Penny

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

Everyone has a story. You know the story. The one you Aunt dusts off every Thanksgiving when the wine is flowing and the sense is going? The one about the old house on the end of the street where flowers never grow and maybe old Sweeny killed his wife and hid her in the drywall. Or perhaps it was the time your grandmother swore that she saw something floating in a broken window grinning at her. Maybe it was you. Maybe you heard strange voices out in the woods, or glimpsed something in the fog out at sea one night. Maybe you saw the same pale woman everywhere you went for a week and you swear the bitch had no reflection.

There are thousands of stories like these and they all have one things in common. Ninety nine percent of them are bullshit. Of course ninety nine percent certainty means that one time in a hundred you’re dead.

There are things out there in dark. Sometimes they leave us alone, hell maybe most times, but sometimes the snatch up babies and sacrifice them in stone circles. Sometimes the feed on the minds of the living. Sometime they set fires for the joy of watching people burn.

Who do you turn to if something like that happens? Cops can’t help, write you a prescription and ship you to a mental hospital if you even mentioned it. You need professionals, and frankly there aren’t that many people stupid enough to put their heads in that particular noose. People who know, know enough to be fucking terrified. Usually they find the deepest darkest hole they can climb into.

Want to turn to the sort of broken desperadoes still stupid enough to stand in the line of supernatural fire? Good luck with that.

Welcome to the Sunday Group

This RP will follow the adventures of the members of the Sunday Group. It is a story about the occult world behind the world, and those brave or foolish enough to want to understand it.

Somewhere in a big city in America, there is a nondescript building. It is a few stories tall and it has an extensive basement. It could easily be the Law Offices Of Boring, Dreary and Bland, no one would guess that it is the home of one of the nation’s only occult detective agencies.

Employees of the Sunday Group are a diverse bunch. Small time magical practitioners, those with strange abilities, broken down cops who have seen too much, or just regular folk who saw something they shouldn’t and want to do something about it. Everyone who works for the Group has touched the supernatural world in some way or another, and for whatever reason just cant let it go and sink back into the comforting security of the mundane.

The World

The world is very much like our own except there is a secret magical world beneath it. It isn’t happy Twilight Magical though, think of it as somewhere between Harry Dresden and the Call of Cthulhu. Many of the trappings of any Urban Fantasy will apply here and I encourage you to introduce them into the setting. Think a shotgun filled with rocksalt will take out a ghost? Great, it is in. Want werewolves to have a silver allergy? No problem. Anything you want to introduce into the setting will probably be ok. If I have a problem with it, Ill ask you to reconsider privately.

Magic for the Modern Age

Some humans have the ability to handle arcane forces, either innately or through elaborate ritual preparations. Some people gain magical powers via congress with spirits or demons, even Gods there is always a price to pay for subverting the natural order though. Sooner or later the bill comes due.

Magic exists in the world in a multitude of form and traditions. It is even possible to do some magic by computer. I dont want to put to many restrictions on people here. Many types of magic do not require the use of spells or incantations. Some people might be able to move small objects with their minds, read the surface thoughts of others, turn invisible or any number of other small boons you might come up with.

While magic can be very effective under the right circumstances it isn’t a be all and end all solution. A powerful practitioner might be able to hurl a bolt of lighting but it is normally much simpler, safer and more effective just to use a gun. Magic is a tool, use it wisely.

Who are the Players?

The players will take the roles of detectives in the drama, but this won't be an RP solely about solving crime. Personal relationships between characters, their families and dependents will be crucial to the story.

Be connected! The nature of the world is such that all the brooding loners with a tragic but unknowable backstory were exsanginuated long ago. You don’t need to like people, but you do need to depend on them to survive.

What Can I Play?

You can play a human (or near human) with some minor edge over the rest of the herd. You cannot play an immortal dragon vampire samurai. Your character should have some life experience. I don't want to flat out say that they need to be a certain age but my personal preference is to avoid the teenage types who no sane detective would want covering their back when the tentacle hits the pentacle.

Notes On the RP

This will be a small group RP. I’m looking for 3-4 players tops. I want personal interaction to matter and I just dont see that in large group RPs.

This will be a collaborative rp and we will create the world as we go, feel free to introduce detail! I will exercise some limited forms of narrative control if necessary but my instinct is to let it ride if it fits in the framework of the fiction.

This will be an 18+ RP. Sex, drugs, sex drugs and horrible nightmares from distant space times ect.

Inspirations and Style

Inspirations for this include Call of Cthulhu, Harry Dresden, Supernatural, Delta Green, the Laundry Files. The goal is to be not quite as bleak as Lovecraft but to maintain something approaching that level of horror and danger. The protagonists can effect the outcome but plenty of stuff out there is well beyond the weight class of the Sunday Group.

