#rumormonger

Intrigue: Baroness  Magali Turcas, Lady of the Court and Daughter of The King’s justice.

“You know why I brought you here? Because you’re a nobody, and I admire that.  If you were a somebody around this court it invariably means that my father or his father tortured someone very important to you, and that means you’d be to intimidated by me to engage in conversation. Are you intimidated by me? Good, go and fetch us some drinks and I’ll tell you everyone’s dirty little secrets.”

All great courts employ torturers and executioners, but it’s only the cruellest of monarchs who have such need of these grim servants that they’d grant them lands and titles.

Such was the case for the Turcas family, simple but loyal jailers who found themselves elevated when during an attempted palace coup, their patriarch helped prevent the escape of the King’s leading political rival, thereby stifling the nascent rebellion, and preventing a civil war.

Magail Turcas grew up the beneficiary of her father’s windfall, educated along with the children of the court as befitted a young lady of nobility, but was continually excluded due to her family’s infamous reputation. Ever the outsider, Magali became a gossip and rumormonger, exposing the secret weaknesses of her rivals and dismantling reputations with the same vicious practicality that her forebears used to dismantle bodies.

Adventure Hooks

With the old king dying and an executioner sized ax to grind, Magali looks to cement her position as an indispensable fixture of the court, leveraging her web of informants and proxies into an actual spy network. Becoming master of whispers isn’t going to be easy, and she seeks competent agents who don’t mind digging up dirt or slinging mud on her behalf.

Having earned an enemy among the member of nobility, the party is approached by Baroness Magali after they’ve been backed into a corner: Bounties on their head, thrown into prison, assassins out for their blood. Magali offers to remove these obstructions, along with promises of financial and social assistance, provided they’re willing to help her destroy the antagonistic noble, and take public credit for their downfall.

Investigating a crime, the party comes across evidence that an otherwise inconspicuous servant was observing the proceedings and sending coded messages to an unknown benefactor. Breaking the code could provide vital information, but the servant is one of Magali’s loyal spies, and will not betray his mistress, even under threat of violence. IF the party wants this shortcut in their cimesolving escapades, they’ll need to broker a meeting with the would-be spymaster, and perhaps put themselves in her debt in exchange for some much needed clues.

Big day on tumblr and I will try to get all the anons imported here. Political games are afoot, and the Dems can’t seem to help themselves with spreading lie after lie.

The  Jackass of the weekend goes to Kamala Harris! Congratulations Kamala! You believed an NYT tweet that was later taken down after the President recommended that Kavanaugh sue them. Amazing!  It never happened! Good Job!

Kamala,…

Adventure: Trading Tales at The Gilded Lily Teahouse

“Now, I know it sounds impossible, but a good friend of mine once told me....” 

Setup: There’s power in a rumor, power that can make you fall in love,  undermine dynasties, or drive you across continents in search of imagined gold. An adventurer stakes their life and their fortune on rumors, as snapping the one thread of truth out of the incessant babble can mean the difference between getting the job that’ll make your reputation or wandering blindly into some inglorious deathtrap. 

Spies and socialites may collect rumor, but no one deals in it like the staff and proprietors of the Gilded Lily, who mete out snippets of gossip and scraps of lore along with cups of steaming matcha and some of the best food the great forest has to offer. Located in the canopy of an ancient rainforest along several important trade routes, the Gilded Lily’s lofty vantage is meant to remove travelers and patrons from the worries of the world, raise their spirits, and prepare them for some enlightening conversation on what has traditionally been neutral ground between the world’s great powers. 

It’s famously said that all stories eventually pass through the fabled teahouse’s doors, and it’s just a matter of pulling up a chair and waiting long enough for that to occur, a fact made all the better by the never ending cycle of entertainers on the Teahouse stage, or the reasonable rates the lily charges for renting a room. 

Adventure Hooks

While baseless speculation, gossip, and outright lies flourish in the teahouse’s common room , those who want to trade in real information seek out the Rumormongers, an official position on the Lily’s staff held by those of greatest seniority and trust. Guests can earn credit towards their stay by supplying the Rumormongers with details from their travels, which are studiously appraised along with any corroborating evidence and reimbursed with tokens representing discounts and vouchers for the tavern’s various services.  Other guests can pay a fee to verify information they’ve heard with the Rumormongers, with the caveat that none of their collected information is “fact”, merely the accumulated rumors, possibly including several different accounts or even a red herring or two. The Rumormongers do a brisk business with this trade, and regulars compete to see who can be the first to bring back the freshest, juiciest tidbit of information to add to their lines of credit. 

