Hostus visits the archive near the Senate house and queues for seeking a list of certain senatrixes. It almost only, or even only slaves, there, at least this early in the morning. It makes sense, many many plebeians and nobiles are probably either queueing at their patron's house or holding their on reception for clients. The queue goes very slow and the slaves are exactly chatty with someone dressed as a plebeian. Finally he gets to ask a slave for a list of sentrixes above a certain property level and belonging to the optimates fraction. The criteria is set to single out senatrixes that could put pressure on senatrix Falernus to do thing she wouldn't do voluntarily. The slave points out that personal preferences ofcourse aren't noted in the archive. Hostus manages to convince him to use whatever he and his colleagues know about the senatrixes to compile the list. The list will at least take to late next work day to compile.
Claudius brings his tools of trade and visits the people's tribune Maemilius domus (city house) and offers his skills since it's in a few days are Ludi plebeii (The plebeian games). He also makes a point of that he offers his services in the household so that no one needs to interrupt their regular task more than necessary. The doorkeeper takes his name, looks at his diploma (citizenship plate), luckily never asks for collegia membership and tells Hostus to show up early the next morning.
In the meantime Paulla visits the senatrix Falernus' domus acting as a festoon maker and decorator offering her skills for the ludi plebeii. The doorman actually says that they are interested in festoon for the front of the house and maybe a few small potted trees for the courtyard in the back as well. They directly orders regular festoons for the house front and will tell her which trees and how many they want when she arrives early tomorrow. Paulla goes to one of the researched festoon makers and orders festoon and asks if it would be possible to get some potted trees the next day which might be possible.
Hostus takes the opportunity to asking around among the queueing slaves and parting from av few assarius (bronze coins) and finds out what the supposedly important meeting that risks to be cancelled is about. Apparently the senate are gonna decide on what to with Gaius Julius who hasn't returned and laid down his office and imperium as he should.
Later when eating together the characters discuss whether it could be that someone wants to cancel that meeting by claiming to have seen an omen that would cancel the meeting. That would in that case probably be an populares since they would support Gaius Julius and want him to not be stripped of his office and accussed of anything. Falernus who has made the claim is an optimates which confuses them a little because that doesn't fit with the theory of someone wanting to cancel the meeting.It could on the other hand be an optimates seeing the omen but not wanting to go against their on fraction but still not wanting to disregard the gods and goddesses and therefore forces a client to make the claim instead. A third theory is that someone was at Forum and noticed the omen but for some reason can't reveal that they were at Forum and therefore forces a client to make the claim.
The next day Paulla and Hostus buys festoons and arrive with these at the Falernus household and start to decorate the house as agreed. In the meantime Claudius works the hair styles of the slaves in the Maemilius household and helos them with some minor wounds and other health issues. After a while he is fetched by Maemilius' body slave "because domina wants to see you". Surprised Hostus follows the slave and gets to meet a very absent-minded tribune that asks a few questions on Hostus and his profession, The atrium diverges quite much from the regular nobiles atrium and instead of geometric patterns or actual naturalistic motives there's cogs and architect's tools pictured on the walls and in the floor mosaic. A geek's household. There's also a certain undistorted greek touch to the paintings, mosaic: Greece is popular with upper lavel Romans but usually romanised in names, visual style and so but not in this household.
Claudius spends the whole day doing the hair, shaving and taking care of smaller health problems of servants at the Maemilius household. He uses all his social skills that has served him well before when he had his barbershop to fish for information about the household and ultimately information about what happened at Forum that morning when People's tribune Maemilius was there and a wolf crossed Forum. He soon picks up and puts together a certain discontent with the households domina (female family head and head of the household) from many of the slaves who are of Roman descent or have been in Rome so long that they are romanised. Apparently she, according to them, are very absent-minded, rather sits with copies of scrolls from Alexandria than doing proper Roman stuff and is an open graecophile in a non-romanised way. In many ways a geek or nerd personality. In time he puts the pieces together and finds out that Maemilius with servants was at Forum that morning but they didn't see the wolf and they were going to a meeting with a group of seantors and senatrixes (an inofficial meeting and therefore not in the Senate House) among which was senatrix Falernus which makes it probable that she was at Forum at the correct time.
Paulla and Hostus spends some time putting up festoons at the front of Falernus' domus. A slave appears and asks whether they can get four small potted trees as mentioned yesterday. Paulla says "probably" and mentions the highest price she has seen at the decorators' places. They return the ladder they borrowed from a neighbourhood business and fetch a good portion of the money they have to be able to buy the trees until they get paid by the Falernus household.They manage to buy four small trees in pots at a very high price since it's a spontaneous purchase close to The plebeian games (ludi plebeii) and and borrow a cart to get them to the Falernus household. Arriving with the trees to the backyard of the domus the slave tells them that domina wants two of them inside instead. It's quite unusual but what domina says goes so they take two of them inside. The slave obviously thinks it's slightly embarrassing to point out where to put the outdoors plants inside in the atrium where guests arrive into the atrium and will have to actively avoid the branches of the small trees.
The slave tries to get domina's attention to get an acknowledgement of the placement of the trees but fails since domina seems lost in some scroll in her tablinum (office and client reception room). The slave walks over and cautiously pokes domina to get her attention and domina Falernus comes back from whatever she was reading. While waiting for the absent-minded domina to come and acknowledge their work they realise that the atrium isn't exactly decorated in a Roman way. Instead there's openly greek non-romanised paintings on the wall and the mosaic floor pictures some sort of machine wheel. She's very distracted and doesn't fix the toga as she rises from the chair. She starts to talk about geometry and lines and tells them to move the trees and it becomes even harder to pass through the front door without getting the branches in the face or having a branch catching the toga.Before leaving they also get some food since it's midday. As they talk with some other people hired by the household also eating at the time they realise that domina often places the decorative trees so that they are in way of guests arriving to the house, along those lines she talked about. A certain discontent seems to be bubbling under the surface regarding the non-romanised decorations in the house and domina's fascination for greek stuff.
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Monday, September 11, 2017
Eagle Eyes c10, non-player characters
Non-player characters (updated)
This list isn't complete and may at the same time show information still not revealed in earlier blog posts since I'm a little behind on the game meeting blogging. It's a start of lists the player characters has shown interest for and some information about those non-player characters.Some interesting points in time for the player characters (years before the now in the roleplaying campaign):
- -12 The Caecilii family country estate is burnt to the ground and everyone is killed. Hostus Caecilii och Paulla Nynnia survives by being in Rome at that time. When the money they brought to Rome run out they resort to petty crimes, street performances and scams to make a living and stay out of sight of the ones that might wanna kill off them as well.
- -11 People from a nearby latifundia takes over the empty Caecilii land and starts to use as part of the latifundia land.
- -5 Claudius Piso is thrown out of the collegium and stripped of his place as a barber and suddenly standing on the street without an income or anywhere to practise his profession.
- -3 Claudius, Paulla and Hostus meet in the streets of Rome and with their common background of unfair events team up to help each other out.
- -2 An official claim of the Caecilii land is made by the latifundia owner according to Roman tenure legislation.
- 0 Paulla, Hostus and Claudius is approached by a fellow scammer and criminal who introduses them to people which leads to an offer to join The Eagle. All three joins. Claudius wants his collegium membership and honor back plus somewhere to practise his profession. Paulla and Hostus wants the Caecilii land back for Hostus so that they could stop living in secrecy and start over again. Paulla also has a grandmother who was wrongfully accused of practising the wrong sorts of magic and exiled (denied fire and water within 600 km of Rome.
- 0 The group has success with their test mission for The Eagle and is taken up into The Eagle and four days later get t heir first real missions for The Eagle.
Aelia Falernus Censa
- Patrician
- Nobilies
- Optimates (the aristocratic aristocratic fraction in the senate)
- Senatrix (female member of the senate)
- Claims to have seen a wolf cross Forum romanum, an omen that if true would cancel the next senate meeting (where will be discussed what to do with Gaius Julius who doesn't seem to be willing to lay down his imperium as suppossed).
- Technology geek
- Graecophile
- Under secret investigation by The Eagle, the chosen eyes for this is the player characters.
- Seen at Forum romanum around the time of the wolf crossing the forum
Lucia Maemilius
- Plebeian
- People's tribune
- Technology geek
- Graecophile
- Seen at Forum romanum around the time of the wolf crossing the forum
Ligistinius
- Nobiles
- Associated with senatrix Falernus
- Senator (male member of the senate)
Manilius
- Nobiles
- Populares (the folksy aristocratic fraction in the senate)
- Associated with senatrix Falernus
- Senatrix (female member of the senate)
Livius
- Nobiles
- Equites
- Have had an intense and maybe secret meeting with senatrix Falernus
Ofilius
- Patrician
- Nobiles
- Senatrix (female member of the senate)
Caesa
Folvius
Gaius Julius Caesar
- Nobiles
- Populares (the folksy aristocratic fraction in the senate)
- Senator
- Former consul, -10 yrs
- Former governor - Hither Gaul, -11 to -8 yrs
- Former governor - Hither Gaul & Farther Gaul, -7 to -3 yrs
- Friendly with Gnaeus Pompeius
Marcus Licinius Crassus
- Nobiles
- Senator
- Former consul, -6 yrs
- Famously rich
- Died -4 yrs in battle
Gnaeus Pompeius
- Nobiles
- Populares (the folksy aristocratic fraction in the senate)
- Senator
- Former consul, -3 yrs
- Former consul, -6 yrs
- Former consul, -21 yrs
- Famously defeated the pirates, -18 to -16 yrs
- Famously defeated a lot eastern peoples, -12 yrs
- Friendly with Gaius Julius
Terms
- Patrician, the upper part of the nobiles class of the society. These nobiles claim old and heritage to people in Rome's more or less old history.
- Nobiles, a property based class, the highest in Rome
- Optimates, a fraction among the senators and senatrix that care most for the senate and the upper levels of Romes citizens. They try to limit the influence of the different People's Assemblies and the ten People's Tribunes. They also frown upon Novus homo
- Populares, a fraction ampng the senators and senatrix that care more for the people and balancing their power against the patrician and nobiles power. They often embrace Novus homo if they consider them being of good origin and of good character.
- Novus homo, new person, a non-nobiles that for some reason has been taken up into the senatorial class. It could be e g properties or some flaw in rewards or awards that allows this to happen.
- Senator, a male member of The senate
- Senatrix, a femal member of The senate
- The senate, a governmental body consisting of nobiles
- Graecophile, a person embracing Greek culture in a more open and less romanised way than many Romans.
- The Eagle, a secret organisaiton consisting of three senators or senatrix (one for the people, one for nobiles and one for the spirit of Res publica) that guards the truth and and honesty among the people involved in governing Rome. They also keeps a balance of different movers and shakers in Rome's politics.
- The Eagle's Eyes, the agents of The Eagle, e g the characters
- Res publica, The Common, The shared wealth and interest of the Roman citizens, Public affairs, somewhat similar to The Roman State.
- Consul, one of two implementors of SPQR:s decisions, elected every year
- Imperator, someone with the right to lead troops and judge citizens (imperium), symbolised by accompanying lictors with fasces (axe and rods)
- Governor, head of an area not being Rome, also holds imperium.
Eagle Eyes c10s2
Claudius plans to get inside the house of the people's tribune Maemilius' household by posing as barber (which he actually is but no longer acknowledged as such), maybe he can get inside the senatrix Falernus house hold that way as well.
Paulla and Hostus plans to pose as sellers and decorators of festoons to be able to spy on the house of the senatrix Falernus. They also check prices for festoons to be able to tell prices to the Falernus household responsible and to know that they have enough money to buy the festoons they need until they get paid by Falernus' household.
When Hostus and Paulla returns to home that night after making all the plans and making preparations Hostus almost trips over a large box outside their apartment. They drag it inside and opens it (some effort is needed, it's sealed to be able to be transported. Inside is what looks like a simple but genuine greek vase. After all their greek vase scams they have learned at least something about how the genuine stuff usually looks and feels. Inside the vase is also a small papyrus with a short. "The person in question is graecophile. We assume this could come in handy". The note is very anonymous and the handwriting is very much like the halfway standardised handwriting scribes use. They guess this is a gift from The Eagle and that it could come in handy in making contact with and getting into the Falernus household.
Early in the morning they leave their only togas at the laundry. Claudius also leaves his barber tools for sharpening and polishing.
Hostus and Paulla also decide to stalk Falernus and her clientele after her patron reception of clients. Hostus follows her to a finer wine tavern where she sits down with her body slave, scribe and two body guards that stand guard in a somewhat discrete and relaxed but still obvious manner. She seems to be waiting for someone. Hostus has been standing on the other side of the street for a while, pretending to wait for someone, when a servant-like man comes jogging and rushes into the tavern directly to Falenernus' table a whispers things to her and she seems very surprised. The messenger gets a message back and rushes off and Paulla who has been waiting nearby follows him. He runs to another domus city house)and is gone inside a short while and then returns to the street and jogs off to yet another domus (Ligistinius' city house and is let in after some stressed clapping on the door. The messenger returns again and runs to a third domus (Manilius' city house) and is gone for a while. Paulla waits for a while but then she starts to feel uncomfortable hanging around in the same spot all the time and give up following the messenger further and returns to the tavern where she left Hostus.
