Unhallowed Rites, Part 1: Invisible Friend
Strap in, kids! This is the beginning of Handbook’s 2021 Halloween arc. If everything goes according to plan, we may just pay off a storyline or two. One can only surmise whether Demon Queen will succeed in invading the Prime Material on Devil’s Night this year.
While these nefarious machinations stew, what do you say we talk about dubious quest hooks and uncertain information? The “invisible friend” is only one form of this trope. And if you’ve ever looked at a random rumor table, you probably know some others. These are the bullet points listed as neither “true” nor “false.” Instead, they are given that oh-so-interesting appellation of “partly true.” They’re some of my favorites for RP purposes.
I’m talking about those in-game urban legends that seem far-fetched even by fantasy standards. Sure there’s a devil haunting the local well, but it’s probably not causing Farmer Brown’s cows to disappear. Sister Margarette is indeed going out in the middle of the night, but it’s not because she’s possessed by the spirit of some long-dead witch. She’s just having a run of the mill affair with a randy priest. And if you really believe that wererats are spreading plague about town, I’ve got some swamp property to sell you. Those poor lycanthropes are just being scapegoated by the local Nurgle cult.
The reason I like these silly hooks so much is that they force players to consider the boundaries of fantasy. In the examples above, cow-eating devils and possessed nuns and plague-bringing skaven are all possible, but they aren’t a given. Same deal with “invisible friends” who are more likely an eccentric sorcerer’s unseen servants. Because we don’t know the extent of the fantasy, we can’t tell out of hand whether a far-fetched explanation is actually plausible. Suddenly, our rational minds are thrust back into a time of superstition and best-guess rationale. We’re forced to accept that there may be more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. And for me, that’s the very essence of fantasy.
Question of the day then! Have you ever fallen for one of those “partly true” rumors? Was your genre knowledge used against you to make you gullible? Or was the weird explanation unexpectedly the right one? Tell us all about your, “Wait, that was the real culprit!?” moments down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
In our 4e game, I’m the invisible friend! That is, my character who has backstory amnesia had something happen to their soul, and it’s causing one of the settings ‘big good’ avenger NPCs to be unable to perceive them due to their divine affinity.
Things turned sour after they touched him and some dramatic revelations regarding divine domain theft were discovered by both parties.
In my own game, no one else believes that the party’s bladebound magus has a telepathic sword. They just think he’s an eccentric.
Unfortunately, I’ve never really experienced this in a game. Though it did happen to me watching Season of the Witch; and it carried the rest of the movie for me.
The Nicholas Cage movie? Is that worth a watch?
The very one. I’d say it’s worth watching once. It genuinely kept me guessing as to how it would end all the way up to the climax; which I give it a lot of points for. But, possibly because of that, the message of the story is pretty muddy; so the end of the movie doesn’t have that satisfying impact.
Now I kind of want to find a copy and watch it again, haha.
I’ve hit a few, a tavern full of true, partially true, and false rumors is a real trove of possibilities, let’s you have the really outlandish true plot get dismissed.
You know what? New game: GIVE ME YOUR BEST RANDOM RUMOR.
I’ll go first:
“Honest, Officer! I wouldn’t try to pawn off any untoward valuables to an upstanding merchant. But there’s a runty little fella lives down the sewer. Sets up shop there anyway. Buys whatever you’re selling, no questions asked. I don’t feel so bad about offloading broken merchandise on a goblin, and he seems to think human clientele make the place respectable.”
Not exactly rumors, but in my Intrigue campaign, the city’s dictator, the barbarian warlord Kul, cultivates a cult of personality about himself and his badassery. This has led to a running gag of NPCs sharing Chuck Norris-type “facts” about him, most of which are probably nonsense but few of which can be dismissed outright (he IS a high-level Pathfinder Barbarian after all). Does he swim the bay in order to hunt sharks? Not likely. Has he actually punched the moon? Probably not. Is he immune to bullets? Depends on your definition of “DR” and “HP”. Can he punch fireballs out of existence? Yes. Is he so scary that a devil that was enslaving a village surrendered and pledged fealty to him rather than fight? There are definitely witnesses to that event (though the devil quite likely had her own schemes as well). Did he once fight a T-Rex solo and decapitate it in two swings? Yes, the party saw him do that. Did he once out-drink someone who was magically immune to alcohol? Yes, that was a member of the party. Etc, etc.
