[X][Investigate]Contact someone who caught your eye - The potbellied black man
[X][Investigate]In depth fight location
[X][Investigate]In depth autopsy
[X][Investigate]Investigate the guests
[Investigate]Contact someone who caught your eye - The potbellied black man
(That would be Mr Cheesner) 4
[Investigate]In depth fight location 72
[Investigate]In depth autopsy 98
[Investigate]Investigate the guests 67
Contact someone who caught your eye - The potbellied black man
Ronald Cheesner, the potbellied black man, is not at present in the inn. You attempt to send letters to various authorities listing him as a person of interest in a case you are investigating, but none of them get back to you.
In Depth Fight Location
This is your attempt to reconstruct the fight from the fight scene:
Two adult men walk onto the bridge. They get to fighting, throwing each other against the wooden posts and such. Acid marks on the grass show where they got inventive with magic. Then one gets dumped into the river, and lands on someone else already in the river. The person in the river is spooked, and flees (That's part of why it had initially looked like multiple attackers), a scrawny adult or a teenager, and the person on the bridge comes down to the river. The fight goes on for a bit longer in the river (It's a bit too muddy to tell how long exactly), and one adult male set of foot prints leave.
An adult female set of footprints then approaches the scene of the fight, and leaves significantly more burdened than it had been previously.
In Depth Autopsy
You are not a physiomancer, but you studied it a little so you could understand it. That training helps you with your little autopsy. The first thing your autopsy shows is that Mr Gupta's cause of death isn't as obvious as it initially looked: You've worked out the order of events fairly well.
Initially, Mr Gupta was poisoned. This was some sort of sedative. It is difficult to say if it was enough, by it's self, to kill him but coupled with the fight it would have lowered his reaction time significantly. Especially with the alcohol that was also in his system.
The second thing you find was he died well after the fight. The fight it's self wasn't a typical mage fight. There's too much damage, and none of it is severe enough. It seems more like a couple of people wailing on each other who are pissed at each other with fists, blades, and magic. Eventually, he was knocked unconscious.
He then died in his room from secondary drowning. It seems unlikely he regained consciousness in-between. So this wasn't likely a premeditated murder. Given how long it was between when he likely passed out, and when he was returned to his room, it's entirely possible he was returned by a cloaked... good Samaritan. Or by the perpetrator, sorry for what had occurred.
Actually, as a result of the autopsy, you feel like you have a much better understanding of biology. You might be willing to complete a fourth focus in pysiomancy or biomancy
Investigate the Guests.
Most of the current guests were not in the inn at the time of the death, unfortunately, but you do learn some valuable information from them.
They tell you that the murder writer Farsima Patil actually left the inn just yesterday, during your initial stages of investigation. She had been lingering, 'enjoying the atmosphere' and writing. It seems likely she had been a witness.
Other than that, you learn that this inn is along one of the most important trade routes between your district, and Valen's Wood. They also tell you that the inn is a very old building.
One, younger, guest tells you she found a secret passage in her wardrobe. Another guest, an older gentleman, complains that he thinks one of the maids pickpocketed him.
Talking with the guests, you find that the inn's price is reasonable for the services it provides. The regulars tell you that the Innkeeper frequently tries gimmicks to drum up additional business, but they never work: The only reason people stop here is because of the location. The only way the Inn can get more business is if you expand the industries and merchants of your district.
You check and memorize a couple faces for later, just in case. Especially the two that you are reasonable certain are either smugglers it are doing something else illegal.
You doubt any of these people will be involved in your case.
And then you bump into them. The most suspicious person in the inn. A lithe little creature, you manage to clamp a sorcerous shield around your coin purse before the thing can run off with it. At first it looks like a human, but you can tell it for what it really is: A demon.
It runs. You chase. It runs because you chase, and you chase because it runs. In the end Bob is the one who catches it, while you chased it, he was watching it's path. He got net, got in front of both of you, and, well... it's caught.
The little thing twists and writhes in the net, before settling on a form that looks like a raven haired little boy. Bullshit.
[][Investigate]Interview the family
[][Investigate]Interview the Priest
[][Investigate]Check the books
[][Investigate]Check outdoors
[][Investigate]Contact someone who caught your eye
-which ones?
[][Investigate]Attempt to investigate the mage's ghost again
[][Investigate]Arrest everyone
[][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[][Investigate] try to get to know Bob better
[][Investigate]Reconstruct Gupta's path
[][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
[][Investigate]outdoor spirits
[][Investigate]Interrogate the Imp
[][Investigate]Lockdown, noone in nor out
[][Investigate]Investigate the 'morgue'
[][Investigate]Look into the history of the Inn
[][Investigate]I have a theory, or I've solved all the mysteries I care to solve (Choosing this ends the investigation)
[][Investigate]Write in.
