You are Benedict Wallis, the last scion of House Wallis. Your house is one of the oldest within...
Nightfall - Fantasy Superhero Quest
- Thread starter Oshha
- Start date
- Original Fantasy Superhero
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 25
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 15
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Statistics (12 threadmarks, 17k words)
User Total Oshha 12 -
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Origin
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You are Benedict Wallis, the last scion of House Wallis. Your house is one of the oldest within the current nobility of Dusk City as they kept their titles and holdings after the Solaris Imperium conquered the city from the Forthwich in the 11th Crusade. Despite this, your house is weak, having been one of those that suffered greatly in the Blood Plague that haunted your youth.
It left you the only survivor of your family as by the time you were ten, your parents, your little sister, your uncle and your grandparents had all died to the vampires, leaving you in the care of Avitian, your family's lawyer and childhood friend of your great-grandfather, the founder of House Wallis.
He looked after you well, teaching you about business and politics, focusing on practical matters over the traditional affairs of nobles that had weaken greatly in the Blood Plague. Of course, it does occur to you in hindsight that You know how to run the family businesses and you know how to hold your own in the cut-throat politics of Dusk City.
He also taught you how to fight so you wouldn't go down as easily as the rest of your family had. Whereas your grandparents and parents were proper nobles who relied on bodyguards to protect them, you could more than hold your own in a fight, easily capable of taking on trained combatants. Even non-humans like Orcs, Elves and Dwarfs are within your ability to defeat.
Which is good because your city is rotten and dirty and you intend to clean it up.
Dusk City has never been a pretty place, not for centuries at least. Positioned on the southern end point of the Grand Ridge, Dusk City is located between the borders of lands worshipping the High Pantheon and the Elder Lords, putting it on the frontlines between the two. Traditionally, Dusk City has been ruled by followers of the Elder Lords, but a few crusades have been it change hands temporarily before reconquest or rebellion has returned to servants of the Elder Lords.
Right now, it is ruled by High Pantheon-worshipping Solaris Imperium and between the rising power of the Solarians, the decline of the Kingdom of Forthwich and the Blood Plague devastating the world, Dusk City might permanent change plans. And the half of the populace which pay tribute to the Elder Lords don't like that.
Beyond the religious troubles that plague Dusk City, you also got the high crime rates. With the constant back and forth conquests and general hostility amongst the populace towards each other and whoever is in charge at any one point, a lack of authority and respect for it has resulted in more and more finding crime to be an acceptable course of action. It doesn't help that Dusk City is a major smuggling port for getting goods from Elder Lord lands into High Pantheon lands and vice versa.
So yeah, religious troubles and crime running wild.
To top it all off, you got the authority that nobody has any respect for and unfortunately, those authorities don't deserve any respect. The city militia is corrupt as is the city guard as the two butt heads for more power and authority while the nobility is corrupt, engaging in petty power struggles and one-upmanship at the expense of the power they are supposed to be protection. The burghers are little better for the most part as the majority of them are willingly to do whatever it takes for them to get ahead and make some extra profit.
So corrupt authorities, religious tension with a brewing insurrection and rampant crime. Dusk City is something of a hellhole minus all of the demons and searing heat. But it is your hellhole and you are not about to let it become a bastion of evil if you have any say in the matter.
You feel a little silly as you finally put on the armour, but you have decided on this course of action and you are going to stick to it.
Nothing you wear is normal except for the knuckledusters that rest in your hands. You wear light black armour outlined with dark blue while you also have a pair of gauntlets on, each one with a grappling hooks of your own design built into it. Your belt contains an assortment of items for you to use in battle, bolas for capturing or restraining foes, boomerangs knocking them out and smoke bombs to conceal yourself in case you need to get out of sight.
While the knuckledusters, bolas and boomerangs aren't new inventions, the grappling gauntlets and the smokebombs are the product of your own genius. You haven't heard of anyone else performing the same achievement without having to resort to magic or alchemy.
Now you have finished dressing up, you are going to do the silly thing and go out and illegally fight crime, concealing your identity and calling yourself the 'Night'.
It sounds silly even though it makes sense. You can't legally deal with the city's problems as pretty every other authority in it will try to stop you. You are the head of an important and decently well off noble house, but you are barely an adult and you haven't have time to build up political capital to make any sweeping changes. The other nobles will block any attempt to interfere with their little games and that makes making sure that the city doesn't improve lest their dirty deeds get uncovered.
You have the same problem with the city militia and the city guard as all of their leadership and most of the grunts on the street are corrupt. They are pretty much in bed with the criminals they are supposed to be stopping these days and they won't want to risk the losing the luxuries of the corrupt life and gaining the penalties of brought to justice for their misdeeds.
As for the criminals themselves? You can't touch them without the support of the city militia or the city guard. Any attempts to take them on as Benedict Wallis will fail without widespread support from the legitimate authorities.
And then you have the religious tensions. Frankly, you are unsure of what to do in this situation. You are nominally a follower of the High Pantheon like all of your family as your great-grandparents converted from worship of the Ancient Ones to the High Pantheon when Dusk City was conquered in the 10th Crusade. Yet you don't particularly care about the religions and deities of your world. Oh, you don't deny that they exist and the power that they wield is definitely real and almighty, but what do you care about all that? They haven't done anything for Dusk City beyond cause trouble and they certainly weren't there for your family when they all got killed by Vampires.
You only support the High Pantheon because Dusk City is ruled by the Solaris Imperium. It would be political and literal suicide for any legal authority figure to not do. The only authorities that dare to openly worships the Elder Lords are criminal leaders in the underworld of the city.
That said, if you have to choose between the High Pantheon and the Elder Lords, you would still choose the former as for all their flaws and those of their followers, the High Pantheon can still claim the virtue of being lesser arseholes than the Elder Lords and their followers.
But you are getting off topic. The religious tensions of Dusk City are something that Benedict Wallis can handle. You just need to crush the Elder Lords. While they make up half of the populace, they lack any official support and all of the authorities are High Pantheon supporters. The Elder Lord followers also won't be receiving any outside support as the Kingdom of Forthwich is still reeling from the 11th Crusade and the Blood Plague while the other Elder Lord countries are too distance. On the other side, the Solaris Imperium is at the height of its power and while they are looking internally right now, there are several powerful factions which would happily devote resources to driving out Elder Lord presence from a Solarian city.
You just need to get yourself involved in the politics of the Dusk City's leadership, making the right friends and allies, schmoozing to the right people in power and building up a power base. You would need to impose strict and unjust laws and policies to cut back on the power of any Elder Lord followers and slowly thin their numbers. Back proxy criminal groups to counter and oppose the Elder Lord influence in the underworld. Maybe provoke a rebellion or two when there are Solarian military forces on hand to crush them so you can have an excuse to get rid of them in large amounts. It would take maybe two or three decades to cripple the Elder Lord worship in the city, reducing them to a minority in the city they once dominated.
It would only require you to toss aside everything you believe and become one of the very monsters you seek to fight and bring to justice. It is not an option.
So you will dress up as a warrior and use a false identity as you inflict extralegal justice on the criminals of Dusk City. Perhaps Lady Myrtle is right and you are insane. In the end, it doesn't really matter. You have made your choice and you are going to stick with it. Right now, you need to decide what your action outing will be.
You could go after the Stone Crew. A prominent criminal gang led by the Orc crime lord Runestone, it is one of the more active and dangerous groups in the criminal underworld. Going after them would definitely help the city, but it would certainly be dangerous and perhaps not a group to go after until you got some more experience.
Other potential targets include the Chosen Men or the Last Servants. Both are ideological motivated criminal groups with the latter being the main Elder Lord organisation in the city while the former are High Pantheon human supremacists who have been becoming increasingly powerful as the Solaris Imperium strengthens its grip on Dusk City. Both are decent targets, but numerous and within certain areas of the city, powerful and dangerous. You would also be getting involved in the religious turmoils of the city. Maybe you ought to leave them alone until you have gotten a chance to research each group's beliefs and their respective religions.
Beyond that, you got the Bronze Thorns. Last of an organisation on its own and more a collection of several smaller organisations, the Bronze Thorns stalk the poor parts of town, claiming neighbourhoods of the poor as their own and generally committing crimes as they put up a united front against the other gangs. They easily one of the weakest threats in the city and disrupting their operations would help some of the poorer communities.
Finally, you could just patrol the city and tackle whatever crime you come across as a sad fact of life in Dusk City is that if you go looking for crime, you can fight it pretty easily. While you hope to change that with time, it is currently a viable option to just walk about the city at night if you wish to put an end to some criminal activity.
[] The Stone Crew. While dangerous, taking on the Stone Crew would definitely make an impact if you are successful. If you are successful, which is no guarantee. The Stone Crew is one of the biggest players in the city for a reason. High Reward, but High Risk.
[] The Chosen Men. The local human and High Pantheon supremacists, they should be an acceptable target if the city wasn't ruled by followers of the High Pantheon and its population made up of mostly humans. Taking them on should be doable, but it means getting involved in matters that you ought to research first.
[] The Last Servants. The largest, but also the most disorganised gang in the city, the Last Servants is the name for the collection of Elder Lord worshipping groups in the city. While numerous, their disorganised and mundane nature means that you should be capable handling whatever they have to throw at you. The only problem is that you will effectively be picking a side in matters that you ought to research first.
[] The Bronze Thorns. The Bronze Thorns are weak if numerous gang and should be easy pickings. They don't have anything that could propose as a true threat to you and you could free some poor neighbourhoods from their grasp. The only downside is that the same weakness makes them easy to beat also means that you are unlikely to make a major different to the city.
[] Patrol the Streets. A sad fact of life in Dusk City is that one can walk about the city and find some crime sooner or later and more often than not, it is sooner. You could get some real world experience at your chosen hobby and make a bit of a name for yourself, but you are unlikely to make a significant impact.
It left you the only survivor of your family as by the time you were ten, your parents, your little sister, your uncle and your grandparents had all died to the vampires, leaving you in the care of Avitian, your family's lawyer and childhood friend of your great-grandfather, the founder of House Wallis.
He looked after you well, teaching you about business and politics, focusing on practical matters over the traditional affairs of nobles that had weaken greatly in the Blood Plague. Of course, it does occur to you in hindsight that You know how to run the family businesses and you know how to hold your own in the cut-throat politics of Dusk City.
He also taught you how to fight so you wouldn't go down as easily as the rest of your family had. Whereas your grandparents and parents were proper nobles who relied on bodyguards to protect them, you could more than hold your own in a fight, easily capable of taking on trained combatants. Even non-humans like Orcs, Elves and Dwarfs are within your ability to defeat.
Which is good because your city is rotten and dirty and you intend to clean it up.
Dusk City has never been a pretty place, not for centuries at least. Positioned on the southern end point of the Grand Ridge, Dusk City is located between the borders of lands worshipping the High Pantheon and the Elder Lords, putting it on the frontlines between the two. Traditionally, Dusk City has been ruled by followers of the Elder Lords, but a few crusades have been it change hands temporarily before reconquest or rebellion has returned to servants of the Elder Lords.
Right now, it is ruled by High Pantheon-worshipping Solaris Imperium and between the rising power of the Solarians, the decline of the Kingdom of Forthwich and the Blood Plague devastating the world, Dusk City might permanent change plans. And the half of the populace which pay tribute to the Elder Lords don't like that.
Beyond the religious troubles that plague Dusk City, you also got the high crime rates. With the constant back and forth conquests and general hostility amongst the populace towards each other and whoever is in charge at any one point, a lack of authority and respect for it has resulted in more and more finding crime to be an acceptable course of action. It doesn't help that Dusk City is a major smuggling port for getting goods from Elder Lord lands into High Pantheon lands and vice versa.
So yeah, religious troubles and crime running wild.
To top it all off, you got the authority that nobody has any respect for and unfortunately, those authorities don't deserve any respect. The city militia is corrupt as is the city guard as the two butt heads for more power and authority while the nobility is corrupt, engaging in petty power struggles and one-upmanship at the expense of the power they are supposed to be protection. The burghers are little better for the most part as the majority of them are willingly to do whatever it takes for them to get ahead and make some extra profit.
So corrupt authorities, religious tension with a brewing insurrection and rampant crime. Dusk City is something of a hellhole minus all of the demons and searing heat. But it is your hellhole and you are not about to let it become a bastion of evil if you have any say in the matter.
***
You feel a little silly as you finally put on the armour, but you have decided on this course of action and you are going to stick to it.
Nothing you wear is normal except for the knuckledusters that rest in your hands. You wear light black armour outlined with dark blue while you also have a pair of gauntlets on, each one with a grappling hooks of your own design built into it. Your belt contains an assortment of items for you to use in battle, bolas for capturing or restraining foes, boomerangs knocking them out and smoke bombs to conceal yourself in case you need to get out of sight.
While the knuckledusters, bolas and boomerangs aren't new inventions, the grappling gauntlets and the smokebombs are the product of your own genius. You haven't heard of anyone else performing the same achievement without having to resort to magic or alchemy.
Now you have finished dressing up, you are going to do the silly thing and go out and illegally fight crime, concealing your identity and calling yourself the 'Night'.
It sounds silly even though it makes sense. You can't legally deal with the city's problems as pretty every other authority in it will try to stop you. You are the head of an important and decently well off noble house, but you are barely an adult and you haven't have time to build up political capital to make any sweeping changes. The other nobles will block any attempt to interfere with their little games and that makes making sure that the city doesn't improve lest their dirty deeds get uncovered.
