Paris Underground
Revolution and treachery beneath the streets of Paris
La reine Anna II rentre à Paris
After two years living in the protected seclusion of Château de Rambouillet, our Most High, Most Potent and Most Excellent Queen has returned to Paris. Despite safety concerns expressed by Regent Villeneuve, our Dearest Sovereign defies the violence that has marred the streets of the capital. According to palace courtiers, our eighteen year-old monarch feels She needs to share the plight of Her people and demonstrate an example of national unity in the face of the current political crisis. Reports indicate that Her Royal Highness made this decision during the absence of her Seneschal, Viceroy Regent Mazarin Villeneuve, who reportedly remains in Normandy negotiating conditions for peace with the rogue warlord, Guy Harfleur.
This story arc brought about the end of the Capetian Campaign and occurred during the Phoenix Order’s attempt to overthrow the Capetian Dynasty and impose a puppet government of the Golden Empire upon the French nation.
The early stages of these adventures chronicled Phillipe Depardieu’s struggle to navigate personal and political conflicts during the spreading Paris Revolution and investigate the Phoenix Order's involvement in a traitorous conspiracy to dethrone Queen Anna II . Acting initially on his own, Phillipe would later be joined by a party of adventurers including Jimmy Nails, Francois Belmont, Sebastien Gauge, and Tancred. The later conflict and climax of the story arc dealt with the party's collective effort to resist the Phoenix Order and eventually defeat the underground insurrection.
The resolution of this conflict involved Jimmy's discovery of a long lost underground colony of post-cataclysmic survivors, subterranean humans adapted to live in the darkened depths of the earth and inheritors of wondrous Precursor relics. The inhabitants of this underground city, known as Oubliens, joined forces with the party in the fight against the Phoenix Order and helped prevent the internal collapse of the Capetian state.
Plot points/Scenes
Prologue:
Young Phillipe Depardieu is hired by a man named Golan Trevize to help with an exploratory excavation in the heart of Paris. During the excavation, Trevize decides to recruit Depardieu into the Phoenix Order but his offer is rebuffed. Trevize instead kidnaps Depardieu and imprisons him at a Phoenix Academy research facility in Rotterdam. Phoenix technicians conduct invasive experiments on Depardieu. After the destruction of the Phoenix stronghold in Amsterdam, the Rotterdam Academy is abandoned and Phillipe escapes in the confusion.
Scene 1:Phillipe Depardieu begins travelling south back into Capetia after escaping captivity in Frisia. George Maurisse, spy of the Phoenix Order, spots Depardieu on the Frisian road near the Capetian border. He tries to apprehend him but Phillipe fends off the attack.
Scene 2: During his travels, Phillipe meets a mob of fugitive revolutionary Libertists driven from their homes. Among them is Cassandra, who gives him a red sash and a Paris address, 372 Rue deGaulle.
Scene 3:Phillipe arrives in Chalons and a wild fire is tearing through the town. He rescues the mayor's son from a fire started by revolutionaries. Mayor Lesage gives Phillipe a white sash symbolizing loyalty to the ancien regime of the Capetian monarchy.
Scene 4:Phillipe enters Paris and encounters signs of the revolution. The city gates are in disrepair and the gatehouse is unguarded. Phillipe visits the address given to him by Cassandra and meets her cell of revolutionaries. They interrogate him until Cassandra convinces them Phillipe is no threat. Phillipe is goaded to show his support for the revolution by joining their protest at the trial of Jean-Paul Brutaux, a prominent revolutionary leader held as a political prisoner by city authorities.
Scene 5:During a peaceful protest turned violent, Phillipe finds himself in the middle of an open street battle between Libertists and Monarchists at Les Halles. During the fighting, Phillipe discovers the violence is being instigated by Phoenix-aligned agents posing as revolutionaries. Phillipe helps his friend Cassandra escape the battle and proceeds to rescue a stranded group of city councilors from the vengeance of an incensed mob led by false flag Red Ring provocateurs.
Scene 6:Offering services as a personal guard, Phillipe enters the household of a besieged merchant industrialist named Marcel Turgeon. Phillipe fends off a home invader who wounds Turgeon in a scuffle. He fights off another masked attacker while defending Turgeon in hospital. Phillipe chases the would-be assassin to a sewer service tube in the Latin Quarter.
Scene 7:Phillipe pursues Turgeon's assailant to a section of ancient sewer tunnels controlled as a hideout by the Hunters' Guild criminal syndicate. While attempting to sneak into the hideout, Phillipe meets Francois Belmont and Sebastien Gauge, a pair of operators formerly employed by the Hunters' Guild. Working together, Phillipe and his new allies breach the safe house chambers and successfully subdue and interrogate several members of the criminal cell. They learn of a further plot to murder Queen Anna II and other government ministers with an attack on the National Congress planned to occur the following day during the council session of the Estates General.
Scene 8:The party report their discovery to the local constabulary. After Mayor Lesage of Chalons vouches for Phillipe, they are given an audience with Queen Anna II; her personal protector, Duke Baldwin of Vermillion; and a foppish courtier named Joyen Plage, one of the queen's "favorites." Heeding Joyen's dubious counsel, Queen Anna consents to allow the party to prepare an ambush for the expected attack. Duke Baldwin commands a volunteer guardsman from the Paris Temple to work with the informants, and thus Tancred joins the party.
Scene 9:The party prepares an ambush in the halls of the National Congress and successfully defeats an attack against the assembly of the Estates General. They are afterwards feted as Defenders of Capetia and honoured with a social reception in the Queen's own salon chambers.
Scene 10a:Tancred invites the rest of the party to help him repel grave robbers from the catacombs of the Paris Temple. They intercept a band of Mind Plague rogues looting the ancient Templar necropolis and successfully drive off the grave robbers after a brief battle.
Scene 10b:The Mind Plague's disruption of the Templar graves unleashes an ancient evil sealed in the reliquary vault. While seeking a way to banish the malevolent presence of the fiendish Baphomet, the party battles the animated corpses of the Mind Plague agents they had just fought. In the process they make an important discovery about the tunnels beneath Paris.
Scene 11:In retaliation for the attack on the Templar crypts and emboldened by their growing ranks, the party launch an offensive against a nearby Mind Plague outpost. They catch the garrison by surprise and rout the entire cell. Their search of the station reveals advanced technological weapons and equipment, including a second suit of Sentinel armour. Furthermore, they apprehend Charles Maurisse, the assassin responsible for poisoning Marcel Turgeon.