(You probably have a good idea of what happened now, but not why)
Adhoc vote count started by Tithed_Verse on Jan 12, 2018 at 10:15 AM, finished with 8 posts and 6 votes.
[X][Investigate]Interrogate the Imp
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Look into the history of the Inn
[X][Investigate]Interview the family
So lets see:
-Two adult men
--Ronald Cheesner
--Gupta
They go fight at the bridge for whatever reason, but it's mostly a spar or other nonsense.
-Someone scrawny in the river
--The Imp
-Adult woman carries victim back to the inn
--Farsima(?)
The fight was originally staged between Ronald and Gupta to drum up business for the inn, and Gupta was drugged so he'd lose, but not to kill him.
He's tossed into the water by the fight, and then knocked out and probably dragged to shore and left there without realizing the sedative made him unable to expel the water.
Then the woman(Farsima) carries Gupta back to the inn, presumably unconscious but otherwise unharmed.
For her own amusement she thought to set up a locked room mystery.
The Imp saw the first part of the fight.
Ronald and Farsima ran off as soon as they could because they realized they might be implicated.
The poisoner remains unknown.
Gupta's ghost has no idea what the fuck killed him, he slowly drowned in bed.
[X][Investigate]Interrogate the Imp
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Look into the history of the Inn
[X][Investigate]Interview the family
[X][Investigate]Interrogate the Imp
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Look into the history of the Inn
[X][Investigate]Interview the family
I think your idea is pretty near the truth, although something tells me there are details difering... Anyway, we are actually close to closing this! How many turns do we still have, @Tithed_Verse?
Each turn has been a day, even if that's not clear. You have as long to investigate as it takes me to get tired of running the little murder mystery. At least a couple more turns. Probably not five.
Did y'all see my post on empire of the fading suns?
Another thing to remember is that not every detail is relevant, I tend to use red herrings to fill the setting, though they can give you options back in regular mode
[X][Investigate]Interrogate the Imp
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Look into the history of the Inn
[X][Investigate]Interview the family
[X][Investigate]Interrogate the Imp
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Look into the history of the Inn
[X][Investigate]Interview the family
[X][Investigate]Interrogate the Imp
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Look into the history of the Inn
[X][Investigate]Interview the family
[][Investigate]Interrogate the Imp
79
[][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
2 + Spirit bonus (too bad this roll wasn't in Wing and Sale, am I right?)
[][Investigate]Look into the history of the Inn
82
[][Investigate]Interview the family
51 - Humans Malus
Check with the spirits around the inn
The spirits around the inn, or at least the ones you could find, don't know anything. Not only that, but they wasted your time. Normally you enjoy playing with spirits, but these spirits were so lonely and desperate for attention that, as soon as you opened yourself to them, they swarmed you.
Some of them rubbed themselves against you, demanding physical affection. Others wanted to chat with you about terribly important pebbles they saw in streams, or hundred-year histories of the weather. Some of the larger spirits even picked you up and tossed you around like a toy, a pair of large spirits that looked like gossamer webs dancing between the clouds lifted you up and played catch with you for a time.
Some of them play particularly rough: A spirit made entirely out of sound used you as a chew toy, leaving you with jagged bruises up your back, A iridescent butterfly-like shaped spirit landed on your nose, and then you don't remember anything for half an hour. Another spirit, which spelled strongly of cranberries, traps you in an instant of time that feels like hours, well at least it gives you some time to think.
This is the dark side of interaction with spirits. Worse, the ones that are smart enough, and know enough about human interaction to actually be useful don't come out. They tend to be less social with other spirits, and don't come out often while a witch is being mobbed.
Look into the history of the inn
The Inns history is fascinating reading. It was, in fact, originally a army post from before the Demon War, back when it was called "Fort lookout" and it was set to watch the path that the mages took on their way into this land for... stragglers... from the calamity back in the Old Lands. It fell into disuse and disrepair, and was eventually sold to a merchant-mage to serve as an inn. The merchant mage eventually had a disagreement with a local witch.
They never found the remains of either the merchant mage, nor the witch, other than some small bits and pieces. Messy.
The land was belived cursed, and sat vacant for a while, but then the mages council decided to settle this area, so that they could perform dangerous research away from central. Research that, reading between the lines, may have eventually opened the gates. The inn was seized to use as a military fort for the forefront of operations by Grigory, and used as a post-stop to coordinate between his forces, and Valen's forces, before he had shown his true colors. Both Grigory and Valen used a great deal of resources to build up the inn. Reading through the magical and physical fortifications used, you're amazed that this place looks as hospitable as it does now. It had been quite the hard point.
