(One of you want to move the data dump into a publicly editable document, so we can all try to keep it updated together? Feel free to hold any purchases from the slaver you want, add anybody you think is important to contacts, and don't track hexes unless they are applied to important characters. I'll make a point of backing it up every so often in case the trolls show up.)
(New demons are Niechbaux whose hex relates to smithing, alchemy, armor, honorable combat, and work ethic. Tug-Aveeix, whose hex relates to enchantment, mining, management, flight, and servitude to Niechbaux. Oougf, whose hex relates to goblin biology, trade, prospecting, demonic materials, and servitude to Niechbaux)
(All the talk after midnight pacific time ninja'd me. Feel free to repost any of it if you still think it is relevant. I will remind you that Syzzik said powder weapons are a Gearport thing.)
(Also, I just noticed that in Angie Pence I made a female member of the supposedly all male inquisition. Cookie to the person who comes up with the best story to explain away my mistake.)
2334th Year of Man, 5th Month, 11th Day:
WednesdayBefore proceeding, you briefly go over the knowledge you have on vampires. The rules governing vampires vary depending on the soul cleaner who makes them, but in general they can infect the bodies and souls of others through the exchange of bodily fluids. Most (including the ones you can get from the family business) drink living blood, but some are fully carnivorous and reproduce via intimacy. A vampire can use necromancy or almost any magic relating to life energy or souls (Hex Weaving, Druidism, Enchantment, Drowish Magic, ect) to prevent the infection from spreading, but must otherwise kill anybody they swap fluids with to prevent an outbreak.
Smart vampires do not allow their brood to grow too big, so as to avoid detection. You doubt Ms. Lou would allow her brood to grow beyond ten offspring in a city of this size. As a vampire controls its spawn like a necromancer controls its creation, population control is simpily a matter of instructing the dumb ones not to engage in behavior that can lead to more vampires. Particularly clever vampires will only turn others who have the magical skills necessary to prevent infection, so that they don't have to kill everybody they feed upon or sleep with.
You inform Ms. Lou that you no longer require dark workstations, but you would be willing to offer her brood protection under other terms. First you require income, that shall come in the form of either shares in her company, or souls.
In terms of souls, Ms. Lou notes that she has people who can collect them, but that she can't afford to have those individuals go out of their way to go manhunting for you. Her enchanters usually gather seven to ten a month, and she would be willing to give you half of that rounded down. The soul output could be increased if you were to tell Gregory to turn his back to her company, allowing them to take assassination jobs and other lethal work in town. Ms. Lou is a Hex Weaver herself, and if you gave her the appropriate hex, she could both teach it to the other weavers in her group, order them to use it before killing, and even deploy it herself whenever she takes a meal home.
The idea of giving you shares makes her nervous. Redding is her largest minority sharholder, and he would be in a position to launch a hostile takeover if she gave more shares to his friends. That said, however, she would be willing to give you 15% stake if you sign an agreement denouncing your right to vote on matters regarding the leadership or sale of the company. As much of the companies profit comes from long term jobs in orc country that often take more than a month to complete, her stock pays quarterly at the end of the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th months. Payout is highly variable in mercenary work, and Ms. Lou suggests your 15% would net you fifteen to sixty thousand quarterly. She would also be willing to give you nine thousand a month in straight silver instead.
Ms. Lou is willing to support disposing of Trevor, but isn't keen on giving all his influence to Redding, who will likely skip town and focus on ruling the duchy if you win your little scuffle with the prince, and die if you fail. She thinks the mercenary community deserves more stable leadership, somebody both long-lived and likely to remain in town for a long time. Naturally she proposes herself first, but proposes the Redvine Brothers, a pair of elves who are very close to Redding's interests, as her second pick. She also suggests Greent, who has been aggressively winning influence on his own of late, but you know enough about him to think twice about giving the boy more power.
As an alternate plan, to prevent all the unknown elements from crawling out of the woodwork and trying to grab power for themselves once Trevor is discredited, Ms. Lou could make the man the inaugural member of her brood and bend her new spawn to her will. She suggests a few mercenary companies may catch on and object, but it is pretty sure the results will be much less chaotic than they would be if you just let Trevor self destruct.
---
You explain the situation involving Yaas and Fortune to Pogpugrooog, and offer her Yaugur's protection. The demon pauses to consider the implications.
"Tetha sent those? That means they will be back when she notices that Fortune's blindness has not been restored and Yaas still lives... this bodes poorly... unless..."
The chubby Succubus smirks, "We turn the tables on her. Are you a binder Maeris?"
"No..." you answer, unsure of where the gossip is going.
