@King crimson , quick information question:
Roughly what is the population of Markovia, and where is it? About how large is it, in terms of area or distance from one side of the country to the other? You said "in the Alps, between France and Italy," if I recall rightly, but I'm not sure I do...
Also, about how old is King Viktor? Can you briefly outline what we know about his immediate royal family? That's the kind of basic information we could probably get out of an encyclopedia despite how isolationist Markovia is.
So I'm going to try and test to see how things work with providing links to the winning plans. Please bare with me as I learn how to optimize the process. Because we had to plans with the exact same name I'm assuming that the revised edition is what people wanted since everyone who just voted for the plan title automatically voted for the first option and not the second. In the future please change your plan titles if you change the content of the plans so that the tallying system can register the changes a little more cleanly.
Well, assuming that in future the rules don't change during the vote, that won't be a problem.
In this case, the first version of "Groundwork" was based purely on my intuition, the second on the rules as you laid them out, and the third on the rules as you revised them. As long as I have a consistent ruleset to work from, I for one can stick to a consistent plan. But it's a bit unfair if people who vote early in the process for "Groundwork" when it's poorly adapted to the
real rules that haven't been revealed yet are counted as voting for the ill-adapted plan, instead of the subsequently altered "Groundwork II" or "Groundwork III" plan.
Given that this was the first vote of its kind in the quest, that was probably inevitable. Going forward we can hopefully avoid it- but you may want to consider only announcing rule changes simultaneous with updates, so that the planning and discussion associated with each vote doesn't need to be revised on the fly.
Things have been going rather smoothly so far. You have not gotten in contact with any of the League of Shadows and you haven't seen hide or hair of them. While that is unsettling you could simply be lucky. Roxanne has managed to get in contact with NATO. Roxanne has lied to them about the true nature of what exactly you are doing but she has mentioned that you are a stealth team working on behalf of LexCorp and has managed to let them know you are in the area. NATO forces are not particularly thrilled that you are in the country but they will not kick you out or interfere with your own investigations. However on the other hand they will not actively aid you and intend to retain plausible deniability that they are unaware of your presence. A disappointing response but an expected one.
OK, sounds like Roxanne succeeded but didn't roll high. Pity; we could use their help getting backup.
@King crimson , we're rolling d100s here, right? I figured we were given the scale of the bonuses we get from various mook numbers.
Mercy has had a far better time however. She has taken your men and promptly infiltrated a Markovian Military outpost. She promptly stole multiple uniforms from NATO and Jeeps from the Markovian military. As such you will now be able to cleanly leave the country by diguising yourselves as a different set of armed foreigners that the Markovians will freely let through their borders. The deception is clean and provides you a safe way out of the country even if it could potentially leave a trace back to you if both NATO and the Markovian military collaborated together to check for accounting discrepancies. However the likelihood of being discovered is next to nothing as it is a rather small clerical error they'd have to check for which would likely occur even without your presence.
Hmmmm... that sounds... kiiind of like wishful thinking. On the other hand, it
is a good escape route as long as we can keep those Markovian military jeeps concealed, fueled, and not found by any Markovian military personnel who come looking for them.
The uniforms are relatively easy to hide, especially since NATO's own refusal to work with us means they don't know
where we're hiding them.
The search in the city had not been the most successful. Your men have managed to blend in but the people who live in Markovia's capital have little information to give you. Your men have primarily been asking if the people are aware of any sources of unusual technology. They have gotten next to no information. However there have been two individuals named who could potentially be related to the issue at hand. Bito Wladon, a revolutionary is mentioned to have recently acquired a stockpile of advanced weaponry. His exact location is unknown but he would seem to be the most obvious match for advanced technology. The second individual with advanced technology is General Karnz. General Karnz is a close ally of Baron Delamb, the brother in law of King Viktor Markov. You could probably check in on both of those individuals if you wanted to truly figure out what is going on. However you do not have a lead on either of the two men nor do you have confirmation that they are working with Intergang.
HmmmMM.
In comic canon, Wladon is a gadget-using terrorist/separatist, with some minor variations. In the DCAU he's a bit character who develops or helps develop mind control chips. In both iterations, he's a gadgeteer, so it's quite possible that he's designed
his own advanced weaponry... but he'd also surely be happy to use whatever he could beg, borrow, or steal from Intergang or other sources.
