we should totally just stab caesar

[groundrules]

Hi, everyone! Still a bit of The Channeling event to go ( til 18 November ), but a wild plotting post appears to transition us into the last phase of Arc VII.

Plotting for anything requiring mod feedback is open til a hard deadline of 23:59 GMT on 19 November. A summary of everything planned & approved follows on 20 November.

You can play out everything agreed here til 4 December — and will receive the setting and CR opportunities for your one-month cooldown event on 5 December. December is historically a crammed month, so expect a classically haunted winter wonderland and small-scale plot opportunities. An obscure teaser.

WHAT WE KNOW

Ephes struggles to decide on undead Lady Messalina’s request to receive the elite army of the Hand and vanquish the undead Brotherhood abroad. Senate leader Caius Justus calls to refuse Messalina and says the citadel’s divine patron, the apocalyptic Chained God, would want Ephes itself to conquer, without an intermediary.

It emerges that Caius Justus, who created the Hand, and cultishly devoted Hand leader Narula have been supernaturally enhancing recruits by feeding them ‘dark water,’ a sinister magical medium that always appears where the undead are, like the mysterious Matthias. Dark water is revealed to desperately want a shape, much like the Chained God once did. The black liquid has been slowly absorbing Ephes, reanimating corpses and trying to consume the Chained God — before Mo Ran killed him. RIP Chained God.

…meanwhile, a young boy claims his ‘friend’ Matthias must cut off parts of himself and leave them behind, to anchor the dark water on a premise. Matthias has been receiving sea shipments of grain infested with dark water from the Hand and Caius Justus. The child still wants his umbrella.

STATUS QUO

The Senate votes to give undead lady Messalina the Hand, with 53 in favour. Messalina comes to the Senate to gratefully accept command — only to be apprehended by Hand leader Narula on orders of Caius Justus, who accuses her of manipulating the vote through witchcraft, bribery and intimidation. The Senate is divided between his overwhelming faction, that of Caelius Silvanus who wishes to investigate, and Messalina’s own supporters, led by Maximus Faustus also known as the shapeshifting demon Alir.

Bounties are hereby issued on anyone previously assigned to work for Messalina, or seen consorting with her. Your choice if your character qualifies!

Aggressive curfews, frequent weapons searches and crowd controls are imposed on Ephes, with businesses finding their activity highly surveiled and restricted, while daily clashes take place in the streets, and the Hand roughhouse civilians to impose discipline. Assassinations of politicians and business figures who supported Messalina — much in the style of the murders that took place at the banquet of Maximus Faustus at the start of the Arc — are frequent. Rebel Senators plot in utmost secrecy. Civilians turn conspirers.

Meanwhile, Mo Ran’s… dismissal of the Chained God has crumbled his temple: this has fortunately revealed the beacon in the levels below… which is being slowly unburied from debris. Anyone seen at the temple in days prior is sought for arrest on suspicions of blasphemously injuring the temple. Your choice if this applies to your character! God-killer Mo Ran may enjoy nightmares of chaining and captivity for a few weeks.

MISSION GOAL:

■ Survive til 4 December when Karsa calls the party to the Chained God’s ruined temple in secret, to activate the beacon and send otherworlders home.

■ Characters that drop or fail activity in November go home through the beacon. You can also canon update your character through a beacon malfunction.

OPIUM POWDER, TREASON & PLOT

Rescue Ephes from its dire political straits or pitch anything else you’d like to do! The options with the most player support will be implemented, so please +1, collab and figure out what your character can do! Please note: you’ll be expected to play out rather than handwave what you commit to.

Players will have to sort out their own logs / posts, unless a mod-led log is requested.

QUESTIONS

Comments

QUESTIONS

[groundrules]

Any flavour of dagger will do.

mod-led log...

[groundrules]

There're currently no plans for a mod-led log for this last stage of the Arc, beyond the summary to help guide everyone, but if you think you'd rather have a centralized log — drop a +1 here by 23:59 GMT on 18 November.

+1

[northerndragon]

This seems pretty futile given that I'm the only one commenting here so far 😅 but I do think it might be easier for players to find places to jump in on a mod-led log.

