04 Night's Watch.pdf - Chaos Bleeds

CHapter 3: beyond the WallStory HooksThe following are a selection of scenarios and ideas to provide Narratorswith a starting point for their own stories about life among the free folkbeyond the Wall.Wife-takingMost groups of free folk have occasional cause to have extended socialcontact with other groups. Whether migratory tribes converging on agiven hunting ground, or villages convening for a seasonal market ora festival, these meetings are traditionally considered neutral ground.Participants are expected to maintain the peace, which allows for theexchange of goods and information between groups that might otherwisecome to blows, as well as for socialization outside the relativelysmall groups most of the free folk live in.It is at one such meeting that a male player character meets an attractiveyoung woman from another community. Over a series of apparentlychance encounters she makes it clear that she is romantically interested,but that he’ll need to come and get her. Depending on the style of play,this can be gamed as a series of intrigues, with the Narrator characterattempting to compel the player character to fall in love with and stealher, or through simple roleplaying between the Narrator and any charactersinvolved in the encounters. The apparent challenge to the party,should the character ultimately become infatuated with the girl, is tosuccessfully enter the girl’s village or encampment, locate her, and gether out without rousing her relations to her defense. This will be no easytask, though, as the romantic interest is actually a trap.Another member of the party is connected to a longstanding disputewith members of the girl’s community. It may be over a questionof hunting rights, or a matter of honor. They have prevailed upon thegirl to entice the party into a raid, so that they may be captured orkilled. The players may be able to avoid the trap by resisting the girl’sintrigue, or by identifying the girl’s connection to the dispute, andthen either convincing the smitten character that it is a trap, or byphysically restraining him. They may even be able to prevail by detectingthe trap when scouting the girl’s encampment, or by fightingtheir way free, either with or without the girl, after the trap has beensprung.One additional challenge may be added if the characters successfullyintrigue to modify the girl’s attitude towards the character. In such acase, the girl may indeed fall in love with the character and attempt tocovertly warn them of the trap, or at the very least not raise the alarmwhen they arrive to carry her off. The greatest potential success for theparty in this situation might well be the successful seduction of the girl,her subsequent abduction, and then using the relationship between acharacter and the girl to somehow resolve the dispute between the othercharacter and the girl’s relations.The Crow’s ChildrenWord comes to the players that a party of crows has raided a nearbyvillage and killed all the adults. Two children, a boy and a girl, havebeen orphaned and are being taken by the crows back to the Wall tobe made into kneelers. The boy will be raised by the crows to hate andkill his free kin, and the girl will be sold to brothels of the whore’stown the crows keep. The girl happens to be the child of a character’sbeloved sister, married out to the destroyed village. The boy isthe nephew, under similar circumstances, of the senior member of apowerful rival. Not only would rescuing the children from the crowsbe a good deed, but the nephew might be a very useful chip in thelocal power games.The report the players receive is not entirely accurate, however. Thevillage has indeed been raided, and all the adults been killed, but thedeed was done by a raiding party of wildlings. A party of crows doeshave the two children in their custody, having happened on the attackin progress and driven off the raiders. The children will indeed go tothe Wall and Mole’s Town, respectively, but the crows would argue thattheir intentions are good, and it’s the only option they have for orphanedfoundlings. While the players could certainly attempt to winthe children back from the crows by force, the black brothers are wellarmed, armored, and trained, and the likelihood of success is small.Rather, the players will need to approach the crows and negotiatewith them for the return of the children. The nature of the relationshipto the children will affect their willingness to give them up, though. Asthe aunt or uncle of the girl, a player could make a very strong argumentthat they should care for the child. The boy, however, is not related byblood or allegiance to any of the characters, and will be a much hardersell. The crows may not be aware of the boy’s relationship to the seniormember of the powerful rival but, if made aware of it, may be interestedin leveraging that relationship in the Watch’s interest. Clearly there isbenefit to be accrued to the characters, here, but they will need to determineto what extent they are willing to use children as pawns in theirpower games, and what they are prepared to give up in the course ofdoing so.For example, a character who gains custody, however nominally, ofone of the children will need to see to their care and upkeep until suchtime as they can care for themselves, or find someone willing to assumethat responsibility. However it plays out, this story could ultimately defineor redefine the character’s relationships with the Watch, either revealingthe despised crows to be humane and reasonable, or establishinga long-term enmity beyond even that common between the free folkand the crows.RaidedMost of the village’s fighting forces are away escorting senior membersof the community to an important meeting. The characters have beenleft in charge of defending the village. They awake in the middle of thenight to find they are under attack. The must respond quickly, to driveoff the raiders with the minimum loss of life and resources. Their successwill depend on the preparations they make. Scouting the surroundingterritory will provide indications of the presence of potentially hostileforces, while posting pickets overnight will improve the party’s responsetime when the attack comes. They will likely not have sufficient numbersto defend everything of value in their community, and will need toplan what to focus their defense on.Vulnerable resources could include food stores, livestock, or otherwisedefenseless member of the community. Depending on the ex-114