Caranus: Radiation

Radioactivity in Caranus

Fantasy realms are generally many types, the sword and magic type, the post-apocalyptic type, the time before, and the time after but no apocalypse.  Caranus, in my eyes, is a mixture of a few of those.  There is the sword and sorcery, but there is the time before too, and it is also post-apocalyptic.   The most significant feature of this last example is the great Orcish Apocalypse.  

The Orcish dominance had three stages in Caranus.  When the ship transporting the Orcs crash landed in the center of Caranus marks the beginning of the Orc epoch.  The ship was a starship, a generation ship of Orcish colonists a million strong on the ship, but the landing was rough and there were quite a number of escape pods that were launched as the ship crashed and only a couple of hundred thousand landed with the main ship.  The rest were scattered across the planet, most of them in the vast oceans that covered nearly eighty percent of the surface.  Some early escape pods fell to three of the moons that can support life where they mostly died as the lifeforms there are very hostile to most life.  The Orcish settlers that scattered  quickly had to adapt as there technology failed over a few centuries and their knowledge was inadequate for this type of habitat.  Those at landed on Caranus, however, had the advantage of the main ship, which held a vast library of information and some limited advanced technology facilities.  They failed too after a millennia, but by then it did not matter.  

The Orcs of Caranus rapidly began to dominate the portion of the world they landed in.  They quickly encountered some of the native creatures, elves, dwarves, hobbits, gnomes etc; there relations were at first good, superior technology allowed them a position of superiority, but the natives use of magic equalized the relationship somewhat.  The other encounters they had with native life went less well, particularly with Dragons.  Younger dragons were a curiosity, often a lethal one for orcs unless prepared, and for the dragons if they were.  The larger dragons were significantly more dangerous and very quickly they learned that larger hunting parties were necessary or the colony might fail entirely.  The very largest Dragons were nightmares capable of destroying even those hunting parties, but the dragons were thankfully very rare.  Almost from the beginning a few of the Orcish settlers tried to learn the arcane mysteries that the natives used, the ones that the Dragons seemed to be masters of.  

Architecture of this period would be very familiar to city dwelling people of Earth, tall skyscrapers thirty to fifty stories high, and a few much taller, made of aluminum reinforced concrete, these structures can be still seen many millennia after this age.  Their roadways stretched a thousand kilometers out from the landing site and are straighter than most arrows.  

It took a thousand years for the technology to fail, but fail it did.  It failed not suddenly but system by system until in the end the Orcs were completely dependent on native technology and arcane powers.  The Middle Empire.  The middle empire spread out further, out as far as the first ones did ten thousand years before them.  The government was more fractured and they fought among themselves more frequently than they fought to expand and fought against nature.  And the Dragons.  In this time, the dragons were more of a threat.  The architecture of the time started with ten story structures that collapsed after a couple hundred years, before the adopted stone and magically reinforced structures.  Road technology was strong still if less straight and less robust, the old empire was still the heart of their holdings, but every other corner of the continent was occupied to one extent or another.  Other continents entered a middle empire equivalent much sooner and many entered a lower empire equivalent earlier too.

About five hundred years after the technology failed the Middle Empire failed across the planet abruptly.  Catastrophically.  Technology that failed did not mean that it was not working.  The ship was powered and had engines that wile broken were still working at some small level and they were working quite well when they were being correctly maintained.  The Cult of the Machine, as it was known, had rituals that they performed regularly that kept the reactors of the ship in good order for years, but a religious schism within the cult about the importance of one ritual over another ended the Middle Empire.  The ships reactor and the, long dormant, drive systems imploded and set off a chain reaction, which ended a carrier wave that was sent to all the escape pods dotted around the star system that caused all of them to explode as well.  

The explosions were a twice deadly threat to the world.  The ship's explosion ripped the surface off the planet and pushed it into a mountain range in the center of the continent, the blast zone is still uninhabitable to this day.   The second component to the catastrophe was more devastating.  The radiation that was expelled by the less complete detonations in the escape pods affected everything.  Plants were more resistant to the effects as were the non human, and non orcish races, but both were affected.  Orcs were affected most, the races of ogres through goblins arose from radiation affected orcs.  Humans were affected too, giants and anything like that arose from this event.  Hybrid animals like manticore and unicorns arose.  Bullywogs and other things like that were also mutations from this event.  Disturbingly dragons were also affected.  Hydras and others Draconic like beasts arose from this time, juvenile dragons became more like animals and less like dragons and things like Wyverns arose and grew beyond their normal diminutive size.  Today the effects of the radiation are minimal, except in the central desert and in the jungles over the shining mountains.  

I quit. I am done

Role playing is the act of assuming a role that is not you and exploring it's possibilities.  Role playing games, those in computers, are about entering a role that you get to explore on a very limited way; you get to solve encounters and you get to advance a linear or multi linear plot line to its end.  Usually computer games are driven this way, enjoyment beyond the story takes over as acquiring goods and better equipment becomes paramount, the roleplaying becomes secondary.  This is the limitedness of computers. 

Roleplaying games, the kind that started before personal computers, are more open ended; they are as limitless as the imagination of the player and the referee.  As such, they are better from a role-playing stand point, but new players often don't get that, especially if they have been raised on a steady diet of computer game style role-playing.  This is my group.  I think they are ready for a change.  The Bard has been greedy and self serving, the Paladin has been venial, the Fighter has been letting things go down the road and not questioning their actions.  The Druid's player has been distracted, the Cleric has been absent, the Ranger… the Ranger's player has been a pleasant surprise.  The Fighter's player is a Watcher type player, they like to watch the story unfold, but they are not part of the story; I need to pull the characters in. They have been adventuring for almost a year, every other week, maybe 20 sessions.  Enough of the world has become aware of them that it will start interacting with them.  This is what I love.  

The characters have done a few things and they have started to impact the nation that they are in, primarily by paying their taxes and thus heaping fuel into a war machine advancing a timeline the characters have not been previously been aware of.  They have gotten an audience with the Duke, but it was a hasty affair, they have had an audience with the Dukes represenative, but it was a small thing, longer than e audience with the Duke, but still.  They are far from the movers of the world, but they are getting there.  Perhaps they will be awarded deeds of land for their service, a house in the town, an income, tenants.  A title.  Perhaps later as they level they will get a following.  But first roleplaying.

