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The Enemy Within (WHF Witch Hunter Quest)

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dptullos said:
The last chapter offered a good explanation for why this decree is so necessary.
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You could make that argument in isolation, yes.

Do keep in mind the general state of the empire though. People will have thoughts about this. Especially when combined with the whole Ubersreik situation.

Between severely alienating the nobility and alienating a good deal of the *cough* traditionally *cough* minded population of the Empire/Reikland, dear old Karl is looking like quite the loony. A rather sudden change for someone who is often seen as a rather skilled political operator to put things mildly.

Nevermind the reasons why these edicts got passed in the original even if Maugan might shake that up a bit.

In terms of hunting cultists. There is the obvious "It's much easier to deduce a cultist by his mutation than by proper investigative work" especially if the cultist in question is of high standing. The edict is not all sunshine in that regard. Will it prevent some innocents from getting killed? Yes. Will it make things easier for chaos cults? also yes.
 
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Dutch said:
You could make that argument in isolation, yes.

Do keep in mind the general state of the empire though. People will have thoughts about this. Especially when combined with the whole Ubersreik situation.

Between severely alienating the nobility and alienating a good deal of the *cough* traditionally *cough* minded population of the Empire/Reikland, dear old Karl is looking like quite the loony. A rather sudden change for someone who is often seen as a rather skilled political operator to put things mildly.

Nevermind the reasons why these edicts got passed in the original even if Maugan might shake that up a bit.

In terms of hunting cultists. There is the obvious "It's much easier to deduce a cultist by his mutation than by proper investigative work" especially if the cultist in question is of high standing. The edict is not all sunshine in that regard. Will it prevent some innocents from getting killed? Yes. Will it make things easier for chaos cults? also yes.
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People had thoughts about Magnus the Pious legalizing "witches". I completely agree that this edict will be unpopular. It might even be unwise, because Karl Franz does not have the gods sending unsubtle signs of their blessing and favor upon his leadership. There's a good chance that this leads to disaster, the collapse of Karl Franz's reign, and the edict being revoked in a way that makes future Emperors avoid this subject like the plague.

However, this is what it means to make structural reforms. Changing the big things is never easy, but if you want the Empire to improve than it has to be done. The creation of the Colleges of Magic was not popular at the time, and wizards still aren't trusted in the current era, but their presence makes the Empire stronger.

It is a mistake to think in terms of hunting cultists. The best way to prevent the formation of cults is to cut off their recruits, and that is precisely what this edict does. If mutants are marked as heretical enemies of the gods, monsters that can never find acceptance among decent people...well, there are groups that will accept them. Cults that will welcome mutants into a new life as servants of the Ruinous Powers.

If a "mutant" is accepted into civilized society, he is much less likely to betray his friends and family to join a forbidden cult where membership carries an automatic death sentence. If he's already living under the death sentence, might as well be hung for sheep as lambs!

The best solution to crime is to change the circumstances that make crime attractive. Investigators will just have to do their jobs rather than relying on signs of visible mutation. Besides, it's not like cultists all have visible mutations, and those who do are often capable of concealing them. If you can find a cult leader because he has a third eye in the middle of his forehead, then he's a scrub and he was going to get caught anyway.
 
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My man. Not all chaos cults are made up around poor downtrodden people who had no other choice in life.

To name a few examples. You could have a guy wanting fame and fortune for the next x amount of years of his life. Or a bunch of folk who think of magic as a way to guide the invisible hand of the market. Or a bunch of well of tutors hoping to influence a royal heir for a scheme twenty years in the making.

dptullos said:
The best solution to crime is to change the circumstances that make crime attractive. Investigators will just have to do their jobs rather than relying on signs of visible mutation. Besides, it's not like cultists all have visible mutations, and those who do are often capable of concealing them. If you can find a cult leader because he has a third eye in the middle of his forehead, then he's a scrub and he was going to get caught anyway.
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You're talking about the bureaucratic, feudal and decentralized shithole that is the Empire. Aside asking it to take on the colossal task of improving material conditions in a way that even modern states struggle to do, just saying that investigators will simply have to investigate more isn't going to cut it. Most of the time local interests, be they nobles or guilds, have the power to just stonewall any kind of investigation into the ground. This isn't 40K where an inquisitor can do whatever he wants, nevermind the even less professional investigators that don't have the reputation of the templars backing them.

