Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 pukunui Aug 22, 2015 17:45:14	Part of the setup of Red Larch in Princes of the Apocalypse is the idea that a group of town elders have this secret society that they use "to guide town affairs, plot against business competitors, and sometimes take care of people who cause problems when it becomes clear that 'something must be done' for the good of the town." They've got the village idiot helping them do their dirty work, like stashing the bodies of the people they've murdered in a secret tunnel under the town.   Whoever came up with the Believers is clearly a Hot Fuzz fan. As am I. So I've been thinking of ways that I can add a few elements from the movie to flesh out the Believers a bit more. I don't want to go all out and have a crazy shootout at the end. I like that the Believers *aren't* a bunch of bad-ass guys with class levels and stuff. They're just a bunch of busybodies who've gotten in over their heads because of this evil dude who's seduced them to get into greater and greater evil.   However, as it's written, there aren't really many clues to the existence of the Believers prior to the events of the "Tomb of Moving Stones" scenario, let alone opportunities for the PCs to interact with them. There are some clues to the scenario itself - like the rumors of masked men hanging around in the quarry, and the one halfling wainwright who's seen his boss and some of the others sneak through a secret door behind some wagons. But there's only one NPC in town who seems to have any clue about the Believers: Minny Mhandyvver, the poultry merchant. It says she knows that "a group of town elders ... belong to a secret club and pull many strings in town" but that she also regards them as "harmless".   Now, the PCs successfully took some of the bandits from the "Bears & Bows" scenario alive and delivered them to Constable Harburk. He told the PCs that, if found guilty, they'd most likely hang. One of the bandits pleaded with the cleric PC to have mercy on her, and he agreed on the condition that she mend her wayward ways. He then set her up as a chambermaid at Mother Yalantha's instead of turning her in to the authorities.   I'm thinking that maybe the Believers can arrange to have the arrested bandits "disappear" rather than have them hanged in public, something that might trouble the constable enough (because the town elders have never interfered in his job as keeper of the peace before) that he mentions it to the PCs. And perhaps that'll prompt him to mention a couple of other unsolved disappearances that have occurred in town over the past six months or so. The PCs can then discover the bodies of all these people down in the tomb.   What do people think? Anyone got any ideas? I don't want to turn it into a full-blown murder mystery like in the movie. I mainly just want to bring the Believers to life a little more, as well as plant some seeds about them so that they don't come as a complete surprise when the sinkhole appears in the middle of town.
#2 WorBlade Aug 22, 2015 23:26:27	There is always the players accidentally run across the town idiot moving a body. Being an idiot he happily tells the players that his getting rid of the bodies of Bad People for his friends the Believers. Now the players are thinking about stopping murders. It doesn't have to be a mystery much if the idiot names the ring leaders. Then it is a moral issue of if they have the right to interfere in the town's unofficial "justice" and assuming the ringleaders are well connected and liked in town how to take them down without getting arrested - or 'disappeared' - themselves.
#3 pukunui Aug 23, 2015 1:39:12	WorBlade wrote:
#4 Karth_GoblinKnight Aug 23, 2015 13:46:59	I also came to the conclusion that the Believers were like the town elders from Hot Fuzz. Although the characters aren't an exact match, I ended up describing certain NPCs like charcters from the movie. Constable Harbuk was described like Nicholas Angel, and Larrahk was described like the chief constable. I also dropped a lot of creepy "Greater Good" references and included, in the description of the three adventurers who'd gone missing, a dwarf with "a great big bushy beard".
#5 pukunui Aug 23, 2015 16:34:13	Karth_GoblinKnight wrote: