gideonpepys
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Session 207, Part One
Global Threats
At Torfeld Palace, Principal Minister Harkover Lee, Viscount Nigel Price-Hill, Duchess Ethelyn of Shale, Lauryn Cyneburg and other senior royal advisors gather to detail and discuss the various international threats posed in the light of the ‘Forward Symposium’. They have prepared a Risuri National Defense document, which they present to the king.
Harkover highlights the report on each army’s “heroic dangers,” and clarifies that they’re so named because they will kill people who are too heroic. He waxes nostalgic about Queen Hibiscus of the Argent Rampant, who provoked the First Yerasol War when she – and allies from a military company she had served in before taking the crown(hint, hint) – teleported to a Danoran shipyard in the Yerasol Archipelago, intending to raze it and claim the island. Instead, she discovered Danor’s secret weapon – firedust – when she set off a lightning bolt in a ship’s magazine. The story only came out a decade later after one of her allies was retrieved in a prisoner exchange. The queen had warded herself and her group with layers of defense against arrows and tiefling fire, and grew overconfident in her supposed invulnerability.
They note flaws in the plans of the Ob. It does not appear that they have taken the allied titans into account. Questions are raised about the disposition and location of the gathering armies, but it is unclear if they have even begun to gather as yet. There is some brash talk about taking the fight to the enemy before Harkover counsels caution: he is heartened by reports of what happened in Cherage and wonders if – in this more rational age – good deeds and reason might be used to sway hostile populations. Which brings him to their Beran guest: should they meet her here (in the war room), or in the main audience chamber?
They reconvene in the royal throne room and Harkover ushers into the chamber Mysana del Salvatia, an orc executore dola liberta. She is missing an arm below the elbow, which she had to amputate after a snakebite she suffered in the High Bayou. (She had magic to neutralize the first poison’s bite, but there were a lot of snakes.) Though exhausted, she still proudly wears the broken chain badge of her office.
Mysana explains that she hiked from Ber and has been in occasional contact with Glaucia Evora, who is the highest rank executore left. Her information is limited because of the brevity of sendings, but Glaucia suspects the Obscurati conspiracy is active in the western city of Ursaliña, which has had no contact with the outside world for several weeks. Glaucia could provide more information if the unit agreed to meet her in Seobriga, at Palacio Justicia de los Huesos del Tirania Widoreva (the courthouse which holds the bones of the dead dragon tyrant Widoreva).
While the fate of a single city may not interest the party, Glaucia has told Mysana that proof of hostile Obscurati acts against Ber would let her pressure the Bruse to postpone or even cancel his army’s invasion of Risur.
They thank Mysana, order that the means be found to regrow her arm, and dismiss her.
Rumdoom points out that taking Ber out of the fight would not be enough to swing things for Risur numerically speaking.
Finally, Harkover requests that they admit another petitioner – Bishop Antonescu, Flint’s senior clergyman and Crisillyir’s de facto ambassador. Harkover did not think it meet to deny the bishop an audience, but waits on the king’s decision. Korrigan acquiesces and Antonescu enters awkwardly, having come to ask a favour so soon after his nation declared war. Antonescu explains that he has parleyed this meeting on behalf of one of his parishioners and asks for permission to admit them too. They guess at his identity and Uriel asks if the king would rather keep his distance and send an intermediary, but Korrigan demurs and admits him. As suspected, in walks Morgan Cippiano, head of the Family in Flint.
Cippiano greets the king as if they have never met. He says the first ships since the starfall have begun to reach Risur from Crisillyir, and they bring stories of madness in the land of his forefathers. It is said that the people have begun to put their gods on trial. Every trial ends with a verdict of guilty, and every sentence is death. Somehow this is not simply a show, but the gods themselves are present, and as each dies, so do many of his or her followers.
Then Morgan kneels with humility and removes his fishhook necklace. He has family who are dying in Crisillyir, he says, and he’s going to return to save them if he can. He has nothing to offer the king, but he also knows no one else who might be able to help as they can.
Sotto voce, Harkover Lee reminds King Baldrey that they’ll need the ritual of the Axis Seal, which as best they can determine is being kept in the Grand Librarium in Alais Primos. Perhaps they can kill two birds with one stone?
King Baldrey ponders aloud how the clergy can be mounting a military operation if their nation is in chaos. Cippiano does not know.
