Baby Luke is Missing!
A missing baby leads to a tragic tale of revenge and a supernatural curse in the wild west.
Plot points/Scenes
Scene 1: The hook. Baby Luke has gone missing the night before. If players don't offer to help of their own cognition, they will be suspected as they are the only strangers in Colibri.
Scene 2: The investigation. As the players investigate, they will find trails of depressions like parallel dotted lines in the dusty soil. The trails disappear in the rocks, but point to the canyons between the rhyolite spires. Luke's father Sam and a few others ask the player characters to help search and recover. This investigation will most likely lead to dead ends as they search the maze-like rhyolite canyons.
Scene 3: Another night, another baby theft! Giant millipedes twenty feet long break into another house and steal an even younger child. If they are followed, they will lead to the Red Queen Colony. It will be revealed, however, ONLY if a parent of a missing child is present. Otherwise, the millipedes will attempt to outrun their pursuers until they are killed, caught or succeed. In this terrain, it should not be difficult to lose pursuers. Access to the Red Queen Colony is hidden and even if the players use a technological tracking device, they will not know how to get inside without overcoming its protections.
IF access to the Red Queen Colony is gained, by whatever means, it will reveal The Nursery, set up to care for children. A dried out husk of a baby is there, half human and half insect. The two babies that were stolen are also present in the nursery. The millipedes will attempt to get between the babies and anyone but their parents. It is possible that a character with medical knowledge can convince the millipedes or get the parents to convince the millipedes that they are there to help care for the babies.
Scene 4: A band of Worm Wraith attack the town, striving to get access to the two rooms where the babies had been kept. If the players were successful at retrieving the babies previously, the wormwraiths will try to kidnap the babies where they currently are. If the babies are still in the nursery, the worm wraiths will disperse upon seeing the babies are gone, and will then attempt to track the millipedes to the nursery. IF the players have retrieved the babies from the Nursery and any of the centipedes or millipedes are still alive, these beasts will come to the aid of the babies' defenders.
Scene 5: IF the Worm Wraiths somehow end up with the babies, they will take them to Zebediah the Witch. He will want to kill them himself, sacrificing them to the great worm.
Scene 6: How will the players resolve this? Will they fight both the worm wraiths and the myriapods? Will they help the millipedes? Will they help the worm wraiths?
Reward: A reward will be given by the families/town if the babies are saved; even more if they uncover the witch, and even more if they defeat the witch. If the players assist the worm wraiths in their mission to deliver the babies to the witch, he will thank them and give them a reward.
Scene 2: The investigation. As the players investigate, they will find trails of depressions like parallel dotted lines in the dusty soil. The trails disappear in the rocks, but point to the canyons between the rhyolite spires. Luke's father Sam and a few others ask the player characters to help search and recover. This investigation will most likely lead to dead ends as they search the maze-like rhyolite canyons.
Scene 3: Another night, another baby theft! Giant millipedes twenty feet long break into another house and steal an even younger child. If they are followed, they will lead to the Red Queen Colony. It will be revealed, however, ONLY if a parent of a missing child is present. Otherwise, the millipedes will attempt to outrun their pursuers until they are killed, caught or succeed. In this terrain, it should not be difficult to lose pursuers. Access to the Red Queen Colony is hidden and even if the players use a technological tracking device, they will not know how to get inside without overcoming its protections.
IF access to the Red Queen Colony is gained, by whatever means, it will reveal The Nursery, set up to care for children. A dried out husk of a baby is there, half human and half insect. The two babies that were stolen are also present in the nursery. The millipedes will attempt to get between the babies and anyone but their parents. It is possible that a character with medical knowledge can convince the millipedes or get the parents to convince the millipedes that they are there to help care for the babies.
