Homebrew system thread II, part 2

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale is with Larric on this. He listens attentively and nods along with what the alchemist is saying.

"Certainly. Our best course is to point out the logical conclusion of this coup: Valdemironi in iron-tight control of the people, brainwashing others at will and with little hesitation to annihilate anyone or anything that resists them or works independently of their control. My order stands as an example, as does the Baron and his court. That is not a Qulan that many others are likely to enjoy or support willingly. If they have not taken action and are not with the mob now, the other orders of priests are most likely either intimidated or unaware of the full extent of this plot. I would prefer those we speak with to rally to our side with cold fury rather than hot rage. I suspect the Valdemironi will have a harder time manipulating deliberate disapproval than passionate anger."

"As far as the wizards... I follow your lead entirely. I find myself ill at ease around them."

Dale checks his weapons and slings the magic-repelling shield onto a fore-arm. When it comes to more direct combat the shield will be useful against both mundane assailants and mystical attacks/manipulations.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Let' s see if I can type fast enough to avoid having the reply eaten this time.

'Since when have angry mobs been particularly amenable to logic?' Lisanna says, once you have all the bits and pieces you plan to take. 'The main thing is to shake them loose from being a mob. Right.' Turns to the wall, draws her green crystal blade, draws runes in the air with it; some of the stones of the castle outer wall creak, groan, shift- this is possible because the wards are so dilapidated, but a rough ladder has formed.

Up and over, then- from the top of the wall you can see most of the mob, burning torches and all, at the other end of the potato shaped castle mound- in the esplanade before the warehouse. Most of you are thaumically sensitive enough to feel the chanting, not just hear it. They've starting to spread out, to ring the castle; haven't got to this bit yet. At this end the houses of the town crowd the mound fairly closely, there's room to disappear.

'We could confront them, go to their temple and try and unravel things from there, seek the wizards' Guild for aid, head for the docks and a saner priesthood, or try to raise a counter mob. Hm. First I want a sniff at their temple, to see how they've intending to do this. Any suggestions?'

[Simon_Jester]

"I'd... want to find some better priests first, so we have something to start working against their plan as soon as we can. Then sniff around the temple." He looks at Dale, Sir Alfred, and Dirt; he's scratching his recently shaven chin again.

[Fiji_Fury]

"I agree with Larric. The Makers would be useful for confronting either the mob or the Valdemironi temple. Let us rouse them first, then seek more information at the temple. The mob itself will be immune to logical argument, so shocking it will be needed. Maybe the wizards could contribute to that... if there is time."

[Panzersharkcat]

"I as well. I am not amenable to raising another mob. The gods know I'm not a rabble-rousing type."

[Kaelan]

Mob vs Mob, what could possibly go wrong...

The magic will eventually run its course, killing lots of people under its spell will leave us with a host of new problems. A less violent solution would be preferable.

"Castle walls will hold. It's what built for. Find way to calm down mob, or put mob in pain 'til spell end. You know 'squits' spell? Hard to break door when holding pants 'n stomach."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'The walls will hold against the mob, but the wards in them are too weak, they won't hold against the magic- with enough people and enough organisation they can do an open air ritual service, swamp normal leadership and resistance with a tide of popular will. It'll take until they calm down and they get organised, but "eventually" definitely does not work for us. We have hours, but not many of them.

Drastic solutions aside- dockside it is.'

Taking the long way round, avoiding the mob; keeping your eyes open as you do- and it doesn't take very far before you start to feel watched. something is keeping tabs on you, and those with unnatural awareness- who isn't that?- can spot something well hidden, apart from the thaumaturgical trace, something not theirs but almost certainly on their side, something that seems to fade in and out, be momentarily as real as it chooses to be;

Efrodrion the Trickster would normally be found against the chief of the gods, but being a trickster, his followers can be found on all sides, and what's after you certainly seems to be a chimera, the sort of thing they do.

Given how it's shimmering, you can't be sure how long it's been watching you for- but what are you going to do about it?

[Simon_Jester]

Sir Alfred, I believe, remains sublimely unaware of supernatural awareness issues.