Scene 12:After learning about the tech recovered at the Mind Plague outpost, Britannian Special Agent Julian Beech sends word to Chateau Timberley to inform Jimmy Nails that the Paris Resistance required the support of a Machinist. To carry this message, Julian deploys an enigmatic informant with prior knowledge of the hidden Timberley fortress, a traveler known as Douglas Knight. Knight also tells Jimmy about the legacy of the Seven Sentinels and Jimmy explores the Sentinel Shrine in Timberley Forest, where he discovers a strange inscription about the last stand of Yves Olivoix. When Jimmy learns that Stroh Gendall is involved in the Paris Plot, he and Primus immediately make all haste for the city.
Scene 13:Prominent Paris politicians and industrialists begin dying of a mysterious illness. Among the sick is Marcel Turgeon, who was evidently infected by the contagion during Maurisse's attack on him at the Hotel de dieu. Jimmy Nails tracks down Phillipe's Paris Resistance party and inspects the technical material and data they recovered from the Mind Plague outpost. He discovers that the Phoenix Order has been developing a virus called Flagulum in order to wipe out homo sapiens and leave the psionically awakened "homo novus" in their place.
Scene 14:Seeking a cure for the Flagulum Virus, the Resistance interrogate Charles Maurisse at the constabulary lockup. He tells them that the Red Ring criminal syndicate has been administering Flagulum attacks throughout the city and that their leader, Franco Vaugrenarde, possesses an antidote for personal use.
Scene 15:Using leads taken from other interrogations, the party researches Paris architectural records and discovers the location of the secret Red Ring headquarters, an ancient Paris Metro subway tunnel called St. Placide Station in the Left Bank neighborhood of Montparnasse. Phillipe, Jimmy, Primus, Francois, Sebastien, and Tancred launch an assault on the subterranean hideout and seize Vaugrenarde's vial of antidote. Moreover, the party uncovers an entrance into the original Paris catacombs and locates a third suit of Sentinel armour.
Scene 16:A lull in the political chaos gives the party a chance to do some independent investigation. Guided by the inscription Jimmy recorded at the Sentinel Shrine in Timberley, The Resistance spends a number of weeks exploring the ancient Catacombs in search of the final remains of Yves Olivoix. The party also investigates a disturbing series of nightly murders and discovers that a Phoenix psion named Aurus has been identifying and executing Awakened men and women who refuse to join the Phoenix Order.
Scene 17:Jimmy Nails makes contact with the lost Parisien tribe of Oubliens. From them he confirms the fate of Yves Olivoix, learns the immortal treachery of Jost Desaad, and receives the Seven Scabbard relic. After some negotiation, the Oubliens agree to join the fight against the Golden Empire of the Phoenix, the inheritors of Desaad's oppressive Hidden Hand.
Scene 18:The brief period of political detente ends when Stroh Gendall's sudden attack on the city jail frees hundreds of violent revolutionary discontents, including George Maurisse. The Resistance takes to the streets to apprehend the rampant malcontents and engages Maurisse along with a Phoenix commander named Dayna and her cadre of mutant Clone Thralls. Maurisse is killed in the fighting, but reveals that Phillipe's friend Cassandra has been kidnapped by Mind Plague operatives.
Scene 19:Using forgotten Metro tunnels identified during the attack against the Red Ring, the Resistance locates an unknown passage into the Mind Plague's own Metro stronghold and begins the hunt for Stroh Gendall.
Scene 20:While the Oubliens try to contain the Phoenix forces unleashed above ground, the Resistance finally confronts Stroh Gendall. One of the party's allies turns against them during a brutal battle in which both Stroh Gendall and Aurus are killed. Tancred is also slain during the fighting.
Locations: Paris and Frisia
Scene 1:
Location: Frisian Road (Frisia)
Scene 2:
Location: Frisian Road (Capetia)
Scene 3:
Location: Chalons
Scene 4:
Location: Paris, Maison du liberté (372 Rue deGaulle)
Scene 5:
Location: Paris, Les Halles
Scene 6:
Location: Paris, Turgeon Manor, Hotel de dieu
Scene 7:
Location: Paris, Latin Quarter Catacombs
Scene 8:
Location: Paris, Louvre Palace
Scene 9:
Location: National Assembly, Louvre Palace
Scene 10a:
Location: Paris, Templar Necropolis Catacombs
Scene 10b:
Location: Templar Necropolis Catacombs
Scene 11:
Location: Paris Underground
Scene 12:
Location: Provence, Timberley Castle
Scene 13:
Location: Paris, Turgeon Manor
Scene 14:
Location: Paris, Constabulary Lockup
Scene 15:
Location: Paris, Musée de l’Homme and Montparnasse
Scene 16:
Location: Montparnasse, Latin Quarter
Scene 17:
Location: Ancient Paris Mining Tunnels, Paris Underground
Scene 18:
Location: Paris streets
Scene 19:
Location: Left Bank, Montparnasse Catacombs, Mahillion Metro Station
Scene 20:
Location: Left Bank, Mahillion Metro Station
Themes
Burial and repression are persistent motifs in this campaign arc. The adventures involve continual delving into underground crypts and warrens and the ensuing conflicts inevitably churn up hidden or suppressed history and trauma. Things that are buried away or concealed such as painful memories or crimes are subsequently unearthed and exposed. During the course of the adventure, Phillipe experienced flashbacks to his time in Phoenix captivity and endured the traumatic return of painful suppressed memories of the experiments they conducted on him.
Jimmy Nail's exploration of the oldest Paris tunnels revealed the realm of the Forgotten Underworld ("Oubliens") and with it the story of Yves Olivoix and the Seven Sentinels of Urzen . These unearthed secrets unveiled a long lost heroic lineage, the treacherous origins of the Hidden Hand of Princes, and the enigmatic legacy of the unfinished quest of Seven SEAs.