After a while a rich citizen appears and meets up with Falernus. The arriving person presents himself as equites Livius and arrives with a scribe and a probable bodyguard. Falernus immediately starts to talk to Livius intensely. Hostus can't hear much but apparently someone has done something. One of the bodyguards seems unnecessarily interested in Hostus which should pass for just a plebeian waiting for someone. This makes Hostus draw the conclusion that they are talking about something important, maybe even secret.
Paulla walks up to Hostus who meets up with Paulla and the walk out of direct sight from the tavern and Hosuts and Paulla tells each other what has happened. Neither of the names is any of the most famous families. Paulla returns to the opposite side of the street of the taverna and continues to spy on Falernus and Livius which now seem to be discussing something. A few loose phrases reach her across the street. Several of the famous senators like Gaius Julius, Pompeius, Crassus, Cicero and Cato the elder is mentioned as is legions and "only one legion" and "playing hardball".
Claudius has been exercising and warming up his barber skills. He has a few customers among the neighbours but that doesn't pay well is only very basic haircuts. Now he wants to do some more advanced haircuts to be able to get into the finer households like Falernus and Maemilius.
Hostus spends some time around Forum romanum talking to people joining spontaneous conversions and gossiping. Seems like most of the names they have encountered lately is optimates or associated to optimates. The not so rich but still well off plebeians around Forum now also put very little faith in the patricians actually following the omen of the wolf on Forum. Most seem to think that the senate will hold their meeting, omen or not. He also manage to get a name of a senatrix that has approximately the same tax level as senatrix Falernus, senatrix Ofilius. Later on the day people suddenly start to talk about one and almost only one thing; Gaius Julius hasn't laid down his imperium (permissions and right to lead armed troops and punish criminals) to return to Rome as a regular senator. Instead he has crossed Rubicon, the border for the non-armed region around Rome which has been crossed by Roman troops during earlier civil wars and when Rome has had to defend the city itself agains Hannibal or the celts.
The characters throw some thoughts around and conclude that if Falernus is lying it's a favour she would only do for someone of higher status than her because it would be very uncommon if she would be a client to someone of lower status. They think that maybe it wasn't Falernus that noticed the wolf but someone else that doesn't want to disregard the omen but for some reason doesn't want to step forward themself, e g because they don't want it to be known that they were at the forum at that time. Since they only know about female members of the senate that has been at Forum that morning they assume that such a person would be a senatrix of higher status than senatrix Falernus. They guess that the archive a the senate could give them a list of female patricians of the same or higher tax level than Falernus, at least for pay.
Paulla and Hostus plans to pose as sellers and decorators of festoons to be able to spy on the house of the senatrix Falernus. They also check prices for festoons to be able to tell prices to the Falernus household responsible and to know that they have enough money to buy the festoons they need until they get paid by Falernus' household.
When Hostus and Paulla returns to home that night after making all the plans and making preparations Hostus almost trips over a large box outside their apartment. They drag it inside and opens it (some effort is needed, it's sealed to be able to be transported. Inside is what looks like a simple but genuine greek vase. After all their greek vase scams they have learned at least something about how the genuine stuff usually looks and feels. Inside the vase is also a small papyrus with a short. "The person in question is graecophile. We assume this could come in handy". The note is very anonymous and the handwriting is very much like the halfway standardised handwriting scribes use. They guess this is a gift from The Eagle and that it could come in handy in making contact with and getting into the Falernus household.
Early in the morning they leave their only togas at the laundry. Claudius also leaves his barber tools for sharpening and polishing.
Hostus and Paulla also decide to stalk Falernus and her clientele after her patron reception of clients. Hostus follows her to a finer wine tavern where she sits down with her body slave, scribe and two body guards that stand guard in a somewhat discrete and relaxed but still obvious manner. She seems to be waiting for someone. Hostus has been standing on the other side of the street for a while, pretending to wait for someone, when a servant-like man comes jogging and rushes into the tavern directly to Falenernus' table a whispers things to her and she seems very surprised. The messenger gets a message back and rushes off and Paulla who has been waiting nearby follows him. He runs to another domus city house)and is gone inside a short while and then returns to the street and jogs off to yet another domus (Ligistinius' city house and is let in after some stressed clapping on the door. The messenger returns again and runs to a third domus (Manilius' city house) and is gone for a while. Paulla waits for a while but then she starts to feel uncomfortable hanging around in the same spot all the time and give up following the messenger further and returns to the tavern where she left Hostus.
After a while a rich citizen appears and meets up with Falernus. The arriving person presents himself as equites Livius and arrives with a scribe and a probable bodyguard. Falernus immediately starts to talk to Livius intensely. Hostus can't hear much but apparently someone has done something. One of the bodyguards seems unnecessarily interested in Hostus which should pass for just a plebeian waiting for someone. This makes Hostus draw the conclusion that they are talking about something important, maybe even secret.
Paulla walks up to Hostus who meets up with Paulla and the walk out of direct sight from the tavern and Hosuts and Paulla tells each other what has happened. Neither of the names is any of the most famous families. Paulla returns to the opposite side of the street of the taverna and continues to spy on Falernus and Livius which now seem to be discussing something. A few loose phrases reach her across the street. Several of the famous senators like Gaius Julius, Pompeius, Crassus, Cicero and Cato the elder is mentioned as is legions and "only one legion" and "playing hardball".
Claudius has been exercising and warming up his barber skills. He has a few customers among the neighbours but that doesn't pay well is only very basic haircuts. Now he wants to do some more advanced haircuts to be able to get into the finer households like Falernus and Maemilius.
Hostus spends some time around Forum romanum talking to people joining spontaneous conversions and gossiping. Seems like most of the names they have encountered lately is optimates or associated to optimates. The not so rich but still well off plebeians around Forum now also put very little faith in the patricians actually following the omen of the wolf on Forum. Most seem to think that the senate will hold their meeting, omen or not. He also manage to get a name of a senatrix that has approximately the same tax level as senatrix Falernus, senatrix Ofilius. Later on the day people suddenly start to talk about one and almost only one thing; Gaius Julius hasn't laid down his imperium (permissions and right to lead armed troops and punish criminals) to return to Rome as a regular senator. Instead he has crossed Rubicon, the border for the non-armed region around Rome which has been crossed by Roman troops during earlier civil wars and when Rome has had to defend the city itself agains Hannibal or the celts.
The characters throw some thoughts around and conclude that if Falernus is lying it's a favour she would only do for someone of higher status than her because it would be very uncommon if she would be a client to someone of lower status. They think that maybe it wasn't Falernus that noticed the wolf but someone else that doesn't want to disregard the omen but for some reason doesn't want to step forward themself, e g because they don't want it to be known that they were at the forum at that time. Since they only know about female members of the senate that has been at Forum that morning they assume that such a person would be a senatrix of higher status than senatrix Falernus. They guess that the archive a the senate could give them a list of female patricians of the same or higher tax level than Falernus, at least for pay.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Eagle Eyes c10s1
When the characters show up at The Pig and orders a few mugs of wine they are soon approached by a lonely man who asks if he can join them and have a chat like last time. Since they are waiting for some sort of company they say that he of course can do that. He buys another round of wine and asks if they heard what happened the other day. Apparently a wolf crossed Forum (romanum) which is a potent omen and means that the next senate meeting has to be cancelled. All according to a senatrix named Aelia Falernus Censa. They chat a little and he leaves and in doing so he also hands them a small papyrus saying that their friends are wondering if she actually witnessed that. They realise that someone wants them to find out whether senatrix Falernus actually saw a wolf cross Forum or not but is it The Eagle? Is it some other discrete player that knows that they have dealt in information earlier but on the other hand that's on a whole other level than before. Then it has only been about minor burglaries or scam. Hostus reach over the table and lifts one of the earlier used mugs where he noticed that the man put something earlier during the conversation. It's a small piece of broken pottery with something carved into it on both sides, on one side a simplified eye and on the other side a much simplified bird of prey - most probably an eagle. That settled the last question. The Eagle has given them their first real mission: Find out whether senatrix Falernus actually saw a wolf cross Forum or not.
At Paulla's and Hostus's home they discuss how to digging in this and decide that they should start by visiting the temples situated by Forum romanum and while doing that try to find out if the pontifex (priest) or their assistants have seen anything regarding the wolf and the senatrix.
The next day, early, early, even before sunrise when the donkey and ox drivers are taking the goods into the city (which must be done before the dawn to have the streets cleared when regular citizens use them) Claudius go to Forum or rather the areas close to Forum to search for people that might have seen something. He finds a donkey driver that noticed both a people's tribune and a senatrix at Forum at about the right time.
A little later that morning Paulla dress up in her toga, buys some wine and herbs and goes to the temple of Venus and Roma pretending to be somewhat stressed this morning. She "just happens to" mentioned the event of the wolf and the senatrix as a reason to offer something this specific morning since it disrupts the meeting order of the senate. The deputy priest tries to calm her and says that these things happen and Roma has still continued to prosper. Also, he says, the senatrix and her company that was at Forum that morning didn't seem upset either. The deputy priest didn't see the wolf himself (another assistant did though) and sadly he didn't recognised the senatrix. He just assumed that it was Falernus. The deputy priest and Paulla performs the offering and Paulla leaves with some more information than before; a wolf did actually cross Forum and a senatrix was at Forum about that time with her company.
The same morning Hostus also visits Forum and the notice pillar where decrees and Today's paper is nailed. Today's paper can often contain some interesting gossip about the upper class and now and then some real information but today Hostus look for the paper that lists the latest decrees that have been made (not the whole decrees) and the next senate meeting, hearing and similar events. He then finds out that the next meeting is on the seventh day counting today as the first day. That gives them their absolute latest deadline for finding out whether Falernus saw the wolf cross Forum or not.
They work through the day with their regular slightly provocative plays and monologues while earning some tips and scouting for victims for their favourite scam, selling expensive greek vases to plebeians that either are collectors or want to come off as art connoisseurs.
Hostus stands in a corner of Forum and has monologues and stand-up comedies about the assumed wolf running across Forum but without witnesses trying to provoke someone to contradict him and in that way contribute with some usable information. Paulla stands in the audience trying to observe the other people and also if possible converse people in the audience to get more information. A toga clad woman with a scribe slave or similar suddenly accuses Hostus of dragging honourable citizens in the dirt with his jokes and accusations of people making the whole thing with the wolf up. After a short rethoric fight between her and Hostus Hostus manages to make it look like she too was an artist and gives her the money earned so far. She gets very upset, throws the money back after Hostus and turns on the spot and walks away. Both Hostus and Paulla follows her and finds her joining the last of a short client queue at a client reception at a nice domus. Paulla hangs around like she waiting for someone and manages to pass by when the slave comes out to invite the woman they followed and thereby gets her name, Lucia Maemilius.
At Paulla's and Hostus's home they discuss how to digging in this and decide that they should start by visiting the temples situated by Forum romanum and while doing that try to find out if the pontifex (priest) or their assistants have seen anything regarding the wolf and the senatrix.
The next day, early, early, even before sunrise when the donkey and ox drivers are taking the goods into the city (which must be done before the dawn to have the streets cleared when regular citizens use them) Claudius go to Forum or rather the areas close to Forum to search for people that might have seen something. He finds a donkey driver that noticed both a people's tribune and a senatrix at Forum at about the right time.
A little later that morning Paulla dress up in her toga, buys some wine and herbs and goes to the temple of Venus and Roma pretending to be somewhat stressed this morning. She "just happens to" mentioned the event of the wolf and the senatrix as a reason to offer something this specific morning since it disrupts the meeting order of the senate. The deputy priest tries to calm her and says that these things happen and Roma has still continued to prosper. Also, he says, the senatrix and her company that was at Forum that morning didn't seem upset either. The deputy priest didn't see the wolf himself (another assistant did though) and sadly he didn't recognised the senatrix. He just assumed that it was Falernus. The deputy priest and Paulla performs the offering and Paulla leaves with some more information than before; a wolf did actually cross Forum and a senatrix was at Forum about that time with her company.
The same morning Hostus also visits Forum and the notice pillar where decrees and Today's paper is nailed. Today's paper can often contain some interesting gossip about the upper class and now and then some real information but today Hostus look for the paper that lists the latest decrees that have been made (not the whole decrees) and the next senate meeting, hearing and similar events. He then finds out that the next meeting is on the seventh day counting today as the first day. That gives them their absolute latest deadline for finding out whether Falernus saw the wolf cross Forum or not.
They work through the day with their regular slightly provocative plays and monologues while earning some tips and scouting for victims for their favourite scam, selling expensive greek vases to plebeians that either are collectors or want to come off as art connoisseurs.