The king agrees to help, with the caveat that more urgent business in Ber must be dealt with first. (There is a long debate about this – the relative power and importance of Crisillyir balanced against their greater friendship with and affinity for Ber. In the end Korrigan decides to prioritise Glaucia’s request.) Cippiano begs that they hurry and withdraws.
Meanwhile, Around the World…
War! As news spreads of imminent invasions from the rest of the world, the people of Risur stand stalwart, and many are eager to volunteer for military service to defend their homeland. Fearful citizens are glad to have a concrete threat to prepare against, since so far there seems to be no solution to the strange dark skies.
What is It? Though the shipping lanes have been opened since Risur’s monarch defeated She Who Writhes, sailors have sighted strange new sea creatures, their skin slick and red as if with blood. Were these creatures always here and merely held at bay by the fey titan, or did they arrive after the stars fell from the skies? So far no one has reported any attacks by these bloody beasts.
Good. Clericists and adherents of the Old Faith are meeting in Dawn Square each day this month to debate the nature of goodness, and to discuss ways to increase overall prosperity in this dark time. Organizers have asked both Flint police and the Dockers Guild to volunteer watchmen with a mission to prevent hiveminds from forming. Local entrepreneur Morgan Cippiano lamented that there was so much will to effect change, but the dangers of hiveminds forces them to act slowly.
Four. Ambassadors from Ber, Crisillyir, Danor, and Drakr have all lodged formal declarations of war against Risur. However Methan du-Nadria, head of the Danoran consulate in Flint, states that the Danoran people are not committed to the invasion. Indeed, they feel a debt of obligation to the Risuri monarch and those allies who managed to slay a titanic hivemind that threatened their capital city of Cherage.
Absolutely Nothing. Asher Henton, Distinguished Professor of Otherworldly Physics at Kitham University in Shale has completed a detailed survey of the dark sky in search of new stars. What lies out there? “Absolutely nothing,” he says, aside from a handful of readily visible planets and the swirling vortex that has been dubbed The Gyre. And what is the Gyre? Henton refused to comment until he has a clearer understanding, though he ominously stated that it comes more into focus every day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztZI2aLQ9Sw
Global Threats
At Torfeld Palace, Principal Minister Harkover Lee, Viscount Nigel Price-Hill, Duchess Ethelyn of Shale, Lauryn Cyneburg and other senior royal advisors gather to detail and discuss the various international threats posed in the light of the ‘Forward Symposium’. They have prepared a Risuri National Defense document, which they present to the king.
Harkover highlights the report on each army’s “heroic dangers,” and clarifies that they’re so named because they will kill people who are too heroic. He waxes nostalgic about Queen Hibiscus of the Argent Rampant, who provoked the First Yerasol War when she – and allies from a military company she had served in before taking the crown(hint, hint) – teleported to a Danoran shipyard in the Yerasol Archipelago, intending to raze it and claim the island. Instead, she discovered Danor’s secret weapon – firedust – when she set off a lightning bolt in a ship’s magazine. The story only came out a decade later after one of her allies was retrieved in a prisoner exchange. The queen had warded herself and her group with layers of defense against arrows and tiefling fire, and grew overconfident in her supposed invulnerability.
They note flaws in the plans of the Ob. It does not appear that they have taken the allied titans into account. Questions are raised about the disposition and location of the gathering armies, but it is unclear if they have even begun to gather as yet. There is some brash talk about taking the fight to the enemy before Harkover counsels caution: he is heartened by reports of what happened in Cherage and wonders if – in this more rational age – good deeds and reason might be used to sway hostile populations. Which brings him to their Beran guest: should they meet her here (in the war room), or in the main audience chamber?
They reconvene in the royal throne room and Harkover ushers into the chamber Mysana del Salvatia, an orc executore dola liberta. She is missing an arm below the elbow, which she had to amputate after a snakebite she suffered in the High Bayou. (She had magic to neutralize the first poison’s bite, but there were a lot of snakes.) Though exhausted, she still proudly wears the broken chain badge of her office.
Mysana explains that she hiked from Ber and has been in occasional contact with Glaucia Evora, who is the highest rank executore left. Her information is limited because of the brevity of sendings, but Glaucia suspects the Obscurati conspiracy is active in the western city of Ursaliña, which has had no contact with the outside world for several weeks. Glaucia could provide more information if the unit agreed to meet her in Seobriga, at Palacio Justicia de los Huesos del Tirania Widoreva (the courthouse which holds the bones of the dead dragon tyrant Widoreva).