Larric passively scans his magic-radar and-

"Dale, do you feel that?" He turns his head away from the viewpoint of the invisible magic spy and jerks it back toward the thing- trying to discourage lip reading, without making obtrusive gestures.

Then, with an act of irritable will, Larric launches an Insight probe at it- does it seem more like an independent entity, or the viewpoint/portal/periscope/fiberoptic line through which an outside agent is looking?

[Fiji_Fury]

"Yes, I do."

Dale rotates so that his anti-magic shield is facing the distortion and edges closer to Larric, ready to interpose himself between the alchemist and the observer if needed.

"Carry on or confront?"

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Working- in fact, having anything to do with- the servants of the trickster is a royal pain in the backside, because they are almost invariably to be found on as many sides as they possibly can be, all the better to wind everyone up and further the only cause they're really on, their own. (They also tend to sabotage experiments and obfuscate truths, so from Larric's point of view they are definitely an irritant.)

Larric's probe goes through a bewildering selection of different answers- it's an independent minor daemon acting on its' own will (unlikely), it's a pure chimera sent to lead them astray (inevitable but irrelevant, if true), it's being used to see through by a priest bitterly opposed to valdemiron's fascistic rule (maybe), it's acting independently for a priest trying the old make the oppression worse to stoke up conditions for the revolution trick (feasible), it- All possible answers emerge, spiral around each other, and declare that they are all true. (Damn' thing got a 1.)

The trickster god is also the god of confusion; but seldom so much so as to sabotage himself. What the logic of the situation dictates is usually a much more reliable guide than anything they actually tell you. Power, uncertain, but it is intelligent enough to be a good liar, and it doesn't want to let you know what it's really up to- which is itself a fact to be reasoned with.

[Simon_Jester]

IC:

Larric is quite familiar with learning from an experiment things which he didn't expect, sometimes disastrously unpleasant things, instead of what he expected to learn.

Like both his attempts to work with the substance he knows as "horrible fiery death metal."
______________________

Still walking, the alchemist frowns and turns his head toward the others- the entity is now clearly alerted to his presence.

"It's a cross between a court jester and a peeping tom." Larric looks at the others. "We can ignore it and do what we were doing anyway. That's at least faster. We can try to argue with it, probably a waste of time. It likes to annoy people. Or we can try to beat it up, which might work or might not work at all.

Does it appear have enough physical structure to be at least seriously inconvenienced by violent energy discharges?

OOC:

[Why do I picture this last question in the mouth of a Schlock Mercenary character?]

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'Or,' Lisanna suggests quietly, 'we could try to use the joker somebody's just played on us to our own advantage. It's obvious now that they're a player, that they have something to gain from this...

yes, it is vulnerable- hitting it matters a little, zapping it works better.'

[Panzersharkcat]

"And hitting it while zapping is best," he mumbles to himself.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Larric wasn't actually planning to fight it as such, just wanted to know whether a threat of violence could (hypothetically) be used to influence its behavior. So I assume Lisanna must have been talking to Dale.

IC:

Larric says, a bit louder, "what I'd like to know is what they think they'll get out of spooning reports back to a bunch of half-witted puppeteers with big dreams."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

She said that, and is saying this, to everyone; 'They get to twist things so the outcome of this is closer to what they want, why else would they be bothering? How do we get them to make mistakes because of that; make their getting involved serve what we want to happen- I'd rather be trying to out-trick a trickster than out -tyre?- a tyrant, but-'

She thinks about it for a second. 'What they want is confusion, what serves them best is a swirling cloud of divided loyalties that they can hold a balance of power in. They don't want either side to win, would rather the entire business dissolved into a confused, fumbled compromise. That would be like them, anyway. Now how do we get them to make a mistake?'

[Simon_Jester]

"If we look like we're about to lose they might give up or help us, but we can't count on that." He scratches his chin again.

"We could split up and see if they send more than one watcher to follow us, if they don't, then they don't know what one half of us is doing. How does that sound?

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale reluctantly nods at Larric's comment.