Hostus stands in a corner of Forum and has monologues and stand-up comedies about the assumed wolf running across Forum but without witnesses trying to provoke someone to contradict him and in that way contribute with some usable information. Paulla stands in the audience trying to observe the other people and also if possible converse people in the audience to get more information. A toga clad woman with a scribe slave or similar suddenly accuses Hostus of dragging honourable citizens in the dirt with his jokes and accusations of people making the whole thing with the wolf up. After a short rethoric fight between her and Hostus Hostus manages to make it look like she too was an artist and gives her the money earned so far. She gets very upset, throws the money back after Hostus and turns on the spot and walks away. Both Hostus and Paulla follows her and finds her joining the last of a short client queue at a client reception at a nice domus. Paulla hangs around like she waiting for someone and manages to pass by when the slave comes out to invite the woman they followed and thereby gets her name, Lucia Maemilius.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Eagle Eyes c10s0c
After being acknowledged after their test mission the player characters have spent some time with their normal halfway criminal lifestyle. Each day one of them go to the same herbs and spices merchant at one of the fora in the city. Each day a bundle of coriander is asked for and each day a bundle of coriander is paid for but one day Claudius suddenly also get a small piece of rolled up papyrus at the same time. He leaves and teams up with his friends in crime and they check out the paper "At The Pig after workday's end". That's it, the only thing. A very concrete and simple instruction. The Pig is one of the crappier wine places not to far away from the two apartments Claudius and Hostus plus Paulla rents on the fourth floor in a five floor insula. They go about with their regular mix of low level street plays and scouting for possible scams or information to sell to other criminals (like storages that might be easy to empty of valuable items). They actually find an unguarded and unlocked smaller storage area with amphoras at street level in an insula and sell this information at one of the shady wine places they frequent irregularly to sell similar information.
Sunday, July 9, 2017
Eagle Eyes c10s0b
Magneter och Mirakler rules
Magneter och mirakler is a Swedish rules set and game setting. We're using the rules of Magneter och mirakler with the game setting of Eagle Eyes. Rules-wise Magneter och mirakler is quite simple and the principle is that a character have a fixed amount of aspects. We added petitio videtur, the request each Eye makes to The Eagle when he or she assign themselves for service since this is significant both in the setting and in the rules for the original Eagle Eyes (Fate accelerated). Role-playing goes on until there's a conflict of interest regarding where the story goes. When there's a conflict an aspect is used to win the conflict. The conflict could be escalated though and in that case each player or game master rolls a six sided die and add aspects if they want to have an upper hand statistically. The aspect Game setting is used to activate aspects of other player characters or non-player characters than your own. Each aspect has a limit for how many times it could be used in a positive aspect and how many times it could be used in a negative aspect. This is the +X/-Y noted by the aspect further down. Each gaming campaign also has a few themes that can be activated by anyone along with places and items in the story. There's a little more to the rules but that's the main principle. Magneter och mirakler can be found at Kaleidoskop's web site (in Swedish); Magneter och mirakler.Characters
Claudius Piso Caesonius
- Game setting: -5/+5
- Petitio videtur: -3/+3
- Regain membership in collegia and and get back hos luxury barber shop
- Stubborn: -2/+1
- Distorts information: -1/+2
- Steady hands: -1/+2
- Used to seeing blood: -2/+1
- Social: -1/+3
- Vain: -2/+1
- Used to upper class people: -1/+1
- Runner: -3/+1
- Barber: -1/+2
Paulla Nynnia Lamia
- Game setting: -5/+5
- Petitio videtur: -3/+3
- Cancel banishment of her grandmother from Rome, falsely accused of bad magic
- Loyalty to Caecilii: -3/+1
- Business sense: -1/+2
- Nimble-fingered: -1/+1
- Non-squeamish: -1/+2
- Deviating morale: -2/+3
- Singer's voice: -1/+2
- Well-known in her home area: -2/+1
- Organised: -1/+1
- Forefathers' attention: -1/+1
Hostus Caecilii Nasus
- Game setting: -5/+5
- Petitio videtur: -3/+3
- Regain his family's farm
- Vendetta: -2/+2
- Acting: -1/+1
- Loyalty: -2/+3
- Observant: -2/+1
- Acting under pressure: -3/-2
- Fleet-footed: -1/+1
- Dominating: -2/+1
- Hunted: -1/+2
- Nimle-fingered: -1/+1
Eagle Eyes c10s0a
Eagle Eyes is a noiresque setting in ancient Rome, in our case the last period of the Republic. Gaius Juilus is in Gaul and committing genocide to subdue the Gauls to Roman rule while conspiracies is going on in Rome and everyone is wondering what comes next. Unrest stirs among nobiles that don't like G Julius who actually have broken some rules regarding imperium to fullfil his own plans.
Originally Eagle Eyes was written for Fate Accelerated but we're trying out Magneter och mirakler a Swedish rules system originally for another game setting. THe rules are based around the principle of keeping role-playing until there's a conflict in where the story should go, then the rules are used to solve that conflict. The rules aren't traditionally skill based but rather on aspect of the characters. One or more aspects could be close to skill sets, e g a profession, if that's important for what the player want the story to be about.
The characters are of plebeian descent although once successful such. Claudius Piso was a barber in the uptown quarters, Hostus Caecilii was next in line to inherit a medium family farm and Paulla Nynnia was the overseer at the farm. Then bad luck struck them down.
A little more than ten years ago Caecilii's farm was struck by bandits and everyone there was killed and the farm was burned to the ground. Everyone was declared dead and the land as free land (not aeger publicus though) and a nearby latifundia owner took over the land. Luckily for Paulla and Hostus they were on errands in Rome when it happened. Paulla hadn't fully taken over all the task as an overseer but were doing all physically demanding tasks since her mother were becoming old. Hostus was nearly 20 so he was preparing to become young adult and thereby starting to help his father to run the farm for real. Therefore he and Paulla was in Rome to conduct some business when the bandits attacked the farm.
Paulla and Hostus didn't have much money since they only had what coin they had brought to Rome and also need to stay hidden to avoid the risk of getting killed to tie up loose ends. They kept a living as street corner actors and comedians with some swindling if needed.
Approximately five years ago Claudius was thrown out of the collegium and stripped of his place as a barber so that some relative of the master of the collegium could have his place. Claudius money ran out and fueled by lust of revenge he managed a living as swindler, e g selling stolen goods or fake greek artwork.
Close to three years ago the three of them met in the streets of Rome and teamed up to cover for each other down periods and help each other out and in some time even stabilise their common living standard.
Newly another recruit in The Eagles approached them and gave them an offering. Working for The Eagles would make the Sinistram (The Left Hand, the three senators running The Eagle) fullfil whatever wish they had. They enlisted with wishes (petitio videtur, unseen request) of their own and just four days ago managed to complete a test mission and was accepted.
Originally Eagle Eyes was written for Fate Accelerated but we're trying out Magneter och mirakler a Swedish rules system originally for another game setting. THe rules are based around the principle of keeping role-playing until there's a conflict in where the story should go, then the rules are used to solve that conflict. The rules aren't traditionally skill based but rather on aspect of the characters. One or more aspects could be close to skill sets, e g a profession, if that's important for what the player want the story to be about.
The characters are of plebeian descent although once successful such. Claudius Piso was a barber in the uptown quarters, Hostus Caecilii was next in line to inherit a medium family farm and Paulla Nynnia was the overseer at the farm. Then bad luck struck them down.
A little more than ten years ago Caecilii's farm was struck by bandits and everyone there was killed and the farm was burned to the ground. Everyone was declared dead and the land as free land (not aeger publicus though) and a nearby latifundia owner took over the land. Luckily for Paulla and Hostus they were on errands in Rome when it happened. Paulla hadn't fully taken over all the task as an overseer but were doing all physically demanding tasks since her mother were becoming old. Hostus was nearly 20 so he was preparing to become young adult and thereby starting to help his father to run the farm for real. Therefore he and Paulla was in Rome to conduct some business when the bandits attacked the farm.
Paulla and Hostus didn't have much money since they only had what coin they had brought to Rome and also need to stay hidden to avoid the risk of getting killed to tie up loose ends. They kept a living as street corner actors and comedians with some swindling if needed.
Approximately five years ago Claudius was thrown out of the collegium and stripped of his place as a barber so that some relative of the master of the collegium could have his place. Claudius money ran out and fueled by lust of revenge he managed a living as swindler, e g selling stolen goods or fake greek artwork.
Close to three years ago the three of them met in the streets of Rome and teamed up to cover for each other down periods and help each other out and in some time even stabilise their common living standard.
Newly another recruit in The Eagles approached them and gave them an offering. Working for The Eagles would make the Sinistram (The Left Hand, the three senators running The Eagle) fullfil whatever wish they had. They enlisted with wishes (petitio videtur, unseen request) of their own and just four days ago managed to complete a test mission and was accepted.
Monday, January 25, 2016
The Secrets of Cats tARE c6s12
The cats keep their eyes open to hear if anything's going on regarding the eventual war that could be sailing up but so far they don't hear anything directly affecting their burdens. Tyggtass is focusing her reconnaissance activity to close to their street roof where there's been a lot of over-grown pale aggressive rats lately.
Grå takes a short tour to the bath house to check that the hole where one of the big rats came out is still plugged. It is but the uppish cats that live nearby taunt this time as well, emphasises his heritage as a plebeian cat and so forth. He jumps up on the wall of their burden's garden. They get very annoyed by this kind-of-trespassing and tells him to go away. Grå ruffles up hos fur and looks threateningly at them. They're too snotty to be afraid for him although his like 25% more cat than them and that's 25% more muscles than them so he simply quickly pushes them off the wall into the garden and goes on with his business. They hiss and shout after him as he tells them that they're quite bad at defending their territory. He tells them that if they taunt him again he will tear their fur so much they will be ashamed of showing themselves outdoors until it's replaced.
Grå scouts the outdoors area of the bath house when it opens and eavesdrops ont he humans gathering in the park areas to talk and relax. He hears some talk about some constellation of humans that has done some unintelligible human offence and now the discussion goes back and forth regarding whether the Romans should start a war with or if the other people maybe already have done that or if they should let it be. They also talks about whether it's good or bad that so many humans arrive from far ends of the empire and gather up in Rome. Some complain that they can neither read or speak latin but some say that they're hardworking and do a lot of the soldier work in the army and so on.
Later during the day Grå manage to sneak into the bath house entrance when it opens in the afternoon. It's scarily damp and suggests that there's large volumes of water nearby. A lot of the humans goes to a library next to the entrance. Several of the discussions is about the same constellation of humans Grå heard about earlier that has done something that the Roman humans maybe can't just let be. He also hear some slave owner talk about their slaves and Nincilimus. They say that the worship of Nincilimus dampens the discontent among the slaves so it's a good thing to introduce to the slaves.
Tryggtass spends the day sunbathing.
Svansglidaren spends much time at his burden's home to try catch as any rumours as possible about what's going on with the humans. It means that he has to spend times around the slaves though and he doesn't have that fine relationship with one of the three house slaves. The household has one more intellectual slave and one more worker slave plus one door guard slave. The door guard, without realising it himself as the ignorant human he is, is trespassing into Svansglidaren's territory as the guardian of the house. Hence the somewhat estranged relation between him and Svansglidaren.
The two regular household slaves have lately shown a much more positive attitude without any real reason. None in the family has given them any gifts or something lately. Svansglidaren have noticed that they have started to do some sort of shared ritual quite similar to the ritual where the household honours the forefathers. It's almost like they have started a small secret family of their own. When he starts to spy on them he finds out that they have a statuette that he hasn't seen before, here or anywhere else. As he spies further on the slaves he finds out that it's actually more like when humans worship at the temples rather than when they honour the forefathers at the family altar. The statuette is like a very thin man. He doesn't look like any of the regular gods though. He could maybe be Mercurius but he has no greek hat, not staff with wings and snakes and no winged sandals so probably not. It's not Pluto either, no attributes associating to him. It must be some smaller local spirit or being of some kind. They sacrifice some of their bread and even some of their wine which is a very scarce resource for the slaves.
One day the two slaves suddenly start to argue with each other, not a small argument either. Svansglidaren sneaks over to their bedroom where they're shouting to each other about whicever of something is the correct one, which one is the proper one, the authentic one. They seem to be arguing over which spirit being is the correct one. One is the slender man Svansglidaren has seen before and the other seem to be a very round kind of fat man. They both call their respective statuette Nincilimus and after a while the drops their representations of Nincilimus and start to wrestle in the small room until they get a little tired. They stop without really hurting each other, pant and go back to work but the shared ritual is over and the atmosphere is tense for the rest of the day.
In the evening Grå tries to track down the ferret they saved earlier when they killed the big albino rat. Tryggtass continue to "scout" the street roof and Svansglidaren spies on the guests that visit his burden's house. The guests and Svansglidaren's burden discuss the far away constellations of humans that has done something and how to convince more people that this is it. Now it has to be dealt with. It seems like the offerings to Mars is preparations for a war with those far away humans. They also disregards that Nincilimus the slaves worship.
