Les Ombres d'Esteren - Forum officiel

Skywalker a écrit :The PCs race back to Meddu and stop Caxtos and his men.

Or not

Something common in the Esteren official scenarios, as you will see when the prologue will be delivered to the backers, is that you can't solve all the problems and you will be bound to make a choice sooner or later and you won't like it.
Maybe the white lady can try to explain them that by destroying her, they will unleash the power of the possessed sword, and if the players manage to make the white lady disappear when they return to the village it's already too late to save the mother and the child.

As far as Caxtos is concerned, he doesn't even need mercenaries from another country to defend himself, you can add the fact that tensions already existed in the village regarding the title of Ansailéir (eg. the ansailéir is the second son, his father preferred to give him the title rather than giving it to caxtos but it goes against the traditions, or the ansailéir is firstborn but a woman and people think the title shouldn't be given to a girl), and that the possessed sword only pushed Caxtos to do what he was wishing for some times now.
He could simply find villagers who support him for that coup, but who get concerned because Caxtos seems to turn mad and madder.

That way the player may talk their way out with the guards and avoid direct confrontation. Combat is really really really deadly in the SoE, and players should avoid it unless really necessary.


PS : full moons being very common, such a spirit would have caused the death of hundred of newborns over the years, maybe you could find a less... frequent situation.
Moon eclipse, "blood moon", things like that...

Very true What the PCs do will be open and if they take a risky course of action, I won't be pulling any punches This will be a one off so a total party kill is just fine.

Tosheros a écrit :

Skywalker a écrit :The PCs race back to Meddu and stop Caxtos and his men.

Or not

As far as Caxtos is concerned, he doesn't even need mercenaries from another country to defend himself, you can add the fact that tensions already existed in the village regarding the title of Ansailéir (eg. the ansailéir is the second son, his father preferred to give him the title rather than giving it to caxtos but it goes against the traditions, or the ansailéir is firstborn but a woman and people think the title shouldn't be given to a girl), and that the possessed sword only pushed Caxtos to do what he was wishing for some times now.
He could simply find villagers who support him for that coup, but who get concerned because Caxtos seems to turn mad and madder.
...

Maybe it wouldn't be so easy to find 10 common peasants to take part in a coup. Old man ansaleir may have chozen his youngest son to success him, but the choice should be confirmed by the village assembly. Indeed, you may have in the country a band of unemployed mercenaries, ready to rent their swords for some plot. In a SoE scenario, you have exactly such a band confronted to a mimetic feond posing for a hound.

http://www.esteren.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=328

http://img66.xooimage.com/views/1/2/6/u ... 27376.pdf/

Sid, Adeliane and Masha are not fighters. It's better to avoid a battle against the band. PCs could :

1) Convince the villagers Caxtos is mad (piece of cake).

2) Understand the White Lady is not an ennemy and have a deal with her. I guess she walks with her faithful dog (I like the idea of a ghost dog, it may have been killed defending her) and could cooperate with PCs under some conditions (not so easy).

3) Tell the mercenaries an old legend over the dreadful feond-hound who killed a lot of people in a village nearby

4) At T-time, the White Lady is showing up with her dog, mercenaries' weapons can't stop her, the band flies running like hell, Caxtos will probably try to fight, but he has no chance against the villagers.

I don't know what for conditions the White Lady may claim under. I guess it could be something hard: the life of a volunteer, something like that.

FWIW the White Lady is very much the enemy. Caxtos is a by-product of the evil that she evoked in taking revenge. They may be able to convince her to help them against Caxtos, but she will need to be dealt with to put to rest all the same.

I ran Darkness before Dawn yesterday and it went well. I tried to fit everything in 3 hours but it really needed 4, so the end was a little rushed and we didn't get to explore all the options.

However, it otherwise all went to plan. The PCs provided a nice level of complexity in terms of their personality and background, but the rules were simple. The scenario was creepy and, though they missed the part that the madman could convey, the story was compelling.

The only observation I had as a new GM to Esteren is that dice system is inelastic, where as the PC abilities had quite a range. Its not a bad thing, given the focus of the setting, but I had to be careful when setting Difficulties as they can have a big impact on the result.