I plan to start an arguement with the first follower and her leader, about the paladin and how he is treating her.  The players are adults, it will be an adult conversation.  The bard had a wild time in the Inn the first time he was there, he seduced the barkeeps youngest daughter and deflowered her.  Time for her to mention that she is late, and thinks she is pregnant.  The fighter has a magical intelligent speaking sword and it has a righteous personality and expects a righteous weilder, hilarity shall ensue.  The ranger saved a member of a mortal enemy because it was unarmed.  It is coming back to repay the kindness, the Orc is now a Ranger who hunts Humans as its primary enemy, but worships the same deity as the player, long discussions shall start.  The Paladin knows that the Duke's Man in town is a Paladin of the same god as he is, and the Duke himself also worships that god, the difference is that the duke and his man at both lawful evil and it will become clear that this is so and the Player will have to make a decision as whether they will continue his slide from good.  

In general the characters are now the source of information for the people in the world and they need to figure out how they  want to be seen in the world, and more importantly, which side they are on and who are their friends.  For good roleplaying there must be a little growth and expansion of the player as well as the character, sometimes this will involve pain.  Sometimes it is important to understand the player more than the character.  My role and referee includes playing the players as well as the world.

We will see how the game went.  

It was a disaster.

First of all two of the players unexpectently did not show up, one of whom was a co-host!  They were there, but they were asleep and did not join the game the other person had a splitting migraine.  And since I was counting on those two being in the game, it basically all fell apart.  It did get the sleeping characters for about an hour but that was all.  Then I got the surprise character back in the game, the person who had left for school.  I got to have prep game with that player a few days before the game so he was up to speed, but when he showed up, he was an agent of chaos, disruptive and goading the other players into bad behavior.  Which since the game was about showcasing an example of Evil, so that they could see who the bad guys were and understand which side of the line they were supposed to stand on, they decided that they were going to straddle that line and possibly stand more firmly on the side of the evil lords.  The session devolved into a discussion of what alignment really means.  

The little roleplaying that the characters had involved the repucussions of abandoning prisoners in the temple.  Recap, they found a large locked cell with 20 civilians and relocked the door and came back a couple hours later finding a blood splatter and eighteen prisoners.  They then freed the prisoners and told them that they were tired and they were going to go to sleep next to the remains of eaten prisoner.  The remaining prisoners wanted to go, so they let them and some of them got lost and died.  Some made it out and died and a few made it out and lived to tell the tale.  Then they encountered more prison cells and tried to pass by them without freeing them, three times.  The next set of prisoners they freed, but one party member wanted to mutilate two of the prisoners was overrulled and he tried to incapacitate his party members with a spell to get his own way.  So I tried to show them that the local Duke was Evil, and his right hand man was definitely evil.

Two towns, intermarriages happen, because cousins don't make the best option for breeding with.  While Nulb is where the dead villagers were from, it is reasonable that merchants from the town could have spread in the intervening three days out to the next town, where there are relatives of the deceased and because it is a small town new news is more exciting than the story about how uncle Fespar accidentally neutered his cousin when his axe head came loose while splitting wood— admittedly, there was a reason why THAT story had staying power!  

Once the characters started to be recognized as the villains of the current gossip, their money became worthless, the townsfolk being honest would not take their money after asking them to leave, because they did not want any trouble and these characters looked rough and anyone who is capible of abandoning defenseless people in a dangerous situation are capible of doing anything.  Kicking them out was a prelude to getting independent conversations with people.  But the conversation people were away.   

When the people were present, the conversation went as follows:  14 year old girl rescued from the hands of magically deranged cleric who had abused her and was small, asked her mentor if she should fuck the Paladin, who was also small, so that he would like her and treat like he treats the rest of them group.  Predictably, her mentor swore at the fucked up situation that this person was telling her, but beyond that, she did nothing.  Which is not fair, I will have to wait to see what she does when the party continues later.  

The party got a treasure count and split.  Three of the party members paid up their taxes in full, one character thought that the Duke deserved more than what he was due in taxes and paid more, one decided that he did not want to pay taxes in full, but it worked out to be almost a full accounting of what was owing.    The Fighter's new sword spoke up at this point and asked if the druid had a slave.  The Druid was taken aback at that and said, "NO!"  The sword retorted by saying that it looked that way, the party split the treasure five ways and her follower got nothing.  The Druid not caring about magical items meant that her follower had none either and to the Sword, that appeared to be slavery.  So her follower got half of her money and the party gave her some magic items.  To her, the abused cleric, who is an object of desire and contempt by the Paladin, she is getting some serious cash and magic because the sword spoke out on her behalf and for no other reason.  

The paladin eventually went to stay with the Duke's main man.  The Paladins of Scoria stayed up all night drinking and talking about the poor treatment that the characters had recieved at the hand of the bumpkins of Nulb, ungrateful sots!  The magistrate told the Gnomish paladin about his troubles, townsfolk that have been using barter to avoid the taxes.  He said that he would love to help the paladin more, but he had his his hands full with this investigation and he was getting nowhere.  He told the Paladin that he could clear some of the bureaucracy in his inquiries if he would help him.  Tax avoidance.  This went too far.  I mean the character went too far, obviously the magistrate went too far, but the party went along with it.  He found one person that was looking to barter, after the paladin had pressed him too, but then to acquire the goods to bar term he tried to barter the next guy and then barter the next.  He was trying to implicate the entire town in the attempt.  He encountered a road block when one of the people refused to barter.  But otherwise the implicated two townsfolk and they were arrested.  The next day the party was brought together and the magistrate proclaimed the Party as Elders of the land, because they had collectively paid 25000 gold in taxes and as such they were welcome to land in the form of a few farms, the income of those farms or a house in the town of Greysteel.  The Paladin asked then if his parcel of land could include the farm of the man that had been arrested.  The Lord assented.  Then the Lord Paladin and Magistrate of the land said that the celebration was marred by insidents of treachery.  The two prisoners are bought out, the blacksmith who accepted payment for armour repair for the price of a cow and the farmer that accepted a years supply of firewood for a cow.  The magistrate, using a spell that compelled truth, got confessions for the tax evasion, and then pronounced that the usual sentence of a fine was too leiniant and chose an older punishment of ten lashes.  Both criminals passed unconscious during the lashes, and the Magistrate lay on hands and healed them.  

Then the Lord announced that since the land was at war with the foul Orc Nation, that tax evasion was essentially treason, and in two fluid motions struck off their heads using a Divine Smite, causing a flash of radiant damage in addition to the cut that relieved them of their lives.  It was a move designed to ask the players if they were on this guys side, because this guy is evil and if he is agreeing with the way that they were treated was an injustice, maybe it wasn't after all, maybe they were in the wrong.

The paladin saw the evil, wiped his mouth and said, wait, hold my beer.  He strode onto the stage where the farmers was rapidly cooling and his blood had sprayed across the crowd, and called for the crowd's attention.  "There is now an opening at my farm, if anyone feels that they are qualified please come to me at this time, thank you."

I think I left my jaw there.  

