Labyrinth OOC

[BishGada]

Ke'Sha is nonchalant about others opinions (he was loner for many years) yet he admits they are strong and will try to avoid direct conflict. Keep in mind that his actions were devoted to the Lord of the Undead. Destroying undead if not a necessity is against his belief. He will probably not say it loudly, to avoid conflict as said before, but the characters might think the same.
In his opinion these people had fatal illness (they were going to die) [ I thought mentioning it in role play ], and they are now stronger, and more useful. And he kept them as family, so that could be counted as a good deed.
Don't forget that for many necromancers the ultimate goal is to become powerful undead themselves.

[Nocturno]

I think Jack would be offended but not hold it against a Necromancer's nature.

Jag would find this unacceptable to be in a party with. If Jag were aware this was happening, I think he would not adventure with the Necros.
Animating foes downed in battle, is one thing, still a bit unsavory to him. Going and harvesting the locals, would be far across his line of acceptable.

[Lord Torath]

Stephen will defer to Lena Gallus as the local ranking authority. He's here to back her up and rescue her mentor, so he'll follow her lead. As far as how to avoid discovering that Ke'Sha is responsible, as you said, it will pretty quickly be obvious where the new undead came from, and since Stephen has a direct line to Lena and no reason not to help her out, as soon as Stephen knows, she will know as well. He will probably go along with whatever consequences she comes up with.

That said, immediate raise dead/resurrection for the murdered villagers, perhaps with a Geas spell to permit only animating our fallen opponents in the Labyrinth seems reasonable.

"And by that, I mean there are more of you and you are using that to coerce me into obeying your moral code."

[BishGada]

I'm sorry if this got too far and someone got hurt in real life.
I can moderate Ke'Sha's behavior.

[Lord Torath]

I don't know that anyone's feelings have been hurt in real life. Mine haven't (although I can't speak for anyone else).

But Ke'Sha's actions aren't going to stay secret for very long, and we're going to need to deal with it. The only party member not smarter than Ke'Sha is Landro, so it's not going to be hard for us to figure it out. And since most of us are playing Good characters, plus we're 'employed' by a paladin, overtly Evil tactics aren't going to be acceptable.

Feel free to use Belkar's justification if you need to.

[Nocturno]

Nothing in real life here for me.

[TristenC]

Allikhain, seeing the writing on the wall, might be pursuaded to use a casting of her 'limited wish' to prevent catastrophe and permanently alter the bodies of the undead to a different race and/or culture (particularly since she is culpable in their acquisiton)

My concern was mainly that we could get the players to agree that if there was enough 'plausable deniability', a path forward could be agreed upon.

The native's concern could be attributed to the residents of the Labyrinth and Ke'Sha's 'resources' could be misdirected as unrelated. After all, having Allikhain teleport the unfortunates 'from afar' could mean anything, since teleport can cover -any- distance on the same plane.

Perhaps the 'cover story' is "Ke'Sha indicated to Allikhain where servants of his could be found, and she Teleported them into the Labyrinth to be of use in this endeavor."

Thoughts?

[Lord Torath]

I... don't know if there's enough plausible deniability at this point.

I mean, three people going missing and three new undead showing up is suspicious enough that Stephen would at the very least activate Truthear. It's easy enough to do (95% chance of success, and only costs a handful of PSPs) that it seems reasonable to use in this case. Ke'Sha's already unleashed an elemental on the camp and promoted a plan to unleash a virulent plague in the Labyrinth. We already know Ke'Sha can turn things into undead - see the trolls. The sudden appearance of three new undead just as three people have gone missing? That's probably a bit too much, especially considering how easy Truthear is to use.

Anyone disagree?

[Lord Torath]

So, assuming there's no way of preventing this from getting out, what restrictions/consequences would the various party members (both necromancers and not) be willing to accept to continue adventuring as a group?

Stephen would be okay with the necromancers resurrecting the murdered villagers and raising only the dead of our opponents in the Labyrinth as undead.

[Nocturno]

Jack would be uneasy but not hold it against them. Mostly uneasy with the thought that there was the joke of using his corpse if the died scouting. Which would seem more likely now. If they found out about the villagers.

Jag would not continue with the group if the villagers are found to be the undead, and where going to go with the party.

If they were released, and resurrected, he would be "ok" going forward with only foes in the labyrinth being used as undead.

This is assuming they even find out about what is going on.

[Nocturno]

Also now I get why you said it was a consequence not the game wanting us to get back in the dungeon lol... oy Kesha....

[BishGada]

One correction:
You didn't know about the trolls.
The raising of the trolls, summoning of the Varrangoin, killing and raising the 3 natives, and summoning the spectre, all occurred during Ke'Sha and Allakhain little trip to the woods. So they left 4 (with their quasits) and return 12. With any alteration (I thought of the Mask, but Limited wish is far superior to that) they can be mixed with the other monsters (extra troll-like, ogres, orcs, evil humanoids maybe drow-like and so on), and hopefully throw off suspicion enough to not even trigger the need to check his words.

It make sense he would be asked if he was around the village, he can either say he saw it from a far and it was quiet, and try to keep vague,
or say the plain truth that he was going to recruit undead monsters, got near the village, saw a mixed group of undead trolls and other creatures in the woods, did his best to control them, and managed to control some of them. (the mixture can explain other races if that's what the limited wish will do, and so far all is truth - just with bad context).

Maybe since people are reluctant to speak with him, and all of this is true and may let their imagination fill the gaps that he don't know about the kidnapped villagers and if the trolls and the others where in the village or not, but there is a good chance more monsters were there (because he says he controlled only some) and they might have been those who made the kidnap/killing/devouring/burn-to-ash/... of the natives, they will let it slide.
Of course if he will be farther investigated, when we as players know off-game that he did it, and push harder to that suspicion, eventually I won't be able to find reassuring excuses that are not plain lies and there will probably be a clash.

If the party still suspects him, not regarding the native specifically, even though he casted 'unfailing endurance' and was polite lately to everyone, suffering Hygiene jokes even that they are completely incorrect, Ke'Sha can promise (while grinning evilly) to prefer using Resurrection on party members before turning to raising them as undead. Given that he memorize it.

[JOKE]
To Ke'Sha defense, he didn't have a choice. The spells require humanoids and they are usually harder to find in dungeons he lately been to. Also, if he could make these undead without killing the native, selling their souls, or ruining their future, he would gladly do it. But he didn't write the rules, and they state all of the above is part of the process.
[/JOKE]

[Lord Torath]

I thought he raised the trolls (and summoned the fire elemental) on the evening of the 3rd, then prayed for new spells and created/summoned the rest on the evening of the 4th. And now we're on the morning of the 5th.

[TristenC]

The fire elemental was the night of the 3rd. The Trolls, Varrangoin, Spectre, juju-zombies and wight were the night of the 4th. The trolls, indeed none of the undead, have not been to camp yet

[Lord Torath]

Okay. Thanks for the clarification!