"I can fix that. Here is what we do; I give you your hex sign, and you get Yaugur over here. When the goons return, we beat them into submission, and force them to take your Hex. Between the influence of even an unskilled binder, and my powers of seduction, we can force them to serve me."
"And what would I gain from this?""A lot. In the longrun. Tetha is weak. Her resources and influence are limited. If we humiliate her publicly by stripping her of her goons, and declare that we control the fate of her biggest prophecy, we can do one of two things. First off, we could build a collation to destroy her, she is weak enough all ready, and if we expose her vulnerbility, demons would line up for a shot at taking her down and sharing in the spoils. Alternatively, we could threaten to bring about her destruction, and to prevent Fortune from fulfilling the prophecy, and extort the crap out of her. If we pull that off, the reward would be smaller, but we would only have to split it between me and you."This could easily be a trap, Pogpugrooog could easily put a nasty hex on you or apply her powers of seduction. 'Get in the summoning circle so that I may make you a binder' is one of the oldest tricks in the book. That said, the logic behind her plan makes sense, and you could bring in Yaugur first to watch her when you expose yourself, or merely get your hex sign somewhere else.
---
You and Virgil go deep into the night pouring over the documents. He takes the charts, tables, graphs, and other technical stuff, and you read over the log and a bunch of incident reports.
It gets exiting quickly. The scale of the shrine, as hinted in the log, is several square city blocks. This means that it may lie on the territory of several of the Ruins Clans. The log also suggests that there is a construction entrance in the enchanter's vault, but seeing as you saw no way to go deeper, it must be either hidden or sealed off. As the evidence now points to the shrine being underground, you ask Virgil why some earth mage hasn't detected it by now. He suggests asking somebody familiar with the topic.
As Redding isn't around, a few Clan Ivy casters are sent for, and after being sworn to secrecy, they come up with two theories. The mundane answer is that it is just very deep. The upper limit on earth sensing for most orcs and humans is about a thousand feet straight down. Dwarves and orcish bloodlines dedicated to nature magic can get a mile, and the high bloodlines of Clan Ape can sense for two miles. They hear tell that some surface elves can sense for two and a half miles, and that members of the deep races can supposedly go much further than that.
The second theory is that some material or magic that prevents detection via nature magic is being employed at the shrine. You salivate at the thought; It would take alot of rare material, or a mighty power source, to cover an area the size of what the shrine is implied to be. Logic seems to dictate that the second theory is more likely to be true; If the shrine was just deep underground, some mercenary would have been talented enough to detect it over following centuries, and you would have noted at some complaint about the climb to and from the worksite in the documents you have been reading.
Virgil also manages to dig up some interesting information as well. The first document is a blueprint of twenty foot tall statue of an orc made out of Purity Metal, a snow white alchemist metal containing both gold and silver known for channeling or containing divine magic depending on its exact makeup. Virgil notes the metal appears enchanted with energy from some sort of chemical reaction, and that the strength of the enchantment is equiviliant to that of ten thousand standard souls. Virgil seems impressed, and notes that most major artifacts are enchanted with only fifty to two hundred soul units of power. He further notes that the statue seems to be only a third of the density one would expect it to be, and that he might be able to work out the function of the whole thing if provided with the right reference materials.
"I'm afraid I'm rather new to town, Maeris. Could you ask any enchanters or alchemists you know if they have a text containing a chart of the enchanted properties of Purity Metal cross referenced against the commonly used techniques of The Kingdom's priestly orders? Snakeyes dosn't seem like the sort of bookish type to keep something like that."He passes the blueprint to you, hoping that your knowledge of lore might shed some light on the shape. You consider it briefly. The Orc depicted is an aroused male, and an orcish statue standing at attention is a sign that the being depicted is of extreme importance: Usually a deity or demigod, but possibly a long-serving and beloved chief from a very powerful clan. It is holding both a maul and a quill pen, which helps narrow it down. The maul and quill pen are symbols of Mako, an orcish deity that is thought to have been killed at least three centuries before the alleged construction of the shrine. Putting aside the maul (it is possible that the designer just wanted the statue to be armed), the quill alone indicates a few other beings; Cayde, the deity of diplomacy worshiped by House Roe and its descendants, is sometimes depicted with such an implement, but Cayde was one of two Savvanah Orc deities to have its own priestly order during the Gulf Dynasty, so you can't imagine it needing a top secret shrine. Cayde also had a short lived Demi-God daughter named Cayve, who ascended to godhood around the time the shrine was built, only to be struck down by the human pantheon during the war to dislodge the Gulf Dynasty, but seeing as the statue depicts a male Orc, you doubt it relates to Cayve.