Despite these defenses, the inn was actually overrun three times: Once by demons, once by Grigory's forces taking it back, and once by Valen's forces taking it from the shattered remains of Grigory's forces after his death and before Sam Everwraith re-unified them.
The inn was granted as a reward to the (magicless) colonel who had lead Valen's efforts, and the soldiers had helped rebuild it as an in because they cared about him so much. Said colonel was Parvati's father, and Diederich's father and uncle had served along side him. Diederich had also served, albeit as a drummer boy. Parvati, despite her military bearing, served later as a mercenary in an uprising in a district that bordered the ocean.
Interview the Family
The family consists of the innkeeper, Parvati, her husband Diederich, her mother, her father in law, her uncle-in-law, her sister, her daughter and two sons, her eldest daughter's son, and her eldest son's husband.
You interview Parvati first. The first thing you establish is that she's rather afraid of you, and that she deals with her fear by being rather loud and aggressive in her responses. You suspect that this woman may have once served as a soldier. The second thing you establish is that she knows very little about the murders. She admits that her inn is struggling, and that she's been trying things to invigorate it. When pressed about the drugs in the dead mage's system, She says that she thinks one of the musician dancers may be drugging clients and robbing them under a guise of prostitution, but claims she's uncertain which one, a detail you find difficult to swallow.
Her husband Diederich is less outspoken than Parvati. That's not to say he's a shy little wallflower, but he knows more about what happened: He was chopping wood out back when he saw flashes on the horizon, likely the fight happening. He also knows about the imp you caught, he says that the kid's been living in one of the barns, and coming in to do little odd jobs around the place, like sweeping, for an apple, or a good chunk of bread.
Her mother is basically bedridden, and is not particularly useful to interview, and Diederich's father spends all of his time blindly whittling on the deck. A quick inspection reveals that his blindness was the result of some sort of magic injury. He served in the Demon Wars.
The sister, Zarah, is the one who found the body. She claims to have known nothing about it till she found it, and says her surprise at finding it was real. You don't really have any evidence otherwise, but you notice that Zarah's necklace has a symbol that was, historically, associated with a rebellion against the mages... in a different district that's very far from here. The caged sun is a pretty picture, so it's entirely possible that she doesn't know what it means. Zarah works mostly manual jobs like cooking and cleaning, as do most of the family members.
Deiderich's father's brother, Gunther, is also a former soldier, he was permitted to keep his weapons on discharge. It's a fascinating piece of alchemy, a crossbow that produces it's own ammo. With the right charge, that partially illusory ammo could pass right through a mage's shields. It's very easy to check his claim that he was permitted to keep it, so you doubt he would lie, but it's also possible to forge such proof if he's part of some sort of larger movement. Even with his advanced age the man moves with an almost predatory ease.
The youngest son, and the daughter's son are both fairly young, and admit to having played with the boy you now have captive. They're pranksters who steal coin and bits of this and that from guests. One of them hesitantly shows you something he stole from a 'potbellied black guest'... Mr Cheenser. It's an intricate key, forged from mana. It looks almost like stained glass. Something like this is what a mage would use to protect their personal diary, or other important small boxes... the key can be rendered inert simply by removing the manaflow. As an alchemist, though, you could reconstruct it.
The oldest son worked the kitchens. If anyone had access to Gupta's food, it would be him. Unfortunately, you can't get much information out of him. Helm seems particularly good at keeping his clap shut. He didn't see nothing and he doesn't know nothing. That's his position, and he's standing by it.
However Helm's husband, Jose, knows the most about Gupta: The man ordered truly stunning amounts of ink during his short stay, and often requested special inks, of the types used by mages, such as iridescent beetle shell ink. He often asked Jose to take packages and letters to deliver to various locations. He was a very busy man. Jose shows you a few of the sealed packages that Gupta gave him, that he hadn't finished posting prior to the death
[][Mail]Interfering with the post is bad. Send it on.
[][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
[][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Forward it to central and let them decide.
Interrogate the Imp
It takes a while to build an appropriate set of protective circles to hold the imp within. You've never actually done this before, and most books about binding demons are fairly incomplete. The damn thing keeps watching you with it's creepy grey eyes the hold time.
"I don't know noffin' about anything" The imp starts with.
"So you know about something?" You reply, honestly confused.
"What? No, I said I don't know noffing" The Imp replies
"Yeah, that's a double negative, so you do know something." You say, as you put the finishing touches on the circle.
"What... No! What?!" The Imp replies "Look, I was just minding my own business, O.K?"
"Minding your own business doing what?" You ask
"Fishing in the stream, duh." The Imp replies, like you're stupid.
"So why is it so important that you feel the need to tell me about it?" You ask
"Because those two blokes was fighting." The Imp says
"What were they fighting about?" You ask
"I don't know, one of them said 'It's all your fault! You were the one!' and the other said "I would never, I am your friend!" and the first said "I have proof" and they were all rar, and grar, and they fought."
"uh-huh. Where are you from?" You ask, finishing the touches on the truth spell. You're not a psychomancer, so you can't just rip the truth out of his mind. Your version relies on a spirit that's, for lack of a better word, allergic to lies. When someone lies, the spirit reacts in pain. The problem is that the spirit in question looks very similar to one that's allergic to truth... The other problem is that they're so sensitive that they have to be quite isolated from other possible sources of truth or falsehood. Even a false thought could trigger them if thought hard enough, and their range is so large that you need to either magically or physically isolate them. Animal's false warnings can trigger them too.
The demon seems to be able to tell what you're doing, and promptly becomes much less verbose
"Answer and I might set you free." You say, genially.
"Around." The demon says
"Around where?" You ask
"Around here." the demon sneers.
"Which direction?" You ask
"That way." The Demon says pointing. Hmmm... Not towards The Gate.
"How old are you?" You ask
"Sixteen" The demon says. Too young to have been involved in the war. Shame, you're unlikely to get questions about it, and it implies demons are breeding on your land. That's a problem.
"Your parents?" You request
"Never met them." The demon replies.
"What were you doing here?"
"Fishing. And stealing. To live." The demon says sourly.
"Are there more like you around here?"
"Dunno"
"Are you aware of any around here like you?"
"No"
"Are there more like you back where you came from?"
"Well, there'd have to be at some point, leastways where could I have come from?"
"And the fight?"
"It seemed serious. Like they were arguing over something important. Didn't really understand what."
Right, well. That's no good. How to deal with this
[][Demon]Kill the demon
[][Demon]Deliver to the council
[][Demon]Keep and experiment on the demon
[][Demon]Look for other demons, and burn them out with fire
[][Demon]Write in
[][Investigate]Interview specific family member
-Which ones?
[][Investigate]Interview the Priest
[][Investigate]Check the books
[][Investigate]Check outdoors
[][Investigate]Contact someone who caught your eye
-which ones?
[][Investigate]Attempt to investigate the mage's ghost again
[][Investigate]Arrest everyone
[][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[][Investigate] try to get to know Bob better
[][Investigate]Reconstruct Gupta's path
[][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
[][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[][Investigate]Lockdown, noone in nor out
[][Investigate]Investigate the 'morgue'
[][Investigate]I have a theory, or I've solved all the mysteries I care to solve (Choosing this ends the investigation)
[][Investigate]Write in.
Adhoc vote count started by Tithed_Verse on Feb 2, 2018 at 9:42 PM, finished with 5 posts and 4 votes.
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
[X][Demon]Keep and experiment on the demon
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
[X][Demon]Deliver to the council
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Forward it to central and let them decide.
[X][Demon]Keep and experiment on the demon
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
Adhoc vote count started by Tithed_Verse on Feb 23, 2018 at 12:36 PM, finished with 5 posts and 4 votes.
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
[X][Demon]Keep and experiment on the demon
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
[X][Demon]Deliver to the council
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Forward it to central and let them decide.
[X][Demon]Keep and experiment on the demon
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
Parvati is suspect. She's too jumpy and aggressive to be uninvolved.
My guess is she's the one who originally was going to stage a fight to drum up business and probably involved in the drugging too.
Diederich is a blank as are the seniors.
Zarah is fishy. Anti mage symbol in a different district linked to a mother who participated in an uprising in a different district, in a position to drug the food.
Gunther on the other hand is relatively unsuspect. He's up front with his fancy weapon, and the death had little to do with physical injury.
Cheenser's key is interesting. Nothing to open with it yet.
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
[X][Demon]Deliver to the council
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
Well, I think since the packages were never actually POSTED, we can skid by and take a look.
Just going to squeeze more info out of the spirits. We're STILL missing something, but we can nearly rule it to be manslaughter by now, ocne we have the spirits and the most fishy(and young) person pressed until they leak.
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Forward it to central and let them decide.
[X][Demon]Keep and experiment on the demon
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
So, I think we shouldn't be the ones to decide if this mail is valuable, since depeding on who it was writen for, we could end with problems... About the demon, I don't have a strong opinion but having experiments on him seem nice, especially if this nets us a way to find others to kill with fire.
Of the invesigation... I'll leave it to your hands, @veekie.
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
[X][Demon]Keep and experiment on the demon
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
[X][Demon]Keep and experiment on the demon
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
Ok. First. I fucking hate getting banned when I'm actually on a roll. Second, I need to stop posting in the off topic area. Third, I had to reroll everything because I lost your original lows. Your new rolls are universally better than your old ones except in "Keep and experiment on the demon". I vaguely remember your original roll for that being in the 70s, and I was going to give you the option to study your ruined holding cell to determine how the demon escaped so that you could defend future cells from that problem.
Oh, and your original roll for Zarah was in the 50's.
Your roll for the mail was in the high 30's, and your roll for the indoor spirits was in the 60's, and outdoor spirits was in the 40's. Bird catching was also in the 40's. that's what I remember. It was an incredibly mediocre turn. And now...
The bird capturing was originally
[X][Mail]This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
17
[X][Demon]Keep and experiment on the demon
99 << IF you had rolled a 100 here, I would have had the Demon knock you out and returned the favor.
[X][Investigate] Check with spirits around the inn.
58
[X][Investigate]Interview specific family member - Zarah
17
[X][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
20
[X][Investigate]try to capture some of those sweet singing bird like spirits for your tower
2
Squeezing out this post took most of today and has been very draining
This is a murder investigation. Open it and read through it
This is actually your big break. Reading through the unsent mail reveals, among other things, a locked wooden box with a manastone inset on the lid. It also reveals a great deal of obviously coded correspondence that, when you dig into it a little deeper, shows that Gupta has been spying on Cheesener, and sending the information to third parties for payment. You also find details of your citadel and lands among the unsent information. The cypher isn't a particularly secure one. For one, the letters were page after page of numbers with no letters involved. If it had been a more clever method of transmission, that left doubt as to the coded nature of the letter, it is unlikely you would have understood.
As is, the numbers were page numbers, paragraph numbers, and word numbers for a fairly familiar book, Dieter Lundstrum's 'on the nature of crystalline mana', something of an expert tome on the way that mana crystals are formed, both naturally and artificially, as well as their properties both thaumic and physical. It's particularly dry reading, a long summery of the endless experiments mages have performed since the beginning of time, but it's also a basic necessity if you plan to study any sort of alchemy.
[][box]Try the key on the box
[][box]Try to lockpick the box
[][box]Just send the box to central as evidence, along with the letters. After removing the letters describing your own lands.
Keep and experiment on the demon
You're not entirely sure how the demon escaped your makeshift holding cell. You just know that it's gone when you get back. Instead the whole cell is a blackened, burned mess, meticulously disassembled, then smashed and rent assunder. Some of the parts have been buried, and others have been lobbed into the nearby river. It's clear it wasn't an explosion, whatever did this took it's time.
Maybe the demon is dead, maybe someone rescued it, maybe you laid down the alchemical wards poorly. Unfortunately, whatever broke the wards and ruined the holding cel also did a good job of covering up the evidence of how it did it. There's simply too much damage to the holding cell to determine what failed or how. What is clear is that the Demon, or whomever was helping it, took their time to make sure everything was too damaged to gain useful forensic information from.
Check with the spirits around the inn
The Inn spirits send you on an essentially endless list of fetch quests. The boggart wants this, the brownie wants that. It's a frustrating experience, as you're used to spirits being fairly pliable. You're pretty sure several witches must visit this inn periodically, if the spirits are so full of themselves they can pick and choose their company. In the end, they don't even tell you much that's particularly useful. Just stuff you already know about the corpse being dragged in through the window.
At least you learn what happened to his ghost. He hung around for about a day, and then got chased off by a more powerful spirit. Or at least that's what they tell you. The problem is that is absolutely false: If that had happened, it would have left traces. Traces you did not detect while looking for his spirit.
Interview Specific Family Member - Zarah
Under questioning Zarah breaks. She reveals that her family, in their struggle for money, has been taking commissions from a local thieves' organization called 'the merry strangers'. They've been drugging guests so that thieves, who stay in the inn, can steal from them. Gupta was one of the guests they drugged, and at first they had thought he had died accidentally from an overdose... something that they had been very careful about.
In the resulting argument with the representatives of the Merry Strangers, they had broken off the agreement, worried that they might harm a guest more permanently than leaving their bags a few trinkets lighter.
Investigate the outdoor spirits again The spirits outside are much more helpful today. You manage to find a spirit that looks a bit like a small creature with a carved onion for a head, and a two pronged spear/fork. It is very excited to give you a byblow account of the fight. It seems that Cheesener did, in fact, strike the first blow, slapping Gupta across the face, then continuing to attack the man while Gupta was stunned. It also quickly becomes apparent that both combatants were too drunk to be capable of fully using magic. Mostly they wailed drunkenly on each other with fists and knees, only occasionally snapping out a spell.