+1

[recklessenough]

Late, and I don't even have Starbucks, /o\ but I agree with above.

canon updates

[groundrules]

Drop a line here by 1 December if you'd like to canon update your character through a failed beacon journey — and please include the new timeline point!

eta, 19/11: Characters who canon update will travel to their home world through the beacon without memories of Akhuras, living out their canon adventures to their new canon point — then be dragged back into Ephes, when the beacon malfunctions. They will be gone some 5-15 minutes in game time.

[cosplayqueen]

Okay officially having this be a thing! I would like to bump Kamala to post-Monica's sacrifice. The point where she reunites with her family + Fury and tells them what happened to Monica.

[groundrules]

Logged, thank you!

Re: QUESTIONS

[wifedup]

I have a question about canon updating and I checked the FAQ's but couldn't see anything. If a character did want to update for how long would they have to be out of the game?

Re: QUESTIONS

[groundrules]

Couple of minutes! They'd basically go through the beacon to head home — end up there without memories of Akhuras, live their regular lives up to the canon point where you want them at, then they'd get pulled back into Akhuras when the beacon malfunctions toward the end of the transport. In game, that'd translate to something like 10-15 minutes.

[wifedup]

Oh nice! That was my main fear, that I might miss something lmao. I'm gonna put some thought into it. Is there like an app update or do you just have to say hey I'd like to get to x point and that's it?

LONG LIVE EPHES. OR NOT.

[groundrules]

Stab Caesar! Or don't.

Save Ephes! Or don't.

Take over the world! But really, do.

This thread is for pitching and plotting anything large-scale that you'd like to propose, regarding the overall leadership or politics of Ephes. Basically, anything to do with Caius Justus, Messalina, the Hand or the Senate go here!

Try to put a one-like summary of your idea in your response and please comment by 23:59 GMT on 19 November.

Please collab, +1 each other's comments and chip in with what your character can do, but try to only commit if you plan to play it out, please! The pitch es with the most interest are likely to be implemented.

PITCHES SO FAR

[groundrules]

1. Get Narula to betray Caius Justus

2. Assassinate Caius Justus and Narula...
2a. And name a veteran and politician to replace them

3. Meet the kid!

Destabilizing the Senate control of the Hand.

[recklessenough]

Heyo!

Lockwood has learned a way to possibly drive a wedge between Brother Narula and Caius Justus.

Lockwood has been pretty open about his belief that, while he doesn't trust her as far as he can throw her, Messalina vs Mattias sounds like a good play to him. His short-term and long-term thinking is Mattias is the bigger threat, let the dead fight the dead and then plan a way to pick up the pieces in the aftermath.

As such, he'd like to see the Hand destabilized from Caius Justus, Messalina released from jail and the Hand, handed over to her. In a perfect world, he'd like to see one of our group pick up Narula's leash. He's not against doing it himself, but he does recognize there may be personalities better suited to the role. Regardless, the immediate goal would be to drive a wedge between Caius Justus and the Hand, and get Messalina her forces to fight Mattias.

Anyone interested in some political intrigue and government vs army destabilization?

+1

[somebadnews]

Five has been putting his chips on Messalina since he got here, he’s completely here for this, by any means necessary etc. He didn’t put this effort in for nothing.

Also he’s got this shapeshifting demon buddy in the senate who may help with said betrayal by Caius, if he’s available. And if he’s not… there’s alternatives, let’s talk.

Re: +1

[groundrules]

Yeah, I could in theory loan you Maximus Faustus, though you'd need to tell me how specifically you'd want him used :D

+1

[recklessenough]

This would sound like a good route to Lockwood.

Just set a couple of well place matches, and then let the players already in place (Maximus, etc) fan the flames.

+1

[rehandle]

If we have a shapeshifter who can do it (Alir, or Vanessa comes to mind), perhaps staging a conversation between 'Caius' and (?? somebody else, if anybody has ideas there pls... help) discussing Narula's flaws and usefulness coming to an end might do the job of creating a rift.