This all greatly adds to the campaign, not only through humor but because Lord Kul is one of the major antagonists, and the players are so scared of him that the PCs run away whenever he shows up. Given that they’ve managed to kill his son and his wife, that’s not a bad decision. They legitimately aren’t sure how tough of a fight he would be (pretty tough).
I love the idea of Chuck Norris gags being a table of random rumors. That’s good enough to be its own supplement. You could do categories for caster, martial, and monster antagonists!
The town cleric came from the big city – think he’s running from an affair.
Old Former George down the lane always grows the runtiest crops.
Pretty sure the goblins are going to attack again. Marsha’ cousin’s husband is a drover on one of the merchant convoys and swears he heard giggling.
Three storms in a week probably means Asmodeus is going to try to break through to the Prime Material.
Ima guess F (running from devil-worshiping cult), F (he harvests at night and is trying to run up prices), F (the caravan guards are all disguised goblins trying to make an honest buck), and T (that big city cleric was right to run).
Why do I get the feeling that this will somehow someway end up leading to a slap fight and/or tea party between demon queen and archfey? I… really don’t know why
Naw. They lunch together on on the first Tuesday of every month. Devil’s Night falls on a Sunday this year.
Once, we messed up the campaign world by NOT believing the warnings.
“The Dark One can hear you everywhere!”
I figured, “But not in this sanctified space, and I need to coordinate the plan to stop him and corroborate the clues I got with my teammates.”
Turns out that yes, he could hear us there. He heard the plan to stop him from our own mouths and he was prepared.
Come season two, and we were busy cleaning up the mess I caused by not keeping my big mouth shut. =_=
Yup. Straight from Robert Jordan’s keyboard to your table! This mess is exactly the sort of “baseless superstition” that can get you into trouble. Great example.
It’s sort of similar to the old “our vampires are different” problem:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/vampire_lore
I had the ravens all serve the dark one vibe also from the wheel of time get me in trouble in one of my games, the DM dropped some hints that the bad guy was using rats to torment people and spy but we figured that was just window dressing and we were big bad PC’s so what did we have to fear from some stinking rats?
Yeah, then he followed us back to our inn, burned it down and jumped us as we came staggering out of the fire sans armour and with no spell slots.
Word to the wise, don’t ignore your DM’s warnings and especially don’t call him a “wheel of time loser” for plagiarizing an idea or two.
This page is … scary.
I mean, we knew DQ was capital ‘B’ – Bad.
We knew she was keeping an eye on her offspring.
I just never guessed it was because she needed them as components for her breakout attempt.
I wonder whether Antipaladin will try to sabotage her this time as well.
…
I wonder whether DQ cares about Sorcerer and Thief beyond their role in the Abyssal Blood Covenant at all.
…
I hope Wicked Uncle isn’t coming back. In some ways, I dislike him a LOT more than DQ and Beefs. >_<
Beegs
I’ve been hearing “beefs” and “beegs” in a couple of posts. Careful there. I’ve heard that Beebs…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/self-destructive-evil
…Hates these misnomers. No telling what he might do if he found out.
Hey, Beeps?
blows raspberry and runs
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQC05X1zq9ZCbQ00tK_mURxZl7IXlBr_Oc429tneqjMEY5vyVHdy2k_iaZK6pPxywtbJtA&usqp=CAU
Wait, “Dark Uncle”? have I missed some lore droppage?
Wicked Uncle is Wizard’s and Aristocrat’s uncle.
He was behind the massacre of the rest of their family and tortured Aristocrat, cutting off her ear.
Ah, yes. Thanks, I was still stuck in thinking about Thief’s family tree I was forgetting Wizard’s.
Link to story arc: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/claiming-the-throne-part-1-5-active-npcs
Recent appearance: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/incorporeal
I suppose ‘partially true rumors’ best describes my newest character for Pathfinder.
Revol is an archer who wears a mask. He has partial amnesia brought on by some sort of curse or blessing, which I’ve left a little open to interpretation by our GM. He’s a normal human ranger/inquisitor that ALWAYS wears a mask who’s been wandering the wilderness for hundreds of years… but doesn’t have any idea its been nearly that long. He considers himself a strict adherent to Wilderlaw (just what it sounds like, the law of the wild), and his Survival skill is flavored as him being guided by spirits.
Revol always ALLOWS someone to escape, and so far someone has escaped from every encounter. Essentially the goal is that all these superstitious cowards will spread rumors about him. Each more ridiculous than the last. The GM loves the idea and while I haven’t gotten to hear them, apparently the Legend of Revol is already started with the bandits. Very curious to see how it will all go down.
I imagine your dude as human Rexxar.
https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Rexxar
Nice to see a PC concerned with reputation. This is exactly how you justify Intimidate checks and minor social perks later in the game. Great schtick!
I’m also playing to my GM’s interests for this one and more importantly our shared interests.
I think a lot of people forget the collaborative part of the story telling in our hobby, but it’s where ‘the magic’ happens. And that means working with the whoever is at the top of the table, and on the other hand, being willing to hand over your sketchy idea and let them worry about the details.
Really… I think too many people are stuck in the ‘adversarial GM’ mindset-both players and GM’s.
Nor arguments here. 🙂
I’m not sure I quite agree with the “adversarial” part though. In my head, it’s less about playing against someone than it is overlooking the available resources. It’s less complicated to run your own backstory shenanigans than to bring in the GM for the old “hey, I was thinking about doing XYZ” conversation. And the irony is that, without that buy-in, doing XYZ is going to be much less impactful.
At my table, there’s nothing adversarial so much as things being overlooked as you say. But stuff gets linked to me, and I’ve been reading lots of more recent stories… that relationship is absolutely still out there at tables, and it’s sad to see.
Could just be confirmation bias? 98% of everything is fine and there’s just that minority of bad stories that get lots of attention. Still though; it’s something I had largely hoped had died with 2nd edition.
Fair cop. I’m always amused by the horror stories you see floating around out there. But sometimes I wonder if they’re bad for the hobby, helping to normalize bad behavior.
todays VDL video is close to on-topic
https://youtu.be/EMk__UkbzSA
Antipaladin activates smite.
or maybe „take 20“ on the search for vermine, rather than stomping the obvious.
“Have you ever fallen for one of those “partly true” rumors? Was your genre knowledge used against you to make you gullible? Or was the weird explanation unexpectedly the right one? Tell us all about your, “Wait, that was the real culprit!?””
Yes, yes, and yes. It happens most frequently in “very conspiracy laden modern supernatural” games more so than others, because I find the GMs who want to run “very conspiracy laden modern supernatural” games are the type to draw most heavily on real world occult knowledge so my “more than passing” familiarity with the subject makes me an easier mark.
However my favorite ‘so there we were’ story involves my first and last Wraith the Oblivion campaign I played in. If you’re familiar with the old game you’re probably already nodding along. So in Wraith, the premise is you’re dead, you’re in the underworld and can go back and haunt the real world, there are various reasons to do so and not do so, but what my story really pertains to are the Shadows. Every PC has a Shadow, a dark, ‘evil’, self-destructive voice inside that is trying to lead them into destruction, into becoming a vicious Specter, an undead shade that consumes other shades/ghosts/wraiths. Alternately you can eventually free yourself of your Shadow (through good works, etc, it’s the old Storyteller system ya know) and be Redeemed and “go to heaven” (or so the theory goes).
So your Shadow is played by another Player. Usually the Player next to you so they could whisper dark nothings in your ear. And now we get to the meat, or ectoplasm, of the story. So the Character I made was just vile, an ex-slaver, murder, sadist, just the worst. He’d rub soul-coins together to listen to them moan in agony. that type. So after a few weeks my Shadow was generally trying to whisper good things at me, the other Player was trying to draw my PC back from the looming Abyss (your Shadow doesn’t want to be destroyed either ya know, since it wants to eventually destroy your psyche and take over). A few more months in and the Player genuinely figured that the Shadow was going to be redeemed and my PC would become a Specter (not technically possible, but with the right GM… eh).
I loved it, it was hilarious, the other PCs hated my character, but he had “all the right connections” in the fascist ruler ship of the Underworld, was actually wealthy in the Underworld, etc. And was generally willing to go along with the group’s plans, so they tolerated that he just did seriously nasty stuff on the side every chance he could get away with it (which I mean they tried to, and often succeeded, in stymieing his villainy).