Scene 4: A band of Worm Wraith attack the town, striving to get access to the two rooms where the babies had been kept. If the players were successful at retrieving the babies previously, the wormwraiths will try to kidnap the babies where they currently are. If the babies are still in the nursery, the worm wraiths will disperse upon seeing the babies are gone, and will then attempt to track the millipedes to the nursery. IF the players have retrieved the babies from the Nursery and any of the centipedes or millipedes are still alive, these beasts will come to the aid of the babies' defenders.
Scene 5: IF the Worm Wraiths somehow end up with the babies, they will take them to Zebediah the Witch. He will want to kill them himself, sacrificing them to the great worm.
Scene 6: How will the players resolve this? Will they fight both the worm wraiths and the myriapods? Will they help the millipedes? Will they help the worm wraiths?
Reward: A reward will be given by the families/town if the babies are saved; even more if they uncover the witch, and even more if they defeat the witch. If the players assist the worm wraiths in their mission to deliver the babies to the witch, he will thank them and give them a reward.
Themes
The desert should seem to be alive, with a will of its own; and it will manifest in small acts to make life easier or harder on the player characters, depending on whether or not they support it or are going against it. For example, if the players are attempting to thwart or fight the myriapods, streams dry up when the characters try to fill their canteens, scorpions appear in boots, jackals keep them up all night and rocks seem to always tumble into their path. However, if the characters act to support the myriapods, their water will be clean and pure, the animals will abide them, and rocks may tumble out of their path.
This is part of the enchantment set up within the Red Queen's Quarters (see the nurturer under the Encounters heading)
Components
Hooks
Luke, the 6-month old child of storekeeprs Sam and Daphne has gone missing in the middle of the night. Who could have done such a thing?
Stakes
A witch? great spirit? has placed a curse upon all the families of the town that she had been kicked out of. He and his daughter were forced out of town for practicing black arts. His daughter died shortly afterwards and he blamed the villagers and cursed them all to lose all their children until their bloodlines were ended.
If the characters do not break the curse, this will come to pass.
Moral Quandaries
The millipedes care only for defending the child and keeping it safe. They are mere actors of another's will. Unfortunately the nursery they have established has no caretaker anymore and children sent there will suffer from neglect and dehydration. Furthermore, while the babies are in the nursery, they are hidden from scrying.
So the nursery is probably the safest place for the babies so long as the millipedes live, and so long as they get the care they need.
Relations
Allies
The town of Colibri
Neutrals/Bystanders
The Nurturer
Competitors
Giant Millipedes
Giant Centipedes
Giant Centipedes
Adversaries
Backdrops
Encounters
The ritual in the Red Queen's quarters is actually a binding spell. A spirit of the land is bound by it to assist all those friendly to the red queen and the named followers of her. Any Native Americans in the party will recognize the spirit as that of a Nurturer. In an ironic tragedy, by binding the nurturer to help her, the Red Queen effectively prevented it from using powers that could have saved her and her baby. Powers it would have used willingly had it only been asked. If the party sets it free, and there is a particularly compassionate member of the party, the spirit will offer to teach that character a skill, or if the character is an arcane or mystic healer (or especially a Native American), the spirit may offer the character a sacred fetish for healing or defense.
The spirit will also reveal that the protective nature of the millipedes, constantly watching after the children of the village, is not due to anything the spirit has done. Rather, it was the last wish of the Red Queen to take care of her people, even after they left her. She bound the myriapods to that purpose before she died.
The nurturer will openly lament the passing of the Red Queen and her baby. It will call her foolish to her corpse, lovingly passing a hand over her skull, and telling her that it would have helped them even without the binding, and would have done so with much more ability. It says all this aloud for the players to hear.
Past Events
The millipedes have been seen often since the two children were born. There have been many times when the millipede trails were discovered outside the homes of the babies. No one in the town will make the connection between these happenings and the kidnapping until the players investigate.
The picture above is a portion of the rhyolite canyons where baby Luke was taken. The town of Colibri is located on the other side of the mountains in the background.
Plot type
Rescue / Thwarting Mission
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