Warhammer Fantasy: Thirteen Tolls - An Apocalypse Quest
- Thread starter Graf Tzarogy
- Start date
- Fantasy
Vote closed
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vote's (re)open!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And on that, vote's open for another two days. Will count votes already made, so no need to re-vote.
- Location
- Pilipinas
I want to really limit or not use Ambrose's interaction or actions with our PC, that flash of anger in his eyes which was quickly smothered would likely make him, If not outright sabotage, then hinder us in some way hence its good that someone loyal to us is accompanying him with Lady Tophania. Cause again, Ambrose's ultimate loyalty is with the Princeps and he has his own agenda..
- Location
- Singapore
Welcome to Skavenblight on the eve of its conversion to Skavenblight. The seeds of how absolutely confusing Skavendom politics and plotting is, are present in Tylos on the eve of it's fall (or ascension depending on who you ask) into the Under-Empire.
I am convinced that a Grey Seer quest would be about as confusing and have as many plots moving at the same time, as poor Xenophon is currently experiencing.
[X] Plan: Investigations and Bouncers
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MiskWisk
Hoot
- Location
- Somewhere devoid of wit
- Pronouns
- He
Throwing in a vote for my own plan to make sure it's counted this time.
[X] Plan: Investigations and Bouncers
-[X] Hire security.
-[X] Study your sword.
-[X] [P] Investigate the Tower.
-[X] Protest a trial. (S)
-[X] Steal warpstone. (S)
-[X] Go to the Casino.
-[X] [R] Explore a district - Little Khemri
-[X] [A] [M] Investigate somebody. - Lady Tophania
[X] Plan: Investigations and Bouncers
-[X] Hire security.
-[X] Study your sword.
-[X] [P] Investigate the Tower.
-[X] Protest a trial. (S)
-[X] Steal warpstone. (S)
-[X] Go to the Casino.
-[X] [R] Explore a district - Little Khemri
-[X] [A] [M] Investigate somebody. - Lady Tophania
[X] Plan: Investigations and Bouncers
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vote's closing midnight today, PST.
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- Location
- Between dreams and reality
[X]Plan: Shifty Allies
-[X] [A] Amass supplies.
-[X] Study your sword.
-[X] [P] Investigate the Tower.
-[X] Protest a trial. (S)
-[X] Steal warpstone. (S)
-[X] Go to the Casino.
-[X] [R] Explore a district - Little Khemri
-[X] Investigate somebody. - Ambrose
-[X] [A] Amass supplies.
-[X] Study your sword.
-[X] [P] Investigate the Tower.
-[X] Protest a trial. (S)
-[X] Steal warpstone. (S)
-[X] Go to the Casino.
-[X] [R] Explore a district - Little Khemri
-[X] Investigate somebody. - Ambrose
- Location
- USA
[x]Plan: Shifty Allies
Vote closed
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Pronouns
- He
I just read the quest and i'm very impress with all the intrigue and prose that you have created, thank you for you effort!
Turn Five Results (Part 1) - Ante
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The last time you were here, you were fleeing certain death, you think as the lights of Casino pierce the fog and you see the House of Tyleus for the first time in a decade. You've grown, you suppose, because now you're running towards peril as opposed to away. You're doing your duty at last.
But this is a much nicer entrance than the last. You're in fine black silk, instead of a bloodied tunic, and you're coming in frontways, where marble fountains of leaping sea-dragons spray rosewater and masked waiters offer canapes rather than sneaking through the servant's way in between the onions and the pork. Company is altogether more mixed. Aoife, scared she must have been, didn't show it. You remember the warmth of her arm around your shoulders, and that barbarian lullaby you still hear in your dreams. But she's gone to a country none might return, and in her place, a barbarian proper, Ambrose, in a shining brass breastplate, sword at his hilt, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
He'd come back to you from his trailing of the Lady Tophania with news that she herself had planned to make landing at the Casino this eve in the company of her niece Sonia. This would have been hardly remarkable for the coincidence that per the cousin of the sister of a friend of a maid Mervin had worked with, the Lord Erolinus, her brother-in-law, recently released from Bimar Asylum after that business with his mistresses. Further, the Lady Tophania, per Ambrose, had recently commissioned an extremely expensive ring from a smith from Naggarond itself, an act particular curious considering the late advertisement from her other in-law Angelus about the disappearance of his jewelry.
