faderiftooc | MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death

MOD PLOT: WINGS OF DEATH

We're finally actually going to Antiva. Approximately now, many or most Riftwatch members will embark on trip to Rialto to take advantage of the king's merry mood and the congregation of most of the Merchant Princes in one place to push for Antiva to give up its famous neutrality and stop trading with Tevinter and the Anderfels while the war is ongoing. Accomplishing this will require a few last pushes to gain influence and root out secrets. The IC log is up here; read on for more OOC details.

WHAT TO DO

Missions

While in Rialto, characters may be sent on a few specific missions necessary to help push Antiva toward agreeing to give up its trade neutrality. (Or those missions might be the whole reason they're in Rialto at all, if it otherwise wouldn't be their thing.) For more information on those, scroll down!

Open Log

The open plot log includes setting details and prompts, including some work you can have your characters do outside of the missions, details on their accommodations, and things they can do in their downtime. This is also where you can play out any assassination attempts. (See notes on those below.)

Lastly, every character staying at the palazzo will have at least one roommate with whom they have to share a bed (or not; the floor is fine) for all of your There's Only One Bed dreams. You can choose your own roommates OOC – either characters who would choose to room together or characters who get stuck that way by chance. Both are plausible. It's also fine to handwave the whole roommate thing and never decide who your character is staying with, if you don't want to RP about it.

Opting Out

Characters may be ICly ordered to go to Antiva, but OOC it is up to you. If you don't want your character to participate, they can hold down the fort in the Gallows or be on an assignment elsewhere, no problem. (But if they're members of Riftwatch, they do need to have a work reason to stay behind, not just a personal dislike of Antiva/the weather/parties/etc.)

MISSIONS

We have three missions with specific goals, which altogether will ideally contribute toward convincing Antiva to cut off trade with Tevinter. These missions are geared toward particular skill sets but are open for any character to tag into. They’re not closed or capped. You can tag into any mission you want, or all of them, as long as you only do so with one character and that character is not an absurd person for leadership to send on that mission.

Whether Riftwatch's attempt to convince Antiva to stop trading with Tevinter fails, partially succeeds, or fully succeeds will depend on whether the missions are tagged. We'll take stock of the tag counts and finalize the outcome on May 31.

To fully succeed and convince Antiva to cut off trade with Tevinter entirely, each mission will need to have at least 15 tags.
To partially succeed and convince Antiva to stop trading weaponry, horses, and other specifically combat-useful goods with Tevinter, each mission will need to have at least 10 tags.
If any missions have fewer than 10 tags, Antiva will decline to stop trading.

We recommend not feeling beholden to tag order. Just be mindful of other people who are trying to actively participate in the thread and don't boomerang round after round and leave them behind (unless you're the right up against the tag-count deadline or something). If you don't tag in at first but a mission seems to be falling short of the tag goal and you want to help out, throw your character in late and say they were always there.

We'll give out some bonus consequences or rewards for teams who pass the 15 tag mark and keep going. Think small and fun more than plot-altering, but we'll try to scale them based on how far you go and may also adjust individual rewards based on participation. These will be specifically for the characters participating in the thread, rather than impacting Riftwatch's overall success.

Your missions, should you choose to accept them, are:

Mazegate

Who: Nerds, Gate enthusiasts, and the well-armed people who love them.

What: Part of the reason Riftwatch has ventured to Antiva now in such numbers despite the Crow threat is the intelligence that there are Venatori in the city planning…something. Political maneuvering much like Riftwatch's, no doubt, but rumors suggest there is something more afoot as well. In hopes of figuring out what that is, Riftwatch has, among other things, asked the Research division to conduct thaumoscopes sweeps for any significant magical activity. Strangely elevated readings have pointed them to a lovely area of the city dotted with parks and palazzos—one of which belongs to Ramondo Caliara, a merchant prince that Riftwatch recently determined is not only a secret mage, but actively in league with Tevinter. Riftwatch has acquired evidence sufficient to convince themselves of his guilt, but have bided their time for the right opportunity to use it, not quite sure it's enough to bring down one of the kingdom's most powerful men.

Caliara also happens to be the owner of Antiva's grandest hedge maze, though sadly damage from a recent fire has prevented him opening the spectacular labyrinth to the guests at his ball. Naturally, the Riftwatch team sent to attend the ball to take further readings will discover that the magical activity is coming from the garden, filled entirely with hedgerow tunnels taller than any two men. Precisely what or where in the maze the activity comes from can only be determined by venturing into it. As they might expect from Antiva's grandest hedge maze, owned by a malevolent secret mage merchant prince, there are more hazards to deal with than just losing their way.

