The
Baskerville Hounds and the creatures of shadow
Much has been
said already about the monsters within the mansion, but little enough about the
monsters keeping the players from bolting out into the grey, misty
daylight. As said before, it is a
requirement that the PCs feel that the monsters within the mansion are easier
to deal with than the ones outside.
Hydes are jerks, but they have Dedicated Bystander’s hit points and
bullets work just fine on them. The
Servants at least, are vulnerable to bullets.
I’d previously
built a scene, ripped straight from Resident Evil 1 on the Playstation, where
the two Constables waiting in the paddy wagon…
Wait, wait,
damn it! I’ve stumbled upon another
linguistics puzzle. Should it be called
a paddy wagon, which is an indisputably American wording that speaks to the
police associations, as officers or criminals, with Irish migrants?[1] Sources I find seem to suggest the word is
inappropriate in Victorian England[2],
despite sharing attitudes towards the Irish.
Happy belated St. Paddy’s day everybody!
The Victorian English version would be a Black Maria (pronounced
Mariah), which has its own storied history.[3] But that, and the spotty references, creates
a problem for me: which do I use? I want
to use the right word to help build the setting, but I should be using words
that the audience, whom I expect to be mainly North Americans, would
understand.
You know what,
split the difference. I will call it a
paddy wagon, but on the side of the wagon it will read in white lettering
“Black Maria.” The rest is simply my
pronouncing it right. Ha, they are both
correct! Take that, detail spotters and
geeks the world over! Yeah, yeah, I
know, I’m a word geek. Shut it!
Okay, so two
constables are waiting in the Black Maria, and are attacked first by the
Baskerville hounds. These dogs are CR3s,
and so very dangerous if the PCs decide to stand and fight. If either of the NPC Constables live, let
them flee from the hounds and come running towards the others at the
doorstep. They very likely won’t live
through the first round though, so it should be pretty clear to the PCs that
they are not leaving anyone behind by closing the heavy oak doors against the
wagon. The horses, on the other hand…
There is one
detail that I would like to make clear.
While I at first thought the Hyde at the door would summon the
Baskerville hounds, it seems entirely against the Hydes’ interests. They try to shoo away the Constables. If the PCs push past them, they try to kill
them because they have seen too much.
Killing random humans on your doorstop is too much trouble. Someone else sics the hounds on the PCs, and
forces the confrontation.
D20 Past (page
62) describes the Baskerville hounds are coal black mastif-bloodhound dogs,
smart enough to understand one language, and fire bite attacks (1d8+1 piercing,
then add plus 5 fire), trip (with successful bite, no attacks of opportunity,
claw the fallen (successfully dropped targets give a free claw attack to the
hound (+0, 1d4+1 slashing), obscuring fog (giving 20% miss chance to creatures
adjacent, and 50% further), and scent tracking (D20 Modern page 228). It is useful that D20 Past offers numbers for
mist, but I was going to include mist anyways.
The message to the player characters, for so long as there is mist
outside your window, you are not able to fight the hounds, and you can only
sneak away if you are sure that you will not come within the 30 foot scent
tracking range of the hounds, which is going to be hard as they are all over
the grounds. One is guaranteed to be
lying up against the mansion doors, disturbed immediately if the PCs try the
doors later.
Other details
CR3 medium
sized magical beast, 26 hit points, init +2, spd 40 ft, Defense 16, touch 12,
flat-footed 14 (+2 Dex, +4 natural), BAB+4, grap+5, attack +6, Fort +5, Ref+6,
Will+1
With eight
running around outside, they are near insurmountable, and I don’t fancy giving
the PCs the ammo to try. The deaths (or
bad maiming) of the two level 1 Constables in the Black Maria should serve as
notice how easily these creatures can kill you, and even though it means
abandoning the horses, there really isn’t anything the PCs can do about it.
Tomorrow, the
hidden commander of the Baskerville Hounds!
[1]
“Police Van,” Wikipedia, accessed 18
March 2012, last updated 24 Feb 2012, available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_van#cite_note-0
[2]
For a competing view, wiseGeek suggests that it was used in parts of the UK,
but does not specify where and when. See
S.E. Smith, “What is a Paddywagon?” wiseGeek,
accessed 18 March 2012, available online at http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-paddywagon.htm
[3]
“Black Maria/Paddy Wagon,” The Word
Detective, accessed 18 March 2012, available online at http://www.word-detective.com/2008/11/18/black-mariapaddy-wagon/
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