We are taking a break.  I think I am quitting.  I don't really want to be their GM anymore.  

To be fair.  The Player is being Lawful.  Completely Lawful without any tie to good or evil, amoral in the extreme that following the letter of the law in an evil nation can bring.  It is my fault.  I have made him a monster.  Time to quit.

Right makes dumb

There has been a few things that have been disturbing me lately.  It is the slide into Rightwing politics again.  I mean still.  There was a couple of reprieves but lately it feels that the those were just temporary and ephemeral.  Yes trump was elected almost two years ago, but the administration has been largely incompetent, but regressive.  Very very regressive.  As the meme in the Internet says, Australia is tomorrow and Europe is tonight, but in North America it is 1940 and minorities, women and LBGT are all discriminated against and have no rights.  It is not just the States, it is hear in Canada too.

 There was a point that it could have been stopped in Canada.  There wasa promise that the Prime Minister made that was hollow.  He gazed upon the electorate and saw that it was a fifty percent chance that his party would get an absolute majority government with every election with 16% of the eligible vote and said fuck you to Proportional Representation.  If he had done that we would not be in this mess.  Across this country Rightwing political parties are winning healthy majorities with small minorities of voters and then they are pushing their detrimental policies on the nation.  According to them, ethics is not important, the environment is not important, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not important if it stands in the way of their agenda.  This lies at the feet of the Prime Minister.

Proportional Representation is about every vote being cast has a say in the government.  If the conservatives get 35% of the vote, they get 35% of e seats, if the Green Party gets 20% of the votes they get 20% of the say of what happens in government.  If the Liberals get 45% of the vote they get 45% of the seats.  It is possible in the current system for the above fictitious election to result in a Conservative majority government, but not possible with Proportional Representation.  

I digress.

In the United States there has been the controversial appointment of a supreme court judge.  The appointment has reignited the MeToo movement.  The judge while a teenager sexually assaulted a fellow student and again in college.  The response from the right was, 'Boys will be Boys' as if the statement makes everything right.  But the news of last month was that catholic priests in Pennsylvania had been covering up and exploiting a massive child abuse ring in that State and perhaps many others.  The idea that priests touching children is wrong, but other children albeit teenagers, is okay.  Furthermore, since it was thirty years ago it has no bearing on anything.  Just like the priests who have been doing what they did for decades.  

Also, he lied under oath, about his drinking and about his extra curricular activities in high-school and college.  Which shows that he thought that they were something he needed to hide.  He basically fit all the eighties memes about jocks in high school.  Drunken parties, besmirching girls reputations about sex, and trying to force himself on women.  All of which was thought to be normal behaviour in the eighties; not by me, not by most people, but by the Hollywood image of high school.  So, in a real area of grey for the law and something to be ashamed of, but nothing that is convict-able as an adult, but something that a very sincere apology is due.  Today, with all the awareness out there, it is totally convict-able, but then sealed at 18.  If that sort of behaviour stopped and did not continue, but it clearly did.  

The real problem is that it was not acknowledged as a problem.  Just like the Catholic Priests.  They treat it as something that needs to be hidden and not discussed.  It is the idea that they feel that it is normal behaviour, and so it will continue forever.  There is a feeling that there is an old-boys club mentality, that the other old boys are protecting the younger boys so protecting themselves.  There was some of this when Roy Moore tried to get elected.  There was some of that when the president was elected, he was so pound that he could just reach out and "grab them by the pussy" and that was okay.  

The entire country is saying it is not okay to fondle little boys, but it is okay to fondle little girls and big girls, all ages of women.  The worst part is that women, are defending them.  Many are sexual assault survivors too.  But the thought that their sons and grandchildren might be convicted of doing what was done to them catalyzes them.  The statistics say that one woman in three have been sexually assaulted, will be sexually assaulted in their life, but as I said in previous posts, I believe this statistic is higher, perhaps one in two.  The number of people have been posting about how they were assaulted and no one believed them.  From private conversations with friends I know that families hide the truth, Grandpa is not invited to family functions, that cousin is not allowed near that niece.  I knew of one women who left home and cut off all contact because of her father.  Some women treat their assault as the price of sleeping on someone's couch for the night.  Women talked about what they would do if they had a night free of men, all men forced to stay home and off the streets.  The chatter about what women do, change their behaviours to avoid being assaulted.  The women who defended the judge are saying this is okay.

I know some women who have done the right thing and have approached police. This is why it is not cool to have a judge in the supreme court that has done this stuff and is unrepentant.  The police typically do nothing, or they suggest that the woman was willing, or that she consented.  Or that not having an abortion is consent, or seeking child support.  

So many times, what happened in that bedroom, at a similar party with similar people is not the victim escaping.  Often she is assaulted, sometimes she is impregnated, usually her reputation is besmirched along the way.  Most often nothing comes of it.  The best result is when the police believes the woman and interviews are done and charges are laid, then comes the ultimate indignity, an adversarial court system where they grill the victim like she is the criminal and even if there is a conviction, often the accused gets a sentence of time served, or community service or suspended sentence, especially if they are affluent.  Judge, you are going to ruin the life of my son because he was drunk and committed one indiscretion with this woman who has a reputation of sleeping with all of the football team?  

The facts are that women are assaulted every day, that women pay attention to the news and choose not to report those assaults, because when they do report them, no one believes them and when a conviction does occur, the woman's reputation is destroyed and the man gets off with a slap on the wrist, unless they are poor then they go to jail, but the woman's reputation is still destroyed.  At best their reputation is based upon the crime, 'there goes that woman whose brother raped her'.  

Back in Canada.

In Ontario a majority government was elected with 16% of the potential votes and the first thing he does is scrap the Carbon Tax, saying that Ontario Tax Payers don't need another tax.  Except, it was not a tax on tax payers.  It was a corporate tax on manufacturers and on fossil fuels.  It was a step that was meant to reduce carbon emissions by providing financial incentives to reduce.  Carbon producers had to buy pollution credits to produce pollution and green industries could sell carbon units to offset their clean expenses.  Companies had already purchased three billion dollars worth of credits and they were non refundable, further the carbon credit exchange policy was with other American States and pulling out of these obligations will result in major penalties.  Pulling out of the agreement means that Ontario has no plan to reduce emissions and meet obligations to international treaties and also save the planet.  Furthermore, the government is organizing a revolt about paying the federal carbon tax, trying to say that the tax is unlawful.  The premier is encouraging other governments in Canada to stand against the Carbon Tax as well.  So far, none of these governments have figured out a way to reduce pollution on their own and will not meet the deadline imposed upon them, because to them no plan is the plan; business as usual.  The argument goes that since some countries have not signed the international accords, they have an unfair business advantage in polluting at they don't have.  