Grå follows the track of the ferret to another insula more to the centre of their region until it suddenly stops dead as if it had taken one giant leap up to the stars. Confused Grå asks some other cats if they've seen a ferret. They don't really know it but they have seen a ferret now and then lately so they assume that a ferret has moved into the area. As Grå continues to sniff around he finds out that the scent track goes all the way very close to the wall as if it would have flown up to the roof whic would make some sort of sense if it could do some strong magic. After all they did meet it on a roof last time. Grå climbs around trying to get up on the top roof but fail and he doesn't find any new trails of the ferret. Grå tries to get some help from two cats he meet e g if there's any way up onto the roof but they obviously are the jokers and clowns of the area and Grå slowly but steadily builds up frustration as he tries to get something that's not a joke from them. Finally after a lot of jokes and misadventures one of them shows the way up to the roof.
Grå walks to the edge of the roof where he would expect a flying magic ferret to arrive if he would have flown up to the roof from where the tracks on the ground stopped. As he walks around he finds the scent of a ferret. He turns to the two cat jokers and asks what that scent is. "Weasel?" one of them says. Grå sighs and annoyed tells them that there lives a ferret in their house and they don't know about it. They don't seem to take that too seriously though. It is strange though because it's on the fourth floor and it's a closed apartment door without any hatch in it. Grå leaves and decides to come back tomorrow and talk to the ferret then, hopefully without the cat jokers.
The two household slaves in Svansglidaren's household is still not too friendly to each other and manage to sleep surprisingly far away from each other in the very small room where they sleep and live when they don't work.
During the night the three cats; Svansglidaren, Tryggtass and Grå shares information with each other and discuss what has happened lately. They speculate that the ferret and the rats are in direct feud with each other and that the weird big rats is after the ferret and that's why they come directly here every time. Also they assume that the ferret knows magic since that would explain why it can disappear and reappear. Maybe the magi ferret has driven the rats from it's own area and now has followed them here to their street roof.
The next day they all go to the insula where Grå followed the ferret. They meet one of the clown cats which Grå presents for the his friends in the most satirical way. The other cat can't be seen until they notis that the parapet on the fourth level has a pair of cat ears almost as if a cat was hiding very badly behind it. Grå presents them as "Clown 1" and "Clown 2". Outside a door they recognise the smell of the ferret. There is a glitch under the door that might be wide enough for a ferret. Tryggtass sniffs at the glitch and don't find much ferret smell at the floor but the door in itself also smells somewhat of ferret at it's lowest part although there's no hatch in the door.
A ferret jumps out through the door and stops dead staring at the three cats outside the door. Grå tries to wrestle the surprised ferret to the ground to stop him from running away. Something weird happens. Grå catches the ferret but still doesn't. It's if they were in the same place at the same time bt without relating to each other and the ferret disappears through the solid door leaving the three surprised cats outside.
"Hey" Tryggtass shouts "we just want to talk to you", "We want to talk about the rats". The ferret is understandably suspicious of them. It takes a lot of diplomacy to get it to crawl out from under the door. It sits warily outside the door, ready to jump away. They explain about the rats and how weirdly big they are and that they break through Svansglidaren's wards. Svansglidaren asks the ferret why a rat would run all over the Capitoline hill to attack him. After some confusion the ferret says that they're probably thinking of his daughter. After some discussion back and forth the ferret agrees that it was he who was there the first time and was sarcastic about the cats not being able to keep the rats at bay. They discuss the rats somewhat and hope that it's just a minor amount of rats that has grown and learnt how to break through wards. The ferret is very reluctant to let them talk to his daughter though. It promises to talk to his daughter though. They prepare to wait in the meanwhile when it says "See you in a while" and are almost gone when they manage to stop it and decide to meet just before the evening and the ferret promises to talk to his daughter until then.
As they leave Svansglidaren feels someone gnawing at his ward at the hole down to the sewers under Grå's insula. He focuses on the ward to stop whatever it is. He stops it, probably a rat, from breaking through. They return home to patrol their burdens homes. The two slaves in Svansglidaren's house has started to break up the mosaic int he hall. They work in the two ends of the hall though and sometimes just happen to spurt a piece of plaster at each other.
Grå takes a short tour to the bath house to check that the hole where one of the big rats came out is still plugged. It is but the uppish cats that live nearby taunt this time as well, emphasises his heritage as a plebeian cat and so forth. He jumps up on the wall of their burden's garden. They get very annoyed by this kind-of-trespassing and tells him to go away. Grå ruffles up hos fur and looks threateningly at them. They're too snotty to be afraid for him although his like 25% more cat than them and that's 25% more muscles than them so he simply quickly pushes them off the wall into the garden and goes on with his business. They hiss and shout after him as he tells them that they're quite bad at defending their territory. He tells them that if they taunt him again he will tear their fur so much they will be ashamed of showing themselves outdoors until it's replaced.
Grå scouts the outdoors area of the bath house when it opens and eavesdrops ont he humans gathering in the park areas to talk and relax. He hears some talk about some constellation of humans that has done some unintelligible human offence and now the discussion goes back and forth regarding whether the Romans should start a war with or if the other people maybe already have done that or if they should let it be. They also talks about whether it's good or bad that so many humans arrive from far ends of the empire and gather up in Rome. Some complain that they can neither read or speak latin but some say that they're hardworking and do a lot of the soldier work in the army and so on.
Later during the day Grå manage to sneak into the bath house entrance when it opens in the afternoon. It's scarily damp and suggests that there's large volumes of water nearby. A lot of the humans goes to a library next to the entrance. Several of the discussions is about the same constellation of humans Grå heard about earlier that has done something that the Roman humans maybe can't just let be. He also hear some slave owner talk about their slaves and Nincilimus. They say that the worship of Nincilimus dampens the discontent among the slaves so it's a good thing to introduce to the slaves.
Tryggtass spends the day sunbathing.
Svansglidaren spends much time at his burden's home to try catch as any rumours as possible about what's going on with the humans. It means that he has to spend times around the slaves though and he doesn't have that fine relationship with one of the three house slaves. The household has one more intellectual slave and one more worker slave plus one door guard slave. The door guard, without realising it himself as the ignorant human he is, is trespassing into Svansglidaren's territory as the guardian of the house. Hence the somewhat estranged relation between him and Svansglidaren.
The two regular household slaves have lately shown a much more positive attitude without any real reason. None in the family has given them any gifts or something lately. Svansglidaren have noticed that they have started to do some sort of shared ritual quite similar to the ritual where the household honours the forefathers. It's almost like they have started a small secret family of their own. When he starts to spy on them he finds out that they have a statuette that he hasn't seen before, here or anywhere else. As he spies further on the slaves he finds out that it's actually more like when humans worship at the temples rather than when they honour the forefathers at the family altar. The statuette is like a very thin man. He doesn't look like any of the regular gods though. He could maybe be Mercurius but he has no greek hat, not staff with wings and snakes and no winged sandals so probably not. It's not Pluto either, no attributes associating to him. It must be some smaller local spirit or being of some kind. They sacrifice some of their bread and even some of their wine which is a very scarce resource for the slaves.
One day the two slaves suddenly start to argue with each other, not a small argument either. Svansglidaren sneaks over to their bedroom where they're shouting to each other about whicever of something is the correct one, which one is the proper one, the authentic one. They seem to be arguing over which spirit being is the correct one. One is the slender man Svansglidaren has seen before and the other seem to be a very round kind of fat man. They both call their respective statuette Nincilimus and after a while the drops their representations of Nincilimus and start to wrestle in the small room until they get a little tired. They stop without really hurting each other, pant and go back to work but the shared ritual is over and the atmosphere is tense for the rest of the day.
In the evening Grå tries to track down the ferret they saved earlier when they killed the big albino rat. Tryggtass continue to "scout" the street roof and Svansglidaren spies on the guests that visit his burden's house. The guests and Svansglidaren's burden discuss the far away constellations of humans that has done something and how to convince more people that this is it. Now it has to be dealt with. It seems like the offerings to Mars is preparations for a war with those far away humans. They also disregards that Nincilimus the slaves worship.
Grå follows the track of the ferret to another insula more to the centre of their region until it suddenly stops dead as if it had taken one giant leap up to the stars. Confused Grå asks some other cats if they've seen a ferret. They don't really know it but they have seen a ferret now and then lately so they assume that a ferret has moved into the area. As Grå continues to sniff around he finds out that the scent track goes all the way very close to the wall as if it would have flown up to the roof whic would make some sort of sense if it could do some strong magic. After all they did meet it on a roof last time. Grå climbs around trying to get up on the top roof but fail and he doesn't find any new trails of the ferret. Grå tries to get some help from two cats he meet e g if there's any way up onto the roof but they obviously are the jokers and clowns of the area and Grå slowly but steadily builds up frustration as he tries to get something that's not a joke from them. Finally after a lot of jokes and misadventures one of them shows the way up to the roof.
Grå walks to the edge of the roof where he would expect a flying magic ferret to arrive if he would have flown up to the roof from where the tracks on the ground stopped. As he walks around he finds the scent of a ferret. He turns to the two cat jokers and asks what that scent is. "Weasel?" one of them says. Grå sighs and annoyed tells them that there lives a ferret in their house and they don't know about it. They don't seem to take that too seriously though. It is strange though because it's on the fourth floor and it's a closed apartment door without any hatch in it. Grå leaves and decides to come back tomorrow and talk to the ferret then, hopefully without the cat jokers.
The two household slaves in Svansglidaren's household is still not too friendly to each other and manage to sleep surprisingly far away from each other in the very small room where they sleep and live when they don't work.
During the night the three cats; Svansglidaren, Tryggtass and Grå shares information with each other and discuss what has happened lately. They speculate that the ferret and the rats are in direct feud with each other and that the weird big rats is after the ferret and that's why they come directly here every time. Also they assume that the ferret knows magic since that would explain why it can disappear and reappear. Maybe the magi ferret has driven the rats from it's own area and now has followed them here to their street roof.
The next day they all go to the insula where Grå followed the ferret. They meet one of the clown cats which Grå presents for the his friends in the most satirical way. The other cat can't be seen until they notis that the parapet on the fourth level has a pair of cat ears almost as if a cat was hiding very badly behind it. Grå presents them as "Clown 1" and "Clown 2". Outside a door they recognise the smell of the ferret. There is a glitch under the door that might be wide enough for a ferret. Tryggtass sniffs at the glitch and don't find much ferret smell at the floor but the door in itself also smells somewhat of ferret at it's lowest part although there's no hatch in the door.
A ferret jumps out through the door and stops dead staring at the three cats outside the door. Grå tries to wrestle the surprised ferret to the ground to stop him from running away. Something weird happens. Grå catches the ferret but still doesn't. It's if they were in the same place at the same time bt without relating to each other and the ferret disappears through the solid door leaving the three surprised cats outside.
"Hey" Tryggtass shouts "we just want to talk to you", "We want to talk about the rats". The ferret is understandably suspicious of them. It takes a lot of diplomacy to get it to crawl out from under the door. It sits warily outside the door, ready to jump away. They explain about the rats and how weirdly big they are and that they break through Svansglidaren's wards. Svansglidaren asks the ferret why a rat would run all over the Capitoline hill to attack him. After some confusion the ferret says that they're probably thinking of his daughter. After some discussion back and forth the ferret agrees that it was he who was there the first time and was sarcastic about the cats not being able to keep the rats at bay. They discuss the rats somewhat and hope that it's just a minor amount of rats that has grown and learnt how to break through wards. The ferret is very reluctant to let them talk to his daughter though. It promises to talk to his daughter though. They prepare to wait in the meanwhile when it says "See you in a while" and are almost gone when they manage to stop it and decide to meet just before the evening and the ferret promises to talk to his daughter until then.
As they leave Svansglidaren feels someone gnawing at his ward at the hole down to the sewers under Grå's insula. He focuses on the ward to stop whatever it is. He stops it, probably a rat, from breaking through. They return home to patrol their burdens homes. The two slaves in Svansglidaren's house has started to break up the mosaic int he hall. They work in the two ends of the hall though and sometimes just happen to spurt a piece of plaster at each other.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Fiasco: Touring Rock Band, The Birds, c7s2 tilt, act two and aftermath
Tilt
Lynn's and Mario's players get to choose tilt elements. Dice are rolled and we end up with:
- Innocence: The wrong guy gets busted
- Failure: You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't
We discussed a little where everything was heading and it's obvious that the solo career is important for Lynn which is in total opposition to Mario's strong wish to keep the band together at all costs. Mario's player even thinks it's better if Lynn dies on stage rather than leaving the band and presumably bringing some of the fans with her and if she dies on stage she never left the band and the band will just be more legendary.
Lynn's player says that it would be fun if the record label had offered her a solo album if she helps to bring about the changes in The Birds. Then Lynn's motivated to make the new album with the new sound happen and also go about her own solo career.
