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Honor + Intrigue Campaign: In the Shadow of the Sun King
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<blockquote data-quote="BASHMAN" data-source="post: 7590352" data-attributes="member: 8277"><p>Interlude: The Garden Party</p><p>Our heroes have had a month of downtime in which to spend their money and Advancement Points. Wealthy nobles collected allowances while less financially secure characters had to find a way to pay for their cost of living. As a spendthrift, Julie had difficulty keeping her head financially above water, and as a noble she had difficulty “working” for a living, although she has been doing some opera singing to pay the bills and giving fencing instruction to some of her friends (who in turn “lent” her some money). Alec drew a larger-than-normal allowance in the last month due to some strange events that have befallen the village. </p><p></p><p>It seems that many local cattle have been slain; sometimes seemingly by a pack of wolves, other times by a large animal such as a bear, and at other times by no apparent cause. What all these livestock killings have in common, however, is none of them have targeted any of Alec’s cattle, allowing him to gain a really good contract selling beef to a nearby army commander taking his soldiers on campaign. Recently, some cattle bearing other brands were found mutilated on Alec’s property. Needless to say, some of Alec’s neighbors have begun to treat him with suspicion or at the very least, standoffishness. </p><p></p><p>Sure that the curse that haunts his family is somehow at work, Alec chose to use his sizable fortune to buy silver bullets, crossbow bolts, flasks of holy water, and various other things that have some in the town considering him to be paranoid. He freely gave many of these items to his allies, who were likewise witness to the sorceress powers of the old Comtesse and the inhuman monsters she keeps in her employ. He even purchased a wheel-lock musket for Wilhelm, reasoning that the best shot in town would be their best shot at defeating some supernatural threat. Needless to say, the town’s weapon smiths and silver smiths were also grateful for a surge in business in the last month. </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Baron Porthos has been on the mend, and decided to host a party in celebration of the town’s rescue and his own recovery. The PCs were the guests of honor at this party, as was Sergeant Gaspar. Fray Montenegro was invited but declined to attend such “frivolity”. </p><p></p><p>Alec was a bit put off by Porthos’ servants’ insistence that weapons be checked at the door, and nearly insulted them when he did not accept their assurance that his family blade would be most safe in their care; they even offered to lock it up for him and give him the key to the safe, but he relented and allowed it to be taken in along with the rest of the armaments. Angus (who bought a silver dirk himself after witnessing supernatural horrors and succumbing to a mind-controlling spell of the Comtesse) managed to sneak a dagger inside, but elected to leave his claymore at home. Wilhelm, as a guest rather than a guard, elected to leave his armor at home as well, but did bring his weapons which he also checked at the door. One can never be too safe these days with monsters about…</p><p></p><p>The Garden Party afforded the PCs a chance to meet many new NPCs. Among these were: </p><p></p><p>Chevalier Gerard Thenardier: A noble in less opulent clothing who was asking Porthos to use his influence to help admit him to the Order of the Red Plume, a local social club of nobles that meets in the city of Bordeaux. Porthos explained that he would like to help, but the other members of the club are snobbish and snub Thenardier for his lack of wealth. He is sympathetic (he was not always a baron you know, and was snubbed himself a few times) but feels there is not much he can do for him.</p><p></p><p>Signeur Remmy du Fontaine: An extremely foppish noble, who is also a first class bully. He is dressed in extremely immaculate (and frilly) clothing. Dupris (Evelyn’s Incompetent Servant) spills a tray of drinks on him, causing a cluster of ladies to laugh. Dupris makes an even bigger mess as he tries to clean it up, and Remmy explodes at him, raining blows upon him with his cane as well as insults until Alec intervened, grabbing the cane. Remmy demands satisfaction, as the clothes are ruined and the outfit cost 100 Livre! Though he expected this to initiate a duel, Remmy is even more angry to see that Alec simply pay him the 100, plus 20 more to buy a “better hat”. Technically without cause to duel, Remmy will nonetheless remember Alec’s intervention. Meanwhile Evylyn took Dupris aside and tried to comfort him (he is truly a gentle giant). </p><p></p><p>Baroness Almeritte de Araund: A noble woman (a widow) who lives in Bordeux and is a patroness of the opera. She also was talking to Molier. She also has a great interest in “natural philosophy” and when she heard of the spiders in the caverns she arranged with Evylyn to buy some dead ones. Her manservant, an Italian bodyguard named