Eventually, someone will wander into a portion of the maze that has not yet been fully rebuilt: trunks of hedgerow still twisted and blackened like finger bones left on a pyre, smears of soot and ash across the dirt. But they'll also find that the fire has revealed stone beneath the grass, and chunks of what might once have been a wall within one of the hedges. Some might recognize the dark and angular stonework as reminiscent of Tevinter ruins. Further exploration will reveal more of the same, and signs that the ruin has been deliberately excavated—recently. Finally, they come upon a dark, twisting staircase spiraling down.

Below the half-destroyed maze (because obviously they're going to go down there, right?) is the remains of a Tevinter temple, identifiable in style to anyone who has seen or read reports of the Temple of Dumat in Orlais. But this complex is clearly much smaller and less ornate, and where the Temple of Dumat was suffocating in its suppression of all sound, here things echo weirdly, sounds bouncing off smoothly-planed walls, every surface the same unbroken black stone. It might appear that all there is is one small rectangular room, an aborted hallway, if it weren't for the fact that someone has already found the hidden door and propped it open.

A series of similar halls follow, something in their sharp corners and sudden blind turns reminiscent of the maze above. But here, helpfully, the way has been marked with more makeshift doorstops. That's the good news. The bad news: from somewhere ahead of them comes the low, ominous sound of chanting, like a prayer being intoned. It might almost be taken for some magical trick, until one of the chanters sneezes. The Venatori who propped the doors are still there somewhere. Doing something. Sneezing.

If the group chooses to try to creep the rest of the way and surprise their quarry, they will meet the Venatori as they try to leave back the way they came, and a fight will ensue in the narrow stone passages where use of magic is particularly dangerous to friend and foe alike. If they choose instead to risk being heard and rush onward, they will catch the Venatori still in the shrine's ritual chamber, a room large enough to permit more freedom of movement (and of fireballs). In either case, the team will succeed in killing their enemies and capturing their satchels of papers and pottery for later examination. Study of the ritual chamber will find carvings that relate to Razikale, the Dragon of Mystery, and a number of secret panels and compartments, now open and emptied.

Pirate Pretend

Who: People capable of pretending to be fearsome pirates, other people capable of pretending to be doomed merchant sailors.

What: Maffeo D'Esposito, an independent pirate captain and the acknowledged and beloved bastard son of Prince Bonaiuto Cellini, wants nothing more than to join the Felicisima Armada. There is not much Cellini wants more, either—both because he loves his kid, and because it would give him eyes on the inside. D'Esposito has arranged a try-out of sorts: he knows the time and place where pulling off a spectacular raid would be observed by Ser Tadeus, the Armada's rumored leader.

Three things stands in his way: he does not have much stomach for bloodshed (but is confident he can deliver the goods regardless if given a chance), most of his small crew has come down with a severe bout of food poisoning (Maker help them), and there's no guarantee a merchant vessel of adequate riches will pass by that particular cove at that particular time.

Riftwatch's mission, which D'Esposito guarantees will be a success, is to help him with both sides of his proposed raid, with some joining his crew temporarily and others commandeering a small, disposable ship (courtesy of his dad) laden with valuables (also courtesy of his dad) and sailing into the path of his beloved Lo Svasso. With Ser Tadeus watching at a safe, detail-obscuring distance (D'Esposito has the details covered!), "his crew" will "raid" the "merchant vessel," "murder" the "merchant sailors,” "steal the cargo," and burn the ship. That last part will be real.

In other words, everyone has to dramatically pretend to fight and kill one another, then sneak the "dead" into the hold of Lo Svasso under cover of smoke and chaos while the merchant vessel burns. This will take place at a safe enough distance from their audience that they can more or less talk normally while they do it, as long as they look furious when facing the shore and occasionally shout.

If they succeed at convincing Ser Tadeus that D'Esposito is a total badass, he will put in a word with his father about ending neutrality. Probably even several words. Alternatively, if everything goes wrong and players opt to let it turn into a huge failure, as long as most of them are reasonably good sports about it he'll still be so touched by the effort and/or apologetic for the injuries that he'll help them out anyway.

During the log, players can optionally roll a d6 to receive a prompt for their tag. You can also include the prompt at the end of your tag for the next person to deal with. Either way! And you aren't required to roll a number for your tag if you have something else you'd like to do instead.

