by Kevin Hassall
When dreams turn sour.
This encounter/story is best set in a settled, stable area - somewhere like Thoth's Estate on the Outlands. It is nominally intended for the Planescape setting, but the villain might easily slip through a conduit to roam a prime world for a while, and he would certainly feel at home in a Ravenloft campaign.
Oagelsbie Smytten appears to be a tall, dignified man in his early thirties, with flowing blonde hair, soft blue eyes, a firm, lean body, and tastefully dyed clothes stitched from fine fabrics. At least, that is how he appears at night.
But sunlight, or any bright magical illumination, dispels his disguise, to show him as he really is - a wrinkled, haggard man, with green-yellow skin, greasy brown hair, a hooked nose, several chins and a grotesque paunch, clad in drab, coarse rags.
Of course, Oagelsbie Smytten takes pains to hide away in the daytime, venturing into towns and villages only when dusk falls and leaving before dawn. He travels the lands with a large wooden cart, with heavy locks on the doors and bars on the windows, filled with the sobbing women whom he has abducted.
The secret of Oagelsbie's disguise is an alchemical potion which he has invented.
The potion raises the recipient's Presence to +4 for one week, and ensures that the person never looks older than 35. It's sole restriction is that the disguise fails completely in bright light.
There is also a price to be paid for the potion's use. Every time a person drinks a dose they must make a Stamina roll of 10+ or lose one point of Presence, permanently and irretrievably. Presence does not fall below -4, however. This loss affects both appearance and personality. As well as becoming flabbier, appearing unwashed, etcetera, the person becomes vain, self-centred, greedy, proud and insecure. Those affected by the potions also age at double normal rate (i.e. for each year that Oagelsbie uses the potion, he ages two years).
The potion's main ingredients are youth and beauty, which Oagelsbie takes from the people he captures. For each week spent inside the cart, a person (male or female) loses one point of Presence (down to -3) and ages a number of years equal to one die -1. The only way to regain this Charisma is to destroy the potions made from it before they are drunk.
Each dose of the potion requires 1 "point" of Presence to create.
Oagelsbie Smytten might be encountered in any rural or small-town tavern, buying the finest drinks and playing the role of the dashing aristocrat. He claims to be a dispossessed nobleman, travelling as a diplomat on secret business for a magnate whom he refuses to name. This story is false, of course, but he is widely travelled and can talk knowledgably of the rumours and politics of many areas. He is always on back roads, however, to avoid toll bridges where his cart might be searched, and periods of bad weather, which turn back roads to mires, can bog him down for weeks.
He wishes to seem mysterious, wise, exotic. If talk of high diplomacy and wide travel are not enough, he also talks knowingly of the arts of alchemy (which he knows much of) or alludes o occult knowledge (which he does not have). In part this is to impress the beautiful people whom he must kidnap to maintain his disguise. In part it is simply to earn popular respect and admiration, however undeserved. He hates to feel that he is not the centre of attention, and resents anyone who manages to make him feel small.
Oagelsbie's intent is always to single out a beautiful, young, sycophantic woman - someone who seems awed by him and is flattered by his attentions. When he has picked a target, he plies her with fine foods and wines, flatters and cajoles her, and offers her glittering jewellery (stolen from past victims). He tells her that she deserves more than this backwater can offer, and begs to be allowed to take her away with him. "Trust me", he says.
This wooing might take more than one night, and he is prepared to return to a village or town several times to win a beautiful woman.
When a woman finally consents to go with him, he persuades her to write a note to her family or employer, explaining that she has run away with a man whom she loves, and that she will not be returning. The note, at Oagelsbie's prompting, always includes a phrase to the effect that "he has promised to make a new life for me, and I willingly go wherever he takes me." If possible, he also persuades her to bring whatever valuables she can with her.
If confronted and accused of kidnap, Oagelsbie always refers to these notes, pointing out that his captives have left written evidence of their willingness to submit to him. He has changed their lives, although not in the way that he led them to expect, and considers himself quite innocent of any crime. His victims, as far as he is concerned, gave written permission to him to change their lives. He was not entirely honest with them, but that does not matter: all merchants, public speakers and lovers use guile to get what they want - be it money, support, or love - and he has simply used his talents to get what he wants from free and willing victims. If he is condemned, he argues, then all orators and all merchants are equally to be condemned. (This sick logic should make for some interesting arguments with the player characters.)