Gupta was the better fighter, or at least the dirtier one, and eventually got the upper hand. There was a moment when Gupta could have probably disengaged, but he continued his assault on Cheesner, getting on top of the other man and punching down. He eventually started choking Cheesner out. While he was choking Cheenser, Cheesner used some magic to launch Gupta off of him, and off of the bridge into the river. Gupta hit his head on a rock in the river when he fell in, and Cheesner staggered off.
The onion headed spirit enacted the entire fight with great enthusiasm. The woman who rescued Gupta from the river? No, onion head doesn't remember that. He was too busy telling his friends about the fight.
Try to capture the bird spirits
You manage to get several of the bird spirits, as well as a burbling little creek spirit, and even an illusive spirit of music. All in all, it's a very productive day of spirit hunting. You can't wait to release them back in your tower, so that you can enjoy them. You're already planning the small enclosure to put them in, and how to ward it so they can stay and entertain you. The creek spirit is the smartest of them, she's very clever. The bird spirits are not particularly bright, and the music spirit is just hard to communicate with. They should be great to impress guests with... if your guest is a witch, or you can find a way to reveal them. You're certain you can teach them tricks.
[][Investigate]Interview specific family member
-Which ones?
[][Investigate]Interview the Priest
[][Investigate]Check the books
[][Investigate]Check outdoors
[][Investigate]Contact someone who caught your eye
-which ones?
[][Investigate]Arrest everyone
[][Investigate]What actually happened to the man's ghost?
[][Investigate] try to get to know Bob better
[][Investigate]Reconstruct Gupta's path
[][Investigate]Investigate the Outdoor spirits again
[][Investigate]Lockdown, noone in nor out
[][Investigate]Investigate the 'morgue'
[][Investigate]I have a theory, or I've solved all the mysteries I care to solve (Choosing this ends the investigation)
[][Investigate]Write in.
[X][box]Try the key on the box
[X][Investigate]What actually happened to the man's ghost?
[X][Investigate]Reconstruct Gupta's path
[X][Investigate]Check the books
[X][Investigate]I have a theory, or I've solved all the mysteries I care to solve (Choosing this ends the investigation)
I think we got everything we could get out of this. Been long enough that the pieces aren't quite fitting though, but basically it's not murder, its manslaughter because they were both drunk when they fought. Also the inn is running a goddamned scam, but thats not really our problem?
[X][box]Try the key on the box
[X][Investigate]What actually happened to the man's ghost?
[X][Investigate]Reconstruct Gupta's path
[X][Investigate]Check the books
[X][Investigate]I have a theory, or I've solved all the mysteries I care to solve (Choosing this ends the investigation)
I think we got everything we could get out of this. Been long enough that the pieces aren't quite fitting though, but basically it's not murder, its manslaughter because they were both drunk when they fought. Also the inn is running a goddamned scam, but thats not really our problem?
I have no clue? I wrote in there. I'll fix it today. But, in summary, the inn has been accepting money to drug specific guests, and Gupta was one such victim.
The drugged people are usually robbed while sleeping.
Forced labor or large fines are both typical for manslaughter. Corporal punishment (Torture not leading to death) is usually provided as an alternate option. Typically two thirds of the fine is split between the court and the state, and the remaining 1/3 goes to the family of the deceased.
This is, sadly, a middle ages society and not a modern one. Prisons are not places of rehabilitation, but mostly places of forced labor where the prisoners pay off their debts by working.
Murder tends to lead to a death sentence, obviously.
God's cursed war has always been my special little baby. The first time I ran a game in the setting was back in 1996, when I was 8. I had , earlier that year, over the course of a 3 day car ride with nothing to do other than read, I had abruptly gone from a 3rd grade reading level to a college reading level. It was based off of several of the young adult fictions I had gotten my hands on.
I was mostly attracted to a certain cover style that was popular back before I was born. "Death metal CD cover" is the best way I could describe it.
The primary inspiration was Andre Norton's ElvenBane series. Really, that was the biggest inspiration.
The second biggest inspiration was an old Bullfrog game: Magic Carpet. I wanted to give players the feel of constructing their tower/fortress/base and wandering around killing monsters and destroying the 'enemy' base early on. There's still a lot of aspects of that game in the setting, especially in the past history.
Secondary inspirations included The Belgeraid (Specifically Polgara the sorceress), though that one has *really* fallen out of service in the setting. The dragon riders of Pern was another inspiration, as was The Rowan and To Ride the Pegasus all by Ann McCaffry, books I still have in my library to this day. I was also inspired by The Immortals by Tamorra Pierce, and by several depictions of magic as draining life force to function.
In the initial format, magic was strictly linguistically based: Mages learned the programming code to the universe, and cast magic by describing very precisely what they wanted to happen in this language: Based on Polgara the Sorcereress and some book by Piers Anthony.