Structure
Exposition
By this point in the campaign Britannia had fallen and the Crown of Victory had been usurped by treacherous forces loyal to the Golden Empire. The war between Britannia and Capetia never truly began, and, in fact, the war had not been necessary for the overthrow of the Mortmare Dynasty of Albion. Capetia, however, with a far more decentralized polity modeled more closely on traditional feudal practices, proved much more difficult to destabilize. The ongoing conflict with Normandy had not disrupted the Capetian state in the way the Phoenix Order had hoped. In fact, the current condition of prolonged war being perpetuated by Phoenix agents had the opposite effect. A true feudal state, built upon the promise and fulfillment of military obligations, functioned best in a military crisis. In fact, this system of government was intended to provide for little else. Thus Capetia, at war for three grueling years, had in many ways only grown more united, more cohesive in spite of all the Golden Empire's efforts.
Only the urban populace of Paris, starved by war-related food shortages and oppressed by restrictive war-time measures, bristled against this seemingly perpetual state of warfare. Growing unrest in the streets of Paris ultimately began to destabilize the capital as the educated urban masses began petitioning for a reformed French state. Only the repressive power of the provincial aristocracy could sustain the status quo of the ancien regime, and Queen Anna II was eventually forced to abandon the capital to the factional violence of a burgeoning New Revolution. Thus the Kingdom of Capetia continued to grapple fruitlessly in the fields of Normandy and the Capetian family dynasty continued to cling to power in spite of worsening political situations at home and abroad.
Britannian Special Service agents, those still active, remained loyal to their commander Prince Tepin Rathmore in Free Scotland. These agents, led by spymaster Julian Beech continued to run operations in support of Norman independence and monitored communications between the Golden Empire and its many agents abroad. Julian conducted his own operations in Paris during the Revolution and insinuated himself into Queen Anna's own court using an unlikely alias. From his position within the nucleus of the Capetian power sphere Julian monitored the unfolding crisis and kept vigilant watch for signs of Phoenix Order interference. When he became aware of Phillipe Depardieu's Resistance against Phoenix Archon Stroh Gendall, Julian began offering surreptitious logistical and covert support.
Prologue
The story begins with Phillipe Depardieu, a young man with an unharnessed psionic talent and unknown potential. Unable to pursue a typical life, Phillipe took to the road in search of a living. Fearful to reveal his abilities to a society wary of supernatural omens, he kept moving, ever struggling to find a home. He eventually came to Paris where he was approached by an enigmatic benefactor named Golan Trevize who recruited him to assist with an
archaeological excavation in the heart of the Old City.
Conflict
The New Revolution's political conflict between radical reformers and traditional monarchists persistently blurred moral lines. With men and women of good faith taking either side in the revolution a man of true conscience could not make a simple moral judgement about right and wrong and pick sides accordingly. Phillipe's decision to wear the colours of both factions very well illustrated the moral ambiguity at play in this scenario. The way in which the Golden Empire manipulated this ambiguity seemed to force a false equivalence between the ethical dilemmas of the New Revolution and the moral nature of the Phoenix Order's own political ambitions. Stroh Gendall packaged his own partisan appeal to destroy the Capetian state with the unchallenged assumption that the Golden Empire's will to dominate expressed a moral authority no more or less legitimate than any other.
To counter the obscuring smokescreen of this dishonest moral sophistry, the primary protagonists of the campaign arc, Phillipe Depardieu and Jimmy Nails, wielded the unyielding certainty of their mutual desire for vengeance. Time spent in Phoenix captivity had taught Phillipe to loathe the authoritarian ambitions of the Phoenix Dawn. Pledging an undying resistance against Golan Trevize and all his works, Phillipe sustained his personal vendetta throughout the stages of the unfolding Paris Plot. Likewise wronged by the Phoenix Order, Jimmy Nails had witnessed the destruction of the Machinist Clan and the murder of all his brethren during Stroh Gendall's attack on Castle Luckymore. Robbed of his chance for vengeance at the Battle of Timberley due to Stroh Gendall's early retreat, Jimmy swore to be revenged upon the Archon or die trying.
Rising Action
The Road Home
Freed from the Phoenix laboratories in Rotterdam, Phillipe wandered the merchant roads of Flanders as a common vagabond. Surviving by his wits and sustained by a hatred of Golan Trevize, Phillip endured the indignities of a fugitive's journey on the long road back to Paris. En route he evaded Phoenix spies including a French collaborator known as Charles Maurisse.
The Red Sash
After crossing into Capetian territory, Phillipe witnessed firsthand the revolutionary fervour now sweeping the country. For many, the revolution had come to be seen as the last, best chance for liberal and democratic reform in what had long been a backwards and autocratic polity. In spite of the extreme violence of the radicalized agitators, many average Parisiens could no longer tolerate the inherent injustices of the old feudal order and they were willing to pursue political change at all costs. Phillipe had witnessed the harsh treatment laid upon simple protesters by statist thugs and felt sympathy for the plight of the commoners in their struggle. He saw villages burned out and looted; fields overgrown and untended; and masses of displaced peasants fleeing retribution for revolutionary activities.
Meeting a fugitive caravan of rebel Libertists, Phillipe rendered assistance to a teamster mired in a ditch. One of the Libertists, a young woman named Cassandra Sofia, took notice of Phillipe's kindness and offered him a red sash, the symbol of the Libertist movement. She then invited him to an address in Paris, 372 rue deGaulle.
The White Sash
A Phoenix Manhunter patrol forced Phillipe to detour his journey south away from Paris. Approaching the town of Chalons from the east, Phillipe observed a column of thick black smoke and soon realized that most of the town was set ablaze. A wild fire purported to have been set by anti-monarchist rebels was tearing indiscriminately through homes and shops. Stowing away his red sash, Phillipe met with the mayor of the town (Jean Lesage) and learned that the mayor's home was now engulfed in flame and that his son was trapped within the inferno. Heedless of the danger, Phillipe rushed into the burning home and rescued the child. Expressing his undying gratitude, Mayor Lesage gave Phillipe a white sash symbolizing loyalty to the ancien regime of the Capetian monarchy.
Freedom House
Upon reaching the capital, Phillipe paid a visit to Cassandra's Freedom House at 372 Rue deGaulle. Cassandra's allies, wary of outsiders, seized him for interrogation. After a tense moment, Cassandra talked them down and Phillipe gained their trust. To prove his revolutionary bona fides, Phillipe was told to attend a coming rally at Les Halles for Libertists protesting the political trial of their leader, Jean-Paul Brutaux.
