Deedeequest or The Wonders of Mundus: Be Careful Who You Pretend To Be - A Genderous Isekai Quest

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How Dice Rolls Work
  • Informational
    • Character sheet is here.

    Dice rolls are 1d10 + Stat + Proficiency + any applicable bonuses, such as Boons.

    You may spend 3 Tension to Overdrive for a retroactive +5 to your roll (a Determination Overdrive), or +3 to an ally's roll (a Teamwork Overdrive). I will also automatically overdrive to avoid exhaustion or unconsciousness.

    It is possible to critically succeed (on +5 on skill checks and +10 on combat rolls) or critically fail (by the same margins), but rolling a 1 or a 10 does not automatically crit in either case. It is possible to crit retroactively by Overdriving.

    Your stat bonuses have names:
    • Vigor grants a Strength bonus.
    • Agility grants a Dexterity bonus.
    • Spirit grants an Aura bonus.
    • Mind grants an Intuition bonus.
    • Resolve grants a Guts bonus.
    Dice are rolled on a first come, first serve bonus. You only roll for Deedee.
     
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  • Informational
    • [X] [House Investigation] - House Cabello and the family of actual millers, including Iustina and the Matriarch Jatu Almez.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Kosmas and Tayeb's family of successful farmers and merchants.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Quinyones and their Auroran and Erandite planter's prejudices.

    Reasoning for who I voted for: These three seem the most directly tied to/entangled with the harvest, so I'd be happy investigating any of them further. I think they're the ones we'll learn the most harvest-relevant info from, which is what we want right before we go assess the damage. They're all clearly deeply embroiled in harvest-related political tension as well, so whichever we investigate will probably get us a good start on mapping who hates who.

    Reasoning for who I eliminated: The craftspeople might have some good info, and their species diversity is interesting, but they are less likely to know about details of the harvest. The nobles may be sus because they're the most financially able to hire adventurers, but they are also the most distant from the harvest, and more likely to be a tough investigation since they know how to hide things out of 'politeness' and 'political acumen', so we can get to them later.

    [X] [Character Interlude] - Siobahn.

    We gotta talk to Siobhan. She'll have the best understanding of social dynamics, hopefully being able to explain how exactly the feudal system works and what are the religious prejudices that we see here. We definitely need a rundown on what we should expect the pecking order to be like so we know which groups have what stakes in the harvest, and can better recognize social cues/out-of-class behavior when we see it. We don't even know what a "jubilee year" is, really - but Siobhan clearly does.

    Other than that I have no real opinion, except that I think we may want to wait to pull Ace in on this until we have a real good reason for her to care; I'm worried we'll burn through her benevolence unless we find a good reason for her to care about these people, and soon.

    On the other hand, she is our girlfriend now (!?!), so we could always talk to her just because.

    [X] [Charge Chance] - we should try to withhold judgment until we have the facts, and therefore we should start by collecting as many facts as possible. We should be flexible if we come across something that seems important, but a generally bottom-up approach seems suitable for this. Start by learning about the harvest, the local terrain, and the families closest to the harvest - what exactly do they do for a living, how does the harvest's success or failure affect their income, what are their cultural and religious beliefs, who do they trust or mistrust, who do they depend on and who depends on them? Move up to learning about the families who are a couple steps removed from the harvest, answering the same questions. Finally, investigate the nobles, since you should now have enough background info to catch the half-truths and white lies that nobles tend to tell. (Bonus, maybe they'll be caught off-guard if they do have something to hide, since we'll have spent a while not directly investigating them first and they may have allowed themselves to believe they're beyond suspicion.) After all the local families have been investigated, the Drovers should have arrived, and we can investigate them as well. Hopefully by this point some patterns will have emerged, and we will have a better idea of who has motive and means to ruin the harvest - if anyone. The truth may not be what we expect and it would be irresponsible to ignore possibilities like (1) the adventurers are being hired by someone from another town (2) the adventurers are acting on their own initiative to benefit themselves somehow (3) there are no adventurers, the monsters are acting on their own initiative; perhaps something drove them to migrate, or a map glitch gave them access to the area (4) the adventurers are being framed for someone else's actions (5) someone in town is being framed for hiring adventurers by their real employer.
     
    A little too head empty/busy to contribute right now, so just posting to say good luck.
    Talia B said:
    Iustina takes a deep breath. "Many of the families resent a clan of Ubastim, and with Qebulani names at that, for having the success and wealth they seek - for being the right hands of the Castellan and in charge of the milling," she says. "Especially the Quinyones, who hate us all the more for revering Aurora and Eranda above the witch of wine."

