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2023-08-06T21:46:31Z

96.237.52.245: /* Logs */

<font size=6> COMET: Once More Unto The Breach </font>

== About The World ==
[[World Map|World Map and Overview]]

[[Muddle in Middlesea]]

[[History]]

[[Ministries_of_Empire]]
* Jerry proposes that this be moved into a [[:Category:Countries]] page

== Previous Comet ==
[https://stuff.mit.edu/~boojum/CometWeb/ Website from the Previous Comet]

==Various Mechanics==
[[Colors of Magic | Magic]]

[[Endurance]]

[[Character Creation Message]]

[[Skill List and Costs]]

[[Combat]]

[[:Category: Rulings]]

==Logs==
* [[First Run]] (2023-01-07)
* [[Second Run]] (2023-02-18)
* [[To The Heart]] (Third Run, 2023-03-04)
* [[Adventures are Everywhere]] (Fourth Run, 2023-03-18)
* [[Promises Promises]] (Fifth Run, 2023-04-01)
* [[A Lilac Kind Of Purple]] (Sixth Run, 2023-05-13)
* [[To Catch A Thief]] (Seventh Run, 2023-05-27)
* [[Bear and Frog]] (Eighth Run, 2023-06-17)
* [[Keep in the Broken Lands]] (Ninth Run, 2023-07-08)
* [[Under the Sea]] (Tenth Run, 2023-07-22)
*

==Things We Might Know==
* [[:Category:NPCs]]
* [[Party Loot]]

== MediaWiki ==
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Under the Sea

2023-08-06T21:45:34Z

96.237.52.245: /* To Catch a Slith */

==Escape==

[Still Phoenix 15]<br>
Managaratha vanishes; Gale and Diomarche fade in.
"Get us out! We have to start the attack"
Gale wilds up an area-of-effect flight spell to help get us out of the tunnel.

There is some vague attempt at explaining what happened, which is about as muddled as one would expect. The army forces are in the midst of an army combat. We are brought back to camp, where the Red mages take a look at us, and help out a bit, but we’re not dying, so we’re not so important. But we can walk around at least.

There are wounded from the fight, but the fight seems to be going well.

Diomarche decides he needs to go be part of the fight, so he gallops off. Fortunately, in army combat one does not need to make Survival: Broken Lands rolls. He arrives in time to join the combat, but doesn’t have a great sense of the strategy, so he joins up with some paladins.

There are five Red units and 3 Orc units, and the Red units are bigger, and the terrain modifiers have been neutralized, so it’s going fairly decisively in the direction of Red. After several hours, the orcs are defeated and the Keep is taken.

Diomarche makes a Karma check! He overhears Arik asking when did Ionia get so many Berserkers, but it’s more of an idle question than a real concern.

After the battle, Arik and Bryan tell us Good Work. We consult with Lisetera about various things. Diomarche is asking about using Unreality to do Strange things, like, say, break through a wall without actually damaging the wall. Cartoon physics is fairly basic thing to deal with. Things like “what could this have been?” is harder.

[Phoenix 16]

The next day, Stella drops 8 DI and heals our terrible broken bones. Vidan sets up a ritual to sanctify the Broken shrine, and with the Rush and Nameless priests he crushes it.

Lisetera talks about her plans to free the Prince, and wonders if we’re going to join her, or if there’s another plan. We’re closer to Green than Blue. And we have a Flying Boat now.

Talking to the merfolk may be quicker, though. Gale gets Lisetera to generate an unreal version of her, and *that* Gale knows merfolk in the eastern ocean. (Lisetera points out they might not know her).

The plan: swing by the Plains of Gedden before going to find the merfolk. Well, Vidan asks Navere first. After a terrible roll, Navere thinks that neither Green nor merfolk are the place she would send us, but merfolk is closer to right? Well, that doesn’t help very much, but at least convinces us that merfolk is probably not a terrible thing. Off we go! We stay in the boat, to better evade the terribleness of the Broken Lands, and we escape.

Gale pokes at ChatGalePT, swapping stories. ChatGalePT doesn’t have a party, but has been to Jabar.

Next morning [Phoenix 17]

We camp for the night in Victoria. Nesh makes a fortune check for the party, but nothing happens.
After another day of travel, Lisetera is getting bored. We make another camp again.
Evening of day three [Phoenix 18] we get to the Plains of Geddon.
We do not get attacked.

Diomarche turns in his report, and asks for continued Detached Duty. Diomarche dodges!
He looks for Bran, and they exchange blood, because that’s what icky Red mages do (thinks Scout). This will let them communicate for a few weeks (which is weirdly short, due to a terrible roll)-- if Diomarche pricks his finger in the same place, Bran will hear the next minute of speech. He’s normally based in Red, but he’ll see if he can help.

Gale and Scout spar so that Lisetera could get some data.
Captain Jones comes by and says “What are you doing here?”, glaring at Gale.
It turns out it’s the person she got drunk so that he wouldn’t win the tournament. (Pre-game Gale Adventure!)

Vidan seems to think we should be heading more south, although it’s not entirely clear why. We camp for the night in the Great Valley. Nothing happens. After four days, [Phoenix 22] we reach the coast, almost entirely without incident.

==No Kings In Beren==

The castle in the coastal city is flying at half mast, and people are heading into the main square.
Apparently the king of Berana has recently died, and people are waiting to get in to go to the funeral tomorrow. It’s not entirely clear why the King died, but he was about 80, so it’s not strange that he might have died. Vidan notes that the King had absolutely _no_ clear heir, etc. It’s like the King had deliberately done everything wrong.

Lisetera gets us rooms at a nicer place than we would have.

Vidan and (everyone?) go to the square where the Church of the Five is, where the funeral will be. The castle is over on the hill, this is a bit away. Vidan knocks on one of the doors, the keeper recognizes he’s in priest robes. That changes his tack from “the line is over there” to “Can I help you?” Vidan offers his services as a traveling priest.

Lady Violet is the head of the Church, she allows Vidan in (after a moment) to have tea and discuss. She looks tired, if maybe not grieving? (She’s probably got more DI than Vidan, but not 20 or anything like that.) She’s not dealing with the funeral, she’s planning the Coronation. He heard it was “not entirely obvious” who was to be crowned; she says that’s generous. “Tangled mess” is perhaps more accurate.

There are a number of people with sufficiently good claims that Our Lady has not seen fit to give her a “this is The Heir” ruling. She is hoping to keep the Church relatively neutral while the heirs sort it out themselves. His Majesty was the first King of Berana, and the Church’s priority is to make sure that the Kingdom survives, rather than there be one particular Ruler. Though if Vidan had other guidance…? He admits his guidance was somewhat oblique. Well, her plan is to let the Heirs try to sort it out, without letting it devolve into an outright war which tears the Kingdom apart– which is in the realm of possibility.

Oh, by the way, it was definitely an assassination. The actual assassin has not been identified. “Oh.” Is this something she would like help with? Yes, she would be interested in having it resolved, if that was something he could do? His group has some skills there.

Is there someone at the palace to speak to? The steward is Franklin. There are few people who don’t have opinions on the fight, but he maintains the veneer of impartiality, at least. If Vidan comes back in the morning, she will provide a letter of introduction. He offers to support her in the actual Coronation; she suspects it may be a while though she will push for as soon as possible.

Vidan retreats to the inn, and relays what he has learned.

"Cast dreams if you have them."
Stella will think about what the Goddess thinks needs fixing. Lisetera will give Gale a dream about the adventures we need to have.

Stella (8 successes with 8 DI) has a Big Black Hole in her answer, which is alarming.
That’s kind of like if you tried to hit Nesh with a miracle… Oh, Slith assassin. That seems plausible. Around the edges, there’s lots of finger pointing at the Castle, none of which is right. Fixing the breaks in the Kingdom before it falls apart is better than not. Even if it’s not really her problem to deal with.

Nesh and Scout go scout the Church. There are some palace / king’s guard about. The church has two side entrances that are reasonably small and lockable. Nobody seems to be waiting at them presently. No back entrance. There is a spot in the back that has footsteps leading up to and away from it as if it was a door, but there’s no door there. The footsteps are recent, in the last day or two. There’s a miracle on the whole church that’s big, so it’s hard to say if there’s something else there.

Diomarche goes to the Church of Rush to check in. Nobody is officially saying assassination, but also, nobody has said Slith. What evidence? A teammate is a priest of the Mother. Not that they said Slith, but they had a hole in the vision.

Vidan and Gale go down to the harbor, and then in the harbor, to look for clues. Something large and snakelike came up here. Also at a tavern afterwards - Gale meets a cute guy named Machus, from Blue, who turns out to know some merfolk. Bonus! They were near Melmane - there was a disagreement about which sea lanes were available for travel, which had to be negotiated. (They don't, in general, speak Common, they speak Mer. Touchy about priorities, and often regard the surface folk as intruders. A blue apprentice cast a spell that contacted them.)

Gale asks for a dream from Lisetera, about “The adventure we’re supposed to have here”. She dreams. A dream about having a fight with a slith: nya nya whatever. If you were trying really hard, you could have the adventure of fighting the Broken priest - that would be more fun.

[Phoenix 23:]

Gale relays the dream, and asks Lisetera about what might be going on with the judgy tone of the dream. Well, it’s an Unreal dream, and you asked about Reality. It didn’t bounce off the slith, but it wasn’t a 10 success spell. But you saw the slith. Maybe it’s not guarded against Unreality? If it’s guarded to deal with Red in particular?

Nesh offers himself to Lisetera as tribute a test subject for how Unreality works on slith/sauriens. She tries a few things, which don’t work, and then creates an Unreal version that is kind of s

Vidan goes to get the letter of introduction, and talks to the priest of the Nameless, who is quite busy. The King was stabbed in the middle of the night with a single blow that was quite powerful; the dagger was probably poisoned but it’s unclear the poison actually mattered. The fact that it was a single blow means it’s clearly an assassin, someone with schticks in extra damage/multipliers/etc. The dagger was not recovered. There must have been some kind of investigation on the body. “Why does the populace not know, given how obvious it is that it was an assassination?” “It was felt that announcing an assassination without an assassin in hand would have exacerbated the tensions.”

We ponder next moves. We decide to go check out the slith… encampment? before the funeral. Maybe we’ll come back with a slith prisoner in chains! Or maybe we’ll just be wet. Stella stashes dry clothes for everyone near to the harbor. Liseterra sends an unreal copy with us.
==To Catch a Slith==
We go underwater, with Free Action and Breathe Underwater. Vidan tracks the slith tracks down under the harbor to a cave. We’re not really very good at stealth, sadly, but it turns out the slith is asleep. We gang up on it, with Gale coordinating. The slith takes a bunch of damage and loses a bunch of speed. He tries to flee, but with coordination gets pretty badly chopped. Stella tries to stabilize him.

Witnessing miracle from Vidan: The dagger at his belt is probably a clue. There's a vellum in the corner of the cave. Scout thinks there are traps. Turns out yes, the dagger is poisoned, as Scout sticks himself with it. Stella fixes him as he gasps out his last words. He thinks of more of them, with asides.

Nesh finds some pearls (loot, not clues or traps). Probably about half a loot.

Out of the harbor, Nesh scavenges a wheelbarrow and a sailcloth. We head to the temple, but are stopped by guards. Vidan talks his way past the guards and goes to Lady Violet, telling her all. She sends an orderly with Vidan, and says she will deal with things.

She shows up in fifteen minutes with ten people, and does the big reveal. There is some arguing.

Lisetera is convinced to do a translation spell. “Your job is to remove the King, and then wait until they pick a successor, and kill that successor, and then kill the next successor, and then we’re probably done.”

The funeral happens. We stay outside the Church, and hear the priest send him to the Nameless.
===Loot===
* Pearls (½ Loot)
* +5 EPs
* +7 EPs

Under the Sea

2023-08-06T21:41:47Z

96.237.52.245: Created page with "==Escape== [Still Phoenix 15]<br> Managaratha vanishes; Gale and Diomarche fade in. "Get us out! We have to start the attack" Gale wilds up an area-of-effect flight spell to help get us out of the tunnel. There is some vague attempt at explaining what happened, which is about as muddled as one would expect. The army forces are in the midst of an army combat. We are brought back to camp, where the Red mages take a look at us, and help out a bit, but we’re not dyi..."

Main Page

2023-08-06T21:37:49Z

96.237.52.245: /* Logs */

<font size=6> COMET: Once More Unto The Breach </font>

== About The World ==
[[World Map|World Map and Overview]]

[[Muddle in Middlesea]]

[[History]]

[[Ministries_of_Empire]]
* Jerry proposes that this be moved into a [[:Category:Countries]] page

== Previous Comet ==
[https://stuff.mit.edu/~boojum/CometWeb/ Website from the Previous Comet]

==Various Mechanics==
[[Colors of Magic | Magic]]

[[Endurance]]

[[Character Creation Message]]

[[Skill List and Costs]]

[[Combat]]

[[:Category: Rulings]]

==Logs==
* [[First Run]] (2023-01-07)
* [[Second Run]] (2023-02-18)
* [[To The Heart]] (Third Run, 2023-03-04)
* [[Adventures are Everywhere]] (Fourth Run, 2023-03-18)
* [[Promises Promises]] (Fifth Run, 2023-04-01)
* [[A Lilac Kind Of Purple]] (Sixth Run, 2023-05-13)
* [[To Catch A Thief]] (Seventh Run, 2023-05-27)
* [[Bear and Frog]] (Eighth Run, 2023-06-17)
* [[Keep in the Broken Lands]] (Ninth Run, 2023-07-08)
* [[Under the Sea]] (Tenth Run, 2023-07-22)

==Things We Might Know==
* [[:Category:NPCs]]
* [[Party Loot]]

== MediaWiki ==
MediaWiki has been installed.

Consult the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.

* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]

Muddle in Middlesea

2023-08-05T17:32:39Z

96.237.52.245: /* Principal Captains */

A central location for the information we've collected on what happened at the Convocation, in the first run, and what the current status inside the time halt is.

Things we know so far (with information source listed if possible):

==Before It Went Awry==
* Pirate Queen Cara, her first mage Federico, William (maybe an organizer), other pirates like Gale, and servants like Nesh, showed up a few days early before the Conclave started. (Nesh and other servants were there before Cara/Federico/Gale arrived)
* Managaratha was at the Blue table, and chatted with a diplomat named Rickard from Melmane, also General Petrov and Mage Marek. (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
* Dinner was:
**A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
**30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
**Similar from Purple and Yellow
**Only about 8 from Blue, including [[Mage Martek]] and one Saurian, [[General Petrov]].
**Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.
* Post Dinner, pre-Attack
** [[Luigi]] says [[Cult of Alan]] would be happy to see Managaratha again (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Federico spoke with Managaratha.
*** Managaratha spent two years before the Conclave strongly lobbying for all zones to be represented.
**** Federico expected Managaratha to tell him why.
*** Managaratha is more fragged than Federica has ever seen him.
*** Vidan was fragged, even worse than Managaratha.
**** Well, something closely akin to fragged, anyway.

===The Purple Dinner===
====[[Ministries of Empire|Ministers]] (4th rank)====
*Win Dae (she/her) - Minister of Repercussions
*Han Cho - Minister of Grain
*Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade
*Az Julan - Minister of Lions
*Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions
*Li Karest - Minister of the Borders
*Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune

====Advisors and Liaisons====
*Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam
*Vesper - the Silent One, Priest of Tem
*Vidan - Priest of Navere
*Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion

====Others====
*3rd rank sub-minister of State / Foreign Affairs
*3rd rank sub-minister of War
*12-15 other 3rd rank bureaucrats, all mooks.
*An assortment of servants, etc.

===The Orange Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Guildmaster Lady Isabella Horenth from Vani
* Guildmaster Lady Marianna from Rin'yan
* Guildmaster Stefan - priest of Jord from Eaglofto
* Journeyman Victor - Saurian from Kor

==== Priests ====
* Stella - priestess of the Goddess from Rin'yan
* Luigi - Cult of Alan member from Rin'yan
* Astrid - priest of Rush from Vani
* Alfonz - priest of Tem from Vani
* Georgi - Saurian, itinerant priest of Tam

===The Yellow Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Prince Vishnarani
* Lady Hirana (Unreality Mage)
* Lord Vesalen (the guard)

====Others====
* Serafina and her centaurs
* Three priests
* A bunch of merchants

===The Pirate Captain Dinner===
====Principal Captains====
* Cara, Queen of the Pirates (Awesome!)
* Federico (the First Mage)
* Captain Jane (most adventurous of the greater Captains)
* Captain Brightwall, captain of the Silver Gull (worried about military matters)
* Captain Drake (generally an ass and who made him Captain anyway?)
* Gale, captain of the Kittiwake (most adventurous of the smaller Captains)

== Current State ==
* The Pirate Queen is on the ground in (location), covered in blood. (Noted by Gale.)
* Sergeant Susie is badly injured; she is fighting an orc who is uninjured, and several fallen paladins lay around her. (Noted by Diomarch)
* A dwarf is chasing a redcap who is running away. (Noted by Scout.)
* Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. (Noted by Scout)
* Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
* There are several dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. (noted by Nesh)
* Luigi is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it; some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. (noted by Stella)
* There's a Yellow zone that's hard to see/changing even though time isn't passing; speculation is there's an Unreality effect going on there.
* A Blue mage performed an extra-effort Blue spell to make all of Middlesea one battlemap. They are probably/possibly in the midst of a Berserker rage, as a consequence. (Discovered in [[Second Run]] by Gale when she did her own wild-blue-spell on the battlemap.)
* An area of effect Green spell is spraying amnesia mist everywhere. (Noted by Lutenania, scout for Their Majesty of the Plains.)
* An Oasis miracle of isolation is in place. (Noted by Scout.)
* A Time miracle of some sort is in place. (Noted by Bordan, priest of Rush.)
* There are a whole bunch of orcs (Noted by flyover in [[First Run]].)
* There are lion prints on the outer wall. (Noted by Nesh.)
* There are slith tracks sneaking into the keep. (Noted by Vidan.)
* There are more than ten "sides" involved, but that might include factions within delegations; e.g., there are five separate delegations from Red, one for each kingdom and one for the Paladins of Rush. It's not clear whether those count as five different "sides".(From Bordan.)
* Baron Volstack took a lot of damage right before the timestop, which was shared with Duchess Zerbina over the lifelink (she has healed since). She is concerned that he be gotten to ASAP when the timestop breaks. (Shared by Duchess Zerbina. This is a secret.)

== Things Remembered ==
* Vidan was involved in a combat-time ritual of several people-- probably Fivist priests and mages, not priests of other religions-- to counteract the amnesia spell.
* Vidan recalls: ''Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."''
* [[Gyvail]], a priest of Orellian, is with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. (Recalled by Vidan.)
* Nesh remembers that dinner went... fine. He served the Yellow delegation.
* Managaratha remembers having a conversation with the Blue delegation.
* Stella remembers being sent to talk to the Purple delegation and feel them out "since you can't actually commit the Guild to anything."
* Stella remembers that "Luigi volunteers to speak with the Priests from the Yellow delegation" after dinner.

== People By Faction ==
* Pirate Queen (Cara)
** First Mage Federico
** William (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Gale

* Blue
** Mage Marek (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** General Petrov, a Saurien (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Rickard (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
*** can cast spells
*** diplomat-without-portfolio for [[Melmaine]]
*** has spent time in [[Jabar]] and some of the Merfolk courts

* Cult of Alan
** Luigi (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])

Muddle in Middlesea

2023-08-05T17:32:26Z

96.237.52.245: /* Principal Captains */

A central location for the information we've collected on what happened at the Convocation, in the first run, and what the current status inside the time halt is.