In this setting, sometimes the only way to stop a chaos plot from unfolding is shooting first and asking questions later. With mutations and other discriminatory signs being the sole evidence you can show the local community to make sure they don't lynch you in return. Is this sad? Yes.

In other words. The point isn't that the cult leader has his third eye and will hide it. The point is that the third eye will safe your skin after you've just shot Grand Duke von Sweinstein or Guild Master Anna Longneck.
 
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XIII - Into the Dark
  • Threadmarks
    • Recruiting Adventurers won the vote, and I decided to spice it up a bit by letting the thread help me generate the characters. We ended up with:

    1. Frederich Audobahn, a civic-minded road warden who would never do anything unethical, swear on his mother's grave
    2. Spätin, a skilled duellist in the Estalian style and not at all a witch making the unconventional decision to work for a templar!
    3. Adhema of Annsbruck, a human merchant who mostly deals in grain of various kinds and is actually really excited to get a shot at doing something more interesting, if only for a day!
    4. Ozzy Banbury, a halfling lawyer (well, law student) who loves to appear calm and in control and is in fact one bad day from trying to beat people to death with his textbooks.

    For their stats, I elected to use generic templates for their social class plus their key skills, with random talents rolled as appropriate to add a little flavour. Those talents were:

    Frederich - Animal affinity, attractive, very resilient
    Spatin - Luck, Super Numerate, Suave
    Adhema - Coolheaded, Linguistics, Sharp
    Ozzy - Sturdy, Sixth Sense


    XIII - Into the Dark

    Sigmar is not a god of war. His is not the primal fury of Ulric, or the calculating strategy of Myrmidia. Yet he is a god of civilisation, and in this land there can be no such thing without the will to defend it. The knightly orders can deploy to the battlefield in whole hosts of heavy cavalry, while the priests of the Order of the Torch lead their communities in the formation of militia under the leadership of elite 'hammer-bearers', but this is not the way of the witch hunters. Your hammer is the faith of the masses, your sword the arm of the common man, and you wield them with the same confidence and skill as any general upon the field of battle.

    A rapid circuit through the beer tents, a speech or two and a few gold pieces flashed around - this is all it takes to recruit a team willing to follow you into the darkness in pursuit of a monster. There are dozens of volunteers, but given the tight confines you expect and the prospect of a single quarry, you elect to stop at four. Four men and women of Bögenhafen, united by the pursuit of gold and glory and the thrill of adventure, placing their lives into your hands without a backwards glance. You gather them close as you make your way into town, tracking down the nearest of the manholes that allow entrance into the sewers, and that is where the problems begin.

    "I estimate the shaft descends seven, or perhaps eight feet down. There are handholds cut into the brickwork, though how sturdy they are I cannot say," Ozzy Banbury says, crouched by the manhole cover and peering down into the darkness below. He's a halfling, and more importantly he is a legal clerk who is hoping you can put in a good word for him with the cult's own legal scholars. "Then about the same again in open space until you drop into the effluent."

    You nod confidently, sprinkling a vial of perfume across your handkerchief and tying it across your lower face. The young noble who donated it seemed far more taken with the daring heroism of your quest than any factual analysis, but one does not get far as a templar by dissuading such impressions. "There should be a ladder, either secured in the shaft or attached nearby."

    "Found it!" Adhema of Annsbruck is likewise more taken with the romance of your job than the specifics, but there is nothing wrong with her eye, nor her willingness to break open the nearby storage box in search of the ladder within. You reward her display of initiative with the perfume and a spare scrap of fabric, and she makes sure to copy your earlier preparations exactly, her curly hair bouncing wildly as she rocks back and forth on her heels.