If Lynn were about to die because a mistake that would make all royalty money for the lyrics go to The Crow alone and he wouldn't need to share with Lynn. That could put him in the spotlight of the investigation of what happened when Lynn died.
Also there has been some borderline pyrotechnics so that's also a possibility for "You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't".
Act two
Scene one
Act two
Scene one
(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)
It's time for the first gig with Mario on scene, new clothes and the new sound with violin. The band opens up with an older popular song that is rearranged for the new sound and Mario's violin. The audience is somewhat confused in the beginning since there's been any announcement of the new sound or any special gig. Halfway through the song many in the audience get warm anyway and seem to like to hear a new version. The usual I-push-myself-forward-in-front-of-the-fans-although-I-arrived-late-just-to-film-with-my-smartphone people that attend any show is quite unpleased though when they don't get what they expected on their recording. Pushed back by the fans they return back or even leave. Good riddance anyway. The rest of the audience show mixed feelings. One of the new songs that's written for the new sound from the beginning is received better. Maybe they accept a new sound better for a new song rather than an old. When the band leaves the stage the audience never reached the usual heights and the band was only called in for encore once instead of twice. Still the audience is with them although somewhat confused or curious.
The press afterwards write a lot about the new sound "Is this how The Birds sing these days"?
Scene two
(The Crow's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)
The Birds (and The Dogs) has participated in a band competition and ended up at one of the higher places and caught the eyes of press and record labels but the main thing overshadowing that, at least for The Crow and Dingo (singer and front persona of The Dogs) is that the police has concluded that it was one of them that was selling drugs at the event and now are squeezing them for confessions. The Crow, according to them, is the most suspicious one of the two. Two cops has cornered The Crow in the hotel room when Mario arrives in the middle of it.
The push The Crow hard and doesn't take a no for an answer. They mix insults of rock stars with pushes for The Crow to admit he sold the drugs. The Crow suggests that maybe it was the police officers themselves that had been using drugs and now need a scapegoat for their dealers. He's very close to getting arrested not only on suspicions of selling drugs but also for slandering police officers. Hadn't Mario arrived and used his extensive knowledge of legal procedures and regular officers' jurisdictions (a necessity for a latino american being in U. S. A. barely legally). He shows them to the door and tell them to come back with a search warrant. The officers try to say that they're just having a conversation with The Crow. The Crow tells them that the conversation is over and ask them to leave. Bitterly the officers leave telling them that they know, they're gonna get The Crow.
Scene three
(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)
On the route from the competition and back to the regular tour Mario stops at a roadhouse to check the engine which has been sounding funny for a while. Mario dives into the engine space at the back of the bus while The Crow and Lynn take the opportunity to check the lashing of the equipment - it did make some suspicious sliding noises as they turned and left the highway. Jeff feels the urge for something, he doesn't really know what; food, coffee, whiskey, something and walks into the roadhouse. What none of they notice is that another bus rolls into the parking space and stops. Most of The Birds stay by the bus fixing things but the singer Dingo walks into the roadhouse shortly after Jeff almost at the same time as the same two cops from earlier parks their car outside the roadhouse (obviously they have been following The Dogs' tour bus). Both cops follows Dingo into the roadhouse.
Jeff halts as he and Dingo stare down each other. Dingo two steps inside the door and Jeff ready to leave with a coffee and a whiskey. The two cops enters and almost step into Dingo. The cops go right at it and accuses Jeff and Dingo for having a meet-up for a narcotics and money exchange. An argument breaks out and the cops order Jeff and Dingo to put their hands on the bar counter while they search them and soon find a small plastic bottle with pills on Jeff. They don't believe him when he says that it's painkillers for migraine although slightly stronger than the ones one usually finds at the drugstore. It might be a slight prescription rule offence but it's nothing illegal. The cops don't care, handcuffed Jeff is brought out to the police car. The car leaves as Dingo hops onto the tour bus who leaves.
After a while Lynn miss her coffee Jeff was supposed to get for her and walks over to the roadhouse expecting to find him downing whiskey but instead is told from a somewhat excited bartender that the cops was her and took one of the band members for drug possession.
Scene four
(Mario's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)
The rest of the band takes the bus to the police station to talk Jeff out of the arrest or in worst case break him out. The show must go on.
The Crow stays in the bus as they hold him as a suspect for drug dealing. They do hold a grudge against Mario as well but his knowledge about legal procedures is needed. Lynn and Mario walks into the police station to get Jeff out of the arrest. A sturdy officer no longer fit for street patrolling looks up from a desk and ask what he can help them with. "We're here to get Jeff" Lynn says happily. Mario clarifies by adding Jeff's full name Johan Larson (descending from Swedish ancestors). The officer sighs and starts to slowly browse a book with lists of arrestee. Lynn and Mario almost breaks into pieces from frustration, especially when Jeff calls for them from the cell. Finally the officer finds Jeff in the list. "There's a 5 000 dollar bail to get him out" he says. Mario and Lynn looks at each other and starts to explain that they need Jeff, that they has a gig to go to, that he's innocent. The officer doesn't raise an eyebrow though and just refers to the judge (opens up tomorrow). Finally they manage to scrape together 5 000 dollar in smaller bills. The officer starts to write out a document in painstakingly slow pace, sometimes using both index fingers to type. After a long while they get a document to sign and get Jeff out of the arrest (without his pills though). Broke and without the pills they leave. The trial is set to the day after tomorrow. "Ah, who cares?" Jeff says "By then we're in the next state". "But our money!" the rest shouts in unison. "Asch" Jeff says "We'll earn new money soon". "We had to sell your whisky" Mario says to silent Jeff.
Scene five
(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)
On the way to the next gig they pass by where their manager lives to get a few tips on the current situation and also the the bus needs to be fixed, Jeff needs to be fixed and maybe he shouldn't be left alone so Lynn goes to talk to the manager. After getting a promise from the manager that he will take care of the legalities Lynn steers the conversation over to her solo career. Quite easily she get a promise that if they finalise the tour and the promised album with the new sound she will get her solo album. He still suggests that she should ask The Crow if he could help her with the lyrics. Lynn isn't too keen on that, it's a solo record after all. The manager caves in and accepts that she doesn't take help from The Crow as long as she before the recording starts can produce a lyric that's convincingly good. Happy but a little bitter Lynn leaves the manager *mumble* *mumble* "Take help from The Crow. The only one liking his song writing is the jury in that specific court *mumble*
Scene six
(The rest establishes, The Crow's player decides for a bad ending, only black dice left)
It's almost time to go on stage. The band strike a chord the last time just to check it one last time. It's less than ten minutes left. They're standing just around the corner of the the small stairs up to the stage, waiting. Mario asks The Crow if he has the remote for the pyrotechnics. "Should I have that? The Crow asks back. "Don't you usually have that when it's fixed and done?" Lynn asks. When The Crow doesn't answer Jeff gets nervous and sneak around the corner and looks up to the stage. There's no pyrotechnics. Not one piece. "You said you was taking care of it." Lynn says to The Crow. "Yes, I know but I asked Diego to fix that." Crow says. "So where's the remote?" Lynn asks. "I don't know" Crow answers "I didn't get it from Diego." "Damn" Crow whispers. Jeff returns, "There's not a fucking piece on stage" he says, almost shouts. "Diego doesn't answer on phone" Lynn says silently. "Eh, eh, no panic" Crow tries. "How do you mean - 'No panic'?" Jeff asks aggressively. "We'll fix it some way" The Crow says "We do a stripped down show. We simply trust the new sound". In panic they rearrange the order of the songs and exchange a few of them. "You made this" Jeff says and sends The Crow on stage to fire up the audience. It doesn't become their best remembered show although it probably will be talked about.
Scene seven
(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending, only black dice left)
It's the last gig for the tour when they find a set of pyrotechnics furthest into the bag compartment under the bus. Somehow Diego misunderstood The Crow and thought that they were doing a stripped down show to save the pyrotechnics to be able to go out in a blaze of fire on the last show (the budget has no room for buying extra stuff). When they stand waiting the last few minutes just before the show they look towards the scene and realise that Diego has gotten all of the pyrotechnics up on stage. The ones bought for this show and the ones left over from last show. For a moment they're almost scared of entering the stage, afraid they and the whole stage will blow up and kill the hardcore fans in the process. Mario notices that the rack holding some of the thing close to Jeff's background position is leaning to the side. "Shall I stand there" Jeff says slightly scared. "Yes" the rest of the band says "but we don't have to fire it all" Lynn says and turns to The Crow for the remote. "The remote" Crow says "I have given it to guy at the mixer table". He's more fitted to handle that than we are. We should focus on the songs. It's time to enter the stage. Jeff quickly writes a note for the mixer guy and sends Diego to give it to the mixer guy. They run up on stage (Jeff sneaks into his hidden position). Jeff nervously plays almost all notes correctly when suddenly all the pyrotechnics go off in the middle of a ballad. The hardcore fans notice that some of the rhythm guitar sound disappears as Jeff desperately throws himself off the stage and personell throws a fire blanket over him.
As the rest of the band leaves the stage they find Jeff without his fine long hard rocker hair looking more like - Jon Bon Jovi after the haircut and with burns over much of his right arm. He's in no real danger the medic assures them but he will have troubles doing his job on the recording that starts after the tour. On top of that he broke the guitar in the fall and after paying the bail for Jeff there's not much room for new guitars anyway.
Scene eight
Mario's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending, wild die left
Mario was sure his green card was all in order. The band is back in the last state to handle Jeff's trial which turns out to go not too bad, annoyingly for the two cops. Therefore they decide to scrutinise Mario's green card documents and find that he hasn't signed one document that would have proven that he had received it. The cops show up to corner Mario about this. Mario thinks he and Jeff's lawyer is there to answer questions about Jeff when they suddenly press Mario about the unsigned document. Luckily for Mario Jeff's lawyer after a short argument decides to take on Mario's case although Mario don't have much money at the moment. They're on a roll. They will all have pils of cash soon. He sees it as an investment. The cops press Mario to just confess. If he only confesses everything is gonna be alright. It's fixable. If he lies on the other hand then there's no way for them to help him. Jeff's lawyer tells Mario to stop answering questions and starts to handle the officers and quite soon has turned the whole thing around to be about not Mario not having a valid green card but rather a clerk not having handled the registering of the green card properly. The cops lean back and discuss quietly and intensely between each other. After a shorter discussion they have decided to let them go until they have something new on them. Mario makes it quite clear for Jeff that he has to show up on all of the court hearing because if they don't get the bail money back they don't have any money because lawyer bills.
Aftermath
The Crow
White 2: Merciless. You might not be dead on the outside but sure as Hell on the inside. ... The future is a brick wall.
- The Bird's new album is a flop.
- The cops find a stash of drugs that The Crow insists on is planted there by someone. The Crow goes to the arrest for a big bail and then jail for a while.
- When The Crow gets out of jail he tries to start a new band as lead singer but his voice is not what it was after the time in jail. The band never takes off and only do small food-and-drinks-gigs in small towns.
- As money gets low The Crow make a desperate move. He starts dealing drugs. If he's been jailed for it it might as well be true. To make it worse he pay protection money to the two not so honest cops that hunted the band earlier.
Jeff
Black 3: Harsh. ... A big black cloud of hurt is gonna rain on you. The things needing to happen to you are not going to. Simple as that.
- Jeff makes a mistake and doesn't show up at one of the court hearings as supposed to and doesn't get back the bail money the band put out for him. He has to pay from what last money he has on his own.
- Jeff also goes to jail for a while for drug possession. He miss the recording, even if it's a flop it would at least have put his name out there. He will get out poor and without a job. He has the worst time of his life because jail sucks.
- Jeff's a self-assured person. That doesn't work well in prison. He gets into a fight which is actually an statue-an-example-event. He gets generally beaten up but most of all they break his right arm and the the nerve damage stops him from any guitar playing career. Not even guitar teacher for beginners is any longer within reach when he gets out.
Mario
White 2: Merciless. You might not be dead on the outside but sure as Hell on the inside. ... The future is a brick wall.
- Mario's newly found career as a musician is over and he returns to being a roadie.
- Mario tries to claim royalty for some of the lyrics Lynn has published but fail miserably in court although he actually contributed. Lynn's not giving him a penny.
- Mario manages to get a studio gig or two, just enough to bring some money and emphasise that he could have been a famous musician in a famous band touring the U. S. A. or even the world. Some of the studio recordings are for mariachi bands.
- Mario can't get ends to meet and has to take a nine to five job as hardware tester at a small factory.
Lynn
White 16: Fan-fucking-tastic. Safe and secure. That thing that would make your life better? You got it and more - and then some more.
- Solo album contract that goes well.
- Piles of cash. Her cash, not court ordered consent as before.
- The stripped down show without pyrotechnics but with some other spontaneous desperate measures to catch the attention of the audience (like ragged revealing clothes) did catch the attention of the audience who now follow Lynn, not only for her music but also because sex appeal.
- Tour as support for Rammstein and Lynn catch the attention of even more people.