You have the same problem with the city militia and the city guard as all of their leadership and most of the grunts on the street are corrupt. They are pretty much in bed with the criminals they are supposed to be stopping these days and they won't want to risk the losing the luxuries of the corrupt life and gaining the penalties of brought to justice for their misdeeds.
As for the criminals themselves? You can't touch them without the support of the city militia or the city guard. Any attempts to take them on as Benedict Wallis will fail without widespread support from the legitimate authorities.
And then you have the religious tensions. Frankly, you are unsure of what to do in this situation. You are nominally a follower of the High Pantheon like all of your family as your great-grandparents converted from worship of the Ancient Ones to the High Pantheon when Dusk City was conquered in the 10th Crusade. Yet you don't particularly care about the religions and deities of your world. Oh, you don't deny that they exist and the power that they wield is definitely real and almighty, but what do you care about all that? They haven't done anything for Dusk City beyond cause trouble and they certainly weren't there for your family when they all got killed by Vampires.
You only support the High Pantheon because Dusk City is ruled by the Solaris Imperium. It would be political and literal suicide for any legal authority figure to not do. The only authorities that dare to openly worships the Elder Lords are criminal leaders in the underworld of the city.
That said, if you have to choose between the High Pantheon and the Elder Lords, you would still choose the former as for all their flaws and those of their followers, the High Pantheon can still claim the virtue of being lesser arseholes than the Elder Lords and their followers.
But you are getting off topic. The religious tensions of Dusk City are something that Benedict Wallis can handle. You just need to crush the Elder Lords. While they make up half of the populace, they lack any official support and all of the authorities are High Pantheon supporters. The Elder Lord followers also won't be receiving any outside support as the Kingdom of Forthwich is still reeling from the 11th Crusade and the Blood Plague while the other Elder Lord countries are too distance. On the other side, the Solaris Imperium is at the height of its power and while they are looking internally right now, there are several powerful factions which would happily devote resources to driving out Elder Lord presence from a Solarian city.
You just need to get yourself involved in the politics of the Dusk City's leadership, making the right friends and allies, schmoozing to the right people in power and building up a power base. You would need to impose strict and unjust laws and policies to cut back on the power of any Elder Lord followers and slowly thin their numbers. Back proxy criminal groups to counter and oppose the Elder Lord influence in the underworld. Maybe provoke a rebellion or two when there are Solarian military forces on hand to crush them so you can have an excuse to get rid of them in large amounts. It would take maybe two or three decades to cripple the Elder Lord worship in the city, reducing them to a minority in the city they once dominated.
It would only require you to toss aside everything you believe and become one of the very monsters you seek to fight and bring to justice. It is not an option.
So you will dress up as a warrior and use a false identity as you inflict extralegal justice on the criminals of Dusk City. Perhaps Lady Myrtle is right and you are insane. In the end, it doesn't really matter. You have made your choice and you are going to stick with it. Right now, you need to decide what your action outing will be.
You could go after the Stone Crew. A prominent criminal gang led by the Orc crime lord Runestone, it is one of the more active and dangerous groups in the criminal underworld. Going after them would definitely help the city, but it would certainly be dangerous and perhaps not a group to go after until you got some more experience.
Other potential targets include the Chosen Men or the Last Servants. Both are ideological motivated criminal groups with the latter being the main Elder Lord organisation in the city while the former are High Pantheon human supremacists who have been becoming increasingly powerful as the Solaris Imperium strengthens its grip on Dusk City. Both are decent targets, but numerous and within certain areas of the city, powerful and dangerous. You would also be getting involved in the religious turmoils of the city. Maybe you ought to leave them alone until you have gotten a chance to research each group's beliefs and their respective religions.
Beyond that, you got the Bronze Thorns. Last of an organisation on its own and more a collection of several smaller organisations, the Bronze Thorns stalk the poor parts of town, claiming neighbourhoods of the poor as their own and generally committing crimes as they put up a united front against the other gangs. They easily one of the weakest threats in the city and disrupting their operations would help some of the poorer communities.
Finally, you could just patrol the city and tackle whatever crime you come across as a sad fact of life in Dusk City is that if you go looking for crime, you can fight it pretty easily. While you hope to change that with time, it is currently a viable option to just walk about the city at night if you wish to put an end to some criminal activity.
[] The Stone Crew. While dangerous, taking on the Stone Crew would definitely make an impact if you are successful. If you are successful, which is no guarantee. The Stone Crew is one of the biggest players in the city for a reason. High Reward, but High Risk.
[] The Chosen Men. The local human and High Pantheon supremacists, they should be an acceptable target if the city wasn't ruled by followers of the High Pantheon and its population made up of mostly humans. Taking them on should be doable, but it means getting involved in matters that you ought to research first.
[] The Last Servants. The largest, but also the most disorganised gang in the city, the Last Servants is the name for the collection of Elder Lord worshipping groups in the city. While numerous, their disorganised and mundane nature means that you should be capable handling whatever they have to throw at you. The only problem is that you will effectively be picking a side in matters that you ought to research first.
[] The Bronze Thorns. The Bronze Thorns are weak if numerous gang and should be easy pickings. They don't have anything that could propose as a true threat to you and you could free some poor neighbourhoods from their grasp. The only downside is that the same weakness makes them easy to beat also means that you are unlikely to make a major different to the city.
[] Patrol the Streets. A sad fact of life in Dusk City is that one can walk about the city and find some crime sooner or later and more often than not, it is sooner. You could get some real world experience at your chosen hobby and make a bit of a name for yourself, but you are unlikely to make a significant impact.
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Characters
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Player Character
Dusk City
Known Heroes
Known Villains
Known Civilians
Solaris Imperium
Known Heroes
Known Villains
Known Civilians
The World
Known Deities
Known Heroes
Known Villains
Known Civilians
Night
Name: Benedict Wallis
Age: Male
Gender: 18
PL8
Powers
5/Implacable Determination (Talent): Immunity (Interaction Skills),
4/Genius Mind (Talent): Quickness 3 (Limited to Mathematics), Quickness 2 (Limited to Mental Tasks), Quickness 3 (Limited to Designing), Feature (+5 bonus to resist Mental Attacks),
1/Walk It Off (Talent): Regeneration 1 (1 per 10 Rounds),
Abilities
Strength: 4
Stamina: 4
Agility: 4
Dexterity: 4
Fighting: 4
Intellect: 8
Awareness: 4
Presence: 4
Defences
Dodge: 8
Fortitude: 6
Parry: 8
Toughness: 4 (6)
Will: 13
Attacks
Initiative +4
Unarmed +8: Close, Damage 5
Boomerangs +9: Ranged Damage 7, Critical 16-20, Subtle,
Bolas +8: DC14, Resisted by Dodge and then by either Damage/Sleight of Hand,
Smoke Bombs +8:
Skills
Acrobatics 6 (10)
Athletics 6 (10)
Close Combat: Unarmed 4 (8)
Deception 3 (7)
Expertise: Business 2 (10)
Expertise: Crime 2 (10)
Expertise: Politics 2 (10)
Expertise: Magic 1 (9)
Insight 4 (8)
Intimidation 3 (7)
Investigation 3 (11)
Perception 4 (8)
Persuasion 3 (7)
Ranged Combat: Throwing 3 (7)
Sleight of Hand 2 (6)
Stealth 8 (12)
Technology 2 (10)
Treatment 2 (10)
Vehicles 2 (10)
Advantages
Accurate Attack:
Assessment:
Benefit (Ambidextrous):
Benefit II (Independently Wealthy):
Benefit II (Important Local Nobility):
Benefit (Family Lawyer):
Diehard:
Eidetic Memory:
Equipment IV:
Evasion II:
Favoured Environment (Urban):
Fearless:
Great Endurance:
Hide In Plain Sight:
Improved Defence:
Improvised Tools:
Improvised Weapons:
Inventor:
Jack-Of-All-Trades:
Luck IV:
Power Attack:
Takedown:
Tracking:
Uncanny Dodge:
Equipment
1/Brass-Knuckles: +1 Damage to Unarmed Attacks,
2/Armoured Costume: Protection 2
2/Grapple Gauntlets: Movement (Swinging)
15/Utility Belt: 12 Point Array with 3 Alternative Effects.
-Bolas: Snare 4 (Resisted by Dodge; Hindered and Vulnerable, Defenceless and Immobilized)
-Boomerangs: Ranged Strength-based Damage 3, Accurate 1, Subtle, Critical 16-20
-Smoke Bombs: Ranged Concealment Attack, (Normal Vision, Cloud Area 2 [16-Metre radius]), Subtle,
Name: Benedict Wallis
Age: Male
Gender: 18
PL8
Powers
5/Implacable Determination (Talent): Immunity (Interaction Skills),
4/Genius Mind (Talent): Quickness 3 (Limited to Mathematics), Quickness 2 (Limited to Mental Tasks), Quickness 3 (Limited to Designing), Feature (+5 bonus to resist Mental Attacks),
1/Walk It Off (Talent): Regeneration 1 (1 per 10 Rounds),
Abilities
Strength: 4
Stamina: 4
Agility: 4
Dexterity: 4
Fighting: 4
Intellect: 8
Awareness: 4
Presence: 4
Defences
Dodge: 8
Fortitude: 6
Parry: 8
Toughness: 4 (6)
Will: 13
Attacks
Initiative +4
Unarmed +8: Close, Damage 5
Boomerangs +9: Ranged Damage 7, Critical 16-20, Subtle,
Bolas +8: DC14, Resisted by Dodge and then by either Damage/Sleight of Hand,
Smoke Bombs +8:
Skills
Acrobatics 6 (10)
Athletics 6 (10)
Close Combat: Unarmed 4 (8)
Deception 3 (7)
Expertise: Business 2 (10)
Expertise: Crime 2 (10)
Expertise: Politics 2 (10)
Expertise: Magic 1 (9)
Insight 4 (8)
Intimidation 3 (7)
Investigation 3 (11)
Perception 4 (8)
Persuasion 3 (7)
Ranged Combat: Throwing 3 (7)
Sleight of Hand 2 (6)
Stealth 8 (12)
Technology 2 (10)
Treatment 2 (10)
Vehicles 2 (10)
Advantages
Accurate Attack:
Assessment:
Benefit (Ambidextrous):
Benefit II (Independently Wealthy):
Benefit II (Important Local Nobility):
Benefit (Family Lawyer):
Diehard:
Eidetic Memory:
Equipment IV:
Evasion II:
Favoured Environment (Urban):
Fearless:
Great Endurance:
Hide In Plain Sight:
Improved Defence:
Improvised Tools:
Improvised Weapons:
Inventor:
Jack-Of-All-Trades:
Luck IV:
Power Attack:
Takedown:
Tracking:
Uncanny Dodge:
Equipment
1/Brass-Knuckles: +1 Damage to Unarmed Attacks,
2/Armoured Costume: Protection 2
2/Grapple Gauntlets: Movement (Swinging)
15/Utility Belt: 12 Point Array with 3 Alternative Effects.
-Bolas: Snare 4 (Resisted by Dodge; Hindered and Vulnerable, Defenceless and Immobilized)
-Boomerangs: Ranged Strength-based Damage 3, Accurate 1, Subtle, Critical 16-20
-Smoke Bombs: Ranged Concealment Attack, (Normal Vision, Cloud Area 2 [16-Metre radius]), Subtle,
Dusk City
Known Heroes
Known Villains
Captain Hargrove is a corrupt captain of the Dusk City Milita.
Albert Sparkle is a neighbour gang leader within the Bronze Thorns and one of the Night's first targets.
Known Civilians
Grandfather of Benedict Wallis and founder of House Wallis. Migrated from the Kingdom of Wyr to Dusk City. Died in the Blood Plague.
Wife of Gareth Wallis and grandmother of Benedict Wallis. Died in the Blood Plague.
Elder Son of Gareth and Isolde Wallis and father of Benedict Wallis. Died in the Blood Plague.
Wife of Tristan Wallis and mother of Benedict Wallis. Died in the Blood Plague.
Younger Son of Gareth and Isolde Wallis and uncle of Benedict Wallis. Died in the Blood Plague.
Current head of House Wallis and sole survivor of the family during the Blood Plague. Currently operates the Dust City vigilante known as the Night.
Young sister of Benedict Wallis by two years. Died in the Blood Plague.
Childhood friend of House Wallis founder and the family lawyer of House Wallis. Raised Benedict Wallis after his family was slain in the Blood Plague and now supports him as in his ventures as both the head of House Wallis and the vigilante known at the Night.
Current head of House Cadwell and father of Francis Cadwell and Maria Cadwell.
Wife of Lord Cadwell and mother of Francis Cadwell and Maria Cadwell.
Son of Lord Cadwell and Lady Cadwell and is the current heir to House Cadwell.
Daughter of Lord Cadwell and Lady Cadwell and younger sister of Francis Cadwell.
Solaris Imperium
Known Heroes
Known Villains
Known Civilians
The World
Known Deities
Known Heroes
Known Villains
Known Civilians
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Reserved
The First Night I
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] The Bronze Thorns. The Bronze Thorns are weak if numerous gang and should be easy pickings. They don't have anything that could propose as a true threat to you and you could free some poor neighbourhoods from their grasp. The only downside is that the same weakness makes them easy to beat also means that you are unlikely to make a major different to the city.