    "It seems a most perilous climb," your third recruit says, hand on her hip as she squints down the shaft, her button nose wrinkling at the echo of the stench that rises from below. She gave her name as Spätin, claiming to be a wandering duelist in the style of the legendary Figueroa, but you have your doubts. You too were trained in the duelist's art as a young man, and if there is one thing you remember it is that any man can claim to be the disciple of a great master from a foreign land, for who has the wit or ability to check? "One must descend via handhold alone until the base of the shaft, then position the ladder between nook and walkway without letting go, or else pay for their failure with a face full of shit."

    "Just so," you nod, lighting your torch from the one that Adhema holds, "Which is why Herr Frederich will do it, with his lantern to light the way."

    The road warden pouts at that, his eyes twin pools of soulful misery, but he does not protest. He knows he is the best choice for the job, being fitter and more used to physical labour than the others, and he knows his place is beneath you. In truth, his quiet obedience is more gratifying than you might have expected, but you can interrogate that feeling later. Or, ideally, never.

    Frederich makes an average (+20) athletics test, skill is 55, roll is 32, pass.

    To your mild surprise, Frederich makes the climb down without too much difficulty, taking the ladder when you pass it down to him and bracing it between the lower handholds and the walkway below. Seeing as it does not collapse under him, you decide to commit to your course and are the next one to descend, grimacing at the layer of green slime that seems to have accumulated in the handholds since last someone cleaned them. If someone has ever cleaned them. The ladder rocks a bit under your weight but with Frederich bracing the other end you are soon able to finish the descent, clearing the way for the next member of your little band to follow.

    The sewer tunnel is perhaps three or four yards across at its widest point, flat at the bottom save for a narrow depression that channels the waters of the river Bögen through the township and carries the filth of ten thousand citizens away to some forgotten inlet. The walkways on either side are perhaps a yard across each, just wide enough for one man to squeeze past another if he is careful, and even through the perfumed cloth wrapped around your face the stench is indescribably foul. It transcends mere scent in its potency, making your eyes water and your tongue burn, and for the first few moments it is all you can do to concentrate on shallow breathing and keeping the contents of your stomach where they belong.

    Upon entering the sewers, every character makes an average (+20) endurance test.

    Frederich rolls 38 against 65, passes.
    Spätin rolls 78 against 50 and fails
    Adhema rolls 69 against 55 and fails
    Ozzy rolls 68 against 55 and fails.
    Markus rolls 60 against 72 and passes.

    While in the sewers, Spätin, Adhema and Ozzy are afflicted with Nausea. Any failed roll involving physical movement stuns them for a turn as they are overcome with vomiting, dry heaving and other maladies.

    You do passably well, as does the road warden who went down first, but the remaining members of your little band are clearly less resilient. Spätin manages to make it perhaps ten heartbeats before pulling her handkerchief out of the way and vomiting into the toxic stew, and while the others keep their food down they are clearly suffering.

    "Perhaps this was not such a fine idea," Adhema groans, one hand clamped around her nose and the other holding a burning torch aloft, "Oh merciful Shallya I can taste it…"

    "Spare a thought for those of us who mother nature has placed in close proximity," Ozzy the halfling says through gritted teeth, chewing on his lip hard enough you are sure it must be causing him pain, "Gods as my witness I will campaign for whichever councilman promises to clean this place up next season."

    "Then let us begin our work promptly, to finish sooner," you say, hefting your torch and stepping back a bit to allow the rest of your comrades to squeeze past you into the middle of the pack, "Master Frederich, lead the way. We must begin by locating the beast's entry point, and hope to track it from there."

    You've never thought of yourself as claustrophobic, but the sewer tunnels beneath Bögenhafen are doing their best to challenge that judgement. The whole place is tight and cramped, barely high enough in places for you to proceed at anything more than a stoop, and the walls are stained with all manner of slowly congealing sludge that shimmers in the firelight. There is no natural illumination, only the shallow pool of light given off by Frederich's lantern and the burning torches that you and Adhema hold, and the shadows seem to crawl closer with every step like wolves stalking their prey through the night. What sound that penetrates this far underground becomes strange and distorted, the merriment of the carnival and the hustle of busy streets rendered alien by broken echoes. Adhema in particular seems to be suffering down here, her desire for grand adventure and exciting stories running headfirst into the miserable reality, but any reassuring banter would ruin the hierarchy upon which your authority rests, and so you say nothing as you proceed.