To me, this argument is akin to saying that the other governments are trying to kill everyone, and these governments are not being given the option to kill the world too and they so desperately want that option too.  They would say, the science is not clear about the cause of climate change, or that climate change even exists— because they can find scientists that agree that it does not exist, right now that is about one scientist in a hundred, often that scientist has an undergraduate degree in something not related to climate science like dentistry or animal husbandry.  Really, these politicians are more interested in making a buck and living out their lives in luxury and they believe they can survive the the changes insulated by their wealth.  Or they believe that they are far from the dangers that will affect the world; sea level rise will not affect provinces that have no shoreline.

Strange, because Canada recently accepted 60,000 refugees from a civil war in Syria caused in part by a drought caused by climate change.  Recently, they a third of the country got snowed on in the late summer early fall from a storm caused by climate change.  Farmers are worried that the bulk of their crops will not be able to be harvested because of these very early snow storms, but their political leaders insist that climate change will not affect them.

There are a few more things that have happened but these are the ones that are more recent and stick in my head.

D&D against the water Temple

The fight for the Elemental Water Temple was epic. 

The characters rested an hour after the big fight from last session to regain some hit points and to decide what to do.  They then decided to search for treasure.  That took some time.  They ransacked the temple and they only had one last place to search, the fire pit.  No treasure had been found so it was either that, or nothing.  The pit was filled with coals from the elemental plane of fire and would not be extinguished.  Surprisingly they did not think of the coals as treasure!  The paladin used his lance to prod the coals to search for something, he was lucky on two counts, first that his lance did not ignite and that he found a box.  The pit was deeper than he was tall and just approaching the pit hurt him, so he failed to find his valiant heart.  The Ranger was removing his clothes so they would not burn up and go into the fire, but he was preempted by the Druid who said that she would turn into an animal and brave the fire.  She leapt into the flames and knocked the box out and jumped out of the pit aflame, burning bear filled the air for hours.  The Ranger/Rogue took out his Thieves Tools and checked for traps and disarmed the trap and opened the box, discovering a thin one use blade and spring that would have cut off the appendage that first opened the box.  Inside the box, was a ring of fire resistance, two potions of fire resistance, and a sword, that zapped the first person that handled it with biting cold damage.  The sword then spoke, "I will let you wield me, but you are not the best person for me."  It was a bit of a shock, as most swords they had met with had not talked.  It was quickly determined that the sword liked the Fighter the best he asked the Ranger to trade him to the Fighter,  he did not want to do it because he wanted a magic sword, or something and the Fighter already had a magic sword.  The fighter then stated that she only wanted one sword, as she fought with a shield, and she said she would give up the Firebrand.  This worked nicely and e two exchanged swords, the Frostbrand and the Firebrand.  They reassessed their positions and two of the characters wanted to continue and two wanted to have a long rest.  The Fighter decided that since this fight was so tough and the next fight was supposed to be tougher, a long rest sounded prudent, but understood that this might be giving up an advantage.  Part way through their rest a Hill Giant and two Ettins came up from the lower level to investigate the disturbance to the temples.  The characters asked the Air Priest to intervene and send the giant away.  The giant was very stupid and easy to guide to a different part of the dungeon and it worked.  When e party was fully rested, they headed out.  

Seeking the best advantage, the characters asked the Evil Cleric ally if there was an easy way into the Water temple.  The Cleric obliged.  He knew a route that would take e characters through the minion apartments, the bugbears and the ogre's rooms.  They entered them and they found them deserted.  They went to the temple and found out why, they were all in the temple and there was some sot of service going on.  So, they had to fight them all at once.

The battle took most of the session and the difficulty was extreme, the battle evolved over time, since it was a noisy affair.  The priests joined the battle late as a few of the combatants were still alive.  When the last enemy was was put to rest I brought in Explitica Defilus back from the dead, who had spent weeks tracking them down.  She was able to cast a few potent spells that knocked characters unconscious outright or reduced characters to nearly dead.  I used lightning bolt rules from the first edition, where the bolt bounces until it reaches it's maximum spell distance and hit one NPC on the rebound.  I think if the spell had done enough damage to the impact site it would have dissipated, but stone walls are very resistant and no one was grounded.  

The next thing after a short rest was to enter the elemental room.  The elemental room seemed simple enough.  The was a picture of a Triton chained up at the bottom of the pool and he was urging them to jump in and save him.  Should have switched it to a nymph or a neirid, naked women lying at the bottom of ponds might be the basis of a comedy sketch about democracy vs monarchy, but it would probably gotten more than one of the characters to jump in.  As it was the characters did not trust or believe the image.  The pool was the monster, it was acidic in nature and very deadly.  The paladin was in possession of a cursed magical item, and he attempted to use it against the beast.  The Trident of Yearning, magical trident, but it's wielder feels compelled to leap in the nearest body of water.  The water in this case was highly acidic.  The paladin also took all his magical items with him when he went for a dip, and the creature ate magical items and healed itself with them, so Everytime they attacked the beast in the pool they had to save or lose their weapon.  The character's after the first round stopped using weapons that they wanted to keep and started failing the combat.  The entity started to call people to jump in with magical influences.  Which caused other characters to try to save them too.  So this was marginally successful tactic.  Soon the Druid asked about spells that might affect the creature, they had a spell scroll and cast Purify Water, they cast Create Water.  Spells that affected the creature were any water spells that created water (diluted the creature) or destroyed the water, also Part Water, which is like a sword stroke.  Freezing stunned the creature, so the frost brand was effective.  

In the end, the characters won, but also, the temple ceiling collapsed and they all had to run to escape the room, save vs dexterity.  Some characters needed to be revived.  The allies of e characters survived too, some of them anyways.  Two bugbears and the priest survived.  The one character dubbed the one bugbear the king of bugbears, because he fought the Bugbear Chieftain and the Ogre and got in the killing blow on each, he also successfully saved against the suggestion that he go for a swim in the acidic pool.  If I was being weird I might have the characters shadowed by Bugbear, his alignment shifted from CE to CN.  

The next session I have to come up with some content.  They are out of the temple and they are going to Hommlet.  There is the under plot that needs to take place but the bard is also becoming a warlock and so the others need something to do too.  The Half Orc is coming back for a session so he needs to tell his tale, which means I need to give him a tale to tell.  Also the Druid will have to meet with the druids and the clerics of Xeric, they need to dispose of magical items and they need to figure out what they want to do with all their money.

One option is to tithe, another option is donation, the Druid might decide to pay her NPC.

