Greetings, brethern

Disclaimer for my group: Dom, Florian, Katja: Nehmt eure Nase aus dem Topic ansonsten schicke ich euch zurück zum Abvater nach Merwen!

A group of acoylthes on Dusk is going to walk upon a small village (between 100 and 200 souls) which got burned down by a band of ravening mutants whom succumbed to chaos. A lot of building (which I assume to be equivalent to medivial middle europe) have been burned down, the ruin of the church ("Wehrkirche") is still standing (pre-fabricated rockcrete building). The village has been looted.

The pc will encounter a small ambush party of the mutants inside the village (not fleeing on spotting them since they believe these view figures are an "easy catch") and will find the main body of the mutant band later.

My question: what loot could they find?
Generally, my group isn´t big into looting. They do not rob anythinig that isn´t nailed down. But I wonder myself what usefull things (besides weapon, food and gunpowder) could have been taken? Please assist my brainstorming!

- rope
- coin
- lanterns; torches; candles
- the rare piece of simple jewelry (rings; necklaces)
- clothing & shoes
- tools (hammer, nails, saws)
- salt

What else? I am looking for anything that is either usefull to the pc; usefull for a band of rather nomadic mutant bandits (succumbed to chaos worship) or (most important) things that help to "draw a picture" (like a ragdoll on the belt of a mutant... perhaps with the scalp of the poor little girl that owned it right next to it!). Of course, the item should be "possibly available" in a remote blackpowder-age-village (located near a swamp).

I don't think you really need to flesh out exactly what there is to be found in this village, as long as you and the players have a good feel of what type of village it is and roughly how advanced the technology of the village would be.

If a question about loot or equipment were to come up (let's say that one of the PC's go out to look for a rope), then you can let that PC do a search test and assign an appropriate bonus to it based on how readily available a rope would be in that village (most likely pretty easy to find, although the length and usefulness of the rope could vary).

My tip would be to just give them the basic idea of what the village contains, and if the players want to look for something then ask them what they are looking for specifically and then determine in a case by case manner if they find what they are looking for or not.

Of course, if you want to have the village include special "one-off" items (like a Chaos charm, a possessed doll or maybe an old relic lasgun owned by an offworlder who arrived on the planet several decades ago) that the players might find, then perhaps you should establish where these special items are located in the village (they shouldn't be found at random), and how many degrees of success would be needed to find them and where they'd have to search and how meticulous their efforts are.

A lot of the loot will village items of equipment that are designed to enable the village to survive in that area of Dusk.

e.g. a large "big cat" carnivore that can easily take down PCs, let alone peasants, can be kept at bay by the smell of the great north fanged bear. So the villages kept smelly fur armour (1-2 AP primitive) around the place to wear outside of the village. Up to the PCs if they wear it...

Stuff to clean the toxins from the food/water. Herbal remedies for cuts and grazes. There are some grubs in IH from Dusk which taste awful but are worth a full meal.

@Varnias
Valid point. The problem, whatsoever, is that the pc aren´t very familiar with the WH40K background. Thereby, they will ask for "anything usefull?" Especially since there is one Guardsman "native" to Dusk in the group whose player wasn´t even familiar with 40K to begin with(!).

I do have some ideas myself, but I would like to get some "extra input". Like the one from...

@Baldrick
Many thanks! The "smelly idea" is quiet good, although I am going to change it to some other kind of critter. "Musk of Fennrager" or something alike. Something that won´t "smell on" but has to be "prepared" and will "expire" after a couple of days. I

Gregorius21778 said:

Well, the thing is that "usefulness" of any given object is pretty relative. I mean, a bottle of water is pretty useful on many places on a planet like earth (like if you're stranded in a desert). But if you're trapped at the bottom of the ocean in the wreckage of a submarine, the usefulness of the water bottle wouldn't be much to give praise to, when what you actually need is a canister with oxygen and a scuba set to be able to escape.

So if one of your players were to ask you: "Is there anything useful in the village?" then the only natural response would be: "Well it depends on what you intend to do, doesn't it?"

