Third time lucky with Midnight

[findingthepath]

hello all, Well what can i say this is the third time i've tried running midnight - the last time i called it quits because i felt that i'd missed the whole point of the setting whilst running the game, but thats another story best left for another thread. The characters are as follows

Rosalyn - Erenlander Rogue (shadow walker path)
The Cobbler - Erenlander Fighter (Painless path) - may be due a quick brutal death as the character is actually named Dobbi!!! any ideas on killing him in brutal and nasty ways are very welcome.
Ryan - Erenlander Rogue (faithfull path)
Kajir - Sarcosian Wildlander (Pure blood path)
Murin - Erenlander Charasmatic Channeler ( Shadowed path)

I am playing with the same group as in my last two attempts so they sort of know what to expect - well have gathed a few new ideas from here to surprise them with.
 The game opened with  them all gathered in the village centre near the tith barn for the arrival of the legate and orcs for tax collection, after much argueing and shouting between the legate and village leader ( more shouting on legates part more cowering on leaders side) it was found that the tith was light, this in turn gave the legate the 'reason' to put the whole miserable excuse for a farm to the torch and kill the villagers- but spare a few to make up the low tax, slaves are always wanted.
 This went about as well as expected, lots of shocked faces around the table and lots of frantic running from rampaging orcs- they all met painfull 'deaths' rosalyn fell foul of a brutal orcish rape before being 'killed'. They came too left for dead in the burning remains of their village, hobbling out they stare in shock as their world is truly burn down in front of them. They slowly limped away from the slaughter, blood flowing from their wounds and thoughts of revenge in their minds ( i havent seen a more shocked and animated groups of players for a long time)
 It was early evening when they finally made camp to take stock of there surroundings and situation, its was a few minutes after that they realised that they weren't the only people moving that night, the villagers had found them and were hungry...

 Thats about all we got upto in the first session, just as the first of the fell came into the fire light. Any pointers, advice or just thoughts would be greatly appreciated, am thinking of makeing Rosalyn pregnant from the rape- not nice but who said the game had to be nice!.

As i said any thoughts would be appreciated

[Doomed Hero]

For Dobbi-

An Orc gets in combat with him. Next round, the Orc holds it's action. Dobbi is confused, and worried (if the player is smart). The Legate commander casts Hold Person. Dobbi is a fighter and fails the Will save. (To be sure, give the Legate Divine Metamagic: Quicken and cast Hold Person twice in one round just to be sure) The Orc with the held action performs a Coup De Grace. Dobbi rises as Fell a couple rounds later and has to be killed again by the PCs. If the Legate is still alive, have him cast Animate Dead on Dobbi and make him a mindless Zombie minion. Make the PC's kill him again.

Later, another Legate comes to the scene of the battle and casts Speak With Dead on Dobbi's thrice-dead corpse to find out who the PC's are, then raises him *again* as a particularly nasty undead (death knights, vampires, bodaks are good picks. Modified Lichs are my favorite because they keep coming back). The Legate sends him after the PC's.

Congratulations, PC's you're now on the wrong side of Dobbi the Deathless. 

[sshagent]

Seems like a reasonable first session.  I'd have probably saved that brutality for the 2nd session....and made them endure harvest and what other activities the village does to get their 'tithe' together.  That way they get to know some of the villagers, each other...and hopefuly get at least a little attached to some folk.  Then bring on the pain, the slaughter ( i'd have probably left the rape out....but if your group can deal with that...then fair enough ).  Then when the villagers return as fel they might see some familiar faces, someone who was extra nice to them in the 1st session who now is asking for help ( and/or wanting to feed )...i like to try and give moral dilmmas(sp?) to players where possible.  In Midnight, its extra easy to do that.  Moral questions asked of the player brings much dialogue between them, and can cause some heated discussions that can rage on for many sessions.  I enjoy these

[Obsidian]

If you want to get technical, orcs can't crossbreed with humans.

As for Dobbi, while the evil GM in me loves the idea presented above, I wouldn't penalize the other PCs just because one guy had a poor choice for a name. I also wouldn't go out of my way to kill him, but that's me. You might just insist on having NPCs refer to him as "Dobbs" or some other nickname, take the intent away from the player's chosen name.

Or you can run with it; have him killed and then have the party endure a quest to get him reincarnated, but have him automatically come back as a goblin.

[findingthepath]

Must admitt i found the idea for Dobbi the deathless hillarious - an idea for another time if the player annoys me. Thanks for the advice about the session, will take on board and work on for next time.
 
 Thanks for your help will let you know how it turns out.

[Nifelhein]

Nice summary, since they are already used to how Midnight is I don't see anything that could be improve,d trying to make them develop attachments would be good but I would do it with a town they are going to be for a lot of the campaign and then destroy it near the end of it, make them feel that town is actually part of the game and thus safe from the destruction.

As for Dobbi, I would either tell him he has to pick a name that doesn'' break gameplay (with jokes and all) or roll with it, you can also change the way you pronounce it if jokes are rampart you have a problem anyway no matter what you do, so either the name changes or the character is taken away, and since he is dobbi, I would make a powerful channeler of the shadow kill him, probably strangled with socks.. yeah I am evil.

[findingthepath]

Thanks for the feed back Nifelhein, i was thinking of using Redwhine ( from CoS) but before the black mirror is destroyed, and build up to that event. Maybe have the PC's actually work out what the mirror is used for and how it is 'fed' then break the mirror or aid the bride that eventually breaks it.
 They are currently following  slave caravan which includes survivors from their own village as well as other outlaying villages. This is taknig a rambling route to redwhine where some slaves will be held at the templa and others will be taken by boat to Erenhead and then ultimatly to badens bluff - where most of the campaign is to be set...i've never tried to DM a full city before but well in for a penny in for a pound.

[Nifelhein]

finding,

The idea is very good actually, if you want to make things even better, get a more liberal and locally attached legate to be the one in charge there, and make things slowly change, either the town brings attention to the order of shadow or the legate is brought to their attention, it would be amazingly interesting if Rastergar (was it the legate's name, don't remember any more) was the newly appointed legate and if the events that led to the destruction of the mirror unveiled on the early days of his "reign" on the town.

And you might make it rather common for them to return to that town, maybe the legate there ends up giving them a travelling allowance, the events here must be carefully thought through though but could elad to a double edged loss, first the legate and then the town.

[findingthepath]

Nif,

 A cunning plan that will certainly work on it. The more lenniant legate would make the PC's arrival in town easier - but not by much i hasen to add, they still have the Oruk Sgt to deal with on that score!. But the local 'base' of operations is very good. As mentioned by sshagent the moral plays are the best.
 
 Thanks again now have to re-write some plot!. Will post the response from the players

[Darth Alkar]

Nice ideas there.
I'm adding just a suggestion: don't worry about running a city, if you have "Under the shadow" Baden's Bluff plays so easily... you only have to read the book and let the PCs try to make their life through the place  

When I ran CoS i thought of Baden's Bluff as a one-session stop and go... and it turned out as long as four or five sessions of intense gameplay of intrigue.
(I had the PCs contacted by the hidden rebels there, but only after having them long watched and tailed...). I also put in a scene where an elf (the one sent to meet them, catched by Jael the Hunter,but obviously they don't know) is brutally killed by knocking him off from the top of the tower in the worm docks.