    "Blood," Frederich says at last, kneeling down to touch something on the floor of the tunnel ahead of you. You can't see what he is touching from here, at the back of the party, but the narrow tunnel that branches off from this main passageway and slopes away upwards looks about the right size for the passageway the beastman escaped down. "Looks like it cut itself on something, squirming down here."

    "A good thing it did not get stuck," Ozzy offers in a thoughtful voice, "Blocking those pipes is a serious offence under Bögenhafen law, though I cannot recall any mention of why. Something to do with safety measures, I think?"

    You have no idea either, though that is hardly a surprise. There are any number of laws on the books across the Empire which seem strange or nonsensical to the average person, but all have some serious concern or prior incident justifying their presence. You don't need to understand the law to obey it.

    "Then we follow the blood," you say firmly, nodding to Frederich as he rises back to his feet, "Be cautious, however, for a wounded beast is often…"

    Something moves in the shadows just beyond the torchlight, and with a grim frown you break off your address and raise the torch high to see. The shifting firelight falls across a section of the tunnel roof that ripples like seawater, and it is only when the first of a hundred beady red eyes opens that you realise what it is you are looking at, and by then it is too late.

    With a shrieking chorus of squeaky cries, the swarm of bats swallows you whole.

    The band has disturbed a colony of bats, which panic and swarm them. This requires two rolls - the first is an opposed weapon skill or dodge roll to avoid taking damage. The second is an average (+20) dodge test to avoid falling in the sewage while disorientated.

    Markus rolls 27 against 58 brawling, the bats roll 04 against 30. Both sides have +3SL and the tie is resolved in favour of the party with the higher base skill, so Markus manages to fend them off. He then rolls dodge at 46 and rolls 38, managing to keep his footing.

    Frederich wins the weapon skill.
    Spätin fails by -5SL and takes 4 wounds as a result.
    Adhema just about manages to fend the bats off.
    Ozzy also fails by -5SL and takes 4 wounds as well.

    Frederich and Ozzy then lose their footing and fall into the sewage.

    Given the unsanitary conditions and her wounds, Spätin takes a +40 endurance test and fails on a 77. She has contracted a minor infection. Ozzy, having fallen into sewage with a bleeding wound, makes the test at challenging (+0) difficulty and on a 94 suffers a catastrophic failure. He has been exposed to the Bloody Flux (what we know as dysentery).

    Neither of the wounded know this yet, as both conditions have an incubation period.

    Gritting your teeth, you raise your arms in front of your face and take a defensive stance, holding your ground as the bats swirl around you. Their furry bodies smack into you little strange missiles, their shrieks and cries are like needles being driven into your ears, but they are only animals. There is no malice in their swarm, only surprise and alarm, and they fear the fire you bear enough that the assault ends within moments. Then the swarm is gone, flowing away down the tunnel and up the shaft to the world above, and you are able to lower your arms and check in on the rest of your companions.

    "Bastard little furry shits," Spätin growls, all sophistication vanishing from her accent as she pulls back her sleeve to reveal a bleeding cut on her arm, "Little fucks have claws, damn it. Ah, shit, that stings…"

    She'll need to get that washed, and soon, but in your judgement she will likely be fine. More concerning Frederich and Ozzy, the road warden grunting as he hauls the law student out of the toxic mire of the central channel. They both went in, it seems, but where the human is tall enough to only contend with some horrible stains on his hose, the halfling was fully submerged. He looks downright traumatised by the experience, hunching over against the wall and emptying his guts in great heaving motions as he claws at his face with stubby hands.

    "Steady yourselves," you say sternly, for there are no kind words that can make anyone feel better about being swarmed by bats and dunked in sewage, "Sigmar's work will not be interrupted by even the harshest of ordeals. We continue."