Rebel Defiance
The protest at Les Halles quickly degenerated into a street battle between reactionary Monarchists and violent insurrectionists of the radical Jaccoud Defiance, a violent revolutionary faction whose members identified themselves by wearing a black sash. The Jaccoud ringleader, Stroh Gendall, fomented the ire of the mob and led a surging charge against the steps of the law courts. While trying to make sure his new Libertist friends were safe, Phillipe came to learn that many of the most incensed rebels were actually paid agitators hired to make havoc in the streets. These interlopers invariably refused to cooperate when identified and frequently met with suspicious deaths not long after their capture. While investigating such a ring of faux agit-prop instigators, Phillipe discovered that the rebel insurgency was largely bankrolled by Latian denarii and that the hireling campaign of violence was being directed by agents of the Phoenix Order loyal to the Golden Empire. Phillipe only quit the scene of carnage after narrowly rescuing a group of stranded city councilors from the savage justice of the mob.
Turgeon Manor
Shortly thereafter, Phillipe became the protector of a bourgeois industrialist named Marcel Turgeon. Serving as a kind of bodyguard, Phillipe defended Turgeon’s Parisien manor against mob violence directed by Phoenix agents bent on stirring revolutionary fervour. Though not formally a member of the landed aristocracy, Marcel Turgeon was nonetheless a staunch loyalist of the monarchy and viewed as a traitor by revolutionaries of the common classes. Moreover, Turgeon had made a fortune at his metal works factory building cannon and shot for the Capetian navy, a point that antagonized the anti-war elements of the rebel factions.
Defending Turgeon put increasing pressure on Phillipe to choose a side in the revolution. As popular unrest continued to spread, Phillipe defied the angry mob by wearing a multi-coloured sash of both red, symbolizing the popular desire for individual liberty, and white, symbolizing loyalty to the ancient Capetian monarchy. Thus Phillipe became a symbol of principled resistance to both the terror of the mob as well as the reactionary terror espoused by the hardline monarchist faction. Phillipe had realized that the Golden Empire of the Phoenix Order was the true enemy of Capetia and that accepting the false dichotomy of Stroh Gendall's manufactured revolution would only undermine the freedom of the French people.
Phillipe's discovery of evidence implicating Phoenix influence in a campaign to foment mob agitation paralleled Agent Julian Beech's own independent discoveries. In a rare misstep, Julian made the mistake of sharing his Paris intelligence with the Guilde des Chasseurs criminal syndicate based in Paris. Julian had come to learn that the Mind Plague criminal gang was merely a front for the Arcani Brotherhood of the Phoenix Order, and he hoped the Hunters' Guild would be natural allies against their rivals in the Mind Plague; however, Gustave Guilloux, the guild master of the Hunters, was already cooperating with the Phoenix Order as well. Luckily, two French patriots within the Hunters' Guild, a pair of honourable thieves named Francois Belmont and Sebastien Gauge, intercepted Julian's anonymous communiques, and, learning of Guilloux's traitorous collaboration, defied orders to support a sabotage terror campaign led by Mind Plague agents. Instead the sworn brothers turned rogue against their own guild for the good of Queen and country and took to the metro tunnels to hunt down the Phoenix Order and end the insurrection.
The Hunters' Guild
When masked affiliates of the Hunters' Guild invaded Marcel Turgeon's home and attempted to kill him, Phillipe fended off the attackers, who fled leaving Turgeon wounded. A second attack occurred at the Hotel de dieu infirmary while Turgeon was being treated for his wounds. This time Phillipe pursued the would-be assailant to a sewer service tube in the Latin Quarter. Chasing blindly through the darkened tunnels, Phillipe followed the trail until he came to a section of ancient sewer tunnels used as a safe house by the Hunters' Guild criminal syndicate.
While attempting to sneak into the hideout, Phillipe met Francois Belmont and Sebastien Gauge. Former members of the Hunters Guild, they came to the safe house looking for information on a secret Mind Plague operation they had read about in Julian Beech's secret communications with Master Guilloux. After brief introductions the protagonists realized they had similar goals and ought to be cooperating. Together, Phillipe and his new allies breached the perimeter of the safe house chambers and captured several members of the criminal cell. Though Phillipe found no trace of the man he pursued into the tunnels, an interrogation of the safe house cell members revealed a plot to assassinate Queen Anna II. This attack on the Sovereign and her ministers was planned to occur the very next day at the National Congress during the public sitting of the Estates General.
Honour and Fidelity
The party immediately reported their discovery to the local constabulary. Mayor Lesage of Chalons, in Paris to attend the convocation of the Estates General, spoke on behalf of Phillipe's courage and moral character and persuaded the constable to heed the warning. Against all rational sense, the party were brought to the Louvre Palace for an audience before the court of Queen Anna II. Among the assembled luminaries were the queen's personal protector, Duke Baldwin of Vermillion and a foppish courtier named Joyen Plage, one of the queen's favoured advisers. Persuaded by Joyen's whispered counsel, Queen Anna asked the informants to oversee the defence of the National Congress and to thwart the assassination plot.
The party nervously accepted the plan. They believed the Queen had allowed herself to be used as bait; however, Joyen had actually advised her to send a lookalike in her stead to play the role of decoy. The queen's speech at the National Congress had to appear to go forward without hesitation lest the enemies of the crown suspect the true quality of the Sovereign's resources and intelligence.
Under these circumstances Duke Baldwin assigned one of his own guardsmen to join the party's ambush operation. The New Universal (Catholic) Church, beset by acts of violence and vandalism, had all but abandoned the capital after the flight of Archbishop Tascus. Only a handful of pious church men remained in the city. Among them was a Provencal knight named Tancred, a southern noble who had taken a vow of poverty to join the Poor Knights of the Temple. When the rest of the Templar monks left Paris to serve as guardsmen in the Archbishop's household retinue, Tancred stayed behind to defend the sacred Temple and help uphold peace and order in the city. He had come to Louvre Palace to pledge his shield and sword to the defence of Queen Anna and her people. Duke Baldwin knew not what to do with the man and saw the party of informants as the perfect foil with which to pawn Tancred off to another service detail.
Defenders of the Crown
Working with the intelligence gleaned from questioning the Hunters' Guild prisoners, the party set an ambush for the Mind Plague assassins in the halls and galleries of the National Congress. During this battle the Phoenix psion known as Aurus revealed himself for the first time and engaged Phillipe in a psychic struggle for dominance. In spite of daunting odds, the party withstood the attack and drove Aurus's Mind Plague assassins into the streets. While a crowd of citizens cheered from the outside, the assembled members of the Estates General consented unanimously to grant Mayor Lesage's motion to issue an official statement of commendation to the party, and Queen Anna herself conferred the thanks of the nation by holding a private audience for the protagonists within her own salon chambers.