Virgil also finds a rudimentary map of entrances to the temple. The map is not to scale, and seems to have been made as a reference for construction workers.
"It will be a pain, but I might be able to find another entrance if I had a more accurate map of the ruins district to compare this to... I think the most recent survey of the area was done by Talkot Bonedust around a century ago. I forget if he included any maps or not... I know he lived long enough that some of the older Bonedusts likely still remember him, can you see if anybody in your family knows enough about his work to help me work out this map."You have several ways to get the information Virgil needs. You could ask Talcutta to look at the map directly, but that could be a double edged sword; Your great-grandfather puts adventure and wanderlust before all else, so if he catches on that you are going after the lost shrine of Roe River City, there is a good chance he might demand to be summoned into town and harass every living and ascended bonedust for the resources to mount a proper expedition. You have no doubt the project would be far more important to him than some succession crisis, and thus he could easily become a liability.
On the topic of liability, Dreamer is working on transcribing parts of your ancestor's journal that relate to his time on the South Bank. You read the first hand accounts of Talkot's adventures many times as a kid, and are pretty sure that what Dreamer is translating should include the map Virgil needs. Lastly, you could try to get your mother and uncle to send you the original copy of the journal, but as the original copy of an infamously popular (and widely banned) adventure story/guide to performing dark magic, it is priceless. Since the tome is popular, however, you might be able to find a copy at the market. The official report derived from it may still be in town records as well, so it may be worth asking Gregory.
Eventually, you are both too tired to continue, and head to bed with many documents left to explore. On your way to your room you bump into Dean, who no longer seems to get tired. You instruct him to spread enough hexes in Ovinsial's name to support a network of five summoning circles, get the unlimited messages to the goblin lords package, and hold the items you want that Ovinsial sells.
2334th Year of Man, 5th Month, 12th Day:
WednesdayAny elation Virgil might have felt is wiped away by the messenger who arrives over breakfast. His wife Lanette was executed by Clarence Rothwell for commanding more men than a Gulf is permitted to, which you know to be bullshit twice over; Not only was Virgil never over the quota, but Lanette was merely considered a Countess Consort, and should not have been considered responsible for the state of Gulf County.
The color drains from Virgil's face as the messenger continues the story. Gina and Tobias Lakeland, Virgil's daughter and son-in-law respectively, had come to Gulf County from their home across the border in Tradewind Duchy, to investigate why Rothwell was leading a host onto Virgil's land. When they arrived, Clarence invited them into his camp as guests, but twenty four hours later they were executed with their mother on charges of interfering with legal proceedings, which is not a crime you have ever seen punished by death before.
After hearing the story, Virgil retreats to his room for a good cry. You spend a few minutes comforting as best you can, before you have to head to class. As you leave, Fortune pulls you aside, and whispers in your ear.
"Next week word will reach us that Clarence killed Uncle Virgil's grandkids as well... He will try to kill himself the night he gets the news."Well... at least granting your daughter sight didn't mess with her prophetic abilities.
You decide to bring Lilly along to classes today, instructing her not to grab any souls. She promises to behave, but it is not like she has a choice in the matter.
Potion class moves slowly again, but at least you finish up covering the still, and also manage to get through the specialized potion still and the additional functions it offers. Tomorrow you could either cover the Sealing Station, or move right into a simple recipe, holding off on the last piece of equipment until you reach a recipe that requires it. Palm seems to know something is strange about Lilly, and goes out of her way to 'torture' her. You doubt any dreams you might have of Palm falling into the trap of the Sorrow's Daughter are likely to materialize.
Dark Magic class is a bit more boring than you had hoped. Nobody makes a breakthrough in the hex weaving department, so after an agonizing first half of the session, you move onto your discussion of demon lore.
You were going to see if Lilly could give a nice demonstration of demonic power, but sadly Angie Pence is an inquisitor, detects that your 'servant' is in fact a demon, and ruins the surprise for everybody else. At least the discussion is engaging; Finch, Lilly, and Greent all know their fair share of demon lore, and Angie knows enough to teach the class herself if she wanted; The study of demon lore, as it turns out, is a large part of inquisitorial training.
The best move for tomorrow's summoning lesson is to continue to lecture on demon lore, while also teaching them to summon imps or bind lesser demons. You suppose with Angie around, it is pretty safe to let them repeatedly bind and unbind Lilly for practice.
After your students leave, you begin to engage in some demonic business, and as you make your first call at the stage, you wonder if it might benefit your students if you invite them to stay late and watch on the days you conduct business after school.