    None have the confidence or lack of sense to argue with your decree, and so after less than a minute your small band presses on, following the patchy trail of blood that the beastman left behind it. You wonder if such creatures must contend with the same weaknesses of flesh as men do, if infected wounds and the coming of plague troubles them as it does your own kind. The beastmen are reputed to be resilient creatures by nature, else how could they survive in the wild absent any civilisation, but what limits if any exist on that endurance? Perhaps you will ask the doktor when you return his specimen to him, living or dead.

    "Huh," Frederich says a few minutes later, pausing once more to squint down a small side passage, "There's a door here."

    "What, an actual door?" Spätin slips past him and into the side passage, pushing at something you cannot see with a dull thump, "Yeah, no kidding. Locked, though. Didn't think there were many basements in town, what with the river so near and all."

    "Smugglers, most likely," Adhema says with a shrug, moving forward just enough for you to reach a point where you can see the nook and the heavy wooden door set flush against the stone within. The merchant points to a stone just past the entrance, where a small set of strange looking symbols have been scratched into the rock. "Yeah, see that? Thief sign, I think. Don't know what it means, exactly, but criminal groups would love something that lets them move goods from the waterfront to their storehouse without going through the inspectors. Even if it does stink of shit."

    "You know more than most would about such lawbreakers, Frau Adhema," you say in a stern voice, looming over her in the darkness of the tunnel, "I trust you came by such knowledge honestly."

    The merchant blanches slightly at your question, but somewhat to your surprise it is Frederich who steps in to reply. "Nothing to worry about, milord. Any soul that works the roads or markets knows such things exist," the road warden says casually, the ease in his words not at all matching the wary caution in his eyes, "Every time the powers that be pass a new tax, some clever rogue figures out a way to get around it. Then the powers have to pass another tax to make up the shortfall, and around it goes. Not always illegal, neither. At one point I got told to collect a toll for everyone with a hat that weren't stitched a certain way, an' within a week the local seamstresses were doing very nicely for themselves."

    You consider that for a moment, troubled by the culture of disdain for the laws such a pattern would encourage, to say nothing of the burden that might be placed on someone who truly does try to comply with all these many and varied laws. Then you dismiss the thought from your mind; it is not relevant to your work and so is not within your remit to pursue, and neither are these potential smugglers save perhaps as future witnesses.

    "Very well, then," you say, noting how Adhema seems to deflate in sudden relief, "Onwards. The beast cannot have gotten much further, bleeding like this."

    Indeed, you are a little surprised you have not encountered it already. There is so much blood on the stonework now that you can see it without needing to so much as crouch down, glistening red and black in the torch light, pooling on the ground and smeared across the walls. Did your quarry likewise run across some of the wildlife in these tunnels, or was it perhaps a more serious injury from the rusted grate or some jagged piece of stone? Either way your expectation of a body at the end of the trail only grows, and when at last Frederich calls back that there is some manner of blockage in the sewer channel ahead, at first you feel only grim satisfaction. Then the road warden curses, and your heart sinks in your chest.

    "It's a dwarf, sir," he calls back, and with a muttered curse you begin carefully pushing your way past your comrades, taking care not to tip any of them into the sewage as you make your way to the front, "Or… maybe a halfling? Hard to tell."

    At first you are concerned that you might have encountered a victim of the beast you hunt, but a quick look at the body dissuades you of that. Beastmen are vicious beasts, but the wounds on this poor soul's body were clearly inflicted by knives of some kind. Great ragged cuts cover the dwarf from ankle to neck, and his left arm ends in a ragged stump that is already beginning to bloom with some kind of ochre fungi.

    "Oh, I think… I think I know him," Ozzy chokes out, one hand over his mouth as he peers past you at the body, "That's Gottri. He's a local vagrant, kept being hauled before the courts for minor debts and public nuisance."

    Something about the scene tickles your instincts, but it is only when you look at the poor dwarf's chest that mere suspicion becomes certainty. There is a long, ragged cut running from Gottri's groin up to his chin, and the ribs of his chest have been pulled apart on either side to expose the glistening innards within. He has, in short, been subject to the same kind of wounds as Adolphus Kuftsos was.