During a pleasant repast back at the royal palace, the Queen took Phillipe aside and expressed the gratitude of the commons as well as the aristocracy. According to Queen Anna, Phillipe had earned the admiration of all Parisians both gentle and common, and she acknowledged her duty and desire to express that collective will by having him formally invested with the title "Defender of the Realm" through royal proclamation. Phillipe warned the Queen of traitors in the capital and cautioned her against factions within her own government carrying out reprisal killings, massacres against the citizenry intended to trample the rebellion but were in fact only serving to foment further unrest. The Queen, insulated from the affairs of state by her ambitious Regent, Villeneuve, had no conception that such things were being done in her sovereign name and thanked Phillipe for his honest counsel. Upon receiving the pledge of his loyalty, Queen Anna confided her certain knowledge that Phoenix Mind Plague agents ("Pestis Mentalis") were operating a literal underground espionage network hidden in the ancient subterranean caves and metro tunnels of the Paris Underground. The young Queen would not disclose the source of her information but assured Phillipe that her informant was most credible indeed. None could suspect, least of all the Queen herself, that Her Highness was in fact receiving intelligence from the rogue Britannian spy, the inimitable Julian Beech.
Into the Catacombs
The following day, Tancred entreated his new allies to help him secure the ancient necropolis beneath the Paris Temple. The burial sites had been desecrated of late by unknown grave robbers, and Tancred sought to engage and apprehend those responsible for the recent incursions. After a few evenings spent patrolling the extent of the necropolis tunnels, the party finally made contact with a team of Mind Plague agents in the act of disturbing one of the burial chambers. Catching their quarry by surprise, the party easily vanquished the intruders.
Baphomet's Curse
During the battle, the Phoenix marauders employed powerful psychic techniques that had a collateral impact upon the latent psychic energies of the ancient Templar tombs, and their reckless intrusions had disrupted the protective wards of the Templar vault. This disruption unleashed the necrotic power of a cursed relic sealed within the vault's hidden reliquary. The infernal artifact, a totemic idol dedicated to a fiendish ancient evil known as Baphomet, began animating the corpses of Mind Plague agents to create a vicious horde of cannibalistic undead ghouls.
Phillipe Depardieu was interviewed about the ensuing necropolis battle by a journalist from the Parisien newspaper, which reported the following account of the fighting:
“As the last of Depardieu's companions succumbed to the ghouls' paralytic venom and the lingering undead prepared to feast upon the flesh of their hapless prey, the would-be heroes of Paris resigned themselves to utter defeat and an ignoble demise, but one amongst them needed no physical strength to overcome the threat. Through unblinking eyes and gritted teeth, Phillipe Depardieu proceeded to unleash concussive bursts of bodiless psychokinetic force that tore through the ghouls' decaying flesh and bones. When the helpless defenders regained quickness in their limbs, the scent of pestilent flesh still pervaded the gore-stained chamber, a tomb of the living macabre."
After a near disastrous battle against the hungry dead, the party gained access to the hidden vault chamber and attempted to reactivate the reliquary's abjuring enchantments. To this end, Tancred communed with the restless spirit of an ancient Templar Grandmaster named Maxence Donnet. Maxence instructed Tancred on how to renew the reliquary seal and further explained that the Phoenix grave robbers had come in search of the burial place of an ancient warrior known as Yves Olivoix. Evidently, the Phoenix Order sought to recover Olivoix's legendary sword scabbard. Though Olivoix's grave was not to be found in the Templar necropolis, Donnet revealed a hidden shrine dedicated to one of Olivoix's "Seven Sentinel" companions including an ancient suit of Precursor armour worn by one of these "Seven Sentinels."
Counterattack
Shortly after recovering from their battle in the necropolis, the party launched a counter-attack against the Mind Plague outpost responsible for the recent spate of disrupted burials. During the fighting they captured Charles Maurisse, the Phoenix spy who had hunted Phillipe from Frisia to Paris and later tried to murder Marcel Turgeon. After making a quick rout of the rest of the station's defenders, the party conducted an investigation that uncovered advanced technological weapons and equipment, including a second suit of Sentinel armour, and revealed more about the Phoenix Order’s intentions.
The Phoenix Order's plan was twofold. Phoenix telepaths were using the trauma of the ongoing revolution to steadily push public opinion against the ancien regime of the Capetians. With enough fear and anger stirred in the populace, the telepaths would perform a mass hypnotic suggestion to compel the French to overthrow and execute their queen. The second part of the plan involved the construction of a teleportation gate underneath Paris. This gate would permit legions of imperial troops to enter the capital unopposed. Their infiltration would coincide with the deposing of Queen Anna and lead to a swift military coup installing the Queen’s regent, Villeneuve, as a puppet dictator loyal to Rome and the Phoenix Order.
Shrine of the Last Sentinel
Phillipe reported the party's recent findings to Queen Anna, who haled Depardieu and his companions as the "Paris Resistance." The report drew the attention of Julian Beech, who could make no sense of the technical materiel and data they had plundered from the Mind Plague hideout. Julian decided it was time to call up reinforcements for the Resistance and sent a messenger to Chateau Timberley in the remote forests of Provence. The message was a call to arms addressed to the reclusive Jimmy Nails, the last of the Machinists and the only man with reliable expertise handling advanced technological equipment and artifacts.
The message was delivered by one of Julian's more recent associates, a mysterious traveler named Douglas Knight. Julian had met Knight in Timberley Forest months earlier during the Battle of Timberley, where Knight introduced himself as a journeyman scholar of Precursor history and culture and demonstrated considerable knowledge of Timberley fortress and its secrets. Knight delivered the message and shared lore about the newly uncovered legacy of the Seven Sentinels.
Knight and Jimmy walked the fortress grounds together and explored a hidden underground sanctum located on the edge of Timberley Forest. Knight called it the "Sentinel Shrine" and explained that it was built 600 years ago by the last of the Seven Sentinels as a monument dedicated to the memory his fallen comrades who had perished in the Paris Underground. The chamber was dominated by the massive bulk of an antique armoured personnel carrier that appeared to have been built by Precursors in the late twentieth century. Inside a carved ring of seven stars, Jimmy recovered a faint inscription written in Precursor-English.