Vicenzo will be awaiting their delivery and will make the payments. </p><p></p><p>Corporal Pierre “the Bear” Bastogne was invited along with all other members of the King’s Musketeers within the region, as Porthos loves to host members of his former company whenever he can. Pierre was one of Cardinal Mazarin’s Guard who was absorbed into the King’s Musketeers when those units were combined upon the Cardinal’s passing. He is also a major rival of Corporal Girard, who is bucking for the same promotion to Sergeant. Bastogne mentioned that he was now more likely to receive the promotion due to his recent orders to serve notices on behalf of the King; a number of nobles have refused his majesty’s “invitation” to come to Versailles, and he has been reminding them (or in some cases arresting) those who don’t come. The two eventually exchanged insults, leading to a challenge to a duel (to the first cut) to take place the following Monday behind the convent at 2pm. </p><p></p><p>Sword Grandmaster Trujillo Maldanado, a personal friend of Baron Porthos seeks out “Julius”, the famed swordsman who helped rescue the town, at the same time Molier, the famed playwright is seeking to meet Julie, the local opera singer who he thinks might be perfect for the new comic opera he is planning to write. Julie (who is wearing men’s attire at the party so that Clarise could be her date with less gossip) tells Molier that “my sister” would love to meet you in Bordeaux soon. Meanwhile Trujillo gets “Julius” to agree to help with a fencing demonstration planned for the entertainment that evening, and also mentions he may be seeking new sword masters to help take on some of his classes at the school as he is beginning to plan his retirement. </p><p></p><p>The Abee d’Herblay, formerly known as the Musketeer Aramis is in attendance and embraces Alec warmly; it turns out he was the priest who baptized Alec as a baby. He says he has much to discuss with Alec, but it must be done in private. </p><p></p><p>Portia du Vallon, the “natural daughter” of Baron Porthos makes the acquaintance of Angus, and he is immediately smitten by the bombastic blond bombshell. She is a very “healthy” (she stands about 5’11”) looking girl, who takes after her father’s hardy frame, and prefers to drink beer over wine. </p><p></p><p>Athena la Fere, the daughter of Athos also shows up; she is Portia’s best friend and tries to serve as Portia’s voice of reason. She has dark hair and eyes that shine with a keen mind. Girard and her manage to hit it off. </p><p></p><p>Porthos arrives and announces it is time for the first of the evening’s entertainments; a fencing demonstration by Trujillo Maldanado. The Grand Master asks for six volunteers… then agrees to fight (with blunted foils) all of them at once! About half the party volunteered, as well as Portia, Athena, and Pierre. I ran this as a sort of “skill challenge” type scenario rather than a fully statted-out fight, where each person got to make 1 action of their choice. Most failed utterly, owing to the fact that Maldinado is a master of six dueling styles. Those that succeeded (often with a Mighty Success) managed to cause Maldinado some setback in the fight before they were eliminated by a “touché” (Alec for instance managed to bind Maldinado’s blade, but the master simply used a Glide to escape while rapping Alec on the bridge of his nose with his foil). Portia attempted to catch the master off-guard by hurling a (full) beer mug at him then following through with a lunge, but slipped in the beer (which Maldinado sidestepped) and managed to be caught in the arms of Angus. In the end, only Julie and Maldinado were left standing. A feverish flashing of blades ensued as the crowd held their collective breath. In the end, Julie gambled on a risky Tag maneuver and felt the blunted tip of Maldinado’s foil as he exclaimed “Touché”. However, he also noticed that Julie managed to cut the rose from his lapel almost simultaneously. Impressed by “his” swordsmanship (it is clear that Maldinado is merely playing along at this point), “Julius” is invited to come to the fencing school both to give and receive lessons. </p><p></p><p>Later that night, the frivolities give way to a game of Blind Man’s Bluff, a land-based variant of what we know as the swimming pool game “Marco Polo”. Julie and Clarisse use the opportunity to “get lost” in the vineyards. It is during the came that Clarisse releases a blood-curdling scream as her and Julie stumble upon a freshly killed cow. Alec ascertains that the beast was killed by something as large as a bear within about twenty minutes, and he is also able to discern the beast’s direction of travel, towards the Bois Sombre (the Dark Woods). Baron Porthos announces a reward of 100 Livre to whomever brings that beast’s head, and the Garden Party is split into various Hunting Parties. Several people also elect to stay behind, but the festivities are moved indoors and protected by a number of armed guards (whom Sergeant Gaspar volunteers to supervise). Alec ordered his sister Mary-Alice to stay at the party, playing cards with the other ladies under the protection of the