Needleday, Soldiermoon, 1313

General Summary

Subvizier Osiris Jackalslicer's Birthday
Blood Homunculus paranoia
Hugo Headband: +10 Greenskin, +2 Dargent
The Travels and Secrets of Murziphale the Magnificent
  • Murziphale the Magnificent
  • Memoirs
  • Self-narated autobiography of Murziphale the Magnificent. Self important Efreeti scholar traveller. Over a very long time. In the style of ancient travel log. Marco Polo deal. Telling a bunch of (probably exaggerated) stories about his impressive travels, adventures and the many things he learned and mastered across the planes. Information about the Elemental Planes. Boosts Knowledge Planes.
  • Mentions City of Brass. Was Murziphale’s hometown. On Plane of Fire. Equivalent to harbour town for interplanar travel. Situated on banks of Sea of Fire. One of the coldest parts of plane of fire – i.e. one of the only parts that creatures from other planes can survive. Tradehub/travel hub. A weak point in the fabric of the planar boundaries. Murziphale the Magnificent is pompous enough to be frustratingly vague on the details. A similar deal to the medical college are arranged around weak point between material plane and bridewell. City of Brass has similar thing, it’s easier to get to three other elemental planes and the material plane than elsewhere on plane of fire. Geometric effect of where the stars are located, cosmically, that attunes magic and planar contact etc.
  • City of Brass is so called because of its colouration. Most of the two kinds of building material are igneous rock, glass and certain metals that can be smelt. City of Brass has a lot of domes – most of domes are made of brass. Murzipahle sometimes visited material plane (wasn’t his favourite – he preferred company of genies).
  • The book is old enough that when he has visited material plane and mentioned stuff there, he was visiting it centuries in the past. He never mentions the Eight. But he does mention religion as a concept. Always in reference to unsanctioned religions. From the complete lack of any mention of the Eight, this was before the sanctioned religions existed. Goes against official church doctrine to acknowledge that there was such a time. This book would be considered heretical enough that, if anyone recognised it for what it was or bothered to read it. Could be arrested for possessing it. Imprisonment.
  • Doesn’t just mention unsanctioned religions but speaks about them in a way that gives impression to anyone reading that it gives impression to anyone reading that these unsanctioned religions predate the church of Eight. Humans are not mentioned at all in the text.
  • Ruling classes change each time. Most recent visit the local nobility were orcs. Previously goblinoids, gnomes, elves, first time this guy visited – a word in Ignan (FlaRAK) that Hugo doesn’t get (Wild Elf). Mentions a guy he meant who was a descendant of the noble family he met who was their descendant was a Drow. Can tell it’s a word for a sapient race, etymologically species words: imitations of the sound of flames that those creatures souls burn closest to. The Flarak is the imitation of a crackling of a flame that is light and flighty and flickering but hot. Idea of the flickery flightiness of the flame is present in the Ignan words for Elf and Drow. Both imply less hot flames. The other obvious difference is that the word for Elf (Flaka) implies a brighter flame, but the word for Drow (FaLIT) implies a dimmer one. Efreet (the way that fire crackles slightly differently on the plane of fire than anywhere else – genies call that “true fire”) Ifrit (that same crackle only muffled) are lone words from Ignan.
  • Official Church Doctrine is close to supersessionism. (Christians are the chosen people of god and the existence of Judaism was god preparing the way for Christians). Mainstream view Eccumenical Tabernacle teachings are that the primitive religions and superstitions of nonhumans are misled guesswork because those creatures had not had the correct spiritual insight to grasp the real truths of the Eight. There a few branches of the churches of the eight that hold that the other gods did exist (or maybe still do) but are illegitimate gods (they are real but shouldn’t be worshipped) – but this is a minority view. Main view is there are and always were only the Eight gods. Any other gods that people believe or believed in are because they were (/are) primitive and have been duped.
  • The mainstream Eccumenical Council permission on clerics in writings, is that they were witches who made pacts with divs or similar.
  • Once or twice Murziphale seems to have mentioned the name of a God or a figure of worship that he visited the temple of, and that word has been melted into incoherence. This book was written by a fire genie – it’s designed to withstand heat. Regular fire couldn’t do this. Most magic would struggle to do this.
    • Direct lightning strike (larger surface area, but hitting just those tiny words would be difficult)
    • Possibly some kind of alchemical acid, but it doesn’t look chemically messed with.
    • Description of Fogg’s innards and having seen Princess’s magic (angry crackling hotball of light) inclined to suspect that if my theory is correct that those are both consequences of apocalypse, Lindie feels like that whatever could burn a person’s organs like that would do that.
    • Termagant’s smelting magic may be able to do this, but what she saw of Termagant’s magic was souls and iron being fused together and then hammered into shape. Those ovens were hot enough to keep iron molten and had enough magical power to melt or loosen substance of souls enough that it could be fused with iron and then hammered. This is a much more small-target area type thing. It doesn’t look crafted, it looks violent in a way that is less controlled. Lindie would be more likely to compare to fires in Termagant’s ovens, but to the sparking lightning in the clouds above Termagant’s realm.
    • Apocalypse: divine magic or something more eldritch? Worgoth didn’t seem to know, understand or have any defence against apocalypse energy when it came for it. If it was divine magic, then it was divine magic that an existing deity couldn’t recognise or trace and couldn’t work out how to guard against.

Stolen Words
  • Why was the book locked? Don’t get the impression that it was specifically trying to keep anything in. Impression is that the Church of the Thief, noticeably different from most other gods in this regard, don’t want just anyone to be involved in their theology or worship. A bit closer to a mystery cult. The lock is here so that these words cannot be read until they have been stolen. They are not giving their doctrine out – their doctrine is not being found accidentally or shared freely. It is being broken into. The Thief is the god of theft. It’s a test of character and skill – if you are the kind of person who breaks open locks to steal what they were guarding and you are good enough at it to break open the lock on a copy of stolen words, then as far as the Church of the Thief are concerned, it is the Thief’s will that you access the words at that point. Explicit contrast raised in the book itself. The beggar’s words are given, the rich man’s words are sold, the tailor’s words are performed to an audience, the thief’s words have to be stolen.
  • A lot of the book is worded or framed as rumours being exchanged in secret. Rumours of the exploits of famous thieves throughout history or folklore with the indication that all were to some degree guided or influenced by The Thief. Some may have been incarnations of the Thief in disguise. Philosophical content seems to be concerned with embracing the dark underbellies of the world (it goes without saying that other religions don’t). The idea of the hording of personal property and wealth and the creation of protections and defences against other people accessing your stuff and the keeping of secrets and the enforcing of laws to keep societal notions of property and propriety in tact all being fictions which become dangerous when they are too fully believed in. The Thief (deity and character archetype) is something that simultaneously is the danger and the warning against the danger. The existence of the thief and acts of thievery make it harder for people to believe in rules and defenses and laws too fully. You cannot truly believe in the retainment of property when your property has been stolen and you can’t get it back. They are both the warning against people from too fully believe in these fictions (demonstration of the truth in the face of a series of comforting lies) and they are also the danger that that demonstration of the truth serves as warning against (if you do believe too fully in those fictions, you open yourself up to exploitation in a way that those who are more cynical and wary are not). The god has not qualms about seeing you exploited if you open yourself up to exploitation. Reminder, warning and threat that will not hesitate to follow through on itself if you ignore the reminders and warnings.