    "Ah. Racism." Ace folds her arms. "Great. Love it. Can't escape it even here."
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    Also seems inseparable from economic factors, as annoying as that is to think about.
     
    Winged One said:
    [X] [Charge Chance] Molinaro is clearly a mole.
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    If someone illustrates this I will grant Tension for it.

    ETA: Keep in mind his stupid, 15th Century period Spanish nobleman costume:

    Talia B said:
    Tan, with a neatly trimmed square beard, and wearing a red and gold satin shirt under a shorter black jerkin with slashed sleeves, and a cape... he's also wearing red hose; he definitely wears a sword, and some understated gold and silver jewelry, with the occasional glint of a gemstone.
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    Winged One said:
    Will they get more Tension if they make something actually good? Because I don't remember any image uploading sites I could put this garbage I just made in Microsoft Paint onto without making an account.
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    I mean, post it. If actually good art dethrones you you're at least winning the Best Shitpost award.
     
    One more day. If anyone has better plans, vote for them.

    We also have one, single, vote for one person in a category where I explicitly said two categories will win. I literally do not have enough ballots to make the decisions I need to.
     
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Cabello and the family of actual millers, including Iustina and the Matriarch Jatu Almez.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Kosmas and Tayeb's family of successful farmers and merchants.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Quinyones and their Auroran and Erandite planter's prejudices.

    [X] [Character Interlude] - Hikaru.
    [X] [Character Interlude] - Siobahn.
     
    Hmmmmm.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Cabello and the family of actual millers, including Iustina and the Matriarch Jatu Almez.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Kosmas and Tayeb's family of successful farmers and merchants.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Quinyones and their Auroran and Erandite planter's prejudices.

    I'm going for these three because these are all the people we have direct contacts with, and might be able and willing to let us know a little more about what's going on.

    [X] [Character Interlude] - Hikaru.
    [X] [Character Interlude] - Sekhmet.
    [X] [Character Interlude] - Siobahn.

    As much as Ace is able to come up with surprise connections, these are the "safer" people to talk to in regards to what we've found, in my opinion. Sekhmet understands politics in general, Sio knows damned well what the world is like, and Hikaru can keep us to the facts rather than running off into the wheat fields like we've had too much mushroom-spiked brandy.
     
    Fabricati said:
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Quinyones and their Auroran and Erandite planter's prejudices.

    I'm going for these three because these are all the people we have direct contacts with, and might be able and willing to let us know a little more about what's going on.
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    I don't think we have Quinyone contacts. We have a Robledas contact (the innkeeper of the taverna we're staying at), but not Quinyone contacts.
     
    [X] [House Investigation] - Lord Molinaro and his family of noblemen and would-be knights.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Cabello and the family of actual millers, including Iustina and the Matriarch Jatu Almez.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Quinyones and their Auroran and Erandite planter's prejudices.

    [X] [Character Interlude] - Hikaru.
    [X] [Character Interlude] - Sekhmet.

    Hikaru is an obvious choice to ask about technical details and potentially relevant world lore - how the things we're seeing could get done. Sekh, meanwhile, is the most generally insightful into peoples' motives and hidden wants. Admittedly, their cynicism biases explanations toward the mercenary, but as a wise man once said: behind every major crime, there's a rich white man waiting for his cut.

    [X] [Charge Chance] Pray to Flamma and offer cat biscuits in exchange for explaining all the answers to us. It works on other alcoholic cat-witches.
     
    Nerdorama said:
    [X] [Charge Chance] Pray to Flamma and offer cat biscuits in exchange for explaining all the answers to us. It works on other alcoholic cat-witches.
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    1. I don't know what this is referencing.
    2. Shitposty phrasing aside, given we are meeting a Flammite in a winegrowing town, this isn't actually a terrible idea.
     
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Kosmas and Tayeb's family of successful farmers and merchants.

    [X] [Character Interlude] - Ace.

    I'm just here to rep my girl and also the characters we love.
     
    [X] [Character Interlude] - Sekhmet.
    [X] [Character Interlude] - Siobahn.

    [X] [House Investigation] - House Cabello and the family of actual millers, including Iustina and the Matriarch Jatu Almez.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Robledas and their eclectic bunch of craftspeople and store owners.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Quinyones and their Auroran and Erandite planter's prejudices.
     
    Which house should we investigate next, before the survey of the damage to the fields? This is an approval vote.

    [X] [House Investigation] - Lord Molinaro and his family of noblemen and would-be knights.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Quinyones and their Auroran and Erandite planter's prejudices.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Robledas and their eclectic bunch of craftspeople and store owners.