guards. </p><p></p><p>Portia, Athena, Aramis, and Porthos compose one of the hunting parties, while the PCs compose another, and other NPCs compose a few more. The chase is afoot! </p><p></p><p>Aided by Alec’s tracking skill and the light of a full moon, the PCs make their way to a rocky riverbend in the forest, where they are then ambushed by a pack of over a dozen wolves. Perhaps fearing the worst, and spurred on by Alec and Angus’ tales of werewolves, a number of PCs elected to use silver bullets (at least for the first volley) of this fight. However, they turned out to be regular wolves (but still very dangerous). They manage to fight them off, with most wolves fleeing when they are significantly hurt rather than fighting to the death. </p><p></p><p>Afterward, the PCs continue to follow the trail that leads them to an old ruins in the forest. The sky darkened, and it began to rain. At the ruins, they found a sealed letter… addressed to MacRath and sealed with the letter “K”. (I made a prop of the folded and sealed envelop). Before they have a chance to read it, however, they are ambushed yet again… but this time by shadows that seemingly come to life. This fight is truly terrifying (every PC had to make Terror checks) as they see their weapons go right through the monsters. They do discover that silver weapons do hurt the creatures (but do only half damage). The creatures are also very difficult to hit. Holy water does full damage, however, but they don’t have enough to destroy all of the shadows. When the shadows touch any of the PCs, they drain sap them of their strength and have a chance to inflict still more terror upon them. In spit of this, Angus managed to grapple one of them and stab it repeatedly with a silver dagger saying “Dodge this, ye bloody shade!”. Alec MacRath tried to bring down his family blade upon these creatures, but each time it was as if he were under some terrible curse. The first time, a flash of lightning struck his upraised sword, causing Alec to drop it and suffer terrible agony. At this moment, Wilhelm spied from a cliffside the figure of a large tattooed man dressed in furs with long unkempt hair. The lightning originated from the tattooed man’s direction. On the second attempt, after picking up his still-hot sword (he took a point of damage for picking it up, as the rain was still steaming when it fell upon it) he rolled a Catostrophic Failure, at which point he accidentally struck Angus a serious blow, rather than the shadow Angus was wrestling. </p><p></p><p>While the last shadow was slain by Julie (whose sword went right through, but it’s silver hilt caused it to boil away into vapor) Wilhelm trained his musket upon the cliffside watcher who was turning to flee. Wilhelm was unsure whether his bullet met its mark or not, but the stranger escaped. While looking for his tracks (and finding none) they did manage to find a leather-bound book, seemingly quite old, left several yards from the cliffside. Opening the book, they could see it written in a language none of them recognized (Cyrillic) and the margins adorned with pagan images, mathematical diagrams, and seemingly arcane symbols. While their first instinct was to burn the book, Alec had a feeling that answers he needs were in that book. </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, opening the sealed letter, the contents filled Alec with dread: </p><p></p><p>“Mary-Alice has grown into such a fine young lady. So lovely… so innocent… so… vulnerable. That day in the forest, I could not allow those bandits to harm her. It was not yet her time to die. I gleefully snapped their necks like twigs and she thanked me though she could not see me. How polite. How… naïve. You needn’t worry, MacRath. I will always be there to watch over your darling sister for as long as she lives. </p><p>Your Most Obedient Servant,</p><p>--Grigori Krovavich”</p><p></p><p>At this point, the PCs raced back to Porthos’ chateau to find Mary-Alice perfectly safe playing cards with some of the other guests by the fireplace. Ali Funda saw to peoples’ wounds. Aramis asked to have that private chat with Alec, who relayed all that had happened. At that point, Aramis showed him his sword, which bore the same insignia near the forte; a series of Greek Letters “Πραιτωριανto” which translates as “Praetorian”. Aramis explained that their families were descendants of an ancient order of protectors now known as the Bogatyrs, devoted to destroying unnatural fiends that stalk the land. This is the reason why his sword was able to destroy the Bone Golem so easily and why their enemy used sorcery to prevent its use against the shadows. Aramis acknowledged that Alec has already taken up the calling without knowing the full story; and now he needs to know all he can, and to receive the proper training to become a true Bogatyr in the service of protecting humanity from the darkness. He also knows something of the terror that has stalked the clan MacRath, saying that he knew their family originally emigrated to Scotland from Russia about a century ago. It would seem some creature followed them. Indeed, the clan MacRath has had very few members die of old age. The recent