Homebrew tabletop system- playtesters requested

[Vehrec]

Randolf, after a brief glance at the Elf once they reach the destination, reaches out and knocks. While they wait, he whispers under his breath. "It can't be this simple, can it? Why use her own name to acquire traceable poison to murder her own father? There are legitimate uses for these things, in controlled doses." He trails off muttering to himself and hunching his shoulders against the night and the thoughts in his head.

(PS. SORRY!)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'It does sound far too straightforward to be true, she's an obvious target for a frame, but let's rule it out properly, yes?' Ravyl replies, quietly, then the door swings open.

Carlotta D'Cearach turns out to be a young woman, mid- twenties at most and can't have been a member of the guild for more than a year or two; but with the worry lines belonging on someone twice her age at least, and no beauty to start with. She's clearly been crying recently, she's wearing a bloodstained white shirt with a black shawl draped over her shoulders, and she's moving numbly- if she's faking grief, she's a world class actress. (On the basis of a good success with Human Perception) she does seem to be genuinely distraught. She'll have heard the news by now.

Her brain stays in neutral for a couple of seconds, before she invites you in. It looks as if she works from home, there are two rooms immediately off the entryway, one has three beds in it and two of them occupied, the other looks to be a surgery- waist high table, locked cabinets around the walls. Doing well, for a beginner.

She leads you into a room just past the surgery, with a fireplace against the wall, nothing burning at the moment, a collection of small bronze and steel pans and alchemy equipment on one side of it, motions you to a padded bench by a table half- covered in books and scrolls, most of them medical. Ravyl sniffs, then shakes her head- you're not sure whether that means she does smell the poisons, or she doesn't. Too many other scents in the air for you to tell, yourself. What do you say?

[Master_Baerne]

Valette decides to play the good heart hounded by the forces of evil; she ducks through the door without knocking, and tries to catch the attention of someone in authority.

[Norade]

"An inn would be wonderful, I'd love to sit and have a drink," as he says this Safrac takes Trustin's reigns and gently rubs the side of his neck while whispering something that sounds soothing into his ear; his mount's stance changes slightly the Ork starts to lead his massive animal towards the inn and it's hitching post.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Okay, if you don't mind, I'm going to gloss over most of the opportunities for Valette to talk herself into an early grave here- and cut to the really important one.

The front door was left open, as Valette dashes in she sees the same scene, hallway, four doors, three of them open, one with locked cabinets along the walls and one with three beds, two occupied- one opening onto some sort of kitchen/workroom.

Rudolf sees Ravyl's hackles rise, and she stands and turns to face the door in one sweeping motion- and Valette sees a black and blue blur in front of her, that resolves into a hand at her throat. That looks like authority, all right.

Valette recognises Arcangelo de la Novara's supposed mistress; at least, the dark elf is rumoured to be his mistress- it's pretty certain she's his hitwoman. She takes the scroll, reads it and controls her reaction, hands it to Rudolf, and says to Valette 'I would like you to explain now, what you are doing with Baronet D'Cearach's will.'



Norade, you all head for the inn, the other ten men with him as escort; they know him there, Turstin is stabled, you look after him- rubbing him down and setting up a feed bag- while you wait for the owner to clear the back room so you and Don Arcangelo can talk in peace. Relvenous, I'm assuming you're in this here too.

'Sir Knight, how much military history do you know? Specifically the Wars of Liberation and Establishment, and most specifically what a war-band of the period actually looked like.' That would be the destruction of the Terminal Empire and the rise of Tol Authran, and Safrac (passes History and) guesses what he's getting at. Something very like the Twentieth Cataphract- except much smaller.

'Politics isn't a good man's, a good anything's profession, but you should know that Tol Authran stands squarely behind the knightly orders, behind the whole old system, because they came out of that war saying "Never Again." No more mass thaumaturgical wars, no more handfuls of beings with destructive power vastly out of proportion to their numbers and far beyond anyone's ability to make them account for it. They've held to that, they've held the rest of the continent and as far overseas as their power stretches to it.

So what the hell were Central Army thinking when they raised a unit that could have come straight out of- no, worse, was intended to incorporate all the lessons learned from the War of Liberation, and on a grand scale? Did Army Group South Vathlin even inspect them?

I tell you this much, war made like that is the end of chivalry, the end of the balance of power. That house there- a lord was murdered. Not the first, won't be the last- the people are angry at our failure to protect them. It's going to be a dangerous time to be a noble.'