  • Some of the thieves mentioned in book aren’t human.
  • Blackscaled Sanscrit: Vishkanyan thief character. Female. Posed as a concubine in order to gain access to the houses of the wealthy. Poisoner. Frequently would use subtle techniques of administering her own venom to unwary nobles. No tips (vague rumours) – people would be put to sleep or killed and then she stole all their stuff and vanished into the night. There is a bit where she is mentioned as, after seducing someone to get them alone putting them to sleep and stealing all their valuables, slipping out of the house in “unseen ways” – which Lindie takes as meaning through the vents.
Connie reads another hour of Carnegie's book (currently on 10 hours).
Blademas Missive
Upcoming Blademas tournament.
+1 Ironside Blademas Flyer
Sent out in the early morning.
Ironside Blademas Flyer
  • Tests of strength and sinew.
  • Takes great pains to mention that as a very special gimmick this year, they are returning to a tradition spoken of in tourneys of old.
  • Ironsides are permitting anyone that wishes to test themselves in the tournament to come do so (noble or not).
  • Secondly, in addition to the usual various prizes, this year one individual who proves themselves the best of the entire tournament will win the grand prize in the fashion of traditional tournament stories of old. Of Balthazar Ironside’s daughter’s hand in marriage. Either for themselves or for someone else. The other has to be willing and legal.
  • Variety of different contests and challenges that have their own different prizes. Everyone who wins a prize has right to enter a melee where last competent standing wins the grand prize.
  • Tomorrow.
This news has sidelined Richard's efforts to weaken political opponents (including Ironsides)
Noble Court
Pollux Stargazer is visibly white (shaken and sickened) - Castor keeping an eye on him.
Britomart, Cobbler, Cody, Menelaus and Nycteme all absent.
None of Cody's Gang except Rouge are there.
Saif is only Jackalslicer present.
Rouge talks to Felinet
Rouge: Couldn’t convince daddy to let you take point on this one, huh?
Felinet: [shrug] Sometimes he has personal interests, you know how it is. I’ll get it all from him later.
[Generic small talk.]
Rouge: Well, duty calls, I have a party to attend.
Voltaire goes back to Dargent Estate
  • Own and Guinevera’s agenda
  • Takes note of Saif on own at court and Brasseyes (except Grimoire) all present
Guinevera goes in an indirect way but makes her way ot other Vizieras
Checking in on Galia Nightkeeper
  • How you style your beard says a lot about a person in Dwarf culture
  • Galia’s beard is feminine and proper as befits a Viziera (but only just)
  • Just wild enough that her traditional Dwarven heritage is pointedly not being sacrificed for sake of propriety, even if it initially appears so.
  • Wears chainmail to court
Jackalslicer Estate
Has clearly been in the hands of the same family for a long time. Architecture is consistent all the way down.
Jackalslicers kept decent records even before the Humans showed up. There are gaps in peerage and they go back a lot of generations. Because they are older or because they kept better records. They have largest number of generations listed. Atkin’s parents were minor nobles already.
  • House of Nightgale.
  • Nightgales were third cousins of the Jackalslicers already so were a minor noble family already.
  • Katib Thomple (dad) and Katiba Wren (mum) Nightgale are Atkin’s parents.
  • Old style oil lamp sigil.
  • Both parents are still alive but rest of Nightgale family basically died out.
  • A lot of the Nightgale family have military titles in addition to the noble titles.
Saif became Vizier Copperday, Soldiermoon, 1303 (Day after Sfet died – we don’t know that this would have been Day of Leave).
Hugo has some memories from when he was young of Saif’s mother, but why would he remember the name of a random woman from when he was five?
She disappeared from Peerage (first instance that Hugo noticed – but only because parents pointed it out as a thing to take note of – referred to as the “former viziera” in that conversation).
Handful of linked towers. Dargent-Laureat Estate is mosaic tiled towers. Dargent Estate is marble and silver. Greenskin Estate is mostly bare rock bricks (massive stone blocks).
Jackalslicer Estate is made primarily from wood.
The towers have a look of lookout towers or siege towers. Towers are squared off.
While they do have permanent decorations in form of carved wooden panelling, they are (more than most nobles) fond of banners being hung on their towers.
Further down there are wooden and metal spikes around the top of the wall, or the entire wall itself, is a series of crossed stakes at right angles at each other “Cheval de Frise”. Barrier that horses can’t jump over.
Paddock of powerful muscled ponies. Light horse.
Growing medicinal plants. Medicinal garden and then also a Herb and Veg garden and a pleasant Walk-through garden. Some of the courtyard areas have been used for planting grass but some have been left as courtyards of unclear purpose (field hospital)?
Masons have Foundry under estate, Dargents have Bank, Bakerstreets have City Watch Headquarters. Jackalslicers at one time might have had a hospital.
Enfield Kelba
  • Seneschal.
  • Female Hobgoblin (similar skin colouration and charcoal hair to Captain Lee Kelba). Enfield seems older. Wears a checkered coat instead of seneschal cape and a fez. Wears a hobgoblin scimitar and a monocle. Ritual scarring on her face. Hobgoblin body modification cultural thing?
  • Scar Tissue of a Wound in Fate
  • Goblin is first language and speaks Common with an accent – although she has university education that was taught in common. Although her court title is Seneschal she has a doctorate.
    • Seneschal Doctor Enfield Kelba
  • Speaks a little louder than necessary in all contexts.
Ballroom
  • Spartan, humble setup.
  • Finely upholstered furniture.
  • Pair of crossed sabres above fireplace and a pair of crossed rifles on each of the other two walls.
  • Hall/Ballroom that has been set up here.
  • Dancing and tables around edge.
Pianist, couple of fiddlers and military trumpet bugler, bass tubist. Brass instruments not made of brass (more silvery end of spectrum).
Courtyard
Courtyard bordering ponies and Firepit.
Who are here? Osiris Jackalslicer
  • Follows his father.
  • Value being gentle and forgiving where possible.
  • Also having the backup of knowing you can resort to military force if required.
  • Not very happy about having lost their noble standing.
  • Seem to have accepted it.
  • Man of few words.
  • Osiris: “You’re very kind, Katib. I happily accept your presence and felicitations.”
Vigil Room
Name – Rank – Squadron – Medal
Chiselled off name.
Levered out medal.
Shrine has mass of medals.
