Thirst for power (Finished) (Knight Otu judging)

Grumbo leads the group out of the red dragon inn into the streets of Orussus, in the port´s general direction. You don´t arrive there, as when you are starting to see masts over the houses´ roofs Grumbo stops in front of a small, non-descript building, that should have some importance since it´s being watched by a dozen human and half-orc soldiers, armed by the teeth. Grumbo doesn´t care and unlocks the door, inviting you to enter.

Immediatly past the door there´s a large room where three other gnomes work on low (of course) tables overloaded with piles of parchment, seals, ink, and abacuses that see a heavy use. They look up to you and stop working until yet another gnome comes out of a door and directs a stern look at them. This last gnome dresses in a spartan, yet elegant blue clothes, and seems older than the other gnomes.

“Well done, Grumbo.” Says “Arrange seats for them in my office, and then you can go back to your table. Gentlemen, please enter”

Past the door there´s a small office with a largish table that´s quickly surrounded with chairs of various sizes by the diligent Grumbo. Now the office is quite crowded, since apart from the gnome and you there are two other people, two humans dressed in a way that screams “I´m rich and you´re not”. One is short and fat, and glistens as a jewelery´s shop window: he wears a dozen spectacular rings, a couple necklaces and silk clothes loaded with jewels. The other one, slightly taller but less bulky, wears less striking clothes and little gold, but his black silken suit matches the predatory look in his eyes. You understand that the men outside are probably their bodyguards.

The gnome breaks the silence.

“My name, as you surely know, is Nemko Burroneous. First of all, we require to know your names, and your word that whatever is said here you´ll keep silence of what´s being said. You can leave first, if you like, or not the job after knowing the details. That´s not important to me, but to them” says, nodding at the two rich humans, who remain silent.

From a corner, probably unnoticed till he speaks, a halfling in a fine suit of studded leather and carrying a well crafted shield waits for another to speak first. Once someone does, he quietly responds:

"Banion Lorish. I can keep quiete as well as anybody, and no one will hear your secrets from me... assuming your plan does not involve rape, murder, enslavement or some such."

Draig follows the gnome into the building. "The name's Draig Underfell. I can hold me tongue."

As Banion announces himself Azaroth quietly smirks to himself. Of course he'll keep quiet just like he did at the keep

Greetings I am Azaroth VanHaydren, I can assure you that what is said here will not be leaked from my lips.

(I can judge. Besides, I want to keep an eye on Banion, Beamer and Azaroth, so I can plan DoS 2 accordingly (or perhaps DoS 3, depending on how long this adventure takes) .)

(Thanks for judging this one.)

Knight Otu said:

(I can judge. Besides, I want to keep an eye on Banion, Beamer and Azaroth, so I can plan DoS 2 accordingly (or perhaps DoS 3, depending on how long this adventure takes) .)

Click to expand...

Aw come on everyone knows sequels aren't nearly as good unless it has the original cast

Beamer steps forward, "Beamer Glimmereye at your service. I'm small, but have a few tricks of an arcane nature up my sleeve. Your secret is safe with me. It's a pleasure meeting you all."

OOC: Beamer's character sheet

“Good” says Nemko. “Before going further, I´ll inform you of the situation´s antecedents. Some of you may be aware of it anyway.”

“Three and a half months ago I sent a group to investigate some ships dissapearance. Those ships where last seen in the city of Gotian and never arrived past the Elbereth bay mouth. The group found that there was a party of ex-pirates who destroyed the lighthouse set in the marshes and built a false one that attracted ships to the reefs. Your colleages killed the pirates and destroyed the false lighthouse.”

“However, they also found that the goods taken from the wrecked ships were ported by a tribe of lizardmen to the southern part of the marshes, to be exchanged for metal weapons with a ´javecar´.” A javecar, as you know, is a merchant who deals with bandits, humanoids and the like, selling them weapons for a high price: the lizardmen, now armed, attacked regularly the only village in the region, making the discovery of the pirates´ plan even more difficult. That javecar was the one setting all the operation together, as it was found, but we never learnt who was him.”

The rich man dressed in black takes over:

“Until now. A member of Gotian´s city guard revealed that the watch´s captain, a man called Idrag, was the one in charge of picking the stolen goods and transporting them to Gotian. That man, the guard, was killed the next day, apparently in a tavern´s brawl.”

“However, it´s clear that Idrag wasn´t alone in that. The sheer bulk of what was stolen required resources to be distributed or even hidden. In other words, Idrag was a pawn, we don´t know who´s the boss, and only are sure he´s a powerful man. That´s the man we want you to find, with evidence we could use against him in the city council.”

“As you see, it isn´t a particulary nasty secret. But we´re dealing with a dangerous person, or persons, and the more discreet we are, the better.”

Guidelines and other boring things.

ooc: A couple things and rules before we continue. I follow the usual conventions in LEW: speech between quotes or in funny colors, thoughts in italics, ooc comments should be preceded by "ooc:" or go between square brackets. I´ll make most rolls to save time, but you can make yours using invisiblecastle if you want (that means that I´ll roll initiative, but normally you can make your own attack rolls) I´ll use invisiblecastle too if it´s possible. Also, don´t make rolls like Spot, Listen or Sense Motive, where the very act of making the roll conveys some information ("I think I failed a spot check!" for those who read the order of the stick)

Please be as clear as you can when posting what you are going to do. If possible and you think it´s convenient, include an ooc comment to clarify, specially in combat. Remember that I can´t read minds. I´ll try to do the same. I don´t mind out of character conversation if it leads to a better understanding - frequently, speaking in character makes certain things difficult.

I reserve the right to modify your character´s actions (within reasonable limits, of course) if it´s very clear that doing so would be advantageous. For example, if in your post you said you cast an spell, and later in the round before your turn an enemy moves so you are in his threatened area, I´ll make your character make a 5 foot step before casting. Not doing so would mean to draw an attack of opportunity that could ruin the spell or stopping the game to ask for a change in the player´s actions -that would very likely just include a 5 foot step-

If your character is able to use any immediate action the best option would be to post the circumstances where he´ll use them. Failing that I´ll judge when he´s going to use them, if not, and it´s feasible you can retroactively change what happened the last round using the immediate action. The same goes for attacks of opportunity.

Also, for the sake of keeping things moving if the majority in the party had agreed to do something most of the time the group will do that, even if a member of the group didn´t voted. This isn´t of course a hard rule, and may vary depending on the circumstances.

I disabled sigs, so please post now any information about your characters, like prepared spells you have in them.