Wordes at deth of Yildun
Ther-under auncient ston in corage sothe,
The Exstrijders return fro londes uncouth.
Bering the swerde of seis, and staff of starres,
As Ophiuchus claymes the sete of Marres.
Vii wandreres ylaft; vi retuournen,
And on serpent into fend traunsformen.
Thoes men of armes who sought schere Phoebus chere,
Fell in cruelle slowtre to a traytour's werre,
Overthwart by ill chaunce of fell connyng
Of hem quhat laft the citee brennyng,
Neath the mountayne of Thespian divynes
Wher the clere welle of Sonipes yet shynes.
Jimmy hedged about getting involved in the Resistance, but, upon learning that the Phoenix Paris operation was being led by none other than Archon Stroh Gendall, the Machinist was all too eager to seek a confrontation with Gendall and take vengeance against the man responsible for the destruction of Castle Luckymore and the massacre of the Machinist Clan. Nails and his titanium companion, the Promethean Primus, immediately set out from the wilds of Provence and ventured north to join battle against the Phoenix Insurrection.
Flagulum Unleashed
Meanwhile back in Paris several prominent public figures and aristocrats began suffering from a mysterious sickness. The disease incubated discretely but when its full pathology emerged its symptoms struck with crippling virulence. These symptoms included nerve paralysis, tonic seizures, and memory loss. The disease was degenerative in nature, which meant its symptoms grew progressively worse over time and led to eventual full body paralysis and/or fatal catatonic dementia. Among the afflicted was Phillipe's friend and benefactor, Marcel Turgeon.
When Jimmy arrived in Paris he made contact with the Resistance and began examining their stolen tech. During his investigation he uncovered encrypted data files outlining plans for something called the "Flagulum Device," a bio-weapon to be deployed on a global scale and intended to wipe out the population of homo sapien "mundanes" and pave the way for the ascendance of "Homo Novus," Golan Trevize's new race of psionically awakened humanity. An analysis of the virus revealed Phillipe's immunity and confirmed the selective pathology of the Flagulum virus, which appeared, as yet, to lack any discernible transmission vector and therefore could be considered incommunicable by viral carriers.
Growing Contagion
Looking for a way to counter the Flagulum virus, the Resistance immediately set out to question George Maurisse, the man who had already tried to assassinate Turgeon once before. The feckless Maurisse bristled against the conditions of his prolonged incarceration and assured the party that he would soon escape and have his vengeance. Gloating, he confirmed that he himself had administered the pathogen infecting Turgeon during the hospital attack and that the Red Ring criminal gang had spread the disease across the city. According to Maurisse, only two men possessed an antidote for the sickness, Stroh Gendall and Franco Vaugrenarde, the leader of the Red Ring.
Through the Red Ring
On the hunt for the Red Ring headquarters, the Resistance pieced together info gleaned from a variety of sources, and determined that the secret location must be at the site of an ancient Metro subway rail station called St. Placide. Research of ancient Precursor records kept in the Musée de l'Homme recovered a map of the ancient tunnels and revealed the location of St. Placide beneath the Left Bank neighborhood of Montparnasse. Surveillance of criminal Red Ring street operations combined with conjectures based on the comparative analysis of contemporary and ancient Precursor street maps eventually deduced an entry point accessing the tunnels of the Left Bank Metro system.
Within these tunnels the party encountered a variety of bizarre mutated creatures evolved in the days prior to the Restoration of poisoned sea and sky. Travelling the Precursor tunnels and encountering the remains of various epochs of human and animal habitation conveyed the sensation of moving backwards through time. At one point the party identified an entrance into far older Precursor tunnels carved out of natural stone. They correctly surmised that these older tunnels must be part of the original Paris gypsum mine tunnels, a subterranean construction of truly ancient origin. A preliminary descent into one of the well shafts of these mine tunnels uncovered the auspicious grave of one of the Seven Sentinels and a third suit of Sentinel armour.
The party's eventual attack on the Red Ring base met with opposition from hardened warriors of the Phoenix Order, but ultimately ended in triumph and a brief stand off with Vaugrenarde, who threatened to destroy the antidote if he was not permitted to escape. Jimmy calmly told him that if he in any way tampered with the antidote he would be infected with the Flagulum virus and left to suffer. Vaugrenarde complied and turned over the vial without further protestation.
Psionics (or the Skill to Catch a Killer)
Brutal Slaying in Latin Quarter Raises Death Toll to 6
Martin Belanger, a graduate student at the University of Paris was found dead in his home yesterday morning. Concerned colleagues burst into the apartment after Belanger did not answer the call for morning prayers. The body was found face down with two small holes gouged into the back of the neck; a marking that appears to be the signature gesture of the killer. Hubert Drapeau, the Commissioner of Paris told the press his gendarmes were close to making an arrest but wouldn't reveal any further details for fear of endangering the investigation. When asked if Belanger's murder could be a the work of a copycat killer, Drapeau dismissed the notion adding that the killer had left a note containing unreported details pertaining to his earlier murders ...
While Jimmy turned his attention to a survey exploration of the ancient passages underneath Montparnasse, a killer continued a rampant and sensationalized murder spree. When Cassandra came to Phillipe saying one of her comrades had gone missing, the party feared the murderer had struck close to one of their own allies and decided to join the manhunt in search of the killer.
Facing resistance from city authorities who refused to cooperate with civilian "interference," the Resistance asked Duke Baldwin to intercede on behalf of concerned citizens who just happened to have the commendation of the Congress as well as the sanction of the Queen. Pulling sufficient rank, the party gained access to the Gendarmerie case files including a series of notes filled with cryptic references and puzzles. One note in particular bore a drawing of a door marked with a flaming eye and scrawled with the word "risen."
After a series of interviews and crime scene investigations, the party realized that all the killer's victims had been psionically awakened. Somehow the murderer was identifying secret psions and systematically murdering them. Using this information and the clues derived from the case files, the party anticipated the identity of the next victim and set up a stake out operation. The tables quickly turned, however, for the trail of clues had all been laid as a trap to lure the Resistance into the open. Led by Aurus, a force of Mind Plague assassins emerged to ambush the stake-out and only the fortunate intervention of Tancred's healing favour allowed the party to escape without serious casualties.
