A Split Party

Allow me to pre-face this entry by saying that no (were-)bear has been shot or otherwise harmed during our last session and that we do not condone violence towards animals. Especially ones that can turn into hulking monstrosities and rip your face off.

This time I came in with two scenes in mind that I could use, neither of which saw any use other than a hint here and there. It's entirely my fault as I tend to be a reactive GM and already having established an issue within the setting, I wanted to give the players a chance to react to it in their own ways. I was waiting for a hook I could use to start off either of the scenes I came in with. Even though none appeared, everyone had fun so I can't say our time went to waste.

We went on to the day after everyone has given a statement on what happened in the woods. I began the session asking people what they would be doing the very next day.

VT decided to look at the scene again from the skies. She clearly likes her falcon form. She decided to track where Windy (official nickname) went by looking at snow patterns. Since her falcon form gives her Keen Sight and a Perception bonus I allowed it and she found out the trail of fresh snow leading from the scene of gruesome murder up to where the hunters' group was gathering. There was also a doe having a look at the aforementioned scene. Then it went off to graze on leaves and twigs. Perfectly normal behaviour!

Devlin had a look through his mother's notebooks in hopes of finding something that could cause blizzards out of nowhere. Going through books sounds boring but we had a nice glimpse into Devlin's backstory. I do love it when players take time to flesh out their characters. We've learned that Devlin's mum is in prison. She's innocent but took the blame for his father's murder when he was beating her and young Devlin snapped, turned into a bear and frenzied in the living room. I loved the story enough that I rewarded him by saying he found mentions of one Wayne Webster who was good friends with his mum and a source of most of her information on local tradition.

At that point Devlin wanted to go and speak with him but I ruled by that time it would be too late for a polite visit. This was mainly because I didn't want to have the whole evening spent on single-player scenes. I try to avoid the lack of player-to-player interaction during a game.

Next up was Peyton who, while working at a hospital in Fairbanks, went to the local coroner to see if he could provide them with the autopsy reports of the body they found. Whenever I see coroners on screen, they always seem unfazed by dead bodies. I take it, it comes with the territory but then I thought that this was probably a horrific event in this guy's life, I'd make him be uncomfortable talking about it... and just when I was about to give out some information, I realised there's actually a Social system of Opening Doors that I should be using rather than making things easy and simple. Things were said and done, and Peyton had a very good approach at convincing the coroner to do him a favour.

At the end of the evening, both in-game and out-of-game, the characters met in a pub. VT was already chatting people up about a new extreme sport she thought of that incorporated logs, lakes and hills. Devlin didn't get into a fight, amazingly enough. Some girl tried to flirt with Peyton because she thought they were a boy. I'm so glad I could come up with some randomness. Especially considering social interactions are certainly not my forte.