You decide to go for some of the smaller targets. Sure you won't be making any big impacts, but you are just starting it out and playing things safe is probably the wiser option until you got some experience under your belt.
You decided to go for the Bronze Thorns. While they are one of the weaker gangs, their presence is still harmful to Dusk City and that is unacceptable.
It doesn't take long for you to find some suitable targets as like most criminals these days, the Bronze Thorns don't bother being subtle in their illegal activities. As helpful as it is for you this night, you find it frustrating that criminal organisations can operate so openly without consequence.
Until tonight that is.
It is something of a journey across the city before you each Bronze Thorn territory as you live in one of the richer districts built up against the mountains of the Great Ridge while the Bronze Thorns tend to control lands on the other side of town in the poor districts.
Once you arrived in one of the neighbours that the Bronze Thorns openly claim, it doesn't take long to find a patrol of Bronze Thorns. There is four of them in total and they brazenly stride down the street in the green and copper colours of the Bronze Thorns.
Moving cross the rooftop, you prepare to strike. But as you draw your boomerang, one of the louts below look up and see you just before you make your move. You throw your creation at the thug, but it is too late for the man has already managed to get a warning off for his fellows.
You throw a boomerang, knocking out the thug with a direct hit even as you draw a second to throw. Even as the first thug falls, your second boomerang makes contact with the head of the second thug, the impact of the blow knocking the man out cold as he collapses in the street.
The third boomerang isn't so lucky as while you strike the man in the arm, your foe just withstands the attack with a painful grunt, but no worse for the wear. With two of your foes down, you leap down from the roof tops catching the first two boomerangs in mid-air as they return.
Landing in a crouch, you come to your feet in time to see both of the remaining thugs coming at you with their swords drawn. You prepare to defence against the first one, but you are barely about to parry in time and the man leaves a nasty tear in your costume even if he doesn't draw blood. Still reeling from the first attack, you manage to deflect the attack from the second man, knocking the man to one side and sending him stumbling past you.
"You are going to pay for this you moron!" cries the man as he draws his swords back for another swing.
You reply not with words, but with a punch of your own into the thug that cut you, your fist slamming into his face and sending the man flying backwards. With that one dealt with, you spin around to deal with the last one, bringing a chop down on the back of his head before he can turn to face you again. Grunting in pain, he drops to his knees before toppling over to the side.
Looking around, you grin at the sight of all four thugs being taken out. Sure you almost got hurt, but these guys don't get to do about their business uncontested any longer.
Counting the time in your head, you decide that you got enough left in the night to seek out more Bronze Thorns to take care of.
It doesn't take you long to come across a robbery in progress as two thugs break into some peasant's home. You can't imagine what would be worth stealing in there, but it is, the rightful owners are definitely not rich enough to afford losing it and you would oppose theft out of principle.
You drop down and make your way into the building, preparing to sneak up on the closest of the two thugs. Just as you are about to get the drop on the first thug, you hear a voice shout out.
"Carl! Behind ya!" shouts the second thug as he rushes you from behind with a mace in head.
You easily dodge the blow with a sidestep before taking the man out with a punch. The man goes down without ever landing a hit on you. Unfortunately, he was able to alert his fellow to your presence.
"You're going to pay for that punk!" declares the remaining thug, Carl, as he draws his sword and charges you.
He swings at you and despite your best efforts, he manages to connect his weapon with your body. Thankfully, your costume is able to take the blade's strike and you are left unharmed.
Swinging a fist in return, you realise too late that Carl has already move, leaving your punch to only hit empty space. While you are caught off-guard, Carl takes the opportunity to attack you, his sword slashing you across your chest.
Thankfully, your costume is able to absorb most of the blow and the hit leaves you dazed even if you are pretty much unharmed. Reeling from the blow, you don't have the time or concentration to properly react. Instead of continuing to engage in fisticuffs, your hand goes down to your belt and you throw a set of bolas at Carl, hoping to disable the thug.
Despite the fact you are still recovering, you managed to get a hit on the man, only to have Carl smack it aside before it can properly settle on him. The thug stabs at you with his blade, but you are prepared and easily parry the blow as you switch to a defensive method of fighting.
Unleashing a kick, you managed to drive Carl back even if you fail to land a hit. Carl swings his sword at you and you dodge it, letting it fly over your head. Not letting the thug get another hit on you, you punch him in the face, sending Carl tumbling backwards into a wall with a broken nose and what is probably a broken jaw.
Letting out a sigh, you search both criminals, removing any valuables on them and placing them in a nearby basket. A few minutes latter and both of the robbers have been dumped in the street, still out cold.
You probably have time to take on another group of Bronze Thorns or you could just call it a night. You have already taken out six Bronze Thorns and stopped a house from being robbed and your costume has taken a pretty good beating. Combined with a pair of close calls and the tough fight that Carl put up, you might be pressing your luck if you continue.
[] Continue your hunt. You won a couple of fights, stopped a robbery and beat up half a dozen thugs. Surely you can spend a bit more time adding more achievements to that list.
[] Call it a night. You won a couple of fights, stopped a robbery and beat up half a dozen thugs. You shouldn't push your luck and should just call it a night and head home.
[] Write-in.
You decide to go for some of the smaller targets. Sure you won't be making any big impacts, but you are just starting it out and playing things safe is probably the wiser option until you got some experience under your belt.
You decided to go for the Bronze Thorns. While they are one of the weaker gangs, their presence is still harmful to Dusk City and that is unacceptable.
It doesn't take long for you to find some suitable targets as like most criminals these days, the Bronze Thorns don't bother being subtle in their illegal activities. As helpful as it is for you this night, you find it frustrating that criminal organisations can operate so openly without consequence.
Until tonight that is.
It is something of a journey across the city before you each Bronze Thorn territory as you live in one of the richer districts built up against the mountains of the Great Ridge while the Bronze Thorns tend to control lands on the other side of town in the poor districts.
Once you arrived in one of the neighbours that the Bronze Thorns openly claim, it doesn't take long to find a patrol of Bronze Thorns. There is four of them in total and they brazenly stride down the street in the green and copper colours of the Bronze Thorns.
Moving cross the rooftop, you prepare to strike. But as you draw your boomerang, one of the louts below look up and see you just before you make your move. You throw your creation at the thug, but it is too late for the man has already managed to get a warning off for his fellows.
You throw a boomerang, knocking out the thug with a direct hit even as you draw a second to throw. Even as the first thug falls, your second boomerang makes contact with the head of the second thug, the impact of the blow knocking the man out cold as he collapses in the street.
The third boomerang isn't so lucky as while you strike the man in the arm, your foe just withstands the attack with a painful grunt, but no worse for the wear. With two of your foes down, you leap down from the roof tops catching the first two boomerangs in mid-air as they return.
Landing in a crouch, you come to your feet in time to see both of the remaining thugs coming at you with their swords drawn. You prepare to defence against the first one, but you are barely about to parry in time and the man leaves a nasty tear in your costume even if he doesn't draw blood. Still reeling from the first attack, you manage to deflect the attack from the second man, knocking the man to one side and sending him stumbling past you.
"You are going to pay for this you moron!" cries the man as he draws his swords back for another swing.
You reply not with words, but with a punch of your own into the thug that cut you, your fist slamming into his face and sending the man flying backwards. With that one dealt with, you spin around to deal with the last one, bringing a chop down on the back of his head before he can turn to face you again. Grunting in pain, he drops to his knees before toppling over to the side.
Looking around, you grin at the sight of all four thugs being taken out. Sure you almost got hurt, but these guys don't get to do about their business uncontested any longer.
Counting the time in your head, you decide that you got enough left in the night to seek out more Bronze Thorns to take care of.
It doesn't take you long to come across a robbery in progress as two thugs break into some peasant's home. You can't imagine what would be worth stealing in there, but it is, the rightful owners are definitely not rich enough to afford losing it and you would oppose theft out of principle.
You drop down and make your way into the building, preparing to sneak up on the closest of the two thugs. Just as you are about to get the drop on the first thug, you hear a voice shout out.
"Carl! Behind ya!" shouts the second thug as he rushes you from behind with a mace in head.
You easily dodge the blow with a sidestep before taking the man out with a punch. The man goes down without ever landing a hit on you. Unfortunately, he was able to alert his fellow to your presence.
"You're going to pay for that punk!" declares the remaining thug, Carl, as he draws his sword and charges you.
He swings at you and despite your best efforts, he manages to connect his weapon with your body. Thankfully, your costume is able to take the blade's strike and you are left unharmed.
Swinging a fist in return, you realise too late that Carl has already move, leaving your punch to only hit empty space. While you are caught off-guard, Carl takes the opportunity to attack you, his sword slashing you across your chest.
Thankfully, your costume is able to absorb most of the blow and the hit leaves you dazed even if you are pretty much unharmed. Reeling from the blow, you don't have the time or concentration to properly react. Instead of continuing to engage in fisticuffs, your hand goes down to your belt and you throw a set of bolas at Carl, hoping to disable the thug.
Despite the fact you are still recovering, you managed to get a hit on the man, only to have Carl smack it aside before it can properly settle on him. The thug stabs at you with his blade, but you are prepared and easily parry the blow as you switch to a defensive method of fighting.
Unleashing a kick, you managed to drive Carl back even if you fail to land a hit. Carl swings his sword at you and you dodge it, letting it fly over your head. Not letting the thug get another hit on you, you punch him in the face, sending Carl tumbling backwards into a wall with a broken nose and what is probably a broken jaw.
Letting out a sigh, you search both criminals, removing any valuables on them and placing them in a nearby basket. A few minutes latter and both of the robbers have been dumped in the street, still out cold.
You probably have time to take on another group of Bronze Thorns or you could just call it a night. You have already taken out six Bronze Thorns and stopped a house from being robbed and your costume has taken a pretty good beating. Combined with a pair of close calls and the tough fight that Carl put up, you might be pressing your luck if you continue.
[] Continue your hunt. You won a couple of fights, stopped a robbery and beat up half a dozen thugs. Surely you can spend a bit more time adding more achievements to that list.
[] Call it a night. You won a couple of fights, stopped a robbery and beat up half a dozen thugs. You shouldn't push your luck and should just call it a night and head home.
[] Write-in.
Element of Surprise?
Stealth vs Perception: 7+9 vs 16+2 = 16 v 18, 1 DoF, Night is spotted by the thugs.
Initiative Rolls:
Night: 17+4 = 21
Thug 1: 20+1 = 21
Thug 2: 6+1 = 7
Thug 3: 11+1 = 12
Thug 4: 7+1 = 8
Night attacks the Thugs:
Boomerang Attack, DC12: 14+9+2 = 25, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 6+3 = 9, Thug 1 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC12: 19+9+2 = 30, Successful Critical Hit
Toughness, DC27: 5+3 = 8, Thug 2 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC12: 14+9+2 = 25, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 20+3 = 23, Thug 3 is unharmed.
Thug 3 attacks.
Sword Attack, DC18: 14+4 = 18, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 10+6 = 16, 1 DoF, Night suffers -1 Toughness,
Thug 4 attacks.
Sword Attack, DC18: 6+4 = 10, Missed Attack,
Night strikes back
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 20+8+2 = 30, Successful Critical Hit
Toughness, DC25: 4+3 = 7, Thug 3 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 8+8+2 = 18, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 8+3 = 11, Thug 4 Incapacitated.
Better luck on the second try?
Stealth vs Perception: 14+9 vs 20 = 23 v 25, 1 DoF, Night is spotted by the thugs.
Initiative Rolls:
Night: 11+4 = 15
Thug 1: 14+1 = 15
Thug 2: 17+1 = 18
Thug 2 attacks.
Mace Attack, DC18: 12+4 = 18, Missed Attack
Night's turn
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 14+8+2 = 24, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 9+3 = 12, Thug 2 Incapacitated.
Thug 1 attacks.
Sword Attack, DC18: 15+4 = 19, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 20+5 = 30, Night is unharmed
Night attacks
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 1+8+2 = 9, Critical Miss
Thug 1 attacks.
Sword Attack, DC16: 16+4 = 20, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 5+5 = 10, 2 DoF, Night is Dazed and suffers -1 Toughness,
Night attempts to entangle his foe.
Bolas attack, DC12: 14+8 = 22, Successful Hit
Dodge, DC14: 15+2 = 17, Thug 1 dodges the Bolas,
Thug 1 presses the assault
Sword Attack, DC20: 12+4 = 16, Missed Attack
Night tries his fists again
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 3+8 = 11, Missed Attack
Thug 1 attacks again
Sword Attack, DC20: 8+4 = 12, Missed Attack
Night attacks
Unarmed Attack, DC14: 20+8 = 28, Critical Hit
Toughness, DC25: 3+3 = 6, Thug 1 Incapacitated.
Stealth vs Perception: 7+9 vs 16+2 = 16 v 18, 1 DoF, Night is spotted by the thugs.
Initiative Rolls:
Night: 17+4 = 21
Thug 1: 20+1 = 21
Thug 2: 6+1 = 7
Thug 3: 11+1 = 12
Thug 4: 7+1 = 8
Night attacks the Thugs:
Boomerang Attack, DC12: 14+9+2 = 25, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 6+3 = 9, Thug 1 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC12: 19+9+2 = 30, Successful Critical Hit
Toughness, DC27: 5+3 = 8, Thug 2 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC12: 14+9+2 = 25, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 20+3 = 23, Thug 3 is unharmed.
Thug 3 attacks.