    "Be wary," you say, drawing your silvered sword in one hand, wishing that you could hold the pistol as well but unwilling to set down the burning torch, "This is the second corpse I have seen bearing such wounds in this town. There may be worse than beasts in these tunnels."

    None of the others seem enthused by this news, and nor should they if they claim to remain sane, but you will not set your task aside just yet. Now it is your turn to take the lead, making your way cautiously through the sewer with the torch held aloft before you, peering into the gloom with sword held ready. The blood trail carries on through the darkness for only a few dozen more paces, abruptly terminating at another door set into the side of the tunnel, this one boasting a metal grate at face height for those within to see who seeks entry. There are bloody hoofprints on the wood and smears of gore around the metal bars where the beastman clambered up and squeezed itself through, but looking beyond you see nothing that would compel it to have made such an effort, only a small stone chamber lit by a smoky torch.

    "There is something wrong about this place," Ozzy says in a quiet voice, hunching in on himself, "I cannot be the only one who recognises that, surely?"

    "No, I feel it too," Spätin comments, though her face when she looks down at the halfling seems more surprised than sympathetic, "As if there is something watching us."

    "Really? It just looks like a room to me," Adhema frowns, clearly dubious, and when you look over Frederich you see that he too is more baffled than wary. You won't deny that there is part of you which wonders why, exactly, the beastman chose to try and breach this place, but there's nothing notably off about it.

    There is no sign of a conventional lock on the door, but it does not give when you push at it, clearly barred from the other side. For a moment you hesitate, then you sigh and hand the torch over to Frederich, reaching through the bars with your now free hand. Sure enough, a few moments of groping around finds a simple bolt holding the door in place, and when you pull it back the whole thing swings open in silence. After a moment's consideration you elect to leave the torch with the road warden, drawing one of your pistols instead, just in case the little beastman you hunt seeks to turn like a wolf at bay. Then you lead the way inside.

    The chamber beyond is sparse and largely unadorned, the only entrance the door that now lies behind you, the only piece of furniture a small cabinet placed against one wall. It is a room built for a single purpose, and a single glance is all you need to reveal just what. On the ground a slender copper ring three paces wide rests within a narrow groove carved to hold it, and within that ring a seven-pointed star has been marked out in blue-black paint. Black candles stand at each vertice, and at the heart of the array an equine skull with two fire-blackened horns has been laid out facing the door. More bones are piled up in the corners of the room, many of them bloodstained and broken, and you suspect that if you look you will find the remnants of your pigman among them.

    "The hell is this place?" Frederich says in a wary tone, drawing his sword in a free hand as he looks warily around. Behind him, Spätin and Adhema linger near the door, while Ozzy is studying the pile of bones with a sick sort of fascination on his filth-encrusted face.

    "A temple," you say in a grim voice, "where worship is given to things that no man ought to heed."

    "Correct."

    In the ritual circle the candles ignite, purple flames belching forth great clouds of blue-white smoke that flows like water through the air. Ice coats the ground within the copper ring and the distant sound of whispering fills the air as the smoke congeals into a single lumpen mass, and at the heart of it all something dark and foul opens nine golden eyes and smiles at you through a lamprey's maw.

    "Ah…" speaks the apparition, hidden in the smoke as it tastes the air with a serpent's tongue three yards long, "A thief, a witch and a kinslayer… welcome, sinners, and beware. You tread on holy ground, and I am its guardian."

    A daemon. You have slain witches and hunted beasts, but this thing exceeds any of those by far, and in your heart of hearts the smallest and most sensible part of your being gibbers in fear at the sight of it. Spätin moans in a low voice, while Adhema and Ozzy both gape soundlessly at this thing out of a nightmare. Only Frederich can bring himself to act, and even then he can do nothing save raise his sword into an unsteady guard and step cautiously towards the gate.

    "Hold your ground," you say, forcing yourself to sound stern and commanding, lifting your blessed sword into a ready pose, "heed not the creature's lies, and know that Sigmar is with us!"

