The villain(ness)

Okay, so I promised some work on the villain commanding the Baskerville hounds.  I rather prefer that the Hydes not be in total control of everything, that they be just as confused about the Baskerville hounds as the PCs, but they need to focus on killing the PCs before they learn/report too much.  Although I always planned to make the Baron’s Hydes associated with the Shadow as reported in the Shadow Stalkers campaign in D20 Modern, I prefer that the Hydes find, and hold the opinion that, they’re shadowy allies are unreliable and dangerous.  This tension requires a face…

Coming at it from another end, the PCs are responsible for their actions to the Chief Constable in Larksley County.  I’ve already named him: Alexander Dennis Knox.  As the final authority of what gets done in Larksley County Constabulary, he is a prominent public figure and greatly distrusted by the tyranny sensitive villages, to say nothing of the villagers connected to the Baron’s smuggling ring.  I have a picture in my mind for the end of the campaign, where the PCs need to go and report what they’ve done to their chief Constable.  He will patiently sit at his desk, listening to all of their report.  To the fact that they killed all of the Baron’s servants, potentially the Baron himself.  To the part where they liberated 4 hostages from the basement.  To the hidden underground, and unbelievable, river that they used to make their escape.  He will grow paler as he hears this, and then he will announce that this is too much for him!  He will spring up, call in the local Anglican Rector and the Constabulary Committee, who oversees his work.  The Rector, the highest ranking priest in the village, enters, as does a secretary.  He begins trying to organize his thoughts, bandies the word confession about.  He is visibly upset, then announces that he needs a drink, takes a long draft of whiskey, then falls over dead.

What follows next is a tense exchange, as the PCs attempt to ascertain why their Chief Constable is now dead, while the Church Secretary continues to take dictation, long after she should be stopping.  Lighting a candle and preparing the wax seal should draw her into the center of the scene, where the PCs ask some tough questions of her.  

“Oh, but I know he’s dead.  For what I paid for the poison, he’d better be.”

“That fool Larksley!  All I needed him to do was collect some important deliveries from the sea.  But now he’s gone and fooled with things he never should have.  And got himself killed in the most visible way.  But you’ll get yours, Bobbies.  Don’t doubt that.  When I deliver yours and your Chiefs confession letter of premeditated theft and murder, the whole nation will care too much about the uniformed thieves in their neighborhoods to notice Canterbury…”

Pressed for more details, she will refuse, saying that the PCs are about to die so why waste breath?

Reminded that the PCs are still armed, she will announce to you that she has a dog whistle.  Blowing it summons 4 Baskerville hounds through the windows of the office.  Their fog cover is not applicable while indoors ,but they are now surrounding the PCs and should be a menacing sight.

This causes initiative.  Allow the PCs to roll initiative normally.  Secretly roll initiative for the priest, who is by the body and just stood up during this exchange.  On his initiative, have him use a power that I don’t think is in any D20 modern class: Turn Shadow.  The effect works just like any other turn/rebuke attempt, except that it is keyed to creatures of shadow rather than undead.  The priest has a backstory that he was chaplain for British Soldiers serving in the wilds of the Niger river, and therefore a healthy level 8!  As the highest level character on the scene, he will turn all of the Baskerville hounds (creatures of shadow) or paralyse them with fear.

The Secretary can choose to rebuke them, but she has got to be afraid of what the heavily armed PCs will do if she does.  He preferred action then, is to run.  In three rounds she can escape into the fog created (outdoors only) by the Baskerville hounds, who will run with her even through a successful turn (there’s four of them and they are CR3s).  What happens next is up to the PCs, as they have the initiative from then on…

Creating this scene requires some more groundwork for the setting.  That  I intend to do tomorrow.