Someone (PC or NPC) accidentally inflicts a real but minor injury.
A smoke bomb, fake blood bag, trap door meant to assist in moving the "dead," or other special effect detonates unexpectedly and must be improv'd into the act.
Part of the merchant ship, which is already on its last sea-legs, breaks or falls apart unexpectedly.
One of the NPC crewmen breaks character (to laugh, or something else) and needs to be covered for.
The weather gets slightly worse. (If this happens 3+ times, they will be doing all of this in a full rainstorm and may have to come up with a new plan, besides burning the ship, to obscure the absence of merchant corpses.)
D'Esposito shouts something straight out of a ridiculous pirate story, drops his sword on his own foot, accidentally attacks the wrong side, slips in a puddle of fake blood, or nearly falls overboard.

If you roll for a prompt, be sure to include your roll in the subject line of your comment so other people know what it is, because: if at any point participating players roll the same number for two tags in a row, it will trigger the MURDER OPTION, and one of D'Esposito's crew members—paid off by the Antivan Crows—will make an attempt to "slip" and murder a Riftwatch member or two. (If this happens multiple times and a comical number of crew members are secretly working for the Crows, that's fine.) D'Esposito himself will have no knowledge of this and will do what he can to put a stop to it if it becomes obvious.

Crowspiracy

Who: Sneaks and people who can pass for sneaky in a pinch

What: Further investigation into the Crow contract, including outreach to some old contacts of the Scoutmaster's, has suggested it is an unusually large contract, accepted by an unusually large number of Crows, all of House Kortez. The sheer number of attempts on Riftwatchers' lives in the early days of their visit to Rialto will bear that out. However much good fortune Riftwatch experiences during this initial wave of attacks, there's no reason to expect it to continue, and so proactive measures must be taken.

One benefit of suffering so many Crow attacks is that one comes into possession of a lot of Crow pocket litter and Crow outfits. (Since Crows are notoriously difficult to take alive and even more difficult to break, this is the best intel Riftwatch is likely to get in a hurry.) Eventually they get lucky, and some combination of small clues and odds and ends of messages half-disposed of in secret pockets is pieced together to provide an opportunity: an all-hands meeting of House Kortez to be held one evening at the Palazzo Pugnale. The team will have to pretend to be Crows to gain entry, and to mingle with the assembled House Kortez assassins long enough to poke around and find out what they're up to.

Once inside, they'll need to make it through just enough of the pre-meeting cocktail to then slip out into the rest of the palazzo to make a search. They won't have to stay long, but it also won't be as easy as slinking around the edge of the room: full house gatherings like this one are infrequent, and the mood is tense with both anxiety and excitement. People may try to talk to them, to trade stories about past jobs, gossip about their fellow Crows and Antivan society, express concerns about these recent developments, or trade tips and tricks of the trade. (Sounding Antivan is not absolutely necessary but highly advisable; recruits are taken young enough that few foreigners keep their accents.)

In addition to the few master assassins that make up his inner circle, house leader Emil Kortez is joined by two people who do not appear to be Crows: a laconic, glowering young man who drinks too much wine and an elegant middle-aged woman in the garb of the Venatori. As they slip out of the gathering and into the halls, they may catch bits of a rousing speech from house leader Emil Kortez encouraging his brethren to continue their efforts because the rewards will be worth the losses when, with the help of its new allies, House Kortez finally ascends to First Talon.

The rest of the palazzo is more lightly guarded and sparsely occupied than usual, but there are still Crows about who they will need to creep carefully through the halls to avoid and quietly dispatch before an alarm can be raised. There are a number of offices, a library, and a maproom to search, each with its own locked drawers and document safes. But the Crows of this house, at least, feel secure enough when assembled in their stronghold that not every paper of interest is secreted away, and it will be possible to locate a number of interesting documents providing insight into House Kortez's plans. Those searching Emil's office will come across documents indicating an alliance with the Venatori and notes on the habits and weaknesses of other Crow house leaders as well as members of the royal family, which could indicate a wider plan.

Unfortunately, those searching Emil's office will also trigger a fiendishly well hidden trapdoor mechanism that will send most if not all of them sliding into a cell in the palazzo basement. It is too tall to climb back out, and their timing couldn't be worse: the tide is rising, and this close to the harbor the water levels rise precipitously with the tide, flooding the basements of every canalside mansion, including this one. Whether the water will rise above their heads before Kortez returns to his office or vice versa is impossible to say, but either way they will need to hurry if they're going to escape, especially with the documents in any shape to stand as evidence.

