Witch Hunter

GM: Eric Burk (?), originally planning to play, but willing to take a group through an official scenario he'd already played.

As we sat down, I learned that, to absolutely no one's surprise, D&D 4th edition had indeed been announced for next year.

Player: Just tell me that this game [i.e., Witch Hunter] is played with dice? And that we still sit down at a table, in person?

I gather that there was a lot of speculation about 4th edition encouraging online play or something like it. And Star Wars Saga Edition is what 4th ed will be like.

Witch Hunter is set in an alternate history world. Among other things, Cortez was killed by the Aztecs. Solomon tried to banish magic from the world, but a corrupted mage ensured that evil demonic magic would remain, so Solomon made sure that some good magic would remain as well.

It was 1689, and a group of Witch Hunters from various orders (i.e., the PCs) were sailing to Boston to investigate rumors of witchcraft. We chose pregenerated PCs and supplied them with names. There were:

• Pierre
• Nicholas Macidici
• Fion MacBannion
• Benedicto Valencia
• Vladya (my PC)
• Emmet Thompson

Their ship was hit by oddly precise lightning, and it took much derring do to rescue both ship and captain.

Once in Boston, the group learned that a slave woman was accused of witchcraft. Supposedly, her very touch had set a tree on fire. Her mistress, a business woman with considerable pull, was caring for her at home, until she should be well enough to stand trial.

The PCs visited the house and missed realizing that the mistress was from one of the factions of witch hunters, as none of them were from her faction. Nor did PCs or players figure out that she responded well to logic and poorly to being told what to do or that she needed help. I'm not sure there wasn't a requirement to mind read the GM here, but it didn't hurt the scenario when she told the PCs to leave.

They left the house, then almost immediately defended it against an ensorcelled mob who wanted to burn it and the witch to ashes. Pierre and some of the others were able to break the spell, leaving several confused rioters to be picked up by whatever the 17th century Boston cops are called.

This earned the group readmittance into the house and the infodump. The mistress loved the accused woman like a daughter and said that, while witnesses saw the accused woman touch and blight the tree, she had actually been indoors at the time. The mistress also had a male business rival. As for the slave woman, she was fighting off some kind of demon. Her mother was a witch, though not an evil one, and her own power was used by some demon worshipper in New Orleans. The demon spoke through her, taunting the group. Then, she regained control briefly and said that the demon had a weakness to wood.

The group went to the home of the business rival, a lumber warehouse. It was producing no lumber, and the trees around the area were dead. The workmen were under a spell. The business rival was an evil wizard. His attempts to take over at least one PC failed. He, the workmen, and the demon attacked. After a hard fought battle, where the group focused on demon and wizard, both villains were destroyed. Or, at least, the wizard / rival was. The demon may have only been banished. The workmen fled.

The PCs found the contract that the business rival had made with the demon for success against his enemies, i.e., the slave woman and her mistress, his rival. The contract did not take priority over agreements with the New Orleans wizard, who was not actually present. With the contract were a few locks of the slave woman's hair. The group burned the hair and presented the contract to the authorities, convincing them to acquit the slave woman.

All of the players got a certificate for a dollar off at the Paradigm booth, but only for this convention. We also got our character sheets marked to indicate that we'd played in the scenario. I gather that the company is trying to do the RPGA thing.