The Forgotten Tomb
During this period of relative calm in the political situation, the party decided to devote time to some independent investigation and assist Jimmy's research. Using plundered intelligence gathered by Phoenix archivists, Jimmy Nails correctly interpreted the Sentinel Shrine inscription to solve the mystery of the Metro and discover the location of the Tomb of Yves Olivoix. He correctly theorized that the "Thespian divines" could be a reference to the nine muses of ancient Greek mythology, and verified this hypothesis with his realization that the Left Bank Precursor neighborhood of Montparnasse was named after the mythical home of the muses, "Mount Parnassus." During his initial explorations of the Metro tunnels in and around Montparnasse, Jimmy discovered a series of doors and portals bearing the flaming eye symbol seen in Aurus's crime scene notes. Further analysis of the inscriptions led Jimmy through a series of markers to a collapsed mine shaft that had remained undisturbed for six centuries.
Carefully tunneling around the collapsed section, lest a second collapse crush the entire tunnel complex, Jimmy discovered a hidden chamber adjoining a vast subterranean cavern with walls lit by luminescent phosphorescent algae. Within the dim hall of cyclopean stone, Jimmy and Primus gazed upon a sizable underground city constructed in what appeared to be the the hollowed watercourse of an ancient underground river.
The city was maintained with elements of Precursor architecture and infrastructure, which included some uses of electric power derived from an ancient hydro-electric generator. The inhabitants, a diminutive tribe known as "Oubliens," were essentially human but had clearly evolved adaptations suitable for life underground. Their peculiar physical characteristics included ash coloured skin and notably short heights. In fact, none of the adult Oubliens exceeded a height of 4 and a half feet, a stature suitable for living in cramped conditions and to be expected among a population subsisting on meager rations of protein nutrients. The Oubliens also possessed characteristic bulbous eyes adapted for sight in their low-light habitat. Even in dimmest light, the Oubliens demonstrated a remarkable visual acuity.
The Oubliens spoke an unusual dialect of French that resembled the Precursor-French which the party had seen written in the records kept at Musée de l'Homme. They also lived by strange customs which governed an abiding fear of the external world, the "topside" from which their society had for so long been separated and which they feared, for they had no knowledge that the pestilence of Poisoned Sea and Sky had been long abated. They revealed the Tomb of Olivoix and bequeathed to Jimmy the Seven Star Scabbard along with an ancient Ur-Zen memory scroll, which related the story of Olivoix's last mission and untimely death within the cavern of the Oubliens.
Jimmy and Phillipe negotiated with the Oubliens' leader, a young man named Aebram, and explained that the legacy of betrayal which had resulted in the slaying of Olivoix and the interruption of his quest endured in the Golden Empire of Golan Trevize's Phoenix Dawn. After some diplomatic persuasion, the Oubliens decided to join forces with the Resistance and loan their Precursor technology to the fight against the Phoenix Order.
Jailbreak
While the Resistance secured the support of the Oubliens tribe, Stroh Gendall worked in the streets above to initiate the most perilous phase of the Paris Plot. He orchestrated a serious of simultaneous attacks on lock-ups and prisons across the city and set the prisoners loose in the streets. Among these were hundreds of ideologically motivated political prisoners, but most of the prison mob were simply hardened criminals, dangerous malcontents with penchants for violence and mayhem. Gendall armed them all and bade them pledge allegiance to the Jaccoud Defiance and to the coming day of the Phoenix Dawn.
As fear gripped ordinary citizens, the party knew the Phoenix Order was preparing its psychic attack to push the populace into a general revolt. The Resistance needed to quell the chaos quickly in order to delay an inevitable collapse of social order. Seeking aid, Phillipe tried to make contact with Cassandra to mobilize her Libertist allies into an emergency militia but he couldn't find her. Hundreds of ordinary folk were fleeing the city in panic while thousands more remained trapped by Gendall's marauding rebel bands, who terrorized the streets day and night.
As the Mind Plague threatened to take control of the entire Left Bank, the Resistance and their allies marched across Pont Saint-Louis to offer a challenge to the leaders of the anarchist rabble. On the Île de la Cité, upon the stones before Notre Dame Cathedral, the party joined battle against a force of heavily armed Clone Ghoul infantry led by George Maurisse and a Phoenix Order commander named Dayna.
Maurisse tried to snipe from the shadows but Francois and Sebastien cornered their former Hunters' Guild comrade and brought him down. Meanwhile, Tancred, Jimmy, and Primus held the center and withstood the wrath of the Phoenix Order's synthetic mutant soldiers. Dayna was forced to withdraw leaving Maurisse to his own fate. He sought to deal a final blow with his last gasps of living breath and revealed that Cassandra had been kidnapped by Stroh Gendall, who intended to keep her hostage lest Phillipe continue to interfere in the works of the Phoenix Order.
Crisis
Revolution's End
With their field leadership in disarray, the rebel mob began to lose its cohesion. Most of the rabble started to disperse and flee the city. Those that remained were quickly isolated and subsequently rounded up by city gendarmes and the queen's own household guard. The call for reinforcements sent out to to Seneschal Villeneuve's regency comitatus forces went conspicuously unanswered.
Phillipe considered his feelings for his friend Cassandra but decided that he could not let concern for her outweigh his sense of duty to his allies and to the cause Cassandra had fought for. He determined to defy Gendall's threats and, if possible, free Cassandra from the Phoenix Order.
When legionnaires of the Golden Empire started being spotted in the streets, The Resistance realized that the Phoenix Order must be close to finishing their psychoportation gate, so the party once more descended into the Left Bank Metro tunnels in an effort to locate and destroy the gate before Gendall could use it to transport in a massive military force. Instructing the Oubliens to emerge above ground and engage the imperial troops, the party concentrated on locating and neutralizing the Phoenix Order base of operations, the secret headquarters of the Mind Plague.
During their earlier investigations of Precursor Metro tunnels under the Left Bank, the party had discovered numerous doors and portals marked with the flaming eye symbol of the Mind Plague. They had correctly surmised that these doors represented entrances to the hidden sanctum of the Mind Plague arcani, but all attempts to pass through led the protagonists through a reality warping spatial loop that prevented them from making forward progress. Eventually the party realized they needed to cross the threshold of these portals in a precise sequence in order to overcome the reality bending psychokinetic ward and access the sanctum proper.