But now for my favorite part, the Shadow I played. I went with Dark Advisor as the core type, so I always gave the best advice. Stuff the other Player probably wanting to do anyway. See, every time the Shadow gives advice or make demands, //and gets their way//, the Shadow gets a little bit of power. So the Player had to either suck it up, do what the Shadow advised and give it some power, or rebel and do something else, something that wasn’t in line with their own desires or needs or, well frankly, usually the right thing to do. And I just built up the pile of power. I’d use it to get information about what was coming, or to get information that would help, so the Player was always fighting with accepting his Shadow’s help, always second guessing whether the advice was ‘genuine’ or if this was time he was being played. He was never sure which was which.
It was glorious.
Unfortunately the campaign fell apart before anyone could succumb to their Shadow or find redemption.
Too bad the campaign fell apart. I’m genuinely curious which one of you had the right read on the particular version of the world that this ST was running.
Oh, we both thought the Shadow deserved to be redeemed. Like, yes, it became a running joke that my Character didn’t have a shadow, he had a “light’, but the GM ran things very “by the book”.
They weren’t really a “break the rules” type of GM. It’s one of the reason the game feel apart. Instead of “flipping the role”, the GM was being a stickler that my Shadow was supposed to be “dragging the PC down”, and it made it very unfun for the other Player. And well, the game world is very bleak, a lot of people need some “light in darkness” and not constant grimdark bleakshadow†. It wore on people and eventually most of us weren’t enjoying the game anymore.
I suspect it was the case for the GM as, they stuck to more traditional Dungeon Fantasy games after that.
.† I think I’ll make that a PC’s name at some point, Grimdark Bleakshadow. A happy-go-lucky Bard of the clown tradition, maybe a Bardbarian… a physical props harlequin.
Heh. Methinks you know your Pratchett.
https://wiki.lspace.org/Mavolio_Bent
I mean I’m about to play a character whose were”wolf” curse comes from being possessed by a REALLY edgy manticore. May or may not be because he ate its flesh and used its remains to make his shield and sword. He’s a very practical man
Heh. Reminds me of that fat Warhammer goblin that ate troll flesh. He’s huge and angry because the troll keeps trying to regrow, giving the gobbo a killer case of indigestion.
When i said that all the problems on town were because of the goat possessed by the evil mayor son during a drug trip while flat-lining a part of a ritual to seal a demon and so preventing an angel destroying the town to kill some drows for revenge, the rest of the party should have should have listen to me 😀
This is why the phrase, “Honest officer!” was invented.
Wererats, nurgle… curses, it’s Clan Pestilence. No I swear, I am not drunk I have seen those ratmen and their diseased ways. Wait… I’m bretonnian in empire… they don’t know about the rats. Well this town was nice I’m heading out now before I’m food, slave or worse.
We’ve got a Clan Pestilens warband in my current Mordheim campaign. Little buggers have NO BUSINESS being that strong.
I love giving characters a secret that the rest of the party doesn’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those plots come to a head, but they amuse me while roleplaying.
Most recently was Lapis, my adorable, innocent merfolk bard who was obsessed with learning and documenting new things… so much so, that she had put her soul up as collateral in a deal with a demon for more knowledge. She got kinda gypped, though; just a grumpy imp familiar who wouldn’t even help unless I could phrase my request as a search for knowledge (“Search that cave for hostiles? No, that would be outside the bounds of your contract. I just want a population census; number, species, whether they’re a tool using civilization and if so what tools they have on hand, that sort of thing.”). I could pass messages back and forth by furiously ‘taking notes’ (when Lapis didn’t get distracted actually taking notes), and ol’ Barsley could disguise himself as a rat or just turn invisible. Once the party did hear him flapping, but Lapis’ perception is so terrible that when asked she honestly said she hadn’t heard a thing. I was definitely getting a bit too loose with references to Hell/The Abyss, though.
Ash is a bit of a red herring, actually. He’s an Weird West gunslinger from Deadlands Classic, who never speaks, shrugs off bullets like annoyances, and hides a scar that is clearly the result of being messily hanged… in a setting where such a death tends to see one come back as an undead. But no, Ash survived his botched hanging; he’s just really good at protection and healing magic. His real secret is that she is actually a girl.
And I straight up told my party in our pirate campaign that my character’s cohort had a secret, and challenged them to figure it out before the plot brought it out. Won’t reveal that one, though, since that campaign has the highest odds of getting continued at some point.
I note an effect and a cause at play:
Don’t check yourself next time! Just let the secret get out. Players are slow enough to pick up on foreshadowing when the GM does it. If you want them to investigate your biz, you’re pretty much required to whack ’em over the head with clues.