    Who should we talk to about what we found in the meantime, during lunch and the siesta? Approval vote, top two win. Include an explanation of why and what we should address.

    [X] [Character Interlude] - Siobahn.
    Seconding @RiparianCryptid 's reasoning​
     
    Okay! So to me the most obvious avenues of exploration off this testimony are...
    1. There's a strange tension between Jatu leading the Flammite rites in this town, and her family being nonetheless seen by the Quinyones as insufficiently devoted to Flamma. If the Cabellos are seen as Auroran/Erandite partisans regardless of Jatu being their family matriarch, that implies some sort of additional context that serves as sufficient evidence to knock things back out of balance or to tarnish the "authenticity" of Jatu's Flammite credentials. Sure, it could be prejudice too, but even then, people find history to justify their nonsense... and Iustina didn't include any indication that she considered her family "revering Aurora and Eranda above the witch of wine" to itself be a misread.
    2. Compared to the drama of fruit-of-the-earth versus fruit-of-the-vine, Iustina noticeably glosses over how the drovers fit into all this. Not just by failing to explain the Kosmas' connection to the topic, but also the more general, and unsubstantiated, assertion that "drovers are resented by those who plant".
    Notably, these are both things that Iustina would have reason to not be a reliable narrator about. She won't want to gossip about something that discredited her own mother, and... well, if he's among the Dramatis Personae at all, the most likely candidate to have been that edgy wisecracker at the gates who made the "shepherd" remark is Iustina's own brother Enpudo.

    So part of me says we should talk to the Robledas sooner than later; as bystanders to the drama of fields vs pastures vs vineyards, they're likely to have an informed outsider's perspective on these topics in particular, without getting nasty about the Kosmas.

    (As an aside... the comment about the Kosmas "keeping private counsel with the Gods" sounds like a parallel to Earthside culture and religion. Given their names, there's an obvious guess as to what the equivalent is on our end, but I'll refrain for now from speculating on how deep those parallels go.)

    I'm going to catch up with the other posts in here before trying to turn the above into votes.
     
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Kosmas and Tayeb's family of successful farmers and merchants.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Quinyones and their Auroran and Erandite planter's prejudices.
    [X] [House Investigation] - House Robledas and their eclectic bunch of craftspeople and store owners.

    I eliminate the Molinaro and Cabello households because we've already spoken with them to some extent. Also I am not sure what we'd actually be looking for at their places.

    The Quinyones and Robledas are opportune to get their "side of the story" on some of the issues I mentioned in my previous post. The Kosmas are the only family here called out as vintners in particular, and that seems relevant too.

    Framing it as "investigating them" is regrettable but I don't actually know how to avoid it. Any questioning at all will come across as suspicion, simply by dint of who we are and why we came.

    [X] [Character Interlude] - Ace.
    [X] [Character Interlude] - Hikaru.
    [X] [Character Interlude] - Sekhmet.
    [X] [Character Interlude] - Siobahn.
    My only opinion on character interlude is that we should save Alesha for later. Family drama breaking into scheming and violence comes up a lot in social work; I expect her to have the most useful insights when we have more pieces of the puzzle.

    [X] [Charge Chance] - We're still trying to establish motive. For now, pull at the threads of "origins of the public perception of Jatu's piety" and "why is shepherd an insult that someone would use for Tayeb". Try to get multiple sides of the story that Iustina told us. In fact, try to get multiple sides per family; if there's a lone wolf culprit, they might not tell us the same story that their kin would. When inspecting the fields, find out whose were actually damaged, and more importantly when; Guy Fox knew we were coming, so it's possible the attacks were staggered such that we'd arrive in time to stop the ones that would actually harm the perpetrator.

    Wasn't sure whether the Charge Chance was meant as a more short-term or long-term strategy, so I'll provide a shorter-term one in contrast to @RiparianCryptid's more long-term programme (which seems fairly good).

    Nerdorama said:
    [X] [Charge Chance] Pray to Flamma and offer cat biscuits in exchange for explaining all the answers to us. It works on other alcoholic cat-witches.
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    Given the reference being made here, I'm suddenly wondering how often Flamma gets slivovitz (or umeshu for that matter) as a libation. Probably a rare treat! :grin:
     
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    Qoheleth said:
    Given the reference being made here, I'm suddenly wondering how often Flamma gets slivovitz (or umeshu for that matter) as a libation. Probably a rare treat! :grin:
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    The chances are not zero.

    I don't have much else to add to this save that I think you've misapprehended the conflict folks have with Jatu, but in a way easier to show than to tell.
     
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