    "Oh, Markus, still clinging to that same childish sense of righteous zeal?" The daemon croons the words, and though you flinch at the sound of your name on daemonic lips, that is nothing compared to what it says next. "Your father always hated that about you; how blind you were, how easy you were to convince. He hated you too, at the end. Don't you remember?"

    It screams, then, a thin and piercing wail in a voice that is not its own, a rippling cascade of sound that echoes back from the walls of the chamber and strikes you like a hammer. You recognise the sound instantly. How could you not? The ragged wail of despair, the broken failure of all courage and dignity, the wordless cries for mercy and the mindless scream of pain; you have heard these sounds before, a thousand times or more. You hear them every night when you sleep.

    It is the sound your father made when they burned him at the stake.

    "You're not a hero, Markus," the daemon murmurs, staring at you with five of its nine burning eyes, and you realise that you've backed up despite yourself, that you stepped away and lowered your sword, "You wear the uniform, your parrot the lines, but it's all hollow. You are hollow. Of course you are! A murdered father, a broken family, a lineage tainted by whispers of sin. What do you have left, that you can build your life around? What use could Blessed Sigmar possibly have for such a weak and wretched little failure like you?"

    "Be silent, daemon," you growl through gritted teeth, hating the way your heart aches, despising the weakness that makes your hands tremble. You cannot deny your doubts, not any more, but they are distant things now. This is a daemon, a servant of the dark gods themselves. There is no decision simpler than the one to take a stand. "I will not be turned aside by petty words of doubt and fear!"

    "No? And what about compassion, Markus? What about duty?" the daemon chuckles, a wet and horrid noise that makes your ears ache with the sound of it. "Look at these sinners, these poor fools who followed you here. You've killed one of them already; I can taste the rot in his blood. Will you sacrifice the others too?"

    Despite yourself, your gaze strays to your companions, the small band of would-be adventurers who followed you here. Not one of them is prepared for this. Their faces are pale, their arms shake. Frederich has a sword and Spätin a rapier, but Adhema and Ozzy have only daggers, and none of them have armour worth the name. For hunting down a single mutant in the sewers, this did not matter, but for facing a daemon?

    "Leave, Markus," the daemon hisses, leaning forward in its circle, the shadowed form of claws and whips and stranger weapons still gathering in the smoke, strange purple fires orbiting the mass like stars in the sky, "Run back to the surface. Find your priests, your soldiers, your champions worthy of the name. Run, now, or die."

    Article:
    Choose One

    [ ] Attack

    [ ] Retreat (x2)

    Note - Due to Markus' response to the mutant edict, he currently lacks confidence in himself, his abilities and his judgement. Therefore, all votes to retreat (and perhaps come back with reinforcements) are worth twice as much as votes to attack the daemon.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Attack

    That thing is living deception, if it wants us to run it's because it's hoping to buy time to either escape or summon more daemons/followers.
     
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    [X] Retreat (x2)

    We cannot take down the daemon with one, maybe two, people who actually know how to fight and a bunch of overexcited weirdos. It looks like it's more or less bond to the summoning circle, and even if it does somehow flee, we must warn the city of the evil lurking beneath their streets.
     
    If its talking instead of killing it surely can't be that good at fighting. Seems odd that it's outright calling for us to get help to steamroll what it's doing. Instead of just killing us and terminating that possibility.

    [X] Attack.
     
    Dutch said:
    My man. Not all chaos cults are made up around poor downtrodden people who had no other choice in life.

    To name a few examples. You could have a guy wanting fame and fortune for the next x amount of years of his life. Or a bunch of folk who think of magic as a way to guide the invisible hand of the market. Or a bunch of well of tutors hoping to influence a royal heir for a scheme twenty years in the making.

    You're talking about the bureaucratic, feudal and decentralized shithole that is the Empire. Aside asking it to take on the colossal task of improving material conditions in a way that even modern states struggle to do, just saying that investigators will simply have to investigate more isn't going to cut it. Most of the time local interests, be they nobles or guilds, have the power to just stonewall any kind of investigation into the ground. This isn't 40K where an inquisitor can do whatever he wants, nevermind the even less professional investigators that don't have the reputation of the templars backing them.