Medals Campaigns Undergazette Editor's flask has Potion of Invisibility
Because they are traditionally military families, hobgobins are more common to know everyone in these barracks (so that if someone is here that shouldn’t be here, they will know it).
Traumatised Jackalslicer Guard
Fatima of the Flaxen Hair
Fatima and now Jackalslicers worshipped Hodge
  • Only Fennec worships and Viziera on Holy Days and Seneschal and her family
The Brass
Guard: “You must not speak that title. Not now; not here.”
Guard: “Since the days of bluebeard many have left us. Many of the divine among them. If it may please you to know, the Hussar who Doctor Kelba tells me was Bluebeard’s patron, is themselves no more. But, as you yourself perhaps realise, those that leave can be brought back. For that reason, the Walking Wounded. There are some she must not remember.”
 Horse named Called By Duty who gets Fall of the City Campaign Medal, the Scroll Medal and the Heart with Sword Medal. No listed dates of birth and death.
They have image woman holding bridle of horse. Bluebeard’s class was Fell Rider Cavalier
Circular wreath of metal flowers with a sword piercing a heart with a helmet on it. Guard's holy symbol (looked like a medal but wasn’t medal on wall)
Used Stonechipper Salve
Stubby the elderly female pygmy Gnoll.
Stubby: "Ugly man. Hate you."
Detect Desires
Fennec Jackalslicer CHA 8: To stay cool. (“keep it together, keep it together”)
Grimoire Brasseyes CHA 16: Figure out who is after her – as Dogson feeds Sweet Relief that fades to a dull haze.
Cody Bakerstreet CHA 12: To avoid letting these events spoil the party. Find more replacement booze or find someone (maybe Webb Nightkeeper) to hook up with
Rouge Carterhold CHA 16: To find out what’s going on here before the Bakerstreets do. If she doesn’t prove herself more competent than the Bakerstreets she misses out on something more significant than personal pride.
Dogson Jackalslicer CHA 8: Get that cup back before his mother notices he took it.
Cid Mason CHA 13: Distract Grimoire
Scarlett Dargent CHA 18: Unknown
Veralyn Jackalslicer CHA 13: Unknown
Grimoire’s book CHA 24 (highest in book – jumbled): Unknown
Webb Nightkeeper CHA 12: Unknown
Tabi CHA 5: Unknown
Stubby: (to Voltaire) "Not real dog. Bad dog."
Osiris: “Hmm, troubling.”
Viziera Atkin’s Quarters
Enfield smokes a pipe – smoking Hobgoblin Pipeweed (and that’s also her scent)
Enfield’s messenger bird is (of course) a carrier pigeon
Pair of guards: Cha 8
  • Get this book thing sorted before suspicion at us (Jackalslicers)
  • Don’t want to get killed or hospitalised today (entangled guy)
Called By Duty
  • Pony covered in mud with metallic, blackened metal horse oozing mud.
  • The mane and tail are partially red and partially green very thin, ragged ribbons.
  • Eyes are not mud covered – they are metallic, corner to corner.
  • Jute the pet pony of Atkin Jackalslicer currently.
  • It’s short for Called By Duty.
  • Metallic legs and hooves but blood petal frill around hoof.
  • Various smooshed together metals are each individual patch is about the size of a medal.
  • Jute – voice horses’ bray with the metallic rattle that gives it an echo of machine gun fire.
Jute: “What did the Seneschal tell you, kid?”
Jute: “I escaped. With Hodge’s help. When no-one else did. There were important messages in need of a courier. And no-one else left to carry them.”
  • “I am always slow to speak on the war and my first rider in case she may overhear and it may trigger the wrong memories. But it has been a very long time. I have come to suspect that even what she is still able to hear probably she no longer recognises.”
  • “Hodge was a survivor and didn’t often have room to be anything else. But she did have room for me when I knew her.”
  • [licks teeth with mud tongue – anxious gesture]
  • “The Bloodpetal Field was a sad place. Solemn and fragile. But it was peaceful. However shallow and tenuous that peace might have been. It was a place of recovery in a theatre with far too few of those.”
  • “I know not… I don’t know what it’s like now. At the time I left it… the peace had changed. Less fragile, less tenuous, but harsher. It was a hard change to accept but not one I would risk reversing.”
 Enfield: “Called by Duty’s been in our household for many generations before my time. Around 2 and a half centuries, best I can figure.”
Jute: “The years blur together; I wouldn’t know.”
Connie: “What were your messages? Who were they for?”
Jute: “The war was over. The gods were gone. Someone had to get word to the mortals. They were still enlisting in a conflict that no longer had any remaining sides.”
Jute: “It was a conflict of many fronts; as above, so below.”
Events that unfold on a mortal scale in the material place are at least sometimes reflections of the wills of deities on a much larger and higher scale.
“As above, so below.” *quote from Tacticus, the Ancient Hobgoblin Philosopher. The Jackalslicers have his book in the library.
Jute: [Forceful and aggressive] Hodge won’t be able to help you. You won’t get through to her. Find a different god. The conscript has to be left alone.
Seneschal’s Quarters
Coathooks with slightly different checkered jackets and a hatstand with slightly different fezes
Tabi’s monkey enclosure hanging from ceiling
Mid 1040s something happened. Something that decisively ended the war of the gods. And so far has Enfield can tell, left only two survivors from all the stars that were.
Hodge’s Chapbook
  • Book with old lead-printed or woodcut illustration in a military typed book of a pair of figures in a pose that Connie doesn’t recognise (Palfrey and Called by Duty) the hobgoblin figure with them is a unfamiliar-looking hobgoblin dressed in heavily stained, filthy and torn and bloodspattered military uniform of some kind. Horse and Hobgoblin both are covered in mud and possibly blood (difficult to tell, drawing is black and white). Hobgoblin is wounded. Indications of cuts and scars on the face and bits of skin through torn clothing. One of the eyes is missing and there is a bleeding socket. The hobgoblin did have horns that have been both cracked off. Rifle on back and a short sword at her belt.
  • Conscript Hodge and Drummer
  • The book has the look of something that has been printed in massproduced leadplates or woodcuts on fairly low quality, yellowish paper. Bound in cloth rather than leather. Printed in military bland typeface says Hodge’s Chapbook in Goblin.
  • When gods were no more Conscript Hodge's horse was sent down. A young girl hobgoblin girl (niece of the Jackalslicer subvizier at the time) found her and passed on the message to those that would listen. And sure enough the gods of the pantheon were no more. Their names erased, their clerics powerless, with only one exception. Palfrey Jackalslicer became a Paladin of the newer, lonelier Pals Battalion of Hodge and the rest of the surviving goblinkind either followed suit or gave up faith entirely or assimilated to new gods brought in from other cultures in the wake of the destruction that threw the city into turmoil.
  • But while the gods may have been somehow slain, that isn’t always the same thing as being gone entirely. Cluster of dark spots around Hodge’s star. These days they say everyone on their death goes to the garden and those that are particularly favoured by one god or another perhaps will be recruited or remade as a divine servitor. It seems it was not always so in the days of Hodge. Hodge had no servitors, save poor drummer, no place for servitors to a conscript – no lower rank that could be assigned. But those that were kin to hodge, that knew her closely, it was said would perhaps join the ranks of the Fallen Kin. The evergrowing army of those that had left the walking wounded behind as sooner or later everyone did.
(Thought: Fall motif? Fall of the City. Fallen Kin. Palimpsest is falling.)
 Male friend (Walter Damson?).
While most such extinguished stars are beyond our reach, in the case of fellows of Conscript Hodge the walking wounded there may be a tether back to them, however tenuous, so long as the Walking Wounded remains haunted by their memory, they may yet remain among the fallen kin. Perhaps with enough focus and enough power, a dead and blackened star may be reignited.
Unfortunately, most of the remaining believers in Conscript Hodge are loathe to try igniting such a fallen star for fear that bringing back the gods we lost may have worse consequences than merely leaving them dead. There are supposed to have been certain figures amongst the pantheon who many would say are better left dead at all costs.
Kelba’s family were not always seneschals and infantry men. Were said to be descendants of the great Commander Sedig who sailed under Admiral Brittish in Aquan Campaign. They were not conscripts of any kind in those days – by traditions they were Tars: proud sailors of the navy. The Brittish family was wiped out in the Fall of the City. The Sedigs weren’t quite but they lost a lot. And perhaps most significantly, they lost their god. Many families did. Many families were wiped out entirely without a god to protect them. Many others were left adrift. Overtime people adapted and learned to make do with other lots in life. Other gods.
Kelba: "It does not sit right with me to give up something so important so easily."
Bicep ritual scarring carefully creates a raised scar tattoo of an anchor.
Enfield: “A lot is said of the importance of leaving the brass forgotten. Much less gets said of how many the brass even number. How many is it that we are leaving dozens dead for fear of reviving… 10? 5? 1?”
Enfield: “I have found traces of a lot of others that could perhaps be brought back if we were to try. The Tar, the Good Captain, the Sweetheart at Home (whom the Dearjack family once worshipped so devoutly) – are we to leave all of them forsake an entire army for the fear of a handful of brass.”
Enfield: “It is believed that the more the Fallen are remembered, the more of a grip they have on our reality once again. In essence they get closer to once again living. There are many who greatly fear certain of the gods now lost finding their way back.”
The Civil Campaign
  • Fall of the City happened right after.
  • For around 2 decades before the Fall, Palimpsest was at war with itself.
  • Families and the churches disagreements had fallen to violence.
  • It only ended because most of those families and churches were destroyed when the city fell.
  • Brittish and the Boarscampers, Bloodthunders and Flyboys, and Ghostfurs. Even the Jackalslicers’ own upstart Reddoublet branch. There were so few of us left to fight and so little left worth fighting over.
  • One or two of course still tried but then Called By Duty arrived and Paulfrey began her campaign of peace.
  • Then there were new enemies to fight in destruction of the city and new peace to be fought for.
  • Chaotic: mismatched records
  • Impetus unclear
  • Everyone, at least everyone who believes in Conscript Hodge, is in agreement on who was responsible for the city nearly tearing itself apart. It is that which keeps them afraid.
Enfield Kelba's Map
Military tactical map: moon path is different, stars depicted movement (difficult to tell). There are constellations made up by some of the individual stars have been drawn with boxes and lines connecting as if battalions – troop arrangements rather than objects.
Salsabil still present and moon crosses over Salsabil several times (4 times in complete moonpath) even through track is different. 6 lobes that encompass different constellations and stars:
Infantry Cavalry (south He-the-Walks/Rich Man) Artillery (east) Navy (west) Airforce (north) Homeguard (Roughly where Panopticon is) Cardinal Stars are there
Names are voided.
Popular opinion voiced by Tacticus and others “the best defence is a good offence”. The stars were reclaiming the cosmos from the vicious Chaotic Darkness Beyond. “The Hun”.
Connie Communes with Brambleson, the Prince of Rabbits:
  • Would you be on board with Enfield Kelba’s offer? Perhaps, lacking any safer options.
  • Are there any safer options? Considering Jackalslicer firepower, perhaps not.
  • Would getting the Conscript to remember the other deities actually bring them back? Difficult to estimate, I’m afraid.
  • Do you remember the Goblin Pantheon? Mostly hiding from their guns.
  • Does that mean that not all of the guns were pointed outwards? Occasionally; I seldom ventured close.
  • Would it be possible to limit which deities the Conscript remembered? Difficult, finicky, probably not impossible.
  • If it were your pantheon, would you choose to bring them back as Enfield is trying to restore hers? [Swirling brambles and pause] Yes. I had family once.
  • But would it be the right thing to do? Even gods cannot fathom everything.
[Commune ends with usual stylised picture of a bunny giving an apologetic shrug].
Ratlines: servants entrances and concealed corridors and forgotten hallways that have been bricked up have been connected together to make sprawling routes without encountering anyone.
Enfield has a medal with sword and wreath and helmet. Swings wall open using it as a key.
Enfield's Secret Chapel
Incident board – scaled up map from before
“Lest We Forget” (not lest we remember)
No obvious door
Old-school mobile hospital slab instead of an altar, wreath of bloodpetal poppies
Sword physically set into the ground blade first. Wreath hung on it capped by an old-fashioned helmet
Vases with more bloodpetals on either side
Walls to either side with no wainscotting or masonry, just bare brick. The bricks are all tiny grey chalky-looking bricks. Many of them slightly crumbled (were whiter but have become grey over time). Each brick has a little blackened medal depicting a sword stuck in the ground. Many of which have a star-shaped pip in the corner, many of which don’t.
Start with The Tar – Enfield : He was the originating archetype of proud and boystrous sailormen everywhere. “The British Tar, is a soaring soul. As free as a mountain bird. His energetic fist, should be ready to resist any dictatorial word.” Dislikes authority figures. Tar has holy symbol of anchor.
The Sweetheart At Home – Veralyn : always conflicting theories on precisely which of the gods she is romantically involved with. Stories of sweethearts at home were exchanged as much among conscripts as much as anyone. Holy symbol was a heart-shaped locket, shared heart motif.
The Lady With The Lamp – Nightgale family : the Hospitalier they saw would guide the wounded and dying back to the land of the living when it was not yet their time to go. Lamp.
The Good Captain – Ratrider family : a fine fellow, an officer but a gentleman, father to his men, popular among the goblin cavalry. Wore a monocle. Monocle on a chain wrapped around the hilt of a calvalry sabre.
The Boy – naval quadrant. Said to be the youngest of the gods. Perhaps the most innocent. Although something of a rascal, according to a few texts. Was actually a girl. Coil of rope around a dice. On the beggarman’s side of the naval quadrant.