Ambrose gave all of this to you, and then demanded he come along to figure out what in particular was happening. You had tried to wave him off, suggest that you needed some time alone, but stumbled on the phrasing after realizing you sounded like you were trying to disguise a gambling habit and had to concede to a bodyguard. You don't know with him. After your near-kiss, he'd been perfectly professional, if not cold. He gave his report as brief as could be, but he still did the legwork that he didn't need to do if he was phoning it in. You look at him, in his nice military duds, crimson cape and feathered helm, the perfect toy solider. What was his angle? Why would someone like that – who rose high in these cities, and might rise higher – have any interest in you, with traitors and the dead?
To kill the Princeps, he said – but why?
But you had no time for speculation. You step on the Elvish carpet, enchanted to look like a stream with koi-illusions swimming to and fro on the lawn, and step forth into the land of the slaves.
…
All men are free, Tyleus said as he was dying, who are guests of my house. Hence was born the House of Tyleus, district of freedmen, kingdom of the manumitted. That last declaration of the cities' god-king was not well taken by most, and the Isle for many a year was kept penned and sieged. Freedom could not, after all, fill stomachs. To this day, the sellers of flesh keep a close eye on who comes and goes, but the genius of some long-gone freedmen still makes a hole in the blockade. The Casino – vice irresistible, a party everlasting, the greatest of entertainment for the greatest civilization. Bait well taken – ensuring an eternal flow of deniable traffic back and forth from the House, and besides, a very pretty penny.
And it has been maintained as befits it status as lifeline, you think, as you arrive in the Casino proper. The columns are all Arabyan porphyry, like the void of the night sky, while Lodge floating lanterns make stars. The foyer is drenched in a cloying perfume that you know is an illusion to be what is most pleasing to your nose – cinnamon or cloves or cookies or copulation. To you – and perhaps this is more memory than magic, a hint of Aoife; clean linen, and orange rind from the fruit tree outside your childhood bedroom.
There is music, a full troupe, with flute and lyre and horn. There is food and drink galore; gold plates sit on enchanted tables that grow fresh grapes and peaches and plums as bejewelled goblets refill with wine by some magic unseen. There is dwarf riding a miniature lion, tame to be petted by passing ladies, and below the moving frescos of the ceiling where a ship fights an almighty storm acrobats leap and twirl in a ribbon dance, kept aloft by ensorcelled winds. There is a mob of the high and mighty passing each and every way. You spot Morganis Barbarian, the industrial tycoon, a chain of rubies around his neck in a golden toga. He heads into the card room, behind a silver emblazoned with a hundred winking faces of Ranald, just as three young women in dress that the Queen Morathi might find revealing squeal and embrace his business partner, the porty, sweating, Rackius Fellbus, who blushes like a schoolboy as they pepper him with kisses.
The senator Nivet is in the corner. He spots you spot him, and waves, still incomprehensible under his cloak of illusion, settled in his zone, drinking alone. Near him are Martyrius Tzimiskes and Vigilus Rhangabe, both senators, in their red-rimmed robes of office. They are arguing about something with great gusto, and have attracted quite the crowd – you hear, just over the music, something about "damnable Elves". The Lady Tophania, and her family is nowhere to be seen. You did not spot them in the gardens, coming in, which leaves the private dining rooms to the east, the card rooms to the west, or north, the theatre, which, thank Morr, has no show scheduled tonight.
But before you do anything, you're tapped on the shoulder. You turn, but Ambrose is already there, hand on his blade. But its just Loreley, the piratess, part of the League of Salvation. She raises an eye at Ambrose, and he – with surprising reluctance, lets his hand fall.
"Hail, friend of the House" she says, dark eyes glinting, teeth sharp. "Room Nine is ready". And with surprising strength, she grabs you, and pulls you through the crowd. You hear Ambrose cry out behind you, but Lorely just laughs "No plus ones!"
…
You're taken down a hall, and then another, every one identical in sumptuousness; thick carpets, wutroth furniture, paintings and sculptures of men and women in revelry, animated to move, of such realism if they didn't move you'd think petrification.