- On the cover The Rolling Stone. She gets her picture on the cover of The Rolling Stone.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Fiasco: Touring Rock Band, The Birds, c7s1 act one and tilt
Act one
Scene one
Later Mario returns to the tour bus and finds Lynn writing in her note book and muttering something about good lyrics. She asks him for words that rhyme with heart but only get very pop love ballad kind of words from him. Mario instead suggests to open the lyric with something like I used to have a six-gun but now I only have a bottle of whiskey. Lynn manages to hide her lyric writing behind some attempts to develop the lyrics for the band and asks Mario to not tell the others yet since "there's so much prestige stuff going about with the lyrics writing in the band".
Scene two
Scene three
The crow manages to calm the situation and says that it's good that she practices. She needs that to get better. Lynn doesn't say anything about that to get away from the unwanted attention on her lyrics.
Scene four
--
Scene one
(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)
The band is on tour. Lynn has sent in a demo tape (or rather a file these days) to another label. They liked it and when the band arrives in a city where the label has an office and studio Lynn sneaks away to show what she can achieve in person. The label representatives hint at bringing in another musician to fill out and step up lyrics writing a bit, maybe someone from the band she's already in? Lynn leaves the meeting mumbling. "Not good enough lyrics, hmpf, I'll show them". Lynn isn't too keen on bringing in the obvious but not straight out mentioned lyrics writer, The Crow. That backstabbing bastard that went to court over the lyrics she clearly wrote. Mumble.Later Mario returns to the tour bus and finds Lynn writing in her note book and muttering something about good lyrics. She asks him for words that rhyme with heart but only get very pop love ballad kind of words from him. Mario instead suggests to open the lyric with something like I used to have a six-gun but now I only have a bottle of whiskey. Lynn manages to hide her lyric writing behind some attempts to develop the lyrics for the band and asks Mario to not tell the others yet since "there's so much prestige stuff going about with the lyrics writing in the band".
Scene two
(The rest of the group establishes, The Crow's player decides for a good ending)
Concert evening, the pyrotechnics hasn't arrived. The Crow starts to panic but know how to solve it. He knows a guy who knows a guy that can fix pyrotechnics. With Mario and Jeff he meets with the guy on what Jeff thinks is a little too suspicious alley to be really OK but rather alley pyrotechnics than no pyrotechnics. The Crow asserts that it's perfectly OK and safe. They buy a lot of stuff, as much as they can get to the bus to get it to the concert local. When he sees the stuff Jeff feels quite comfortable with his position in the background rather than at the front where all the flames are gonna go off. The concert formally explodes and it's a wonder nothing catches fire although there's a rumour that a few visitors had some burn marks on their clothes. The band hastily leaves before the fire safety guy manage to stop them and question them about the pyrotechnics.Scene three
(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)
They're all in the tour bus on their way to the next gig in varying stages of hangovers. Jeff's somewhere on the way to getting a hangover. He's not really stopped being drunk yet and downs the last of a bottle of really nice whisky as opposed to the low end whiskey most bands has to be satisfied with. Lynn has forgotten her note book open a one of the small tables in the bus. Anyone at least slightly into music could recognise something that has to be either a poem or a song. Seeing the notes startles Jeff which makes The Crow notice first Jeff and then the notes. Mario happily drives the bu when he notices that the company in the back suddenly fall silent. Silent's never good, especially not sudden silence. Lynn suddenly hears her lyrics being read out aloud. The Crow turns to Lynn and asks if that's her lyrics. "Eh, what?" Lynn says "Oh, those, ah, that's just something Mario said and it was inspiringso I wrote it down. Jeff looks at the note book with curly pages that obviously has been browsed back and forth and asks Lynn how much she actually have written. Not just a line or two, that's obvious. Lynn snatch back her note book and shouts at them for poking about in her stuff. Jeff defends him with that it was laying open together with the poker stuff from last night. Lynn says she never left it open and blames Mario for driving like a madman so the bus shakes and the note book turned open. Jeff gets very annoyed since he and Mario has written a lot of songs together with input from the whole band and that the band has performed together and then Lynns sits and writes song text on her own. For whom? For herself?The crow manages to calm the situation and says that it's good that she practices. She needs that to get better. Lynn doesn't say anything about that to get away from the unwanted attention on her lyrics.
Scene four
(Mario's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)
In the middle of a godforsaken plain they stop the bus to get some food at a small motel-bar-something. They walk in and there sits their arch-enemy The Dogs. For a moment the band stops and The Dogs look up from their drinks and both bands stare at each other.
The Birds sit down next to them and the war of jeering is on. Lynn asks why The Dogs are around here, are they maybe on their way to visit grandma? Mario follows up with a question how it is to play at retirement homes. As the bartender approaches he recognises The Birds and the coffee is on the house. Of course he states this loud enough for The Dogs to hear. Since it's after lunch and they serve Jack Daniel's Jeff says that "Well, Jack Daniel's, that's booze for someone living a dog's life. Next round for them is on me". The bartender serves and asks if they're friends. The dogs mumbles, knocks back the whiskey and leaves, still mumbling.
When The Birds also leaves a little later The Dogs are still outside having trouble starting their bus. "We'd love to lend you jumper cables" The Crow says "but we're in a hurry to our next gig". "You'll be fine" Mario follows up with "you can ask some fans to push the bus into starting". "If you have any" Jeff laughs as they jump into their own bus and leaves. Before he enters The Crow says "We could help you though. Where's your next gig? We could go there and cover for you". The Bird's bus leaves in a cloud of dust.
Scene five
(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)
The Birds has just finished their next gig a support . Besides a small fire in the rig nothing caught fire. One of the fans got so impressed by this show compared to earlier shows that she sent a case of whiskey to the band. The Birds spend their time in their suite preparing for after show party. They have signed some stuff for their fan and while trying out the whiskey answers some questions from their fan, e g what they're writing at the moment. "Well, we haven't been writing on anything at the moment. We've been focused on live performances - or so I thought" Jeff says and looks at Lynn. "Eh, yes, we have performed a lot lately. That's right" says Lynn. "Is it suddenly my responsibility that we write stuff?" Lynn sounds awkward and nothing gets better when Mario says "But you have been writing on something" and Lynn answers "OK, so now I'm not allowed to write stuff, is that it?" Mario withdraws and The Crow enters the discussion with ""Of course she can write lyrics. We even has a judge that has stated that she writes good lyrics". The fan wonders what she has walked into as Lynn tries to repair the situation by stating that it's actually both she and The Crow that writes good lyrics and Jeff says "Mmmm, on the other hand The Crow tells the rest of us when he has ideas for songs for the band. The argument is a fact and is fuelled by the spirits and Jeff push a a promo album in the hands of the fan and sends her to the door with a "See you at the front line by the fences tomorrow night again?" "Oh, good" Lynn says "good that someone thinks of our image and what to bring up when others are around. The Crow leaves with one of the whiskey bottles mumbling that he's gonna find some party mood somewhere. "Wow" Lynn shouts after him "You and a bottle of whiskey, such a party!". Jeff disappears into a movie on his computer, Mario leaves to find some mariachi music in town and Lynn demonstratively sits down with her note book and over-expressively writes in it.
Scene six
(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)
It's the day after in the hotel suite. Lynn had the least hang-over and has left while the rest of the band still lingers in the suite. A representative for the label has arrived to discuss the next step. Up to now The Birds has had one-album-contracts but now with increasing popularity it might be time for a longer contract for maybe three albums. The representative is all happy and energised and brings fruit smoothies to the tired hang-over band. Jeff pours some whiskey in his smoothie.
The label representative praises their show although there were some complaints about a curtain catching fire after the pyrotechnics. The band dismiss it and reference to that it ought to be the venue's responsibility to remove inflammable things from the stage. The representative says something about the fine-print and that it's actually their responsibility to check the stage. Jeff looks at Mario the roadie. The representative leaves it with a "It's not a big problem. We can always deduct it from your gage." "Anyway" she says "We thought that three albums would be good for the next contract". Only three?" Jeff says. "and you get 20% of the earnings" the representative continues. "Hey, wait a second" Jeff says much annoyed "anything worse than 50/50 is no deal". The discussion continues and the band promise that if only the suggestion is good enough Lynn will sign it even if she's not here at the moment. The band agrees on 50/50 or better, "especially since Lynn's writing her own songs now" Jeff says. "Oh, so Lynn writes her own songs?" the representative says. The band dismiss her song-writing somewhat. After all it's been The Crow who has written most of the lyrics, some time together with Lynn, and it's been Mario and Jeff writing most of the music.
The representative drops the bomb "Could you think of changing the sound somewhat? "According to our marketing surveys" she continues "there's good reception for a more, say, Justin Bieber-like sound". The band falls silent and Jeff exclaims "For God's sake, you're talking about the soul of the band now. Justin Bieber?!? What the Fuck?!? And smoothies without spirits? I suggest you pay for the next after-show party and then we can discuss some rearranging but no fuckin' change of style" The label representative tries to withdraw by saying that she didn't really mean that they should change their style which makes Jeff ask her if she thinks they sound like fuckin' Bieber. Jeff's really mad by now. Then the representative says something about appealing to teenage girls and now the whole band looks at the representative like she's from another planet. Eventually Jeff asks if she's actually interested in a contract with the band why she's here. After all there's other labels. The representative suggests that they need to adjust to the audience and the band says that if that's the kind of audience they have, which they don't, they're just happy to get rid of it and find another audience. It's a full blown verbal trench warfare. They tell the representative to leave and come back at another time.
Through the door they hear the representative meet Lynn in the corridor. "Hi, how nice to meet you. Walk with me, I have a suggestion for you".
The band returns to the whiskey bottles.
Scene seven
(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)
Lynn returns from her meeting with the label representative (the rest of the band knows where she's been). They discuss the meeting with the band and that she had suggested a change to something Justin Bieber-like sound and their dissatisfaction with the suggestion. Apparently Mrs Banks and Lynn also discussed that and maybe there could be other slight changes that could add a dimension to the sound "For fuck's sake, don't say keyboards" Jeff says. "No, no" Lynn says "we were thinking that some violin could do the trick". That's not as far fetched. Mario's happy and Jeff's not so opposite that, after all Slade did some rock 'n' rollish stuff with violin. "Also", Lynn says, "Mario's really good looking". Jeff suggests that they do this but with another label. Lynn says that their current albel are willing to stretch to 60/40 in favour of the band if they do some other style changes as well - mostly with Mario. It would only be for one album but that's OK with the band since that's also giving them a chance to switch label if they want to.
Scene eight
(The rest establishes, Mario's player decides for a good ending)
The band has a song writing session, now while trying to incorporate violin as well. Jeff and Mario has some half-finished material as usual and the group sits down trying to put words to the music and melt it into a song by group effort.
The chorus is unusually melodic so they decide to make it a little more rock aggressive. The session goes well and everyone's creative. Lynn has been out shopping and found a shirt for Mario. It's quite 70's and should according to Lynn be open way down to show off Mario's latino body. They decide to remove the ruffle though. It was a bit too much, a little too Meat Loaf kind of thing. Everyone's happy and satisfied and excited for the next gig where they will try it out.
Tilt
Lynn's and Mario's players get to choose tilt elements. Dice are rolled and we end up with:
- Innocence: The wrong guy gets busted
- Failure: You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't
We discussed a little where everything was heading and it's obvious that the solo career is important for Lynn which is in total opposition to Mario's strong wish to keep the band together at all costs. Mario's player even thinks it's better if Lynn dies on stage rather than leaving the band and presumably bringing some of the fans with her and if she dies on stage she never left the band and the band will just be more legendary.
Lynn's player says that it would be fun if the record label had offered her a solo album if she helps to bring about the changes in The Birds. Then Lynn's motivated to make the new album with the new sound happen and also go about her own solo career.
If Lynn were about to die because a mistake that would make all royalty money for the lyrics go to The Crow alone and he wouldn't need to share with Lynn. That could put him in the spotlight of the investigation of what happened when Lynn died.
Also there has been some borderline pyrotechnics so that's also a possibility for "You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't".
--
This was a fun game to play so far but it definitely needs some training and focus on creating the scenes so that you don't e g end up with scenes where all roles are in the scene and there's also other roles that needs to be played. That easily becomes messy so preferably not all roles are in the scene so that someone can play extra role(s) or all roles are in the scene but no one else are.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Fiasco: Touring Rock Band, The Birds, c7s1 setup
During some hiatus in our regular role playings we decided to try out Fiasco as it's supposed to be a one-shot (in ur case probably a two session thing since it's the first time and since we have a tendency to talk a lot). After rolling the dice and doing the setup we ended up with the following result for the.
Mario Lopez
Johan "Jeff" Larson
Joshua "The Crow" Crawford
Lynn
Mario Lopez
- Does not only lay out the cables, he also drives the tour bus.
- Plays classical violin but that doesn't fit in a rock band.
- Need: Get piles of cash by keeping the band together no matter what.