Things we know so far (with information source listed if possible):

==Before It Went Awry==
* Pirate Queen Cara, her first mage Federico, William (maybe an organizer), other pirates like Gale, and servants like Nesh, showed up a few days early before the Conclave started. (Nesh and other servants were there before Cara/Federico/Gale arrived)
* Managaratha was at the Blue table, and chatted with a diplomat named Rickard from Melmane, also General Petrov and Mage Marek. (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
* Dinner was:
**A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
**30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
**Similar from Purple and Yellow
**Only about 8 from Blue, including [[Mage Martek]] and one Saurian, [[General Petrov]].
**Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.
* Post Dinner, pre-Attack
** [[Luigi]] says [[Cult of Alan]] would be happy to see Managaratha again (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Federico spoke with Managaratha.
*** Managaratha spent two years before the Conclave strongly lobbying for all zones to be represented.
**** Federico expected Managaratha to tell him why.
*** Managaratha is more fragged than Federica has ever seen him.
*** Vidan was fragged, even worse than Managaratha.
**** Well, something closely akin to fragged, anyway.

===The Purple Dinner===
====[[Ministries of Empire|Ministers]] (4th rank)====
*Win Dae (she/her) - Minister of Repercussions
*Han Cho - Minister of Grain
*Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade
*Az Julan - Minister of Lions
*Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions
*Li Karest - Minister of the Borders
*Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune

====Advisors and Liaisons====
*Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam
*Vesper - the Silent One, Priest of Tem
*Vidan - Priest of Navere
*Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion

====Others====
*3rd rank sub-minister of State / Foreign Affairs
*3rd rank sub-minister of War
*12-15 other 3rd rank bureaucrats, all mooks.
*An assortment of servants, etc.

===The Orange Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Guildmaster Lady Isabella Horenth from Vani
* Guildmaster Lady Marianna from Rin'yan
* Guildmaster Stefan - priest of Jord from Eaglofto
* Journeyman Victor - Saurian from Kor

==== Priests ====
* Stella - priestess of the Goddess from Rin'yan
* Luigi - Cult of Alan member from Rin'yan
* Astrid - priest of Rush from Vani
* Alfonz - priest of Tem from Vani
* Georgi - Saurian, itinerant priest of Tam

===The Yellow Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Prince Vishnarani
* Lady Hirana (Unreality Mage)
* Lord Vesalen (the guard)

====Others====
* Serafina and her centaurs
* Three priests
* A bunch of merchants

===The Pirate Captain Dinner===
====Principal Captains====
* Cara, Queen of the Pirates (Awesome!)
* Federico (the First Mage)
* Captain Jane (most adventurous of the greater Captains)
* Captain Brightwall, captain of the Silver Gull (worried about military matters)
* Captain Drake (generally an ass and who made him Captain anyway?)
* Captain Gale, captain of the Kittiwake (most adventurous of the smaller Captains)

== Current State ==
* The Pirate Queen is on the ground in (location), covered in blood. (Noted by Gale.)
* Sergeant Susie is badly injured; she is fighting an orc who is uninjured, and several fallen paladins lay around her. (Noted by Diomarch)
* A dwarf is chasing a redcap who is running away. (Noted by Scout.)
* Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. (Noted by Scout)
* Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
* There are several dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. (noted by Nesh)
* Luigi is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it; some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. (noted by Stella)
* There's a Yellow zone that's hard to see/changing even though time isn't passing; speculation is there's an Unreality effect going on there.
* A Blue mage performed an extra-effort Blue spell to make all of Middlesea one battlemap. They are probably/possibly in the midst of a Berserker rage, as a consequence. (Discovered in [[Second Run]] by Gale when she did her own wild-blue-spell on the battlemap.)
* An area of effect Green spell is spraying amnesia mist everywhere. (Noted by Lutenania, scout for Their Majesty of the Plains.)
* An Oasis miracle of isolation is in place. (Noted by Scout.)
* A Time miracle of some sort is in place. (Noted by Bordan, priest of Rush.)
* There are a whole bunch of orcs (Noted by flyover in [[First Run]].)
* There are lion prints on the outer wall. (Noted by Nesh.)
* There are slith tracks sneaking into the keep. (Noted by Vidan.)
* There are more than ten "sides" involved, but that might include factions within delegations; e.g., there are five separate delegations from Red, one for each kingdom and one for the Paladins of Rush. It's not clear whether those count as five different "sides".(From Bordan.)
* Baron Volstack took a lot of damage right before the timestop, which was shared with Duchess Zerbina over the lifelink (she has healed since). She is concerned that he be gotten to ASAP when the timestop breaks. (Shared by Duchess Zerbina. This is a secret.)

== Things Remembered ==
* Vidan was involved in a combat-time ritual of several people-- probably Fivist priests and mages, not priests of other religions-- to counteract the amnesia spell.
* Vidan recalls: ''Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."''
* [[Gyvail]], a priest of Orellian, is with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. (Recalled by Vidan.)
* Nesh remembers that dinner went... fine. He served the Yellow delegation.
* Managaratha remembers having a conversation with the Blue delegation.
* Stella remembers being sent to talk to the Purple delegation and feel them out "since you can't actually commit the Guild to anything."
* Stella remembers that "Luigi volunteers to speak with the Priests from the Yellow delegation" after dinner.

== People By Faction ==
* Pirate Queen (Cara)
** First Mage Federico
** William (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Gale

* Blue
** Mage Marek (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** General Petrov, a Saurien (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Rickard (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
*** can cast spells
*** diplomat-without-portfolio for [[Melmaine]]
*** has spent time in [[Jabar]] and some of the Merfolk courts

* Cult of Alan
** Luigi (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])

Muddle in Middlesea

2023-08-05T17:28:36Z

96.237.52.245: /* The Yellow Dinner */

A central location for the information we've collected on what happened at the Convocation, in the first run, and what the current status inside the time halt is.

Things we know so far (with information source listed if possible):

==Before It Went Awry==
* Pirate Queen Cara, her first mage Federico, William (maybe an organizer), other pirates like Gale, and servants like Nesh, showed up a few days early before the Conclave started. (Nesh and other servants were there before Cara/Federico/Gale arrived)
* Managaratha was at the Blue table, and chatted with a diplomat named Rickard from Melmane, also General Petrov and Mage Marek. (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
* Dinner was:
**A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
**30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
**Similar from Purple and Yellow
**Only about 8 from Blue, including [[Mage Martek]] and one Saurian, [[General Petrov]].
**Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.
* Post Dinner, pre-Attack
** [[Luigi]] says [[Cult of Alan]] would be happy to see Managaratha again (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Federico spoke with Managaratha.
*** Managaratha spent two years before the Conclave strongly lobbying for all zones to be represented.
**** Federico expected Managaratha to tell him why.
*** Managaratha is more fragged than Federica has ever seen him.
*** Vidan was fragged, even worse than Managaratha.
**** Well, something closely akin to fragged, anyway.

===The Purple Dinner===
====[[Ministries of Empire|Ministers]] (4th rank)====
*Win Dae (she/her) - Minister of Repercussions
*Han Cho - Minister of Grain
*Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade
*Az Julan - Minister of Lions
*Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions
*Li Karest - Minister of the Borders
*Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune

====Advisors and Liaisons====
*Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam
*Vesper - the Silent One, Priest of Tem
*Vidan - Priest of Navere
*Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion

====Others====
*3rd rank sub-minister of State / Foreign Affairs
*3rd rank sub-minister of War
*12-15 other 3rd rank bureaucrats, all mooks.
*An assortment of servants, etc.

===The Orange Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Guildmaster Lady Isabella Horenth from Vani
* Guildmaster Lady Marianna from Rin'yan
* Guildmaster Stefan - priest of Jord from Eaglofto
* Journeyman Victor - Saurian from Kor

==== Priests ====
* Stella - priestess of the Goddess from Rin'yan
* Luigi - Cult of Alan member from Rin'yan
* Astrid - priest of Rush from Vani
* Alfonz - priest of Tem from Vani
* Georgi - Saurian, itinerant priest of Tam

===The Yellow Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Prince Vishnarani
* Lady Hirana (Unreality Mage)
* Lord Vesalen (the guard)

====Others====
* Serafina and her centaurs
* Three priests
* A bunch of merchants

===The Pirate Captain Dinner===
====Principal Captains====
* Cara, Queen of the Pirates (Awesome!)
* Federico (the First Mage)
* Captain Jane (most adventurous of the lesser Captains)
* Captain Brightwall, captain of the Silver Gull (worried about military matters)
* Captain Drake (generally an ass and who made him Captain anyway?)

== Current State ==
* The Pirate Queen is on the ground in (location), covered in blood. (Noted by Gale.)
* Sergeant Susie is badly injured; she is fighting an orc who is uninjured, and several fallen paladins lay around her. (Noted by Diomarch)
* A dwarf is chasing a redcap who is running away. (Noted by Scout.)
* Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. (Noted by Scout)
* Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
* There are several dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. (noted by Nesh)
* Luigi is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it; some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. (noted by Stella)
* There's a Yellow zone that's hard to see/changing even though time isn't passing; speculation is there's an Unreality effect going on there.
* A Blue mage performed an extra-effort Blue spell to make all of Middlesea one battlemap. They are probably/possibly in the midst of a Berserker rage, as a consequence. (Discovered in [[Second Run]] by Gale when she did her own wild-blue-spell on the battlemap.)
* An area of effect Green spell is spraying amnesia mist everywhere. (Noted by Lutenania, scout for Their Majesty of the Plains.)
* An Oasis miracle of isolation is in place. (Noted by Scout.)
* A Time miracle of some sort is in place. (Noted by Bordan, priest of Rush.)
* There are a whole bunch of orcs (Noted by flyover in [[First Run]].)
* There are lion prints on the outer wall. (Noted by Nesh.)
* There are slith tracks sneaking into the keep. (Noted by Vidan.)
* There are more than ten "sides" involved, but that might include factions within delegations; e.g., there are five separate delegations from Red, one for each kingdom and one for the Paladins of Rush. It's not clear whether those count as five different "sides".(From Bordan.)
* Baron Volstack took a lot of damage right before the timestop, which was shared with Duchess Zerbina over the lifelink (she has healed since). She is concerned that he be gotten to ASAP when the timestop breaks. (Shared by Duchess Zerbina. This is a secret.)

== Things Remembered ==
* Vidan was involved in a combat-time ritual of several people-- probably Fivist priests and mages, not priests of other religions-- to counteract the amnesia spell.
* Vidan recalls: ''Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."''
* [[Gyvail]], a priest of Orellian, is with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. (Recalled by Vidan.)
* Nesh remembers that dinner went... fine. He served the Yellow delegation.
* Managaratha remembers having a conversation with the Blue delegation.
* Stella remembers being sent to talk to the Purple delegation and feel them out "since you can't actually commit the Guild to anything."
* Stella remembers that "Luigi volunteers to speak with the Priests from the Yellow delegation" after dinner.

== People By Faction ==
* Pirate Queen (Cara)
** First Mage Federico
** William (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Gale

* Blue
** Mage Marek (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** General Petrov, a Saurien (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Rickard (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
*** can cast spells
*** diplomat-without-portfolio for [[Melmaine]]
*** has spent time in [[Jabar]] and some of the Merfolk courts

* Cult of Alan
** Luigi (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])

Bear and Frog

2023-07-22T17:02:45Z

96.237.52.245: /* Run Eight: Bear and Frog */

==Run Eight: Bear and Frog==

[Still evening Phoenix 3]

We begin the run standing over the post-exploded (but still identifiable) body of Marsha (except Nesh who is still with Thistle in Marsha's rooms).

Diomarche could inform the Rush temple. There's less hue and cry than we would expect. He heads that way at a fast canter. A crowd (but not guards) starts to gather. Vidan tells everyone to move along.

Nesh stays hidden on the roof at Marsha's, and spots Joseph showing up. Nesh goes down to talk to him (not yet knowing she is dead or Broken). "You have anything to say for yourself?" "She stole something she *really* shouldn't have." "That is not an acceptable reason to take advantage of the god's wishes." "I suspect I'm working for a different god...?" Nesh clarifies: she took the Duchess's signet ring. Hmm. He goes off in the direction Nesh says Marsha went.

A guy wanders up and gets briefed by the (intentionally remaining) crowd. (Probably Joseph, but we don't recognize him).

Back at the dead body, the priest of Rush shows up. He says "I'll take care of it" and meets the guy's eyes.

We walk back by the scene of the crime and collect Nesh. Vidan writes a report, clearly blaming Marsha and dropping hints about the unnamed confidential sources who recovered the ring being hopeful of the Duchess's generosity.

Vidan thinks we are being slotted into the "can be usefully hired" category rather than a "friend/ally" category. Vidan tries to slant it into "heroes against the breaker" rather than "mercenaries" but we also aren't Darstan-in-particular-against-King-Richard allies.

We find Thistle at dinnertime, and hand over the (about two loot) reward.

Joseph starts to steal Nesh, which wakes Vidan (but not Managaratha).
"Joseph, priest of Jord, meet Vidan, priest of Navere."
"That explains the midnight meeting."

You have offended Jord's rules in service of a cause I admit was worthy. I am pleased to see that has been revealed and dealt with. I would recommend that you do not attempt to make contact with the underworld in the rest of Red, because they will be aware of the actions you have taken.

Vidan: rather than effective communal expulsion, is there some rite or trial to cleanse the stain?

If he chooses to petition for such a thing, he might be able to. But it would require a commitment that I think he is unwilling to make at this time. He approached us with the posture of one who wished to contract for a time - he would have to follow through on that request. Nesh offers to carry things around, but that isn't sufficient.

If there is a Breaker-related problem with the underworld in Red, should Nesh bring it to his door? Certainly.

Anyway, Nesh apologizes for stepping on the underworld's toes and will try to avoid that in future. No official retribution. (Probably not friends of Marsha planning to retaliate unless they are also Bent).

Vidan puts an ecumenical blessing on him for following his organization's rules.

We otherwise make it to morning.

[Phoenix 4]

Off to the Plains of Geddon!
We boat northward. There are some weird birds. One starts swooping in - hey, that's not a bird. That's a centaur that's half pegasus instead of half horse. Huh.

"Managaratha, you old rascal! This close and you didn't stop to say hi?" (He also has a tiny horn). He says there was a note left in his house. He introduces himself as Christafenios and invites everyone to tea. We follow him to his house, which is not far from the road between Darstan and the Plains.

He has a nice centaur-flavored house, and a monkey who makes us tea.

Eventually Vadim asks about the note.

<blockquote>
All right. Things should have started by now, and that means that hopefully you saved the queen in Green and you might have met Lissa Tara by now. She's exciting. You will have to go with her eventually, but probably not first. If you haven't met her yet, probably soon - middle of Phoenix at the latest. The Slith are going to start moving shortly. Those are the wars - the Slith and the orcs. Getting some word to the merfolk and trying to coordinate them with at least Melmane is on the agenda. Might be before Lissa Tara, maybe after. They're selling the swords - watch that. And if you didn't deal with the ring, go to Darstan.
</blockquote>

"So, I have been farther forward and expected myself to be fragged, but not as fragged as I am. (Middlesea is super-fraggy). Good good."

"Oh, <i>worse</i> than precog." -Vadim

(Slith are established in the Broken Seas, which stretch to al Jabar. There are probably fewer than four Slith countries underwater, and they've been pushed north, since Original Comet. Also there's a merfolk country underwater.)

He's still looking for a unicorn. (that's an elder race, like dragons). They can probably heal red magic damage.

We stop at an inn for the night.

[Phoenix 5]

Things seem more defensive and less prosperous than traveling across Orange. (Orange is Italian renaissance, and more vulnerable to sacking by Goths; this is medieval Europe.

Another uneventful day of sailing, another inn.

Stella notices: that wall was just repaired yesterday. The innkeeper reassures her - surely no more bears will be back. There was the flying bear, and the giant bear came through the wall. Something hit the bears in the area and they all got a little weird. Stella goes off to heal people who were hurt in the bear attack. (Kathy got badly mauled).

There are three: the flying bear, the sharp bear, and the giant bear. These are more aggressive than normal bears, too.

Kathy hasn't really heard of the Three-Faced Goddess, but grudgingly says thank you.

We follow the giant bear tracks backwards. We find a cave. No bears in residence, though there are feathers.

We are heading back to the village as the owlbear jumps us.

We chop the owl bear a while - then it gets big and roars and stands up. Navere thinks it might be time to run. Stella puts the giant bear in time-out and Gale coordinates some attacks, so we're still making progress.

Vidan dubs Nesh "Bearslayer". We drag it back into town. "Bear's Head Inn" gets true named by Vadim. (Marta and Jack are the innkeepers).

[Phoenix 6]

A little more flying, and then the Plains.

Diomarch briefs the Lord Commander, including that "the kid" is being hunted by slith.

After a bit, someone comes to take Nesh away for questions about his past and the sword. (Nesh remembers that a Blue saurian said he probably couldn't take the sword away).

Vadim walks around the camp - the non-Paladin side is more temporary, and there is some dismissiveness towards a priest of Navere, though no hostility,

Gale wanders around the camp. The inner section is strangely non-walled, but clearly aware of Gale scoping things out. Are there sad/disgruntled people who didn't get their petition heard? Those could be adventures! One man says he was looking for help for his missing (17yo) daughter who left home two weeks ago and has not come back. His house is between King Richard's Lands and Berana. Stella thinks that what needs fixing is that his daughter got hit with a red spell - she is a frog in a stream near her house, and a noble has to kiss her. Hmm.

Diomarch gets a six-day pass. We get there in four without anything. Gale and Diomarche do not successfully kiss the frog, but Nesh turns her back into a girl. He starts to get an existential crisis, but then decides it was his saurian resistance.

[Phoenix 12] Vadim just manages to get us back in time after some boat travel to get closer.

+5 / +5

Bear and Frog

2023-07-22T17:01:42Z

96.237.52.245: Created page with "==Run Eight: Bear and Frog== [Still evening Phoenix 3] We begin the run standing over the post-exploded (but still identifiable) body of Marsha (except Nesh who is still with Thistle in Marsha's rooms). Diomarche could inform the Rush temple. There's less hue and cry than we would expect. He heads that way at a fast canter. A crowd (but not guards) starts to gather. Vidan tells everyone to move along. Nesh stays hidden on the roof at Marsha's, and spots Joseph s..."

Main Page

2023-07-22T17:01:10Z

96.237.52.245: /* Logs */

<font size=6> COMET: Once More Unto The Breach </font>

== About The World ==
[[World Map|World Map and Overview]]

[[Muddle in Middlesea]]

[[History]]

[[Ministries_of_Empire]]

== Previous Comet ==
[https://stuff.mit.edu/~boojum/CometWeb/ Website from the Previous Comet]

==Various Mechanics==
[[Colors of Magic | Magic]]

[[Endurance]]

[[Character Creation Message]]

[[Skill List and Costs]]

[[Combat]]

[[:Category: Rulings]]

==Logs==
* [[First Run]] (2023-01-07)
* [[Second Run]] (2023-02-18)
* [[To The Heart]] (Third Run, 2023-03-04)
* [[Adventures are Everywhere]] (Fourth Run, 2023-03-18)
* [[Promises Promises]] (Fifth Run, 2023-04-01)
* [[A Lilac Kind Of Purple]] (Sixth Run, 2023-05-13)
* [[To Catch A Thief]] (Seventh Run, 2023-05-27)
* [[Bear and Frog]] (Eighth Run, 2023-06-17)
* [[Keep in the Broken Lands]] (Ninth Run, 2023-07-08)

==Things We Might Know==
* [[:Category:NPCs]]
* [[Party Loot]]

== MediaWiki ==
MediaWiki has been installed.

Consult the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.

* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]

Colors of Magic

2023-07-08T18:01:55Z

96.237.52.245:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| Red
| style="background-color:#fe0000;" | '''Blood'''<br />''Hit Points''
| Animals<br />''Familiar''
| Life
|-
| Orange
| style="background-color:#f56b00;" | '''Forge'''<br />''Gestures''
| Elemental<br />''Vulnerability''
| Making<br />''Compulsion to Make''
|-
| Yellow
| style="background-color:#f8ff00;" | '''Illusions/Senses'''<br />''Spoken Word''
| Feelings
| Unreality
|-
| Green
| style="background-color:#32cb00;" | '''Alchemy'''<br />''Ingredients''
| Essence
| Nature<br />''Nothing Manufactured''
|-
| Blue
| style="background-color:#34cdf9;" | '''Weather'''<br />''Sigils''
| Elemental<br />''Vulnerability''
| Battle <br/>''Berserker Rage''
|-
| Purple
| style="background-color:#ffffff;" | '''Reality'''<br />''Concentration''
| '''Truth'''<br />''True Names''
| style="background-color:#6665cd;" | '''Discipline'''<br />''Vow''
|}

from https://stuff.mit.edu/~boojum/CometWeb/Info/Magic/ritual.html

<h2> Magic Rules</h2>

You probably noticed the world has colored zones now.

The Rainbow River is gone, and each of the colored zones is a perpetual field of that magic color in which random magic occasionally happens (less often than on one of the river sides, but periodically).

The zone you were born in (your "color") changes how you interact with magic. You may never learn any spells of the opposed color. You may learn not just the base-version of your color's magic, but also the two other varieties that were present in the surges. You may learn one of the other four colors' base-version with no negative interference effects. You may not be a Rainbow Mage.

In a zone, spells of the opposed color only work if they are the base-version of that color, and even those are one difficulty harder, and if they have a duration it will drop significantly. Spells of a non-base-version of a non-opposed color are one difficulty harder.

If you were born on the "Rainbow Isles" in the Inland Sea (or on the open ocean or somewhere else weird and not in the colored zones), you get the old magic rules - one base-color, the opposed base-color is learnable by giving up dispels, learning non-opposed colors either burns out your skill or requires having a Rainbow Mage shtick/skill. There's no school teaching Rainbow Magic, but there are rumored to be a couple of self-taught Rainbow Mages in the Rainbow Isles. All spells work at their normal difficulty in those areas.

Spells cost 1 skill point. Skill in a full base-version of a color is breadth five 5, more limited base-version skills are narrower. Skill in a full non-base version of a color costs 3 (if you can buy it at all). If you have access to broader skills, you can get full-base+1 non-base for breadth 6 and full-base+both non-base for 7.

Spells that buff dice will be higher difficulty than they used to be.

Note that color is based on what zone you are born in, not what your parents were or where you grew up. For Elves that's "where you returned the last time you heard your song." Half-elves don't *normally* change color when they hear their song, but you might be able to argue me into it as a special case. If you don't start as a Mage, you can choose not to know what your actual color is. I might let you choose it later, or I might choose it for you.

<h3> [[Endurance]] Costs </h3>

It requires a lot of concentration to cast magic spells. Accordingly, how much End you spend depends on your Will. It also depends on the difficulty of the spells, harder spells taking more concentration. Each time you cast enough spells to generate difficulty points equal to your will, you spend a point of End.<p>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|Spell difficulty
|Difficulty Points
|-
| 7-9
| 1
|-
| 10-12
| 2
|-
| 13-15
| 4
|-
| 16-18
| 7
|-
| 19-21
| 11
|-
| 22-24
| 16
|-
| 25-27
| 22
|-
| 28-30
| 29
|-
| etc.
| etc.
|}

Spells cast in combat cost one difficulty point less (since you've already paid a full End to fight the combat).

<h3> Horrible Awryage</h3>
To quote from the webpage:

The term Magic ... is reserved for describing the skill of manipulating the six Colors of Chaos. As the name implies, it's a chancy skill, with a moderately high probability of something going dreadfully wrong if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

I'm not going to try to quantify Awryage here, but I want to give you an idea when and how it might come about. Consider this fair warning.

* Awryage never happens unless you get at least one seven in your roll. You've simply failed to generate any magic at that point.
* If you know the spell you're casting, see how many ones you rolled. If you rolled at least three, awryage is possible. Initial awryage is likely to be fairly harmless (your fireball's a different color from usual, or something), but as the number of ones increases, it can be bad (the fireball misses the target is on the order of 6 ones, the fireball lands at your feet is nine or ten). If you get twice as many ones as successes, there's ALWAYS awryage. You can use skill points IN THE SPELL to cancel out ones (those skill points then can't be used for successes).
* If you're casting wild magic, count up ones and any die which is more than 5 below your difficulty number to see if there's awryage. You can use skill to bring numbers up to within 5 of your difficulty, if you want to do that instead of generate more successes. Then use rules above.

Muddle in Middlesea

2023-05-27T22:30:27Z

96.237.52.245: /* Things Remembered */

A central location for the information we've collected on what happened at the Convocation, in the first run, and what the current status inside the time halt is.

Things we know so far (with information source listed if possible):

==Before It Went Awry==
* Pirate Queen Cara, her first mage Federico, William (maybe an organizer), other pirates like Gale, and servants like Nesh, showed up a few days early before the Conclave started. (Nesh and other servants were there before Cara/Federico/Gale arrived)
* Managaratha was at the Blue table, and chatted with a diplomat named Rickard from Melmane, also General Petrov and Mage Marek. (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
* Dinner was:
**A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
**30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
**Similar from Purple and Yellow
**Only about 8 from Blue, including [[Mage Martek]] and one Saurian, [[General Petrov]].
**Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.
* Post Dinner, pre-Attack
** [[Luigi]] says [[Cult of Alan]] would be happy to see Managaratha again (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
===The Purple Dinner===
====[[Ministries of Empire|Ministers]] (4th rank)====
*Win Dae (she/her) - Minister of Repercussions
*Han Cho - Minister of Grain
*Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade
*Az Julan - Minister of Lions
*Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions
*Li Karest - Minister of the Borders
*Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune

====Advisors and Liaisons====
*Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam
*Vesper - the Silent One, Priest of Tem
*Vidan - Priest of Navere
*Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion

====Others====
*3rd rank sub-minister of State / Foreign Affairs
*3rd rank sub-minister of War
*12-15 other 3rd rank bureaucrats, all mooks.
*An assortment of servants, etc.

===The Orange Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Guildmaster Lady Isabella Horenth from Vani
* Guildmaster Lady Marianna from Rin'yan
* Guildmaster Stefan - priest of Jord from Eaglofto
* Journeyman Victor - Saurian from Kor

==== Priests ====
* Stella - priestess of the Goddess from Rin'yan
* Luigi - Cult of Alan member from Rin'yan
* Astrid - priest of Rush from Vani
* Alfonz - priest of Tem from Vani
* Georgi - Saurian, itinerant priest of Tam

== Current State ==
* The Pirate Queen is on the ground in (location), covered in blood. (Noted by Gale.)
* Sergeant Susie is badly injured; she is fighting an orc who is uninjured, and several fallen paladins lay around her. (Noted by Diomarch)
* A dwarf is chasing a redcap who is running away. (Noted by Scout.)
* Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. (Noted by Scout)
* Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
* There are several dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. (noted by Nesh)
* Luigi is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it; some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. (noted by Stella)
* There's a Yellow zone that's hard to see/changing even though time isn't passing; speculation is there's an Unreality effect going on there.
* A Blue mage performed an extra-effort Blue spell to make all of Middlesea one battlemap. They are probably/possibly in the midst of a Berserker rage, as a consequence. (Discovered in [[Second Run]] by Gale when she did her own wild-blue-spell on the battlemap.)
* An area of effect Green spell is spraying amnesia mist everywhere. (Noted by Lutenania, scout for Their Majesty of the Plains.)
* An Oasis miracle of isolation is in place. (Noted by Scout.)
* A Time miracle of some sort is in place. (Noted by Bordan, priest of Rush.)
* There are a whole bunch of orcs (Noted by flyover in [[First Run]].)
* There are lion prints on the outer wall. (Noted by Nesh.)
* There are slith tracks sneaking into the keep. (Noted by Vidan.)
* There are more than ten "sides" involved, but that might include factions within delegations; e.g., there are five separate delegations from Red, one for each kingdom and one for the Paladins of Rush. It's not clear whether those count as five different "sides".(From Bordan.)
* Baron Volstack took a lot of damage right before the timestop, which was shared with Duchess Zerbina over the lifelink (she has healed since). She is concerned that he be gotten to ASAP when the timestop breaks. (Shared by Duchess Zerbina. This is a secret.)

== Things Remembered ==
* Vidan was involved in a combat-time ritual of several people-- probably Fivist priests and mages, not priests of other religions-- to counteract the amnesia spell.
* Vidan recalls: ''Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."''
* [[Gyvail]], a priest of Orellian, is with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. (Recalled by Vidan.)
* Nesh remembers that dinner went... fine. He served the Yellow delegation.
* Managaratha remembers having a conversation with the Blue delegation.
* Stella remembers being sent to talk to the Purple delegation and feel them out "since you can't actually commit the Guild to anything."
* Stella remembers that "Luigi volunteers to speak with the Priests from the Yellow delegation" after dinner.
* Federico told Managaratha that Vidan was fragged, even worse than Managaratha.

== People By Faction ==
* Pirate Queen (Cara)
** First Mage Federico
** William (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Gale

* Blue
** Mage Marek (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** General Petrov, a Saurien (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Rickard (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
*** can cast spells
*** diplomat-without-portfolio for [[Melmaine]]
*** has spent time in [[Jabar]] and some of the Merfolk courts

* Cult of Alan
** Luigi (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])

Muddle in Middlesea

2023-05-27T19:32:08Z

96.237.52.245: /* Current State */

A central location for the information we've collected on what happened at the Convocation, in the first run, and what the current status inside the time halt is.

Things we know so far (with information source listed if possible):

==Before It Went Awry==
* Pirate Queen Cara, her first mage Federico, William (maybe an organizer), other pirates like Gale, and servants like Nesh, showed up a few days early before the Conclave started. (Nesh and other servants were there before Cara/Federico/Gale arrived)
* Managaratha was at the Blue table, and chatted with a diplomat named Rickard from Melmane, also General Petrov and Mage Marek. (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
* Dinner was:
**A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
**30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
**Similar from Purple and Yellow
**Only about 8 from Blue, including [[Mage Martek]] and one Saurian, [[General Petrov]].
**Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.
* Post Dinner, pre-Attack
** [[Luigi]] says [[Cult of Alan]] would be happy to see Managaratha again (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
===The Purple Dinner===
====[[Ministries of Empire|Ministers]] (4th rank)====
*Win Dae (she/her) - Minister of Repercussions
*Han Cho - Minister of Grain
*Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade
*Az Julan - Minister of Lions
*Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions
*Li Karest - Minister of the Borders
*Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune

====Advisors and Liaisons====
*Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam
*Vesper - the Silent One, Priest of Tem
*Vidan - Priest of Navere
*Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion

====Others====
*3rd rank sub-minister of State / Foreign Affairs
*3rd rank sub-minister of War
*12-15 other 3rd rank bureaucrats, all mooks.
*An assortment of servants, etc.

===The Orange Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Guildmaster Lady Isabella Horenth from Vani
* Guildmaster Lady Marianna from Rin'yan
* Guildmaster Stefan - priest of Jord from Eaglofto
* Journeyman Victor - Saurian from Kor

==== Priests ====
* Stella - priestess of the Goddess from Rin'yan
* Luigi - Cult of Alan member from Rin'yan
* Astrid - priest of Rush from Vani
* Alfonz - priest of Tem from Vani
* Georgi - Saurian, itinerant priest of Tam

== Current State ==
* The Pirate Queen is on the ground in (location), covered in blood. (Noted by Gale.)
* Sergeant Susie is badly injured; she is fighting an orc who is uninjured, and several fallen paladins lay around her. (Noted by Diomarch)
* A dwarf is chasing a redcap who is running away. (Noted by Scout.)
* Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. (Noted by Scout)
* Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
* There are several dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. (noted by Nesh)
* Luigi is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it; some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. (noted by Stella)
* There's a Yellow zone that's hard to see/changing even though time isn't passing; speculation is there's an Unreality effect going on there.
* A Blue mage performed an extra-effort Blue spell to make all of Middlesea one battlemap. They are probably/possibly in the midst of a Berserker rage, as a consequence. (Discovered in [[Second Run]] by Gale when she did her own wild-blue-spell on the battlemap.)
* An area of effect Green spell is spraying amnesia mist everywhere. (Noted by Lutenania, scout for Their Majesty of the Plains.)
* An Oasis miracle of isolation is in place. (Noted by Scout.)
* A Time miracle of some sort is in place. (Noted by Bordan, priest of Rush.)
* There are a whole bunch of orcs (Noted by flyover in [[First Run]].)
* There are lion prints on the outer wall. (Noted by Nesh.)
* There are slith tracks sneaking into the keep. (Noted by Vidan.)
* There are more than ten "sides" involved, but that might include factions within delegations; e.g., there are five separate delegations from Red, one for each kingdom and one for the Paladins of Rush. It's not clear whether those count as five different "sides".(From Bordan.)
* Baron Volstack took a lot of damage right before the timestop, which was shared with Duchess Zerbina over the lifelink (she has healed since). She is concerned that he be gotten to ASAP when the timestop breaks. (Shared by Duchess Zerbina. This is a secret.)

== Things Remembered ==
* Vidan was involved in a combat-time ritual of several people-- probably Fivist priests and mages, not priests of other religions-- to counteract the amnesia spell.
* Vidan recalls: ''Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."''
* [[Gyvail]], a priest of Orellian, is with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. (Recalled by Vidan.)
* Nesh remembers that dinner went... fine. He served the Yellow delegation.
* Managaratha remembers having a conversation with the Blue delegation.
* Stella remembers being sent to talk to the Purple delegation and feel them out "since you can't actually commit the Guild to anything."
* Stella remembers that "Luigi volunteers to speak with the Priests from the Yellow delegation" after dinner.

== People By Faction ==
* Pirate Queen (Cara)
** First Mage Federico
** William (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Gale

* Blue
** Mage Marek (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** General Petrov, a Saurien (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Rickard (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
*** can cast spells
*** diplomat-without-portfolio for [[Melmaine]]
*** has spent time in [[Jabar]] and some of the Merfolk courts

* Cult of Alan
** Luigi (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])

Muddle in Middlesea

2023-05-27T19:31:26Z

96.237.52.245: /* Current State */

A central location for the information we've collected on what happened at the Convocation, in the first run, and what the current status inside the time halt is.

Things we know so far (with information source listed if possible):

==Before It Went Awry==
* Pirate Queen Cara, her first mage Federico, William (maybe an organizer), other pirates like Gale, and servants like Nesh, showed up a few days early before the Conclave started. (Nesh and other servants were there before Cara/Federico/Gale arrived)
* Managaratha was at the Blue table, and chatted with a diplomat named Rickard from Melmane, also General Petrov and Mage Marek. (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
* Dinner was:
**A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
**30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
**Similar from Purple and Yellow
**Only about 8 from Blue, including [[Mage Martek]] and one Saurian, [[General Petrov]].
**Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.
* Post Dinner, pre-Attack
** [[Luigi]] says [[Cult of Alan]] would be happy to see Managaratha again (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
===The Purple Dinner===
====[[Ministries of Empire|Ministers]] (4th rank)====
*Win Dae (she/her) - Minister of Repercussions
*Han Cho - Minister of Grain
*Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade
*Az Julan - Minister of Lions
*Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions
*Li Karest - Minister of the Borders
*Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune

====Advisors and Liaisons====
*Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam
*Vesper - the Silent One, Priest of Tem
*Vidan - Priest of Navere
*Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion

====Others====
*3rd rank sub-minister of State / Foreign Affairs
*3rd rank sub-minister of War
*12-15 other 3rd rank bureaucrats, all mooks.
*An assortment of servants, etc.

===The Orange Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Guildmaster Lady Isabella Horenth from Vani
* Guildmaster Lady Marianna from Rin'yan
* Guildmaster Stefan - priest of Jord from Eaglofto
* Journeyman Victor - Saurian from Kor

==== Priests ====
* Stella - priestess of the Goddess from Rin'yan
* Luigi - Cult of Alan member from Rin'yan
* Astrid - priest of Rush from Vani
* Alfonz - priest of Tem from Vani
* Georgi - Saurian, itinerant priest of Tam

== Current State ==
* The Pirate Queen is on the ground in (location), covered in blood. (Noted by Gale.)
* Sergeant Susie is badly injured; she is fighting an orc who is uninjured, and several fallen paladins lay around her. (Noted by Diomarch)
* A dwarf is chasing a redcap who is running away. (Noted by Scout.)
* Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. (Noted by Scout)
* Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
* There are several dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. (noted by Nesh)
* Luigi is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it; some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. (noted by Stella)
* There's a Yellow zone that's hard to see/changing even though time isn't passing; speculation is there's an Unreality effect going on there.
* A Blue mage performed an extra-effort Blue spell to make all of Middlesea one battlemap. They are probably/possibly in the midst of a Berserker rage, as a consequence. (Discovered in [[Second Run]] by Gale when she did her own wild-blue-spell on the battlemap.)
* An area of effect Green spell is spraying amnesia mist everywhere. (Noted by Lutenania, scout for Their Majesty of the Plains.)
* An Oasis miracle of isolation is in place. (Noted by Scout.)
* A Time miracle of some sort is in place. (Noted by Bordan, priest of Rush.)
* There are a whole bunch of orcs (Noted by flyover in [[First Run]].)
* There are lion prints on the outer wall. (Noted by Nesh.)
* There are slith tracks sneaking into the keep. (Noted by Vidan.)
* There are more than ten "sides" involved, but that might include factions within delegations; e.g., there are five separate delegations from Red, one for each kingdom and one for the Paladins of Rush. It's not clear whether those count as five different "sides".(From Bordan.)
* Baron Volstack took a lot of damage right before the timestop, which was shared with Duchess Zerbina over the lifelink (she has healed since). She is concerned that he be gotten to ASAP when the timestop breaks.

== Things Remembered ==
* Vidan was involved in a combat-time ritual of several people-- probably Fivist priests and mages, not priests of other religions-- to counteract the amnesia spell.
* Vidan recalls: ''Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."''
* [[Gyvail]], a priest of Orellian, is with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. (Recalled by Vidan.)
* Nesh remembers that dinner went... fine. He served the Yellow delegation.
* Managaratha remembers having a conversation with the Blue delegation.
* Stella remembers being sent to talk to the Purple delegation and feel them out "since you can't actually commit the Guild to anything."
* Stella remembers that "Luigi volunteers to speak with the Priests from the Yellow delegation" after dinner.

== People By Faction ==
* Pirate Queen (Cara)
** First Mage Federico
** William (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Gale

* Blue
** Mage Marek (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** General Petrov, a Saurien (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Rickard (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
*** can cast spells
*** diplomat-without-portfolio for [[Melmaine]]
*** has spent time in [[Jabar]] and some of the Merfolk courts

* Cult of Alan
** Luigi (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-27T17:58:32Z

96.237.52.245: /* 4th Rank Ministries */

When last we checked, there were 88 active ministries and 323 inactive ministries.

