Café de Nuit

First off, loved Black Crusade. I just got around to reading it and it was great. It’s nice to have some effective Ravenloft fiction out there again. Now we just need more!

I'm planning on running a one shot 4e adventure set in Malosia at a local mini-con. I'm trying to drum up interest for a Ravenloft campaign I've got in mind.

The concept behind the adventure is that you and your party are freshly trained Redbreasts, out to purge heretics and witches from the faithful population of Malosia in the name of the Five Scions. The characters will be prompted to do what are, essentially, horrible things, but I'll be cloaking everything in the language of the church.

Instead of coming into town and seeing a downtrodden population, terrified that you're about to drag their best and brightest youth off to be tortured as witches, you see people deferring to your inquisitorial authority, granting you whatever help you need out of faith. Instead of the frantic protests of the innocent, I describe the lies of the guilty, desperately trying to cast an evil charm upon the faithful servants of God.

However, after the characters have arrested innocents, and the players are beginning to despair, I’ll throw some actual dark witchcraft at them, strengthening the characters’ faith in their mission and trying to convince the players that their brutality is a necessary evil. Either some innocents get swept up in the witch-hunt, or actual witchcraft is practiced, bringing ruin to your great nation.

The party (pregens for the con) I have in mind right now include:

Sword and shield fighter: needs characterization

Wis/cha Cleric: A charismatic firebrand whose hatred of witchcraft is surpassed only by his faith in God and the Five Scions.

Wrath or Protection Invoker: Actually a young member of the clergy attached to the Redbreast squad to help seek out heresy and protect the faith of his squad.

Archer Ranger: Needs characterization. Will use a Crossbow

My fifth character in the party is as of yet undefined. I obviously want to avoid the arcane, primal, and psionic classes (all witchcraft), and have the fifth man be a striker, without having 2 of the same class. This leaves the Rogue and Avenger (maybe a Str Paladin?). We already have two Wis based classes, so I’m leaning towards the Brutal Rogue. My thoughts were that he would be the member of the squad trained in “persuasion” (torture), but this may be too outright evil for most players. I want to hint that players are doing evil things, not scream it at them.

Any suggestions?

Some ideas for special backgrounds for the pregens.

Wis/Cha Cleric: Firebrand - Gain a +1 (+2?) bonus to Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate when dealing with large crowds of people who share your religion.

Invoker: Interrogator - When attempting to have someone confess to heresy or witchcraft, you may use Insight instead of Diplomacy, Bluff, or Intimidate.
DC set using intimidation rules?
(Special DM rule. If the player beats the DC by 5, even an innocent person may confess to crimes they did not commit)

I suppose I'm a little uneasy about the theme, but that's neither here nor there - you're trying to compel players to do morally questionable things, and then provide them with the justification. But the characters they're playing don't seem to have the moral doubts or uncertainty that the players would when confronted with such acts.

You might try it like Paranoia - drawing on the idea that every character is both a mutant and a member of a secret society, ie, the very traitors that the Computer has them chasing. But in your case, perhaps the PCs are not true-believers, or they are witchcraft users, or whatever else, and are in a situation where they are torn between inaction, persecution, or rebellion?

Fighter/Strongarm?
Cleric/Zealot?
Invoker/Demagogue?
Ranger/Detective?
Rogue/Torturer/Inquisitor?

Your group seems to break down, for me at least, like that. You might want to take a look at the WitchFinder, WitchHunter, etc series from Warhammer - might give some characterization ideas, or even class or ideological balance options.

Pale wrote:But the characters they're playing don't seem to have the moral doubts or uncertainty that the players would when confronted with such acts.

I think this is the thing here (and share Pale's discomfort with the theme) - what you're doing won't work if they're all true believers. The Cleric probably needs to be a zealot, but what if it's all an act - s/he doesn't believe, and s/he overcompensates by pretending to be a zealot? The Torturer would probably be more interesting as a true believer, but it's also possible that s/he's only in the Church because they give him/her a licence to hurt people. If we go with Pale's idea of the detective-Invoker, maybe hunting heretics is an intellectual rather than moral challenge for him/her?

The split between the player's feeling and what the characters should be feeling is what I was aiming to exploit. I wouldn't want it in a long term campaign, but for a one-shot I want to try to get the players to role-play the true believes while not agreeing with what the characters are doing. It's only when they face the real witches that they realized the necessity of their actions (or continue to think that their actions aren't worth the price).