- Relation: The grind, Lynn, boss - Mario, roadie
- Relation: Good friends, collective soul of the band, Mario & Jeff
- Relation: Good friends, collective soul of the band, Mario & Jeff
- Swedish heritage, usually calls himself "Jeff" instead of "Johan" and prefers "Jeff" and only "Jeff" without the somewhat lame second name "Larson".
- As a off-stage musician he got a good contract including being the fill-out extra musician on tour as well. He follows the band as a member but has to keep in the background on-stage.
- Gourmet
- Party animal
- Discuss a lot regarding the band's music with Mario.
- Object: Rollin', a case of top-shelf whisky bottles
- Relation: The grind, Jeff, off-stage musician - The Crow, boss
- Sångare
- Song writer
- Location: Detroit, a luxury suit above The Palace of Auburn arena (this ended up being a hotel suite, not a arena suite).
- Relation: The grind, Jeff, off-stage musician - The Crow, boss
- Relation: Bad friends, friends by court-ordered consent decree, Joshua and Lynn had a dispute over royalties, who wrote what, court ruling: share equally).
- Background singer
- Guitar player
- Drinks gin & tonic
- Need: Get piles of cash by signing a solo contract.
- Relation: Bad friends, friends by court-ordered consent decree, Joshua and Lynn had a dispute over royalties, who wrote what, court ruling: share equally).
- Relation: The grind, Lynn, boss - Mario, roadie.
- Relation: Bad friends, friends by court-ordered consent decree, Joshua and Lynn had a dispute over royalties, who wrote what, court ruling: share equally).
Sunday, December 13, 2015
The Secrets of Cats tARE c6s11
What happened during this session was that Svansglidaren's burden finally decided that the mosaic with the spilled ink had to go and be exchanged which fitted Svansglidaren and the other cats purrfect since that should expose whatever was laying under the mosaic and attracting lemurs and Bastet knows what else.
Another thing moving in the correct direction was the parents of one of Tryggtass's burdens. The parents of the child in the apartment that damper and colder since it got a hole in the ceiling since a roof tile fell to the ground after a cat was exercising his schemes up there. Tryggtass and Grå had been spending a lot of time laying beside the child to warm it and keep it from getting sick because the parents didn't sleep even slightly close to their child. Svansglidaren had dreamwalked and battled an terrifying paranoia in the mother's mind of rolling over and crushing her baby. After several fights he managed to drive it out of the mother's mind and slowly she and even the father started to move closer to their child and giving her warmth through the nights in their poor insula top floor draughty apartment. The child even seemed to start to loose her coughing.
Grå has started to patrol a little more intensely and more on the top roof than before and notice unusual activity among the corvids, especially the woodpeckers who are Mars' envoys and also the cats of the Peace Temple talk about a lot of offerings at the temple of Mars. Probably war is boiling. In one way it doesn't really concern the cats as long as the humans doesn't war to the extent of destruction of civilisation and humankind but for the individual cat it might mean everything if their burden joins the war as legionnaire, auxiliary or officer. Then they would have to follow him or her on the journey and into war.
When Tryggtass climbs into the the apartment where she lives (her burden is the children of her territory, one side of an insula) the family head sits at the table and looks directly at her with a challengingly gaze. Tryggtass stops and purrs in the most innocent way she knows, just in case. Family head holds up a loaf of bread that's nibbled on at the edge and raises her eyebrows as of to say "What do _you_ have to say about _this_?" Tryggtass realises that while she's been hunting giant rats and looking out for greater dangers mice has gotten into the apartment and eaten from the bread. She sniffs out the whereabouts of the mice and there hole, kills a mouse and shows family head the hole which her husband later plugs with some brick and mortar. Everything back to normal and Tryggtass gets a piece of fish.
Just for the sake of it all three of the cats visit princeps secretary to tell about the increased offerings to Mars they have noticed.
When they return to Tryggtass' and Grå's street roof they hear some commotion going on and rush forward and jumps up to the roof to see a tired ferret over and over jumping away from a giant pale rat but never getting the distance for a counter-attack or escape. Immediately Grå and Tryggtass rush into the fight and soon the rat has more to deal with than it can handle and the ferret quickly disappears. Svansglidaren tries to follow it but loses it for some reason at the corner where it almost seems to take a shortcut through the wall. When he returns the rat is dead.
Alarmed about the consistent appearance of pale or albino giant rats that are aggressive even for rats they track the rat along the street into Svansglidaren's neighbourhoods of domuses. The rat has scurried along the walls along the street through the domus area of The Palantine, over the whole hill and down to a bath complex - an unpleasant place of much water.
They ask some nimble eastern-looking cats if they know anything about the rats and the baths but the cats doesn't really take patrolling seriously and are very snuffy in their ways and the only thing they have to say about the bath house is that it is a bath house and no cat would go their voluntarily. "Cowards" Grå mumbles and they go down to the bath house to investigate.
They find a hole in the wall where the tracks of the rat leads. After some scouting from the houses on the opposite sides of the streets and futil attempts to finds ways to climb the several floors high walls of the complex Grå decides to crawl into the hole. In there he follows an underpass that leads to a great fireplace. When he goes back and follows it in the other direction he again finds the tracks of the rat and more of them and a smaller hole where they have crawled out. Since he can't get in there he goes back out and tells the others. They decide to come back during the day to alert the humans of the problem of the rats and the possible leaking of smoke.
When they return during the day there's no smoke from the hole but still smell of rats and the humans doesn't seem to care or most probably doesn't realise what's going on under their noses. They look with resignation at the humans scurrying around. Humans that aren't exactly their burdens but still connected to them and the rat problem spreads into their region and their territories. Tryggtass then gets an idea. She backs into the hole and start to mew and act like she's got stuck. Suddenly it doesn't take long before a human notice her and helps her "to get loose" and even fetches another human hammers some brick pieces into the hole to seal it off. Satisfied but wondering if that will be enough they return to their homes.
Another thing moving in the correct direction was the parents of one of Tryggtass's burdens. The parents of the child in the apartment that damper and colder since it got a hole in the ceiling since a roof tile fell to the ground after a cat was exercising his schemes up there. Tryggtass and Grå had been spending a lot of time laying beside the child to warm it and keep it from getting sick because the parents didn't sleep even slightly close to their child. Svansglidaren had dreamwalked and battled an terrifying paranoia in the mother's mind of rolling over and crushing her baby. After several fights he managed to drive it out of the mother's mind and slowly she and even the father started to move closer to their child and giving her warmth through the nights in their poor insula top floor draughty apartment. The child even seemed to start to loose her coughing.
Grå has started to patrol a little more intensely and more on the top roof than before and notice unusual activity among the corvids, especially the woodpeckers who are Mars' envoys and also the cats of the Peace Temple talk about a lot of offerings at the temple of Mars. Probably war is boiling. In one way it doesn't really concern the cats as long as the humans doesn't war to the extent of destruction of civilisation and humankind but for the individual cat it might mean everything if their burden joins the war as legionnaire, auxiliary or officer. Then they would have to follow him or her on the journey and into war.
When Tryggtass climbs into the the apartment where she lives (her burden is the children of her territory, one side of an insula) the family head sits at the table and looks directly at her with a challengingly gaze. Tryggtass stops and purrs in the most innocent way she knows, just in case. Family head holds up a loaf of bread that's nibbled on at the edge and raises her eyebrows as of to say "What do _you_ have to say about _this_?" Tryggtass realises that while she's been hunting giant rats and looking out for greater dangers mice has gotten into the apartment and eaten from the bread. She sniffs out the whereabouts of the mice and there hole, kills a mouse and shows family head the hole which her husband later plugs with some brick and mortar. Everything back to normal and Tryggtass gets a piece of fish.
Just for the sake of it all three of the cats visit princeps secretary to tell about the increased offerings to Mars they have noticed.
When they return to Tryggtass' and Grå's street roof they hear some commotion going on and rush forward and jumps up to the roof to see a tired ferret over and over jumping away from a giant pale rat but never getting the distance for a counter-attack or escape. Immediately Grå and Tryggtass rush into the fight and soon the rat has more to deal with than it can handle and the ferret quickly disappears. Svansglidaren tries to follow it but loses it for some reason at the corner where it almost seems to take a shortcut through the wall. When he returns the rat is dead.
Alarmed about the consistent appearance of pale or albino giant rats that are aggressive even for rats they track the rat along the street into Svansglidaren's neighbourhoods of domuses. The rat has scurried along the walls along the street through the domus area of The Palantine, over the whole hill and down to a bath complex - an unpleasant place of much water.
They ask some nimble eastern-looking cats if they know anything about the rats and the baths but the cats doesn't really take patrolling seriously and are very snuffy in their ways and the only thing they have to say about the bath house is that it is a bath house and no cat would go their voluntarily. "Cowards" Grå mumbles and they go down to the bath house to investigate.
They find a hole in the wall where the tracks of the rat leads. After some scouting from the houses on the opposite sides of the streets and futil attempts to finds ways to climb the several floors high walls of the complex Grå decides to crawl into the hole. In there he follows an underpass that leads to a great fireplace. When he goes back and follows it in the other direction he again finds the tracks of the rat and more of them and a smaller hole where they have crawled out. Since he can't get in there he goes back out and tells the others. They decide to come back during the day to alert the humans of the problem of the rats and the possible leaking of smoke.
When they return during the day there's no smoke from the hole but still smell of rats and the humans doesn't seem to care or most probably doesn't realise what's going on under their noses. They look with resignation at the humans scurrying around. Humans that aren't exactly their burdens but still connected to them and the rat problem spreads into their region and their territories. Tryggtass then gets an idea. She backs into the hole and start to mew and act like she's got stuck. Suddenly it doesn't take long before a human notice her and helps her "to get loose" and even fetches another human hammers some brick pieces into the hole to seal it off. Satisfied but wondering if that will be enough they return to their homes.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
The Secrets of Cats tARE c6s10b
As they arrive to the domus Svansglidaren's mentor is even more tired than Svansglidaren himself who isn't exactly an physically fit cat. To the surprise of Svansglidaren and the others his burden and his family isn't at home. Frustrated Svansglidaren mumbles "How am I gonna protect when you run around in the night without me knowing where you are?!?" The two slaves and he door guard are home. Svansglidaren's mentor suggests that they are at the same misunderstood honour-the-gods-ritual as his burdens. Anyway, for the moment he's satisfied with the situation since advanced magic sensing requires him being quite absent. He asks them to keep away from the hall but guard and tell him if someone comes. Svansglidaren patrols uneasily and over and over asks the other if something has happened. Svansglidaren's mentor walks around in the hall and then lies down almost in the middle of the hall and fades out. It looks like he's talking to the pattern and then falls asleep.
Time passes.
The mentor wakes up and rises slightly unstable in a drowsy manner. Svansglidaren recognises how it is to return to the body after having slightly left it when dreamwalking. Grå leaves to catch a mouse. Eagerly led by Svansglidaren they walk out to the hortus (garden) to be able to talk undisturbed.
The mentor is gliding from different aspects of magic and humans and they're not fully following his reasoning but as he seems to become more present his reasoning become easier to follow. He says that there's something under the mosaic. They conclude that it must have been put there when the mosaic was put there and that's months ago. Why hasn't the magic triggerd? How could a fresh sacrifice be maintained under the mosaic for month? They reason back and forth. Maybe someone put a sacrifice there first when the sacrifice was put there and then the magic was initiated later. That still doesn't explain how the sacrifice could be maintained in a useful state for so long. It would require a very large sacrifice and very hard to slip in there while the mosaic was being laid there. A possible solution might be that someone got hold of something with a connection to someone in the household. That would be a way to make magic affect the household or someone in it. When Svansglidaren think back he remmebers that there were great frustration in the household because the mosaic layer blocked of the whole hall while he was working because he was an artist and needed space and peace while the household mostly saw him like any worker they contracted for other building actions. That could have opened up for putting something under the mosaic. They still don't know what the magic does though and maybe it's not possible to find except maybe by waiting and see if something happens that could be connected to it. That doesn't feel like a way they want to go.
Instead they start to think about how they could get the mosaic getting picked up and the thing under it discovered and removed. Suddenly they are distracted for awhile by Grå returning not only with a mouse for Svansglidaren's mentor but for them each. The eat a little and enjoy the fresh meat before continuing the discussion.
They discuss how to for example discolour the mosaic so that they would have to replace it and in that process find the thing under it. Blood is suggested but is not a favourable option. Maybe ink could be a better option. There is ink in the tablinum (office/study room). If they were to spill ink there now it would start to dry and stick before anyone discovers it. The mentor shows where the thing is and Grå and Tryggtass fetches ink. Svansglidaren keeps away so that he don't get ink on himself so that he should not get the blame. The other aren't here so much that the risk of getting the blame is quite small.
Grå topples the ink-bottle in the hall and pushed the bottle around a little so that the ink spreads around. Grå put back the cork and they carry back the ink-bottle to the desk. The humans will notice that the ink is gone and that there's ink in the hall. It will look like someone was carrying the ink-bottle and accidentally or willingly spilled the ink and the put back the bottle and left to not be caught. Any human knows that that could be the household cat. Perfect coverup.