==5th Rank Ministries==
*War
*State (Foreign Affairs)
*Treasury
*Interior

==4th Rank Ministries==
*Redactions
*Repercussions
*Naval Trade (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Lions: The "Lions" this ministry deals with are largely a metaphor. It is the ministry in charge of Unusual Threats, be they monsters, dangerous wild magic, or Brokenness. An actual lion rampaging would fall into its bailiwick, but would not draw the minister's direct attention unless it was the size of a house. Even then, his attention would generally be "organizing a way to take care of it" rather than 'fighting it himself', although the minister is a skilled purple mage. (Also loosely affiliated with War)
*Grain (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Borders: Loosely affiliated with both the Ministry of War and the Ministry of State, the Minister of the Borders is responsible for the Borders in a more metaphysical sense, making sure that Red, Green, and the Broken Lands do not encroach on the Holy and Magical lands of the Empire.
*Fortune: Tasked to develop opportunities the Empire is presented with to its advantage.
*Magic

==3rd Rank Ministries==

*Lilacs

==Others==
*The Inspectorate: Maybe they are the Ministry of Inspection, maybe not. It's unclear. Somewhat affiliated with Interior. Mostly separate. Both cops and auditors.
*Head Stallion's Troops: A military force composed mostly of centaurs who defend the Empire.

Party Loot

2023-05-27T17:36:02Z

96.237.52.245:

* Blackjack, non-lethal, +10 damage (Scout)
* A necklace with a bottle of Holding 3 DI, shaman/demon flavored (Scout)
* +1 Charisma clothes, for everyone except Vidan. (Several have lost their buffs by the end of [[To The Heart]].)
* Dagger of Destruction (Gale): x4 damage, seems to have some way of compelling people to Stab Stab Stab
* A pair of Absconded Tongs (Gale): Stolen from poor normal people in Rin'yan.
* Adventuring Perfume (Gale): Dashing, sexy. From the Ministry of Lilacs.
* Orc Allergen Perfume: Makes orcs (half-orcs?) sneeze around us. From the Ministry of Lilacs.
* A small bag of coins.

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-27T17:14:44Z

96.237.52.245: /* 4th Rank Ministries */

When last we checked, there were 88 active ministries and 323 inactive ministries.

==5th Rank Ministries==
*War
*State (Foreign Affairs)
*Treasury
*Interior

==4th Rank Ministries==
*Redactions
*Repercussions
*Naval Trade (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Lions: The "Lions" this ministry deals with are largely a metaphor. It is the ministry in charge of Unusual Threats, be they monsters, dangerous wild magic, or Brokenness. An actual lion rampaging would fall into its bailiwick, but would not draw the minister's direct attention unless it was the size of a house. Even then, his attention would generally be "organizing a way to take care of it" rather than 'fighting it himself', although the minister is a skilled purple mage. (Also loosely affiliated with War)
*Grain (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Borders: Loosely affiliated with both the Ministry of War and the Ministry of State, the Minister of the Borders is responsible for the Borders in a more metaphysical sense, making sure that Red, Green, and the Broken Lands do not encroach on the Holy and Magical lands of the Empire.
*Fortune
*Magic

==3rd Rank Ministries==

*Lilacs

==Others==
*The Inspectorate: Maybe they are the Ministry of Inspection, maybe not. It's unclear. Somewhat affiliated with Interior. Mostly separate. Both cops and auditors.
*Head Stallion's Troops: A military force composed mostly of centaurs who defend the Empire.

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-27T17:12:52Z

96.237.52.245: /* 4th Rank Ministries */

When last we checked, there were 88 active ministries and 323 inactive ministries.

==5th Rank Ministries==
*War
*State (Foreign Affairs)
*Treasury
*Interior

==4th Rank Ministries==
*Redactions
*Repercussions
*Naval Trade (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Lions: The "Lions" this ministry deals with are largely a metaphor. It is the ministry in charge of Unusual Threats, be they monsters, dangerous wild magic, or Brokenness. An actual lion rampaging would fall into his bailiwick, but would not draw his direct attention unless it was the size of a house. Even then, his attention would generally be "organizing a way to take care of it" rather than 'fighting it himself', although you are given to understand the minister a skilled purple mage. Loosely affiliated with the Ministry of War, Julan is the most obviously relevant Minister to the question of "what do we do about the Comet." (Also loosely affiliated with War)
*Grain (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Borders: Loosely affiliated with both the Ministry of War and the Ministry of State, the Minister of the Borders is responsible for the Borders in a more metaphysical sense, making sure that Red, Green, and the Broken Lands do not encroach on the Holy and Magical lands of the Empire.
*Fortune
*Magic

==3rd Rank Ministries==

*Lilacs

==Others==
*The Inspectorate: Maybe they are the Ministry of Inspection, maybe not. It's unclear. Somewhat affiliated with Interior. Mostly separate. Both cops and auditors.
*Head Stallion's Troops: A military force composed mostly of centaurs who defend the Empire.

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-27T17:10:48Z

96.237.52.245: /* 4th Rank Ministries */

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-13T22:02:19Z

96.237.52.245: /* Others */

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-13T22:02:10Z

96.237.52.245:

Promises Promises

2023-05-13T18:18:28Z

96.237.52.245: /* Ministry of Fortune */

==Ministry of War==
[All Gazelle 30]
Vidan and Stella vanish, and Nesh reappears. He still has tons of effects, but happily while the reverse gravity is still in effect, so is Gale's fly spell.

The bureaucrat thinks this whole vanishing thing is very annoying.

Zheldat is due south of the tower, in line with the rivers hitting the coasts. It's the capital of the Empire of the Orcslayer (Purple)

We go to the ministry of War. It is set up for centaur, and there are centaur walking through the halls. Fewer other races. (Other buildings have not been set up for centaurs, but this one has.)

Managaratha remembers– Zheldat was founded when the centaurs came back into the world; this building is not that old.

“I was hoping to speak with Vidan, but apparently I am speaking with you all.”<br>
“I have read Vidan’s report. It appears that you all are the only ones that can get into this… whatever this Oasis miracle is. I will have to treat you as… we will not say ‘agents’, but we will have to work together to determine how to undo the time effect. There are some things I will need to share with you, but I will require a promise of secrecy first. (An Oath. It will make it difficult to share the secrets but not impossible, so it won't be accidental, and he will know.) For Vidan and Stella, he'll have to bind them when they return, and by tomorrow will have something to provide for them.

The minister wonders if the kid is one of us?
He says enough of this floating Saurian nonsense, and Nesh comes to the ground for now. He emphasizes the importance of this secret-keeping, as if Nesh is a child.

He puts together the purple Oath and we all agree.

He thinks the timestop effect is the result of the death of Foran Zakar, Minister of Redaction. He was a priest of the Twins as well as a mage, and was one of the leaders of their delegation; he had an effect of that sort prepared on his death. The key to open the time stop was in the knowledge of Tier Lo (subminister of the second rank), who was assassinated in Zhaldat the night that Middlesea happened. The fact that they want the effect to stay up and we want the effect to stay up, he finds interesting. But he can't force it open anyway. Who knew the internal affairs of the Ministry of Redactions, he is not sure. The other fifth-level Bureaucrats were probably aware. Other ministers of redaction probably.

The Ministry of Redaction is not under the other fifth-level Bureaucrats; it keeps Secrets.

It’s not clear to the Minister whether the weaponization was intended to be on a smaller degree or not. The general purpose of the effect is to catch the assassin or whoever so that the Ministry of Redaction can put together a team and extract them. Someone is of the opinion that the bubble should not be opened.

Gale wonders if the key can be recovered magically?
It’s unlikely; possibly Yellow could do it. He does not speak of the possibility of what Yellow can do.

A Nameless priest could maybe do it?
That’s a plausible route to follow, if we have a Priest of the Nameless who could talk to a dead priest of the Twins. Probably easier if we tried for Tier Lo.

It’s possible the key could be deduced; Zakar is the sort that uses suspenders and a waistband. The Ministry has not been able to perform a complete search, as they are not acknowledging Zakar’s death.

[[Inspector Vok]] has been assigned to investigate Tier Lo’s death. He likely is already running into issues with the Ministry of Redaction. His reports thus far have not been very enlightening. His post-cog has indicated that it was a single ninja that killed Tier Lo. (Ninja are known to be a thing, but not culturally associated with anywhere specific.)

There is not a new Minister of Redaction; the Ministry is pursuing the matter in some degree, but it has lost both its Minister and the Subminister that would have stepped in. There are discussions going on internally.

Managaratha “That sounds exciting.”
“Exciting. Indeed.”

One assumes a post in a Ministry by proving one’s self, so there are Rules about how the next Minister is chosen.

Ministry of Lions deals with unusual threats and is also in the Middlesea miracle. There is a subminister of war there.

He is [[Tan Kato]], the Minister of War.

Does he have any advice for us? His focus is on the orcs invading - he does not expect us to join that fight.

We are outside the scope of Ministry politics, which should give us some flexibility.
We are welcome to investigate the assassination.

He assigns us Volda (the bureaucrat we’ve been running into, as it turns out) to point us around and help us with contact.

Fifth Level is the highest rank of Bureaucrats.

Volda gives us the list of the delegates from Purple.
We get a briefing on the orc invasion.
Strong push to get them a foothold in the north of the Empire; they’ve been less coordinated since then, and the Minister and Head Stallion have been holding them at bay.
They didn’t take any obvious strategic locations, but it was definitely an invasion, rather than a raid.

Ministry of Repercussions is responsible for keeping the probabilities of outcomes updated.
Ministry of Fortune is small– probably not more than 5-10 bureaucrats total. The current Minister is the first Minister of Fortune in a few decades. Its role is primarily to take advantage of unusual opportunities.

There are 88 ministries currently active; it changes moderately regularly..
323 Inactive ministries currently. The most recently reactivated ministry is the Ministry of Lilacs, which regulates perfumes and herbal remedies and some Green mages. (Why? Gale is going to have to investigate. That sounds like an adventure). Volda later confirms that they reactivated *on* the Middlesea Day.

==Ministry of Fortune==

Ministry of Fortune
Volda takes out a book, which generates a map.
A small building. This is not designed for centaurs.

[[Seilin]] (she/her) greets us enthusiastically. Welcome to the Ministry of Fortune!
She is a bureaucrat assigned to the Ministry, but not a subminister.
She takes the Tarn Evidence Packet and goes to read it while we have tea.
(Volda is unimpressed with the tea.)

Managaratha tries to pump her for information, such as he can.
The Minister of Fortune didn’t report since arriving at Middlesea.

The Ministry has pushed forward to see what can be done with the troubles in the country.
Displaced people in the north, for example.

She gives us Tourist suggestions. The Empty Throne can be viewed two days per week; there is a theater that has a new work showing.

She will prepare a report for Opportunities When Taking Down The Bubble.

==Ministry of Lions==

To the Ministry of Lions next.
It's larger than the Ministry of Fortune, located in an upmarket area of town, close to the Temple district; we see people in Twinsish regalia.

They have a large antechamber, big enough for centaur.
“What do you need?” He sees Nesh floating. “Oh.”
He sends a messenger to get Tan Ri.
Gale asks about forms for being a Registered Pirate!
“Registered Pirate, or Privateer, or Unregistered Naval Officer?" The first, but it would be the Ministry of Naval Trade, which is missing its minister also.

Lots of people are interested in talking to us, apparently.
We are about to go back in, but Scout notes that there’s a big Twins miracle back there.
We advise them that we have a Broken miracle on us, so please don’t get us.
Ah. Let’s go talk in the park.

We go to the park; the bureaucrats spend some time getting Nesh back on the ground, until dusk. They ask us lots of questions about what’s in the packet, expanding and collapsing details. They run Purple diagnostics.

The thing that’s not in the packet, that they think is true. We’re under a Broken miracle; a Blue spell; a Navere miracle; a Rushian miracle; a Twins miracle. There are a lot of miracles on us people, and they’re not interacting perfectly. If it was Magic (and some if it is Magic) it would probably have sorted itself out. There would be an effect on us at this point. It’s mostly miracles, and they continue to fight with each other more, so it’s more fluid effect, that they would not count on staying the same. For instance, we’re missing two people now rather than one. Some other sorts of miracles may have trouble affecting us.

Gale wonders if the miracles are being directed by the Gods, in the “do what you think is best” way– is that happening in real time?
The ministry people disagree with each other, and start to geek out about theology.

The Twins miracle is not actually big enough for the Twins to have a hand in specifically what it was doing when it was creating. But the ongoing fight, some of them think the Twins are paying attention to. It’s a Balance miracle. The Rush and Navere miracles are both quite large, and could have had some “The God is stepping in to make it work this way”, they think. The Oasis is huge, but they’re less familiar with spirits and demons.-- would the Oasis way over there have had to send a specific miracle. They don’t identify anything Goddessy on us at present.

Nesh pays attention to what they’re saying in the background– the ministry people are speaking another language with each other sometimes, and then seem to be translating back. They don’t seem to be concealing anything particularly. We are definitely getting looks from people in the park.

Nesh notices there is a guy watching us from outside the park, and relays that to us.

After an hour they start to move from diagnostic to thinking about Treatments.
Managaratha attempts to distract them with more theoretical questions!

We’re supposed to all be trapped in the broken miracle, but the Rushian miracle was supposed to break us out, but the Blue spell says we’re all in the same place. They expect that if we got too far apart we’d fall back into the Not Here miracle.

Gale says she wants a full report on specific treatments! Producing reports is one of their weaknesses… though there are clearly some experimentalists in the group who would be willing to just Try It Right Now.

Why Lions? There’s an extent to which it’s tied to cataurs, they think. The history geek says the Ministry of Lions is one of the oldest ministries, founded during the first comet during the founding of the Empire. The issues at that point, they could have been Ministry of Fish, if we wanted to deal with the merfolk. No one had a good evocative word for dealing with Orcs. And there were a fair number of cataurs in the area at the time. They’ve mostly retreated to the Oasis by this point. At that time, as best the historian puts it together, there were not many cataurs anywhere, since they were just reappearing. But there was a group causing trouble out of the Broken Lands, that seems to have been mostly dealt with.

There are no cataurs within four miles, as we discover when Managaratha asks “how would we find a cataur?” and someone says “I could just cast summon cataur with purple.” and does so.

Managaratha asks about other things that have happened– they seem to be quiet about the status of the Minister of Lions, which makes us think they do have some information.

The sigil of the Purple stasis is the Hide-my-sigil Sigil, it’s about 150 years old.

The guy who’s watching us has some kind of “In The Shadows” Tem-ish effect.

Nesh springs the trap!
The guy is a follower of the Guiding Star (who is the head Priest of Tem)

What are our dreams? What do we dream of doing? ('All of it!' -Gale)
He'll keep following us.

We interrogate Rakta, the priest who’s following us. He’s mostly here because the Guiding Star knows we’re in town and wants to keep an eye on us. We ask if there were other strange happenings in the capital that they know about on the day of Middlesea; Yes, says Rakta. Can he tell us more? We’d want to ask the Guiding Star. Can we do that? He’ll let the Guiding Star know we want to talk to him. He recommends we do not go in the Temple, where the Guiding Star is likely to be.

==Ministry (sort of) of Foreign Affairs==

There is an invitation to dinner with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We go! Not to the Ministry, to the Minister's house. (Dunang) He has met Managaratha in the past, when he was younger.

He treats us to a lovely dinner, and is a lovely host, and he casually gets lots of details about our backstories without us really noticing. Hmm.

Having chatted a while, Nesh notices that he seems to be disappointed that we actually are as clueless as we look.

Scout lets slip that Futeau is the traitor - Dunang is surprised to hear that, and Scout asks him to get that to Her Majesty just in case. (Futeau, it turns out, is one of the Queen’s advisors.) He seems to indicate that he can see to that.

The Minister offers us his seats at the theater.
We’re in the diplomatic box; it has room for centaurs and the theater is clearly set up for at least some centaur population.

The play is a reasonably interesting opera-y thing. Not much plot, but the singers are quite talented. The convention is that the audience is at a social event, and people walk in and out. Nesh invites the priest of Tam into the box with us.

About ¾ of the way through, there’s a knock on the door. Nesh answers; there’s a glowing guy that asks if he can come in. Sai Ko Ti, high priest of Tam, the Summer’s Warmth. He asks for an evidence packet, since he has not been provided with a copy yet as he is not in the Ministry. He is curious about what we remember about what happened to people in the Delegation, but it mostly seems to be a social call, rather than an Interrogation.

Scout notes that if we were actively Broken, the Warmth effect would be actively painful, rather than just getting warm.

"Does he do that a lot?"
"*Constantly*."

Gale develops a crush on a singer and sends them a lilac.

==No Evidence for Orcs==

Some people wake when the screaming starts; Nesh wakes up the rest.

Orcs have surrounded the inn. There are about 10 mooks; Scout notices one of them is a priest, but she is using some kind of mojo to look like a mook.

The mooks charge upstairs, looting the rooms for the Tarn Evidence Packets, while half the party cuts them apart and the other half goes after the priest.

The priest spends her DI to bring 4 of the mooks back from the dead, resulting in more chopping. Managaratha notes that the priest invokes Grumuush when doing the miracle to bring back the dead guys.

The orcs (even the dead ones) disappear again at the bottom of 3rd action; luckily, the one orc who had found an evidence packet dropped it when Nesh killed them.

The local forces appear at the top of 4th action, and are confused that there are no orcs. The witnesses and post-cogs tell them that yes, there were orcs. They are dismayed that the priest does not show up in post-cog.

Loot:
+5 EPs
+5 SPs

Promises Promises

2023-05-13T18:18:12Z

96.237.52.245:

==Ministry of War==
[All Gazelle 30]
Vidan and Stella vanish, and Nesh reappears. He still has tons of effects, but happily while the reverse gravity is still in effect, so is Gale's fly spell.

The bureaucrat thinks this whole vanishing thing is very annoying.

Zheldat is due south of the tower, in line with the rivers hitting the coasts. It's the capital of the Empire of the Orcslayer (Purple)

We go to the ministry of War. It is set up for centaur, and there are centaur walking through the halls. Fewer other races. (Other buildings have not been set up for centaurs, but this one has.)

Managaratha remembers– Zheldat was founded when the centaurs came back into the world; this building is not that old.

“I was hoping to speak with Vidan, but apparently I am speaking with you all.”<br>
“I have read Vidan’s report. It appears that you all are the only ones that can get into this… whatever this Oasis miracle is. I will have to treat you as… we will not say ‘agents’, but we will have to work together to determine how to undo the time effect. There are some things I will need to share with you, but I will require a promise of secrecy first. (An Oath. It will make it difficult to share the secrets but not impossible, so it won't be accidental, and he will know.) For Vidan and Stella, he'll have to bind them when they return, and by tomorrow will have something to provide for them.

The minister wonders if the kid is one of us?
He says enough of this floating Saurian nonsense, and Nesh comes to the ground for now. He emphasizes the importance of this secret-keeping, as if Nesh is a child.

He puts together the purple Oath and we all agree.

He thinks the timestop effect is the result of the death of Foran Zakar, Minister of Redaction. He was a priest of the Twins as well as a mage, and was one of the leaders of their delegation; he had an effect of that sort prepared on his death. The key to open the time stop was in the knowledge of Tier Lo (subminister of the second rank), who was assassinated in Zhaldat the night that Middlesea happened. The fact that they want the effect to stay up and we want the effect to stay up, he finds interesting. But he can't force it open anyway. Who knew the internal affairs of the Ministry of Redactions, he is not sure. The other fifth-level Bureaucrats were probably aware. Other ministers of redaction probably.

The Ministry of Redaction is not under the other fifth-level Bureaucrats; it keeps Secrets.

It’s not clear to the Minister whether the weaponization was intended to be on a smaller degree or not. The general purpose of the effect is to catch the assassin or whoever so that the Ministry of Redaction can put together a team and extract them. Someone is of the opinion that the bubble should not be opened.

