Café de Nuit

Moral Machivelli wrote:Letter dated 25th of January 760

Raphael Buchvold

Hey! You're a month ahead of us! Is this a mistake? Perhaps you meant 25th December 759?

PS... The fraternity is not their principal enemies? ! ? We have to change that!

No mistake. Buchvold has social items to attend to, due to his statas as a nobelman. Also I have a second event planed, that would occupy the interveninig time.

But it dosen't matter much, as Buchvold won't be interacting with the other Fraternity members, during his little trip. He would keep the artifact under hevey guard, and escort it himself to the Masion de Soulombre, at the next meeting (which wouldn't be too far into the future)

I'll post what happens to Buchvold, and his new ally Tommorow. I've got too much work to do now.

P.S. I'm not sure about that. Was that woman an UOotG member? I got the impression that the scene we saw was something in the nature of a diplomatic meeting With Rijin representing the UOotG, and this woman being a leasion between them and a second organization

We will find out about that. I thought that too.

About the time-line, probably Serd would be interested with the artifact and may (or may not) ask to help you... But this is a month ahead! So could I ask you to ... not proceed with this until we catch up with Van (and perhaps Llana)?

On the other hand, Serd may be researching something at the time, persuing his own goals. So if you can't wait, feel free to do it, I won't mind.

Thanks, but I'll push ahead, Buchvold only dated it the 25th. he probably sent it when he arrived at the artifacts location, And he hasn't said where it is yet. (After the whole "Crow" thing, the illusionist has become far more security concious)
Their was another event, that Buchvold would have taken part in,which would have happend at the same tima as we're now at, but I haven't heard back from the player of the second character involved there

Questions: how much would/could the average FoS member find out about the Doomsday Device?

How long would it take to travel from Lamordia's border to Nevuchar Springs?

How hard/easy is it to find the van Richten guides? Or other information concerning liches?

Llana wrote:Questions: how much would/could the average FoS member find out about the Doomsday Device?

Heh heh heh. If it's Kingsley's search for information about the DD that you're looking to expand upon, there's actually a canon source of information that your PC (traveling through Darkon IIRC) is in the perfect position to acquire: good ol' S's original report on the Shroud, that she's submitted to the Brautslava Institute's FoS cell, prior to her Gazzetteer-writing mission! Our travelogue-hostess might have been rejected by the Darkonian FoS due to gender-bias, but we gamers know she's the world's greatest living expert on Necropolis -- its origins included -- and a transcript of her presentation would surely hold tons of useful information for Kingsley, even though the presenter herself has been roaming incommunicado for the last few years.

It'd also make a way cool post, to watch Kingsley fuming about the snubs she had to endure from the sexist pigs at the Brautslava cell, in order to get her hands on a copy. But since the professor surely keeps an eye on any other female FoS-wannabees' progress (or lack thereof) in breaking the organization's glass ceiling, she's actually the most likely of the established PCs to have heard of S and her work (which, having been rejected, wouldn't have circulated far) prior to the Manoir debacle. If she can capitalize on that foreknowledge by bringing S's discoveries to the other loyalists' attention, Gertrude's own gender might cease to be such an obstacle for her in intraFraternity politics: I heartily recommend that she milk it for all it's worth!

Where can I find information on S's research on the Shroud? Is it in one of the Gazetteers?

There are a number of places, mostly in Gaz I & II, where S refers to how she'd spent the previous several years (before her "patron" hired her for her world tour) investigating the Shroud. While it's not stated outright how, exactly, she tried to present her findings to Darkon's academic community -- did she write an article, present at a conference, or what? -- it's strongly implied by her own words (and Azalin's and the Gentleman Caller's deductions) that she'd tried to use her discoveries to earn a place in the Fraternity of Shadows, but was rebuffed by the anti-female bias of Darkonian academics in general and the FoS in particular.

While the Gaz references to the Doomsday Device are only peripheral to the series' "travelogue" format, she drops enough names and hints so as to suggest what gamers who've read the OOC source material also know about the Device: how Azalin created it, how it was powered by stolen life force, how it blew up at the Requiem and so created Necropolis and the Shroud. It's probably okay to assume that if Kingsley gets her hands on S's report, you can treat your own OOC knowledge of the DD (from reading the game products) as in-character knowledge she's read from S's report (aside from the gamespeak of course). Certainly, S makes enough coy digs at her "patron's" failures to suggest she knows that much at least!