Since most of the night is left they decide to use it for something and walks of to Skarpöra's territory. When they arrive they notice a lighter mood among cats in the area. They search for Skarpöra and after a while find her in an apartment. They can't get inside though so they decide to climp up to the window alcove since the shutters are slightly open to let in some air. To not crowd her and threaten her so much only Tryggtass climbs up. Svansglidaren stays on the ground and Grå climbs up in another window to peek into the apartment.
Tryggtass silently calls for Skarpöra to not waken the humans she can feel the scent of. "Can I enter?" she asks. She doesn't get any answer but Skarpöra comes over to window to talk to her. Tyrggtass express her curiosity over what the meaning with the street hogging was but doesn't get any real answers out of Skarpöra. Not even when she brings up the topic of Skarpöra's former companions but no longer her friends. Not even questioning the perceived loyalty to cats no longer loyal to Skarpöra gets her anywhere. While waiting Svansglidaren vaguely sense a rat at the border of his sewer ward. A little like a regular stupid rat walked into the ward and confused turned around. Another rat tries and gets a firm "No!" from Svansglidaren and turns around. The ward is working but it is worrying that so many rats are at least slightly magical capable (otherwise they wouldn't be able to challenge the ward in any way). Rats are usually not even sentient. Maybe that's something to mention to the senate or at least princeps. They decide to do that and walks over to that area of the region. They meet the secretary cat and asks if she has heard anything about magic rats. "No, not since my grandma told me about magic scary rats to keep me an obedient little kitty." she says with a smile. They tell her about the ward and the repeated tries to get through it. It could of course be a stupid magic rat but it could also be several of them. They also tell her about the many albino rats that have appeared around Grå's and Tryggtass' territories. Princeps secretary cat is slightly skeptical but dutifully listens to them and promises to tell princeps herself. They thank her and leave.
They all think that they've done enough for a productive night and goes home to sleep and rest. Before going to sleep Svansglidaren climbs up to his favourite sacrificial space and sacrifices to his forefathers. When he leaves he thinks of his burden's family who sometimes when they see him sit there jokes that it's almost like if the cat were sitting guard and protecting them. Then they laugh and say "but it's only a cat". As he stops at the humans' forefather alter, in this case of a family moving here a common denominator of getting in contact with forefathers, he thinks of how the humans also joke when he sacrifices in front of the alter. "It's almost like he's trying to sacrifice to the forefathers'' they say and for once don't get annoyed by him leaving sacrificial mice in the domus "but it's only a cat" they then say and smile.
Shortly after that he hear his burden shouting at the slaves and slapping them asking who spilled the ink and shouting to them that they should not lie to him. The door guard has had to lower his status and scrub the hall mosaic. His burden seems to in a way believe the slaves after slapping them somewhat and instead starts to shout obvious instructions to the slaves like "In this household we don't move around master's things and most of all we don't go about and drop them". The he storms into the tablinum and when seeing the Svansglidaren shouts "And that goes for you too!". The cat didn't carry around any of master's stuff and did especially not drop any of his stuff.
When the master comes out again and finds all the salves and the guard scrubbing the mosaic he shouts at them that it's of course no idea, that they obviously will have to replace the mosaic. "But you told us to..." one of them tries. "But I was upset, stupid" master answers him and storms back into the tablinum muttering something about "slaves of today". The slaves and the guard looks confused at each other and silently takes the stuff back to the kitchen. The master's wife seems to be standing and calculating the cost of removing the mosaic and putting a new one there.
In the morning when they're more balanced the family decide to exchange the mosaic and are doing calculations of the cost and thinking about whether they could use their own slaves to remove the mosaic since that's destroyed anyway. During the day the cats spend some time checking where sewers ends in the river Tiber and if it's possible to track the sewer with the rat hole but since they don't know if it's going straight or not and don't know which manholes or doors that goes to that specific sewer they can't really follow it.
At a nightfall there's another attempt to break through the ward and Svansglidaren had to actually make an effort. Maybe all the earlier successful blockings has made him sloppy or have they fetched The Great Warlock Rat? Suddenly there's another attempt and the rat breaks through and they all run there to stop it. Svansglidaren is a little scared both because he's not really a fighter and because some weird magic rat has broken through one of his wards. The surround the opening and close in on it. A rat big as a minor cat sits outside the hole. They attack the rat before they start to hesitate and also are motivated by the situation of strong magic rats trying to do something whatever it is. A fight breaks out and the rat fights back instead of fleeing and since it's so big they actually have to be somewhat careful when fighting it. The fight goes better for the cats though and the rat tries to flee into the hole again. Not with three hero-like cats against it and it turns again to fight and hurt them as much as possible before dying and it dies quite quick for the paws of Grå and Tryggtass.
The warden is broken since the rat shoved out the sacrificial rat from the hole to get out. On the inside of the hole they see eyes faintly reflecting light and hear rats hiss towards them. The cats starts to shove the newly killed rat into the hole as a new sacrifice to create a new ward agains rats. Luckily they've managed to do this without any human noticing them and getting suspicious. They're spooked by the abundance of large albino rats and on top of that large albino rats with magical abilities. They discuss whether they should try to bring up this on an actual senate meeting and maybe ask if any other cats maybe have more knowledge about the sewers.
Time passes.
The mentor wakes up and rises slightly unstable in a drowsy manner. Svansglidaren recognises how it is to return to the body after having slightly left it when dreamwalking. Grå leaves to catch a mouse. Eagerly led by Svansglidaren they walk out to the hortus (garden) to be able to talk undisturbed.
The mentor is gliding from different aspects of magic and humans and they're not fully following his reasoning but as he seems to become more present his reasoning become easier to follow. He says that there's something under the mosaic. They conclude that it must have been put there when the mosaic was put there and that's months ago. Why hasn't the magic triggerd? How could a fresh sacrifice be maintained under the mosaic for month? They reason back and forth. Maybe someone put a sacrifice there first when the sacrifice was put there and then the magic was initiated later. That still doesn't explain how the sacrifice could be maintained in a useful state for so long. It would require a very large sacrifice and very hard to slip in there while the mosaic was being laid there. A possible solution might be that someone got hold of something with a connection to someone in the household. That would be a way to make magic affect the household or someone in it. When Svansglidaren think back he remmebers that there were great frustration in the household because the mosaic layer blocked of the whole hall while he was working because he was an artist and needed space and peace while the household mostly saw him like any worker they contracted for other building actions. That could have opened up for putting something under the mosaic. They still don't know what the magic does though and maybe it's not possible to find except maybe by waiting and see if something happens that could be connected to it. That doesn't feel like a way they want to go.
Instead they start to think about how they could get the mosaic getting picked up and the thing under it discovered and removed. Suddenly they are distracted for awhile by Grå returning not only with a mouse for Svansglidaren's mentor but for them each. The eat a little and enjoy the fresh meat before continuing the discussion.
They discuss how to for example discolour the mosaic so that they would have to replace it and in that process find the thing under it. Blood is suggested but is not a favourable option. Maybe ink could be a better option. There is ink in the tablinum (office/study room). If they were to spill ink there now it would start to dry and stick before anyone discovers it. The mentor shows where the thing is and Grå and Tryggtass fetches ink. Svansglidaren keeps away so that he don't get ink on himself so that he should not get the blame. The other aren't here so much that the risk of getting the blame is quite small.
Grå topples the ink-bottle in the hall and pushed the bottle around a little so that the ink spreads around. Grå put back the cork and they carry back the ink-bottle to the desk. The humans will notice that the ink is gone and that there's ink in the hall. It will look like someone was carrying the ink-bottle and accidentally or willingly spilled the ink and the put back the bottle and left to not be caught. Any human knows that that could be the household cat. Perfect coverup.
Since most of the night is left they decide to use it for something and walks of to Skarpöra's territory. When they arrive they notice a lighter mood among cats in the area. They search for Skarpöra and after a while find her in an apartment. They can't get inside though so they decide to climp up to the window alcove since the shutters are slightly open to let in some air. To not crowd her and threaten her so much only Tryggtass climbs up. Svansglidaren stays on the ground and Grå climbs up in another window to peek into the apartment.
Tryggtass silently calls for Skarpöra to not waken the humans she can feel the scent of. "Can I enter?" she asks. She doesn't get any answer but Skarpöra comes over to window to talk to her. Tyrggtass express her curiosity over what the meaning with the street hogging was but doesn't get any real answers out of Skarpöra. Not even when she brings up the topic of Skarpöra's former companions but no longer her friends. Not even questioning the perceived loyalty to cats no longer loyal to Skarpöra gets her anywhere. While waiting Svansglidaren vaguely sense a rat at the border of his sewer ward. A little like a regular stupid rat walked into the ward and confused turned around. Another rat tries and gets a firm "No!" from Svansglidaren and turns around. The ward is working but it is worrying that so many rats are at least slightly magical capable (otherwise they wouldn't be able to challenge the ward in any way). Rats are usually not even sentient. Maybe that's something to mention to the senate or at least princeps. They decide to do that and walks over to that area of the region. They meet the secretary cat and asks if she has heard anything about magic rats. "No, not since my grandma told me about magic scary rats to keep me an obedient little kitty." she says with a smile. They tell her about the ward and the repeated tries to get through it. It could of course be a stupid magic rat but it could also be several of them. They also tell her about the many albino rats that have appeared around Grå's and Tryggtass' territories. Princeps secretary cat is slightly skeptical but dutifully listens to them and promises to tell princeps herself. They thank her and leave.
They all think that they've done enough for a productive night and goes home to sleep and rest. Before going to sleep Svansglidaren climbs up to his favourite sacrificial space and sacrifices to his forefathers. When he leaves he thinks of his burden's family who sometimes when they see him sit there jokes that it's almost like if the cat were sitting guard and protecting them. Then they laugh and say "but it's only a cat". As he stops at the humans' forefather alter, in this case of a family moving here a common denominator of getting in contact with forefathers, he thinks of how the humans also joke when he sacrifices in front of the alter. "It's almost like he's trying to sacrifice to the forefathers'' they say and for once don't get annoyed by him leaving sacrificial mice in the domus "but it's only a cat" they then say and smile.
Shortly after that he hear his burden shouting at the slaves and slapping them asking who spilled the ink and shouting to them that they should not lie to him. The door guard has had to lower his status and scrub the hall mosaic. His burden seems to in a way believe the slaves after slapping them somewhat and instead starts to shout obvious instructions to the slaves like "In this household we don't move around master's things and most of all we don't go about and drop them". The he storms into the tablinum and when seeing the Svansglidaren shouts "And that goes for you too!". The cat didn't carry around any of master's stuff and did especially not drop any of his stuff.
When the master comes out again and finds all the salves and the guard scrubbing the mosaic he shouts at them that it's of course no idea, that they obviously will have to replace the mosaic. "But you told us to..." one of them tries. "But I was upset, stupid" master answers him and storms back into the tablinum muttering something about "slaves of today". The slaves and the guard looks confused at each other and silently takes the stuff back to the kitchen. The master's wife seems to be standing and calculating the cost of removing the mosaic and putting a new one there.
In the morning when they're more balanced the family decide to exchange the mosaic and are doing calculations of the cost and thinking about whether they could use their own slaves to remove the mosaic since that's destroyed anyway. During the day the cats spend some time checking where sewers ends in the river Tiber and if it's possible to track the sewer with the rat hole but since they don't know if it's going straight or not and don't know which manholes or doors that goes to that specific sewer they can't really follow it.
At a nightfall there's another attempt to break through the ward and Svansglidaren had to actually make an effort. Maybe all the earlier successful blockings has made him sloppy or have they fetched The Great Warlock Rat? Suddenly there's another attempt and the rat breaks through and they all run there to stop it. Svansglidaren is a little scared both because he's not really a fighter and because some weird magic rat has broken through one of his wards. The surround the opening and close in on it. A rat big as a minor cat sits outside the hole. They attack the rat before they start to hesitate and also are motivated by the situation of strong magic rats trying to do something whatever it is. A fight breaks out and the rat fights back instead of fleeing and since it's so big they actually have to be somewhat careful when fighting it. The fight goes better for the cats though and the rat tries to flee into the hole again. Not with three hero-like cats against it and it turns again to fight and hurt them as much as possible before dying and it dies quite quick for the paws of Grå and Tryggtass.
The warden is broken since the rat shoved out the sacrificial rat from the hole to get out. On the inside of the hole they see eyes faintly reflecting light and hear rats hiss towards them. The cats starts to shove the newly killed rat into the hole as a new sacrifice to create a new ward agains rats. Luckily they've managed to do this without any human noticing them and getting suspicious. They're spooked by the abundance of large albino rats and on top of that large albino rats with magical abilities. They discuss whether they should try to bring up this on an actual senate meeting and maybe ask if any other cats maybe have more knowledge about the sewers.
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