The Dambuster – set of winged pilot goggles symbol. Only a single adventure of the Dambuster has fragments left. Dambuster once flew a particularly perilous course through a river canyon to destroy a dam, allowing for a army to be routed, and changing the course of a battle, all in time to avoid further bloodshed before the arrival of the Dambuster’s arch rival – the Black Baron (more fond of bullets and bombs). Spent much of their time seeking to outfly each other. (set of black wings).
---
Less savoury lot:
The Hussar – leave that one towards the end if you have time (Saif’s family). Didn’t go well. Symbol of crossed sabres. Occasionally heroic but fond of boisterousness for its own sake.
The Grenadier – favourite of the goblins (symbol of a cartoon bomb). Artillery.
The Artilleryman – (bugbear deity) Winged scull symbol. Artillery.
The Shocktrooper – (bugbear deity) “I have a feeling your snake friend might like that one.” Black lightning bolt symbols. Infantry.
Chief mourner Walter Damson has searched almost all of the forgotten libraries of the world. Record for the purposes of commemoration as many of the deceased deities as can still be found evidence of.
Ears of the City
Round 1 – Where’s Grimoire?
Grimoire and gang are going somewhere in Rich Commoner District or Academic District.
Round 2 – Dargent parent conversations
  • Both parents are busy.
  • Guinevera has called Voltaire back and he’s taking his time.
  • Scene of them sending Connie and Hugo after book.
  • Details of their plans to try and consolidate power over all the other nobles. Big part of that is convincing other nobles to back decision to inspect wall fully because Richard has intuited from funding conversation he has had with Jaq Mason that they are lying about the integrity of the wall. After ghoul rumour, they specifically started acting in the way that a person who is trying not to look like they are panicking acts. Richard is on to them. Guinevera has spoken to a few different other vizieras to turn them onside, Richard has been strongarming people in the court. The Shajaras have agreed to help with this in return for some renegotiations of their existing deal with the Dargent family. Initially Shajaras were reluctant, but Richard was able to convince them to do this basically by not-so-subtly threatening them with the information that the Dargent parents are fairly confident that they essentially have the Underhands under their thumb now, because Scarlett has revealed to them that Thornhill Underhand was not human.
  • From her description, Guinevera on a subsequent occasion talking with Cassilda Shajara, who has esoteric monster knowledge, was able to get an identification for what that creature was. Guinevera says that Cassilda called it “Doppelgänger” - Elven word. Double walker, in the sense of person who can be in two places at once. Shapeshifter who can become that face if they’ve seen that face. Thornhill had been blending in as a guy – possibly a specific guy. There are enough Underhands, that they could kill all Dargents before anyone had time to report to LCE. But Scarlett also mentioned to her friends.
  • Richard has plan to take down Masons by exposing wall neglect and take down Ironsides about the same time. With Masons gone, everyone would feel less defended, so they will naturally turn to army. Richard wants as much of the court as possible to be fully beholden to him. Basically wants to be able to threaten: "I could call whisper vote on your today and get you out of here by tomorrow."
  • Trying to link Ironsides to terrorist attacks. If he didn’t have control over anyone else but it’s a much safer and easier position for him if he can get Haruspex to do it because he has Haruspex under his thumb.
  • He’s gone to the Shajaras. Blackmail. Specifically, information about weird monsters and magical shit. Say I wanted to, while inspecting for gaps in the wall, “find” a ghoul invasion, could you whip up a minor ghoul invasion?
  • Clarity – older conversations. What was Plan A? We don’t need to individually control every family in court if we control. Get Yvette into a position where she has control over Lord Captain Emissary. Specific plan was Richard was able to arrange for Yvette to be at a function, Guinevera got Yvette onboard. Guinevera has enough magic to cast a temporary love spell – getting it temporarily started allowed Yvette to keep it going. Yvette gained control over LCE personal life and affairs. Eventual plan was to kill him, and she can shapeshift into him. Done.
  • Guinevera has told Richard that Connie can turn into Wolf. Also that she can shrug off a whole bunch of different spells. Haven’t yet cemented “what do we use the rabbit for”. But is now on their mental board of resources. Has mentioned the rabbit god as something, don’t care though. Both know there are unsanctioned deities. Sanctioned ones are more powerful.
  • Now they have the Underhands under their control, they are now going after Bakerstreets because Cobbler is already suspicious of them. Manipulating him will be difficult now that he’s looking out for it. But they do happen to know that Irene Bakerstreet, Cobbler’s ex-wife, was involved in some pretty dark witchcraft. And they also know that back when that was the case, she had set up something of a coven. She and the Shajaras had set up a secret summoning room in a ratline under the Shajara estate. Through a combination of regular ratlines and magic portals and stuff. Set up through multiple estates. Could, at the time, get there from Bakerstreets and the Laureats (Damasque was also part of the coven at one point) and they did manage to get Katharine Ironside interested enough to get connection set up. Cobbler specifically brough Irene Bakerstreet down, especially with Underhands on their side – they can fake Cobbler’s involvement. After ousting Katharine, can ride witchfinder energy to get people looking at Cobbler. If they can oust Cobbler, they can control Felinet.
  • They are still pondering what to do about the Stargazers. Those ones we don’t have anything on. Trying to get anything on them is tricky because they are good at keeping secrets. They’ve seen Balthazar Ironside’s big tournament. They are doing something ridiculous and attention grabbing to divert everyone’s attention away from Dargents. It will be harder to oust Katharine Ironside ousted if the Ironsides are more popular and have a big political marriage.
Round 3 – Cobbler today
Britomart and Menelaus Ironside allowed Cobbler into Ironside Estate while family were distracted setting up for Blademas.
The Underhands have been acting a little strange, specifically in terms of being unusually talkative with Dargents. Cobbler was able to convince Britomart and Menelaus that someone who wasn’t an Underhand should take a look at the scene of Katharine’s disappearance again, to find out what Crepuscule Underhand might have found there, that she then told the Dargents. He is not on to their plan to bring her down, and then use that to bring him down. Is generally suspicious of them. They seem so firmly in favour of Haruspex calling a whisper vote on Katharine, that (especially since Haruspex never calls Whisper Votes) that’s for sure a scheme. Believes they are using whatever Crepuscule found to frame Katharine.
Cobbler is secretive enough to get any concrete sign of his investigations. Get one brief flash of him in Katharine Ironside’s chambers looking at the mirror very intently and for a second or two he doesn’t say anything. Britomart comes to him. Sherlock-style clues popping up around him. Reaches out and touches the mirror and then looks at his fingers a bit.
Cobbler: This isn’t a mirror. And it was used the same night she went missing.
Connie couldn’t see any obvious sign of how he was deducing that. But he was also not doing any magic.
