Aphonion Tales (New posts 6/13, 6/15, 6/19)

[Quartz]

If it's continuing with the same characters, then count my vote as being for continuing this thread. What you might do is edit an early post to have pointers to the starts of the storyarcs. Look at Jollydoc's Age of Worms Story Hour. As for the length of the thread, I'll point out that a lot of your updates are very small. The postcount is deceptive.

 

[Quartz]

And bravo!

 

[Ladybird]

Finally, we all leveled as a result of this session. Back in the day, the norm was that you wouldn't get land until "name level", or more or less 9th level. I was tremendously amused that Alistair became 9th level in the same session that he officially became Archduke.

Also, this session took place on Cerebral Paladin's birthday. How many times do you get an archduchy as a birthday present?

 

[Artoomis]

...As a thread management question: I'm thinking of starting a new thread for the continuing adventures, since this is the end of a major storyarc. I would include a link in this thread, of course, to facillitate following it. Do people like this idea? Dislike? I'm hoping to bring in some new readers who may not want to start reading a thread this long, but might start in the middle.

Either way, but KEEP GOING...

Fun stuff!

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

----
[Session 20]

After the coronation itself but before the formal banquet, Kit pulled Alistair--now the Archduke-- aside. They briefly celebrated having survived and defeated the assassins, and Alistair extended the palace wards to protect Kit. But after only a few minutes, Kit pulled away and brought out some pieces of parchment. “M’lord, there are some things we should discuss immediately. I received a couple of reports when I got back from the coronation. You should probably just read them.”

[Please see attached Report to the Mouth Regarding Visitors for Coronation.]

“Huh,” said Alistair. “I’m not sure how to handle any of that…”

“Let’s start with what to do about the visitor from House Despana. We don’t want to insult her by not recognizing her rank. Also, I wouldn’t want her to think that we didn’t figure out who she was on our own--that could also insult her. But she must be in disguise for a reason…”

“Maybe we could recognize her privately? Treat her in public with her assumed rank, but invite her to a private reception where we address her as who she truly is?”

“That might work, but do we know how the Drow would respond to that sort of thing? Is there a rule for how they would expect us to handle that?”

“I don’t know. I know some about elven etiquette, and a tiny amount about Drowan, but that’s well beyond anything I was taught. We should ask someone discreet to investigate it. I’ll ask the Lord Chamberlain.”

 

[Yavathol]

Wow, I'm really enjoying this storyline! Reminds me of the Birthright campaign setting

One thing that was difficult, at least at first, was figuring out what all the names meant...for example, Aphonion is the world, right? And Drucien is one of the continents? Is Zorplona Aragoni another continent, or on Drucien?

Is there any chance of a world/continent map please, even a rough one, so we can see how many continents there are and how many states exist in-between, say, Shur and Canberry? That would make things so much clearer, though I realise it is not your world.

 

[Baron Opal]

I would love more info about the color pools, myself...

(Which I've been trying to get for ~20 years...)

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Assuming that this attachment posts properly, this should help as a map. It's worth noting that there may be some inconsistencies with the storyhour-- we didn't get this map until after a bunch of stuff had been written. The big north-south continent is Drucien. The northern east-west continent is Khamista. The third continent is Zest'qua.

Zorplona-Argoni is less of a place than a society of slavers. Thinking something like SPECTRE (or the Scarlet Brotherhood) gets you on the right track. They do control some chunks of land (like one of the Enclaves in the City of Enclaves), but mostly they divide the world up into areas of influence/control without regard to other countries' borders.

Baron Opal, I can't really help you much with the color pools. There's a little bit of discussion about them coming up, but only in passing. Unfortunately, none of the main PCs in this group is particularly interested in them, so we haven't been learning much.

------

Kit nodded. “What about the Cu’rinirim issue? It’s pretty clear that Princess Cu’rinirim’s guard captain killed him in self-defense, but I don’t see an easy way out.”

“Yeah. If we quash it, we have a mess domestically. If he is tried and convicted, we run the risk of alienating House Cu’rinirim, and we have enough enemies as it is. But any sort of trial could make things worse.”

