1222.2e Getting the Band Back Together

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: In the Ruins of Bibracte
111

She knows what she is going to do, and has even spelled it out for the council. I'm not so sure that the rest of the magi know what they are going to do.

I will say this about option 2. The magi should all know the Code sufficiently well that such an attack would be considered a high crime. The back swing of the clue by four can suggest all kinds of possible problems with responding to Valerian's attack. If the players and the magi feel impotent by current events, that should be the case. One cannot unwind a vast conspiracy in a council session. However plans can be made.

112

I realize that we have a sword of Damocles over our heads now but there will be times when some of us are more at risk of capture than others. That being said, I know in 3 years I will travel as a Redcap with Abagail for a season. It is part of our training and my House tradition. At that time the risk to my capture will be greater so I will resign my membership to Mons Electi for that time. It will be safer for all of you if I do.

Korvin turns to the three Flambeau.

I would also recommend that if Lucius does not become Primus of Flamebeau, Alexei, Isen and Jacques might consider the option as well. Now hear me out. I think if a supporter of House Guernicus were to become Primus of your House you would be at a greater risk for capture than you are right now. Would any of you refuse a summons your Primus no matter who he was? What I had proposed is forming a new Covenant that is vassaled to Mons Electi. That way you would lose no privileges that you have now. This would only happen or need to happen if anyone is going to do something that would risk everyone else. And it does not have to be known until the next Tribunal. And then we could dissolve it and have everyone be members again when we think the risk has dropped.

I do not propose a vote on this. It is up to each Magus as he sees fit.

113

The following didn't happen, but illustrates a clue by four:

This was in response to Fiona's letter which was dated: (to be sent a couple of days after Apollodorus's death) Something she couldn't do for at least a week, not a couple of days, which lead to a discontinuity in the Mons Electi time continuum. Move along, nothing to see here.

114

((We haven't found the will, yet, have we?))

115

Laetitia has a copy.

116

Okay, I found where Reynault handed it to us. Still looking for something saying what was actually it in, though.

117

((So, actually, now that I look at it, Fiona couldn't have written the letter at the time she did. She was gone. Consider this another swing of the clue-by-four))

118

((Never did find anything saying what was in the will, so I would have not known about the provision not to mention or write of his death. Now that I do, I know that Fiona wouldn't have written...well, she would have written saying that she would like to discuss Ulrich's future, probably. But I am now even more butt-lost than I was before. I was thinking that the meeting was happening upon Fiona's return. But now, it's happening immediately after Apollodorus's death, while Fiona is Away?))

119

I'll move this to OOC. You wrote that letter and dated it a couple of days after Apollodorus death. To me, a couple is two. Fiona couldn't have written the letter to Tria when you indicated, or at least not sent it, because she was away. I responded as if she sent it a couple of days after his death, which is my mistake.

I'll post the will tonight in Apollodorus' RIP thread. Action in this thread had been relatively fast and then it slacked off, I expected someone to come back and revisit the will and reading it without my intervention. No matter, i'll put it up.

It may take longer, because I thought I had the will in my Dropbox folder, but I can't find it right now... :-/

120

Frak, I can't find the latest version to post. I altered it to include Ulrich.

Highlights:
Leaves the book to the magi of Mons Electi to share as they wish, it is not for Tremere. It's Q25L35 Summa, written in Greek simply entitled Control. He cautions users of the book to have the ability to cast 2nd magnitude rego spells of any form before trying to read the book, as there may be an unintended side effect.
His lab texts are in his lab and are to be added to the library upon his death. There are a few rituals normally associated with House Mercere. Additionally, there are several Aegis of the Heart rituals 10th, 15th and 20th magnitude, which are sized for Mons Electi, and standard sized. The one sized for Mons Electi are at 7th, 12th and 17th magnitudes of effectiveness. The lab texts are in Latin. There are other lab texts, but he doesn't list them separately.

121

Yeah, posting rate has had me able to do little more than try to keep up. It's hard to examine posting content for subtlety when I've got 6-10 pages of intelligent discussion to read each week.

A few questions that have arisen for me:

  • With all this talk about the Primii involved, where does House Verditus seem to stand in this mess?
  • Are we actually still in contact with Andru et al? What advice/requests do they have?