fire that destroyed MacRath Castle seems to be only the most recent of such tragedies. Aramis advises that Alec hold onto the book, and seek someone who might be able to help translate it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BASHMAN, post: 7590352, member: 8277"] Interlude: The Garden Party Our heroes have had a month of downtime in which to spend their money and Advancement Points. Wealthy nobles collected allowances while less financially secure characters had to find a way to pay for their cost of living. As a spendthrift, Julie had difficulty keeping her head financially above water, and as a noble she had difficulty “working” for a living, although she has been doing some opera singing to pay the bills and giving fencing instruction to some of her friends (who in turn “lent” her some money). Alec drew a larger-than-normal allowance in the last month due to some strange events that have befallen the village. It seems that many local cattle have been slain; sometimes seemingly by a pack of wolves, other times by a large animal such as a bear, and at other times by no apparent cause. What all these livestock killings have in common, however, is none of them have targeted any of Alec’s cattle, allowing him to gain a really good contract selling beef to a nearby army commander taking his soldiers on campaign. Recently, some cattle bearing other brands were found mutilated on Alec’s property. Needless to say, some of Alec’s neighbors have begun to treat him with suspicion or at the very least, standoffishness. Sure that the curse that haunts his family is somehow at work, Alec chose to use his sizable fortune to buy silver bullets, crossbow bolts, flasks of holy water, and various other things that have some in the town considering him to be paranoid. He freely gave many of these items to his allies, who were likewise witness to the sorceress powers of the old Comtesse and the inhuman monsters she keeps in her employ. He even purchased a wheel-lock musket for Wilhelm, reasoning that the best shot in town would be their best shot at defeating some supernatural threat. Needless to say, the town’s weapon smiths and silver smiths were also grateful for a surge in business in the last month. Meanwhile, Baron Porthos has been on the mend, and decided to host a party in celebration of the town’s rescue and his own recovery. The PCs were the guests of honor at this party, as was Sergeant Gaspar. Fray Montenegro was invited but declined to attend such “frivolity”. Alec was a bit put off by Porthos’ servants’ insistence that weapons be checked at the door, and nearly insulted them when he did not accept their assurance that his family blade would be most safe in their care; they even offered to lock it up for him and give him the key to the safe, but he relented and allowed it to be taken in along with the rest of the armaments. Angus (who bought a silver dirk himself after witnessing supernatural horrors and succumbing to a mind-controlling spell of the Comtesse) managed to sneak a dagger inside, but elected to leave his claymore at home. Wilhelm, as a guest rather than a guard, elected to leave his armor at home as well, but did bring his weapons which he also checked at the door. One can never be too safe these days with monsters about… The Garden Party afforded the PCs a chance to meet many new NPCs. Among these were: Chevalier Gerard Thenardier: A noble in less opulent clothing who was asking Porthos to use his influence to help admit him to the Order of the Red Plume, a local social club of nobles that meets in the city of Bordeaux. Porthos explained that he would like to help, but the other members of the club are snobbish and snub Thenardier for his lack of wealth. He is sympathetic (he was not always a baron you know, and was snubbed himself a few times) but feels there is not much he can do for him. Signeur Remmy du Fontaine: An extremely foppish noble, who is also a first class bully. He is dressed in extremely immaculate (and frilly) clothing. Dupris (Evelyn’s Incompetent Servant) spills a tray of drinks on him, causing a cluster of ladies to laugh. Dupris makes an even bigger mess as he tries to clean it up, and Remmy explodes at him, raining blows upon him with his cane as well as insults until Alec intervened, grabbing the cane. Remmy demands satisfaction, as the clothes are ruined and the outfit cost 100 Livre! Though he expected this to initiate a duel, Remmy is even more angry to see that Alec simply pay him the 100, plus 20 more to buy a “better hat”. Technically without cause to duel, Remmy will nonetheless remember Alec’s intervention. Meanwhile Evylyn took Dupris aside and tried to comfort him (he is truly a gentle giant). Baroness Almeritte de Araund: A noble woman (a widow) who lives in Bordeux and is a patroness of the opera. She also was talking to Molier. She also has a great interest in “natural philosophy” and when she heard of the spiders in the caverns she arranged with Evylyn to buy some dead ones. Her manservant, an Italian bodyguard named Vicenzo will be awaiting their delivery and will make the payments. Corporal Pierre “the Bear” Bastogne was invited along