Some background: My Legion is in Plainsworth and has only dealt with Blighter so far. But I’ve rolled up a religious mission to cleanse a holy place. Given our Chosen is the Horned One, I figured this would be a good time to bring in Breaker and have the mission revolve around clearing a grove of corrupted trees the Broken is using to create Burned.
Now the tricky part. The Commander has three missions to choose from so there’s a chance no soldiers will be sent on this one. However, the Chosen made itself clear that it was going to deal with this threat, with or without help, going alone if it needs to.
My question is, if this happens, how should I handle it? My first thought is a fortune roll using the Chosen’s threat of 4, -2d for Leadership (if the Legion doesn’t help, it’ll think they’re idiots) and Parameter Engagement questions. Success means mission rewards, failure means penalties, and perhaps the Chosen comes back horribly hurt or corrupted by a hex.
A Fortune roll seems fine. Also consider that if the Chosen does not stay at camp, the Legion will have to defend the camp against the undead and will have a rough time of it, so you’ll be rolling a defense for the camp, also, and possibly losing Rookies.
You could use the rules in the book for running 3 missions simultaneously on the theory that the Horned One leaving camp leaves the Legion extremely vulnerable.
Alternatively, you could just call it a 4/5 forfeit on the engagement roll. She goes out but is forced to retreat because the alternative is taking grievous wounds.
I agree, I’d use the Mission Creep hack. If the Chosen is going out on a third mission, that’s effectively doubling the Legion’s exposure. There’s the dangers of Chosen getting hurt on that mission and the difficulties of protecting the camp without their Chosen. I’d suggest that the Legion would have to consider sending a third squad out with the Chosen otherwise they’re seriously risking their trump card.
I’d probably roll with Mission Creep straight, except if the Chosen is alone then each death would be a level of harm to the Chosen. So a low roll could mean level 3 harm and make them incapacited for who knows how long before they heal somehow. Chosen aren’t invulnerable after all.
But before things get to that, I’d think seriously as the GM about the Chosen doing this at all. It has the potential to screw the Legion hard and the Campaign is already hard enough without having to parent a Chosen that tantrums. At the very least, I’d give the Legion the opportunity to convince the Chosen otherwise.
However, since you’re only at Plainsworth, I’d probably use this opportunity to start a clock for the Chosen going rogue or disdaining Command or something. It is an interesting idea but I think you need to give the players more lead time that this threat is looming and more opportunities to avoid it. If they take devil’s bargains and don’t resist consequences that fill up a six-clock, then pulling out the Mission Creep hack would reflect the consequences of the players choices. Without that, you’re probably just making things arbitrarily harder.