After working their way through numerous traps and combats, the Resistance finally confronted Stroh Gendall in a vaulted ancient rail chamber. Armed with gleaming blades and wearing a suit of armour bristling with spikes and glowing gemstones, Gendall was fully dressed for battle and accompanied by a cadre of warriors including Aurus and dozens of thrall soldiers. When Phillipe demanded to see Cassandra, Gendall called her into the chamber and she knelt at the Archon's side wearing the black sash of the Mind Plague. She explained to Phillipe that she had seen the error of her ways and now understood that the Phoenix Dawn was the only hope for not only France but for the future of the entire human race. Seeing that the Resistance could not be swayed to surrender, Gendall initiated a trance of battle meditation and ordered his minions to strike.
Climax
Jimmy's Revenge
Stunned by Cassandra's betrayal, Phillipe nonetheless took up arms alongside his friends and threw all thought of safety to the hazard. Jimmy noted that Cassandra had chosen her fate and that he would not hold back so long as Gendall still breathed. During the fighting Aurus sneered that he was the apprentice of none other than Golan Trevize and would claim rule of an eastern prefecture upon delivering the heads of the party members to his master in Rome. Phillipe was undaunted and returned blow for blow with the protégé of the master he himself had once spurned. After a fierce one-on-one mental struggle, Phillipe finally bested Trevize's apprentice and left him slain upon the chamber floor.
While the Oubliens Underworlders fought against imperial soldiers in the streets above, the party proceeded to engage Stroh Gendall himself in an open battle. When the tide turned against the Archon, he attempted to escape by using his psychometabolic powers to trap Tancred in a spirit link. Gendall gloated that any attempt to harm him would kill Tancred as well, a circumstance that appeared to be a hostage situation. The standoff was brief. Jimmy Nails immediately and without hesitation fired a bolt of energy at him. Tancred was instantly killed and Gendall fell to the ground unconscious as a psychoportation window opened around him. As the prone body of Gendall faded from view, Sebastian Gauge leaped into the closing window and drove his blade into the Archon’s lifeless body. A moment later the window sealed and the two men vanished from sight.
Falling Action
The battle in the streets resulted in the death of many Oubliens fighters, but their valiant efforts contained the Phoenix incursion and limited the extent of damage they could inflict upon Paris and its people. The timely arrival of General Serge Bertrand (the Constable of Capetia) and his army of loyalists finally put the imperial soldiers to flight and ended the fighting. Bertrand had been campaigning with Regent Villeneuve in Normandy and had received orders from Villeneuve commanding him to disregard the pleas for aid coming from the capital. He had obeyed these orders for weeks but finally relented after hearing news of the attack on the National Congress.
In the aftermath of the battle, the Resistance party immediately dismantled the psychoportation gate. Jimmy acted nonplussed about Tancred's death and Gendall's attempted escape and started stripping the gate module assembly for useful components. Phillipe searched in vain for signs of Cassandra, who had slipped away during the fighting. During the search the party discovered a full dossier of correspondence implicating Regent Villeneuve in the Phoenix plot to undermine the Capetian regime. The party sent word to the royal palace to warn Queen Anna about Villeneuve’s treachery, but since he was away from court dealing with Duke Guy Harfleur of Normandy, he managed to evade capture.
Resolution
Queen Anna immediately called for a session of the Estates General and demonstrated the evidence gathered against her rogue Regent Mazarin Villeneuve, who was unanimously condemned as a traitor of the Crown. The Queen further called for a declaration of war against the Golden Empire of Latium and the seizure of Phoenix Order assets within Capetia. At this point General Serge Bertrand led the assembly in a formal renewal of loyalty vows before the Sovereign Throne, and all the assembled congress acceded to a ritual of public oaths affirming Queen Anna's legitimate royal authority.
Bidding farewell to fair Paris Jimmy marched south again with Aebram and the other Oubliens survivors. He intended to use them and their technical expertise to build a new research laboratory at Chateau Timberley and reverse engineer the tech scavenged from the Mind Plague HQ. Jimmy revealed to Phillipe that he knew the bearer of the sword matching the now-recovered scabbard of Yves Olivoix. Moreover, Jimmy declared that he planned to confer with his allies about how to counter the Phoenix Order's "Flagulum Device." Seeking to learn more about the legacy of the Heroic Age and join forces with other like-minded men of conscience, Phillipe accompanied Jimmy and prepared to face the uncertain future in the company of comrades.
Background Events
Date:
Spring/Summer 999 PCELocation:
Paris, Capetia
Plot type
Campaign Arc
Parent Plot
Phillipe Depardieu by a.h.
Jimmy Nails by p.b.
Julian Beech by a.h.
Paris Map 1 - Sewers
Paris Map 2 - Mahillion Station
Paris Map 3 - Area R
Paris Map 4 - Templar Tombs
Paris Map 5 - Station A
Paris Map 6 - Mind Plague HQ
Factions:
Capetian Regency ForcesHunters' Guild (thieves' guild)
Jaccoud Defiance (radical reformers)
Libertistes (moderate reformers)
Machinists
Mind Plague (Phoenix Arcani)
Dantolini (reactionary monarchists) Leonisti (moderate monarchists)
Paris Gendarmes
Paris Temple
Phoenix Order
Queen's Guard
Red Ring Crime Syndicate
Protagonists:
Phillipe DepardieuJimmy Nails
Sebastien Gauge
Francois Belmont
Tancred
Allies:
Cassandra SofiaJean Lesage, Mayor of Chalons
Marcel Turgeon
Queen Anna Capeta II
Julian Beech
Neutrals:
Hubert Drapeau, GendarmesGunthar Lasarde, Mayor of Paris
Jean-Paul Brutaux, Libertistes
Viola Orpaille, La Parisien
Serge Bertrand, Dantolin Monarchists
Duke Baldwin of Vermillion, Monarchists
Tascus Devillers, Archbishop of Paris
Marshal Maximilien Reynard
Adversaries:
George MaurisseGustave Guilloux
Stroh Gendall
Regent Villeneuve
Arcani Brotherhood
Aurus
Dayna
Franco Vaugrenarde, Red Ring
Comments
Author's Notes
This article represents a year of play within the Shadow of Princes campaign world. The Paris Underground arc was created to introduce the Phillipe Depardieu character to the campaign and move forward on the primary conflict of the plot. Paris Underground also gave me a chance to develop my own take on the classic "city on top of a dungeon" trope. I present it here as a gift to my players: a record of our past games and inspiration for future games to come.