Finally, Lorely lets go of your arm which pinches sore, at a plain dark wooden door. She knocks thrice, and it opens to a plain stone room. No carpet, no hangings, just a roaring hearth, and threadbare couch and a writing desk.
Your heart jumps to your throat. This was your room, for a while.
Before you left.
On the couch is an old woman. You don't look at her face for a moment, stay in the fantasy that it's your mother, but you look up after a half-sec, and see that it isn't Aoife. It's someone you know, though, the Old Mother. Isha, First Lady of the House for as long as you've lived and perhaps any who have. She who makes things work. Beside her is the Blue Thunder, Cassius the Gladiator, blond hair messy, blue tunic still with bloodstains on it from his latest bout.
They look at you in silence.
You enter and kneel. Isha offers her wizened hand, nails long and black. You kiss it.
You still bear a debt.
"Sit", she says in a rasp not unlike the noise of the last stone laid to close a tomb.
You do, on the floor, and feel very much like the boy you were.
Last time.
"We have a problem, Son of Aoife." Isha calls. "We need a solution."
You take a moment to find your voice, which quivers only a little. "My life for yours, Grandmother." That was the promise you made. The House freed slaves freely, but to liberate a master they had better pay a just price.
"You are a priest of the God of the Dead?"
"I am."
"Good. A man needs burying."
You could do a funeral, you think. Not what you wanted this evening, but what you could get.
"A shame" says Lorely, "because he still walks our House."
Ah.
There is a silence.
Isha gives a stare at Cassius, that would kill lesser men. The gladiator, survivor of a thousand duels to the death, looked genuinely chastened.
"We've been made" he says. "Don't know how, don't know why. We were keeping quiet – communicating only through the telegraph – all symbols, you know, not a word - but someone's got the guest list we-" The Old Mother raises an eyebrow, and the room cools several degrees. Cassius, pale, corrects himself "I – was passing around."
"To the Casino?" you say. You don't quite get the risk.
"Yes. All who've come to our shores" says Isha. "All who were made free."
"A problem" calls Lorely, voice a razor "because they know who all of us are."
"And for the Salvation" says Cassius "we'd been sending out agents."
"For an end to masters" Lorely calls.
"For justice" Cassius says.
"For blood" says Isha.
You think of a ring on Aoife's finger cutting a gash down your father's cheek.
"And know they know who's where" you say.
"You were always quick." Isha notes. "They're here tonight to collect a ransom – I presume you know what must be done?"
You nod, automatically, even as you process what needs doing.
"What do they want?"
Lorely rolls her eyes. "Boring, mostly – gold, jewels, a fortune."
"I'm to meet them at midnight" Cassius says, "By the fountain of the Hydra".
"They know us" says Isha "but not all. You're a friend without a known face. Do this for us" and her mouth becomes a thin line "and I will give you your mother's bones."
You start. You knew Aoife was dead. She wrote to you, until she couldn't, and then the House did. You couldn't come back then; too soon after your leaving, and the Brothers would not have let you go.
You'd do anything to see her again.
You stare at Isha's wrinkled, craggled face, her beady black eyes, her thinning white hair.
"I will give your enemy the grace of Morr" you say; and she offers her hand.
A pact is made.
You will bury them.
…
Where do you begin your investigation? (Pick 2, vote by plan)
[-] the Gardens
It's a lovely night. Lord Erolinus is playing Nine Men's Morris out here.
[-] the Theatre
Second time's the charm. Nobody should be in here.
[-] the Cardroom
Where the action happens. Nivet and Morganis are betting.
[-] the Dining Rooms
They're just about to serve the main course, and, per Ambrose, where the Lady Tophania is.
[-] the Foyer
Martyrius Tzimiskes and Vigilus Rhangabe are still arguing in here, though Rackius Fellbus is gone.
AN: As always, feedback appreciated, and happy to answer any questions.
EDIT: Should also note that your action to investigate Lady Tophania will mean that any rolls concerning her during this venture will always be successful.
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Well this is a new take on the Elvish goddess of life.
- Location
- Between dreams and reality
So what are we trying to find?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Xenophon has been instructed to locate the unknown individual who is blackmailing the House through possession of their guestbook, which contains all the names of all the slaves that have been freed by the House, allowing the holder to discover whom the House has sent out into the Cities to prepare for the League's "Salvation".