PLAYER PLOTS | 2h APRIL

[groundrules]

Hello, busy people! Just patching together details of the two upcoming optional player mini-plots you folks have nimbly sewn together!

HEISTING HOMIES

With so much salt in this city, eating the rich was never tastier. IC and OOC momentum has been building, so now's probably a good time to iron out who's doing what.

As per our beautiful calendar, the merchant vessels are discharging in the second half of the month, and the auction houses start earning sweet coin over the 17-24 April period — meaning more eyes will be on them and on guaranteeing safe transfer of the revenues they earn, than on the bank itself.

I hadn't planned on a mod-led log for this, as I was thinking you might want to do your own posts — but let me know if you need me to put up a post on this on 17 April.

Otherwise...

MAKE IT RAIN

• A SCRAWNY BANK MAP APPEARS. Like a manta ray on Sci-Fi steroids. • The bank is publicly open between 6:00 - 18:00 and locked up with magical reinforcements overnight. • GENERAL ACTIVITY the public at large is welcome on the ground floor open area, and in the spots for lenders and currency exchange. The government finance and library keep are open to administrative personnel and rare government officials. High-ranking merchants might be permitted to escort their goods for storage, or to meet on the upper floor. The lower floor is exclusively open to bank personnel. • SECURITY: armed lightly — swords, batons, some rare talisman-crafted binding magic that can temporarily paralyse targets, if they're struck. Day-to-day security forces are neither magic users, nor adept at casting magic. GROUND FLOOR: 25-30 sentries, shift changes midday local time. UPPER FLOOR: 15 men, shift changes 11:00. LOWER FLOOR: 15 men, shift changes 10:00 and 14:00. • Civilian administrative personnel (lenders, cashiers, servants) are unlikely to risk their hides to defend the goods. • SLEEP CURSE: cross into the casting regions (helpfully delineated by purple carpets), fall down dead asleep for four hours. Security sentry badges have been magically enhanced to protect against the curse. The guards have a curse-breaking password that will wake the affected instantly or render speakers immune for eight hours. The password changes daily. • Actual vaults are locked securely and might need a lock-breaker. Unless someone's got some interesting picking skills in their satchel — hire a NPC? • PLANNING THREAD HERE.

ROW THEM BOATS

As merchant ships gather to sell human alongside inanimate wares, Archeval ( darkeststars ) player Loren said our resident Sith Lord would be prime game to raid some boats and release some of the (wo)man-shaped merchandise. He will lead this fine expedition, with some help from NPCs and from any other characters willing to throw their hats in the ring.

This plot allows us a window of opportunity to try our hand at a test drive meme — so let's see how we do, and how we like the idea. Some key points:

JUST ANOTHER SAVIOUR COMPLEX

• Calendar dixit: the weather starts deteriorating again over 26-30 April, to certain supernatural effects. • Ahead of that, a NPC post on 24 or 25 April (TBD!) will alert characters of the arrival of the vessel Imperious (that's right, Archeval), carrying a substantial number of slaves and potentially some otherworldly captives. Characters will be ICly asked to join the rescue, but participation is optional on an OOC level. • Scout information from the so-far absentee Merchant will relay some of the obstacles ahead. • 27 April: we will have a combined log for existing characters playing out the rescue, as well as any new characters interested to test drive. • This event will count as game canon for any characters that participate. • APPLICATIONS OPEN: 3 May. • QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/CHAT THREAD HERE.

Comments

[somebadnews]

This sounds good. As far as the vaults go: their primary target will be the coin, so the main vault in the basement in the goal. Five is very confident that he can do all the robbery single handedly if he has to (sure), but he... will tire out if he teleports too much. Best course of action is to get the door open from the inside and have some muscle behind him to haul it away before he teleports them back. (Have the kid's coffee ready.)

Also in the interest of time/worth the gem vault might be a good target. 100,000 coins is a lot to carry, so more bang for their buck. That magical items vault though... could be tempting, how much do they want to press their luck.

[bearshermark]

ahem I don't go here bc I play a good bean BUT I think magical items and gems would be a riskier sell if the bank is yknow, looking for them. Could implicate anyone with those items if they decide to search random citizens after the heist and thus lower their value if they're scrambling to sell shit.

...Though also magical items could be dead useful.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw in a random 2 cents for life after the heist, as far as offloading stolen goods goes. The weight of the gold is def a problem too ofc.

that said my good bean is avail for healing without questions usually

[groundrules]

All very fair points.

Though, I would say — same would hold for any unique-looking gems.

[weifinder]

Yeah, recognition is a thing. Wei Wuxian would be of the mind to say coin only, for reasons of them not knowing enough of what won't stand out locally, unless there's like. Many gems of no particular shape and small, easily carried.

But seriously what are the gem stones here. Who's asking around to know relative values?

[somebadnews]

Valid. These are good points to make that will boost Five's opinion of you Wuxian, so useful in many ways. Who wants to scout for a blackmarket dealer...

ps - thank goodness we have someone to be a good bean El, you continue to be six-points ahead of this guy on the morality scale (because he's at 11 and Five is at... 5, get it? If the scale is 5-11... yeah.)

[bearshermark]

[groundrules]

You have four main options:
• coin/gold
• gems
• magical items
• deeds

If you want in terms of value per single item, realistically: gems & deeds > magical items* > coin/gold.

*This is because you don't know if you're getting a useful or useless magical item when you grab in a hurry. While the same can be said of deeds, you wouldn't keep something

You could also have Five get the appetizer plate and grab a few bits and bobs out of several vaults. That would require him to... teleport around a lot, though, so I'd want him swooning tired or in need of some TLC a few days after the heist.

So, let me know the vault combo you want him to go into, and I'll come back with some loot options for the heist homies to vote on. This will be done democratically. So you can blame each other, when you hate it.

[somebadnews]

I do like the thought of a getting a little greedy, because he really wants to only have to do this once. Maybe start with the obvious, then be tempted to see what else he can grab on the way out. Regardless of how this goes, the little guy is going to be completely drained by the end of it. (And possibly before the end of it.)

0% suspicious if they go out looking for suspects, just stuff him in a duffle bag and he'll sleep it off....

But anyway, I'm open to these options, so anyone can weigh in and I can probably work with it.

[groundrules]

Hello~ello~ello~ello —

So I can figure out thine loot before the 17 April event kick-off: have you had a chance to think about which vaults you want Five to enter?

[somebadnews]

Yes yes yes...

The idea would be to grab whatever seems valuable in the least amount of time, so he'd spend more of it in the main vault grabbing gold. Presumably he'll have a few bags on hand and Mina down there with him, though he'd leave her in the main vault if he visits any others.

So definitely gold and a quick jump into the gems... For magic items that would probably only work if he gets Mina to use her acid on the lock(??) so he could use the password instead of just popping in there and getting hit with a curse. (I MEAN... if paper man gives him a password, it's super tempting to try it to grab a shiny magic item or two. Like... literally whatever looks shiny.)

Spitballing! We can sort it out in the next day for adjustments, I am open to all of it.

[groundrules]

Okay — I'll have two proposals laid out for people to vote on for the loot, based on Five going into the gold + gems vault + some magical items. To confirm, no deeds?

[somebadnews]

That sounds good to me! In the interest of not changing my mind too many times, no deeds. He's at least considering what they're suggesting he steal, so you know. (Again this is all my thoughts, so I'm glad you're voting on the final options!)

Making a note of what's there of course, but not this run.

[groundrules]

Cool, got all that — thank you!