“What if we tried to handle it quietly? Have him acknowledge wrongdoing, fine him, tell him never to return to Canberry…”

Alistair frowned. “I don’t like it. He isn’t guilty, if the report is accurate. I’m not even sure that we could get the Cu’rinirim to agree to it. It’s one thing to submit to local justice--it’s another thing entirely to admit wrongdoing when they don’t think there is any. It might insult them if we even ask, or it might make them think we aren’t honorable.” Alistair rubbed his chin as he thought. “What if we arrange for a judge who we can trust to rule honorably, but the mob will know is against the Noldar? I was thinking of the half-Eldar who is an advisor to one of my vassals.” Alistair flipped through a stack of parchment. “Here it is. Caleoglas Mal’quenwe, advisor to Count of Soaringspire. I’m pretty sure he would rule honorably, which would mean acquitting the Noldar, but appointing him will make the builder’s family happy, because they will know he hates the Noldar.”

“That could work.” Kit thought about it. “Are we sure he won’t convict just to hurt House Cu’rinirim?”

“Pretty sure. I can’t be certain, but I think his sense of honor and commitment to the truth would prevail over his animosity towards the Noldar, especially where the actual defendant would be a Shadowelf, not a Noldar.”

“I like it. Makes everyone happy-- or maybe it makes everyone unhappy, but not so unhappy that they’ll make trouble.”

“It also gives us an excuse to hold the trial in Soaringspire. Once the captain goes off in captivity to trial by an elf, most of the locals will think he’s as good as dead, but the Noldar will barely notice.”

“Right. I think that’s everything we need to deal with now, except for the military situation, and we should take care of that when we can get Dame Brionna’s perspective.”

 

[Orichalcum]

Post-Coronation Brionna

Brionna was notably not involved in this discussion? Why? Well, immediately after the coronation, she went to her quarters, informed a guard to alert her only in case of immediate emergency, and fell asleep, barely managing to stay awake long enough to take off her ceremonial armor. Perhaps, she thought, she might dream of her long-awaited paladin's warhorse, which she had had no time to seek since returning to Canberry.

In the two weeks leading up to the coronation, she had slept no more than four hours on any night, and pulled eight all-nighters in her effort to protect Alistair. Paladins are capable of pushing for long periods, especially when they have decent constitutions, but there are limits for anyone, and Dame Brionna had reached hers.

***
On an out-of-character note, it may interest people to note that Dame Brionna stopped taking paladin levels after the return to Canberry and switched into marshal. She's currently 5th level paladin/4th level marshal. She had always conceived of herself as a knight errant, but after suddenly becoming Captain of the Archducal Guard and, functionally, one of the three most important people in the government, she felt that command training, diplomacy, and the ability to assist Alistair and Kit in making will saves was more important than personal military prowess. Her skill and feat selection has totally changed, though she's still a fairly deadly mounted combatant.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

“Good. But there are some things I wanted to talk about with you.”

“Yes, m’lord?” said Kit, with a hint of caution in voice.

“Not with you as the Mouth. Just with you, Kit. I’d like to give you and Dame Brionna baronetcies, to reward you for your service.”

“Thank you,” said Kit, a little surprised.

“I’ll offer Mahler one as well, although I can’t imagine he’ll take it. He hasn’t accepted any of the other titles we’ve offered him.”

“Yeah. Although he did agree to be Chancellor of the Exchequer,” noted Kit.

“Yes, he accepted a position of responsibility. But he’s turned down the knighthoods that we’ve offered. If I thought he would accept it, I would have given him a barony for going through everything when he was being attacked by assassins who were really after me. But he’s always refused.”

“Yeah. I wonder why…”

“I have a theory.”

“Oh?”

“Well, we know he’s a master of disguise, right? My theory is that he’s another incognito noble, like I was.”

“Oh, so he won’t accept any titles that would actually be a step down.”

“Right. He either doesn’t want a knighthood because it’s beneath him as the son of a baron or whatever, or he figures that he left home to get away from that sort of thing and he doesn’t want to go back. Or maybe he thinks that accepting a title from Canberry would be inconsistent with his oaths in his homeland. It also explains why he was quick to suggest that I could just stay in disguise, back when we first learned my father had died.”

“Right. Hmm. What country do you suppose he comes from? I hope he isn’t loyal to one of our rivals or enemies.”

“I think we would know if he were. Besides, he could have gotten me killed any number of times. He could even have claimed the bounty on me. I’m sure we can trust him.”

Kit nodded. “I wasn’t really worried about him. It’s just… it’s just my job to think about these sorts of things.”