    In this setting, sometimes the only way to stop a chaos plot from unfolding is shooting first and asking questions later. With mutations and other discriminatory signs being the sole evidence you can show the local community to make sure they don't lynch you in return. Is this sad? Yes.

    In other words. The point isn't that the cult leader has his third eye and will hide it. The point is that the third eye will safe your skin after you've just shot Grand Duke von Sweinstein or Guild Master Anna Longneck.
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    I agree that all chaos cults aren't made up of poor downtrodden people who had very bad choices available to them.

    But this edict isn't magically solving the Problem of Chaos. It is improving the lot of poor downtrodden people who might turn to Chaos cults in search of a community that won't burn them alive. This seems like a worthwhile goal from both an ethical and a practical perspective.

    All of your examples are perfectly valid. However, this is why the religious secret police exist. Markus's job is to investigate Jakob who came into a remarkable fortune in a neighborhood where homeless people keep just disappearing. Or Helga who can't make bad investments because she gives all of her bad luck to her business rivals. Or Leopold who keeps was the insignificant tutor to an insignificant fourth son until the first three sons were all tragically killed in battle.

    Jakob has money and family connections to the Church of Sigmar. Helga has a tremendous amount of wealth, and the impoverished local Baron wants to marry his daughter to her son. Leopold is now the advisor to the Count of Ostland's heir, and the Count of Ostland trusts and likes him. Successful heretics are going to be respectable. Successful heretics are going to have some form of protection from the torches and pitchforks.

    If you are a hunchback in the slums, and Witchy Stuff is happening in your town, you are one of the first to be dragged to the pyre. If you are unpopular or foreign or (gods help you) Strigany, you are taking the fall for the activities of local Chaos cults. If the Usual Suspects are actually worshiping the Ruinous Powers, then it's only a matter of time before the torches and pitchforks come for them. If they aren't involved, then they can expect the same fate. The evidence does not matter either way, because the mob doesn't need proof to burn the foreigner/Strigany/hunchback/local outcast.

    The actual justification for witch hunters is that they stand outside the local hierarchies. They can actually investigate respectable people. Important people. The kind of people that you describe in your examples. Investigators will in fact have to investigate more. If that seems unsatisfactory, well, there is no satisfactory means of dealing with evil gods that can offer people Faustian bargains.

    If catching serious Chaos cultists was as simple as "full body inspection", then there wouldn't be any need for witch hunters. There would be holy days dedicated to thorough searchs for any mutation, and the people who didn't cooperate would be marked out as mutant heretics. Are we truly supposed to believe that the great danger of Chaos could be defeated by having suspects take off their clothes?

    There's no guarantee that Grand Duke von Sweinstein has a third eye. Visible mutations are not a mandatory part of being a Chaos cultist. Guild Master Anna may have needed to go through a purity inspection in front of a doctor to become a Guild Master. In a universe like this, with actual Chaos mutations, that kind of precaution makes sense. For that matter, we could just use our authority as a witch hunter to make all of our suspects undergo a religious examination in front of several local priests. Can we believe that no one, in all the centuries of witch hunting, ever thought of physical inspection? When it was a common method of real-life witch hunters?

    Systematic problems require systematic solutions. Such as improving the lot of mutants so they don't run to the Ruinous Powers out of pure desperation. Individual problems require skilled investigators. Yes, it's difficult to investigate the Baron/Guild Master/Colonel/Priest. Yes, suspects will use their social position to resist our inquiries, even if they are innocent. That's why proper witch hunting is a difficult and dangerous job.

    It isn't difficult or dangerous to find the nearest Strigany caravan, blame all of the Witchy Stuff on them, and hold a mass burning. This is simple, it is popular, and it is probably how most "witch hunters" operate. Magnus the Pious founded the Templars of Sigmar because he wanted witch hunters who would actually hunt witches.
     
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    Our legbreaker takes his eyes off us for a few hours and we immediately run into the sewers to fight a daemon…

    I can't wait for his reaction if we survive. Hell of a thing to start our employment on. He'd probably regret every life decision that led up to this point.
     
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