This is a point I will bring up when I talk about the coinage, that if they want to pay their minion, it does not come out of the party share, but their own, also magical items.  Pay and magical items will make followers more loyal as with alignment conforming actions.  For example, the Druid has a follower, Ceraza. She is NG and a cleric of Xeric.  She was sexually abused and the Paladin attempted to seduce her in that state and she hates him.  The paladin also hates her too.  When she is injured the paladin refuses to heal her, when the paladin is injured she will get past her loathing and heal him, but the Paladin is resentful of this, so she will only heal him when he is unconscious.  She is Good after all and won't let her likes and dislikes stop her from doing what is right, but her loyalty to Io is being tested as the Paladin and leader of the party keeps on making selfish decisions.  She is thinking about heading home, or making her own way in the world.  She has not been paid at all to this point and she is surviving on her basics that she joined up with.  She is now fourth level, and next level she will be fifth.  She is trying to decide if she will restart the temple in Neloar or stay in Hommlet or Nulb or somewhere else.  There is no Temple in Nulb so this is a stretch, given that she has no money or equipment.  She may have a conversation with Io.  

Phil the Cleric.  He took off with two Orcs in tow.  He surprised a group of brigands who were trying to make off with the cart and bourses so he decided to take them as they were safer with him than alone.  Orcs told him they were hopelessly nïeve to do that in the lands of the untrustworthy humans.  At the height of the Orcish empire you could leave stuff alone and you would be able to find it where you left it.  The fastes way was to head to Neloar and then to the the Great Road and then south for three days before heading off to where HS found a village in ruins.  The ruins were complete, huts and farm houses burnt to the ground, animal pens ruined and in the central green, a sleeping Green Dragon.  It was enough to make the Orcs think that this was the cause of the destruction of the town and the countryside.  But Phil saw other signs.  Arrows in corpses, axe marks in doors and military precision.  But he had to look and it was clear that the dragon had come later and only cleared out the surroundings after they had been crushed.  The Orcs suggested that they would come back with him and then decide where they were going now, as they had no other viable options.  One was a worshipper of Stromida and the other Grey Warder.  

D&D: the New Deal

The last session went reasonably well, if a slow start.  They woke up in their respective places, the Paladin and the Bard in the Pirate hostel, and the Druid, the Ranger and the Fighter in the woods, camping.  Because they were kicked out of town for bad behaviour, neglecting prisoners.  They met up and they entered the dungeon for the second time (third time?).  They went into the Earth Temple and dug up the treasure that they had forgotten in there.  There was not much treasure but there was some stuff and some magic.  They had the map produced by the guard leader that they let go and knew e general locations of the temples and the relative strengths.  They knew that the strongest temple was the Water Temple and the weakest was the Air Temple, so they decided to tackle the strongest temple first.  They headed down to the Water temple, but the Elf spotted a secret door, and the party investigated that passage first and everything changed.

The secret door opened and they found stairs leading down and a passage filled with weapons, armour and the sound of running water.  The weapons and the armour were big, bigger than that of a human, and they recognised that it might be that of bugbears.  The water was a fountain and the end of the hall was a curtain with light leaking through it.  The Ranger snuck forward and peeked through the curtain and spotted a priest kneeling with robes of the air temple.  On reporting that, the Bard thought it was time to affect a disguise, he cast a spell to aid his ruse and became the high priest of the Earth Temple!  He strode forth and made a lot of noise and announced himself to the kneeling priest before entering.  Kenlo the Priest, tensed and then deliberately took out his dagger and placed it about arms reach before him, then he relaxed.  The Bard began with, "The Earth Temple has been attacked and we need aid!"

The priest asked, "How strong were the forces?"  He paused and then continued, "If they came to me, I would surrender to them and beg mercy to them, I might even help them to destroy the other Temples, anything to keep me alive!". Unbeknownst to the Bard and the rest of the party, Kelno had been out of his rooms in the past two day, he was not content to be a set encounter waiting for adventurers to find him then kill him.  He knew that the Earth Temple had been sacked and he knew that the Hight Priest of that temple was dead and rotting amongst his allies.  He also was confident that the Earth Temple and the other Temples did not know about the secret door that he hid all those weapons and that he strung a simple covering over.  He knew about the destruction of the bugbears to the North that he had been hoping to woe to his side; and the Greater Temple guard post just to the north of his rooms, covered with blood and gore.  

The Bard caught on then and the priest asked to speak to the whole party.  He wanted to live and everything else was up for grabs.  His first offer was that he aid the party with his forces and he get a share of the treasure and amnesty from the party for a couple weeks.  He told them he had ten bugbears and two gnolls and he would use them to defeat the other temples.  The mercurial nature of the Paladin who had the day previously had made a deal to get a map and escort some prisoners to the surface, did not want to make a deal for military aid.  A few of the other characters wanted the deal and it was tough bargaining for the priest.  Eventually it was agreed that if he helped them, and did not betray them, the party would ignore him until after the rest of the temple was destroyed, if he was still in the temple.  He accepted gladly, because he had a plan.  

The characters told him what their target was and Kenlo told them it was a good plan, but he thought it might be a better plan to attack the weaker Fire Temple and to arm themselves with the treasure of that temple to attack the stronger temple.  They thought about it and it made sense.  They asked detailed questions about the Fire Temple personnel.  Kenlo told them about the Warleader, the two priests and the paladin that worked with them.  He told them the most direct method was to attack the Warleader quickly and then to go after the rest.  He told them that the Warleader had a Flaming Sword.  They attacked and quickly overcame the Warleader, but he had one surprise for the party, he threw a rope of Entanglement at the Paladin and took him out of the fight.  The next room was separated by a space and the temple staff was not fully prepared.  They fought the bugbears with bugbears and when the paladin and the priests emerged they were bottled up with the Air Temple Bugbears.  The temple hierarchy was summarily killed.  They all filed into the Fire Temple after they looted the rooms and bodies.  The Temple was huge, about ninety feet long and seventy wide.  It was filled with the smell of brimstone and the heat from the many magical fires, both caused them all to sweat and dried their sweat instantly.  The Paladin mounted on his Giant Goat charged forth to the temple alter and struck it with his mace attempting to destroy it.  The act was largely symbolic as his mace did little damage, but it did invoke a magical effect that yelled out, "WHO DARES DISTURB THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL FIRE!", the loudness of the cry was meant to summon the bulk of the now dead priesthood.  Small snakes appeared on the coals and as the characters advanced, sixteen of the snake grew into large Fire Salamanders and they filled the southern temple.  