While the fate of a single city may not interest the party, Glaucia has told Mysana that proof of hostile Obscurati acts against Ber would let her pressure the Bruse to postpone or even cancel his army’s invasion of Risur.
They thank Mysana, order that the means be found to regrow her arm, and dismiss her.
Rumdoom points out that taking Ber out of the fight would not be enough to swing things for Risur numerically speaking.
Finally, Harkover requests that they admit another petitioner – Bishop Antonescu, Flint’s senior clergyman and Crisillyir’s de facto ambassador. Harkover did not think it meet to deny the bishop an audience, but waits on the king’s decision. Korrigan acquiesces and Antonescu enters awkwardly, having come to ask a favour so soon after his nation declared war. Antonescu explains that he has parleyed this meeting on behalf of one of his parishioners and asks for permission to admit them too. They guess at his identity and Uriel asks if the king would rather keep his distance and send an intermediary, but Korrigan demurs and admits him. As suspected, in walks Morgan Cippiano, head of the Family in Flint.
Cippiano greets the king as if they have never met. He says the first ships since the starfall have begun to reach Risur from Crisillyir, and they bring stories of madness in the land of his forefathers. It is said that the people have begun to put their gods on trial. Every trial ends with a verdict of guilty, and every sentence is death. Somehow this is not simply a show, but the gods themselves are present, and as each dies, so do many of his or her followers.
Then Morgan kneels with humility and removes his fishhook necklace. He has family who are dying in Crisillyir, he says, and he’s going to return to save them if he can. He has nothing to offer the king, but he also knows no one else who might be able to help as they can.
Sotto voce, Harkover Lee reminds King Baldrey that they’ll need the ritual of the Axis Seal, which as best they can determine is being kept in the Grand Librarium in Alais Primos. Perhaps they can kill two birds with one stone?
King Baldrey ponders aloud how the clergy can be mounting a military operation if their nation is in chaos. Cippiano does not know.
The king agrees to help, with the caveat that more urgent business in Ber must be dealt with first. (There is a long debate about this – the relative power and importance of Crisillyir balanced against their greater friendship with and affinity for Ber. In the end Korrigan decides to prioritise Glaucia’s request.) Cippiano begs that they hurry and withdraws.
Meanwhile, Around the World…
War! As news spreads of imminent invasions from the rest of the world, the people of Risur stand stalwart, and many are eager to volunteer for military service to defend their homeland. Fearful citizens are glad to have a concrete threat to prepare against, since so far there seems to be no solution to the strange dark skies.
What is It? Though the shipping lanes have been opened since Risur’s monarch defeated She Who Writhes, sailors have sighted strange new sea creatures, their skin slick and red as if with blood. Were these creatures always here and merely held at bay by the fey titan, or did they arrive after the stars fell from the skies? So far no one has reported any attacks by these bloody beasts.
Good. Clericists and adherents of the Old Faith are meeting in Dawn Square each day this month to debate the nature of goodness, and to discuss ways to increase overall prosperity in this dark time. Organizers have asked both Flint police and the Dockers Guild to volunteer watchmen with a mission to prevent hiveminds from forming. Local entrepreneur Morgan Cippiano lamented that there was so much will to effect change, but the dangers of hiveminds forces them to act slowly.
Four. Ambassadors from Ber, Crisillyir, Danor, and Drakr have all lodged formal declarations of war against Risur. However Methan du-Nadria, head of the Danoran consulate in Flint, states that the Danoran people are not committed to the invasion. Indeed, they feel a debt of obligation to the Risuri monarch and those allies who managed to slay a titanic hivemind that threatened their capital city of Cherage.
Absolutely Nothing. Asher Henton, Distinguished Professor of Otherworldly Physics at Kitham University in Shale has completed a detailed survey of the dark sky in search of new stars. What lies out there? “Absolutely nothing,” he says, aside from a handful of readily visible planets and the swirling vortex that has been dubbed The Gyre. And what is the Gyre? Henton refused to comment until he has a clearer understanding, though he ominously stated that it comes more into focus every day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztZI2aLQ9Sw