OOC: Viscaria's initial positioning here may have some interesting side effects which we could choose to explore. And JL, it might be wise for you to let us finish thinking aloud and discuss ideas before you stomp ideas out with your Deus Ex Machina. Bad ideas need to be talked through before we can find good ideas.

Also, it seems like there is a much-discussed will which will affect our actions and strategies but I can't find it anywhere. Perhaps we need to more thoroughly investigate his sanctum and its contents before continuing to discuss strategies?

122

Isen is shaken by Alexei's words and confidence. Truth be told, this is what a Flambeau, a milites should be! Yet, reality must often put a stop to ideals.

I am as torn as you are, believe me and, as you say, can see the pros and cons of both course of action.
But we must assume Valerian has a vast network of spies, so we cannot work en masse, nor overtly. As... hard as it is for me to admit it, if he managed to implant a thrall into our house, what's to say he hasn't one in the milites, even an unwitting one, like Laetitia was?
So we could secretly disseminate the duresca scrolls, and trust the judgment of our sodales, if not their ability to deceive Valerian.
Once Lucien is Primus, we can discuss this again, and warn our sodales: Should valerian strike at us, he'll know what happened, and ensure the future of the house, and the order. But should he supress us now, accuse us of diabolism or else, it'll all have been for naught.
Currently, valerian must watch for us, spy on us. By doing nothing on this front, we can lure him into complacency, and warn our sodales later, when he'll be more complacent. But if should he learn anything, he'll crush us and our house.

123

If a person/House hasn't been mentioned, it's an unknown. House Verditius, canonically speaking has it's own internal troubles right now, though, doesn't it?
Explore away, but I'd like to see some more movement in this thread, as I really detest council threads, especially council threads that hold up other activities. I think you guys have some obvious stuff to do. If you want to go ahead and make plans for that individually, and then RP out the consequences, and be prepared to change stuff based on the council thread, fine. But, by and large, I see a mess of individuals speaking, and no agreeing. Just sayin'. That's why the Dues Ex Machine comes out. My frustration with the lack of progress. People storming in and out of council, people saying they're going to resign from the covenant. Not really my intention. I will say this, and then STFU. If you're a member of Mons Electi, the probability that you up and disappear is quite small, and your characters should reasonably know that. Is it possible for House Guernicus agents to lay a trap? Sure. Am I likely to do that? No, I'm not interested in throwing those kinds of stories out there. House Guernicus would much rather marginalize the players than destroy them. They've already destroyed their perceived danger. If you want to act as if your players don't know that or can't figure that out, that's perfectly fine. I'm just telling the players the kinds of stories aren't going to be traps for me to get you. Remember the hook: Politics.

124

I'm taking, probably, the weekend off from this thread. I am just very lost and a little bit frustrated about how the timelines are just all over the place here. I'll be back when we get the flux capacitors back online.

125

"I'd like to reiterate my previous stance that we should not host the Tribunal within the regio. The inner workings of our covenant's protections should not be any more public than it already is. Now that we know there will come a time when our safety is likely to depend on being able to hide from the Inner Council, do the rest of you still think it's a good idea to lay our entire regio open to the entire world?"

126

Arya, I think you have valid reasons for reconsidering the location. For my sanity, could you repost that request in the Tribunal Prep thread? If you wish to do so IC, then assume it is after we all have had time to calm down.

Actually, Arya's earlier post about her position and stance was really useful in reducing my headache, especially given JL's comment that we don't seem to be listening to each other. I suggest we each drop out of character and state our character's position and responses.

For instance:

Viscaria wants to respond to Valerian in kind, once the futility of immediate direct assault (political or otherwise) becomes clear. She suggests that we take our cues from the Primii that are known allies of Mons electi, try to suss out ways to hurt Valerian and his cabal. She generally likes Laetitia's plan, but worries we may be too inexperienced to pull it off.

127

I honestly don't think there's a whole lot we can do at this time. Any kind of physical, martial, or magical attack on Valerian or his consorts would only result in our being Marched, whether individually or en masse.

Our best option there, I think, is to try to work within the system, very carefully. Try to find out whether Valerian has any steadfast allies or if any allies he has are simply people that he's bullied into allying with him.