While I might appriciate the effort you're trying to put in here in detailing the village, I don't think that neither the players nor yourself can actually expect you to read their minds when they ask about if there's anything useful or not. Because what might seem useful to them, might not be useful at all in the scenario you've created. And you can't really reveal what might be useful to find and stuff down the backpack either, because that would sort of remove the challenge of the adventure, don't you agree?

Oh and then there's a whole plethora of other things to consider. Like with the native Dusk worlder you speak of, and that characters definition of what would be useful or not might vary widely from what another character would think would be useful.

And also, I don't really believe that this would really be a question of being familiar with the 40K setting or not. I mean, let's face it, Dusk is a Feral World/Death World and it's not largely populated by the different elements native to the 40K setting for the most part. So knowing (both in-character and out of character) what the names of the Primarchs of the different space marine chapters are, or what view the Adeptus Mechanicus have on the use of artificial intelligence, it wouldn't really help anyone in a hostile and uncivilized jungle like the ones on Dusk (neither the characters nor the players).

So let's say that you give a rough description of the village, and your players ask for something useful, ask them what they intend to do and what sort of tools they are looking for to accomplish that task. If the players don't have any idea then perhaps a few Intelligence or Survival checks are in order to be rolled, if they succeed (which might be considered automatic for the Dusk worlder) then you can some hints and tips as to what might be worth looking for.

Necessities like food and clean water would be a good start on a death world/feral world, then there's rope, a knife, whetstone, means to make a fire, something to suspend you from the ground when you're sleeping so you don't have to suffer thousands of insects crawling all over you and nibbling on you etc. etc. All of these would probably be considered useful in such an enviroment.

If they manage to think of these things themselves, then great! It might just be worth to award them some extra xp at the end of the scenario for having their head in the right place. If they don't, well then that's what character skills are for. To help where the player's own knowledge might fall a little short.

But now im rambling, I just thought it might be good to bring up a little GM theory here.

Thanks Varnias.

@Rest of Forum

Any other inspirational ideas out there?

I found the "fur / predator" inspiration of Baldrick quiet nice and will incorporate a pack of Predators Lurking about the village. The "Furs" will be found on a Search check & a Dusk Lore skill will tell what they are good for. A second hook will be provided through "village chronik" (book) that can be found inside the church (Reading; Perhaps Logic to put the information skipped from the book into use).

As for "pack of predators", the Dusk Stalker would be a nasty thing to encounter. And finding something in the village to guard against i would be of top priority.

Well seeing as this is a less-than-high-tech Deathworld it is fairly easy to draw inspiration from some Catachan-like "essentials":

Plentiful supplies of really big knives that border on being small swords (use Combat Knife from IH, one per adult pre-mutation...)

Heavy boots, either augmented with hammered-iron plates chained into place, thick reptile hide or similar.

Baskets and planters with local herbal remedy plants in them that are used to soothe burns, cleanse poisons from local plants/animals, staunch bleeding... you get the idea.

An odd local wind instrument (think Australian Didgery-do) that is used to make creepy sounds that frighten some of the local predators.

Lots and lots of local bandaging materials.

An odd disturbingly cute plush doll of some local critter. Missing button-eye optional.

An Aquilla charm carved with rough tools from a very large tooth.

Mosquito netting.

Local clothing.

Large warning bell.

Handy semi-primitive tools.

Small hidden stash of shotgun shells.

A ballista, cannon or other low-tech "big gun"

Hmmm. Thinking of the climax of "Predator" how about traps and other dangers that the acolytes have to pass "through" on the way into the village?

If you then want to have them defend the village how about have them use the traps to their advantage?

Baldrick said:

While the idea is neat, it is just a little to late. My group managed to arrive near the village and got attacked by some mutant marauders (guarding a defiled church littered with decomposing bodies about to give "birth" to some Nurglings). The last session ended with the pc laying fire inside the defiled desacred church, destroying all the corpses in the progress (and using up all there supplies of "liquid incinerator"). Guess they will start looking for what loot is left in the village at the start of the next session (within a couple of weeks) before starting to look the rest of the mutant bandits.

...but perhaps the mutants will have some traps around there actual camp...

Let me see...

Pits; slings; ....

Gregorius21778 said:

Have a look at some of the Indiana Jones movies. It should give you some ideas... or at least tell your players you have just watched them, do so with an evil grin to really scare them :-)