Wow! Wait there! Azalin wouldn't have let that info hanging around!
Remember he knows EVERYTHING in the domain. When S informed him that the Fraternity has rejected her he took a note.

I believe that the info S has given to the Fraternity is good but not as complete as to describe all that we know as DMs and players. Probably she mentions that a machine powered by life-forces blew up and caused the Requiem and that Azalin had a hand on that but probably the references stop there.
Probably however, S believes that Death was created by the Doomsday Device not the infernal machine. A mistake that can lead us to a good conclusion.

And I believe that S report is probably Stolen by Van Rijn's agents...

As a rejected member, I doubt that S' document would have made its way to Richemulot. It's probably still in the archives of the Brautslave Institute. The question is how famous is S? Would brothers recognise her work as a scholar outside the Fraternity, and thus recall her paper easily? Or have they dismissed her, and would hunting for the paper require a dip in the paper ocean of old submissions? If she's been forgotten, nobody may think to look in those submissions, including van Rijn.

Remember also that this paper and other works by S on the Requiem were written when Azalin was 'gone'. Did he choose her because of her publicly-unacknowledged insights, or did she come to his attention because her well-known work was brought to his attention upon his return?

I myself only own Gazetteers 2 and 3 and have only really dipped into them- don't hit me, everyone! - so I don't know how reputable S is as a scholar apart from her high regard of herself in the passages I have read.

If S, herself, was famous, I doubt if Azalin would have been so quick to choose her for a mission which was intended to slip beneath the radar of Strahd and various other rivals. Most likely, S originally got into the habit of calling herself "S" in the first place to mask her true gender from chauvinistic colleagues; they'd know her work, but not her face.

Whether her works would have spread beyond Brautslava's slush-pile is an intriguing question. Azalin wouldn't necessarily wipe out all knowledge of her discoveries from Darkon -- he's let the FoS survive there, after all, so clearly he considers the Fraternity something he can exploit, and their current feud with the UOotG's sure to reduce wear and tear on his Kargat -- but he might have ensured her breakthroughs would pass unnoticed, up until the end of her "world tour", because her deep resentment at her own obscurity is a handy goad to keep her working. There's also that classic Darkonian reluctance to set foot outside their homeland, or be bothered with the rest of the Core, to consider: even if the Brautslava FoS cell acknowledged her work's importance (while rejecting her gender), they might consider the Shroud to be their concern, not other cells', so could have kept her report "within the family" for the benefit of their own FoS branch (which, after all, is the one most directly endangered by Death's plots against Darkon). The Umbra would know, but other cells' subordinate members might not.

OTOH, that does leave us with the small discrepancy that a copy of those Doomsday Device plans turned up in Richemulot, in the first place! Perhaps tracing the backstory of the plans' arrival in St. Ronges would be illuminating, as whoever brought them to the Manoir (presumably their contents are far too dangerous to have been distributed to all FoS branches) must have investigated the Requiem at length, to have got hold of such a blueprint, and may well have come across S's works also. (Or might S, herself, have been the source of those plans...?)

Hmmmm. I think we need somebody -- maybe one of the mod's PCs, if it's okay to "borrow" them for these continuing-story threads -- to track down how the plans came into Anthony's possession, and how Van Rijn could've known they were there.

I don't think there would necessarily be any objection to that, but you should definitely ask the individual involved before you "borrow" the PC.

I suppose the simplest thing would be to send someone to ask Anthony exactly how he got the plans in the first place...if anyone is in the mood for a jaunt to Souragne.

*stands back before getting stampeded by the herd of PC's rushing to Souragne*



Gert's gonna get there soon- well, okay, some time in mid-January 760. Who's gonna beat her there?

Buchvold will be going there after this Sithicus buisness. So as to not take too long, he'll probably try a mistway. He should arrive on the 29th January

Just a note for everyone posting with Llana, at the moment we don't have a net connection due to having just moved into a new house, thus I will be ferrying what you post to her when I finish work, and then bringing what she's written in to be posted in the morning...