"Sir Alfred and I could continue to the temples and try to persuade other priests while the three of you carry on to the wizards guild and convince them to offer aid in this mess."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'Leaving you- you have some talent, but enough to cover you against them? I wouldn't bet your life on it. We need arcane talent and hitting skills both, I expect;' she adds to Larric, 'I wish you could be on both places at once, you may ahve noticed a certain tension between myself and the guild? We'll just have to put up with that.

Yes, and;' she adds. 'I'll take Dirt - if you're willing, that is- to see what the guild can do, Dale, larric, Alfred to the dock and the temples? Right?'


It looks as if the watch- thing is grinning.

[Panzersharkcat]

"That is agreeable."

[Simon_Jester]

He looks at Lisanna. "Before we go- It'd do my nerves good to have an answer to one question, a bit after we split up and get out of sight. Whether they really DO follow both of us. What trouble do you think would happen if one of us tossed something glowing and showy into the air?"

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'The plan I was nearly about to go with was glowing lights in the air and sounds of suggestive chanting, basically fake the approach of a raiding party from the Striking Phoenix; rely on panic to disperse the mob. I decided against it because, apart from not being sure I could, panic is likely to get too many people tripped over and crushed- we'd really have to be in trouble for that to be the lesser evil.

Something a bit less spectacular than that shouldn't have the same reaction, if anything we might be able to get them chasing their tails, it's a good way to coordinate anyway; rough code, arrows and things, red for bad or no, blue for yes or good? Ah.' She points down one of the streets running round the mound. There are moving shadows, reflected flickers of light- running people with torches.

[Simon_Jester]

As Lisanna is speaking, Larric thinks about fire arrows, gingerly patting a packet of salt in his personal effects.

Something people might have noticed about him, which is rather odd, but which I didn't think to mention before: he shows a surprising degree of... alarmed respect for salt. He'll eat it, but he occasionally eyes salt-cellars nervously, as if he expects them to explode.


If they're running toward us, Larric says "I think we'd better stick together and head for the docks, I don't want to fight a whole mob and I don't want to get split up and chased down by one."


If they're not running toward us, Larric says "If we're splitting to avoid that watcher, the more fools us if they do set watchers on both of us. Once we've been out of sight for a bit, common sense to try and signal each other; if we're both being followed we might as well both head the same way after all, and hurry. For me it'd be arrows- yellow fire for "not followed" and lightning for "followed." How about you?"

He hopes that plan makes as much sense to other people as it does to him.

He starts thinking about how to set a Substance-based trigger that will very rapidly burn up all available combustibles on a burning object- the idea being to launch the fire arrow, ignite it for high visibility, but get it to flame out before it falls back to earth.

[Kaelan]

Dirt's not too fussed either way.
"Still say easier to take over town. Maybe better to wait until both side finish fight and then take on winner, but this could put most of town on fire. Would help poor Dirt if knew what humans were fighting for..."

For the most part Dirt still can't see what the internal squabble is all about given the fact that the entire area was beaten into a pulp no to long ago. As the party are a defacto agent of said pulp making machine in his ogre-centric mind they should be taking over the area......

[Simon_Jester]

If we're not being chased by a mob, Larric takes a stab at ogrethought. Poor fit, but it's worth a try.

"There's too many of them. We're still trying to take the man who most people think should be chief, and shake him until he turns into a good chief."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

You know this setting was developed through play, you're back at the start of continuity because the power level grew and it would be unfair to drop you in entirely at the deep end; I'm trying not to let deVerett be the scheming wise-fool he was last time around. A little more intelligence in his intelligent self- interest, less semi- naked avarice and willing to solve problems with a pointy object. If he was as bad now as he was then, you would have been justified in killing him off...as did eventually happen at the players' hands, for largely the reasons (and with the armed backup) Kaelan suggested. No real reason history (?) has to repeat itself, but I suppose you could always keep the option in mind.


'If it does follow me, I'll opt for screaming minion. No, they're definitely coming this way. Run.'

There are eight of them- the party is mostly fit, healthy and quite dangerous; the numbers are on their side, tabards say Valdemironi, militia. Spears and swords and out to get you. Any dissenters from the 'run away' plan?