In pre-Crisis continuity, General Karnz is an ex-Nazi and weapon collector; not finding any other iterations of him. In comic canon, Frederick DeLamb, AKA "Baron Bedlam," had Nazi ties of his own and hired Karnz as a mercenary, and has designs on the Markovian throne. He, too, would be happy to use advanced technology... and would be less likely to have access to much ultratech of his own unless he has a gifted mad scientist or three on payroll. "Former Nazi scientist" is still a remotely plausible explanation for where he gets the talent in the mid-1990s though without life extension such scientists would be getting on in years.
By intercepting calls you have managed to find quite the boon. While Whisper seems to have gone completely dark as soon as the news announced that there would be an investigation of Markovia for members of Intergang who are potentially in hiding there she did make a last call to Bruno Manneheim indicating that they need to switch to more secure channels. While this is unfortunate it confirms that Whisper was in the country and she was actively attempting to hide her location.
Excellent. She's in-country, or was recently. Trouble is, she'd say "we need to switch to secure channels" anyway.
@King crimson , was there any indication of whether A'Daire thought her physical location was secure, or what kind of searches she was trying to avoid? She might have said different things to Mannheim depending on whether she's holed up in the royal palace, in some warlord's compound, or in a secret hideout where she's trying to hide from the Markovian authorities and not just NATO.
Do we have any more clues? Guessing 'no,' but I wanted to ask.
The real boon though came from an intercepted call between Baron Delamb and the king. In the intercepted call, King Viktor accuses Baron Delamb of keeping secrets from him and stated that his constant meetings with foreigners are what have forced the investigation by NATO forces. He also mentions that he disapproves of the experiments the Baron is conducting with some unnamed woman and that if it wasn't for his wife's kindness Delamb would be exiled. While this is not confirmation of involvement with Intergang it is interesting that Delamb is both meeting with foreigners and conducting experiments with some unknown woman.
Ah-HAH.
This indicates that a vaguely canon-shaped situation exists between DeLamb (Baron Bedlam
) and King Viktor.
I have a strong suspicion that DeLamb's experiments do NOT have to do with A'Daire directly, but with
Dr. Jace or some unknown figure (outside possibility that he's hired Dr. Poison now that we
didn't). This is mainly because A'Daire has a high science far beyond anything DeLamb could help him with, except perhaps by providing victims for human testing. I would like to think, though, that if Baron Bedlam was abducting his subjects to test some terror weapon of A'Daire's, King Viktor would exile him no matter what, brother-in-law or not.
However, since we
know that NATO is here to look for Intergang, and we know
King Viktor knows that, Viktor's allegations are pretty strong evidence that Bedlam has probably been having dealings with Intergang.
Probably. That doesn't mean Wladon
hasn't, but it's still relevant.
[ ] [Lead] Search covertly for the League of Shadows
[ ] [Lead] Contact Ra's al Ghul
HmmMMM. The problem here is that we know Ra's al Ghul is likely to covet the doomsday device himself. We don't know what assets he can bring to bear, but it's quite likely that he'll try to use us for information (a repetition of our former terms of alliance), then sell us out to the Markovians if we look like we might grab the prize out from under him. On the other hand,
he is hopefully unaware of
our presence in-country, if only because he wasn't specifically looking for us. We don't know that, but this should probably not be our priority, especially since we don't really have a clear idea of how to find him.
[ ] [Lead] Investigate King Viktor Markov and the Royal Family
I think this is counterproductive, though I may be wrong.
[ ] [Lead] Investigate Baron Delamb
[ ] [Lead] Investigate General Karnz
I think this is a good line of activity.
[ ] [Lead] Bito Wladon
Wladon is, my intution says,
NOT our guy... but making contact with him might be useful. He's a potential local ally, since we have no love for the monarchy. And we could quite possibly use his tech even if he's not Intergang.
[ ] [Lead] Search the countryside
Hmmm, bad idea. NATO is more likely to be combing the countryside, and they have more manpower and can move openly. If A'Daire relocates to another country, we'll have to try to track her down some other way (maybe we can use Cerise's tracking spell again). Plus, we'd be sending at most a few dozen people to search a pretty substantial chunk of real estate that is unfamiliar to us.
[ ] [Lead] Continue to ensure your escape route is secure
This is obviously a good idea, but I don't think we can spare a hero unit on it this turn, sadly.
HmmmMM.