Round 4 – Cody’s Gang Haunts
Rich Commoner District
Winter Lounge: Rich commoner district. Fancy music hall. One of the easiest place in Rich Commoner District to get under the counter drugs. 2 gold per person entrance fee purely to dissuade poor people.
Diogenes Club: Cody is a card-carrying member. Rich commoner district. Gentlemen’s club
Academic Quarter
Morpheus's Pleasuredome
Main Uni student bars
Stars and Bars: North Town Campus
Easy Cockatrice: Elderton Campus. Has a picture of a hunter discovering a cockatrice asleep in the middle of the field.
Song – The Hunting of the Easy Cockatrice guy had a hankering for easy cock-atrice etc.
The Dive: More prone to bar fights and the like. Doesn’t have a name on sign.
Round 5 – Jackalslicers since we left
Atkin is fretful but doesn’t seem to harbour any intense hatred.
Definite indication that Atkin has been told not wholly truthful version of what Enfield and Connie discussed. Omits most of the actual content and sounds like Enfield was deflecting Connie off path rather than encouraging her. Has been careful enough, that her story lines up with Jute’s.
She knows what I told Jute (want to talk to Hodge).
Get the impression that Atkin believes this was a Lindie/Connie thing and that they were doing it without Hugo’s noticing.
Veralyn returns having delivered Scarlett back to parents. Kicks folding stepladder thing over to Osiris so that she can scamper up that in order to reach high enough to kiss him on the cheek.
Veralyn: [shivering] Well, those folks are scary.
Guards thoroughly swept estate after we left and found nothing.
Psychologically traumatised guard has been taken off guard rota for the next month.
Lee Kelba with a bunch of the other guards in barracks plotting out a ghost hunt. He specifically at one point.
Lee: It looks like we’ve got a ghost again.
Other guard: Fucking Bluebeard.
Mention disappeared book, do we think that was the ghost or was that a separate creature that attacked them at the same time as a ghost attack?
Round 6 – Stargazers on Richard
Minus 12
Round 7 – Dargents on Grimoire Brasseyes
Minus 10
Round 8 – Bakerstreets on Rouge Carterhold
Plus 8
Diogenes club – Tyrone is working there: paid him Shanthi's 20 gp debt (with Hugo’s stipend)
Winter Lounge – bought Angel Dust from waiter for a Nat 20 discount. Catfolk Lounge Singer.
Stars and Bars – Connie began her Gem Crystal Futures rumour: flooding the Genie Crystal market with North Town students’ investment portfolio.
Easy Cockatrice – +1 bottle of Absinthe (6 doses)
Qumin's Office
Genie granted Three Immortals imperfect immortality
Some of the representations of the immortals are over 1,000 years old.
Three immortals seek to subvert the wish. Seek the secrets of life itself.
Recurring story. Has version of a telling in many civilizations.
Qumin: The thing about stories and signs and symbols is they do tend to inspire.
On some ethereal level, some of the signs and symbols are scorched on the ethereal plane. The ones of Gods who no longer exist.
All around her vital organs and the heart etc. have strange internal burn marks and weird scar tissue. Her brain also has scars. Certain things have been scoured from her memory.
Scoured – like a Palimpsest before it is reused. Scraped clean but very slightly showing through.
Qumin has a Talitha spice novel in her office – Qu'onan of Solitude
Woundsday Sailormoon is expedition
Scruffy, darkish skin red hair – Altair (Miriam was his friend – female)
Tailorite Elderton University Chaplaincy woman – Elven, Fibra Silkmoth
The chaplaincy carries a panacea "for emergencies"
+4 Sobriety Panaceas
Fibra: "Remember, sometimes inspiration is best tempered with safety."
The Dive
Hugo knows about Dive because in previous Vulpix excursions he has come across it as a place where, as an unlicensed bar, and lack of official status it is popular amongst the queer students. Not a gay bar but is a bar that doesn’t snitch.
Unofficial, unlicensed bar with no official closing time
Blank pub sign (with a graffiti “dive” diagonally scrawled across)
A couple of axe blades stuck in the wall.
Jaunty harpsichord jazz music
Ogre bartender, dirty towel, forehead rock. Oxley
Upright harpsichord integrated into the wall – played by a young drow teenager girl, one of her arms has been replaced by a prosthetic that has a hook that splits into a bunch of little spider legs. Hooksy
2 Minotaurs dressed in the Pinkerton uniform drinking - bulls
2 goblins
Upstairs
Nighthawk and others
Cody's Gang
Purchased drinks (with own money so father doesn't discover Hugo was at a gay bar): Talked to Cody’s gang
Gave Fennec the Sobriety Panaceas
Ears of the City
Round 1 – Cactus Cat Song
A few flashes of mostly dark space full of pipes and valves and various plants overgrown and dank space.
At several different points where it has gotten more overgrown over time.
A few snatches of different people finding these little plant creatures.
A shaft of sunlight is where the cactus cats gather.
Various bits of them chirping little snatches of music. A few times people discover them, hear them chirp something and get a chirpy whistle back. They mimic music that they hear.
A particular song that they seem to most often chirp when left to their own devices. (Ab-E-B-C-Ab-F).
Room without any pipes and maintenance stuff much more brightly lit. There are little pots of bonsai gardens in a zen garden temple layout. A series of differently sized and shaped giant bamboo pipes. Giant bamboo pipes made from bamboo stalks against wall.
Younger Whitecape carefully tending one of these little bonsai gardens. Whitecape stiffens and turns to the cat.
Whitecape: “What?”
Round 2 – What happened in the Dive after we left?
While Cody is getting another round in, Rouge and Grimoire have a conversation in Gnomish. Cody gets back with the drinks and is like:
Cody: What we talking about?
Rouge: Just making plans to hide things just in case.
Cody: Ai’ght cool. So where we going after this?
Grimoire: Back home. Back to the workshop.
Minotaurs have conversation in Giant. Occasionally one laughs and pounds his legbreaker into his palm thoughtfully.
2 goblins: Frog and Toad (they are friends).
Toad is the mohichan (yellow eyes) and Frog is the undercut (green eyes).
Nice conversation making plans for what they are going to eat over the next few days (beetles, mostly) surprising number of beetle-based recipes. They treat the beetle discussion as something they have as a safe and inclusive place.
Normal friendly conversation.
They are probably both at least considered queer by human standards. They may both have goblin-specific genders. Traditional goblin genders revolve around beetle colour preference.
These two goblins, their preferred colours of beetle are tied up to their gender identity that they are comfy talking about here but not in other establishments.
  • Frog’s preferred beetle colour is yellow.
  • Toad’s preferred beetle colour is red.
Scraglyn (ratfolk) and Nighthawk. Are on a date. Not on Moonlighter duty at all. He is on a date with his rat boyfriend.
Oxley and Hooksy. Hooksy is considering entering the Blademas tournament.
Oxly: "Toooo dangerous for me. I am going to stay right here and break up bar fights instead."