Sword Attack, DC18: 14+4 = 18, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 10+6 = 16, 1 DoF, Night suffers -1 Toughness,
Thug 4 attacks.
Sword Attack, DC18: 6+4 = 10, Missed Attack,
Night strikes back
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 20+8+2 = 30, Successful Critical Hit
Toughness, DC25: 4+3 = 7, Thug 3 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 8+8+2 = 18, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 8+3 = 11, Thug 4 Incapacitated.
Better luck on the second try?
Stealth vs Perception: 14+9 vs 20 = 23 v 25, 1 DoF, Night is spotted by the thugs.
Initiative Rolls:
Night: 11+4 = 15
Thug 1: 14+1 = 15
Thug 2: 17+1 = 18
Thug 2 attacks.
Mace Attack, DC18: 12+4 = 18, Missed Attack
Night's turn
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 14+8+2 = 24, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 9+3 = 12, Thug 2 Incapacitated.
Thug 1 attacks.
Sword Attack, DC18: 15+4 = 19, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 20+5 = 30, Night is unharmed
Night attacks
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 1+8+2 = 9, Critical Miss
Thug 1 attacks.
Sword Attack, DC16: 16+4 = 20, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC20: 5+5 = 10, 2 DoF, Night is Dazed and suffers -1 Toughness,
Night attempts to entangle his foe.
Bolas attack, DC12: 14+8 = 22, Successful Hit
Dodge, DC14: 15+2 = 17, Thug 1 dodges the Bolas,
Thug 1 presses the assault
Sword Attack, DC20: 12+4 = 16, Missed Attack
Night tries his fists again
Unarmed Attack, DC12: 3+8 = 11, Missed Attack
Thug 1 attacks again
Sword Attack, DC20: 8+4 = 12, Missed Attack
Night attacks
Unarmed Attack, DC14: 20+8 = 28, Critical Hit
Toughness, DC25: 3+3 = 6, Thug 1 Incapacitated.
The First Night II
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Continue your hunt. You won a couple of fights, stopped a robbery and beat up half a dozen thugs. Surely you can spend a bit more time adding more achievements to that list.
You decide to make one last strike against the Bronze Thorns tonight. You are still in good condition and you can afford to spent a bit more of the night as the Night before heading home to get some sleep.
Heading towards the other side of the neighourhood, a particular building catches your eye. This building isn't one of the houses that make up the majority of the neighbourhood and is instead a shop. A run-down shop that no longer see uses.
Or does it?
Perching yourself in a rooftop overlooking the former shop from the other side of the street, you observe the building for a bit. Under a closer inspection, there are clear signs of people coming and going from it even if the main entrance and the windows are blocked off. Combined with some attempts at keeping the building tidy, it is clear that one or more people have been recently using this building with some regularity.
You decide that this calls for further investigation. Using your grapping gauntlet, you make your way across the street from the rooftop you are on to the roof of the not-so-abandoned shop. From there, it is easy to find patched up hole in the roof to make your entry. Slipping in through the wooden planks, you drop down onto the top floor of the building.
You silently make your way through the building. Between your skill and the people inside being noisy loudmouths, you are able to navigate the building undetected, easily avoiding the half a dozen people current in the building. Now inside, you just need to find out what these people are using the building for. While you are almost certain it is for criminal purposes, there is still a chance that there is nothing nefarious about their activities.
You make your way to the back of building, where the shop would have once stored goods. If the people here are storing anything in the building, then it will almost definitely be in the back where it is already designed to store and hold items. And just you expected, there are several crates waiting for you to uncover their contents.
With no one currently nearby, you take the opportunity to pry one of them open. Clothing. Not even particularly expensive clothing, just normal average to above average clothing. Frowning at this discovering, you move onto the next crate and take a look inside. Cheese. A lot of cheese.
Somewhat surprised at the mundanity of your finds, you decide to try your luck with the third crate and find bottles of wine inside. Looking at them, you try to figure out exactly are these mundane items for and why they are being hidden in crates in an abandoned store.
Then it all clicks into place as you recognise the wines as Forthwich in origin. Glancing at the cheeses, you are now easily able to place them as being Forthwich cheeses. The same probably applies to the clothing and the contents of the rest of the crates. If that is all true, then this place is a smuggling storehouse.
It makes sense as due to the restrictions that the Solaris Imperium has imposed on trade with the Elder Lord countries, it is hard to get your hands on products from those countries and when you do, it is expensive enough that only the rich can afford them. So by buying them at a normal price and then smuggling into Solaris Imperium via Dusk City, the Bronze Thorns can make some decent money by selling the goods for a high price that is still significantly cheaper than buying the goods legally.
In theory the guard and miltia should stop these goods before they get into the city, but you already know how corrupt they are. And once the goods have been smuggled into the city and by extent, the Solaris Imperium, it is a lot easier to get them futher into the Imperium once they are already inside the country. Especially since the Solaris Imperium is encouraging the people of Dusk City to trade with the rest of the Imperium in order to weaken the old ties to the Kingdom of Forthwich.
While smuggling like this isn't too bad of a crime, it is still a crime and making an attack against it will help in the fight against the corruption and crime that has overrun your city.
Deciding on how to deal with this, you decide to get your enemies focused on each other before you strike. Taking a bottle of win and a slice of cheese, you climb up onto some crates to hide in the corner of the room before emptying the bottle of wine. You throw the now empty bottle against the far side of the room so that the noise will get someone's attention. Once what's left of the bottle and the missing cheese is found, the Bronze Thorns will turn on each other as they attempt to figure out who is responsible.
Just as you expect, a man soon comes into the room.
"Boss!" calls the man as he spots the broken bottle and the opened crates.
"Oh, what now Henri," grumbles a tall and buff man as he marches into the room, "Oh for-you got to be kidding me. Aria damn it, get the others Henri, I need to figure which of them is responsible for this so I can beat their arses black and blue."
It doesn't take long before the local leader has all three of his men, including Henri, and the sole woman lined up in the room, all four of them nervous at the scene in front of them.
"Now, which one of you louts-" starts their leader as you decide to make your move.
With all four of them lined up, it is child's play for you to take out all four of them with a trio of boomerangs, all four collapse on the floor unconcious before their boss can finish his sentence. Dropping down from your hiding spot, you catch all three of your boomerangs as they return to you.
"Who the blazes are you?" demands the man as he turns on you.
"I am Night," you answer, "Now you are going to give me exactly what I want."
"Yeah right," scoffs the man, "I'm Albert Sparkle and I ain't the sort of man to take crap from some wierdo who either needs a tailor or got his arse whooped recently."
"I hope that would be proof enough," you state, nodding towards the down thugs before drawing another boomerang, "But if you desire to do this the hard way..."
Glancing down at his fallen thugs again, Albert Sparkle's eyes widen as he you stake a step towards him with your boomerang while he takes a step back, dropping the sword that he just drawn.
"Let's wait a moment," protests Albert as he decides that despite the poor state of your costume, he isn't so willingly take on the man who just took out all four of his fellows, "I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."
[] Information on the smuggling operations. You want information the smuggling operation. You will need this to shutdown the smuggling.
[] Information on the Bronze Thorns. You want information on the Bronze Thorns. You will need to plan further actions against them.
[] No deal, only justice. You won't cut deals with criminals. Knock out Albert Sparkle like you did with the rest and destroy the contraband.
[] Write-in.
You decide to make one last strike against the Bronze Thorns tonight. You are still in good condition and you can afford to spent a bit more of the night as the Night before heading home to get some sleep.
Heading towards the other side of the neighourhood, a particular building catches your eye. This building isn't one of the houses that make up the majority of the neighbourhood and is instead a shop. A run-down shop that no longer see uses.
Or does it?
Perching yourself in a rooftop overlooking the former shop from the other side of the street, you observe the building for a bit. Under a closer inspection, there are clear signs of people coming and going from it even if the main entrance and the windows are blocked off. Combined with some attempts at keeping the building tidy, it is clear that one or more people have been recently using this building with some regularity.
You decide that this calls for further investigation. Using your grapping gauntlet, you make your way across the street from the rooftop you are on to the roof of the not-so-abandoned shop. From there, it is easy to find patched up hole in the roof to make your entry. Slipping in through the wooden planks, you drop down onto the top floor of the building.
You silently make your way through the building. Between your skill and the people inside being noisy loudmouths, you are able to navigate the building undetected, easily avoiding the half a dozen people current in the building. Now inside, you just need to find out what these people are using the building for. While you are almost certain it is for criminal purposes, there is still a chance that there is nothing nefarious about their activities.
You make your way to the back of building, where the shop would have once stored goods. If the people here are storing anything in the building, then it will almost definitely be in the back where it is already designed to store and hold items. And just you expected, there are several crates waiting for you to uncover their contents.
With no one currently nearby, you take the opportunity to pry one of them open. Clothing. Not even particularly expensive clothing, just normal average to above average clothing. Frowning at this discovering, you move onto the next crate and take a look inside. Cheese. A lot of cheese.
Somewhat surprised at the mundanity of your finds, you decide to try your luck with the third crate and find bottles of wine inside. Looking at them, you try to figure out exactly are these mundane items for and why they are being hidden in crates in an abandoned store.
Then it all clicks into place as you recognise the wines as Forthwich in origin. Glancing at the cheeses, you are now easily able to place them as being Forthwich cheeses. The same probably applies to the clothing and the contents of the rest of the crates. If that is all true, then this place is a smuggling storehouse.
It makes sense as due to the restrictions that the Solaris Imperium has imposed on trade with the Elder Lord countries, it is hard to get your hands on products from those countries and when you do, it is expensive enough that only the rich can afford them. So by buying them at a normal price and then smuggling into Solaris Imperium via Dusk City, the Bronze Thorns can make some decent money by selling the goods for a high price that is still significantly cheaper than buying the goods legally.
In theory the guard and miltia should stop these goods before they get into the city, but you already know how corrupt they are. And once the goods have been smuggled into the city and by extent, the Solaris Imperium, it is a lot easier to get them futher into the Imperium once they are already inside the country. Especially since the Solaris Imperium is encouraging the people of Dusk City to trade with the rest of the Imperium in order to weaken the old ties to the Kingdom of Forthwich.
While smuggling like this isn't too bad of a crime, it is still a crime and making an attack against it will help in the fight against the corruption and crime that has overrun your city.
Deciding on how to deal with this, you decide to get your enemies focused on each other before you strike. Taking a bottle of win and a slice of cheese, you climb up onto some crates to hide in the corner of the room before emptying the bottle of wine. You throw the now empty bottle against the far side of the room so that the noise will get someone's attention. Once what's left of the bottle and the missing cheese is found, the Bronze Thorns will turn on each other as they attempt to figure out who is responsible.
Just as you expect, a man soon comes into the room.
"Boss!" calls the man as he spots the broken bottle and the opened crates.
"Oh, what now Henri," grumbles a tall and buff man as he marches into the room, "Oh for-you got to be kidding me. Aria damn it, get the others Henri, I need to figure which of them is responsible for this so I can beat their arses black and blue."
It doesn't take long before the local leader has all three of his men, including Henri, and the sole woman lined up in the room, all four of them nervous at the scene in front of them.
"Now, which one of you louts-" starts their leader as you decide to make your move.
With all four of them lined up, it is child's play for you to take out all four of them with a trio of boomerangs, all four collapse on the floor unconcious before their boss can finish his sentence. Dropping down from your hiding spot, you catch all three of your boomerangs as they return to you.
"Who the blazes are you?" demands the man as he turns on you.
"I am Night," you answer, "Now you are going to give me exactly what I want."
"Yeah right," scoffs the man, "I'm Albert Sparkle and I ain't the sort of man to take crap from some wierdo who either needs a tailor or got his arse whooped recently."
"I hope that would be proof enough," you state, nodding towards the down thugs before drawing another boomerang, "But if you desire to do this the hard way..."
Glancing down at his fallen thugs again, Albert Sparkle's eyes widen as he you stake a step towards him with your boomerang while he takes a step back, dropping the sword that he just drawn.
"Let's wait a moment," protests Albert as he decides that despite the poor state of your costume, he isn't so willingly take on the man who just took out all four of his fellows, "I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."
[] Information on the smuggling operations. You want information the smuggling operation. You will need this to shutdown the smuggling.
[] Information on the Bronze Thorns. You want information on the Bronze Thorns. You will need to plan further actions against them.
[] No deal, only justice. You won't cut deals with criminals. Knock out Albert Sparkle like you did with the rest and destroy the contraband.
[] Write-in.
That building seems off.
Perception Check, DC10: 10+8 = 18, 2 DoS, Discovered Bronze Thorn Hideout
Stealth Check, DC 12: 18+9 = 27, 4 DoS, Completely Undetected,
Investigation Check, DC15: 16+11 = 27, 3 DoS, Night discovers the contents of the hideout,
Intelligence Check, DC15: 14+8+5 = 27, 3 Dos, Night recognises what he has found,
Element of Surprise?
Stealth vs Perception: 5+9+5 vs 7+5 = 19 v 12, 2 DoS, Night gets a Surprise Round against the Bronze Thorns.
Initiative Rolls:
Night: 4+4 = 8
Albert Sparkle: 4+3 = 7
Thug 1: 12+1 = 13
Thug 2: 1+1 = 2
Thug 3: 13+1 = 14
Thug 4: 14+1 = 15
Night attacks the Thugs:
Boomerang Attack, DC11: 5+9+2 = 16, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 2+3 = 9, Thug 1 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC11: 12+9+2 = 23, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 18+3 = 21, Thug 2 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC11: 20+9+2 = 31, Successful Critical Hit
Toughness, DC27: 19+3 = 22, Thug 3 is Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC11: 2+9+2 = 13, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 11+3 = 14, Thug 4 Incapacitated.