with all other members of the King’s Musketeers within the region, as Porthos loves to host members of his former company whenever he can. Pierre was one of Cardinal Mazarin’s Guard who was absorbed into the King’s Musketeers when those units were combined upon the Cardinal’s passing. He is also a major rival of Corporal Girard, who is bucking for the same promotion to Sergeant. Bastogne mentioned that he was now more likely to receive the promotion due to his recent orders to serve notices on behalf of the King; a number of nobles have refused his majesty’s “invitation” to come to Versailles, and he has been reminding them (or in some cases arresting) those who don’t come. The two eventually exchanged insults, leading to a challenge to a duel (to the first cut) to take place the following Monday behind the convent at 2pm. Sword Grandmaster Trujillo Maldanado, a personal friend of Baron Porthos seeks out “Julius”, the famed swordsman who helped rescue the town, at the same time Molier, the famed playwright is seeking to meet Julie, the local opera singer who he thinks might be perfect for the new comic opera he is planning to write. Julie (who is wearing men’s attire at the party so that Clarise could be her date with less gossip) tells Molier that “my sister” would love to meet you in Bordeaux soon. Meanwhile Trujillo gets “Julius” to agree to help with a fencing demonstration planned for the entertainment that evening, and also mentions he may be seeking new sword masters to help take on some of his classes at the school as he is beginning to plan his retirement. The Abee d’Herblay, formerly known as the Musketeer Aramis is in attendance and embraces Alec warmly; it turns out he was the priest who baptized Alec as a baby. He says he has much to discuss with Alec, but it must be done in private. Portia du Vallon, the “natural daughter” of Baron Porthos makes the acquaintance of Angus, and he is immediately smitten by the bombastic blond bombshell. She is a very “healthy” (she stands about 5’11”) looking girl, who takes after her father’s hardy frame, and prefers to drink beer over wine. Athena la Fere, the daughter of Athos also shows up; she is Portia’s best friend and tries to serve as Portia’s voice of reason. She has dark hair and eyes that shine with a keen mind. Girard and her manage to hit it off. Porthos arrives and announces it is time for the first of the evening’s entertainments; a fencing demonstration by Trujillo Maldanado. The Grand Master asks for six volunteers… then agrees to fight (with blunted foils) all of them at once! About half the party volunteered, as well as Portia, Athena, and Pierre. I ran this as a sort of “skill challenge” type scenario rather than a fully statted-out fight, where each person got to make 1 action of their choice. Most failed utterly, owing to the fact that Maldinado is a master of six dueling styles. Those that succeeded (often with a Mighty Success) managed to cause Maldinado some setback in the fight before they were eliminated by a “touché” (Alec for instance managed to bind Maldinado’s blade, but the master simply used a Glide to escape while rapping Alec on the bridge of his nose with his foil). Portia attempted to catch the master off-guard by hurling a (full) beer mug at him then following through with a lunge, but slipped in the beer (which Maldinado sidestepped) and managed to be caught in the arms of Angus. In the end, only Julie and Maldinado were left standing. A feverish flashing of blades ensued as the crowd held their collective breath. In the end, Julie gambled on a risky Tag maneuver and felt the blunted tip of Maldinado’s foil as he exclaimed “Touché”. However, he also noticed that Julie managed to cut the rose from his lapel almost simultaneously. Impressed by “his” swordsmanship (it is clear that Maldinado is merely playing along at this point), “Julius” is invited to come to the fencing school both to give and receive lessons. Later that night, the frivolities give way to a game of Blind Man’s Bluff, a land-based variant of what we know as the swimming pool game “Marco Polo”. Julie and Clarisse use the opportunity to “get lost” in the vineyards. It is during the came that Clarisse releases a blood-curdling scream as her and Julie stumble upon a freshly killed cow. Alec ascertains that the beast was killed by something as large as a bear within about twenty minutes, and he is also able to discern the beast’s direction of travel, towards the Bois Sombre (the Dark Woods). Baron Porthos announces a reward of 100 Livre to whomever brings that beast’s head, and the Garden Party is split into various Hunting Parties. Several people also elect to stay behind, but the festivities are moved indoors and protected by a number of armed guards (whom Sergeant Gaspar volunteers to supervise). Alec ordered his sister Mary-Alice to stay at the party, playing cards with the other ladies under the protection of the guards. Portia, Athena, Aramis, and Porthos compose one of the hunting parties, while the PCs compose another, and other NPCs compose a few more. The chase is afoot! Aided by Alec’s tracking skill and the light of a full moon, the PCs make