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--- resources:adventure:and_all_manner_of_things_shall_be_well [2019/08/18 09:19]
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+++ resources:adventure:and_all_manner_of_things_shall_be_well [2020/01/11 11:15] (current)
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   * [[user:gm_matthew:pc:florean_dorean_delorean|Florean Dorean Delorean]] - Mat
   * [[user:littlefeltfangs:pc:james|"Joshua"]]
-  * Beatrice - Sophia
+  * [[user:sophiadm:pc:beatrice|Beatrice]] - Sophia
   * ????? - Anna
@@ Line 45: / Line 45: @@
 ===== Debrief =====
+As the chaos continues to unfold, the party debrief to their various handlers. The Bureaucracy receive two a roughly accurate account of the adventure, along with a plausible but untrue account designed by Chance for official distribution, insisting that this was the product of a Connection conjunction and a bunch of Commission experiments. The Commission, however, are quickly alerted to the fact that they could claim the Scarletts as convenient apprentices/test subjects, and move to do so. The Order of the Shroud are given a similar report, and move as one with the Bureaucracy. Joshua makes sure to mention the presence of the bogus Department of Extraplanar Affairs, and the Bureaucracy confirm that anybody claiming to be working for such a department does not do so with their approval. The name 'Threshold' turns up a bunch of papers from hundreds of years ago, redacted above Joshua's clearance level. Finally, Chance and Team Bureaucracy go to hand over the deadly Scissors to the bureaucracy - they are gratefully accepted, and handled with great care.
+It soon becomes clear that the result of this is a major diplomatic crisis. The Bureaucracy know that the Scarletts are extraplanar in nature, and want to take them in, but they can't /claim/ that they're extraplanar in nature without letting on that such things exist, and they can't /prove/ that they are extraplanar now that their connection to the Mirror has been severed. Chance augments his senses to track down as many Scarletts as possible, and is quite successful, albeit much less successful than expected - it seems as if the Scarletts have some sort of supernatural ability to avoid pursuit. Nevertheless, the Bureaucracy and the Commission each manage to scoop up around 200 Scarletts, with the rest dissipating either into weird cults, into the Barrens, or seemingly disappearing off the map through supernatural means. The Bureaucracy demands that the Commission surrender its Scarletts. The Commissioners, some of them discreetly sporting mutated flowers, refuse, claiming that the obviously mutated Scarletts are their property, and for anyone other than a commissioner to handle such things is of course Treason. More to the point, they have discovered that though they start off somewhat naive, Scarletts learn at a substantially faster rate than normal humans, making them ideal students. Things rather escalate from there, with neither side willing to back down. The two forces remain at loggerheads, neither of them willing to take action to break the stalemate. It seems that the reckoning between the Bureaucracy and the Commission may be coming sooner rather than later...
+Vera, meanwhile, wakes up in the house owned by her fathers, shaken from her trip back into reality and her brush with narrowly-avoided death. To her surprise, she also wakes up with two paladins of the Rod and Throne respectively, who have patchy memories but seem to be recovering. They quickly make their excuses and leave for their respective Sanctums, faint motes of silvery stuff sliding off their bodies and vanishing to nothing as they do so. She leaves and heads directly to the Commission, asking to be allowed to use her Air of Efficiency to increase food production. She finds a bureaucracy taskforce preparing for another full investigation of the Commission, and they promptly recognize her as the Throne Paladin they were warned about and arrest her.
+Vera insists that she did all that she did in pursuit of her vow. The Bureaucracy are more than a little unimpressed by this, but as her case is examined and other Throne Paladins are made aware of this, she finds several high-ranking paladins, including the new Grandmaster, coming to her aid, spurred to action by the recent shift in policy prompted by the last Grandmaster's death. The result is a bitterly-fought trial in which the Bureaucracy are eventually convinced to downgrade it from treason to a major infraction, and from there offered favour does the work. The Bureaucracy do note, however, that the Order of the Throne's most famous devotees are increasingly turning out to be somewhere on a spectrum between dodgy and treasonous, and that further infractions on the part of Throne Paladins will be treated severely.
+Later, Beatrice leads some Shroud acolytes in rather brutally trying to stamp out the various planar cults and disorder around Rom. She assassinates a few major cultists, but narrowly avoids the physical manifestation of Manifold and concludes that this is a bigger job than she can finish single-handed. Nevertheless, some good has been done. She later encounters Vera organising food handouts. Neither of them can entirely resolve the problem, but they can at least try to do the best they can.
-To come
 ===== Consequences =====
@@ Line 53: / Line 62: @@
   * The food crisis in Rom has been temporarily alleviated with the addition of many tons of gingerbread. This is not in any way a permanent solution, and the sudden arrival of gingerbread from a magic mirror is not doing them any favours on the whole 'not turning to planar cults for any hope of survival' thing.
   * Rastaban now contains a pseudo-planar space known colloquially as the Unspace, filled with impossible back alleys and strange Escher-like spaces. Some Scarletts refer to it as 'Mother', but not for long if they want to avoid getting arrested. It is only easily accessible to people who are lost, and can sometimes be stumbled into by accident upon becoming lost. It may also be accessed, on some occasions, through certain mirrors. It is a relatively small space, but one that is exceptionally difficult to map and pops up in places where things are unseen or abandoned. Small reflective creatures like rats and spiders have been seen within. It is most common and locatable in the district of Rom.