[Norade]

Safrac understands where things are going and has already been forming an idea about how serious an issue he's been sent to investigate, he'd known that it was an issue, but the beast he's been tasked with investigating is on a whole different scale than what he expected. He's thinking and listening as De Novara speaks, and for all his listening he isn't exactly sure what the other man want's from him. However his lack of knowledge doesn't slow him at all when the man sitting before him finishes speaking.

Picking up where the other man leaves off the knight says, "I'm not sure Army Group South Vathlin ever even saw this rogue army much less inspected them; otherwise I very much doubt that they would have sent a lone rider, detached from his normal retinue to investigate them and their activities. However my concern isn't what has happened, it is what needs to be done about it. We both seem to want the same things thus far, a return to stability, and the end of these sackings and assassinations; my question is how do we best use each other to accomplish our goals?"

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

de Novara takes a deep breath, collects himself, and continues 'Order has essentially broken down, and we're heading for winter. The first physical need is to get a roof over everyone's head so they don't freeze to death. Then food- take stock, get more if possible, distribute eveny- basically we'll have to operate as a city under siege. To organise all of this, there needs to be either money or legal authority, otherwise everyone's going to end up at cross purposes, backstabbing each other for what's left.

Bribery and illegal authority will work up to a point, but working down the lines of succession, establishing who inherits- above all who has the best claim to the title of Count of Auvaine- is the key thing. Establishing some kind of legitimate court, too- get the system working, and get it to bear on the problem.

Ideally, you'd be in a position to declare martial law, but I doubt that would end well. The best thing you might be able to do is report. I'll give you my notes, find an elf to carry it; request pioneer troops, disaster relief. Apart from that, generally try to convince the people that the system doesn't really want them all dead, and hasn't signed them all over to the reaper.

Specifically, the man who died today was one of the most senior survivors we had. His heirs should still be in the city. Would you be prepare to track them down?'

[Vehrec]

Randolf takes the will without comment and turns back to Carlotta and lifts it slightly so she can see it better. "Do you have an idea what should be in this? Who ought to stand to inherit what, and such? It might be helpful to know such things. Establishing a motive for this tragedy might be easier if there is something in this that shouldn't be." He tries his best to couch his words in soft tones, but comforting someone while pumping them for information is not his strong suite. He keeps a corner of his eye on the thief and the elf, knowing that there's not much he can do on that account.

[Lord Relvenous]

Sorry, had a very busy weekend. Yes, de Andorra would have gone along the meeting at the inn. To this point he is content to let the knight and spymaster talk, just listen. However, in response to the spymaster's request, he leans forward and answers. "I am more than willing to do this if it will help stabalize the situation. I of course cannot speak for Sir Safrac, who might have other duties or matters to attend."

[Master_Baerne]

Valette blinks rapidly, about as much expression of extreme discomfort as she usually allows herself. Drawing on all her years of practiced dishonesty, she tries to invest the coming half-truths with a sense of veracity.

"Found it. I was going to give it to the Undersherrif, but I wasn't sure what was happening with regards to him - I saw part of the fight between him and Lord de la Novarra. I figured it ought to go to the late Baronet's child, and the Lady here was mentioned... less chance of her having a motive to lose it. Begging your pardon, Lady, but with things as they are, one must assume the worst." She gives as much of a respectful nod as she can, with a hand wrapped around her throat.


OOC: Insert correct titles; I haven't a clue what the courtesy titles for a count's spymaster and a baronet's daughter are.

[Norade]

"I have no objections to helping as you've requested, you've done more for my investigation that I would have done in a week otherwise under these circumstances. As for the formal request, it shouldn't take long to write up and once that's done getting down to work won't be too hard," says Safrac glad for the ability to write and read without the help of an aid.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right. My brain is feeling better now and I might be able to make a post that doesn't ramble to nowhere...cover de Novara's part in a moment.

In D'Cearach's house, she looks at the document and doesn't seem to be able to believe it. 'I disappointed him, I struck out on my own because of that, we, I thought he had practically disowned me- what would have made this happen? This must be, it's his writing, my father's writing, but how can these be his words? He wouldn't, what could have happened to him to make him think like this?'

Rudolf looks at the document, realises it supersedes an earlier will- sometimes, when there's nothing to be done (and even life magic cannot cure old age), easing a terminally ill patient's last days is part of the job, and he'll have seen and witnessed a few. There's not much jargon to them, they're designed to be read out in open court in front of an audience.