For somebody so reverent of Caius Justus, even hearing him not immediately dismiss or take issue with somebody talking down on or suggesting replacements for Narula might be enough to force the wedge, especially if the rumor mill is carrying similar whispers of a possible reshuffle. That could make space for somebody else to swoop in to gain his trust/take his leash, or at least to suggest hey if Caius is capable of such a huge error of judgement as considering the replacement of his most powerful asset, what else might he be wrong about... maybe Messalina for instance... what a shame that it looks like Caius Justus is simply power hungry and never really cared about you at all etc etc

Actual character involvement-wise Stephen could help suggest or workshop the above idea in response to Lockwood's prompt of driving a wedge and could also circulate rumours around the senate and beyond with his little army of street magicians (who needs magic-users to actually do magic when they could simply do other things) but other than that I'm mostly here to offer the suggestion.

[mustact]

Considering Caius Justus's response to this, Ratonhnhaké:ton thinks that the only correct response is to assassinate him.

In order to weaken Caius, he'd aim to take out Narula first, and though his instinct is to go for the assassination here too, he's not opposed to a less bloody solution such as Lockwood's pitch above either. But Caius has got to go permanently. An eye for an eye and the world will be a happier place. :D

[blackscales]

Wrathion is in favour of this, and would prefer to kill Narula (who he thinks is too unstable to try and control) and set the veteran Lucius Meridius in his place. (A member of his team of Widows, Orphans and Veterans!)

In the spirit of 'go big or go home', he'd also be in favour of killing Caius Justus, and would suggest he could try and pull strings to elevate his own patron, Procula Avita, to replace Caius! She always supported Lucius, after all, a Veteran now in charge of the Hand potentially? She loves widows, orphans, and veterans?? He is willing to do PR to help her cause.

(I just personally think it would be funny, tbh, for Wrathion to punt this woman straight into power after she asked him to be ruthless. Be careful what you wish for!)

[massrez]

The death of one might save the lives of many. It's not his favorite plan but Anduin might be in a position to help if this is the way things go.

Something quiet, like poison, might be a way to go without causing too much chaos. And the healers here have a suspicious amount of knowledge on the subject.

[northerndragon]

Jon would agree that Caius Justus needs to go and would be cool with this concept or with Lockwood's.

(Apparently he doesn't do assassinations -- until he does. He just really has a huge thing against Matthias and thinks he needs to be stopped however possible. The Hand are victims.)

Idk how he can help, but he can help if he's needed.

So, the kid wants his umbrella!

[makemeasong]

Since Clara has had the umbrella since Serthica, and the child left it with her specifically, she's not just handing it over to be given back to him. She wants to see him and get a better understanding of why she's giving it away, what it's capable of, and why he left it with her to begin with.

She's also not going alone because there are people who would be big Mad if she did. Red and Lycin, along with America are definitely in. This is a spot to either toss your character into the mix or pitch in suggestions/ideas/handwave things, whatever the case may be! It will be useful to get any other possible questions in, so she can be as thorough as possible. Clara has a choice to make and she doesn't want to get it wrong, for the sake of everyone.

(I'm imaging this gang of people that includes a werewolf and the hottest Cerberus you'll ever know rolling up on a small child (or is he), and it's honestly making me laugh.)

[groundrules]

The kid does indeed want his umbrella!

I can definitely make that interlude happen for you, since that's a thread that solely depends on me and you — what I do want you guys to decide is the logistics, tho! Would it be just Clara-kid and the others assumed in the background, and you can consult them OOCly for any further qs? I think that'd work best from an 'operational' pov, personally.

What I'd like to avoid if possible would be getting too many questions in, in the same PC "round" - that tends to be really overwhelming, so if we can make it question > answer > question > answer, regardless of the final logistics you guys decide, that'd be fab!

[makemeasong]

It definitely would get overwhelming with too much back and forth in between questions and answers, agreed! If a specific character has a question, Clara will work it in, and the few who are keenly invested in this part specifically are welcome to be there. It would make the most sense to have post-convo top levels that, in my head, could all go in the same open post.

Or - in the aftermath, Clara could make a network post to give info, and the meat of the discussion could be done there, duh. That just occurred to me. I think it makes the most sense to gather the questions here and within the narrative, I'll make it clear who was interested in what, if anything. That would probably make it the easiest in terms of pace. God knows Clara is smart but she can't think of it all. Questions might even overlap; what can the umbrella do, why do you need it back, are you actually a kid, etc. etc. It would be helpful to get an idea of what needs to be known and what could be asked if there's time but isn't crucial.

+1 for murder

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob agrees with Connor and Wrathion and is willing to assist.