RE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS

While Riftwatch is in Rialto its members will be targeted by a murder of Antivan Crows, who accepted a contract to eliminate as many of them as possible. Riftwatch is aware of the possibility of this threat and will be taking some precautions:

Outside of a few official functions, everyone will be instructed not to wear their uniforms or otherwise clearly mark themselves as Riftwatch in a crowd.
No one is supposed to wander off alone. Buddy system! Bodyguards! Given their responses to the post on this subject (and the general opinion of the Division Heads) people will be ICly assigned to keep an eye on each other as needed. The pairs won't be set in stone—it may be different each day, it may not, up to you—but will be designed to ensure that people who need more protection have it as much as possible. We encourage you to use this as another reason for characters who might not normally spend time together to be forced to do so.
There will be a curfew for anyone not attending to specific Riftwatch business that requires staying out later, and members will take turns doing overnight watches at the palazzo where they're all staying to make sure there are no disturbances. (But there will be plenty of specific late-night business to justify night-time adventures for those who want them.)
Griffon riders will be on call day and night and available to swoop in and pick up anyone who gets into a tough spot and crystal-calls for help.

Despite this, assassination attempts will happen anyway. The Crows may use poison, snipe with arrows, attempt to seduce or otherwise get people alone, stab in passing in a crowd, or whatever else you want to come up with. (If you want a prompt, you can generate one.) Rifters and natives with anchors in particular may also be subject to kidnapping attempts rather than assassination attempts, either/or.

There are no sign-ups or limits on how many people can be almost-assassinated (or actually assassinated, if you're feeling like death) or how often it can happen to someone, because drama is fun and we want everyone to be able to have some if they want it. But in exchange, everyone has to promise to not make a huge deal out of how silly it is if every single person in Riftwatch successfully eludes an Antivan Crow. Specifically,

Please don't use this as IC proof that the Antivan Crows are incompetent and couldn't kill their way out of a wet paper bag. They're terrifying actually. We strongly suggest needing multiple people to fend them off, especially for non-combatant characters; near-misses (dramatically almost die, you have our permission and encouragement!); having NPCs die as either collateral damage or intentional bonus targets; making the Crow who almost successfully murders your character like 12 years old, what the heck; and doing whatever else you need to do to avoid the IC sense that Antivan Crows aren't a big deal.
Please don't ICly make a huge fuss about how Riftwatch's leadership should never have allowed everyone to go to Antiva in the first place. We agree that it's not very realistic! But it is fun (we hope 😬), and if we only ever included characters who the leadership would really truly believe were good for a particular mission, with no polite characterization-bending by their players, some characters would never leave the Gallows again.

ACTIVITY CHECK

Threads in this plot log can count toward May's AC as well as April's, as long as you do not use the same thread for both months.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ask! And if an answer is required in order for you to write your next tag in a log—especially a mission log—do us a favor and put "URGENT" in the subject line.

Is it feasible to cut through walls of the hedgemaze, say with a sword or the application of some destructive magic, or is it simply too dense/dummy thicc to make that a wise choice?

No, neither are really feasible. It's fine to say they get lucky and find a thinner patch of hedge that they can hack through to get them out of a tight spot if you want, but that would only get them into an adjacent passage, and it's still tough enough to be more of a one time last resort, not a practical way to get out of the maze altogether.

And after the previous issue with fire, Caliara has taken special precautions to prevent another damaging his precious creation: setting fire to the hedge will now trigger an ice spell that not only puts out the fire but freezes those in the area in place temporarily.

Hi! Not a super important question, but I'm still settling on an IC acquisition for Emet-Selch's sword I bought and working out if it's feasible to just acquire in-mission, and if this is like... something that could maybe be liberated from a certain temple excavation (or something similar) or if picking this up somewhere on this trip would be more likely to cause problems/end in theft accusations/etc etc. If it's less feasible that this would be available I'll just handwave having picked it up somewhere beforehand!

Sure, acquiring the sword somewhere during the mission is fine! Obviously if he were going to be taking it off the wall of a merchant prince or similar that would cause problems, but getting it off a Crow or something like that would be okay. If you'd like to have him pick it up in the hedge maze temple, we'd suggest that it be dropped by one of the Venatori rather than an artifact of the temple itself, since if it's the latter people might want to study it. But if that sounds fun, that's also fine with us. Thanks for checking!

MOD PLOT ↠ Wings of Death

QUESTIONS

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject