In the days
after the encounter at the cave, the Countess learns of more cases of monstrous
wildlife. Not just that; a rumour gets to her that in villages
and farms neighbouring Volovska Weald, there has been an alarming amount of
monstrous births among livestock in the past month. The horror does not end
there, either. She visits some peasants with her men, and talks to the
pastor and local woodsmen. The Countess learns that not only have the farm animals
and wild game been birthing monstrous young, but several women, too. And people say their
pregnancies are unbelievably short, lasting no more than a few weeks. Many were
stillborn, but even those that survived were quietly disposed of by the family
out of fear or shame or mercy.
With great difficulty the Countess manages to
find a girl who gave birth to a deformed child and is willing to talk to her.
She tells her that she went to the woods one day to gather herbs and she
believes she was assaulted there by some kind monster. She has no memory of the
event itself, but she knows where it occurred and gives that information to the
Countess. The peasants are growing increasingly scared and irritable, and wild
theories abound of the cause of all this. Eager to solve this unnatural problem
in her domain, the Countess decides to investigate further.
 |
| The village Volovo. |
The Beast and her henchmen arrive to the spot in Volovska Weald where the heinous assault had occurred. Fortune is on their side, they have the cover of thick autumn fog to conceal them. On the other hand, it makes it more difficult to search the area. The spirits begin spreading out to cover more ground.
There is movement in the distance. A large shape bolts across a fairy ring and disappears into the trees and the mist. Might just be a common deer, but that recent experience puts the crew on alert.
A Crimson Sphynx first spots something on the ground a distance away, and stalks towards it...
... but it is surprised by a monstrous deer. As grotesque and sad as the one we saw lunge down a well the other day. Unfortunately for the Sphynx, this one is much more aggressive in nature.
The deer rams into the Sphynx and then immediately charges at the nearest Custodian, who was examining a set of tracks on the forest floor. Before the Sphynx can react, another misshapen deer appears from the fog behind it.
A bloody battle starts. Not much of those tracks will remain if the ground gets trampled by the fighters...
A bit further off, a Bloodfiend sniffed out something interesting, but it too is jumped by a monstrosity.
The Countess is getting more and more irate. She summons some backup for her spirit host, and the Beast gets full on into the fray. But just as one deer is killed or driven away, another appears from the woods...
Eventually they stop coming. The ground is littered with bodies of deer. Mounds of tortured flesh, tangles of crooked legs and overgrown antlers...
Four potential clues are discovered by the crew. There are tracks on the forest ground. On several bushes there are
clumps of hair. A decaying corpse of a boar lies by a tree. Several
piles of animal droppings can be seen on the leaf-covered ground. The Countess examines them one by one through the Beast's eyes.
The prints do not look like deer tracks, but more like unshod horse hoofs. The
hair is pale and fine, and feels like it came from a tail or a mane. The boar is a male, and
was lanced a few days ago with some kind of piercing weapon, judging by the mortal wound. Some of the
droppings indicate a larger herbivore, but, interestingly, contain bone fragments.
The spirits' mission is complete, and they are dismissed. The Countess now has a pretty good idea of what this attacker can be. And an even better idea for what to do with it...
* * *
Just like Act I, this game used Malifaux rules with a few tweaks and with custom stats
for my characters. Tomislav Rac again played the Countess, and I directed the Misshapen Deer. In the second act the goal was to secure the four clue markers that weer placed on the table. A Misshapen Deer spawned whenever one of the spirits approached a clue. Tomislav managed to control all four markers at the end of the game, which means he will get some useful information on what he is up against in the third and final game.
This encounter was played without the Countess on the table. But she was able to use her activations, in which she could cast spells using the Beast for measuring range and line of sight.
The fog that was present on the battlefield had its own rules. The line of sight was limited to 10'' on the first turn, and each subsequent turn I randomly determined whether the fog becomes denser or starts clearing up. The fog's thickness varied throughout the game. It did not have much impact, mostly because there are very few ranged attacks in these two crews, plus the fog decided to go heavily in the direction of dispersing. But had it gone the other way it could have caused visibility problems for both our crews. The fog in the photos was my first attempt to photoshop it. I worked from this tutorial I found after a quick search.
This is the atmospheric soundtrack we used for game two: most tracks from Aokigahara (2015) by Flowers for Bodysnatchers, Primordial (2015) by Paleowolf, and The Witch (2015) OST again.
