We can't be everywhere at once. This fundamental truth has led to at least one hook developing to apparent critical mass as sessions have progressed. Did we choose this session to finally investigate whatever's going on with that haunted farm down the way? No. We kept on one of our original goals of eliminating wererats. These kinds of choices matter in a living world.
The Temple had info for us regarding the missing son of Nicodemus the Wererat, who was allegedly the one responsible for most of the proliferation of the cult within Allegany. He was holed up with the last vestiges of his cult at a warehouse (werehouse?) on the West side. Don't worry boss, we're on it.
Vylas the Spellsword and Sloane the Slayer took a hunting dog and tracked around the outskirts of the town near the warehouse. We were pretty sure they'd have a bolt hole/sekrit escape hatch because they had literally had the same in every other lair we'd found. We weren't wrong and located it after some sniffing around.
Guygiss the Nightblade took his cadre of henchmen on a night-time breaking and entering recon with Slaid the Bard and the rest of us on overwatch. The agreed upon signal was Guygiss to scream girlishly if discovered so the henchmen could signal the cavalry. Simple. Effective. Ignored.
Guygiss made some noise on entry and alerted the guardians, who ambushed him once he closed the door behind him. He was outnumbered 4 to 1 but despite his appearance ain't no little bitch. He went down swinging with nary a holler until the killing blow. He downed 3 of them but the last one got him. His henches, confused by the noise, moseyed over to the PC overwatch and expressed some mild concern. This definitely had nothing to do with Guygiss's 6 Charisma and the loyalty such things inspire in followers.
Vylas (that's me) rode to the sekrit hatch in case of escape while the rest of the party bust in the front door, hackin' the enemy down in the wanton destruction only adventurers can bring. Guygiss was missing and the running battle through the building was tinged with worry over his fate.
I broke in the back door and discovered ole boy's son Norvi packing like he was leaving. Nope. We exchanged sword blows until he was dead, along with his bodyguard. I found some evidence that the wererats had been burned by the Assemblage, the shadow organization responsible for all this Chaotic nonsense and our ultimate quarry, but no Guygiss.
The rest of the party killed the last wererat and found Guygiss strapped to the table around which torture implements were arrayed. It's a good thing we got to him because it was clear the instant pain was applied he would break and give up everything he knew.
Meanwhile, a wererat was captured outside by Guygiss's hench Brutus, the bandit he'd converted last session. Apparently Brutus had orders to abscond with any wererat he could catch for "research purposes." One of Slaid's Lawful Bladedancers witnessed the capture and insisted on the monster's death. It was an interesting exchange because it was henchman/henchman, not PC/PC, both acting as their controlling players' thought most fitting for them in that scenario. Brutus eventually backed down and the monster was slain, but it coulda gone either way.
Macris says something about this:
I was proud of DM Jes who, when the two henchmen confronted each other, began to roll reactions to see just how hard they'd stick to their orders. I'm not sure exactly how he parsed the rolls. ACKS provides some guidance regarding obedience with modifiers following:
At any rate, henchmen aren't extensions of the player. I'm glad when push came to shove that it was run that way. It's a lot to handle as a DM. I have no interest in controlling every little action of a double handful of henchmen on top of the antagonist factions I've got to run in a session as a DM.
Wererats down. Eliminated? Who knows? Next up? I don't know. Probably pick through the aftermath of that farm, unless something lucrative presents itself.
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