their way to a rocky riverbend in the forest, where they are then ambushed by a pack of over a dozen wolves. Perhaps fearing the worst, and spurred on by Alec and Angus’ tales of werewolves, a number of PCs elected to use silver bullets (at least for the first volley) of this fight. However, they turned out to be regular wolves (but still very dangerous). They manage to fight them off, with most wolves fleeing when they are significantly hurt rather than fighting to the death. Afterward, the PCs continue to follow the trail that leads them to an old ruins in the forest. The sky darkened, and it began to rain. At the ruins, they found a sealed letter… addressed to MacRath and sealed with the letter “K”. (I made a prop of the folded and sealed envelop). Before they have a chance to read it, however, they are ambushed yet again… but this time by shadows that seemingly come to life. This fight is truly terrifying (every PC had to make Terror checks) as they see their weapons go right through the monsters. They do discover that silver weapons do hurt the creatures (but do only half damage). The creatures are also very difficult to hit. Holy water does full damage, however, but they don’t have enough to destroy all of the shadows. When the shadows touch any of the PCs, they drain sap them of their strength and have a chance to inflict still more terror upon them. In spit of this, Angus managed to grapple one of them and stab it repeatedly with a silver dagger saying “Dodge this, ye bloody shade!”. Alec MacRath tried to bring down his family blade upon these creatures, but each time it was as if he were under some terrible curse. The first time, a flash of lightning struck his upraised sword, causing Alec to drop it and suffer terrible agony. At this moment, Wilhelm spied from a cliffside the figure of a large tattooed man dressed in furs with long unkempt hair. The lightning originated from the tattooed man’s direction. On the second attempt, after picking up his still-hot sword (he took a point of damage for picking it up, as the rain was still steaming when it fell upon it) he rolled a Catostrophic Failure, at which point he accidentally struck Angus a serious blow, rather than the shadow Angus was wrestling. While the last shadow was slain by Julie (whose sword went right through, but it’s silver hilt caused it to boil away into vapor) Wilhelm trained his musket upon the cliffside watcher who was turning to flee. Wilhelm was unsure whether his bullet met its mark or not, but the stranger escaped. While looking for his tracks (and finding none) they did manage to find a leather-bound book, seemingly quite old, left several yards from the cliffside. Opening the book, they could see it written in a language none of them recognized (Cyrillic) and the margins adorned with pagan images, mathematical diagrams, and seemingly arcane symbols. While their first instinct was to burn the book, Alec had a feeling that answers he needs were in that book. Meanwhile, opening the sealed letter, the contents filled Alec with dread: “Mary-Alice has grown into such a fine young lady. So lovely… so innocent… so… vulnerable. That day in the forest, I could not allow those bandits to harm her. It was not yet her time to die. I gleefully snapped their necks like twigs and she thanked me though she could not see me. How polite. How… naïve. You needn’t worry, MacRath. I will always be there to watch over your darling sister for as long as she lives. Your Most Obedient Servant, --Grigori Krovavich” At this point, the PCs raced back to Porthos’ chateau to find Mary-Alice perfectly safe playing cards with some of the other guests by the fireplace. Ali Funda saw to peoples’ wounds. Aramis asked to have that private chat with Alec, who relayed all that had happened. At that point, Aramis showed him his sword, which bore the same insignia near the forte; a series of Greek Letters “Πραιτωριανto” which translates as “Praetorian”. Aramis explained that their families were descendants of an ancient order of protectors now known as the Bogatyrs, devoted to destroying unnatural fiends that stalk the land. This is the reason why his sword was able to destroy the Bone Golem so easily and why their enemy used sorcery to prevent its use against the shadows. Aramis acknowledged that Alec has already taken up the calling without knowing the full story; and now he needs to know all he can, and to receive the proper training to become a true Bogatyr in the service of protecting humanity from the darkness. He also knows something of the terror that has stalked the clan MacRath, saying that he knew their family originally emigrated to Scotland from Russia about a century ago. It would seem some creature followed them. Indeed, the clan MacRath has had very few members die of old age. The recent fire that destroyed MacRath Castle seems to be only the most recent of such tragedies. Aramis advises that Alec hold onto the book, and seek someone who might be able to help translate it. [/QUOTE]
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Honor + Intrigue Campaign: In the Shadow of the Sun King
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