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DMs (some): Red vs White
Posted: 03 Feb 2007 12:37 AM |
YAY! No Chiefy to read this! Huzzah!
Okay, I've been avoiding posting this on the NM thread because Chief can read every word. He knows some of it already (if he can read through all the spam I fill up the forums with) but some of it, he doesn't.
A Matter of Honour
Midor:
The city that the rest of the world would prefer to forget, loves to hate, would gladly see razed to the ground and turned to ash, just like the victims who've passed through there and never returned. So many now have turned their backs on it, have moved on to other lives and other beliefs, but still a handful remain, in their hearts, loyal to what it once tried to be. The values and ideals that the New Order has corrupted.
Imagine you had been driven out of the city you'd served, by the god you'd worshipped, by the clergy you'd followed, hated by the people you'd protected.
Imagine you'd watched as one by one, people you'd once considered to be the only people in the world like yourself turned out to be completely different, turned to new paths, until in the end only a handful of you remained... still, paradoxically, loyal to Midor.
Loyal to Midor. Not to the New Order. Not to Midoran. Do you know what it means to be loyal to Midor?
No powers, no allies, no resources, no guarantees. In one hand you hold a broken heart and in the other a burning need for justice. This is your city and you will stand for it. These are your people and you will defend them. They'd spit on you and crucify you if they ever found you, but they won't find you, will they?
They don't even know you exist. You blend into the crowd until you're just one of them.
No uniforms, no loud proclamations and speeches, no pedestal to stand on so they may look up at you. No, this is a grassroots operation.
An act of mercy here. The Swords denied a victim there. And in so many little ways you breathe life back into these broken and forgotten values and ideals, show that somewhere out there, there is still a glimmer of light. Not a glaring light that blinds, but a peripheral flicker—look away and it's gone. Don't chase it and it will run away. You have to keep looking for it. You have to keep chasing it.
Elusive, that's what it is. Like a will-o-'the-wisp.
But It Isn't Enough
It isn't enough just to scrape by to survive. You need to build up numbers, and now's the time. If you build up numbers, you become visible. If you become visible, you can't defend your people - camouflage and stealth are your best defences.
And in the meantime you are searching. You have sent your scouts out to find someplace you can call your own, not for your sake but for those civilian refugees who need it. Those of you who were once priests or soldiers do not need it; you're fine. But what about the people you need to defend? Until such time as you can teach them to fend for themselves, you need to fend for them.
The Debt
In the meantime strings are pulled and favours called in, and while Midor and the rest of the world may find it convenient to forget that there was virtue in Midor, still there are those who remember the courage and kindness of old. A very few, but they do exist.
To the sailors of the Kraken fleet you owe a life debt which can only be repaid in service or in life. The price they have demanded is this: despite the ever-present threat of the Atalan, despite the declaration of war against Ferein from Midor, you must entrust to them sixteen of what few people you have. Sixteen of your most valuable, to aid them in a siege against an age-old enemy.
One of them must be a strategist with a keen eye, to infiltrate the enemy's stronghold, assess the situation, record their observations, and conceive a battle plan.
Fifteen must be chosen from what you cannot afford to lose the most: field-trained battle priests, skilled in both healing and war.
What can you do? It's a sacrifice that will leave you spread more dangerously thin than you already are. Twenty ex-military, sixty ex-clergy, a little under a hundred civilians, scattered so as to make the size of the groups more manageable and survivable. That's it. That's all. This is all you have.
In the long term it will be worth it, but there may not be a long term if you take a gamble and send a quarter of your experienced priests off on a mission of uncertain details for an uncertain period of time.
This you do know: the Krakens know the meaning of honour. They would not have made this demand needlessly.
So once again it comes down to a matter of trust. Nothing risked, nothing gained. One more impossible leap of faith into the unknown, if you have the courage to risk it.
You agree to the terms.
The Siege
The death of Captain Highliner resulted in a certain map, a unique map of which there are no other copies, falling into Kraken hands: the coordinates of Ribald Island.
That they want to lay siege to it is bad enough; that they want to take the place as intact as possible... well...
But this much has been revealed: the situation on the mainland has affected the Silver Runners not in the least, suggesting that Ribald Island is entirely self-sufficient.
The fact that the Black Hand can afford to hold a festival in a situation nearing famine suggests they have a source, a source which has enough surplus to provide that food to them. Join the dots and look at the result: the conclusion is obvious.
If this succeeds then it earns the goodwill of a reliable and trustworthy maritime power, and the possibility of future negotiations regarding the island. They'll need someone to tend it, and they may well choose you, if you offer. This could be the solution to a lot of problems - theirs, yours and to a small extent the world's. And the world need never know. And maybe in some small way it will mean you could offer something to the world in these disastrous times.
Midor
When you have nothing, then you have to press every advantage you've got.
The attacks on Paws and the Farmlands, and the declaration of war, have sent Midor into an even faster downward spiral. Hammerhead, situated in Midor itself, has maintained a communications blackout until now. The reports come in fast. Midor has its psychological blind spots, and in those blind spots, it is possible to operate... if you operate with caution.
Knowing Midor inside-out, in every single way possible, helps.
True to form, all that which happens outside Midor's walls is beneath the concern of Midor. Paws would have been risky, but the Farmlands...
You now have agents planted in the Farmlands. The noose is closing in.
In the meantime you'll be damned if you let your people starve and if you let Midor step all over non-humans and others who have recently been persecuted. Seventeen Half-Elves mysteriously vanish once the war declaration is out, shipped off as quickly as possible to Crag in Dragon's Tears Pass. Hignus and Frengel, Dwarves both, manage too to make it out before the embargo with their most valuable merchandise, escorted quietly to Ikarian Bay where they are reunited at last with their brethren.
All these little acts of defiance in the face of injustice.
No one will ever know it was you. |
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