random ways, light and darkness would defy the laws of physic (generaly helping to efficiently conceal the monster) and walls and object would also be twisted, giving clues to where its been, while sometime heralding its presence.
For every hours that passed, and the more it killed, it grew stronger and its chaos-related powers would be multiplied, thus allowing the players and surviving NPCs to track it down at the end.
Just like a Phase Spider, it was also able to move in and out of the Material Plan, albeit rarely.
And it basically looked like a black Facehugger, but nastier, with 6 freakish human-like arms instead of spider legs and a deadly tail. At its pinnacle, it was the size of a small horse, with 50 hp, an AC of 20, and acidic blood that would eat at your weapons pretty quickly, forcing the players to be extra imaginative when chosing to approache it.
- The players (and by extention, the characters) realized pretty quickly that they were dealing with a monster. The challenge was to convince the NPCs, who all distrusted each others, that they had to band together to survive the night. But the NPCs were convinced that it was one of them who was the killer, which weakened the group, thus allowing the creature to pick them off one by one while it grew stronger.
The diplomatic efforts of the PCs didnt succeded until the end. The scariest moment was when they were at one point disarmed and sequestrated in separate rooms by Dr. Plum's magic and 4 distrusful NPCs.
- Whenever the monster would settle on a specific prey, about 30 mins after its last kill, the NPC in question would begin to see telltale sings of the creature's presence, because of its chaos powers.
As such, this NPC would generaly succumb to irrational fear before being eaten. For exemple, Dr. Plum eventualy barricated himself in a room, using spells to keep people out. The table turned in favor of the PCs' point of view when the NPCs found nothing but a bloody mess in Dr.Plum barricated room.
- In order to make sure that the PCs wouldnt just leave the mansion at some point during the night, taking their chance in the forest, I had them spend 3 in-game days in the forest, prior to finding the mansion. After fighting off carnivorous plants, wolves, backstabbing bandits and various other nasties, they arrived at the mansion with very low hit points and with very few ressources left. I admit this part frustrated them a bit...
- I also never elaborated on the why and how of the monster. I just made it clear that it came from the ripped belly of the pregnant daughter.
In the basement, they found clues that someone in the familly was practicing whichcraft and dark sorcery, but nothing more.
- All in all, this quest was very succesfull, because I kept it as simple and open-ended as possible. There was no complex plots and counter-plots linking the NPCs together. The challenge was very simple: the NPCs were all convinced that the killer was one of them, probably the PCs, and the PCs' job was to convince them otherwise, to fight the paranoia and fear. Or else, they would have had to fight the NPCs AND the creature. Using the characters from Clue also simplified my task a lot, since I have (still) weak rollplaying skills.