Gale wonders if the key can be recovered magically?
It’s unlikely; possibly Yellow could do it. He does not speak of the possibility of what Yellow can do.

A Nameless priest could maybe do it?
That’s a plausible route to follow, if we have a Priest of the Nameless who could talk to a dead priest of the Twins. Probably easier if we tried for Tier Lo.

It’s possible the key could be deduced; Zakar is the sort that uses suspenders and a waistband. The Ministry has not been able to perform a complete search, as they are not acknowledging Zakar’s death.

[[Inspector Vok]] has been assigned to investigate Tier Lo’s death. He likely is already running into issues with the Ministry of Redaction. His reports thus far have not been very enlightening. His post-cog has indicated that it was a single ninja that killed Tier Lo. (Ninja are known to be a thing, but not culturally associated with anywhere specific.)

There is not a new Minister of Redaction; the Ministry is pursuing the matter in some degree, but it has lost both its Minister and the Subminister that would have stepped in. There are discussions going on internally.

Managaratha “That sounds exciting.”
“Exciting. Indeed.”

One assumes a post in a Ministry by proving one’s self, so there are Rules about how the next Minister is chosen.

Ministry of Lions deals with unusual threats and is also in the Middlesea miracle. There is a subminister of war there.

He is [[Tan Kato]], the Minister of War.

Does he have any advice for us? His focus is on the orcs invading - he does not expect us to join that fight.

We are outside the scope of Ministry politics, which should give us some flexibility.
We are welcome to investigate the assassination.

He assigns us Volda (the bureaucrat we’ve been running into, as it turns out) to point us around and help us with contact.

Fifth Level is the highest rank of Bureaucrats.

Volda gives us the list of the delegates from Purple.
We get a briefing on the orc invasion.
Strong push to get them a foothold in the north of the Empire; they’ve been less coordinated since then, and the Minister and Head Stallion have been holding them at bay.
They didn’t take any obvious strategic locations, but it was definitely an invasion, rather than a raid.

Ministry of Repercussions is responsible for keeping the probabilities of outcomes updated.
Ministry of Fortune is small– probably not more than 5-10 bureaucrats total. The current Minister is the first Minister of Fortune in a few decades. Its role is primarily to take advantage of unusual opportunities.

There are 88 ministries currently active; it changes moderately regularly..
323 Inactive ministries currently. The most recently reactivated ministry is the Ministry of Lilacs, which regulates perfumes and herbal remedies and some Green mages. (Why? Gale is going to have to investigate. That sounds like an adventure). Volda later confirms that they reactivated *on* the Middlesea Day.

==Ministry of Fortune==

Ministry of Fortune
Volda takes out a book, which generates a map.
A small building. This is not designed for centaurs.

Seilin (she/her) greets us enthusiastically. Welcome to the Ministry of Fortune!
She is a bureaucrat assigned to the Ministry, but not a subminister.
She takes the Tarn Evidence Packet and goes to read it while we have tea.
(Volda is unimpressed with the tea.)

Managaratha tries to pump her for information, such as he can.
The Minister of Fortune didn’t report since arriving at Middlesea.

The Ministry has pushed forward to see what can be done with the troubles in the country.
Displaced people in the north, for example.

She gives us Tourist suggestions. The Empty Throne can be viewed two days per week; there is a theater that has a new work showing.

She will prepare a report for Opportunities When Taking Down The Bubble.

==Ministry of Lions==

To the Ministry of Lions next.
It's larger than the Ministry of Fortune, located in an upmarket area of town, close to the Temple district; we see people in Twinsish regalia.

They have a large antechamber, big enough for centaur.
“What do you need?” He sees Nesh floating. “Oh.”
He sends a messenger to get Tan Ri.
Gale asks about forms for being a Registered Pirate!
“Registered Pirate, or Privateer, or Unregistered Naval Officer?" The first, but it would be the Ministry of Naval Trade, which is missing its minister also.

Lots of people are interested in talking to us, apparently.
We are about to go back in, but Scout notes that there’s a big Twins miracle back there.
We advise them that we have a Broken miracle on us, so please don’t get us.
Ah. Let’s go talk in the park.

We go to the park; the bureaucrats spend some time getting Nesh back on the ground, until dusk. They ask us lots of questions about what’s in the packet, expanding and collapsing details. They run Purple diagnostics.

The thing that’s not in the packet, that they think is true. We’re under a Broken miracle; a Blue spell; a Navere miracle; a Rushian miracle; a Twins miracle. There are a lot of miracles on us people, and they’re not interacting perfectly. If it was Magic (and some if it is Magic) it would probably have sorted itself out. There would be an effect on us at this point. It’s mostly miracles, and they continue to fight with each other more, so it’s more fluid effect, that they would not count on staying the same. For instance, we’re missing two people now rather than one. Some other sorts of miracles may have trouble affecting us.

Gale wonders if the miracles are being directed by the Gods, in the “do what you think is best” way– is that happening in real time?
The ministry people disagree with each other, and start to geek out about theology.

The Twins miracle is not actually big enough for the Twins to have a hand in specifically what it was doing when it was creating. But the ongoing fight, some of them think the Twins are paying attention to. It’s a Balance miracle. The Rush and Navere miracles are both quite large, and could have had some “The God is stepping in to make it work this way”, they think. The Oasis is huge, but they’re less familiar with spirits and demons.-- would the Oasis way over there have had to send a specific miracle. They don’t identify anything Goddessy on us at present.

Nesh pays attention to what they’re saying in the background– the ministry people are speaking another language with each other sometimes, and then seem to be translating back. They don’t seem to be concealing anything particularly. We are definitely getting looks from people in the park.

Nesh notices there is a guy watching us from outside the park, and relays that to us.

After an hour they start to move from diagnostic to thinking about Treatments.
Managaratha attempts to distract them with more theoretical questions!

We’re supposed to all be trapped in the broken miracle, but the Rushian miracle was supposed to break us out, but the Blue spell says we’re all in the same place. They expect that if we got too far apart we’d fall back into the Not Here miracle.

Gale says she wants a full report on specific treatments! Producing reports is one of their weaknesses… though there are clearly some experimentalists in the group who would be willing to just Try It Right Now.

Why Lions? There’s an extent to which it’s tied to cataurs, they think. The history geek says the Ministry of Lions is one of the oldest ministries, founded during the first comet during the founding of the Empire. The issues at that point, they could have been Ministry of Fish, if we wanted to deal with the merfolk. No one had a good evocative word for dealing with Orcs. And there were a fair number of cataurs in the area at the time. They’ve mostly retreated to the Oasis by this point. At that time, as best the historian puts it together, there were not many cataurs anywhere, since they were just reappearing. But there was a group causing trouble out of the Broken Lands, that seems to have been mostly dealt with.

There are no cataurs within four miles, as we discover when Managaratha asks “how would we find a cataur?” and someone says “I could just cast summon cataur with purple.” and does so.

Managaratha asks about other things that have happened– they seem to be quiet about the status of the Minister of Lions, which makes us think they do have some information.

The sigil of the Purple stasis is the Hide-my-sigil Sigil, it’s about 150 years old.

The guy who’s watching us has some kind of “In The Shadows” Tem-ish effect.

Nesh springs the trap!
The guy is a follower of the Guiding Star (who is the head Priest of Tem)

What are our dreams? What do we dream of doing? ('All of it!' -Gale)
He'll keep following us.

We interrogate Rakta, the priest who’s following us. He’s mostly here because the Guiding Star knows we’re in town and wants to keep an eye on us. We ask if there were other strange happenings in the capital that they know about on the day of Middlesea; Yes, says Rakta. Can he tell us more? We’d want to ask the Guiding Star. Can we do that? He’ll let the Guiding Star know we want to talk to him. He recommends we do not go in the Temple, where the Guiding Star is likely to be.

==Ministry (sort of) of Foreign Affairs==

There is an invitation to dinner with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We go! Not to the Ministry, to the Minister's house. (Dunang) He has met Managaratha in the past, when he was younger.

He treats us to a lovely dinner, and is a lovely host, and he casually gets lots of details about our backstories without us really noticing. Hmm.

Having chatted a while, Nesh notices that he seems to be disappointed that we actually are as clueless as we look.

Scout lets slip that Futeau is the traitor - Dunang is surprised to hear that, and Scout asks him to get that to Her Majesty just in case. (Futeau, it turns out, is one of the Queen’s advisors.) He seems to indicate that he can see to that.

The Minister offers us his seats at the theater.
We’re in the diplomatic box; it has room for centaurs and the theater is clearly set up for at least some centaur population.

The play is a reasonably interesting opera-y thing. Not much plot, but the singers are quite talented. The convention is that the audience is at a social event, and people walk in and out. Nesh invites the priest of Tam into the box with us.

About ¾ of the way through, there’s a knock on the door. Nesh answers; there’s a glowing guy that asks if he can come in. Sai Ko Ti, high priest of Tam, the Summer’s Warmth. He asks for an evidence packet, since he has not been provided with a copy yet as he is not in the Ministry. He is curious about what we remember about what happened to people in the Delegation, but it mostly seems to be a social call, rather than an Interrogation.

Scout notes that if we were actively Broken, the Warmth effect would be actively painful, rather than just getting warm.

"Does he do that a lot?"
"*Constantly*."

Gale develops a crush on a singer and sends them a lilac.

==No Evidence for Orcs==

Some people wake when the screaming starts; Nesh wakes up the rest.

Orcs have surrounded the inn. There are about 10 mooks; Scout notices one of them is a priest, but she is using some kind of mojo to look like a mook.

The mooks charge upstairs, looting the rooms for the Tarn Evidence Packets, while half the party cuts them apart and the other half goes after the priest.

The priest spends her DI to bring 4 of the mooks back from the dead, resulting in more chopping. Managaratha notes that the priest invokes Grumuush when doing the miracle to bring back the dead guys.

The orcs (even the dead ones) disappear again at the bottom of 3rd action; luckily, the one orc who had found an evidence packet dropped it when Nesh killed them.

The local forces appear at the top of 4th action, and are confused that there are no orcs. The witnesses and post-cogs tell them that yes, there were orcs. They are dismayed that the priest does not show up in post-cog.

Loot:
+5 EPs
+5 SPs

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-13T18:11:51Z

96.237.52.245: /* 5th Rank Ministries */

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-13T18:09:05Z

96.237.52.245: /* 4th Rank Ministries */

When last we checked, there were 88 active ministries and 323 inactive ministries.

==5th Rank Ministries==
*War
*State
*Treasury
*Interior

==4th Rank Ministries==
*Redactions
*Repercussions
*Naval Trade (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Lions (Loosely affiliated with War)
*Grain (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Borders (Loosely affiliated with War and State)
*Fortune

==3rd Rank Ministries==

*Lilacs

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-13T18:06:22Z

96.237.52.245: /* Ministries of the Empire */

When last we checked, there were 88 active ministries and 323 inactive ministries.

==5th Rank Ministries==
*War
*State
*Treasury
*Interior

==4th Rank Ministries==
*Redactions
*Repercussions
*Naval Trade
*Lions (Loosely affiliated with War)
*Grain (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Borders (Loosely affiliated with War and State)
*Fortune

==3rd Rank Ministries==

*Lilacs

Ministries of Empire

2023-05-13T18:06:10Z

96.237.52.245: Created page with "=Ministries of the Empire= When last we checked, there were 88 active ministries and 323 inactive ministries. ==5th Rank Ministries== *War *State *Treasury *Interior ==4th Rank Ministries== *Redactions *Repercussions *Naval Trade *Lions (Loosely affiliated with War) *Grain (Affiliated with Treasury) *Borders (Loosely affiliated with War and State) *Fortune ==3rd Rank Ministries== *Lilacs"

=Ministries of the Empire=

When last we checked, there were 88 active ministries and 323 inactive ministries.

==5th Rank Ministries==
*War
*State
*Treasury
*Interior

==4th Rank Ministries==
*Redactions
*Repercussions
*Naval Trade
*Lions (Loosely affiliated with War)
*Grain (Affiliated with Treasury)
*Borders (Loosely affiliated with War and State)
*Fortune

==3rd Rank Ministries==

*Lilacs

VidansSecretNotes

2023-05-13T17:54:57Z

96.237.52.245: /* Second Vanishing */

=Behold! These are Vidan's secret notes. Do NOT read if you are not Vidan or a GM.=
==First Vanishing==
You pray to Navere to show you what you need to know, and feel your miracle struggling with... your miracle? Not the one you just cast, the one you cast last night, with the power from the Ritual, to restore all your memories after the spell to remove them. Returning what you lost and showing you what you need are not strictly opposed, but they are not the same, and there are defenses against the second that are not there for the first. In the end, you get disrupted fragments, rather than a coherent vision...

---

The party after Cara's speech lasts hours, as the delegations mix and mingle. You speak to ... and to ... and ... The Orange Delegation is the most Ecumenical, with priests representing all the major religions. Speaking to Luigi, he mentions that the Cult has some unusual resources for tracking the Breaker's actions. Depending on how the conclave goes, they may be willing to make that information more widely available. You also speak to ...

---

After the party, your delegation goes to the rooms designated for it, but ...

---

As you approach the door, you hear Gyvail's voice, trying to be quiet while clearly irate. "This was *not* the plan!" Caitlin responds, more calmly "There wasn't enough power. The plan needs to be changed," followed by Westrak "I can hold what we have for a time, but not for long."

---

Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."

---

Hurrying down the hallway, you hear Gyvail's voice raised to a shout "No!" and then a scream. Diomarch charges towards the doorway as you feel Divine Influence building in front of you.

==Second Vanishing==
The delegations are each provided with their own tables at the welcoming dinner, giving you a chance to sort out in more detail who is actually here, and what they're interested in. The delegation as a whole does not have terribly specific directions, but with 7 fourth level bureaucrats, it has enough authority to make a lot of decisions and/or agreements as things progress. You don't get all the third level bureaucrats sorted out, but based on a combination of talking to people at dinner and what you already know, the fourth level ones are:

Win Dae - Minister of Repercussions:
Dae is one of the few female bureaucrats, and a powerful purple mage. As Minister of Repercussions, it is her responsibility to oversee and maintain the spells that provide the Empire with an analysis of what the future will bring, to help guide the decisions of others. Her direct authority is limited, but going against her advice and being proven wrong is a good way to lose one's position. She apparently believes the events of the Conclave will have a significant effect on the way the Comet proceeds.

Han Cho - Minister of Grain -
An unusual choice for the conference, Cho's portfolio is administering the farming and agriculture of the Empire. He says he is interested in securing the assistance of Green and Blue mages to assist with that, but this is a dramatic way to try to hire help. Possibly he is hoping to make a play to advance his rank? His ministry is affiliated* with the Minister of the Treasury (a fifth rank position), but you have heard nothing of the Treasurer being ready to step down.

Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade -
Another affiliate ministry to the Minister of the Treasury, although much more obviously relevant to a conference with other polities. Karchest is relatively recently promoted to the fourth rank, within the last year or two, more on the strength of his skill with purple magic and power as a Priest of Balance than his Ministry, which is historically generally held by a bureaucrat of the third rank, as the Empire's external trading interests are limited.

Az Julan - Minister of Lions -
The "Lions" this ministry deals with are largely a metaphor. It is the ministry in charge of Unusual Threats, be they monsters, dangerous wild magic, or Brokenness. An actual lion rampaging would fall into his bailiwick, but would not draw his direct attention unless it was the size of a house. Even then, his attention would generally be "organizing a way to take care of it" rather than 'fighting it himself', although you are given to understand he's a skilled purple mage. Loosely affiliated with the Ministry of War (a fifth rank position), Julan is the most obviously relevant Minister to the question of "what do we do about the Comet."

Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions -
The Minister of Redactions is in charge of keeping secrets.
Zakar is both a purple mage and a priest of balance. 4th level. The deputy assassinated on D-Day.

Li Karest - Minister of the Borders -
Loosely affiliated with both the Ministry of War and the Ministry of State (a fifth rank position), the Minister of the Borders is responsible for the Borders in a more metaphysical sense, making sure that Red, Green, and the Broken Lands do not encroach on the Holy and Magical lands of the Empire. Karest is a Priest of Balance but not a mage, and his personal focus is more on the border with the Broken Lands. Rumor has it that he and Julan periodically have disputes about whose jurisdiction various incursions from the Broken Lands fall under, but they are perfectly civil at dinner.

Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune
A ministry you were not previously familiar with**, Chang explains that his portfolio is to "develop opportunities the Empire is presented with to its advantage". He is given to understand that a Comet brings not only new dangers but new opportunities, and is here to see what he can learn of what those opportunities might be.

While you are feeling them out, you also get a general feel for what they think you are here for. It is less "give us advice from Navere" and more "act as our liaison to priests of other gods in the other delegations." The other three advisors (Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam; Vesper - the silent one, Priest of Tem; and Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion) seem to be more representatives of their groups here to give advice, although most of the Ministers seem to be treating that as "we have to listen to these people or their bosses will be insulted" more than "I want to know what they think."

* - An "affiliated" ministry is not in the direct chain of command, but is generally expected to follow the policy positions of its affiliated minister, and failing to do so can get one demoted. People in the direct chain of command are "sub-ministers". There is at least one sub-minister of State and one sub-minister of War among the third level bureaucrats.

** - There are literally hundreds of ministries on the rolls, many of which are not staffed at any given time, so this is unusual but not amazingly so. It does mean he probably doesn't have much in the way of staff or subordinates to order around.

==Third Vanishing==
After dinner, the tables are cleared away and music starts playing, and the servants wander around with little trays of drinks. The delegations start moving a little apart, but not super quickly. Taking your "go talk to the other religions for us" job seriously, you head towards Red, as the place most likely to be receptive to a priest of Navare.

You're one of the first people to seriously strike out from your delegation to another one. You do see a centaur [that you recognize now as Diomarche] heading from Red to Yellow at about the same time you head to Red, but mostly that delegation seems to be meeting with itself rather than heading out to talk to others. Watching it as you get close, it is fairly clear it's more five separate delegations than one big one - four political ones and a Rushian group - although it's also clear that a lot of them know each other even outside of their sub-delegations, as they start socializing cautiously.

By the time you get there from Purple, the Reds have resorted themselves moderately - Rush-ites from each of the political delegations have gone over to the big Rush group, a few other priests have divided off into a sub-group of their own, and the political groups have re-organized so that the head of each group has at least one person from the other three groups nearby. As the political groups slowly start to drift towards the dance floor, you approach the Rushites and introduce yourself.

"Delighted to meet you, I'm Daniel." One of the priests from the group steps forward to shake your hand. "Sergeant, if you would convey to our friends the Lord Captain's position on things while I speak to our Purple Comrade?" he adds over his shoulder. The woman he addresses as Sergeant looks a little sour, but nods, and he pulls you a little aside.

"I must say I'm surprised, but pleased, to find one of our faith in the Purple delegation. Perhaps between the two of us we can sort out Victoria's border disputes with the Empire amicably, and turn all our forces North. I'm afraid Lord Karsten is not likely to be the most accommodating of negotiators, but I'm sure I can arrange to rein him in if you can wrangle some concessions from your side. Does that seem reasonable?" A bit surprised at how quickly he leapt to the point, and cognizant of your inability to actually promise anything on behalf of the Empire, you murmured something noncommittal, and he backed down slightly.

"Ah, of course, I should have realized you would not be in Command of your delegation, forgive my enthusiasm. Still, you have given me the excuse to start circulating with others, instead of being trapped dealing with internal Red politics all night, and for that I thank you. Perhaps you could point me towards someone in Purple who might be able to negotiate more authoritatively?" You mention Li Karest's name as the Minister of Borders, and he strides off purposefully in that direction. You are not at all sure that his directness will play well with a fourth rank Bureaucrat, but ... well, you can only do so much.