Night has a chat with Albert Sparkle
Intimidation vs Will: 5+7+2 vs 15 = 14 vs 15
Luck! (Re-Roll) (3/4 Remaining)
Intimidation vs Will: 16+7+2 vs 15 = 25 vs 15, Night wins by 3 DoS,
Perception Check, DC10: 10+8 = 18, 2 DoS, Discovered Bronze Thorn Hideout
Stealth Check, DC 12: 18+9 = 27, 4 DoS, Completely Undetected,
Investigation Check, DC15: 16+11 = 27, 3 DoS, Night discovers the contents of the hideout,
Intelligence Check, DC15: 14+8+5 = 27, 3 Dos, Night recognises what he has found,
Element of Surprise?
Stealth vs Perception: 5+9+5 vs 7+5 = 19 v 12, 2 DoS, Night gets a Surprise Round against the Bronze Thorns.
Initiative Rolls:
Night: 4+4 = 8
Albert Sparkle: 4+3 = 7
Thug 1: 12+1 = 13
Thug 2: 1+1 = 2
Thug 3: 13+1 = 14
Thug 4: 14+1 = 15
Night attacks the Thugs:
Boomerang Attack, DC11: 5+9+2 = 16, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 2+3 = 9, Thug 1 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC11: 12+9+2 = 23, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 18+3 = 21, Thug 2 Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC11: 20+9+2 = 31, Successful Critical Hit
Toughness, DC27: 19+3 = 22, Thug 3 is Incapacitated.
Takedown! (free extra attack)
Boomerang Attack, DC11: 2+9+2 = 13, Successful Hit
Toughness, DC22: 11+3 = 14, Thug 4 Incapacitated.
Night has a chat with Albert Sparkle
Intimidation vs Will: 5+7+2 vs 15 = 14 vs 15
Luck! (Re-Roll) (3/4 Remaining)
Intimidation vs Will: 16+7+2 vs 15 = 25 vs 15, Night wins by 3 DoS,
The First Night III
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Information on the smuggling operations. You want information the smuggling operation. You will need this to shutdown the smuggling.
"The smuggling operations I want to know more about them," you state.
"R-right," says Albert Sparkle, "What do you want to know?"
"Who are you selling to?" you reply, "Who are you getting them from? Where are they being stored? how do you get them into the city? How widespread is this? You know, the general stuff regarding this whole thing."
"Sure, sure," says Albert Sparkle, "Where to start...well, we get this stuff from the Forthwich. You know, buy it cheap or at normal prices across the border and then sneak it back in. Pretty easy too. We got some contacts in the guards so we know who is on the shift at what time and what place so we know when to bring it. So we can get by the restrictions by bringing the stuff in when the guards will turn a blind eye and won't report what we are doing. I don't know who is responsible as that isn't my job.
From that, that's why me and my folks come in. We collect the goods once they are smuggled into the city and store them until they can be passed on. Sometimes other gangs buy them, sometimes we sell them to rich people and others they go down to the docks to get sold somewhere else in the Imperium."
Sounds about right and you wouldn't expect small fry like Albert Sparkle to know more. Buying across the board and then using corruption in the authorities to get the goods across. From there, it is selling them to buyers or moving them to somewhere else where there is a buyer.
Not quite as useful as you hoped, but it will do.
"Any names?" you demand, hoping for someone more tangible to go on.
"Captain Jeremy Hargrove," says Albert, "I know he is one of our guard contacts. Oh and House Cadwell. Their heir tried to purchase some goods from me directly a couple of times so I know that he is probably a buyer. Probably trying to cut out the middleman."
"Thank you for the information," you say before striding out of the room, leaving a sweating Albert Sparkle behind.
You could have knocked him out and destroyed the contraband in the building, but where would that leave you? A small victory now and a potentially unproductive reputation. People won't be willingly to cooperative and spill the beans like Albert Sparkle did if you don't give him incentive. Better to take a partial victory today in order to avoid denying yourself future victories.
Still, you have a couple of names to go on, people with some real authority and power unlike a local gang sub-leader like Albert Sparkle. Even better, you recognise both names. Captain Hargrove is a member of the Dusk City Militia and you know his barracks, but nothing beyond that. At least you have something to go on. The heir of House Cadwell is one Francis Cadwell, a fellow noble whose house was formed when the boy's parents were given their titles after the 11th Crusade. You don't know House Cadwell or their heir well as you never had need to, but you don't need tonight's information to know that they are corrupt.
Heading home for the night, you take the opportunity to catch a few hours sleep. Thankfully, your position as a member of the nobility means that you can afford a bit of a lie in and your wealth and businesses mean that you don't need to work to make money. Of course, you do manage your businesses to make sure they stay free of corruption and maintain a work ethic, but being a noble has its perks.
Tomorrow, you can patch up your costume, manage your supplies and figure out what Night will do next now he has made his debut.
How will Night handle the smuggling operation?
[] [Smuggling] Investigate Captain Jeremy Hargrove.
[] [Smuggling] Investigate Lord Francis Cadwell.
[] [Smuggling] Write-in.
What will you do in your spare time? (Pick 2 Options)
[] [Other] Run your businesses. You have several businesses that you run to provide you with a steady source of income. While they are capable of running themselves, your personal touch is always appreciated.
[] [Other] Practice hand to hand combat. While you have some ranged weapons, you unarmed when it comes to melee combat. While they proved acceptable tonight, you could do with a bit more training.
[] [Other] Study the High Pantheon. The patron deities of the Solaris Imperium and the ones you nominally worship, your education towards them is lacking as you only know the basics and the common rumours.
[] [Other] Study the Elder Lords. The Elder Lords are worship ed in the lands to the south and the east and their followers once ruled Dusk City. As expected of a Solarian noble, you don't care for them so you know next to nothing about them.
[] [Other] Socialise with your fellow nobility. While you have previous kept your distance from this poisonous nest of vipers.
[] [Other] Focus on fitness and your physical prowess. Whilst you are a fit and healthy young man, you could always hone your body even further and improve your ability to pull physical feats.
[] [Other] Study History. Study the local history of Dusk City and general history of the world. While you don't see a particular use for the knowledge right now, you can see how having knowledge of past events would be useful.
[] [Other] Practice stealth. You aren't particularly tougher or stronger than the average person and you will go down to number in a fair fight. With stealth and ranged weapons, you can level the playing field with a strong opening move, but that mean improving your skills when it comes to moving about unseen.
[] [Other] Design Gadgets. You are something of a genius, as proven by equipment such as your grappling gauntlets. Taking the time to come up with some potential ideas and hammer out the plausibility of them will be the first step towards coming up with more equipment for Night to wield.
"The smuggling operations I want to know more about them," you state.
"R-right," says Albert Sparkle, "What do you want to know?"
"Who are you selling to?" you reply, "Who are you getting them from? Where are they being stored? how do you get them into the city? How widespread is this? You know, the general stuff regarding this whole thing."
"Sure, sure," says Albert Sparkle, "Where to start...well, we get this stuff from the Forthwich. You know, buy it cheap or at normal prices across the border and then sneak it back in. Pretty easy too. We got some contacts in the guards so we know who is on the shift at what time and what place so we know when to bring it. So we can get by the restrictions by bringing the stuff in when the guards will turn a blind eye and won't report what we are doing. I don't know who is responsible as that isn't my job.
From that, that's why me and my folks come in. We collect the goods once they are smuggled into the city and store them until they can be passed on. Sometimes other gangs buy them, sometimes we sell them to rich people and others they go down to the docks to get sold somewhere else in the Imperium."
Sounds about right and you wouldn't expect small fry like Albert Sparkle to know more. Buying across the board and then using corruption in the authorities to get the goods across. From there, it is selling them to buyers or moving them to somewhere else where there is a buyer.
Not quite as useful as you hoped, but it will do.
"Any names?" you demand, hoping for someone more tangible to go on.
"Captain Jeremy Hargrove," says Albert, "I know he is one of our guard contacts. Oh and House Cadwell. Their heir tried to purchase some goods from me directly a couple of times so I know that he is probably a buyer. Probably trying to cut out the middleman."
"Thank you for the information," you say before striding out of the room, leaving a sweating Albert Sparkle behind.
You could have knocked him out and destroyed the contraband in the building, but where would that leave you? A small victory now and a potentially unproductive reputation. People won't be willingly to cooperative and spill the beans like Albert Sparkle did if you don't give him incentive. Better to take a partial victory today in order to avoid denying yourself future victories.
Still, you have a couple of names to go on, people with some real authority and power unlike a local gang sub-leader like Albert Sparkle. Even better, you recognise both names. Captain Hargrove is a member of the Dusk City Militia and you know his barracks, but nothing beyond that. At least you have something to go on. The heir of House Cadwell is one Francis Cadwell, a fellow noble whose house was formed when the boy's parents were given their titles after the 11th Crusade. You don't know House Cadwell or their heir well as you never had need to, but you don't need tonight's information to know that they are corrupt.
***
Heading home for the night, you take the opportunity to catch a few hours sleep. Thankfully, your position as a member of the nobility means that you can afford a bit of a lie in and your wealth and businesses mean that you don't need to work to make money. Of course, you do manage your businesses to make sure they stay free of corruption and maintain a work ethic, but being a noble has its perks.
Tomorrow, you can patch up your costume, manage your supplies and figure out what Night will do next now he has made his debut.
How will Night handle the smuggling operation?
[] [Smuggling] Investigate Captain Jeremy Hargrove.
[] [Smuggling] Investigate Lord Francis Cadwell.
[] [Smuggling] Write-in.
What will you do in your spare time? (Pick 2 Options)
[] [Other] Run your businesses. You have several businesses that you run to provide you with a steady source of income. While they are capable of running themselves, your personal touch is always appreciated.
[] [Other] Practice hand to hand combat. While you have some ranged weapons, you unarmed when it comes to melee combat. While they proved acceptable tonight, you could do with a bit more training.
[] [Other] Study the High Pantheon. The patron deities of the Solaris Imperium and the ones you nominally worship, your education towards them is lacking as you only know the basics and the common rumours.
[] [Other] Study the Elder Lords. The Elder Lords are worship ed in the lands to the south and the east and their followers once ruled Dusk City. As expected of a Solarian noble, you don't care for them so you know next to nothing about them.
[] [Other] Socialise with your fellow nobility. While you have previous kept your distance from this poisonous nest of vipers.
[] [Other] Focus on fitness and your physical prowess. Whilst you are a fit and healthy young man, you could always hone your body even further and improve your ability to pull physical feats.
[] [Other] Study History. Study the local history of Dusk City and general history of the world. While you don't see a particular use for the knowledge right now, you can see how having knowledge of past events would be useful.
[] [Other] Practice stealth. You aren't particularly tougher or stronger than the average person and you will go down to number in a fair fight. With stealth and ranged weapons, you can level the playing field with a strong opening move, but that mean improving your skills when it comes to moving about unseen.
[] [Other] Design Gadgets. You are something of a genius, as proven by equipment such as your grappling gauntlets. Taking the time to come up with some potential ideas and hammer out the plausibility of them will be the first step towards coming up with more equipment for Night to wield.
Recognise the name Captain Jeremy Hargrove
Intelligence Check, DC25: 13+8+5 = 26, 1 DoS, Night recognises the name.
Night knows his fellow noble?
Intelligence Check, DC20: 7+2+8+5 = 22, 1 DoS, Night recognises the name.
Intelligence Check, DC25: 13+8+5 = 26, 1 DoS, Night recognises the name.
Night knows his fellow noble?
Intelligence Check, DC20: 7+2+8+5 = 22, 1 DoS, Night recognises the name.
Last edited:
The First Night IV
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X][Smuggling] Investigate Captain Jeremy Hargrove.
[X][Other] Socialise with your fellow nobility. While you have previous kept your distance from this poisonous nest of vipers.
[X][Other] Practice hand to hand combat. While you have some ranged weapons, you unarmed when it comes to melee combat. While they proved acceptable tonight, you could do with a bit more training.
The next couple of weeks pass slowly or at least they feel like they do. You put it down to your attempts to socialise with the rest of the nobility in the city. You never liked the swine who considered themselves the most important people in the city and you still don't. But while your house is one of the more powerful in the city, it is just one of many and House Wallis isn't strong enough to singlehandedly take on the rest of the Dust City nobility.
That said, your house is powerful due to not expending its resources and power in political games and by being one of the oldest in the city. Between those two things, none of the other nobility want to mess with you if they can help it.
As you think about it, it is a case nobody wanting to be the first to take you on. It is akin to someone who can be bested by numbers, but will take down a few with him. He might not be able to beat all ten of them, but he can take out the first five and nobody wants to be one of those first five if they can help it.
And so they leave you be despite your known hostility to their corruption and general lack of moral virtue.
Yet their own desire to get an advantage over each other in their games means that when you attempt to open up to them, they eagerly take the opportunity to have a chance at gaining a new advantage.
As a result, you receive several subtle and some not-so-subtle attempts at getting you onboard with a scheme or two.
You reject every single last one even as you begin to forge some connections with the rest of Dust City's nobility.
The other thing you spend your time on is practicing hand to hand combat, something you find more much enjoyable than having to put up with vipers in human guise.
