Hi guys,

I'm looking for some advise following on from my most resent session which went up - both metaphorically and literally - in glorious flames.

To set the scene, a small fishing village on the outskirts of had been having trouble with an impending Gnoll invasion, villagers had been getting slaughtered and children had been getting kidnapped and eaten. This - understandably so - had put the village on edge, common village folk were being armed with whatever make shift weaponry they could find, they had erected a crude palisade and had been keeping guard for a direct Gnoll attack on the village.

The party had been sent to basically take care of the BBEG and after a hard fought fight in which 1 of the party members died (and revived), they were returning back to the village when they came across a secluded and surprisingly peaceful society of Gnolls which lived separate from the rest of the world and its conflicts. The party decided to open dialogue with this village to arrange a sort of alliance with the local human populous.

They came up with a kind of exchange program, three Gnolls from the village would accompany the party and live with the humans, and some humans would go and live with the Gnolls with the aim of learning about each others culture and trade.

So the party head back to their village victorious and Gnolls in tow but when they arrive, the makeshift militia stop the party and both demand the party to explain themselves and why their are Gnolls. Dismissing them, they tried to proceed but the villagers stopped them stating the party can enter but the Gnolls cannot.

However, in response one of the party raised his rapier threatening one of the guys to let them pass but scared and the resident Aasimar in the party actived her wings flew into the sky and demanded them to let them pass. The villagers meekly tried to defend the entrance with one of the villagers managed to fire off a bolt from a hand crossbow which hit the rogue and the other held his sword up but was instantly disarmed.

One of the villagers ran for help and came back with a few more villagers to help and the Aasimar was not pleased when they started throwing stones (and missing) up at her so she sent them on fire with a twin sacred flame.

Now hearing the screams from the villagers who were burning, another dozen villagers arrived and in classic mob mentality were not going to let these people - one of which that had turned into an angelic monster - to attack their village and kill their people. The party easily murdered the first wave and then another mob of a dozen villagers came around the corner and let loose a turrent of bolts which insta-killed the Aasimar who was flying in the night sky shining like a becon.

Seeing his party member die, the Rogue pulled out a scroll of fireball (of course he did) and literally incinerated the mob and set fire to the nearby buildings.

With about 30 villagers dead (out of a population of circa 200/300)  with as far as they are aware, all witnesses deceased and with a third of the village on fire, the party are looking to hide their actions, get off the island and find someone to revive their fallen comrade.

Now I have a few conundrums to deal with so any help or advise would be appreciated.

I don't mind the Aasimar who died against the BBEG and now by the villagers being revived but I want their to be meaningful consequences to death. Does anyone have any suggestions on how this would look?

Also, how should I deal with the arguably unjust actions of the party and their willful killing of the weak? 

In a world of magic having no witnesses does not mean the event cannot be discerned and the culprits found. You could say the village survivors sent out word and requested assistance and somebody from the mainland heard about this came, discovered through divination magic the events and culprits, reported it to the authorities of the local kingdom/government and now there are bounties being put out around the kingdom wanting the party. They may find they get to the temple offering healing and resurrection only to discover they have learned about what they have done and refused to resurrect the fallen assimar (pun shamelessly intended). Suddenly, it becomes a struggle for the party to even get anywhere without somebody alerting guards or trying their hand at taking them out for the reward. Constantly assailed your party may find no alternative but to seek passage out of the kingdom and just so happen to come across a shady underground operation offering just this, and they're legit in what they do but unfortunately somebody there learned of the bounty and worked with local guard to set a trap. Outmatched with no option for retreat the party can fight to die or relent and be taken into custody with their items taken, bound in magic-preventing manacles and are put to trial. They must justify their actions or face imprisonment or possibly worse. It's a situation their skills and magic cannot assist them. You could find them guilty and then say they could not escape - you timeskip ahead by years and they leave with pittance of gold and all their treasures gone.

Or they didn't relent, it's a TPK (although you can say they just went unconscious and woke up in the prison). If you follow through with TPK then you have two routes:

- They roll new characters.

OR

A distant relative from one of those that lost their lives in the massacre at the village had actually left to pursure dangerous magical arts. They have actually become powerful Necromancer and have taken the bodies of the party and brought back all members - as undead versions. They have their skills and weapons etc, but now have the "undead" type, the aasimar is now an actual fallen version, the paladin if you have one is now considered an oathbreaker, the cleric lost their god but found a new one in death and are now a death cleric. You change their alignments to "evil" (because what they did was definitely an unjust evil act) and the party will be forced and bound to serve this necromancer and must try to find a way to break free - and if they do they can try to find a cure, seek redemption and return to the race/type/classes they once were or you now have an evil campaign to experiment with. Or maybe they try to be evil but just face a lot of paladins smiting them until they change their ways.

There are a lot of options and no matter what the party will learn there are consequences to what they do. Slaughtering innocent people who are just defending themselves in fear because you brought their enemy to their gate and threatened them is, without question, an evil and unjust act and if they're not supposed to be evil characters this must be a game-changing decision that impact everything about them.

Very succinctly put.

This should be a very interesting next few sessions as 2 of the party were absent for what I thought would be a straight forward session so I had them remain in the Gnoll Village to catch up with the party in a few days  time so this will be a beautiful reunion...

and as luck will have it, the aasimar is on holiday for the next 2 sessions so it will all line up nicely.

Going to take a few of your suggestions and see where it leads!

The Aasimar was flying 5ft in the air, it was night so she was a shining becon and the armed villager reinforcements can around the corner to see what all of the screaming was about, saw the Aasimar hovering there and opened fire. 

10 bolts hit (very high rolls), 2 were crits and the next thing you know the Aasimar went to negative her max HP. 

I don't think the ten crossbow bolts stack to cause instadeath. They apply in sequence, the first to take her to zero knocks her out, after which she would fall prone and be harder to hit from range (disadvantage). Further hits after that count as failed death saves, so that could finish her off easily enough.

That being said, I believe in consequences and this was a pretty shitty thing for the party to have done. Also, unless they went around after the battle finishing off all the seriously wounded then probably some of those villagers didn't die (monsters dying at 0 hitpoints is really a shortcut rather than true). I would say they are now wanted in this land, and likely to be untrustworthy until they overshadow these foul deeds with some selfless heroics. The story going around is essentially a team of supposed heroes joined forces with foul gnolls to ambush an innocent village, murdering their brave guardians and fleeing in the night, leaving them undefended.

There should still be a temple willing to sell a quick resurrection spell though. There's some dodgy gods out there. Even a Necromancer might be able to arrange a non-creepy fix.

I believe in playing it straight with world reactions to party actions.

How would this go down in the real world if a "freelance security firm" butchered half a rural town during a "police action"? Arrests, country wide man hunts, armed stand-offs, National Guard ( or whatever the equivalent is in your country )/Army intervention, etc. 

The party thinks they eliminated all witnesses? Have they never heard of speak with dead?

I would think the party has a warrant out for their arrest - or a whopping bounty on their heads. Parties of high level adventurers - and perhaps some of the high level organizations and factions in your world - would now be gunning for them. Butchering innocents? Got a Paladin, Oath of Vengeance handy? 

They just became international fugitives.

First, tell the players that if any of them have a "G" written in the Alignment box on their character sheets then they must erase it and write a "N" instead.

Now, the ingame repercussions.

As far as the village are concerned, a group of bandits just slaughtered a large proportion of the village's able-bodied men and women. What does a small village do when that happens? They send out a call for adventurers!

Over the next weeks, the characters hear the occasional rumour about a group of adventurers hunting a group of bandits. Over time, the rumours get more frequent, until one day the characters happen to be in the same town as the adventurers. What will the characters do? Well, being D&D characters, they will probably go and visit these new adventurers. Their new friends will ply them with food and drink, flatter them with compliments, laugh at their jokes, and learn all they can about this group of bandits. 

Some time later, armed with all their knowledge, they will strike.

I don't think they actively went out of their way to kill any witnesses. I think they just presume that since no one else was around that they could try and get away with it.

For some of the players this is their first campaign so I don't think they realise just how easy it is to divine information on events such as this given the right spells.

The last couple of days has been fun as it's meant I have had to build certain parts of my world which I hadn't planned on needing just yet. 

I think I'm going to just set boundies on their heads, set the crowns guard after them so they can be put them on trial.

If the party as a whole decides they want to continue this campaign and they manage to outwit their persuers, I think I'll let them continue the story but turn it into an evil campaign. 

Quote from Greenstone_Walker >>

First, tell the players that if any of them have a "G" written in the Alignment box on their character sheets then they must erase it and write a "N" instead.

Now, the ingame repercussions.

As far as the village are concerned, a group of bandits just slaughtered a large proportion of the village's able-bodied men and women. What does a small village do when that happens? They send out a call for adventurers!

Over the next weeks, the characters hear the occasional rumour about a group of adventurers hunting a group of bandits. Over time, the rumours get more frequent, until one day the characters happen to be in the same town as the adventurers. What will the characters do? Well, being D&D characters, they will probably go and visit these new adventurers. Their new friends will ply them with food and drink, flatter them with compliments, laugh at their jokes, and learn all they can about this group of bandits. 

Some time later, armed with all their knowledge, they will strike.

And although the party only killed a bunch of villagers for them not doing what they wanted, I reckon that the villagers that are left alive will assume that the party Must have been involved in all of the killings and black magic prior to it which brought them to the village.

Funny thing is the party also convinced the town elder to come fight the BBEG and he just happened to die as well (not directly the party's fault).

Seems like all of their decisions up until this point will be working against them. 

A trial is an interesting idea - I've done that with my current party, when they got into a firefight, in a busy tavern, in the middle of town, at noon.

The trial was really just a formal wrap up and announcement. The Cleric/Investigator had already talked to all the witnesses and accused under Zone of Truth and talked to the victims using Speak with Dead.

Jurisprudence is weird when you have magic.

A trial presupposes that the party is in a relatively civilized area, however. If not - there's always just the adventurers/bounty hunter option. "Alive or Dead - prefereably dead. 300 gp, and the right to loot the perpetrators".