Round 3 – Gem Crystal Futures
Beginnings of a spike in gem-crystal future value.
A bunch of north town economics students speaking cryptobro gobbledy gook.
Round 4 – Honourable company recruitment
Company recruiters constantly trying to expand its ranks with promising humans from North Town University.
There’s never enough positions to go around, which are vied for by upper eschelons of uni. But always positions being recruited for at any given time
Get impression that they are always most eager to recruit anyone with Wizard talent. Even within wizardry schools, some school are more in demand than others.
  • Conjuration by far the main one, both the summoning subfield and the teleportation field.
  • Also quite big on Abjuration and Divination and Transmutation (little less).
  • Evocation a little less in demand, Illusion less again.
  • Necromancy last.
Alchemists are being recruited as are maguses and martial classes in general are in demand from the Lord Captain Commander.
Most of the wizards seem to be answering to Lord Captain Executive.
Round 5 – Rich unscrupulous necromancers
Rumours about the Shajara (many).
Also hear rumours about there being wealthy and powerful Drow in the Drow Settlements. The Amira’s influence doesn’t extend as strongly there so Necromancy is more common.
One or two drow that have come up from the Drow caves from these parts.
There is a guy that gets mentioned, a Drow cleric of some kind who used to go by Silas Doomsage, who was notoriously unscrupulous in his youth, but has retired, and so in recent times has been not engaging in any weird cleric magics. These days he goes by Walter Damson (Enfield’s friend).
At least one currently active rich, unscrupulous supposed necromancer.
Hear of a guy in the Rich Commoner District who is a graduate from Elderton University.
At Elderton aroused a few different people’s suspicions by being weirdly eager to push the envelope into research into necromantic magics.
Is from a very wealthy family. There are rumours that this guy after graduating and getting as much of a base understanding of the topic from his official studies as he could, immediately went into secret research of a less permissible kind.
Nobody has ever come up with any real evidence for this but is rumoured as in “stay away from that fucking guys house” – real creepy student and has only gotten creepier.
Seems like a likely candidate for selling book to.
His name is Enki Nas’harah. He is a half-drow, half-human. Is left handed.
Elderly Elderton Elf professor (Professor Philibus Trilobyte): I remember that boy. He was always writing with his left hand.
Why is that relevant?
Trilobyte: Well, I noticed it at the time you see. Because he didn’t use his right one.
Round 6 and 7 – Nippers
The Elderton University Library staff have noticed she is missing some time after we were in the Understacks. One of the senior librarians went down and found the destroyed inkwell with Nippers nowhere to be found. Reported that. Elderton University have tried to find her. Elderton University Board has been informed. No indication that she has, yet, made any move on Aquarius or anyone else within the Academic District.
Round 8 – Hugo Dargent
No one seems to have recognised me at the Dive. The Northtown Bar had people clued up enough on noble signet rings to have clocked me.
Opportunity to talk Economic policy with the Dargents. Someone recognised me at the Cockatrice bar. Unusual for noble to visit bar. One of the Dargent kids – not the main one, the other one.
Qumin hasn’t yet had time to approach her boss, but she speaks with Huntie Lamplighter in a staff room where they are already drawing up plans for the expedition between the two of them. New element of the plan – this guy’s coming with us.
Huntie is surprised, and Qumin is like “this one’s interesting; don’t worry about it”.
Has talked to Hugo a couple of times now about identifying holy symbols and the like and his hand-picked experts on an expedition with Huntie and Qumin can talk with them will be useful.
Algernon Blackwood’s receptionist sales lady (Alicia) doodling Hugo’s name in a heart.
A few other mentions of the Dargents in general.
[END OF EARS OF THE CITY INFO]
Vulpix/Hugo shenanigans – Connie suspects nothing
Cookie: Red Kobold with a gravely herbal cigar voice “No worries, kid. Just close the hatch om the way out.”
Garden of the Cactus Cats
Blood Brush DR5/slashing vulnerable to fire.
Snake Plant (10 ft. range)
Mace Plant – not targeting things but randomly swinging in 15 ft. radius. Actually also where the herb comes from.
Bramble Lash. 10 ft. range. can smell and has tremor sense. Carnivorous. Fire and Electricity resistant. Vulnerable to acid. Being hit with a tentacle causes bleed and the barbs will break off in body if you have a critical hit. (-2 on attack and damage until barbs are removed)
Flowering Lattice, slightly magical. If you eat all of the berries on a flowering lattice, it has the effect of a Goodberry.
Assassin Vine – 5 ft. mvmt, 10 ft reach. Grap, constrict. Pretty strong blindsense up to 30 ft. Immune to electricity 10 resistance to fire and cold. Can entangle you as a free action (anyone within 30 ft. Can camouflage itself as a normal plant. 30 hp. AC 15 Touch AC 9.
Wire Screen Bramble – The brambleite religion doesn’t know what to make of the wire screen bramble because it doesn’t bear fruit and it doesn’t flower. It just grows thorns. It grows best in thin soil and dim light. It is still possible to move through it, but you can only move at ¼ of your normal move speed and every round you spend in direct contact with a Wire Screen you take 1 point of piercing damage. Corrupted or cursed version of brambles. After a while people caught in them start to lose their sanity. A strain of bunbun folklore. Terrier’s attempt to imitate Brambleson. “I can create plants too, but only created thorns, no fruit or flowers.”
Tri-Flower Frond
  • Yellow, orange, red.
  • Orange flowers are tendril slash.
  • Sedative pollen: Fort DC13, knocks out for 1d4 hours.
  • If a normal person were exposed to the pollen, they would be likely to enter a coma for 1d4 hours. (But you can't poison Lindie that easily!)
Song of the Cactus Cats:
1 2 (3) & 4 1 2 (3 4)
Ab E B C Ab F
Detect Desires
Garden Guardian CHA 1: Externally programmed, knows the correct tune – obey orders from a gardener.
Cactus Cats CHA 11: Hide.
Fnifs CHA 9: Sleep, remain undisturbed.
Pipe Vine CHA 2: Remain unnoticed.
Basil CHA 1: Serve Snake Mistress.
Lindie Asklepa CHA 12: Complete mission.
Vulpix CHA 18: Be successful while avoiding physical damage
+1 Triflower frond pollen: Fort DC13, knocks out for 1d4 hours.
+4 doses of alcoholic Cactus Cat Sap: If a person drank this, they would become inebriated with no save for 1 hour and then nauseated for 2. OR Add to potion and will inebriate but also raises potion level by 3.
Rusted Belltower
Whitecape: "Took you long enough."
+1 scroll case
Intricate carvings of plants in the bamboo
Rusted bell
CACTUS CATS!!!
+2 Cactus Cat friends
Cookie: "Everything’s coming up Cookie!"