The paladin was in the midst of those Salamanders and his future looked certain and short.  The Druid acted quickly and cast a huge effect on e gathered Salamanders, casting Ice Storm, that made the area slippery for all, friend and foe.  The Bard cast hypnotic Patterson the largest group of Salamanders and combat was joined.  (The ice storm's main effect turned out to be a massive fog bank as the ice melted and steamed up the area.  There were only four salamanders and the rest were mirror images.  Every time they attacked I rolled a d4 and if I rolled a one, it was a real salamander and anything else was a mirror image, once four ones were rolled all the rest were mirror images or the last four were real salamanders.  The effect of the ice storm affected the allies more than the salamanders, but the salamanders were blinded by the fog and did not move at all, they were also cold). The paladin attacked with his lance and hit a real Salamander, the salamander took only half damage from non magical weapons, so the salamander he fought lasted most of the battle, meanwhile other characters were killing Salamanders with every hit.  The bugbears rushed to attack and many of them were slaughtered, only two survived the battle.  The Salamanders were a very effective enemy, they had two attacks, a spear thrust that averaged fourteen points of damage a hit and a tail slam that averaged eighteen points.  A couple lucky hits knocked the Druid from her giant bear into her normal self in two rounds, one tail slap caused the bear twenty-seven points of damage.  The mist and fog also made targeting the enemy almost impossible; characters fired arrows into the mist and hit fellow players and when they entered the fog they had to be careful or they would get turned around.  The battle ended, and the party was considerably worse for wear; that was the second strongest temple!  They elected to rest for an hour and to look for treasure afterwards.  

The next battle will probably stump the characters.  The Evil Intelligence that serves as the Water devotional entity is very difficult to kill, and it will try to convince characters to jump into it, or throw magical items into it.  There is also a different battle just before the temple with the priests, and the temple guardians.  I will have to prepare that battle carefully.  It will involve three different types of threat.

I gave the Priest Kenlo to one of the players to run, he was shocked to learn that the roleplaying hints that he was desperate to deal with the characters, because of the weakness of his position.  He knows the strength of the two other temples and he has heard rumours that there is soon to be a change in the balance of power in the two temples.  He desperately wants to change the fortunes of his temple.  He knows that the most likely direction of attack of this level is from the south and both temples have a super strong guard, a monster and a troll.  His adversaries had taunted him that they were in negotiation with a tribe of trolls.  He has offered the party intelligence to help them destroy the temples, but not the entire forces of each temple.  He plans to approach the trolls and offer continued support and then try to convince the Troll leader to join his temple, then when he is appropriately armed, he may recruit from the ghouls on the first level and try to get more bugbears, but the population of bugbears, may be severely depleted at this moment, the same with gnolls.  The addition of twelve trolls may give him better pull gaining resources though, if he can manage that.  He might gain the trolls easily though, he is intelligent and managed to dupe outside forces to wipe out his rivals, that is a very calculating argument for the trolls.  The loss of three temples to one set of adventures might cause the greater temple to fund his attempt to recruit the trolls too.  

Anyways after the Water temple is destroyed or put out of commission, they characters will have gained enough experience to be seventh level.  One Character wants a career path change and the priest classes all have to rest in a temple to gain their next powers.  So the characters may be gone for a week or more.  They also have to take their gold out and pay their taxes and collect their bounty for humanoid ears.  They have excess magical items that they want to get rid of, the duke will pay for them, but at a reduced price but with reputation advantages.  Probably after getting ten thousand GP magic items granted military titles, in any case, if they pay full taxes, they will get title, Elder of the land, honorary captains in the Armies of the land and the city guards.  Entrance to the knighthood of Greysteel…. Perhaps after they help the Local lord identify local enemies of the state.…

Notwithstanding

Notwithstanding lets everyone know that dispite everything else, we will do what we want to do.  The Premier of Ontario let people know that when ever the courts disagree with what he does, he will do it anyways.  He promised this when he used the clause whenever the courts ruled against his agenda.  In a recent tweet, he stated that he is doing this for e 2.3 million people who voted for him and his party.  Out of 10 million elligable voters in a province of 14.3 million people.  Get that?

In the election, 58% voter turnout was recorded—so 5.8 million votes cast.  2.3 million votes represents 40% of those voters, actually a little less.  So essentially with this overwhelmingly strong majority, they get to ignore the courts for five years and do whatever they want.  

The courts are not elected and so they should not set the course of the government.  That is the arguement.  Because they are not elected they have no say in what the government does.  Except they do.  What are the three pillars to Democracy?  Executive, Legislative, and Judicial.  

The Executive, composed of the leader and the cabinet, set direction.  They determine the majority of the laws and the way they people will be governed over the mandate of the term of office.

The Legislative, composed of all the elected members of government and the Senant, if there is one.  They are the people that brainstorm the bills and laws in committees to make sure that the laws cover what they are supposed to cover.  Then they are debated.  The opposition offers constructive suggestions on whether the bill is good or bad.  They offer amendments that modify bills to make them more inclusive.  Then the bill is voted on and may become law off there is enough supporting votes.

The Judicial, or the courts, determines if the law infringes on the individual or group rights of the people.  The guiding document is the Canadian Bill of Rights in Canada and the Constitution in the States.  If the law is found unconstitutional, the law is invalidated, and the government can re-table the law, make changes and pass it again.

That is what the courts do; that is why they are important part of our Democracy.  When the government has enough votes to pass a bill into law without opposition support it has to be careful or it will pass unconstitutional laws.  

The Notwithstanding Clause was put into the Canadian Bill of Rights to get it passed, because some people were worried that laws might be passed that conflicted with regional cultural differences and still be constitutional.  It was never really ment to be used and has only been used rarely or by Quebec in the first years of its inception as a protest against the federal government.  The clause allows the government to pass laws that are unconstitutional and have them work for five years.  

What this means for this government in Ontario, a government that has the support of only 40% of people who cast a ballot, 23% of elegable voters, or 16% of Ontarians, less than one in six, but has an absolute majority.  They could pass laws that infringe on people's rights and freedoms for five years.  They could make police enforce those laws too. 

The law that they made was to reduce the size of a cities council from 47 to 25.  They are allowed to do that.  That was not what was disputed.  The law went into effect the last day that people could declare that they wanted to run for local government.  The law extended the time they had to declare, but that was not the point, they created too much turmoil and disrupted the election campaign by re-aligning the ward boundaries too close to the start of the election.  The law was taken to court and the law was declared unconstitutional and made defunct.  The law was many things, petty, the premier was a former councilor for one term, rarely showed up to vote and was a failed in a run for mayor, but it was also exactly what the courts had declared it as unconstitutional due to timing.  If they reworked the law and stated that it came into effect the next election, there would have been no problem, but after people had declared the intent to run…

So there is more background.  There was a report over twenty years ago that stated that for simplicity the Greater Toronto Area should amalgamate and fold twelve or more seperate municipalities into one government structure because they were all similar and had the same concerns and this would reduce the government and the disparities of taxation in e seperate communities.  Build a super city in place of smaller cities.  The Conservative Leader at the time thought this was a horrible idea, because it would alienate all of his key support in the province, so he implemented only half the plan, the people who did not vote for him.  The five boroughs of Toronto were amalgamated.  Each five borough had a working city council and some of the boroughs were larger than the others, geographically and demographically.  They all had seperate concerns.  One was heavily urbanized and the others were suburbanized.  Each election since that first election they have been reducing the number of wards piecemeal.  The trouble was that some of the boroughs had a small population and a good ratio of representation, you can't reduce representation from ten to one over night, there would be riots as people would feel that they don't matter.  