Deciding not to go back to the Rushites, you head towards the other group of Fiveists.

"... very well, this evening it is. When shall..." the person talking cuts off as you come up from behind him. You don't actually catch anyone giving him a signal, but feel like it must have happened. They all turn to face you. You introduce yourself as Vidan, Priest of Navare.

"Well met!" says the man who was talking. "I am Gyvail, priest of Orellian, and these are my friends, Westrak of the Nameless, Dora, Priestess of Jord, and Caitlan, a Priestess of Navare. Welcome, friend." Gyvail's enthusiastic welcome gets a smile from Dora and an eye-roll from Caitlan, but everyone says hello politely, and is happy to talk to you for a bit. You note that while they are each from a different one of the political delegations, they definitely know each other fairly well. They are happy to talk about their hopes for the conference, and an opportunity for the forces of the Gods to prepare for the attack of the Breaker before it comes, and curious about your knowledge of the Twins' position on things. They are definitely looking at it more from a religious point of view than the political one Daniel leapt to. And you notice they never come back to whatever it is that will be done this evening.

VidansSecretNotes

2023-05-13T17:51:27Z

96.237.52.245: /* Second Vanishing */

=Behold! These are Vidan's secret notes. Do NOT read if you are not Vidan or a GM.=
==First Vanishing==
You pray to Navere to show you what you need to know, and feel your miracle struggling with... your miracle? Not the one you just cast, the one you cast last night, with the power from the Ritual, to restore all your memories after the spell to remove them. Returning what you lost and showing you what you need are not strictly opposed, but they are not the same, and there are defenses against the second that are not there for the first. In the end, you get disrupted fragments, rather than a coherent vision...

---

The party after Cara's speech lasts hours, as the delegations mix and mingle. You speak to ... and to ... and ... The Orange Delegation is the most Ecumenical, with priests representing all the major religions. Speaking to Luigi, he mentions that the Cult has some unusual resources for tracking the Breaker's actions. Depending on how the conclave goes, they may be willing to make that information more widely available. You also speak to ...

---

After the party, your delegation goes to the rooms designated for it, but ...

---

As you approach the door, you hear Gyvail's voice, trying to be quiet while clearly irate. "This was *not* the plan!" Caitlin responds, more calmly "There wasn't enough power. The plan needs to be changed," followed by Westrak "I can hold what we have for a time, but not for long."

---

Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."

---

Hurrying down the hallway, you hear Gyvail's voice raised to a shout "No!" and then a scream. Diomarch charges towards the doorway as you feel Divine Influence building in front of you.

==Second Vanishing==
The delegations are each provided with their own tables at the welcoming dinner, giving you a chance to sort out in more detail who is actually here, and what they're interested in. The delegation as a whole does not have terribly specific directions, but with 7 fourth level bureaucrats, it has enough authority to make a lot of decisions and/or agreements as things progress. You don't get all the third level bureaucrats sorted out, but based on a combination of talking to people at dinner and what you already know, the fourth level ones are:

Win Dae - Minister of Repercussions:
Dae is one of the few female bureaucrats, and a powerful purple mage. As Minister of Repercussions, it is her responsibility to oversee and maintain the spells that provide the Empire with an analysis of what the future will bring, to help guide the decisions of others. Her direct authority is limited, but going against her advice and being proven wrong is a good way to lose one's position. She apparently believes the events of the Conclave will have a significant effect on the way the Comet proceeds.

Han Cho - Minister of Grain -
An unusual choice for the conference, Cho's portfolio is administering the farming and agriculture of the Empire. He says he is interested in securing the assistance of Green and Blue mages to assist with that, but this is a dramatic way to try to hire help. Possibly he is hoping to make a play to advance his rank? His ministry is affiliated* with the Minister of the Treasury (a fifth rank position), but you have heard nothing of the Treasurer being ready to step down.

Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade -
Another affiliate ministry to the Minister of the Treasury, although much more obviously relevant to a conference with other polities. Karchest is relatively recently promoted to the fourth rank, within the last year or two, more on the strength of his skill with purple magic and power as a Priest of Balance than his Ministry, which is historically generally held by a bureaucrat of the third rank, as the Empire's external trading interests are limited.

Az Julan - Minister of Lions -
The "Lions" this ministry deals with are largely a metaphor. It is the ministry in charge of Unusual Threats, be they monsters, dangerous wild magic, or Brokenness. An actual lion rampaging would fall into his bailiwick, but would not draw his direct attention unless it was the size of a house. Even then, his attention would generally be "organizing a way to take care of it" rather than 'fighting it himself', although you are given to understand he's a skilled purple mage. Loosely affiliated with the Ministry of War (a fifth rank position), Julan is the most obviously relevant Minister to the question of "what do we do about the Comet."

Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions -
The Minister of Redactions is in charge of keeping secrets.
Zakar is both a purple mage and a priest of balance. 4th level. The deputy assented on D-Day.

Li Karest - Minister of the Borders -
Loosely affiliated with both the Ministry of War and the Ministry of State (a fifth rank position), the Minister of the Borders is responsible for the Borders in a more metaphysical sense, making sure that Red, Green, and the Broken Lands do not encroach on the Holy and Magical lands of the Empire. Karest is a Priest of Balance but not a mage, and his personal focus is more on the border with the Broken Lands. Rumor has it that he and Julan periodically have disputes about whose jurisdiction various incursions from the Broken Lands fall under, but they are perfectly civil at dinner.

Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune
A ministry you were not previously familiar with**, Chang explains that his portfolio is to "develop opportunities the Empire is presented with to its advantage". He is given to understand that a Comet brings not only new dangers but new opportunities, and is here to see what he can learn of what those opportunities might be.

While you are feeling them out, you also get a general feel for what they think you are here for. It is less "give us advice from Navere" and more "act as our liaison to priests of other gods in the other delegations." The other three advisors (Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam; Vesper - the silent one, Priest of Tem; and Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion) seem to be more representatives of their groups here to give advice, although most of the Ministers seem to be treating that as "we have to listen to these people or their bosses will be insulted" more than "I want to know what they think."

* - An "affiliated" ministry is not in the direct chain of command, but is generally expected to follow the policy positions of its affiliated minister, and failing to do so can get one demoted. People in the direct chain of command are "sub-ministers". There is at least one sub-minister of State and one sub-minister of War among the third level bureaucrats.

** - There are literally hundreds of ministries on the rolls, many of which are not staffed at any given time, so this is unusual but not amazingly so. It does mean he probably doesn't have much in the way of staff or subordinates to order around.

==Third Vanishing==
After dinner, the tables are cleared away and music starts playing, and the servants wander around with little trays of drinks. The delegations start moving a little apart, but not super quickly. Taking your "go talk to the other religions for us" job seriously, you head towards Red, as the place most likely to be receptive to a priest of Navare.

You're one of the first people to seriously strike out from your delegation to another one. You do see a centaur [that you recognize now as Diomarche] heading from Red to Yellow at about the same time you head to Red, but mostly that delegation seems to be meeting with itself rather than heading out to talk to others. Watching it as you get close, it is fairly clear it's more five separate delegations than one big one - four political ones and a Rushian group - although it's also clear that a lot of them know each other even outside of their sub-delegations, as they start socializing cautiously.

By the time you get there from Purple, the Reds have resorted themselves moderately - Rush-ites from each of the political delegations have gone over to the big Rush group, a few other priests have divided off into a sub-group of their own, and the political groups have re-organized so that the head of each group has at least one person from the other three groups nearby. As the political groups slowly start to drift towards the dance floor, you approach the Rushites and introduce yourself.

"Delighted to meet you, I'm Daniel." One of the priests from the group steps forward to shake your hand. "Sergeant, if you would convey to our friends the Lord Captain's position on things while I speak to our Purple Comrade?" he adds over his shoulder. The woman he addresses as Sergeant looks a little sour, but nods, and he pulls you a little aside.

"I must say I'm surprised, but pleased, to find one of our faith in the Purple delegation. Perhaps between the two of us we can sort out Victoria's border disputes with the Empire amicably, and turn all our forces North. I'm afraid Lord Karsten is not likely to be the most accommodating of negotiators, but I'm sure I can arrange to rein him in if you can wrangle some concessions from your side. Does that seem reasonable?" A bit surprised at how quickly he leapt to the point, and cognizant of your inability to actually promise anything on behalf of the Empire, you murmured something noncommittal, and he backed down slightly.

"Ah, of course, I should have realized you would not be in Command of your delegation, forgive my enthusiasm. Still, you have given me the excuse to start circulating with others, instead of being trapped dealing with internal Red politics all night, and for that I thank you. Perhaps you could point me towards someone in Purple who might be able to negotiate more authoritatively?" You mention Li Karest's name as the Minister of Borders, and he strides off purposefully in that direction. You are not at all sure that his directness will play well with a fourth rank Bureaucrat, but ... well, you can only do so much.

Deciding not to go back to the Rushites, you head towards the other group of Fiveists.

"... very well, this evening it is. When shall..." the person talking cuts off as you come up from behind him. You don't actually catch anyone giving him a signal, but feel like it must have happened. They all turn to face you. You introduce yourself as Vidan, Priest of Navare.

"Well met!" says the man who was talking. "I am Gyvail, priest of Orellian, and these are my friends, Westrak of the Nameless, Dora, Priestess of Jord, and Caitlan, a Priestess of Navare. Welcome, friend." Gyvail's enthusiastic welcome gets a smile from Dora and an eye-roll from Caitlan, but everyone says hello politely, and is happy to talk to you for a bit. You note that while they are each from a different one of the political delegations, they definitely know each other fairly well. They are happy to talk about their hopes for the conference, and an opportunity for the forces of the Gods to prepare for the attack of the Breaker before it comes, and curious about your knowledge of the Twins' position on things. They are definitely looking at it more from a religious point of view than the political one Daniel leapt to. And you notice they never come back to whatever it is that will be done this evening.

VidansSecretNotes

2023-05-13T17:49:42Z

96.237.52.245: /* Second Vanishing */

=Behold! These are Vidan's secret notes. Do NOT read if you are not Vidan or a GM.=
==First Vanishing==
You pray to Navere to show you what you need to know, and feel your miracle struggling with... your miracle? Not the one you just cast, the one you cast last night, with the power from the Ritual, to restore all your memories after the spell to remove them. Returning what you lost and showing you what you need are not strictly opposed, but they are not the same, and there are defenses against the second that are not there for the first. In the end, you get disrupted fragments, rather than a coherent vision...

---

The party after Cara's speech lasts hours, as the delegations mix and mingle. You speak to ... and to ... and ... The Orange Delegation is the most Ecumenical, with priests representing all the major religions. Speaking to Luigi, he mentions that the Cult has some unusual resources for tracking the Breaker's actions. Depending on how the conclave goes, they may be willing to make that information more widely available. You also speak to ...

---

After the party, your delegation goes to the rooms designated for it, but ...

---

As you approach the door, you hear Gyvail's voice, trying to be quiet while clearly irate. "This was *not* the plan!" Caitlin responds, more calmly "There wasn't enough power. The plan needs to be changed," followed by Westrak "I can hold what we have for a time, but not for long."

---

Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."

---

Hurrying down the hallway, you hear Gyvail's voice raised to a shout "No!" and then a scream. Diomarch charges towards the doorway as you feel Divine Influence building in front of you.

==Second Vanishing==
The delegations are each provided with their own tables at the welcoming dinner, giving you a chance to sort out in more detail who is actually here, and what they're interested in. The delegation as a whole does not have terribly specific directions, but with 7 fourth level bureaucrats, it has enough authority to make a lot of decisions and/or agreements as things progress. You don't get all the third level bureaucrats sorted out, but based on a combination of talking to people at dinner and what you already know, the fourth level ones are:

Win Dae - Minister of Repercussions:
Dae is one of the few female bureaucrats, and a powerful purple mage. As Minister of Repercussions, it is her responsibility to oversee and maintain the spells that provide the Empire with an analysis of what the future will bring, to help guide the decisions of others. Her direct authority is limited, but going against her advice and being proven wrong is a good way to lose one's position. She apparently believes the events of the Conclave will have a significant effect on the way the Comet proceeds.

Han Cho - Minister of Grain -
An unusual choice for the conference, Cho's portfolio is administering the farming and agriculture of the Empire. He says he is interested in securing the assistance of Green and Blue mages to assist with that, but this is a dramatic way to try to hire help. Possibly he is hoping to make a play to advance his rank? His ministry is affiliated* with the Minister of the Treasury (a fifth rank position), but you have heard nothing of the Treasurer being ready to step down.

Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade -
Another affiliate ministry to the Minister of the Treasury, although much more obviously relevant to a conference with other polities. Karchest is relatively recently promoted to the fourth rank, within the last year or two, more on the strength of his skill with purple magic and power as a Priest of Balance than his Ministry, which is historically generally held by a bureaucrat of the third rank, as the Empire's external trading interests are limited.

Az Julan - Minister of Lions -
The "Lions" this ministry deals with are largely a metaphor. It is the ministry in charge of Unusual Threats, be they monsters, dangerous wild magic, or Brokenness. An actual lion rampaging would fall into his bailiwick, but would not draw his direct attention unless it was the size of a house. Even then, his attention would generally be "organizing a way to take care of it" rather than 'fighting it himself', although you are given to understand he's a skilled purple mage. Loosely affiliated with the Ministry of War (a fifth rank position), Julan is the most obviously relevant Minister to the question of "what do we do about the Comet."

Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions -
The Minister of Redactions is in charge of keeping secrets.
Zakar is both a purple mage and a priest of balance. 4th level. deputy assented on D-Day.

Li Karest - Minister of the Borders -
Loosely affiliated with both the Ministry of War and the Ministry of State (a fifth rank position), the Minister of the Borders is responsible for the Borders in a more metaphysical sense, making sure that Red, Green, and the Broken Lands do not encroach on the Holy and Magical lands of the Empire. Karest is a Priest of Balance but not a mage, and his personal focus is more on the border with the Broken Lands. Rumor has it that he and Julan periodically have disputes about whose jurisdiction various incursions from the Broken Lands fall under, but they are perfectly civil at dinner.

Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune
A ministry you were not previously familiar with**, Chang explains that his portfolio is to "develop opportunities the Empire is presented with to its advantage". He is given to understand that a Comet brings not only new dangers but new opportunities, and is here to see what he can learn of what those opportunities might be.

While you are feeling them out, you also get a general feel for what they think you are here for. It is less "give us advice from Navere" and more "act as our liaison to priests of other gods in the other delegations." The other three advisors (Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam; Vesper - the silent one, Priest of Tem; and Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion) seem to be more representatives of their groups here to give advice, although most of the Ministers seem to be treating that as "we have to listen to these people or their bosses will be insulted" more than "I want to know what they think."

* - An "affiliated" ministry is not in the direct chain of command, but is generally expected to follow the policy positions of its affiliated minister, and failing to do so can get one demoted. People in the direct chain of command are "sub-ministers". There is at least one sub-minister of State and one sub-minister of War among the third level bureaucrats.

** - There are literally hundreds of ministries on the rolls, many of which are not staffed at any given time, so this is unusual but not amazingly so. It does mean he probably doesn't have much in the way of staff or subordinates to order around.

==Third Vanishing==
After dinner, the tables are cleared away and music starts playing, and the servants wander around with little trays of drinks. The delegations start moving a little apart, but not super quickly. Taking your "go talk to the other religions for us" job seriously, you head towards Red, as the place most likely to be receptive to a priest of Navare.

You're one of the first people to seriously strike out from your delegation to another one. You do see a centaur [that you recognize now as Diomarche] heading from Red to Yellow at about the same time you head to Red, but mostly that delegation seems to be meeting with itself rather than heading out to talk to others. Watching it as you get close, it is fairly clear it's more five separate delegations than one big one - four political ones and a Rushian group - although it's also clear that a lot of them know each other even outside of their sub-delegations, as they start socializing cautiously.

By the time you get there from Purple, the Reds have resorted themselves moderately - Rush-ites from each of the political delegations have gone over to the big Rush group, a few other priests have divided off into a sub-group of their own, and the political groups have re-organized so that the head of each group has at least one person from the other three groups nearby. As the political groups slowly start to drift towards the dance floor, you approach the Rushites and introduce yourself.

"Delighted to meet you, I'm Daniel." One of the priests from the group steps forward to shake your hand. "Sergeant, if you would convey to our friends the Lord Captain's position on things while I speak to our Purple Comrade?" he adds over his shoulder. The woman he addresses as Sergeant looks a little sour, but nods, and he pulls you a little aside.

"I must say I'm surprised, but pleased, to find one of our faith in the Purple delegation. Perhaps between the two of us we can sort out Victoria's border disputes with the Empire amicably, and turn all our forces North. I'm afraid Lord Karsten is not likely to be the most accommodating of negotiators, but I'm sure I can arrange to rein him in if you can wrangle some concessions from your side. Does that seem reasonable?" A bit surprised at how quickly he leapt to the point, and cognizant of your inability to actually promise anything on behalf of the Empire, you murmured something noncommittal, and he backed down slightly.

"Ah, of course, I should have realized you would not be in Command of your delegation, forgive my enthusiasm. Still, you have given me the excuse to start circulating with others, instead of being trapped dealing with internal Red politics all night, and for that I thank you. Perhaps you could point me towards someone in Purple who might be able to negotiate more authoritatively?" You mention Li Karest's name as the Minister of Borders, and he strides off purposefully in that direction. You are not at all sure that his directness will play well with a fourth rank Bureaucrat, but ... well, you can only do so much.

Deciding not to go back to the Rushites, you head towards the other group of Fiveists.

"... very well, this evening it is. When shall..." the person talking cuts off as you come up from behind him. You don't actually catch anyone giving him a signal, but feel like it must have happened. They all turn to face you. You introduce yourself as Vidan, Priest of Navare.

"Well met!" says the man who was talking. "I am Gyvail, priest of Orellian, and these are my friends, Westrak of the Nameless, Dora, Priestess of Jord, and Caitlan, a Priestess of Navare. Welcome, friend." Gyvail's enthusiastic welcome gets a smile from Dora and an eye-roll from Caitlan, but everyone says hello politely, and is happy to talk to you for a bit. You note that while they are each from a different one of the political delegations, they definitely know each other fairly well. They are happy to talk about their hopes for the conference, and an opportunity for the forces of the Gods to prepare for the attack of the Breaker before it comes, and curious about your knowledge of the Twins' position on things. They are definitely looking at it more from a religious point of view than the political one Daniel leapt to. And you notice they never come back to whatever it is that will be done this evening.

Promises Promises

2023-05-13T17:29:42Z

96.237.52.245: /* Ministry of Fortune */

==Ministry of War==
[All Gazelle 30]
Vidan and Stella vanish, and Nesh reappears. He still has tons of effects, but happily while the reverse gravity is still in effect, so is Gale's fly spell.

The bureaucrat thinks this whole vanishing thing is very annoying.

Zheldat is due south of the tower, in line with the rivers hitting the coasts. It's the capital of the Empire of the Orcslayer (Purple)

We go to the ministry of War. It is set up for centaur, and there are centaur walking through the halls. Fewer other races. (Other buildings have not been set up for centaurs, but this one has.)

Managaratha remembers– Zheldat was founded when the centaurs came back into the world; this building is not that old.

“I was hoping to speak with Vidan, but apparently I am speaking with you all.”<br>
“I have read Vidan’s report. It appears that you all are the only ones that can get into this… whatever this Oasis miracle is. I will have to treat you as… we will not say ‘agents’, but we will have to work together to determine how to undo the time effect. There are some things I will need to share with you, but I will require a promise of secrecy first. (An Oath. It will make it difficult to share the secrets but not impossible, so it won't be accidental, and he will know.) For Vidan and Stella, he'll have to bind them when they return, and by tomorrow will have something to provide for them.

The minister wonders if the kid is one of us?
He says enough of this floating Saurian nonsense, and Nesh comes to the ground for now. He emphasizes the importance of this secret-keeping, as if Nesh is a child.

He puts together the purple Oath and we all agree.

He thinks the timestop effect is the result of the death of Foran Zakar, Minister of Redaction. He was a priest of the Twins as well as a mage, and was one of the leaders of their delegation; he had an effect of that sort prepared on his death. The key to open the time stop was in the knowledge of Tier Lo (subminister of the second rank), who was assassinated in Zhaldat the night that Middlesea happened. The fact that they want the effect to stay up and we want the effect to stay up, he finds interesting. But he can't force it open anyway. Who knew the internal affairs of the Ministry of Redactions, he is not sure. The other fifth-level Bureaucrats were probably aware. Other ministers of redaction probably.

The Ministry of Redaction is not under the other fifth-level Bureaucrats; it keeps Secrets.

It’s not clear to the Minister whether the weaponization was intended to be on a smaller degree or not. The general purpose of the effect is to catch the assassin or whoever so that the Ministry of Redaction can put together a team and extract them. Someone is of the opinion that the bubble should not be opened.

Gale wonders if the key can be recovered magically?
It’s unlikely; possibly Yellow could do it. He does not speak of the possibility of what Yellow can do.

A Nameless priest could maybe do it?
That’s a plausible route to follow, if we have a Priest of the Nameless who could talk to a dead priest of the Twins. Probably easier if we tried for Tier Lo.

It’s possible the key could be deduced; Zakar is the sort that uses suspenders and a waistband. The Ministry has not been able to perform a complete search, as they are not acknowledging Zakar’s death.

Inspector Vok has been assigned to investigate Tier Lo’s death. He likely is already running into issues with the Ministry of Redaction. His reports thus far have not been very enlightening. His post-cog has indicated that it was a single ninja that killed Tier Lo. (Ninja are known to be a thing, but not culturally associated with anywhere specific.)

There is not a new Minister of Redaction; the Ministry is pursuing the matter in some degree, but it has lost both its Minister and the Subminister that would have stepped in. There are discussions going on internally.

Managaratha “That sounds exciting.”
“Exciting. Indeed.”

One assumes a post in a Ministry by proving one’s self, so there are Rules about how the next Minister is chosen.

Ministry of Lions deals with unusual threats and is also in the Middlesea miracle. There is a subminister of war there.

He is Tan Kato, the Minister of War.

Does he have any advice for us? His focus is on the orcs invading - he does not expect us to join that fight.

We are outside the scope of Ministry politics, which should give us some flexibility.
We are welcome to investigate the assassination.

He assigns us Volda (the bureaucrat we’ve been running into, as it turns out) to point us around and help us with contact.

Fifth Level is the highest rank of Bureaucrats.

Volda gives us the list of the delegates from Purple.
We get a briefing on the orc invasion.
Strong push to get them a foothold in the north of the Empire; they’ve been less coordinated since then, and the Minister and Head Stallion have been holding them at bay.
They didn’t take any obvious strategic locations, but it was definitely an invasion, rather than a raid.

Ministry of Repercussions is responsible for keeping the probabilities of outcomes updated.
Ministry of Fortune is small– probably not more than 5-10 bureaucrats total. The current Minister is the first Minister of Fortune in a few decades. Its role is primarily to take advantage of unusual opportunities.

There are 88 ministries currently active; it changes moderately regularly..
323 Inactive ministries currently. The most recently reactivated ministry is the Ministry of Lilacs, which regulates perfumes and herbal remedies and some Green mages. (Why? Gale is going to have to investigate. That sounds like an adventure). Volda later confirms that they reactivated *on* the Middlesea Day.

==Ministry of Fortune==

Ministry of Fortune
Volda takes out a book, which generates a map.
A small building. This is not designed for centaurs.

Seilin (she/her) greets us enthusiastically. Welcome to the Ministry of Fortune!
She is a bureaucrat assigned to the Ministry, but not a subminister.
She takes the Tarn Evidence Packet and goes to read it while we have tea.
(Volda is unimpressed with the tea.)

Managaratha tries to pump her for information, such as he can.
The Minister of Fortune didn’t report since arriving at Middlesea.

The Ministry has pushed forward to see what can be done with the troubles in the country.
Displaced people in the north, for example.

She gives us Tourist suggestions. The Empty Throne can be viewed two days per week; there is a theater that has a new work showing.

She will prepare a report for Opportunities When Taking Down The Bubble.

==Ministry of Lions==

To the Ministry of Lions next.
It's larger than the Ministry of Fortune, located in an upmarket area of town, close to the Temple district; we see people in Twinsish regalia.

They have a large antechamber, big enough for centaur.
“What do you need?” He sees Nesh floating. “Oh.”
He sends a messenger to get Tan Ri.
Gale asks about forms for being a Registered Pirate!
“Registered Pirate, or Privateer, or Unregistered Naval Officer?" The first, but it would be the Ministry of Naval Trade, which is missing its minister also.

Lots of people are interested in talking to us, apparently.
We are about to go back in, but Scout notes that there’s a big Twins miracle back there.
We advise them that we have a Broken miracle on us, so please don’t get us.
Ah. Let’s go talk in the park.

We go to the park; the bureaucrats spend some time getting Nesh back on the ground, until dusk. They ask us lots of questions about what’s in the packet, expanding and collapsing details. They run Purple diagnostics.

The thing that’s not in the packet, that they think is true. We’re under a Broken miracle; a Blue spell; a Navere miracle; a Rushian miracle; a Twins miracle. There are a lot of miracles on us people, and they’re not interacting perfectly. If it was Magic (and some if it is Magic) it would probably have sorted itself out. There would be an effect on us at this point. It’s mostly miracles, and they continue to fight with each other more, so it’s more fluid effect, that they would not count on staying the same. For instance, we’re missing two people now rather than one. Some other sorts of miracles may have trouble affecting us.

Gale wonders if the miracles are being directed by the Gods, in the “do what you think is best” way– is that happening in real time?
The ministry people disagree with each other, and start to geek out about theology.

The Twins miracle is not actually big enough for the Twins to have a hand in specifically what it was doing when it was creating. But the ongoing fight, some of them think the Twins are paying attention to. It’s a Balance miracle. The Rush and Navere miracles are both quite large, and could have had some “The God is stepping in to make it work this way”, they think. The Oasis is huge, but they’re less familiar with spirits and demons.-- would the Oasis way over there have had to send a specific miracle. They don’t identify anything Goddessy on us at present.

Nesh pays attention to what they’re saying in the background– the ministry people are speaking another language with each other sometimes, and then seem to be translating back. They don’t seem to be concealing anything particularly. We are definitely getting looks from people in the park.

Nesh notices there is a guy watching us from outside the park, and relays that to us.

After an hour they start to move from diagnostic to thinking about Treatments.
Managaratha attempts to distract them with more theoretical questions!

We’re supposed to all be trapped in the broken miracle, but the Rushian miracle was supposed to break us out, but the Blue spell says we’re all in the same place. They expect that if we got too far apart we’d fall back into the Not Here miracle.

Gale says she wants a full report on specific treatments! Producing reports is one of their weaknesses… though there are clearly some experimentalists in the group who would be willing to just Try It Right Now.

Why Lions? There’s an extent to which it’s tied to cataurs, they think. The history geek says the Ministry of Lions is one of the oldest ministries, founded during the first comet during the founding of the Empire. The issues at that point, they could have been Ministry of Fish, if we wanted to deal with the merfolk. No one had a good evocative word for dealing with Orcs. And there were a fair number of cataurs in the area at the time. They’ve mostly retreated to the Oasis by this point. At that time, as best the historian puts it together, there were not many cataurs anywhere, since they were just reappearing. But there was a group causing trouble out of the Broken Lands, that seems to have been mostly dealt with.

There are no cataurs within four miles, as we discover when Managaratha asks “how would we find a cataur?” and someone says “I could just cast summon cataur with purple.” and does so.

Managaratha asks about other things that have happened– they seem to be quiet about the status of the Minister of Lions, which makes us think they do have some information.

The sigil of the Purple stasis is the Hide-my-sigil Sigil, it’s about 150 years old.

The guy who’s watching us has some kind of “In The Shadows” Tem-ish effect.

Nesh springs the trap!
The guy is a follower of the Guiding Star (who is the head Priest of Tem)

What are our dreams? What do we dream of doing? ('All of it!' -Gale)
He'll keep following us.

We interrogate Rakta, the priest who’s following us. He’s mostly here because the Guiding Star knows we’re in town and wants to keep an eye on us. We ask if there were other strange happenings in the capital that they know about on the day of Middlesea; Yes, says Rakta. Can he tell us more? We’d want to ask the Guiding Star. Can we do that? He’ll let the Guiding Star know we want to talk to him. He recommends we do not go in the Temple, where the Guiding Star is likely to be.

==Ministry (sort of) of Foreign Affairs==

There is an invitation to dinner with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We go! Not to the Ministry, to the Minister's house. (Dunang) He has met Managaratha in the past, when he was younger.

He treats us to a lovely dinner, and is a lovely host, and he casually gets lots of details about our backstories without us really noticing. Hmm.

Having chatted a while, Nesh notices that he seems to be disappointed that we actually are as clueless as we look.

Scout lets slip that Futeau is the traitor - Dunang is surprised to hear that, and Scout asks him to get that to Her Majesty just in case. (Futeau, it turns out, is one of the Queen’s advisors.) He seems to indicate that he can see to that.

The Minister offers us his seats at the theater.
We’re in the diplomatic box; it has room for centaurs and the theater is clearly set up for at least some centaur population.

The play is a reasonably interesting opera-y thing. Not much plot, but the singers are quite talented. The convention is that the audience is at a social event, and people walk in and out. Nesh invites the priest of Tam into the box with us.

About ¾ of the way through, there’s a knock on the door. Nesh answers; there’s a glowing guy that asks if he can come in. Sai Ko Ti, high priest of Tam, the Summer’s Warmth. He asks for an evidence packet, since he has not been provided with a copy yet as he is not in the Ministry. He is curious about what we remember about what happened to people in the Delegation, but it mostly seems to be a social call, rather than an Interrogation.

Scout notes that if we were actively Broken, the Warmth effect would be actively painful, rather than just getting warm.

"Does he do that a lot?"
"*Constantly*."

Gale develops a crush on a singer and sends them a lilac.

==No Evidence for Orcs==

Some people wake when the screaming starts; Nesh wakes up the rest.

Orcs have surrounded the inn. There are about 10 mooks; Scout notices one of them is a priest, but she is using some kind of mojo to look like a mook.

The mooks charge upstairs, looting the rooms for the Tarn Evidence Packets, while half the party cuts them apart and the other half goes after the priest.

The priest spends her DI to bring 4 of the mooks back from the dead, resulting in more chopping. Managaratha notes that the priest invokes Grumuush when doing the miracle to bring back the dead guys.

The orcs (even the dead ones) disappear again at the bottom of 3rd action; luckily, the one orc who had found an evidence packet dropped it when Nesh killed them.

The local forces appear at the top of 4th action, and are confused that there are no orcs. The witnesses and post-cogs tell them that yes, there were orcs. They are dismayed that the priest does not show up in post-cog.

Loot:
+5 EPs
+5 SPs

VidansSecretNotes

2023-05-13T17:22:17Z

96.237.52.245: /* Second Vanishing */

=Behold! These are Vidan's secret notes. Do NOT read if you are not Vidan or a GM.=
==First Vanishing==
You pray to Navere to show you what you need to know, and feel your miracle struggling with... your miracle? Not the one you just cast, the one you cast last night, with the power from the Ritual, to restore all your memories after the spell to remove them. Returning what you lost and showing you what you need are not strictly opposed, but they are not the same, and there are defenses against the second that are not there for the first. In the end, you get disrupted fragments, rather than a coherent vision...

---

The party after Cara's speech lasts hours, as the delegations mix and mingle. You speak to ... and to ... and ... The Orange Delegation is the most Ecumenical, with priests representing all the major religions. Speaking to Luigi, he mentions that the Cult has some unusual resources for tracking the Breaker's actions. Depending on how the conclave goes, they may be willing to make that information more widely available. You also speak to ...

---

After the party, your delegation goes to the rooms designated for it, but ...

---

As you approach the door, you hear Gyvail's voice, trying to be quiet while clearly irate. "This was *not* the plan!" Caitlin responds, more calmly "There wasn't enough power. The plan needs to be changed," followed by Westrak "I can hold what we have for a time, but not for long."

---

Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."

---

Hurrying down the hallway, you hear Gyvail's voice raised to a shout "No!" and then a scream. Diomarch charges towards the doorway as you feel Divine Influence building in front of you.

==Second Vanishing==
The delegations are each provided with their own tables at the welcoming dinner, giving you a chance to sort out in more detail who is actually here, and what they're interested in. The delegation as a whole does not have terribly specific directions, but with 7 fourth level bureaucrats, it has enough authority to make a lot of decisions and/or agreements as things progress. You don't get all the third level bureaucrats sorted out, but based on a combination of talking to people at dinner and what you already know, the fourth level ones are:

Win Dae - Minister of Repercussions:
Dae is one of the few female bureaucrats, and a powerful purple mage. As Minister of Repercussions, it is her responsibility to oversee and maintain the spells that provide the Empire with an analysis of what the future will bring, to help guide the decisions of others. Her direct authority is limited, but going against her advice and being proven wrong is a good way to lose one's position. She apparently believes the events of the Conclave will have a significant effect on the way the Comet proceeds.

Han Cho - Minister of Grain -
An unusual choice for the conference, Cho's portfolio is administering the farming and agriculture of the Empire. He says he is interested in securing the assistance of Green and Blue mages to assist with that, but this is a dramatic way to try to hire help. Possibly he is hoping to make a play to advance his rank? His ministry is affiliated* with the Minister of the Treasury (a fifth rank position), but you have heard nothing of the Treasurer being ready to step down.

Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade -
Another affiliate ministry to the Minister of the Treasury, although much more obviously relevant to a conference with other polities. Karchest is relatively recently promoted to the fourth rank, within the last year or two, more on the strength of his skill with purple magic and power as a Priest of Balance than his Ministry, which is historically generally held by a bureaucrat of the third rank, as the Empire's external trading interests are limited.

Az Julan - Minister of Lions -
The "Lions" this ministry deals with are largely a metaphor. It is the ministry in charge of Unusual Threats, be they monsters, dangerous wild magic, or Brokenness. An actual lion rampaging would fall into his bailiwick, but would not draw his direct attention unless it was the size of a house. Even then, his attention would generally be "organizing a way to take care of it" rather than 'fighting it himself', although you are given to understand he's a skilled purple mage. Loosely affiliated with the Ministry of War (a fifth rank position), Julan is the most obviously relevant Minister to the question of "what do we do about the Comet."

Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions -
The Minister of Redactions is in charge of keeping secrets.
Zakar is both a purple mage and a priest of balance.

Li Karest - Minister of the Borders -
Loosely affiliated with both the Ministry of War and the Ministry of State (a fifth rank position), the Minister of the Borders is responsible for the Borders in a more metaphysical sense, making sure that Red, Green, and the Broken Lands do not encroach on the Holy and Magical lands of the Empire. Karest is a Priest of Balance but not a mage, and his personal focus is more on the border with the Broken Lands. Rumor has it that he and Julan periodically have disputes about whose jurisdiction various incursions from the Broken Lands fall under, but they are perfectly civil at dinner.

Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune
A ministry you were not previously familiar with**, Chang explains that his portfolio is to "develop opportunities the Empire is presented with to its advantage". He is given to understand that a Comet brings not only new dangers but new opportunities, and is here to see what he can learn of what those opportunities might be.

While you are feeling them out, you also get a general feel for what they think you are here for. It is less "give us advice from Navere" and more "act as our liaison to priests of other gods in the other delegations." The other three advisors (Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam; Vesper - the silent one, Priest of Tem; and Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion) seem to be more representatives of their groups here to give advice, although most of the Ministers seem to be treating that as "we have to listen to these people or their bosses will be insulted" more than "I want to know what they think."

* - An "affiliated" ministry is not in the direct chain of command, but is generally expected to follow the policy positions of its affiliated minister, and failing to do so can get one demoted. People in the direct chain of command are "sub-ministers". There is at least one sub-minister of State and one sub-minister of War among the third level bureaucrats.

** - There are literally hundreds of ministries on the rolls, many of which are not staffed at any given time, so this is unusual but not amazingly so. It does mean he probably doesn't have much in the way of staff or subordinates to order around.

==Third Vanishing==
After dinner, the tables are cleared away and music starts playing, and the servants wander around with little trays of drinks. The delegations start moving a little apart, but not super quickly. Taking your "go talk to the other religions for us" job seriously, you head towards Red, as the place most likely to be receptive to a priest of Navare.

You're one of the first people to seriously strike out from your delegation to another one. You do see a centaur [that you recognize now as Diomarche] heading from Red to Yellow at about the same time you head to Red, but mostly that delegation seems to be meeting with itself rather than heading out to talk to others. Watching it as you get close, it is fairly clear it's more five separate delegations than one big one - four political ones and a Rushian group - although it's also clear that a lot of them know each other even outside of their sub-delegations, as they start socializing cautiously.

By the time you get there from Purple, the Reds have resorted themselves moderately - Rush-ites from each of the political delegations have gone over to the big Rush group, a few other priests have divided off into a sub-group of their own, and the political groups have re-organized so that the head of each group has at least one person from the other three groups nearby. As the political groups slowly start to drift towards the dance floor, you approach the Rushites and introduce yourself.

"Delighted to meet you, I'm Daniel." One of the priests from the group steps forward to shake your hand. "Sergeant, if you would convey to our friends the Lord Captain's position on things while I speak to our Purple Comrade?" he adds over his shoulder. The woman he addresses as Sergeant looks a little sour, but nods, and he pulls you a little aside.

"I must say I'm surprised, but pleased, to find one of our faith in the Purple delegation. Perhaps between the two of us we can sort out Victoria's border disputes with the Empire amicably, and turn all our forces North. I'm afraid Lord Karsten is not likely to be the most accommodating of negotiators, but I'm sure I can arrange to rein him in if you can wrangle some concessions from your side. Does that seem reasonable?" A bit surprised at how quickly he leapt to the point, and cognizant of your inability to actually promise anything on behalf of the Empire, you murmured something noncommittal, and he backed down slightly.

"Ah, of course, I should have realized you would not be in Command of your delegation, forgive my enthusiasm. Still, you have given me the excuse to start circulating with others, instead of being trapped dealing with internal Red politics all night, and for that I thank you. Perhaps you could point me towards someone in Purple who might be able to negotiate more authoritatively?" You mention Li Karest's name as the Minister of Borders, and he strides off purposefully in that direction. You are not at all sure that his directness will play well with a fourth rank Bureaucrat, but ... well, you can only do so much.

Deciding not to go back to the Rushites, you head towards the other group of Fiveists.

"... very well, this evening it is. When shall..." the person talking cuts off as you come up from behind him. You don't actually catch anyone giving him a signal, but feel like it must have happened. They all turn to face you. You introduce yourself as Vidan, Priest of Navare.

"Well met!" says the man who was talking. "I am Gyvail, priest of Orellian, and these are my friends, Westrak of the Nameless, Dora, Priestess of Jord, and Caitlan, a Priestess of Navare. Welcome, friend." Gyvail's enthusiastic welcome gets a smile from Dora and an eye-roll from Caitlan, but everyone says hello politely, and is happy to talk to you for a bit. You note that while they are each from a different one of the political delegations, they definitely know each other fairly well. They are happy to talk about their hopes for the conference, and an opportunity for the forces of the Gods to prepare for the attack of the Breaker before it comes, and curious about your knowledge of the Twins' position on things. They are definitely looking at it more from a religious point of view than the political one Daniel leapt to. And you notice they never come back to whatever it is that will be done this evening.

Muddle in Middlesea

2023-03-18T21:54:15Z

96.237.52.245: /* Things Remembered */

VidansSecretNotes

2023-03-18T19:55:38Z

96.237.52.245:

VidansSecretNotes

2023-03-18T19:55:18Z

96.237.52.245: /* Second Vanishing */

=Behold! These are Aidan's secret notes. Do you read if you are not Vidan or a GM.=
==First Vanishing==
You pray to Navere to show you what you need to know, and feel your miracle struggling with... your miracle? Not the one you just cast, the one you cast last night, with the power from the Ritual, to restore all your memories after the spell to remove them. Returning what you lost and showing you what you need are not strictly opposed, but they are not the same, and there are defenses against the second that are not there for the first. In the end, you get disrupted fragments, rather than a coherent vision...

---

The party after Cara's speech lasts hours, as the delegations mix and mingle. You speak to ... and to ... and ... The Orange Delegation is the most Ecumenical, with priests representing all the major religions. Speaking to Luigi, he mentions that the Cult has some unusual resources for tracking the Breaker's actions. Depending on how the conclave goes, they may be willing to make that information more widely available. You also speak to ...

---

After the party, your delegation goes to the rooms designated for it, but ...

---

As you approach the door, you hear Gyvail's voice, trying to be quiet while clearly irate. "This was *not* the plan!" Caitlin responds, more calmly "There wasn't enough power. The plan needs to be changed," followed by Westrak "I can hold what we have for a time, but not for long."

---

Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."

---

Hurrying down the hallway, you hear Gyvail's voice raised to a shout "No!" and then a scream. Diomarch charges towards the doorway as you feel Divine Influence building in front of you.

==Second Vanishing==
The delegations are each provided with their own tables at the welcoming dinner, giving you a chance to sort out in more detail who is actually here, and what they're interested in. The delegation as a whole does not have terribly specific directions, but with 7 fourth level bureaucrats, it has enough authority to make a lot of decisions and/or agreements as things progress. You don't get all the third level bureaucrats sorted out, but based on a combination of talking to people at dinner and what you already know, the fourth level ones are:

Win Dae - Minister of Repercussions:
Dae is one of the few female bureaucrats, and a powerful purple mage. As Minister of Repercussions, it is her responsibility to oversee and maintain the spells that provide the Empire with an analysis of what the future will bring, to help guide the decisions of others. Her direct authority is limited, but going against her advice and being proven wrong is a good way to lose one's position. She apparently believes the events of the Conclave will have a significant effect on the way the Comet proceeds.

Han Cho - Minister of Grain -
An unusual choice for the conference, Cho's portfolio is administering the farming and agriculture of the Empire. He says he is interested in securing the assistance of Green and Blue mages to assist with that, but this is a dramatic way to try to hire help. Possibly he is hoping to make a play to advance his rank? His ministry is affiliated* with the Minister of the Treasury (a fifth rank position), but you have heard nothing of the Treasurer being ready to step down.

Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade -
Another affiliate ministry to the Minister of the Treasury, although much more obviously relevant to a conference with other polities. Karchest is relatively recently promoted to the fourth rank, within the last year or two, more on the strength of his skill with purple magic and power as a Priest of Balance than his Ministry, which is historically generally held by a bureaucrat of the third rank, as the Empire's external trading interests are limited.

Az Julan - Minister of Lions -
The "Lions" this ministry deals with are largely a metaphor. It is the ministry in charge of Unusual Threats, be they monsters, dangerous wild magic, or Brokenness. An actual lion rampaging would fall into his bailiwick, but would not draw his direct attention unless it was the size of a house. Even then, his attention would generally be "organizing a way to take care of it" rather than 'fighting it himself', although you are given to understand he's a skilled purple mage. Loosely affiliated with the Ministry of War (a fifth rank position), Julan is the most obviously relevant Minister to the question of "what do we do about the Comet."

Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions -
The Minister of Redactions is in charge of keeping secrets.
Zakar is both a purple mage and a priest of balance.

Li Karest - Minister of the Borders -
Loosely affiliated with both the Ministry of War and the Ministry of State (a fifth rank position), the Minister of the Borders is responsible for the Borders in a more metaphysical sense, making sure that Red, Green, and the Broken Lands do not encroach on the Holy and Magical lands of the Empire. Karest is a Priest of Balance but not a mage, and his personal focus is more on the border with the Broken Lands. Rumor has it that he and Julan periodically have disputes about whose jurisdiction various incursions from the Broken Lands fall under, but they are perfectly civil at dinner.

Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune
A ministry you were not previously familiar with**, Chang explains that his portfolio is to "develop opportunities the Empire is presented with to its advantage". He is given to understand that a Comet brings not only new dangers but new opportunities, and is here to see what he can learn of what those opportunities might be.

While you are feeling them out, you also get a general feel for what they think you are here for. It is less "give us advice from Navere" and more "act as our liaison to priests of other gods in the other delegations." The other three advisors (Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam; Vesper - the silent one, Priest of Tem; and Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion) seem to be more representatives of their groups here to give advice, although most of the Ministers seem to be treating that as "we have to listen to these people or their bosses will be insulted" more than "I want to know what they think."

* - An "affiliated" ministry is not in the direct chain of command, but is generally expected to follow the policy positions of its affiliated minister, and failing to do so can get one demoted. People in the direct chain of command are "sub-ministers". There is at least one sub-minister of State and one sub-minister of War among the third level bureaucrats.

** - There are literally hundreds of ministries on the rolls, many of which are not staffed at any given time, so this is unusual but not amazingly so. It does mean he probably doesn't have much in the way of staff or subordinates to order around.

VidansSecretNotes

2023-03-18T19:54:53Z

96.237.52.245: /* First Vanishing */

VidansSecretNotes

2023-03-18T19:53:58Z

96.237.52.245: /* Behold! These are Aidan's secret notes. Do you read if you are not Vidan or a GM. */

=Behold! These are Aidan's secret notes. Do you read if you are not Vidan or a GM.=
==First Vanishing==
==Second Vanishing==

VidansSecretNotes

2023-03-18T19:53:36Z

96.237.52.245: Created page with "=Behold! These are Aidan's secret notes. Do you read if you are not Vidan or a GM.="

=Behold! These are Aidan's secret notes. Do you read if you are not Vidan or a GM.=

Giaconni

2023-03-18T19:31:49Z

96.237.52.245:

A friend of Gale's, no longer associated with a thieves' street gang in Kor. He is friends with [[Thistle]].

[[Category: Gale's Friends]]

Giaconni

2023-03-18T17:16:20Z

96.237.52.245: Created page with "A friend of Gale's, no longer associated with a thieves' street gang in Kor. Category: Gale's Friends"

A friend of Gale's, no longer associated with a thieves' street gang in Kor.

[[Category: Gale's Friends]]

Second Run

2023-02-18T21:59:54Z

96.237.52.245:

Managaratha vanishes and Vidan reappears.

Note: we have a few weeks of travel money until we work or pirate or something.

Vidan's briefing:
<blockquote>
I'm not sure "where" I was, if anywhere, but I did start to recover some of the memories of the conference we've lost.
Apparently, I was involved in a giant Ritual near the end there. The purpose of the ritual was to later restore the memories we would all lose after the spell to remove them. I'm not sure why or whose spell, but that seemed to be a plan.
Sadly, things did not go so smoothly. I've a bunch of memories of people I clearly met at the first dinner, but don't remember now.
Does anyone know a [[Luigi]]?
Perhaps from the Orange delegation?

I remember he told me that the Cult had secret and unusual ways of tracking what actions the Breaker was taking. He was saying he might share them with me if the conference went well, but given the circumstances we might wish to pay the Cult a visit and ask about them.
I also remember someone called Flint looking up from a dead redcap. He says that if something happens to him, people should tell the queen that Futeau is the traitor.
There were a couple of other things, but it's hard to piece it together.
Flint's a dwarf.
</blockquote>

Nesh is hungry, so we get dinner. Perhaps "intel on what the Breaker is doing" should be next - Stella has contacts in the Cult of Alan. Boat in the direction of Orange. We can stop by Middlesea along the way.

A bureaucrat appears and looks around. They want to talk about the invading orcs.
Orcs are invading?
Yes, yes they are. Since the start of the conference, in fact. Is there something that happened at the conference?

Vidan promises to have a report by tomorrow morning, and writes up a very dry recap. (6 successes). The guy appears again in the morning. He skims the report and says he notes the report doesn't say where Vidan ''was'' while they couldn't teleport to him (that is, while he was vanished). Maybe at the conference - but he's not sure.

There are noticeably more people in Middlesea than there were a few days ago. Curious.
Vidan thinks about teleport wards, because this could become unfortunate.
He realizes that they probably don’t have “teleport to Vidan” as a spell, and Bureaucrats don’t like wild magic, so maybe they have his true name written down? Teleport to the person this form is for? That would be harder but not impossible.

We decide to head back to Middlesea. We get close to the clearing and there are a few people in uniform saying Halt who goes there. Gale recognizes them as Darstan uniforms. Gale says she’s here investigating on behalf of the Pirate Queen.

Hey, there's an army unit of Darstan here! They’re kind of spread out in an odd way, maybe because we can’t

“I understand you work for the Pirate Queen?”
“Yes.”
“And when did you last speak with her?”
“N days ago.”

“Who are you? For my report.”-- Vidan

Lord Denis, Bordan (priest of Rush), and Hiraz. In service to Duchess Zerbina trying to figure out what happened to her husband Baron Volstack.

When her husband vanished the night of the conference, Her Grace dispatched them.

Vidan explains. Stella ends the conversation saying let’s stay in touch, more or less.

Hiraz follows us as we leave. Hiraz is a Red mage, as it turns out.
Diomarch stays behind to give a more complete report. to Bordan. Bordan says he’s in the service of the Duke/Duchess, rather than working for the Church directly.

(Bordan says that there's a Broken miracle and a Time miracle which are different miracles. He doesn't know who the Fourists are.)

An elf - Lutenania - wanders up and wants to know what we're up to and what happened to Scout's eyes and so on. (He knows Hiraz). Her Majesty of the Plains sent him to see what happened to the delegation.

That's not a blue spell, that's a blue extra effort, so whoever cast it is in the middle of a berserker rage, probably. (Dice plus skill >100, epic something!)

People see
Vidan + Detective: the most crucial Clew. 6. No one else has noticed the Slith tracks yet, sneaking into the keep.
Diomarch 4 looking for Sgt. Suzy - badly injured, fighting an orc who is uninjured, several paladins around her.
Gale: 3 looking for the Queen. On the ground covered in blood.
Scout: 6 looking for the King's delegation. Not all in the same place. There's a dead redcap, a running redcap fleeing a dwarf. Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
Nesh (6) sees a couple of dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep.
Stella looks for Luigi - he is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it, some other non-named Orange delegates are also there.

Scout offers non-privileged information for non-privileged, with Lutenania. He says he’ll think about what might be considered non-privileged and will talk later.

We need a Tarn evidence packet. Vidan will make copies overnight. It includes most of what we know but not, for example, "Nesh is the kid the cataurs want to kill" or "tell the Queen X is the traitor". Also it doesn't say it was the Oasis because we forgot to tell Vidan.

Before dinner, Scout checks for nearby spirits. Where the cliffs meet the sea seems like a place that could/would have them but doesn't. Hmm. Maybe they’re in the big mess? Unclear. Lutenania is a shaman; he doesn't have a spirit with him but he has shaman miracles on him.

There’s some kind of Life connection that Hiraz is strengthening periodically, from inside the keep to off to the northeast (Darstan lands, plausibly). Also there’s a Yellow scry point wandering around looking at interesting things.

At dinner: There is a Green amnesia mist spreading/covering inside. Some green forgetting. (We recall Managaratha saying we were under a green effect that was fading.). We tell him that it's all one battlefield, and all the area effects are hitting everything (like the mist)

Most of what Lord Denis has gotten came from Bordan & Rush, so he knows about the invisible battle. More than ten sides.
Red sent 5 delegations - one from each major kingdom one from paladins of Rush.

A half-elven woman comes up. Gyvaill. Have we any news on her husband? Vidan says he was with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. When the orcs attacked, the delegations were working together. Gyvaill says he is a priest of Orellian.

There are some watches overnight, though we are staying in a smallish house (local renting out space).

Scout's spirit pokes him and says "Do something about the goblin" as the goblin tries to bonk him in the head.

Vidan DIs everyone into waking up, and thinks there is someone outside.

Diomarch charges outside, trampling the goblin and causing it to lose actions, but the unseelie outside

Nesh, Gale, and Scout all stabble the goblin.

Vidan heals Scout, while Stella and Diomarch pursue the unseelie. They lose him, and come back.

"Where are you, stupid backup!"

He runs, pursued by everyone and the occasional ineffective lightning fzz.

Vidan bursts of speed, catching up to be in front of him. "SUBMIT." A curse - we will always know where he is and vice versa.

After much chasing, and just as he gets to the tree he was going to, Gale takes him down with a wild through-toughness lightning fizz.
(Goblin Scoreboard: Gale: 1, Everyone Else: 0)

Stella stabilizes him, and Scout grabs the blackjack.

His tracks start at this tree and go into town and come back. The other set of tracks goes into town and has not come back yet. There's a green spell on the tree.

Nesh spots the unseelie - a coordinated attack (Gale helps with the coordination; Scout and Diomarch provide the damage) takes him out, and he explodes. Both Gale and Nesh are pretty hurt, but Stella drops a party heal.

We could go somewhere if we press this knoll. We could throw the Vidan-cursed dead guy at the trigger. Scout strips him and throws him. It's more trees than the Plains but fewer than the Forest. Maybe on the border between them.

Colors of Magic

2023-01-02T18:49:51Z

96.237.52.245:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| Red
| style="background-color:#fe0000;" | '''Blood'''<br />''Hit Points''
| Animals
| Life
|-
| Orange
| style="background-color:#f56b00;" | '''Forge'''<br />''Gestures''
| Elemental<br />’’Vulnerability’’
| Making
|-
| Yellow
| style="background-color:#f8ff00;" | '''Illusions/Senses'''<br />''Spoken Word''
| Feelings
| Unreality
|-
| Green
| style="background-color:#32cb00;" | '''Alchemy'''<br />''Ingredients''
| Essence
| Nature
|-
| Blue
| style="background-color:#34cdf9;" | '''Weather'''<br />''Sigils''
| Elemental
| Battle
|-
| Purple
| style="background-color:#ffffff;" | '''Reality'''<br />''Concentration''
| '''Truth'''<br />''True Names''
| style="background-color:#6665cd;" | '''Discipline'''<br />''Vow''
|}

from https://stuff.mit.edu/~boojum/CometWeb/Info/Magic/ritual.html

<h2> Magic Rules</h2>

You probably noticed the world has colored zones now.

The Rainbow River is gone, and each of the colored zones is a perpetual field of that magic color in which random magic occasionally happens (less often than on one of the river sides, but periodically).

The zone you were born in (your "color") changes how you interact with magic. You may never learn any spells of the opposed color. You may learn not just the base-version of your color's magic, but also the two other varieties that were present in the surges. You may learn one of the other four colors' base-version with no negative interference effects. You may not be a Rainbow Mage.

In a zone, spells of the opposed color only work if they are the base-version of that color, and even those are one difficulty harder, and if they have a duration it will drop significantly. Spells of a non-base-version of a non-opposed color are one difficulty harder.

If you were born on the "Rainbow Isles" in the Inland Sea (or on the open ocean or somewhere else weird and not in the colored zones), you get the old magic rules - one base-color, the opposed base-color is learnable by giving up dispels, learning non-opposed colors either burns out your skill or requires having a Rainbow Mage shtick/skill. There's no school teaching Rainbow Magic, but there are rumored to be a couple of self-taught Rainbow Mages in the Rainbow Isles. All spells work at their normal difficulty in those areas.

Spells cost 1 skill point. Skill in a full base-version of a color is breadth five 5, more limited base-version skills are narrower. Skill in a full non-base version of a color costs 3 (if you can buy it at all). If you have access to broader skills, you can get full-base+1 non-base for breadth 6 and full-base+both non-base for 7.

Spells that buff dice will be higher difficulty than they used to be.

Note that color is based on what zone you are born in, not what your parents were or where you grew up. For Elves that's "where you returned the last time you heard your song." Half-elves don't *normally* change color when they hear their song, but you might be able to argue me into it as a special case. If you don't start as a Mage, you can choose not to know what your actual color is. I might let you choose it later, or I might choose it for you.

Colors of Magic

2023-01-01T23:40:48Z

96.237.52.245:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| Red
| style="background-color:#fe0000;" | '''Blood'''<br />''Hit Points''
| Animals
| Life
|-
| Orange
| style="background-color:#f56b00;" | '''Forge'''<br />''Gestures''
| Elemental
| Making
|-
| Yellow
| style="background-color:#f8ff00;" | '''Illusions/Senses'''<br />''Spoken Word''
| Feelings
| Unreality
|-
| Green
| style="background-color:#32cb00;" | '''Alchemy'''<br />''Ingredients''
| Essence
| Nature
|-
| Blue
| style="background-color:#34cdf9;" | '''Weather'''<br />''Sigils''
| Elemental
| Battle
|-
| Purple
| style="background-color:#ffffff;" | '''Reality'''<br />''Concentration''
| '''Truth'''<br />''True Names''
| style="background-color:#6665cd;" | '''Discipline'''<br />''Vow''
|}

from https://stuff.mit.edu/~boojum/CometWeb/Info/Magic/ritual.html

<h2> Magic Rules</h2>

You probably noticed the world has colored zones now.

The Rainbow River is gone, and each of the colored zones is a perpetual field of that magic color in which random magic occasionally happens (less often than on one of the river sides, but periodically).

The zone you were born in (your "color") changes how you interact with magic. You may never learn any spells of the opposed color. You may learn not just the base-version of your color's magic, but also the two other varieties that were present in the surges. You may learn one of the other four colors' base-version with no negative interference effects. You may not be a Rainbow Mage.

In a zone, spells of the opposed color only work if they are the base-version of that color, and even those are one difficulty harder, and if they have a duration it will drop significantly. Spells of a non-base-version of a non-opposed color are one difficulty harder.

If you were born on the "Rainbow Isles" in the Inland Sea (or on the open ocean or somewhere else weird and not in the colored zones), you get the old magic rules - one base-color, the opposed base-color is learnable by giving up dispels, learning non-opposed colors either burns out your skill or requires having a Rainbow Mage shtick/skill. There's no school teaching Rainbow Magic, but there are rumored to be a couple of self-taught Rainbow Mages in the Rainbow Isles. All spells work at their normal difficulty in those areas.

Spells cost 1 skill point. Skill in a full base-version of a color is breadth five 5, more limited base-version skills are narrower. Skill in a full non-base version of a color costs 3 (if you can buy it at all). If you have access to broader skills, you can get full-base+1 non-base for breadth 6 and full-base+both non-base for 7.

Spells that buff dice will be higher difficulty than they used to be.

Note that color is based on what zone you are born in, not what your parents were or where you grew up. For Elves that's "where you returned the last time you heard your song." Half-elves don't *normally* change color when they hear their song, but you might be able to argue me into it as a special case. If you don't start as a Mage, you can choose not to know what your actual color is. I might let you choose it later, or I might choose it for you.