Briefly checking in with Talcutta to pick up his Hex Sign, your first call is to Niechbaux, who seems annoyed that a random practitioner has contacted him at first, but agrees to settle down for a chat once you tell him who you are and what Haggen has offered you.
Niechbaux informs you that his agreement with his previous lord was for him to annually provide the parts required to retrofit one warship and four fishing vessels with components made from demonic materials, which is valued at just under a hundred souls. The curse:blessing ration for the bosses is 2:1, and the overboss gets ten hexes free (He'll provide you 3:1 blessing in the meantime). He also provided the overboss with either ten souls sealed away in common metal, or twelve souls in store credit, a month. He allowed the bosses of Axebeach to contract up to five of his Midasmen, a genus of lesser demons that can transmute particularly greedy mortals into metal statues and are also skilled enchanters and alchemists, for no cost other than a quarter of the metal and souls they capture from mortals. All five free Midasmen are currently contracted to Axebeach's Underbosses, however. Lastly, Niechbaux serves as a messenger between the bosses, all of whom either practice dark magic, or employ a dark mage to run a projection stage.
In return for these services, the bosses of Axebeach were forbidden from using Niechbaux's competition where avoidable, and also made to mandate that all Dark Mages under their control follow the same rule. Niechbaux keeps his inner sanctum habitable for mortals, and his lord is required to send at least five hundred troops, including at least thirty casters, should it look like said sanctum might be breached. Lastly, Niechbaux receives a 5% portion of all materials produced by an alchemist that are either made in or imported to Axebeach's lands, save for materials owned by or earmarked for the gang or one of its bosses.
Niechbaux informs you that these terms can be negotiated at any time, but both parties must agree for any change to be made. You note that this agreement lacks the usual 'Vassal will follow reasonable orders' and 'lord gets to approve prices' clauses.
When you mention you are also tied to a soul cleaner who is looking to find his clients some inorganic undead. Niechbaux mentions that he is happy with the rate his undead are selling at the moment, but if you become lord he will conduct an audit to see if he can allot resources from somewhere else to make more for you. He also mentions that he might look to unload his backlog of souls prepped to become Punisher Golems soon, as large amounts of silver is required to make them, which has become rare in Axebeach; He has been told that Axebeach smuggles most of its silver in from the Southeasternmost corner of human lands, and that some sort of civil dispute over inheritance there has disrupted the supply chain. You decline to mention your involvement in that situation at this time, and ask to see his stock.
He notes that he sells materials by the sheet. A sheet of material is 2ftx6ftx.5ft, and can provide enough material to produce a full set of armor for four goblins, two humans, or one and a half orcs. He notes that most of the materials he sells cannot be worked by the tools and techniques of typical human smiths, and that if you intend to buy raw materials and do your own smithing, to find somebody who specializes in demonic constructions. When you hear about his disenchantment service, you suppose that may be a good way to get rid of that soulglass.
Niechbaux's Stock:Materials:
Standard Demonic Material - Purchase for 2 sheets per soul. Known has 'hide' to the smiths who work it, the most commonly used demonic material is no heavier than studded leather, and significantly tougher than steel.
Light Demonic Material - Purchase for 4.5 sheets per soul. Known has 'hair' to the smiths who work it, this cheap compound of copper and hide is slightly inferior to steel in most ways, but can be worked by anybody who knows how to work with bronze. It is very flexible, and great at making mechanism and other moving parts.
Joker's Steel - Purchase for 3 souls per sheet. This strange steel-like substances passes through most other metals as if they are not even there. This means the material is very hard to work with, makes terrible armor, but great weapons.
Kraken's Beak - Purchase for 4 sheets per soul. Very durable. Too heavy to make armor or weapons from, this material is supernaturally buoyant in water. Used to armor some of Axebeach's more serious warships and the fishingboats that hunt megafauna in the Gulf of Monsters. It is said to glow at a frequency very attractive to the eyes of deep-sea dwellers.
Demonskin - Purchase for 6 souls per sheet. When worked properly becomes a light cloth that provides a similar level of protection to copper armor. When worked properly, it becomes real thin, so a properly used sheet can clothes dozens.
Fiend's Lung - Purchase for 4 souls per sheet. When worked properly becomes a light cloth. A person who's body is at least half covered in Fiend's Lung is protected from most of the inhabitable elements of demonic realms.
Snakeskin - Purchase for 3 sheets per soul. Brittle and useless on its own, it can be combined with organic materials in many interesting ways using a combination of necromancy, alchemy, and a standard furnace.
Services:
Disenchantment - Niechbauch will take an enchanted item, extract any magical energy within, destroying it, and pays out an amount of souls equivalent to half the energy he is able to extract. Enterprising enchanters with access to power sources other than souls may find this an ethical way to gain credit with demons.
Magical Material Work - Niechbauch will take orders for almost any alchemy or enchantment job, assuming materials he cannot get are provided. Useful to people who would rather pay in souls than coin.
Demonic Crafting - Niechbauch will take custom orders and smith nearly anything he can from the materials he sells. Prices vary depending on the size and complexity of the job, but he will always be willing to equip four soldiers with undecorated gear of the purchasers choosing for one soul plus material costs.
Golem Crafting - Niechbauch will build and animate bodies for your golems if you purchase the soul from him. He can build Chain Stranglers and armor wraiths from 1-3 sheets of any material he sells, and Divine Mechs out of 20-50 sheets. Niechbauch charges 10% of the combined cost of souls and materials to build golems. Punisher Golems and Bronze Collousi require specific materials which he may or may not have, and construction of such creatures will be negotiated on a case by case basis.
Talent Agent - Niechbauch will give at least double value for all souls skilled in mundane crafting skills, triple for souls skilled specifically in metal or furnace work, and fives times the amount for souls skilled in magical crafting skills.
Prepared Souls:
Bronze Colossus, Formerly Dwarven Earth Mage and King - 50 Souls, 1 in stock
Bronze Colossus, Formerly Goblin Pirate Lord - 35 Souls, 1 in stock
Chain Strangler, Formerly Goblin Slave - 3 Souls, 15 in stock
Chain Strangler, Formerly Goblin Lasher - 5 Souls, 4 in stock
Armor Wraith, Formerly Goblin Conscript - 3 Souls, 7 in stock
Armor Wraith, Formerly Orcish Elite Soldier - 5 Souls, 2 in stock
Armor Wraith, Formerly Human Dark Mage and Ranger - 7 Souls, 1 in stock
Punnisher Golem, Formerly Drowish Refugee - 7 Souls, 22 in stock
Punnisher Golem, Formerly Orcish Elite Ranger - 10 Souls, 5 in stock
Divine Mech, Formerly Orcish Shaman - 12 Souls, 6 in stock
Divine Mech, Formerly Kappa Titanic Priest - 18 Souls, 1 in stock
You call Ovnisial, who informs you he has received Dean's hexes. Your network is ready once you have the contact information, and you can start messaging important Goblins, such as Haggen, at once.
With that out of the way, you ask him to appraise the soul glass. You show the demon a small bit you brought with you, and tell him the amount you have. He offers five souls for the lot of it; You are pretty sure Niechbauch could get you more for the glass... Still, you ask him about the noblemen, and he informs you that one actually has some experience in that particular trade; You find this a bit shocking, as most drow prefer naturally occurring gems to glass.
Lastly you ask to be put in contact with Nahurgelth Ves. It takes them a few minutes to set up the link, and you are warned not to trust the bastard in the meantime. Glowing brains are particularly dangerous creatures; If they get close to an organic being, they can hijack its brain directly, and unlike means of controlling people that target the body, soul, or hormones, there is no know defense against brain control save for not having an organic brain, and the divine magic of a few obscure deities. This is not something you want to trust until you have it contracted.
Nahurgelth Ves is both polite and brutally honest. It admits that if freed but not properly controlled, it will seize your mind in an instant. It finds your offer regarding Axebeach to be interesting, but is too prideful to serve a being weaker than itself. It is sick of captivity however, and after reading your mind (something you are shocked it can do over such a short distance) it notes that it respects and covets your kinship to Clan Ivy, and would like to become one of Trance's underlings if that could be arranged, and that it would be willing to look after your interests in Axebeach for a few years if you made a good faith effort towards meeting its wish.
---
After all your classes and demonic negoiations, you meet up with Rash for a tour of the properties seized. Joss' shop is the main prize, although all the raw metal and even coal has been taken by the soldiers, the workstations alone should sell a pretty penny, or perhaps a soul or two, if you decide to dump em and do something else with the good sized building. Joss was also kind enough to leave you his small riverside mansion, and his boathouse, which includes a canoe capable of getting a half dozen people and a bit of cargo across the Roe River.
Aside from Joss' holdings, you got two large apartments in a nice building, five decent apartments made for middle-class tradesmen, and twenty five crappy apartments in the orcish slums. You also still have to decide the fate of four human orphans, and a half-breed orphan whose other parent is from some exotic race you do not recognize.
Nice mix of the good and bad this time. Lets see what you crazy people come up with this time.
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Topic: (SG) The Redleaf Epic (Formerly Widow: A Duchess Scorned) (Read 66297 times)