[IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

September, 1915. On the western front, battle rages less than 100 km from Paris. Paris, the beautiful. Paris, the proud. Paris, a city on her knees. The government has fled the capital, seeking a safe haven in Bourdeaux. General Joseph Gallieni is now military governor of the city, and he faces a terrible task. There is not enough food for everyone. The city is dark at night, for fear of bombardments. Explosives and ammunitions are manufactured inside the city, sometimes resulting in terrible incidents that costs tens of lives. And this is just on the surface. Dark tales tell of monstrous, yet horribly human-like creatures, prowling through the battlefields and the graveyards, eating human flesh. Even darker tales revolve around a mysterious and incredibly powerful tome of ancient, dark magic; a tome that could destroy the balance of power between the Germans and the Franco-British coalition.
And yet, even among all this despair, human nature finds his hope. Hundreds of people arrive in the city every day: soldiers, journalists, thrill-seekers. Each one injects fresh energy into the agonizing city. Entertainment is the only thing that is not rationed - music halls, theaters and the Moulin Rouge are shining beacons of light, metaphorically if not physically. New forms of art cry out as newborn children.

Semptermber, 1915. Paris, the city of tears. A mysterious murder sets in motion a chain of events that, unknowingly to the rest of the world, will decide the outcome of the war. Millions of lives are at stake. There will be no glory for the unsung heroes, no recognition for the martyrs. A terrible power awaits those willing to use it - or seal it. What will you do? How far are you willing to go for your friends, your loved ones, your country?

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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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Inside the town hall, Jacques pushes the door, and finds it open - more than that, it looks to have been forced open in the past, and never repaired, so it can be closed but not locked. On the other side there's a room, about five per five meters, mostly empty - just a simple bed and a couple pieces of furniture. There's another body on the floor, with a wound on his head, again compatible with a suicide.

Andre and Jean-Luc keep taking photos. The next body seems to be smiling, at least his skull is. On his chest, several bullet wounds.
Andre,As you look around, nervous, you finally see someone. It's just for a second, but it looks like a human, watching you from behind a corner, hiding again as soon as you look at him. You are not entirely sure, but he... or she... looked naked, the skin an unhealthy pink turning to grey. You feel naseous as the color remembers you that of a worm.
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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"Jean-Luc, look ... over there ..." Andre says pointing towards where the figure had been standing. "Quick follow me!!!" he shouts as he scampers towards the corner.
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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Jean-Luc,Looking where Andre is pointing, you don't see anything.
OOC:   Those inside the town hall do not hear Andre talking, or running.  
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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"Upstairs next," says Jacques, proceeding systematically in his search of the building and heading up the stairs.
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

Post by ghill »

Oui, says Francois lets get this horrible task finished as fast as possible
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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"Wait, where are you going?" shouts Jean-Luc trying to follow Andre.
Just a cultist.
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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"I ... I saw someone, or something move over here. It was watching us and went around this corner ahead." Andre pants as he stumbles forwards
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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Jacques e Francois reach the second floor, where they find three more small rooms, possibly used as offices or storage rooms back when the building was the town hall of a living city. Now they're empty, except for one, where a small hole was opened in a wall, and surrounded by sandbags to guarantee protection. It looks like a sniper position, covering one of the streets leading to the main square. As a matter of fact, one dead soldier is laying near the hole, in the right position to shoot from the hole, except he has no weapon in hand. As seen in other bodies, he has a gun wound to the head.
Forensics,Although it's hard to guess why he would do so, it seems the man pushed a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing his brains out.
Evidence Collection,There are a couple of cartridge cases on the floor near the body, suggesting that he shot with a rifle before dying.
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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Andre runs past the corner to discover... an empty street? Did he imagine everything? He looks to the ground and is relieved to see some traces... meaning someone was actually there... but he doesn't know how to make sense of them. Jean-Luc arrives running after him, one second later.
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Roll Sense Trouble.
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

Post by Cearlan »

Sense Trouble,Andre [dice]0[/dice] I'll make a 1 point spend here methinks
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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"This man was a boche sniper," Jacques explains to Francois. "He had a rifle and a pistol, but our soldiers must have taken the weapons. See these shell casings?" He points them out on the floor. "He had fired the rifle a couple times before he died. He used his pistol to kill himself, it seems, by shooting himself through the mouth. There's nothing else to see here. Let's go back outside and check a different building."
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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D'accord says Francois I gathered as much when we first came in he adds Its is a hide we use them in hunting, the prey is different then as he stands in the doorway ready to leave a thought strikes him and he returns to the body and checks his ammo pouches looking to see if the soldier had any ammunition for his rifle left.