Intelligence +2, Perception +1, Communication +3, Presence -4, Strength 0, Stamina -1, Dexterity 0, Quickness 0.Alchemy +4, misc Area Lores +3, Legend Lore 1, several languages +3 or +4, Charm +2, Guile +6, Intrigue +3.
When Oagelsbie heads into a town or village to hunt for women, he leaves his horse and cart hidden in the countryside near-by.
The wagon is 12' long, by 7' wide and 9' high, with a small, barred window in each side, a door at the rear and a trap door on the top. A covered bench at the front doubles as a driver's perch and a bed. A chest full of alchemical equipment is strapped to the roof.
The rear door is no longer used, and is fastened by a padlock which has rusted solid. It cannot be picked.
The trap door on the top has a simple padlock (Pick Locks and Dexterity 8+), although the hinges squeak fearfully when the hatch is opened. Oagelsbie forces the women he abducts into this trap door when they return to his cart, and hauls them out only when he has robbed them of their beauty, or when they are dead, or if their relations offer a suitable ransom. He also lowers food and water through this opening each day.
The inside of the wagon stinks of sweat, excrement and urine, and there is no furniture. 2-12 women are confined in this cramped space at any one time.
Under the bench at the front of the wagon are the personal affects of the women Oagelsbie has captured - the fine dresses that they ran away in, the money that they brought with them, plus the lockets, ornaments and other sentimental knick-knacks that he has stolen from them. These pay for food for the women and fund Oagalsbie's seductions. Most of the objects here belong to the women trapped in the cart.
Beneath the bench there is also a small locked chest. This chest contains half a dozen doses of Oagelsbie's potion, plus assorted powders, liquids, minerals and herbs required to make further doses. Note that Oagelsbie desperately needs these potions to continue his seductions, and would willingly release one or all of his captives to get them back. Characters may be tempted to use the potions themselves, but may not be too pleased with them when they discover the potion's side effect - and if they sell the potions then they might really make some enemies. If the potions are destroyed, the women in the wagon regain some or all of their lost Presence.
During the night, the waggon is guarded by an outstandingly plain woman named Shans. She is not one of Oagelsbie's victims, though she looks as homely as they do, but follows him because once per year he gives her a dose of his potion. Always ashamed of her poor looks, she willingly serves the man for the rest of the year, just to be beautiful for one week. She has not yet realised that the potions are only making her uglier in the long run, and all she cares about is defending Oagelsbie and the cart so that she will continue to get her annual beauty-"fix".
When Oagelsbie is present, Shans sleeps on the bench, dreaming of being beautiful. When he is absent, she stands guard, sets snares for animals around the camp, and cooks over a campfire. She can be easily distracted (by an "innocent" visitor to her camp, by a rustling in the bushes, etc.) but never strays out of sight of the wagon.
The party might encounter Oagelsbie directly if he tries to seduce one of them, or a friend or relation of theirs. Or they might just overhear him, or witness him wooing a woman. A particularly unsubtle (but foolproof) introduction would be for a local friend or ally to ask the characters to quietly investigate the suitability of his daughter's latest suitor, Oagelsbie.
A SG might be able to set up a conflict between Oagelsbie and a player character, as they vie for the love of a woman. Or perhaps Oagelsbie might belittle or insult a particularly proud or vindictive group of characters. Either way the party might decide to investigate the man - trying to discover where he goes during the day, for example.
If the party are particularly "plot-resistant" (they just have to have everything spelt out for them before they take any action) their encounter with Oagelsbie could be preceded by an encounter with one of his victims: a haggard woman, old before her time, tells them how her beauty was stolen from her by a silver-tongued cad...
Or the party might encounter Oagelsbie on the road, as he drives his cart full of sobbing women. The women call out to the party for help, but the party (particularly if wounded in an earlier encounter, if hurrying on on some other business) should be unable to help them immediately; later, the party may try to hunt Oagelsbie down, or might unknowingly meet him in his disguised form.