Avitian taught you plenty of unarmed combat techniques as you were growing up and while they proved useful, your first night as Night proved that you could improve upon them. For that reason, you discreetly hired trainers here and there to give you some pointers in how to improve your ability to fight with your fists.
While new techniques will definitely prove useful, you are certain that you could do with some more training or experience to improve your skill even further.
Close Combat: Unarmed increased by +1.
Just as Benedict Wallis is active and busy, so is the Night. You head out most nights after your debuts, taking the odd night off for catching up on sleep or partaking in a social affair.
The Night goes the Bronze Thorns and other lesser criminals within Dusk City, disrupting their operations, stopping petty crimes and making sure that their members need medical attention before they can commit any more crimes.
It isn't ideal as you would rather just deliver the scum to justice, but the ability to do so is effectively non-existent in Dusk City. Those that should be in charge of delivering justice, the Dusk City Militia and the Dusk City Guard, are as criminal as those they should be punishing as proven by Captain Hargrove himself.
Instead, you will need to find an alternative method of dealing with the corrupt captain. You could just go and beat him up, but that would mean making an enemy of the city militia and probably the city guard as well. That said, going after a city militia captain, no matter how corrupt they are, is mostly going to do that anyway.
You could go looking for some kind of authority to bring Captain Hargrove before along with evidence of his corruption, but all of the local authorities are corrupt. Then again, maybe you been looking at this wrong. All of the local authorities are corrupt, but not all authorities are local.
The Solaris Imperium certainly has greater authorities than the local guard and militia or the nobility of a single city and they are almost certainly more powerful. Even if they are willingly to ignore local corruption, you doubt the Imperium would look kindly upon its laws being violated like the smuggling is currently doing.
And then there are the religious authorities. The High Pantheon dominates the Solaris Imperium ever since the latter was formed by the first followers of the former and the sects of each deity are a major political within the Imperium. With at least one deity being about justice, you could find that sect and go to them with the evidence. Since they have a deity to enforce genuine belief and principles, you won't have to worry about the religious authorities being corrupt. Hopefully.
Of course, you would have to find those authorities first and there is no guarantee that they have a significant presence in Dusk City if they have a presence at all.
You could just take matters into your own hands. It would definitely make you an enemy of the militia and the guard rather than just almost certainly, but you could make an example of Captain Hargrove. Beat up the man, interrupt the smuggling and make his corruption public to the point that they would have to transfer him somewhere else.
You favour the first option to the second, but the second option is viable if harder and less likely to be effective.
[] Seek out Imperial authorities. See if there are any higher authorities of the Solaris Imperium that can handle corruption by the local authorities, especially when that corruption violates the greater laws of the Emperor.
[] Seek out religious authorities. See if the religious authorities are willingly to handle the corruption of the local authorities. There should be at least one sect which goes after crime and corruption as a matter of principle.
[] Handle Captain Hargrove yourself. There is no guarantee that there are greater authorities out there which can help or willingly to do so. Take matters into your own hands and deal with Hargrove yourself even if it means making an enemy of the Dusk City militia,
[X][Other] Socialise with your fellow nobility. While you have previous kept your distance from this poisonous nest of vipers.
[X][Other] Practice hand to hand combat. While you have some ranged weapons, you unarmed when it comes to melee combat. While they proved acceptable tonight, you could do with a bit more training.
The next couple of weeks pass slowly or at least they feel like they do. You put it down to your attempts to socialise with the rest of the nobility in the city. You never liked the swine who considered themselves the most important people in the city and you still don't. But while your house is one of the more powerful in the city, it is just one of many and House Wallis isn't strong enough to singlehandedly take on the rest of the Dust City nobility.
That said, your house is powerful due to not expending its resources and power in political games and by being one of the oldest in the city. Between those two things, none of the other nobility want to mess with you if they can help it.
As you think about it, it is a case nobody wanting to be the first to take you on. It is akin to someone who can be bested by numbers, but will take down a few with him. He might not be able to beat all ten of them, but he can take out the first five and nobody wants to be one of those first five if they can help it.
And so they leave you be despite your known hostility to their corruption and general lack of moral virtue.
Yet their own desire to get an advantage over each other in their games means that when you attempt to open up to them, they eagerly take the opportunity to have a chance at gaining a new advantage.
As a result, you receive several subtle and some not-so-subtle attempts at getting you onboard with a scheme or two.
You reject every single last one even as you begin to forge some connections with the rest of Dust City's nobility.
The other thing you spend your time on is practicing hand to hand combat, something you find more much enjoyable than having to put up with vipers in human guise.
Avitian taught you plenty of unarmed combat techniques as you were growing up and while they proved useful, your first night as Night proved that you could improve upon them. For that reason, you discreetly hired trainers here and there to give you some pointers in how to improve your ability to fight with your fists.
While new techniques will definitely prove useful, you are certain that you could do with some more training or experience to improve your skill even further.
Close Combat: Unarmed increased by +1.
***
Just as Benedict Wallis is active and busy, so is the Night. You head out most nights after your debuts, taking the odd night off for catching up on sleep or partaking in a social affair.
The Night goes the Bronze Thorns and other lesser criminals within Dusk City, disrupting their operations, stopping petty crimes and making sure that their members need medical attention before they can commit any more crimes.
It isn't ideal as you would rather just deliver the scum to justice, but the ability to do so is effectively non-existent in Dusk City. Those that should be in charge of delivering justice, the Dusk City Militia and the Dusk City Guard, are as criminal as those they should be punishing as proven by Captain Hargrove himself.
Instead, you will need to find an alternative method of dealing with the corrupt captain. You could just go and beat him up, but that would mean making an enemy of the city militia and probably the city guard as well. That said, going after a city militia captain, no matter how corrupt they are, is mostly going to do that anyway.
You could go looking for some kind of authority to bring Captain Hargrove before along with evidence of his corruption, but all of the local authorities are corrupt. Then again, maybe you been looking at this wrong. All of the local authorities are corrupt, but not all authorities are local.
The Solaris Imperium certainly has greater authorities than the local guard and militia or the nobility of a single city and they are almost certainly more powerful. Even if they are willingly to ignore local corruption, you doubt the Imperium would look kindly upon its laws being violated like the smuggling is currently doing.
And then there are the religious authorities. The High Pantheon dominates the Solaris Imperium ever since the latter was formed by the first followers of the former and the sects of each deity are a major political within the Imperium. With at least one deity being about justice, you could find that sect and go to them with the evidence. Since they have a deity to enforce genuine belief and principles, you won't have to worry about the religious authorities being corrupt. Hopefully.
Of course, you would have to find those authorities first and there is no guarantee that they have a significant presence in Dusk City if they have a presence at all.
You could just take matters into your own hands. It would definitely make you an enemy of the militia and the guard rather than just almost certainly, but you could make an example of Captain Hargrove. Beat up the man, interrupt the smuggling and make his corruption public to the point that they would have to transfer him somewhere else.
You favour the first option to the second, but the second option is viable if harder and less likely to be effective.
[] Seek out Imperial authorities. See if there are any higher authorities of the Solaris Imperium that can handle corruption by the local authorities, especially when that corruption violates the greater laws of the Emperor.
[] Seek out religious authorities. See if the religious authorities are willingly to handle the corruption of the local authorities. There should be at least one sect which goes after crime and corruption as a matter of principle.
[] Handle Captain Hargrove yourself. There is no guarantee that there are greater authorities out there which can help or willingly to do so. Take matters into your own hands and deal with Hargrove yourself even if it means making an enemy of the Dusk City militia,
The Corrupt Captain
Gather Information, DC15: 9+11 = 20, 2 DoS, Night gathers specific information on Captain Hargrove
Gather Information, DC15: 9+11 = 20, 2 DoS, Night gathers specific information on Captain Hargrove
The Corrupt Captain I
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Seek out religious authorities. See if the religious authorities are willingly to handle the corruption of the local authorities. There should be at least one sect which goes after crime and corruption as a matter of principle.
It turns out that when you stop to think about it, you actually know a lot about the religious authorities of the High Pantheon despite your lack of zeal as one of their followers.
You know the basics of that there are five deities in the High Pantheon, four sisters and a brother with the sole god of the High Pantheon being in charge of the four goddesses.
Of these deities and their followers, only three may be relevant for your purposes. The irrelevant ones are the goddesses Aria the Curious and Gwen the Creative.
The goddess Gwen the Creative holds the domains of Arts, Learning and Knowledge with her sacred animal being the fox while her sister Aria the Curious is the goddess of Adventure, Challenge and Magic whose sacred animal is the dog.
Createons are primarily artisans and record keepers, creating works and seeking out new knowledge and insight while preserving what has already been created and discovered.
Surprisingly or perhaps not so surprisingly when you think about it, these two goddesses are the two mostly commonly worshipped by the nobles and burghers of Dusk City. It makes sense as the Aria is the patron of ambition and seeking out new things while Gwen is the patron of the rich and wealthy due to those being able to support arts and literature.
They are also the deities that care the least about crime and injustice and therefore the best choices for the corrupt leadership of Dusk City. Before you started compiling your knowledge, you assumed that the leader god of the High Pantheon, Cardin the Leader, would be worshipped by a significant amount of the nobility.
As things turned out, he is privately shunned by the leadership of Dusk City even if none dare publicly voice such thoughts. You are certain that this due to the fact that while Cardin represents Power and Leadership, he also represents Justice and that is something that many in Dusk City seek to avoid.
Cardin is your best option for getting someone to deal with a member of the corrupt local authorities. Not only is he the God of Justice, but his other aspects and the position of the High Pantheon within the Solaris Imperium means that the Leadeon sect has no shortage of official power and even more unofficial power.
Your second-best option is the Kindeon sect of Eunice the Kind, Goddess of Kindness, Charity and Judgement whose sacred animal is the eagle. As the Goddess of Judgement, Eunice and her followers are involved in dealing with crimes.
In theory, they should meet your needs, but in practice, they seem to be more involved with dealing with the victim of a crime while the Leadeons deal with punishing the culprit.
The final option is Serena the Mighty, the Goddess of War, Women and Beauty with the cat as her sacred animal. While she and her followers have no direct reason to be involved in the affairs of justice, the Mighteons are often used to enforce the will of the Leadeons and that means bringing criminals to heel.
You also learned how to identify the followers of each goddess. Well, not so much as learned, but rather you figured it how to apply trivial knowledge that you already knew. Each of the goddesses has a sacred animal and upon giving a devoted follower a permanent blessing, the blessed followers can some physical features of the goddess' sacred animal.
Primarily it is a tail and set of ears, but eyes and hair changes are also common and in rarer cases, wings, claws and fangs are also gained. How you get what is something that you don't know, but it is surely something you can find out if you were willingly to devote the time to it. Of course, you would have to consider whether or not gaining such knowledge worth it the time investment of course.
And to your total lack of surprise, 'devoted followers' just happened to be clergy and the rich. The clergy you get because they devote their lives to serving their deity, but it turns out that wealthy burghers and nobles who don't have livelihoods to work on a daily basis can afford to devote enough time to earn a blessing from a goddess.
As for why the nobility and burghers would seek out a blessing, it is because a goddess' blessing contains more than physical changes. While you don't know that Gwen the Creative and Eunice the King grant their followers, you do know that Aria the Curious increases the magical potential of her followers while Serena the Mighty grants increased beauty and strength.
It puts the old saying 'You can judge the power of a Mighteon by the size of their breasts' in a new light. Except it only applies to female followers of Serena and it fails to account for the fact that some women are born with naturally a large chests.
It also fails to account that the blessing of Cardin the Leader is stronger than any of sisters' blessings. As the God of Power, Cardin's blessing is a general empowerment for his followers and unlike the blessings of the goddesses, the god's blessing does not grant any draconic features to his followers.
You also discover that each of the sects has a major temple in Dusk City with the Mighteons maintaining two. It makes sense that the High Pantheon have such a large presence in the city as Dusk City has traditionally belong to the followers of the Elder Lords and they would have an interest in converting the inhabitants of the city to strengthen their hold on it.
Having decided that the Cureons and the Createons are unsuitable for your needs, you just need to decide which of the remaining sects you wish to seek out.
[] The Leadeons. The followers of the God of Justice, they will almost certainly help you, but there isthe chance that they might decide that you are a criminal that needs to be brought before justice.
[] The Kindeons. The followers of the Goddess of Judgement should be willingly to help and are a good choice in theory, but in practice, their involvement in justice may not be what you are looking for.
[] The Mighteons. While the followers of Serena the Mighty may lack a direct religious reason to aid you, their position as the enforcers of the Leadeons means they will hold a criminal and the evidence of his crimes until a Leadeon can deal with the matter, regardless of the criminal's position or associates.
[] Write-in.
This update is a bit info-dumpy, but since you have a trio of choices (technically five, but Night knows enough to discard the two non-helpful choices), I want to make sure you were properly informed with what knowledge Night has in-universe (which is quite lacking by the way).
It turns out that when you stop to think about it, you actually know a lot about the religious authorities of the High Pantheon despite your lack of zeal as one of their followers.
You know the basics of that there are five deities in the High Pantheon, four sisters and a brother with the sole god of the High Pantheon being in charge of the four goddesses.
Of these deities and their followers, only three may be relevant for your purposes. The irrelevant ones are the goddesses Aria the Curious and Gwen the Creative.