I dropped that with the release of Final Fantasy 7, and Mako Energy sucking up the earth's energy, though that form of magic remains in Binding.
Anyway, the biggest thing that formed the core of God's cursed war, baked in from the beginning thanks to Andre Norton's ElvenBane, is that the mages are a facist/oligarchy/demi-feudal state that does not recognize other states as legitimate. Later I would see echos of this in Warhammer 40k, which at first drew me towards the setting, but then caused me to reject Warhammer 40k as The God's Cursed war was always about making the PC fed up with the mage council until he rebelled against them, and 40k… discouraged that too heavily.
Tamora Pierce's 'circle of magic' series caused me to add witches to God's Cursed war, inspired by Triss's communication with spirits.
The concept of 'dead man's shoes' i.e. assassination as the primary means of advancement… I want to say it came from Terry Prachet, but it didn't. I think it actually came from the Drow.
Early on, the setting was about reclaiming the land from the monsters: Misshapen disasters of magic that resulted from a war between mages. But quickly I started having the realities of managing a small kingdom intrude into that fantasy: I liked making people run through little murder mysteries to dispense justice in their own way.
The history of God's cursed war gradually solidified over time. One of the biggest inspirations for it were David Webber and David Drake military fiction books: There was this book, who's title I've forgotten, where a general reconquers a planet with the help of a supercomputer.
I decided that the most logical way for how the universe got to where it got was a series of distabalizing events, including wars, that allowed opportunists to take control of the government and turn it from something functional to what it is now.
I started out with only 1 former mage empire, which collapsed under their own stupidity (Ecological collapse from too much magic use). eventually I built up at least 3 former mage empires, 2 witch empires, 1 priest empire, and a secret empire of werewolves. The nature of empires is to rise and collapse, after all.
The first enemies in God's cursed war were golems made by prior mage empires and bandits. I added the 'demons' later based, in part, on The Thing from The Thing. They grew some influence from the Forsaken from Tiberium Sun and the Zerg from StarCraft as well as Erdrich abominations in general.
So… during that process I read a lot of baby racism books: Books that inherently depicted non-western societies as hostile and alien. And I took away completely the wrong unintended message from them. One of the terms I learned in that time was Hydraulic Empire, so some magic empires were based on the idea of that, because it was an interesting idea, but instead of 'water' being controlled it was 'magic'. That helped me build the history of the current mage empire (though it would not call itself that) as having been, initially, a hydronic empire focused on protecting the natural resource of magic from over-exploitation so they wouldn't ruin their ecology that was taken down by radical fascist/capitalists from within who co-opted the mage council (and killed the folks originally on it) in the middle of the war to make the shithole that the mage empire had become. This also tied neatly with the ElvenBane idea of the elves that now ruled being the backstabbing betrayers who backstabbed the ones who lead the ritual to flee their home world.
God's Cursed war was always Afro-fantasy. As a kid who had the nickname of 'The Jew' growing up because I looked visually Jewish and who received racism as a result, I was sick of books in which all the characters were lilly white. Almost all of the mages who were not Player Characters were described as visually dark skinned: usually a generic brown. The idea that the mages were originally refugees fleeing environmental collapse made me make the locals ethnically different from them. I played with having them be oriental, but I didn't like the results and so I made them white, with castles and nobility like old Europe. With that I also solidified the mages into having more Afro-futuristic architecture… Afro Futurisim and crystals.
The oldest mage empire is visually inspired by Aztech architecture, and the werewolf empire by Chinese architecture. The idea of east-Asian werewolves honestly tickled me pink with how often werewolves are depicted as western.
Another way in which I wanted to challenge my own, and other's inherent biases as folks living in the northern hemisphere was the idea that the north was cold and the south was hot. So I reversed that. God's Cursed War is solidly set in the southern hemisphere. The size of the setting has varied, at its largest it was about as big as the western half of the US from the Mississippi west. At its smallest it's been the size of France. I'm still playing with it to get a size that feels comfortable for the stories I want to tell, not too big, not too small.
US geography inspired the God's Cursed War geography, with the planes on the east and the ocean on the west with tall mountains running in between.
as I said, I've been working on this for most of my life. I hope everyone who played with me enjoyed it. I always take Player Characters and turn them into historical figures: Galen was my friend Fletcher, Szenna my friend Crystal, Valen my friend Nathan, and so on and so forth. In the CYOA I made based on this Shelby Wroth and Alexus Tonjam both make appearances as potential companions.
I will probably come back to, and run, another game of God's Cursed War some day. Thank all of you for playing. This setting was me baring my heart to you all, and I appreciated how much people liked it.
The In Universe history of the God’s Cursed war, and it’s many itterations prehistory.