As far as moving the Tribunal and keeping it entirely on the mundane side – I'm thinking that, while it may be a good idea in principal, wouldn't work so well in the long run. I believe that it's more or less common knowledge within the Tribunal that we have a Regio, and that most of our covenant is in said regio. That being said, I think it would work best if we hold the Tribunal within the regio, but try to confine everyone and everything to where we want them to be. Maybe downplay the sheer awesomeness of the place, give everyone just enough info about it to satisfy their curiosity and make them less likely to go exploring. And perhaps Creo a few corpses just beyond the Out of Bounds line, just to throw a scare into anybody who thinks that a nice romantic stroll would be a good idea. (We totally need to create a Dutchman named Jason, just to put him in charge of keeping people corralled).

In a related vein, I think it would be good for us, or our Legions of Faithful Minions, to explore our regio as thoroughly possible, and to find a bunch of exits/entrances. Not because I'm concerned about the "swiss cheesiness" of the regio (JL's satisfied me on that account, and boy, that is a phrase I am never repeating without proper context), but because I think it would be handy to know how to get out of it if worse comes to worse.

Re: Seeking out the Diedne. All I know is that, some time ago, they came passing through our upper regio (where the Blacksmith lives, and where Iosephus went when he disappeared), and have dispersed throughout Magic. The Blacksmith indicated that they were still in Magic somewhere, but didn't say where. ((Did Fiona get an idea of how powerful the Aura was there? Was it actually the Magic Realm, i.e. M-10, or just close?))

If, as we now know, the Diedne were basically framed in the Guernicus's power-game to keep the Flambeau and Tremere in line, then we may have a dickens of a time (1) convincing them that we're not out to kill them, and (2) working with them on a way to rehabilitate them (and I mean that in the canon law sense).

I'm torn about Laetitia pretending to be Guernicus's patsy so they don't kill her. On the one hand, it might be good to have a mole. On the other hand, I think she's outlived her usefulness to them, especially if they were planning on killing her in their ritual to destroy Mons Electi. It's possible that they will allow her to stay in Guernicus and just give her the shit details. Right now, though, I don't see them wanting to let her live, as she knows too much about what they're really up to, but I don't think they can act overtly since they don't know how much she's told us. I can, however, see them, grabbing her, letting her have the child, killing her, and telling the world that she died in childbirth. Okay, now that I've thought about it, I'm not torn, I'm purt much agin' it.

I just had a really out-there idea. What if we pulled a Xenophon and gave Laetitia and Glaukopis a new identity? If nobody's seen her since Apollodorus was killed, we can play off like she was killed at the same time as Apollodorus, or died from wounds she sustained in the attack. Fiona has Gift of the New Body that she can use and/or teach someone; once someone has learned it, they can then invent a Momentary Ritual version to make the change permanent. She can be ex Misc, nobody would bother verifying because those damn hedgies are such sloppy record-keepers that it's a miracle anybody knows who's in the House anyway.

(p.s. Thank Gygax for OpenOffice auto-restore after a crash)

128

The ideal disguise would be if someone in Tremere would be her "parens." She'd have to learn a Certamen Focus, and give up her voting sigil, but that's not too bad. The only other house she'd really fit in would be Jerbiton.

129

"We will likely discuss this many days and nights, but on one thing we are resolved, Lucius should be primus. Let us then make that happen. But with him we must be truthful. He must know because he will likely be the next target. Once he knows we can then make a resolution with the House on what to do. But crush us? Isen..." Alexei shakes his head. "We will never be crushed, all of the order could not do it. So have faith, and prepare for our revenge. I shall write a letter to Lucius immediately and we shall be ready to aid him. Sound good?"

130

Laetitia knows well enough that she won't be invited to be a Tremere, it simply isn't done. She's having a hard enough time considering taking Ulrich on.

Answering PB's post, OOC. There's not a lot to do, but there's much to be done. Fiona did get far enough along in the Tribunal book[1] to know that the Tribunal does pay to have a Hermes Portal spell cast to the location indicated by the covenant. Also, in this saga, Rego teleportation can go beyond regio boundaries.
It appeared to be the Magic Realm, note she didn't see beyond the building she was in.

[1] That was the original plan for her summer 1222 activity.