Knowing that rumors of his presence would flow across the continent should he hold up at the Gilded Lily, a famed duelist has affixed himself to the teahouse’s  commonroom for many months waiting for his rival to leap from the shadows and attempt to assassinate him. Their fated duel  just so happens to occur when the party is looking to unwind or do some business at the establishment, and they’ll need to decide quickly which they may favor, the ruthless but seemingly justified assassin, or the bloodied swordsman who’s become a drinking companion to them over their many visits. 

Player home: Duskwater Manor

Adventure Hooks:

Bruised, blooded, and exhausted after their last disastrous expedition, the party finds themselves on the doorstep of a grand lakeside estate, welcomed in by the few servants who maintain the grounds and provided a place to rest and refresh themselves. A true and lifesaving boon to be sure, but what exactly is this place, and why is it that the oft referred to mistress of the house never quite makes an appearance?

While in the company of some more seasoned adventurers, the party hears tell of a place called Duskwater Manor, a sort of clubhouse or retreat exclusive to those who've "made it" as wandering explorers and do-gooders. If the party wants to join this esteemed society, they'll need to bolster their reputation as local heroes, earning the respect of their peers and whatever unseen benefactor offers access to this manse.

Actually FINDING Duskwater Manor can be quite convoluted, as few in the nearby settlement actually recognize the name. Rather than instructions, the invitation the party may receive ( or stumble across in the course of their adventures) contains a few pleasantries and a hand drawn map depicting a stretch of the local lakeside. The heroes will need to put their cartographic skills to the test, searching out the area on foot or perhaps hiring a boat to survey the lake itself.

Setup: Built on the edge of a lake famous for the way it reflects and refracts the colors of the setting sun, Duskwater Manor is a scenic sanctuary located on the edge of civilized land, a perfect place of respite for those heading to/from adventurers in the greater wilderness.

While it was originally built as a small fortress meant to protect the town on the other side of the lake from raiders and river pirates, the structure was eventually abandoned and became a lair for wandering monsters. When a group of adventurers were hired to drive these monsters out, they fell in love with the beautiful lakeside views, and decided to refurbish the crumbling fortification as their base of operation. Generations later, Duskwater Manor is a haven for the wayward, providing a home for all those who venture far in service to the greater good.

Further Adventures:

Travelers and bravos congregate by the Manor's hearth, recuperating after long journeys abroad or simply preferring the scenery to the clutter of the nearby town. While some prefer to spend these days in solitude wandering the grounds, others cluster by the hearth or in the halls, trading boasts and stories of their travels. If the party keeps an ear out, these gossips can be an endless source of new adventure hooks, sharing tales of near and far and mysteries waiting to be explored.

Like any great house, Duskwater Manor employs people to take care of it, though the staff is largely limited to a few servants and groundskeepers, as well as a bargeman who ferries supplies and guests to and from town when offered the proper incentive. By far the most notable of this staff is the gnomish librarian Forebeth Valchi, the niece of one of the original adventurers who took Duskwater as their home. An ardent bibliophile and keeper of knowledge, Forebeth has a special interest in tales of dragons, and is delighted to speak with any who might share rumors or accounts of them. A party who befriends Forebeth can get leads on lost hordes, on wyrms still marauding out in the wilderness. They might even be able to bribe her with salvaged draconic scales or teeth for access to the Manor's restricted books and other secrets.

Though the servants speak of her with Reverance, and the guests toast to her each night, the Mistress of the Manor remains unnamed and unseen, making her will known through intermediaries or notes slipped under doors in the dead of night. Guessing at the Mistress's identity is a popular pastime among local adventures, with leading theories being a scandalized offshoot of the ruling family, a victim of a faerie curse of anonymity, or the ghost of one of the original adventures.

Art 1

Adventure: Love, Flotsam, and Other things lost to the Tide. 

Setup: A romance has bloomed between two hucksters, a mermaid who steals from sunken ships and a burglar who passes himself off as a monk while fencing the relics from the ruins along the shore. They flirt, steal kisses and each other's prizes, trading gossip, insults and treasures with equal aplomb. 

Now one of them has gone missing, and the other seeks the party’s help in tracking down their pilfering Paramour. Is this an honest plea? or just the setup for another con? 

Adventure Hooks: 

The Drownglory Coast was once the sight of religious pilgrimage, where generations of worshipers came to wash themselves in waters as a dawntime ritual turned the coastline into a mass of gold. That was before the typhoon hit, destroying the temples their devout charity had erected and kickstarting a process of rappid erosion that’s continued to see the sea eat more land with each passing year. A glorious place for scavengers and mudlarks of all kinds. 

The party can encounter mermaid Idella during their travels along the shore, though she’s liable to spring up in any river or port she feels might give her access to gullible folk who might be too stupified by her alien nature to see her con.  She barters little trinkets of shell and seaglass for stories of the land, all the while combing them for information on potential new routes to plunder.  After that, it’s a quick work of putting a few holes in the hull with her trusty auger and the salvage is all hers.