Jaque does it not strike you as strange that a man apparently in a safe space with no sign of being inflicted by gas takes the time to put his rifle down and take out a pistol, which I assume is not issue for the rank and file and has enough presence aforethought to put it below his chin to blow his brains out. I would have thought in the heat of the moment one would have used your rifle, then again what motive would you have? The Boche have gas masks upstairs inside a closed building he would have had the time to put a mask whereas those poor devils downstairs in the open would not. It is not the habit of our soldiers to kill the Boche out of hand unless we know they have committed horrors of war or so I am told. If you are safe why kill oneself? You haven't mentioned any signs of violence in the room, so I assume you found none?

So a man who us apparently safe from gas or obvious violence chooses to take his own and not in any apparent hurry but deliberately and with aforethought...does this not strike you as strange ...or am I missing something your trained eye can see and takes for granted.


Overlord,So still trying to get a better understanding of the when and how we use skills but it would seem the details Jaques gathered with Forensics and evidence collection would have been apparent to anyone who was looking at the scene with a reasonable eye and common sense, assuming Mr Handy has told me everything shouldn't there be more detail? I would have expected those skills to tell us more about the circumstances under which he died? For example, does the suicide look hurried or planned and deliberate.
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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OOC:   Well, Evidence Collection is sort of a "basic" skill, but it guarantees that one would find all the relevant information from the scene, while an investigator perfotming a simple search, aiming at specific spots or objects, could end up missing something.
Specifically, since your character is checking the body, there are no other bullets, just as there are no weapons. Perhaps whoever removed the weapons (French soldiers?) also took the bullets with them.

No sign of violence can be seen in the room (except for the body, that is). It looks like the man took two shots with his rifle, then for some reason decided to took his life, right where he was laying, perhaps using a pistol because it would be "easier" than the rifle. He probably had the pistol available, as it doesn't look like he moved after shooting with the rifle.

Obviously the whole situation is rather strange, but that's the whole point of it, right? :twisted:  
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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OOC:   Sense-trouble
rolled 1d6 = 4  
Just a cultist.
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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Andre and Jean-Luc can feel it... something is not right... and it"s not only the carnage that's troubling them. They can feel a presence, someone watching them. They look along the street, first in one direction, then the other. Nothing. Then up... and they see it. Crouched on a roof, no more than three meters from them. Something human, and yet clearly not human. Pale, sickly skin, with spots of gray. Thin, so much that you can easily make the lines of the skull under the thight skin, and the ribs, the ribs you can count one by one. Its mouth is open, drooling a yellow spit, and red malicious eyes are fixed on you. But what strikes you the most are its fingers, or better... its claws. Long, pointed, and probably deadly. It looks ready to jump at you.
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OOC:   First of all, roll Stability. Then we'll enter in combat.  
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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OOC:   This probably won't end well as I'm down to 1 stability already ;-)  
Andre,Stability 1/9
[dice]0[/dice]
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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OOC:   Whoops, I made a mistake, so I deleted my previous post. As you're in fact at -1 Stability (yes it can go negative), it means your General ability tests have a +1 Difficulty, and since this is a Mythos shock with a base Difficulty of 5, it becomes 6 which means you fail and Andre is about to go insane. Not totally broken, but not far either. I'll give you the details once I also get the roll from krzspymac.  
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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"He placed the barrel of the pistol in his mouth," says Jacques, "but you are right. These were battle-hardened soldiers. They would not have killed themselves lightly, and not over gas - especially when they show no signs of exposure. Yet no violence was done to them by any hand but their own. Let us go back outside." He leads the way downstairs.
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

Post by ghill »

Francois says "This place simply doesn't smell right" he then gently rolls the body out the way and lies down to look out of the loophole to see if he can see anything interesting.
OOC:   OK I understand I just assumed that the two skills combined might have provided more context, whereas what they seem to do is simply ensure we have all of the clues and the context is up to us? Would that be a reasonable interpretation? And yes of course its strange if it wasn't this would be D&D :)  
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Re: [IC - SCENE 5] Verchanne

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Francois looks from the hole on the street below, empty except for two dead german soldiers, laying one next the other, face up, about twenty meters from the building. It's too far to see for certain what kind of injuries are on the body, but judging from the position... it almost looks like... if it wasn't impossible... that they were shot from here.
OOC:   Yes, exactly. The whole concept of Trail of Cthulhu is removing the random element of CoC and make sure all investigative abilities always succeed in gathering the required clues. From there on, putting them together is the investigator's work :)  
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