I did not initially have an origin story for the God's Cursed war setting as a whole. But I have Christian friends, and the thing about Christians is they always want to know how the universe in setting was created. There also used to not be gods nor religion in the setting, but, once more, I have Christian friends and they wanted me to include religion. Ironically, and partly in retaliation, I decoupled the idea of religion from the idea of gods: Most of the religions in God's Cursed War would be called 'philosophies' in our world. They're closer to Vedic or Confucianism than actual religions. The church of the One God was invented mostly because I thought my Christian Friends would like it, but ironically most of my IRL Christian friends have agreed with the mage council that it was dangerous and should be exterminated for it's ability to disrupt magic.
I think that the Christian friends maybe didn't like it because it's a structured as very nihilistic or revolutionary religion that wants to tear down the current power structures.
The other major religions fall broadly into two categories that I *internally* call the Sheppard and the Wolves after Vampire the masquerade: They're a set of competing philosophies about the role of magic, mages, and people in the world. Some of these philosophies argue that, if you don't have magic, you're not a person. I chose not to have the PC on space battles nor sufficient velocity engage with the religious aspect of the setting. My Christian Friends were, uh, actually really into it and enjoyed role playing debating tenants and stuff with other characters, but it felt sorta niche.
So it started out with non-physical entities that existed in the void. These evolved into predators, prey, and things that were in between. They created a world to play on, and got themselves tied up with the physicality of it. They became the first spirits and gods (the predators became the gods, the prey became the spirits).
Humans eventually came into being. There's debate about how early in human history witches actually emerged, debate I don't want to resolve, but the first magic humans wielded was wielded indirectly. The first mages were sorcerers, born of witches and powerful spirits, they had stronger souls than a normal mage. Souls so strong that they could manipulate magic like the spirits.
They noticed that Gods ate spirits, and worse that Gods preferentially preferred the souls of mages and…well it started a war between the mages and the gods, resulting in the accords currently in place that strictly limit the behavior of gods so that they *can't* take without giving, and also banning them from randomly munching human-friendly spirits. This also established that the Gods must create afterlives for the human souls they eat so that the souls don't suffer while being digested.
My Gods are all based on IRL gods because it's easy and it lets me make up a ludicrously large number of complete gods with reasonable domains that people would actually want to worship in order to beg stuff of them. I do not like the stereotypically evil gods that offer little to nothing to their worshippers.
Reincarnation: Probably doesn't work how you think. The only way for a person to reincarnate as completely themselves is for their ghost to possess a baby. When person dies, their ghost lingers, slowly losing parts of itself. These parts can be attached to, and mixed with, new soul stuff. Generally when someone reincarnates, they reincarnate in pieces. One soul might get the memory of a climactic battle. Someone else might get their love of licorice candies. Only strong emotions and memories can be passed on in this way. Most people have a few reincarnated bits of several other people.
That's the prehistory and the mythology dealt with.
I'm… not actually very familiar with Christianity. I think you can see that in how my Demons are structured and the lack of Angels among other things. I've been into a church maybe 8 times in my life. I don't really understand why or how I managed to get a collection of very Christian friends. They don't mind that I'm an atheist raised by atheists but occasionally they get really weird. I'm honestly more familiar with Norse, Roman/Greek, Babylonian/Semitic and other pantheonic religions than I am with Christianity just because it's fun reading the stories of the silly stuff their gods get up to, and I always love stories of The Great Sage Equalling Heaven.
Galen, the peacemaker, was my first player ever. This was before I'd switched from binding to sorcery, elementals, and physiomancy.
The player who played Galen wanted to make a peace treaty with the demons, refugees from other realities.
We ended the game when I moved away, and I decided that having him be betrayed by the council was a poetic ending for future games.
The player who played Valen wanted to industrialist his district. He mostly wanted to deal with internal issues and ignored and did not engage with the greater conflict. Much of the systems of rulership I developed were due to him.
(Sorcery was inspired, mostly, by Robert Aspen's myth adventures)
My first player after I'd dropped (mostly) the magic as programming thing was Szenna, who was a sorcerer. She destroyed the dark portal (inspired by Warcraft) and herself in a fit of rage after a npc she really liked was killed. I've modified that npc to be Galen because, well, poetic. She was also the first character who interacted with spirits, later becoming codified as 'witch sight'
Pohekel was a player who pushed the limits of elements. Working with him I came up with the more robust system of elementalism I'm using in my CYOA, he was a more recent player than you guys.
Alexus Tonjam, on SB was my first demon blooded PC. I had no idea how he was going to play when I started with him. I liked the results!
I had other players who played roles in the game, including my christian friends who usurped the mage council… many of the members of the current mage council are named after their characters! But none so pivotal as those, who got special places in the history of Gods Cursed War as a result.