+  * The Bureaucracy/Commission conflict is coming to a head, with relations somehow even lower than in the immediate aftermath of the whole Benten debacle.
+  * Unit 08, the pair of evil Awakened scissors, is now sealed within a Bureaucracy building with orders that it not be touched. Anybody who does touch it will find themselves overcome with a desire to take over as much of the world as possible, and the power to see through much of their newfound megalomania.
+  * For those keeping track, the Tetrarchy scoreboard is as follows:
+      * **Glory** is doing well, since its cult has been discreetly folded into Magister Idris' branch of House Rom thanks to some dubious legalese. Glory itself is still unable to enter the material plane, but emissaries of it have been spotted.
+      * **Manifold** has had its cult clamped down on, but it's a hard to spot cult, and, crucially, Manifold is actually present in Rom and very difficult to pin down.
+      * **Want** is doing most poorly, having had its //much more visible// cult clamped down on and a few of its cultists murdered. The remnants have scattered underground, some of them literally. Many have warned, though, that Want will return so long as the hunger across the city is not truly dealt with.
+      * **The Forgotten One** is still imprisoned and nameless, since it didn't get the snack it was after.
+====Vera====
+  * Net zero favour
+  * +1 Death
+  * Is on a final warning with the Bureaucracy
+  * Gains 'The Mirror's Last Gift', and will be treated well by any inhabitants of the Unspace.
+  * May gain 'Wound in Reality' (I can't remember who did and didn't get hurt in the mutant paladins encounter, sorry)
+  * Gains a slight reputation among the poor of the city for following through on her promise to distribute food.
+  * Gains an unusual effect: the next time you attempt to ask your Icon a question, you will receive a conversation with the Throne instead, in which it will want to talk to you about the whole 'offering its power to an Outsider' thing. Bear in mind that though it is unlikely to be happy exactly, it is aware that doing so upheld all three of its vows at once.
+====Florean====
+  * 2 favour for investigating and returning the streets.
+  * Gains a wooden box that stabs anything that comes near it while shouting "Hello!"
+  * Gains 'The Mirror's Last Gift'.
+  * Gains 'Wild Hunter'.
+  * May gain 'Wound in Reality' (I can't remember who did and didn't get hurt in the mutant paladins encounter, sorry)
+====Chance====
+  * 2 favour for investigating and returning the streets.
+  * 2 additional favour from the Commission for rounding up Scarletts.
+  * Gains improved grasshopper olfactory abilities (i.e a Bloodhound's Snout reskin, I think)
+  * Is well-known among the Commission for bringing them such an amazing resource, even if the nature of that resource means he isn't quite considered a known quantity. If at some point in the future he needs to justify reaching third-level affiliation with the Commission, this will help a lot.
+  * Is decisively on the Bureaucracy's shitlist - but then, so is every member of the Commission involved in the 'Scarlett project'.
+  * May gain 'Wound in Reality' (I can't remember who did and didn't get hurt in the mutant paladins encounter, sorry)
+  * Gains a small vial of silvery liquid, which may be thrown at someone or used to poison them. The resulting affliction will be 'Reflective Identity'.
+====Joshua====
+  * 3 Favour for investigating, returning the streets, and attempting to stop the incursion.
+  * Gains 'Reflective Identity'.
+  * May gain 'Wound in Reality' (I can't remember who did and didn't get hurt in the mutant paladins encounter, sorry)
+  * Gains a hat and a cloak, each of which allows the wearer to sense the location of the other.
+====Beatrice====
+  * 3 Favour for investigating, returning the streets, and attempting to stop the incursion.
+  * Gains 'Wild Hunter'.
+  * Is watched closely by the Shroud. If you purchase the skill 'Witness', you may use it twice per adventure rather than once.
+  * May gain 'Wound in Reality' (I can't remember who did and didn't get hurt in the mutant paladins encounter, sorry)
+====[REDACTED] Shroud Paladin====
+  * 3 Favour for investigating, returning the streets, and attempting to stop the incursion.
+  * Gains 'Wild Hunter'.
+  * Is watched closely by the Shroud. If you purchase the skill 'Witness', you may use it twice per adventure rather than once.
+  * May gain 'Wound in Reality' (I can't remember who did and didn't get hurt in the mutant paladins encounter, sorry)
+  *
 ====Afflictions & Quirks====
   * **Reflective Identity (Severe Mind)**: You are super-empathic, instinctively imitating people around you to some degree. With prolonged contact with individual people, this imitation may start to become physically apparent.
@@ Line 66: / Line 125: @@
   * **The Mirror's Last Gift (Quirk)**: You have an instinctive sense for the Unspace, and if you ever end up there will gain the benefits of Survivalist. More pertinently, you have a strong sense for things that are lost or abandoned, and can try to use this ability to seek them out. If they are sufficiently lost that they are in the Unspace, you will know. If they are only partly lost, you will gain a rough sense for where they are, if they are within the city. If they are not lost at all, but, say, stolen, you will be aware that they are not within the Unspace's purview.
-More to come
+{{tag>"and all manner of things shall be well" vera_burns adventure}}
-{{tag>"and all manner of things shall be well" adventure}}

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