This will, if the date on it is to be believed written and signed two days ago, supersedes any of the earlier wills, and divides D'Cearach's estate in the event of his death between his eldest daughter, Carlotta (who inherits the city properties, plus a few of the outlying country properties and rights) and his youngest son, Eleas, who gets the core of the family estate.

The witnesses to the will are interesting, too. One's a priest of Chelet, one's a centenar- commander of a company a hundred strong, in theory, of footsoldiers or yeoman archers- the third is the deputy head of the mercers' guild. That, in a way, makes it more convincing. If someone was faking it, they'd surely put in a more impressive list of witnesses than that, there isn't a drop of blue blood among them.


Ravyl looks skeptical at Valette's words; (the dice did not like you on this; bare success on acting- against a critical success on resist persuasion and twelve under on human perception) 'How soon after he was dead, did you find this in his study? Someone was there, someone was seen leaving, that someone was you, was it not? We are in a doctor's house, there's a great deal of alchemistry we can play with, it would be healthier for you to tell all.'

Vehrec, I'm going to assume an action on your part- that Rudolf remembers what Ravyl said earlier about it not being a human who did the deed- and points this out.

Ravyl glowers at him, says 'If you're sharp enough to recall that, why aren't you sharp enough to realise I was trying to bluff her into confessing to what she did do? Hmph. Humans. So what are we going to do with you?' she says to Valette.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

After thinking about it, I'm going to avoid cutting to the chase with Safrac and de Andorra. It would be neater, but there's a lot to see and a few interesting people to meet along the way.

Image manipulation is not my thing, so I'm just going to describe in print the general layout of the city. The hill the old city was built on is more or less round and relatively low, with a secondary rise to the south- east two small subsidiary hills to the north and north-east. There was a castle on one of them, the stronghold of the Counts of Auvaine, that seems to be not there now.

That secondary rise, and growing into and taking over what used to be the industrial (to use an anachronistic term- cottage industries really) end of the old town, is the temple district, in the angle between them and stretching down to the river was the civic and trading centre, and the hardest part hit.

Just below that on the river, and above and below the city but within the walls, are artificial pools, berthing for river barges. Six in total, two above, one in the centre, and three downstream. The western side of the river is where most of the industries ended up, prevailing wind northeast to southwest. Four bridges, one of which was destroyed.

Nothing like formal zoning exists, people live next to where they work or work out of where they live for the most part, and there are residential streets- mixture of communal tenement blocks and individual houses, mostrly stone built apart from the newest.


'The temples are the best place to start, especially Valdemiron. I'm not expecting you to go through their archives; I would appreciate it if you could get them to do that, and keep an eye on them to see if they look honest while they're doing it. They have no love of power vacuums, and they have an interest in restoring order.

They are also frustrated lords in their own right, most of them; the power struggles that go on behind the scenes in there whenever there's a promotion to be made are epic, and the fallout from them is always interesting- but there's too much past history there, they wouldn't give me straight answers; but you don't have to live with them afterwards, you don't have to tread carefully and so can do whatever works.

Judge them for yourself; but from the human perspective, it's strange what poor leaders the priests of the god of leadership make, when they get the chance. They overmanage, always giving instructions to prove that they can- they are a nuisance and a nonsense, and I for one do not want to see them filling the vacuum in their own right.

They'll try and manipulate you, of course, but with your rank and position you should be resistant to that. My dear De Andorra, would you accompany Sir Safrac, to cover his back and fill in the nuances?'

[Lord Relvenous]

De Andorra nods. "Of course. While I don't have the rank of Sir Safrac, I do have eyes and a brain. Maybe I can see something that would help. What do you know of the heirs we are searching for?"

[Norade]

"Sounds fairly easy, I have nothing to gain from their games and they have everything to lose for trying to play them with the wrong man," says Safrac just before De Andorra speaks.

Afterward he says, "Glad to have you on my side, you seem quicker than most and the sight of a little steel didn't send you running."

[Master_Baerne]

Valette grimaces internally. Clearly, this elven hitwoman is rather more perceptive than the usual enforcers - of course, it stands to reason that a spymaster would value intelligence more than simple brawn in his servants.

"I did find it, and I did find it in the late Baronet's study, that much is certainly true. However, I plead a case of mistaken identity with the proverbial cat - I'm naturally curious, and it seems to have almsot killed me. I was in the neighborhood to offer my services as entertainment at the Baronet's party... I'm a dancer, and I've some small skill at stage 'magic' - you know, coins from ears, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't, the like. The stench told me something had happened, and I went in to find out. Ended up in the study, spotted the document, decided it was my civic duty to see it to the right hands." This is accompanied by a slight, very sincere "please don't kill me" undertone; Valette is many things, but able to escape a highly-trained elven assassin is not one of them.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

With de Andorra and Safrac;

'The basic problem is, noblesse oblige. So many of the people we need were the leadership caste before this happened, and deemed it their duty to stand and fight. Information as to who lived and who did not, who is confirmed dead and who missing and requiring to be proven dead or alive, is coming in slowly, and it is slower work still putting that to the proof.' de Novara points out.

'Count Antar had a brother, they parted on bad terms, and Marcelin Riedel was last seen as a freelance gentleman venturer- and apparently quite successful pirate- off the Morrow Islands two thousand miles away. He and whatever brood he's raised are out of the running for the time being. Two of Antar's sons are known to be dead, and the last, Leon, the middle one may have been left for dead on the field and subsequently rescued, kidnapped, or both.

All three Barons declined to stand and fight, and are nowhere to be found, not even by scrying- which severely limits the number of places they might be, and most of them are out of reach. Leon Riedel is possibly the key to all this.

Ser de Andorra- were you ever involved in a bidding war as a mercenary? Playing each side off against the other, prodding each of them into trying to outbid each other for your services, getting each of them to throw wilder and wilder offers your way- and getting further and further into their counsel, thereby? Then you know what to do with the priests of Valdemiron.

Not exactly the heights of honour, I admit,' he adds to Safrac, 'but if they were honourable men- and some are, but not many- if they were all honourable men, they wouldn't rise to the bait, would they?'


Meanwhile, several hours later on the other side of town-

Mentioning the words 'civic duty' to an elf opened a door in Valette's mind. A memory of a scene, half remembered, of a human arguing with an elf- a light skinned one, carrying a staff whose convolutions hurt to look at and wearing a robe whose embroidery showed one geometric form deforming into another- and so on in a spiral of increasing complexity that seemed to repeat itself in ascending pattern. Meaningful, and actually fairly straightforward for Elvish semiotics.
'The resonances are wrong. I am a futurist but I am not a Futurist, and yet I can still percieve that there are objections, karmic and morphic disharmonies that endanger your- endeavour.' the elf says, after obviously searching for the right word.
'I you were a human I could persuade you that it was your civic duty.' another voice, that you cannot see the speaker of but she feels she ought to know.
'And if you were as subtle as even a human ought to be you would try to work on my pride instead of simply throwing more money at me, which I accept.' the elf says.


As this clears, Valette realises Ravyl is looking at her very closely. 'You are a strange one.' she says. 'You also have a very vertical act for a dancer, there are few stages at rooftop level, and I'm prepared to bet you could entertain people with hours of fun wondering where their belongings have got to...I think someone with those talents might be very useful to us, do you not?' she adds to Rudolf.

[Vehrec]

"Quite. Of course, civic duty being what it is, some who share that interest will probably want to watch her back." Randolf doesn't smile much though, and he probably secures his purse a little tighter. Then he turns back to the lady D'Cearach to clear up something that has been bothering him for some time. "One more question. Your brother, the one mentioned here. I presume that he is in a position to claim his inheritance?" He carefully avoids asking any question about the young man's location at the moment, or in any way alluding that he might be the next target of assassins. She is obviously in a fragile emotional state, and while that may annoy him, he's sensitive enough to try not to set her off.

[Norade]

"It does seem an underhanded way to do things, but my code is one of honor on the field of battle the honor of equals and the defense of the lower class. I have no issue with allowing greedy men who play at leadership to divulge information they might otherwise not," says Safrac in response to the statement about honor, before asking, "Now, what would be my best use in this situation? I am many things, but skilled at trickery and wordplay I am not."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'Essentially,' de Novara says to Safrac and de Andorra, 'do both. Sir Safrac, you can identify and deal with the honest men, to put their contacts and archives to good use; ser de Andorra, you can find out the crooked. Does that make sense to you?'


in D'Cearach's house, she says 'Rael, my brother, was- he would have made an excellent wizard, apart from being far too level headed for it.' she's remembering happy bits of the past; she brightens up a little here. 'Where things that are were concerned, at least. When it came to people, he was much less so. He was a herald, officially- that was what he found himself to do- but he was always closer to the muddy end of life than he was supposed to be, and the people he met turned him into a social radical, a levelling democrat. He wanted this all torn down. An end to inheritance, an end to tithes, divide the land among the people...he could rant from morning to night.

In the run up to this, this- Rael got worse and worse, moving from a messenger with opinions to an outright propagandist, heading for revolutionary, and our father disowned him. He ignored me, swore that he would hunt his son down and kill him- if this isn't a fake, our father threw away the loyalty of my brothers who had stood by him and been good sons to him, in favour of the renegades who had turned their back on everything he stood for.' she says, crying.

'And if it is a fake,' Ravyl says, 'who faked it and why? One of the witnesses is an officer of archers- and where else are most of your revolutionaries drawn from, if not from the peasant- proprietor class? Excuse me a moment.' Ravyl says, hearing something at the door, and going to talk to the group of the don's men who were chasing Valette in the first place, leaving you with that thought.

[Lord Relvenous]

De Andorra considers de Novara's words. "You said that the power struggles behind the scenes are quite heated. I am sure that the priests did not escape the devastation here completely. Do you think the more unsavory aspects of the temple's hierarchy would hire a man or group of men of my talents to maybe swing things into their favor? If so, that would open multiple avenues of contact and investigation."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'I believe they would.' he says, smiling. 'The temple district, the Valdemironians' is the largest, is easily found-Ridge Street runs right into it.' He calls for a piece of parchment, hurriedly sketches a few lines on it- the major streets, the skeleton of the city. If my people have found a priest, he or she should be able to tell you more, and any of the black- cloaks should be able to put you in touch with me.'

[Norade]

The basics down Safrac says, "I suppose we should get started then, the sooner order is restored the faster I can get back to my foremost goal."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Heading for the temple compound, then; although the trip is not without incident- hell, getting out of the stable isn't without incident. Turstin has been enjoying himself; he's out of his stall, has kicked or chewed down one of the partitions, and is standing next to a mare who's rubbing up against him. There's also a terrified refugee family huddling in the corner, that Turstin glares at from time to time. They do have knives, and it looks as if they were going to kill and eat the mare when the warhorse objected.

Norade, if Safrac wants to do something about this we'll backtrack to it, but otherwise, Ridge Street down to the temples is a mess. It was on the main axis of attack, and looking closely at the damage most of it does seem to have been done by magic- mostly elemental, or Motion. Some of the rubble has been cleared up or more likely stolen, there's a pile of bricks that somebody's stretched a sail stolen from one of the river barges over and created some kind of shelter, there are a few shells of buildings that people are camping out in.

There are the sounds of a knife fight that's over before de Andorra and Safrac can get to it, apparently over a particularly livable hovel. There are a few unburied bodies, and a few more alive but clearly heading that way- then the road dips, and you get a good view of the temple district.

(sudden emergency, complete the post later.)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The fashion around here is for temples to be built in the shape of the sacred sign of the god they are dedicated to, which can cause some interesting architectural problems. In some cases, and some places, it simply isn't possible, and they have to make do with a highly stylised version, a squareset building and an appropriate statue, or worse still, share.

In particular, there isn't enough room here for the full splayed- out elaborate architecture on the mound the temple district is built on, and there is some interesting history to be figured out in the details of the brick and stone work, of who held which plot when, which of the temples have been remodelled after changing hands, whose worship is on the rise and whose on the wane. Once the battle damage is subtracted.

Ridge Street ends in a circular space, what to british readers would look like a large roundabout, with the temple of the chief of the gods and god of leadership and lordship in the centre, the others around the outside of the circle. Valdemiron's holy symbol is a mailed fist through a crown, the crown part is the outer ring of the building and the mailed fist is standing vertically- or was, before it was abused. All except the middle finger have been broken off of the central building, and the outer ring, the crown, has been broken open in three places.

All but one of the temple complexes show some sign of damage, there are three entirely reduced- the god of war, the god of craftsmen, and the in-the-interests-of-ecumenism multifaith elvish temple, which is or was actually a tree. Interestingly, that seems to have been stolen- uprooted entirely, either disintegrated or carried off. The temple of Ikhran the Crafter is lying in ruins; it was almost certainly some improbable and impractical high achievement of architecture, inherently unstable without magic, and it was toppled. That's going to be a loss. Huran the War God- his temple is just another lava crater.

The only undamaged one is the temple of the Goddess of War, which looks a little like a skull and crossbones but is actually suposed to be a female astrological symbol with crossed swords. A little suspicious, that.

The area of the district apart from the actual temples is the craft workshops that support them, the homes of the priests and laity that serve the temples, a few other businesses associated with them. The palce is choked with people, and an orcish knight is not going to escape attention. Where do Safrac and de Andorra go?