People point out that bigger cities have smaller councils, but those bigger cities have had in many cases centuries of growth not a sudden expansion to deal with.  Usually the larger city is more homogenized too, but toronto has had a large number of communities in each Borough for decades and they were effectively different cities.  For example Toronto, the old city started the Transit system and the Subway and it was later expanded into the other areas, when amalgamation occured, all the boroughs had a piece of the subway system, but some were underserved and demanded more service and greater expansion.  When they first were forced to gather there were over a hundred Councilors now there are only 47.  25 they could do.  But the timing.

The analogy is a class of Class of students being told that they are going to the next grade together, but just before classes start the new school tells the students that they will only accept half of the students and the rest will have to go to a different school.  If the students were told last year or even before summer break, they would have time to find accommodation elsewhere, but it is the Friday before school start and it is a national holiday and everyone has to rush around looking for accommodation the next day.  

D&D moral questions

The last adventure was odd.  All the adventures with Six Freaky Bean Dip are weird, but they keep making these leaps of understanding and methods of exploring that are so effective.  Well the method of exploration has been chaotic and different, summed up with: take the left.  Left left left left.  So far it has meant that they have avoided major conflict, except when they deviat from the left left left strategy.  The lead of understanding was pure genius, that each level was going to contain one temple and there are four temples and so therefore, four levels.  There are four levels, but not because of the reasoning that they had.  They also are not very good aligned either.

They woke up in the dungeon and decided to go down the stairs to the next level.  They did not elect to go dig the treasure in the Earth temple that they knew was there.  They went down the grand staircase and upon reaching the bottom, they were turned away by the magic portals that blocked the way down.  The door was more elaborate this time; they got the hint that something cool was behind these doors.  But they could not approach them, except for the Paladin and he elected to comeback another time.  They collectively remembered that there was another staircase going down near the prison.  The prison that they did not open because they did not want to free the potential sacrifices and be burdened with NPCs.  So they decided to go back to the prison and sneak by the cells and go down the stairs there.  So they snuck by the prison cells.  Seriously!

The Paladin is making all the leadership decisions, but he is not good.  He is not the typical devotion Paladin, he is a revenge paladin and I can't fault him, but the rest are Good aligned, so I should expect more from them.  One is Gold Aligned.  One is seething under his skin, but letting it slide.  One is a worshiper of a neutral deity, so her character is very meh.  So the next time they go to town they will get the punishment for this behaviour.  I talked about it with my friend.  He said that since they are playing their roles I can't discipline them for going against their alignment, so I should socially reprimand them.  Next time they are in town at their local watering hole, they will be refused service.  They will be told that there is no room at the inn.  They will be told that the shop owner just ran out of the goods they are looking for.  The Paladin may go to the Temple of Scoria and be told that he may stay and pray to Scoria for guidance but there is no place to stay in the temple that night.  The leather worker that they got to make gloves for them and a belt will be finished and he will give them to the party and then wish them on their way.  The general store and trading company will be chummier than before, as they match the descriptions of the characters invading the temple.  Ironically, they will tell the story that is circulating town about the non human adventuring party that used the prisoners as bait and how the granddaughter of the mayor was one of the prisoners and the cousin of the Innkeeper in the Welcoming Wench was eaten by the ghouls too.  If they want to stay the night they will have to do it at the keep.  The Duke's Man will of course accept them with open and understanding arms.  He will tell them that he hopes that they will stay the night and as long as they wish.  He will tell them that there have been rumours of evil doing in the town and he needs them as witnesses so that the dukes justice can be carried out appropriately.  

I digress.

They went down to the second level, and turned left, then the turned left at the next crossroads, then they turned left and entered a room that was filled with a wall and a giant pool of water behind the wall.  The paladin then stated that there must be a temple on every level and this must be the temple of water and so he went about destroying the cistern.  The water flooded on to the floor and went down cleverly made drains in the floor.  Since the Temple of Water was vanquished they turned left and found a giant hallway/banquet hall 40' across and 120' long filled with ruined furniture.  They walked to the end of the hallway and turned left.  Then left, then left again.  From the right the bard spied a bronze coffer sitting partially buried in a pile of garbage.  The coffer had to have treasure in it, it did it turned out, but it also had a ravenous Beast in it the trash.  The beast lashed out and there was a very noisy battle where the PCs killed the beastie.  Then the elf noticed a secret door and the paladin opened it.  There was a very large number of bugbears waiting having heard the noisy battle.  While the bugbears were happy that the beast who had devoured two of their numbers recently, good garbage disposal monsters are very hard to acquire so it's loss was going to be particularly hard to replace, so the twenty or so Bugbears had piled forth to morn the loss of the garbage disposal by killing the people that killed it.  

Bugbears are not much of a threat for mid level characters.  One or two is a big battle for low level characters.  Twenty bugbears and two leaders is a real threat for the party.  Especially if the bugbears all cram in to the fight all at once.  The bugbears surprised the party when e battle ended all the players had survived, but a few of them were worse for wear.  One of the things the party discovered was that the Paladin hates one of the NPCs, the girl that they rescued from the evil priest in Neloar.  In the battle last session he was upset that she had healed him and in this battle he refused to heal her, when she was near death.  

The next session they will probably decide to go to the southern portion of the temple level.  What will they find there?  Will it be an ally or a foe?  Will it be a group of prisoners, what will they do when they are recognized by one of the prisoners?  Will they find the real Temple of Elemental Water, or will they find stairs going down?  

That reminds me, I need to find and buy more markers…

That was two weeks ago.

There was only one major battle in this run, but they did get a prisoner and they let him go.  I am really starting to worry about this party, or about the younger people playing Dungeons and Dragons.  This is what happened.