Connie: "Hi Katiba Brasseyes, it’s Connie. Master Hugo asks if things are now uncompromised. He’s trying to prevent parents scrying but can’t indefinitely. Best wishes, Connie."
Shimmery image of Grimoire: [more irritable than normal] “It’s under control. Don’t worry about it.” Connie pesters Grimoire with a Sending spell.
+4 Whitecape Star Charts
Hidden.
Ears of the City
Round 1 – What’s going on with the Cody gang?
Fennec and Agamemnon are asleep.
Grimoire is just going to bed now.
A couple of flashes of her removing her headdress and coat. Brief flash of her in an arcane workshop and see her brother Relic Brasseyes actually takes the book from her with some kind of series of arcane tools laid out. Some kind of protection is being set up there.
Also see a brief exchange between Grimoire and Rouge in the shadow of a garden wall outside Grimoire’s estate. Grimoire hands over to Rouge the little hand dagger that we gave her. Can see that the hand dagger has had a bunch of runes etched into the handle of it that have lit up in a dull purple glow. A little gem in the palm of the hand that has also lit up slightly with a swirly purple light.
Rouge after taking and stashing that dagger is still up. She actually kind of thoughtfully flicks through a peerage and is pondering some decision that she has not yet finalised. I see that she is looking at the section on the Nightkeepers.
Cody has gone back out on his own and has met up with some girl I don’t recognise. Has rented a room in the Winter Lounge with a random girl. He did take a flyer for the Blademas tournament. He’s taken one of the panaceas from Fennec.
Round 2 – Pollux and Britomart’s love story (Pollomart)
A few scenes of them meeting in secret.
Her bodily lifting him off the ground in order to be able to kiss him. Montage of various secret liasons of him being held against the wall in various private locations. Get that it’s probably only been going on for a year or so.
Also do get that Balthazar has been toying with the idea of using the "ancient tradition" of allowing his daughter’s hand in marriage to be won in a Blademas tournemant as a political move for a while. Had been preventing Britomart from being officially courted during that period because he didn’t want to ruin any opportunity to use that. Which was the main reason why they were doing it in secret.
When Balthazar actually announced to Britomart that he would do it this year, she was somewhat distraught. She has been practicing with her training ground summoning elementals to fight regularly there with the aim of entering the tournemant herself to win it so no-one else can.
Pollux similarly distraught by the announcement has spoken to the Stargazer seneschal, Hydra, with the aim of getting some entrants from amongst their guards etc. to try and compete so that they could then nominate him if they won. But he’s been trying to make these arrangements secretly.
Round 3 & Round 4 – Hugo Dargent
Parents complaining about me. Similar complaints from Victor to Satine, she doesn’t seem on board but she’s defended me a little (not pushing it). A brief scene of Cobbler with investigators, briefing them on an investigation. Don’t get much, there is various protections to stop the discussions that Cobbler has.
Cobbler: "Now the Katib, that one I’m less sure about. Could be an asset." Atkin and Saif have discussed the events of Osiris’s birthday. They seem concerned about all of that. But they don’t seem to be unduly suspicious of Hugo. Atkin mentions that they had to interrogate him, but doesn’t seem to have come away with any concerns.
A similar thing of Saif speaking with Enfield Kelba (Seneschal):
Enfield: "I wouldn’t worry about the Dargents. Everything’s under control there."
A little bit of Enfield and Called By Duty have a brief conversation in Celestial.
Andromeda Stargazer and Cassie:
Cassie: "He gave me a sphinx dictionary."
Andromeda: "We already have one of those."
A little disgruntled that I went to her assistant rather than through her.
Get a brief glimpse of Webb Nightkeeper talking to Bentham in Dwarven.
Do see a brief flash of Cassilda Shajara who is reclining in a weird opulent giant oyster thing and Thale her orc concubine is giving her a massage. Castellan the seneschal is standing masked, ramrod straight next to them. She’s idly reporting some stuff to him for posterity while she’s being massaged.
Cassilda (in Elven): "The spare’s always shifty around them, but that’s probably just because he doesn’t like them [the Blood Homunculuses]."
A little bit more of Grimoire and Rouge where Grimoire is like, the Dargent Katib’s rabbit did contact me, but I told her it was fine. General discussion as they were on their way back where they are like that’s weird that he came to us. Do we trust this guy? Does this guy think we are his friends now? They don’t especially trust me but they aren’t going to stop me from being helpful if I seem to want to.
A little bit of Castor and Cassie talking where they quietly in private discuss the stuff that we’ve been doing with the survivor stars and everything and share some concern for our general safety. Cassiopeia awkwardly expresses that if they get into a position in the future where Castor and Hugo are able to resume their secret relationship, she would be willing to help maintain secrecy on that. Castor looks like that’s a lot to process. That is a weird thing to be told by your wife.
A hushed conversation between Rouge and Felinet Bakerstreet:
Rouge: "There’s something going on with Hugo Dargent, but it’s not a priority at the moment."
Felienet: "Hmn."
Round 5 – The Underhands
The Ironsides are hoping that if the Blademas tournemant is popular enough it will dissuade Haruspex Underhand from calling a Whisper Vote on Katharine Ironside. On the basis that he wouldn’t want to risk having her be forgiven. But they have a lot riding on it.
Some members of the court have taken note that the Underhands seem to be partially under the influence of the Dargents. In particular the rumour that Haruspex wouldn’t have called Whisper Vote of his own volition.
Rumours that Katharine Ironside is already dead. Whisper Vote is a formality being pushed for political reasons. She’s not been seen for a while. It’s known that the Underhands were after her. Crepuscule has been unaccounted for for a suspicious period of time at one point. Ingestron also.
Also get a bit from Satine mentioning to Victor that Crepuscule seemed to slip away very abruptly. She was distracted for a moment an then Crepuscule wasn’t there. Guinevera was fine with that, Satine was out of the loop.
A few different scenes of Scarlett Dargent talking to various kids of nobles. Telling them that it’s important and they’re not allowed to tell anyone else just yet, she knows that the Underhands are Doppelgängers pretending to be humans. Can’t tell anyone because Scarlett and her parents have a plan to deal with it. But if that goes wrong, and if Scarlett and her parents go missing, they should all immediately tell their parents what Scarlett told them. And they should assume that it’s the Underhands that got rid of them.
Scarlett in fox form (Connie doesn’t recognise), talking in fox growls with Voltaire. About the Underhands.
Nycteme hasn’t been seen around court in the last day or so. Can put together that the last time she was seen at court was when Cobbler went to speak to her.
Round 6 – Stargazers on Britomart
10
Round 7 – Ironsides on Pollux
7
Round 8 – Ironsides on Menelaus
-3
Article template
Report
World
Palimpsest
Category
Campaign History in History of Palimpsest
Author
JetpackMonkey
Publication Date
12 Oct, 2023
Creation Date
12 Oct, 2023
Last Update Date
21 Sep, 2024
Visibility
Public
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50
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