- Pregen: Klaus Kleinmann, the Creep
- Pregen: Winnie Wurmstein, the Hoarder
- Pregen: Joachim Yapper, the Jerkass
- Pregen: Zelda Zoom, the Kluts
- Pregen: Bradley Bulle, the Loudmouth
- Pregen: Marissa Measley, the Moocher
- Story idea: The Race of the Rubber Duckies
- Introduction: The Rickety Raft
- Scene one: The Wood I! Hardware Emporium
- Scene two: The Mastodon Mall
Continuing my effort at building an introductionary Story for my most eminent roleplaying game, Monstrous Mishaps, today I am going to sketch out a visit to a law firm. The worthy solicitors of the law firm of Connive, DeSieve, Bamm-Boozle & Harris are competing with the players for the honour of winning the Race of the Rubber Duckies, and the players’ friend Olive will insist on trying to sabotage their raft. If the players agree to help her, this scene will play out.
The offices is a two-story building with glass walls, looking a little like some giant urban lumberjack chopped down a skyscraper, leaving a stump. The firm’s name is emblazed above the front entrance, along with its motto, Innocent Until Proven Unprofitable. There is a yard in the back, surrounded by a wife-net fence. There, the lawyers are working on their raft, the Billable Hour. It is shaped like a giant watch, with hollows at the 12, 2, 5, 7 and 10 marks for passengers to sit in.
Getting to the raft requires either climbing the fence or making it through the offices. The latter option has the obvious drawback that you are fully visible while climbing, and the lawyers can and will sue your shorts off for trespassing if they spot you. Going through the offices takes a little more doing but lets you potentially stay out of sight. You’ll need to pick the lock, break a window, or otherwise gain access first, but it’s not exactly Fort Knox; most people will be able to get in. Passing through the somber legal halls will however require you to deal with the office mascot, Feegle the Legal Beagle. Feegle isn’t a fierce guard dog by any means, but he gets very excited at meeting new people and will bark happily and try to knock them over so he can stand over them and lick their faces. The ruckus may well draw the attention of the lawyers. If Klaus is present, things are of course a lot easier – he has the keys to the offices, and Feegle is used to him and so will only greet him with a dutiful wag of the tail.
Having eyes on the raft, the lawyers need to be absent for a moment so the players can work their dirty scheme. There are three of them working on the raft – senior partners Miranda Bamm-Boozle and Angus Connive, along with the secretary Shirley Shine. From time to time, one or two will leave to pick up more supplies, go to the bathroom, make a call threatening to sue someone, or similar necessity, but one always remains with the raft at all times. If the players are willing to make this a nightly raid, the raft stays in the yard under a tarp, but the lawyers will watch it in shifts all through the night. Some sort of diversion will thus be required.
Sabotaging the raft takes some finesse. If the players just smash it to rubble, the lawyers will complain to the judges of the Race and be allowed to race using a regular rowboat, with bonuses to make up for the loss in style points. Since they’ll be a lot more competitive that way than when trying to pilot their homemade monstrosity, the raft needs to be messed with in a way that allows for plausible deniability. Drilling some holes in the barrels and then filling them with saw dust is an option, and so is emptying the cans of sealant the lawyers are using and replacing it with common oil. Zelda or Bradley will have the easiest time thinking of such methods, though Klaus might also come up with them in a pinch.
If Olive tries to sabotage the Billable Hour on her own, or if the players let her take the lead, she bungles it completely. Her plan is to climb the fence and ritually sacrifice a spotted gerbil before the raft, thus inflicting a dire curse on it. However, not only does she get spotted by the lawyers, but the gerbil bites her hand and makes a break for it and just the wrong time (and the spell wouldn’t have worked anyway – Olive only believes that she’s a great sorceress). The lawyers complain to the judges and the players’ team gets demerits (and a big fat lawsuit later on). On the other hand, if Olive’s sabotage plans are forcibly vetoed, she will sulk for the rest of the Story and point out at every setback that all this could have been avoided if the players had just listened to her. Thus, the players need to in some way humour her, either by suggesting she perform an equally ineffectual spell from a distance (she’s likely to believe a claim that a player has found an alternate incantation, especially if they can show her a believably yellowed parchment scroll containing it), or by going through the effort of cheating competently.
All right, this is shaping up. Next week, I will attempt to deal with the players’ attempt at putting their own raft in order, which will include dealing with the raft’s own opinions on the matter. Stay tuned!