The goddess Gwen the Creative holds the domains of Arts, Learning and Knowledge with her sacred animal being the fox while her sister Aria the Curious is the goddess of Adventure, Challenge and Magic whose sacred animal is the dog.
Createons are primarily artisans and record keepers, creating works and seeking out new knowledge and insight while preserving what has already been created and discovered.
Surprisingly or perhaps not so surprisingly when you think about it, these two goddesses are the two mostly commonly worshipped by the nobles and burghers of Dusk City. It makes sense as the Aria is the patron of ambition and seeking out new things while Gwen is the patron of the rich and wealthy due to those being able to support arts and literature.
They are also the deities that care the least about crime and injustice and therefore the best choices for the corrupt leadership of Dusk City. Before you started compiling your knowledge, you assumed that the leader god of the High Pantheon, Cardin the Leader, would be worshipped by a significant amount of the nobility.
As things turned out, he is privately shunned by the leadership of Dusk City even if none dare publicly voice such thoughts. You are certain that this due to the fact that while Cardin represents Power and Leadership, he also represents Justice and that is something that many in Dusk City seek to avoid.
Cardin is your best option for getting someone to deal with a member of the corrupt local authorities. Not only is he the God of Justice, but his other aspects and the position of the High Pantheon within the Solaris Imperium means that the Leadeon sect has no shortage of official power and even more unofficial power.
Your second-best option is the Kindeon sect of Eunice the Kind, Goddess of Kindness, Charity and Judgement whose sacred animal is the eagle. As the Goddess of Judgement, Eunice and her followers are involved in dealing with crimes.
In theory, they should meet your needs, but in practice, they seem to be more involved with dealing with the victim of a crime while the Leadeons deal with punishing the culprit.
The final option is Serena the Mighty, the Goddess of War, Women and Beauty with the cat as her sacred animal. While she and her followers have no direct reason to be involved in the affairs of justice, the Mighteons are often used to enforce the will of the Leadeons and that means bringing criminals to heel.
You also learned how to identify the followers of each goddess. Well, not so much as learned, but rather you figured it how to apply trivial knowledge that you already knew. Each of the goddesses has a sacred animal and upon giving a devoted follower a permanent blessing, the blessed followers can some physical features of the goddess' sacred animal.
Primarily it is a tail and set of ears, but eyes and hair changes are also common and in rarer cases, wings, claws and fangs are also gained. How you get what is something that you don't know, but it is surely something you can find out if you were willingly to devote the time to it. Of course, you would have to consider whether or not gaining such knowledge worth it the time investment of course.
And to your total lack of surprise, 'devoted followers' just happened to be clergy and the rich. The clergy you get because they devote their lives to serving their deity, but it turns out that wealthy burghers and nobles who don't have livelihoods to work on a daily basis can afford to devote enough time to earn a blessing from a goddess.
As for why the nobility and burghers would seek out a blessing, it is because a goddess' blessing contains more than physical changes. While you don't know that Gwen the Creative and Eunice the King grant their followers, you do know that Aria the Curious increases the magical potential of her followers while Serena the Mighty grants increased beauty and strength.
It puts the old saying 'You can judge the power of a Mighteon by the size of their breasts' in a new light. Except it only applies to female followers of Serena and it fails to account for the fact that some women are born with naturally a large chests.
It also fails to account that the blessing of Cardin the Leader is stronger than any of sisters' blessings. As the God of Power, Cardin's blessing is a general empowerment for his followers and unlike the blessings of the goddesses, the god's blessing does not grant any draconic features to his followers.
You also discover that each of the sects has a major temple in Dusk City with the Mighteons maintaining two. It makes sense that the High Pantheon have such a large presence in the city as Dusk City has traditionally belong to the followers of the Elder Lords and they would have an interest in converting the inhabitants of the city to strengthen their hold on it.
Having decided that the Cureons and the Createons are unsuitable for your needs, you just need to decide which of the remaining sects you wish to seek out.
[] The Leadeons. The followers of the God of Justice, they will almost certainly help you, but there isthe chance that they might decide that you are a criminal that needs to be brought before justice.
[] The Kindeons. The followers of the Goddess of Judgement should be willingly to help and are a good choice in theory, but in practice, their involvement in justice may not be what you are looking for.
[] The Mighteons. While the followers of Serena the Mighty may lack a direct religious reason to aid you, their position as the enforcers of the Leadeons means they will hold a criminal and the evidence of his crimes until a Leadeon can deal with the matter, regardless of the criminal's position or associates.
[] Write-in.
This update is a bit info-dumpy, but since you have a trio of choices (technically five, but Night knows enough to discard the two non-helpful choices), I want to make sure you were properly informed with what knowledge Night has in-universe (which is quite lacking by the way).
Religious Authorities in Dusk City
Expertise: Religion Check DC10: 17+8+5 = 30, 5 DoS, Night picked up a surprising amount
of religious knowledge of the years.
I was planning an investigation check, but Night's stats were too high to fail it even on a critical failure.
Expertise: Religion Check DC10: 17+8+5 = 30, 5 DoS, Night picked up a surprising amount
of religious knowledge of the years.
I was planning an investigation check, but Night's stats were too high to fail it even on a critical failure.
The Corrupt Captain II
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] The Kindeons. The followers of the Goddess of Judgement should be willingly to help and are a good choice in theory, but in practice, their involvement in justice may not be what you are looking for.
In the end, you decide to go to the Kindeons. While they are unlikely to be as helpful as the Mighteons or the Leadeons, you won't risk the potential pushback that you might receive if the Mighteons or Leadeons decide that you are just another criminal. Given that your actions are against the law even if they are done in the pursuit of justice, that is valid concern.
Even then, you won't be going to them directly. You will just drop off whatever evidence you collect at their main temple in Dusk City and let them deal with it. You won't worry about getting credit for this as you aren't in this for fame or glory and frankly, you see more benefit to not getting the attention of the authorities right now.
Which is pretty ironic as you are going after one of those authorities right now. Speaking of Captain Hargrove, it is hard to get any details on what he is up. You know who he is and what he is up along with benign information such as his barracks, what shifts he usually has and where his office is. Yet you are unable to get any leads on his smuggling activities beyond he is involved in at least one of the Bronze Thorns' smuggling operation.
To get evidence, you will need to take a more direct approach, either going after Hargrove himself or looking through one of his bases of operation for any records of his corruption.
While you could go to his home, you judge his office in his barracks to be a more likely source of incriminating evidence. Captain Hargrove is more likely to keep anything proving his corruption at work in his place of work, especially since he is almost certainly be actively using the evidence.
You know where Captain Hargrove's barracks are and you have a rough idea of the layout. You just need to sneak past the guards.
It is simply a matter of waiting. There is only one guard on watch and you just need to wait until they are distracted or busy. One of the few, well, you hesitate to call it an upside, but the corruption within the city militia means that they obey their own regulations less just as they obey the laws they are supposed to uphold less.
You don't like it, but that doesn't mean that you will hesitate to take advantage of it. Frankly, it is useful and if it wasn't for the greater context and implications, you would consider it a welcome boon.
In this case, you don't have to wait long as the guard soon heads off to relieve himself, giving you the opportunity to walk in unopposed.
Now you gained entry to the barracks, you just have to make your way past anyone inside and sneak into Captain Hargrove's office undetected. You won't need to worry about running into the man himself as you know the man is busy elsewhere this day, but this is a city militia barracks and there will be other men and women in the building. And none of them will take kindly to your presence.
But to your shock as you carefully infiltrate the building, you are practically unopposed. You fail to encounter anyone on guard duty and the handful of people who do cross your path are just going about their day, completely off-guard for the possibility of there being an infiltrator.
Honestly, the hardest part of infiltrating the barracks is finding Captain Hargrove's office. And even that is easy.
Nonetheless, you have made it to Captain Hargrove's office undetected and even if it was far easier than it should have been, you aren't one to look the gift horse in the mouth.
Having entered the office, you quickly get to work. You make an effort to be quiet as you rummage through the belongings of Captain Hargrove, but don't bother to conceal the mess you are making. You don't want to alert anyone while you are still here, but if someone finds the mess that you left after being long gone, well, you are long gone and it isn't like they would know that you were the one here.
But despite your best efforts, you aren't able to find anything solid on Captain Hargrove. Oh, you find bits here and there which can be used to paint the man in a bad light, but nothing that outright proves he is doing wrong. Just some little things which could be part of a bigger thing.
Still it is something and the question is whether or not it is enough. Do you decide that is enough and pull out now with only incomplete evidence or do you stick around to try and find something solid?
[] Pull out now. While incomplete and nothing that proves the guilt and misdeeds of Captain Hargrove, it should be enough to turn the right eyes in his direction. Hopefully.
[] Search for more. While you run the risk of being discovered, you need to find more if you want to make sure that Captain Hargrove gets dealt with.
In the end, you decide to go to the Kindeons. While they are unlikely to be as helpful as the Mighteons or the Leadeons, you won't risk the potential pushback that you might receive if the Mighteons or Leadeons decide that you are just another criminal. Given that your actions are against the law even if they are done in the pursuit of justice, that is valid concern.
Even then, you won't be going to them directly. You will just drop off whatever evidence you collect at their main temple in Dusk City and let them deal with it. You won't worry about getting credit for this as you aren't in this for fame or glory and frankly, you see more benefit to not getting the attention of the authorities right now.
Which is pretty ironic as you are going after one of those authorities right now. Speaking of Captain Hargrove, it is hard to get any details on what he is up. You know who he is and what he is up along with benign information such as his barracks, what shifts he usually has and where his office is. Yet you are unable to get any leads on his smuggling activities beyond he is involved in at least one of the Bronze Thorns' smuggling operation.
To get evidence, you will need to take a more direct approach, either going after Hargrove himself or looking through one of his bases of operation for any records of his corruption.
While you could go to his home, you judge his office in his barracks to be a more likely source of incriminating evidence. Captain Hargrove is more likely to keep anything proving his corruption at work in his place of work, especially since he is almost certainly be actively using the evidence.
You know where Captain Hargrove's barracks are and you have a rough idea of the layout. You just need to sneak past the guards.
***
It is simply a matter of waiting. There is only one guard on watch and you just need to wait until they are distracted or busy. One of the few, well, you hesitate to call it an upside, but the corruption within the city militia means that they obey their own regulations less just as they obey the laws they are supposed to uphold less.
You don't like it, but that doesn't mean that you will hesitate to take advantage of it. Frankly, it is useful and if it wasn't for the greater context and implications, you would consider it a welcome boon.
In this case, you don't have to wait long as the guard soon heads off to relieve himself, giving you the opportunity to walk in unopposed.
Now you gained entry to the barracks, you just have to make your way past anyone inside and sneak into Captain Hargrove's office undetected. You won't need to worry about running into the man himself as you know the man is busy elsewhere this day, but this is a city militia barracks and there will be other men and women in the building. And none of them will take kindly to your presence.
But to your shock as you carefully infiltrate the building, you are practically unopposed. You fail to encounter anyone on guard duty and the handful of people who do cross your path are just going about their day, completely off-guard for the possibility of there being an infiltrator.
Honestly, the hardest part of infiltrating the barracks is finding Captain Hargrove's office. And even that is easy.
Nonetheless, you have made it to Captain Hargrove's office undetected and even if it was far easier than it should have been, you aren't one to look the gift horse in the mouth.
Having entered the office, you quickly get to work. You make an effort to be quiet as you rummage through the belongings of Captain Hargrove, but don't bother to conceal the mess you are making. You don't want to alert anyone while you are still here, but if someone finds the mess that you left after being long gone, well, you are long gone and it isn't like they would know that you were the one here.
But despite your best efforts, you aren't able to find anything solid on Captain Hargrove. Oh, you find bits here and there which can be used to paint the man in a bad light, but nothing that outright proves he is doing wrong. Just some little things which could be part of a bigger thing.
Still it is something and the question is whether or not it is enough. Do you decide that is enough and pull out now with only incomplete evidence or do you stick around to try and find something solid?
[] Pull out now. While incomplete and nothing that proves the guilt and misdeeds of Captain Hargrove, it should be enough to turn the right eyes in his direction. Hopefully.
[] Search for more. While you run the risk of being discovered, you need to find more if you want to make sure that Captain Hargrove gets dealt with.
Investigating Captain Hargrove.
Investigation Check DC15: 6+11 = 17, 1 DoS, Night gathers general information on Captain Hargrove's activities.
Sneaking in.
Stealth vs Perception: 17+9 vs 18+2 = 26 vs 20, 2 DoS, Night successfully sneaks past the outer guards.
Getting past the guards inside
Stealth vs Perception: 17+9 vs 4+2 = 26 vs 6, 5 DoS, Night successfully sneaks past the inner guards.
Searching Captain Hargrove's office
Investigation Check DC15: 2+11 = 13, 1 DoF, Night finds only incomplete evidence and nothing concrete.
Investigation Check DC15: 6+11 = 17, 1 DoS, Night gathers general information on Captain Hargrove's activities.
Sneaking in.
Stealth vs Perception: 17+9 vs 18+2 = 26 vs 20, 2 DoS, Night successfully sneaks past the outer guards.
Getting past the guards inside
Stealth vs Perception: 17+9 vs 4+2 = 26 vs 6, 5 DoS, Night successfully sneaks past the inner guards.
Searching Captain Hargrove's office
Investigation Check DC15: 2+11 = 13, 1 DoF, Night finds only incomplete evidence and nothing concrete.
The Corrupt Captain III
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Search for more. While you run the risk of being discovered, you need to find more if you want to make sure that Captain Hargrove gets dealt with.
You barely need to think about. While you may have some evidence, it is nowhere near enough to prove Captain Hargrove guilty of his crimes. You will just need to take the risk of being uncovered, but you have already taken the first of being here in the first place so you might as well get the job done properly.
Thankfully, it doesn't take long to find something of actual value. Having looked through what is not hidden away, you begin to look for anything that Captain Hargrove is attempting to keep hidden in his office. Placed behind a bookshelf is a set of papers and documents, position so you wouldn't find or spot them unless you were actively looking, but also placed so they could be casually taken out and placed back.
Clearing a bit of space on Hargrove's desk, you take a moment to glance at some of the contents. Some of it makes no sense to you, but a fair amount of it is blatantly criminal at just a glance. You begin to frown as you continue to look through the evidence.
It is becoming quite clear that these documents implicate Captain Hargrove as being involved in more than just smuggling. Thinking about it, it makes sense as if the man was involved in one criminal operation, he would be willing to get involved in others.
You don't have time to look through it all and with these documents, you have enough to get Captain Hargrove into some serious trouble. You just need to make it out with the evidence and pass it onto the Kindeons. Once the proof has been delivered to the temple, you can let others take care of Captain Hargrove for you.
Getting back the guards on the way out once again proves to be easy despite one moment when you almost stumble across a wandering guard. Thankfully, your skills are good enough that combined with the guard not expecting to encounter anyone in the building, you are able to avoid being detected.
After that close call, you don't try and get out by one of the proper entrances, but instead exit via window, climbing out of it and then using your grappling gauntlets to reach a nearby rooftop.
"Yes milord, they are definitely smuggling more than just goods," confirms Avitian as the two of you go over the evidence together.
While the elf has served your family loyally since before there was a House Wallis and raised you after you lost your family, he has never been a replacement for your father nor has he ever tried to be. Instead, he has attempted to fulfil the role he would have had, an honorary uncle and loyal retainer.
Yet despite Avitian's efforts to keep his distance, the elf can't avoid the fact that he is your only remaining family and all that comes with that.
And now the two of you are working together as the pair of you look over the evidence that you brought home with you. Trustworthy and utterly loyal to House Wallis, Avitian is the only other person who knows that Benedict Wallis is actually the Night. While you have mostly relied upon his fighting skills to learn how to throw a punch and so forth, tonight you call upon his skills as a lawyer and his knowledge of both Imperial Law of the Solaris Imperium and the local city laws of Dusk City.
That knowledge proves invaluable when it comes to figuring out what crimes Captain Hargrove has been up as while you are more than capable of going over the evidence, it is Avitian's knowledge which has identified which laws have been broken and what crimes have been committed.
You suspected when you first look at the evidence, it turns out that Captain Hargrove has been involved in more than just smuggling goods. As it turns out, the corrupt city militia captain has also been smuggling weapons and people.
"Children," you say in an almost snarl, "People are not something to be treated as mere property, especially not children."
"Indeed," agrees Avitian before looking back down at set of documents the two have spread out on the desk, "Take a look here and compare it to here."
"Hmm," you hum as you look at the two documents that Avitian has singled out, "Gods, I hope this isn't what I think it is."
"It most likely is," says Avitian gravely, "Not only is Captain Hargrove smuggling children into the city, he is smuggling them out of it."
"Damn it," you curse, "Anything I should do?"
"Given the general nature of people smuggling on the border, both imperial and religious authorities have a strong interest in shutting it down," answers Avitian as the elf takes on a thoughtful look, "Historically, such smuggling would take two different forms. The first is smuggling out Elder Lord worshipers who didn't desire to convert or fight out of High Pantheon controlled territories. The second is smuggling in those who did want to fight in order to create spy networks and support rebel groups. They either support a foreign Elder Lord army in conquering the lands from High Pantheon followers or launch a local uprising to drive out the High Pantheon worshipers."
"I don't see how either of those would work here," you muses, "I might not know much about the current politics of the world, but I do know that the Kingdom of Forthwich is in no state to launch an invasion right now and would struggle to hold its own if it was invaded. It is also a well-known fact that the Solarian Imperial Legions are the strongest military in the world right now so even if the Forthwichians could muster up an invasion, they would lose."
"The Legions are the strongest human military," says Avitian, correcting your statement, "Even the Imperium would struggle against Elven or Dwarven armies. But yes, there would be no way that an Elder Lord nation could reclaim Dusk City from the Solaris Imperium."
"Which leaves launching a rebellion," you conclude, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of a way that would succeed. While they might be gain enough support to pull off a significant uprising, there is no guarantee they would be able to overcome the local forces and even if they did, they would certainly lose when the Solaris Imperium would bring down its might on the city in response."
"I concur," agrees Avitian, "But I can think of a couple of other possibilities, especially given the involved of a city militia captain."
"Go on," you say.
"People like Captain Hargrove or those he backs have nothing to gain from a successfully rebellion," says Avitian, "However, they would stand to gain something from a small rebellion that is crushed by local forces. If there is an Elder Lord uprising, it would give the local nobility an excuse to clamp down on the city and if it was defeated locally, the greater authorities wouldn't look into how it occurred or how local leadership deals with the matter as long as the situation stays handled. Needless to say, that would be a bad thing for you and your goals."
"Without doubt," you agree, "What about the second possibility?"
"Captain Hargrove might not realise the full implications of what he is doing," answers Avitian, "You would be surprised how many serious crimes are committed due to a person being greedy or selfish and not fully thinking through their actions. The captain may simply be doing it for the bribes and not realise what his actions may result in."
"And now I just need to decide whether to let the authorities, the greater authorities that is, deal with this or intervene myself," you say to yourself.
[] Let the authorities handle it. Staying out of this and letting the greater authorities handle this. With the threat of an Elder Lord uprising, the authorities of the Solaris Imperium with come down on this and involving yourself may only mess things up and bring unwanted attention down on your head.
[] Take care of this yourself. Children are being smuggled. Nothing more needs to be said even the authorities will take care of this for their own reasons. You are the Night and you will deal with this yourself.
You barely need to think about. While you may have some evidence, it is nowhere near enough to prove Captain Hargrove guilty of his crimes. You will just need to take the risk of being uncovered, but you have already taken the first of being here in the first place so you might as well get the job done properly.
Thankfully, it doesn't take long to find something of actual value. Having looked through what is not hidden away, you begin to look for anything that Captain Hargrove is attempting to keep hidden in his office. Placed behind a bookshelf is a set of papers and documents, position so you wouldn't find or spot them unless you were actively looking, but also placed so they could be casually taken out and placed back.
Clearing a bit of space on Hargrove's desk, you take a moment to glance at some of the contents. Some of it makes no sense to you, but a fair amount of it is blatantly criminal at just a glance. You begin to frown as you continue to look through the evidence.
It is becoming quite clear that these documents implicate Captain Hargrove as being involved in more than just smuggling. Thinking about it, it makes sense as if the man was involved in one criminal operation, he would be willing to get involved in others.
You don't have time to look through it all and with these documents, you have enough to get Captain Hargrove into some serious trouble. You just need to make it out with the evidence and pass it onto the Kindeons. Once the proof has been delivered to the temple, you can let others take care of Captain Hargrove for you.
Getting back the guards on the way out once again proves to be easy despite one moment when you almost stumble across a wandering guard. Thankfully, your skills are good enough that combined with the guard not expecting to encounter anyone in the building, you are able to avoid being detected.
After that close call, you don't try and get out by one of the proper entrances, but instead exit via window, climbing out of it and then using your grappling gauntlets to reach a nearby rooftop.
***
"Yes milord, they are definitely smuggling more than just goods," confirms Avitian as the two of you go over the evidence together.
While the elf has served your family loyally since before there was a House Wallis and raised you after you lost your family, he has never been a replacement for your father nor has he ever tried to be. Instead, he has attempted to fulfil the role he would have had, an honorary uncle and loyal retainer.
Yet despite Avitian's efforts to keep his distance, the elf can't avoid the fact that he is your only remaining family and all that comes with that.
And now the two of you are working together as the pair of you look over the evidence that you brought home with you. Trustworthy and utterly loyal to House Wallis, Avitian is the only other person who knows that Benedict Wallis is actually the Night. While you have mostly relied upon his fighting skills to learn how to throw a punch and so forth, tonight you call upon his skills as a lawyer and his knowledge of both Imperial Law of the Solaris Imperium and the local city laws of Dusk City.
That knowledge proves invaluable when it comes to figuring out what crimes Captain Hargrove has been up as while you are more than capable of going over the evidence, it is Avitian's knowledge which has identified which laws have been broken and what crimes have been committed.
You suspected when you first look at the evidence, it turns out that Captain Hargrove has been involved in more than just smuggling goods. As it turns out, the corrupt city militia captain has also been smuggling weapons and people.
"Children," you say in an almost snarl, "People are not something to be treated as mere property, especially not children."
"Indeed," agrees Avitian before looking back down at set of documents the two have spread out on the desk, "Take a look here and compare it to here."
"Hmm," you hum as you look at the two documents that Avitian has singled out, "Gods, I hope this isn't what I think it is."
"It most likely is," says Avitian gravely, "Not only is Captain Hargrove smuggling children into the city, he is smuggling them out of it."
"Damn it," you curse, "Anything I should do?"
"Given the general nature of people smuggling on the border, both imperial and religious authorities have a strong interest in shutting it down," answers Avitian as the elf takes on a thoughtful look, "Historically, such smuggling would take two different forms. The first is smuggling out Elder Lord worshipers who didn't desire to convert or fight out of High Pantheon controlled territories. The second is smuggling in those who did want to fight in order to create spy networks and support rebel groups. They either support a foreign Elder Lord army in conquering the lands from High Pantheon followers or launch a local uprising to drive out the High Pantheon worshipers."
"I don't see how either of those would work here," you muses, "I might not know much about the current politics of the world, but I do know that the Kingdom of Forthwich is in no state to launch an invasion right now and would struggle to hold its own if it was invaded. It is also a well-known fact that the Solarian Imperial Legions are the strongest military in the world right now so even if the Forthwichians could muster up an invasion, they would lose."
"The Legions are the strongest human military," says Avitian, correcting your statement, "Even the Imperium would struggle against Elven or Dwarven armies. But yes, there would be no way that an Elder Lord nation could reclaim Dusk City from the Solaris Imperium."
"Which leaves launching a rebellion," you conclude, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of a way that would succeed. While they might be gain enough support to pull off a significant uprising, there is no guarantee they would be able to overcome the local forces and even if they did, they would certainly lose when the Solaris Imperium would bring down its might on the city in response."
"I concur," agrees Avitian, "But I can think of a couple of other possibilities, especially given the involved of a city militia captain."
"Go on," you say.
"People like Captain Hargrove or those he backs have nothing to gain from a successfully rebellion," says Avitian, "However, they would stand to gain something from a small rebellion that is crushed by local forces. If there is an Elder Lord uprising, it would give the local nobility an excuse to clamp down on the city and if it was defeated locally, the greater authorities wouldn't look into how it occurred or how local leadership deals with the matter as long as the situation stays handled. Needless to say, that would be a bad thing for you and your goals."
"Without doubt," you agree, "What about the second possibility?"
"Captain Hargrove might not realise the full implications of what he is doing," answers Avitian, "You would be surprised how many serious crimes are committed due to a person being greedy or selfish and not fully thinking through their actions. The captain may simply be doing it for the bribes and not realise what his actions may result in."
"And now I just need to decide whether to let the authorities, the greater authorities that is, deal with this or intervene myself," you say to yourself.
[] Let the authorities handle it. Staying out of this and letting the greater authorities handle this. With the threat of an Elder Lord uprising, the authorities of the Solaris Imperium with come down on this and involving yourself may only mess things up and bring unwanted attention down on your head.
[] Take care of this yourself. Children are being smuggled. Nothing more needs to be said even the authorities will take care of this for their own reasons. You are the Night and you will deal with this yourself.
Searching Captain Hargrove's office again.
Investigation Check, DC15: 19+11 = 30, 4 DoS, Night finds only extensive evidence and gains +2 circumstance bonus to later analysis.
Sneaking back past the inside guards
Stealth vs Perception: 2+9 vs 7+2-2 = 11 vs 7, 1 DoS, Night successfully sneaks past the inner guards.
Sneaking out of the building.
Stealth vs Perception: 3+9 vs 2+2-2 = 12 vs 2, 3 DoS, Night successfully sneaks past the outer guards.
Analysing the evidence.
Investigation Check, DC15: 17+11+2 = 30, 4 DoS, Night almost complete details in on the smuggling operation alongside details on other criminal activities that Captain Hargrove is involved in.
Investigation Check, DC15: 19+11 = 30, 4 DoS, Night finds only extensive evidence and gains +2 circumstance bonus to later analysis.
Sneaking back past the inside guards
Stealth vs Perception: 2+9 vs 7+2-2 = 11 vs 7, 1 DoS, Night successfully sneaks past the inner guards.
Sneaking out of the building.
Stealth vs Perception: 3+9 vs 2+2-2 = 12 vs 2, 3 DoS, Night successfully sneaks past the outer guards.
Analysing the evidence.
Investigation Check, DC15: 17+11+2 = 30, 4 DoS, Night almost complete details in on the smuggling operation alongside details on other criminal activities that Captain Hargrove is involved in.
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