They moved from the bugbear slaughter, and followed the path least traveled and they encountered a store room filled with mundane objects and a pile of bones in the corner.  They ignored the pile of bones and went to loot the the mundane items.  Arrows, javelins, food and clothing; nothing too exciting.  There was a monster in the room, but it had spell like abilities and was therefore invisible and since the party was making no attempt to be quiet, I ruled that the beast's attempt to be quiet successful.  Two of the party members were looking for weapons and the rest at the other things, the monster chose to attack the two alone and the less armoured one first.  It was a Barlgura, a Demon.  In my world demons are native creatures.  They are rare and occur mostly on the moon Hestia, where they battle their wardens and attempt to escape, but if you dig deep into the ground and delve into mystical areas demons and devils will be found.  The party has had some tough battles and they have yet to encounter a few of the really hard encounters, but they will remember this encounter, because 1) one of their character's was killed in two rounds without getting a chance to attack, the monster had a high initiative roll and a round of surprise.  Six attacks with advantage, and boom the character started with 49hp and was dead with -7hp, 2) the little cleric saved the day by casting a spell that healed the character to 9 hp allowing the character to attack the next round anyways.

The next time they entered battle it was another protracted battle.  The last session they tipped of a group of guards for the Greater Temple.  They were on high alert and they were digging in.  Most forays into the temple tus far had been unorganized and had failed, but after the party did not return quickly they investigated the direction they had come from and saw the devastation in the upper level.  They decided that they would send a report after the party left, as the party was in e general location of the main stair case to the lower levels.  The party happened upon the southern room of theirs and they had to fight.  The guard at the peep hole saw them enter the passage wayand he left the door leaving the rug before the door.  The party eventually entered through the door, but after giving the guards time to set up.  The guards were almost all weak, but there were two sargents, a leuitenant, and the captain.  The bard shouted, "Surrender or die!" and the guards died, on the second round the door to the next room opened and the remainder of the guards poured in to the battle.  The tough guards died almost as easily as the weak guards, but they all died.  The party members poured into the next room and the Captain surrendered, and his leuitenant tried to run for it, but attacked as he ran and was cut down for his efforts.  

The party was non committal on their interigating techniques.  First they talked to him free to move around, then they tied him up.  When I play the interogated prisoner, I always tell the truth, and never lie.  I also never tell the whole truth.  Well the captain was Chaotic Evil, so I rationalized that he would tell the truth to this powerful group, who he knew had trashed the Earth Temple and several dozen defenders as well as four Earth Elementals.  He was hoping that he would get to leave with his life and some treasure.  The party had some questions and he sang like a bird.  He told them about the giants, he told them about the greater temple on the fourth floor, and told them he had been there once when he was first brought to the temple.  He told them about the three temples on this level and how to get there and drew a map.  And they told him he was free to go, if he would collect the prisoners they freed and return them to the surface.  And my jaw hit the floor, but I did not let them know this.  He did not tell them about the guards at the prisoner room, and he thought in his head that they might kill him for this failed admission, but they collected the prisoners, four were elves, and they recognized the druid as a family member three times removed, suddenly the plans changed and they were escorting the prisoners out themselves, and they collected the prisoners that they snuck by repeatedly, sadly most of those prisoners were on a low water diet and had died.  The alive prisoner was a gnome, and he told them that he had heard them talking out side his cell on the previous times they went by and he had climbed the door to see them pass. 

The town that they had shown no interest entering the days before they entered with the freed prisoners.  Oh, I forgot, the mounts and cart they had were tied up outside the entrance to the temple: Surprise, they were gone when they emerged two days later.  They entered the town of Nulb, which they missed before.  It was not a good town, it was rather a mistake of a town: seedy, slightly evil, most of the people in the town were normal, but a strong undercurrent worked in the nearby temple or informed for them, or we're river pirates.  Openly pirates!  That was before, now though, they entered a town that had been turned against them.  The people that worked for the temple would have been hostile, but the regular town folk had heard that family members were held captive in the temple and that the heroes had found them, twenty of them and re locked them up in the cell reasoning that since they just got there, they should look around before coming back, when they came back a few hours later, a group of ghouls and a ghast had come to the larder and picked out two prisoners and ate one there and carried one back for later, so they found the prisoners in hysterics, one of them had seen her husband butchered and devoured before her, arms chained above her head.  The party said that they were going to sleep in the cell and they would escort the prisoners out in the morning.  Most of the prisoners decided they did not trust the heroes so they made their own way out, and the characters, just let them go.  Half of them died.  In the morning they brought the survivors to the surface and pointed in the direction of the town, and returned to the temple.  

The story of the rescue of the prisoners had only just started making the rounds of the town, but let's face it, the news spread faster than a story about the old farmer caught despoiling his sheep.  The owner of the bar, well he was related to the woman whose husband was murdered and many shop owners did business with they murdered merchants.  A village of less than a thousand people, most of them not in the town itself, twenty taken away and when found over half of them are allowed to be murdered and the rest were just pointed the way back to town, not escorted.  Imagine, there is a hostage situation in you town and a group of police find the hostages, but decide to use them as bait to find the criminals, but half of the prisoners then die.  

The party enters the town, unbeknownst to them, they were seen and identified as they came into town.  They were grumbling about someone lifting their mounts.  The bar goes quiet.  They saunter over to the bar and ask for food and a room.  The bartender tells them that they had just served the last of the food and there is no more.  The rooms in the hotel are all full.  The players start complaining that the towns folk are racist, because they are all human.  The rescued gnome gets a room, he turns to the bar and tells them about how he heard the Heroes trying to sneak by his prison room twice, saying to each other that they need to be quiet so the prisoners did not know they were there.  He told them about the nine prisoners that died waiting to be freed.  The elf prisoners had no trouble getting rooms.  Three of the party members decide that camping might be the wiser way in this town.  Two of the party members try to get the sympathies of the local blacksmith, Otis, secret knight of Jarda, and he morally berates the characters for what they did.  

The two characters talk then about burning to village down as they are ungrateful for their help.  

Interesting.  So they released a chaotic evil guard on his own cognizance?  Well he imeadiately heads back in to the temple to report a force that is attacking the temple, he was wounded and appeared dead and snuck away, he will mention that they were led by a paladin of Scoria.  The duke is a Scorian, and the temple and the Duke are enemies, it may be enough, especially if he waits a few days after they bring down the three temples or at least one or two, it might work.  

The Duke's Man in Hommlet hears about the rude treatment of the people in Nulb and he consoles them, saying if they did that to him he might lynch a few of them as way of showing them how lucky they were to have such heroes risking so much for them.  Then proceed to the execution of the townsman for the crime of tax evasion and therefore treason in a time of war.  Off with his head!  The festivities will first call the heroes to the stage after anouncing the humanoid ears they have collected and the taxes they have paid all for the war effort.  Then he will say that it was a shame that the day was to be marred by the fact evidence had come forward that one of the townsfolk had been caught  committing a crime and boom, 

After the execution, the players will have to find someway of justifying their actions with the duke and his man, after all, they were honoured as friends, but he just executed a man for using barter and avoiding taxes.