How to Write a Collaborative Mystery

As long time Pennyphiles will know this is my fourth fifth attempt to get his rp up and running. In the past one of the problems with it was how can we present a mystery in a way that lets players interact with the mystery rather than I as the GM doling out all the intel? I'm going to allow players to introduce clues, and then have players formulate their best guess as to what is going on in the OOCs to steer the whole thing towards a coherent narrative. I may ask you to rewrite occasionally to facilitate this, or your character may simply be wrong or deceived about events you have describe.

This is somewhat experimental and may change.

Pacing

As my Father is fond of saying 'We didn't come here to fuck spiders.' What does this mean? I honestly don't know, but the tone of this RP will be active. I don't mind a certain amount of the internal life of the character being presented but wherever possible do something rather than picking up a cup of coffee and taking four paragraphs to do it. Quality is not quantity ect ect ect.

Paranormal Detectives

I'll confess that I'm interested. But it seems like you have plenty of interested persons. Will this be application based?

@LadyAnnaLee

It will be application based yes!

Paranormal Detectives

Everyone has a story. You know the story. The one you Aunt dusts off every Thanksgiving when the wine is flowing and the sense is going? The one about the old house on the end of the street where flowers never grow and maybe old Sweeny killed his wife and hid her in the drywall. Or perhaps it was the time your grandmother swore that she saw something floating in a broken window grinning at her. Maybe it was you. Maybe you heard strange voices out in the woods, or glimpsed something in the fog out at sea one night. Maybe you saw the same pale woman everywhere you went for a week and you swear the bitch had no reflection.

There are thousands of stories like these and they all have one things in common. Ninety nine percent of them are bullshit. Of course ninety nine percent certainty means that one time in a hundred you’re dead.

There are things out there in dark. Sometimes they leave us alone, hell maybe most times, but sometimes the snatch up babies and sacrifice them in stone circles. Sometimes the feed on the minds of the living. Sometime they set fires for the joy of watching people burn.

Who do you turn to if something like that happens? Cops can’t help, write you a prescription and ship you to a mental hospital if you even mentioned it. You need professionals, and frankly there aren’t that many people stupid enough to put their heads in that particular noose. People who know, know enough to be fucking terrified. Usually they find the deepest darkest hole they can climb into.

Want to turn to the sort of broken desperadoes still stupid enough to stand in the line of supernatural fire? Good luck with that.

Welcome to the Sunday Group

This RP will follow the adventures of the members of the Sunday Group. It is a story about the occult world behind the world, and those brave or foolish enough to want to understand it.

Somewhere in a big city in America, there is a nondescript building. It is a few stories tall and it has an extensive basement. It could easily be the Law Offices Of Boring, Dreary and Bland, no one would guess that it is the home of one of the nation’s only occult detective agencies.

Employees of the Sunday Group are a diverse bunch. Small time magical practitioners, those with strange abilities, broken down cops who have seen too much, or just regular folk who saw something they shouldn’t and want to do something about it. Everyone who works for the Group has touched the supernatural world in some way or another, and for whatever reason just cant let it go and sink back into the comforting security of the mundane.

The World

The world is very much like our own except there is a secret magical world beneath it. It isn’t happy Twilight Magical though, think of it as somewhere between Harry Dresden and the Call of Cthulhu. Many of the trappings of any Urban Fantasy will apply here and I encourage you to introduce them into the setting. Think a shotgun filled with rocksalt will take out a ghost? Great, it is in. Want werewolves to have a silver allergy? No problem. Anything you want to introduce into the setting will probably be ok. If I have a problem with it, Ill ask you to reconsider privately.

Magic for the Modern Age

Some humans have the ability to handle arcane forces, either innately or through elaborate ritual preparations. Some people gain magical powers via congress with spirits or demons, even Gods there is always a price to pay for subverting the natural order though. Sooner or later the bill comes due.

Magic exists in the world in a multitude of form and traditions. It is even possible to do some magic by computer. I dont want to put to many restrictions on people here. Many types of magic do not require the use of spells or incantations. Some people might be able to move small objects with their minds, read the surface thoughts of others, turn invisible or any number of other small boons you might come up with.

While magic can be very effective under the right circumstances it isn’t a be all and end all solution. A powerful practitioner might be able to hurl a bolt of lighting but it is normally much simpler, safer and more effective just to use a gun. Magic is a tool, use it wisely.

Who are the Players?

The players will take the roles of detectives in the drama, but this won't be an RP solely about solving crime. Personal relationships between characters, their families and dependents will be crucial to the story.

Be connected! The nature of the world is such that all the brooding loners with a tragic but unknowable backstory were exsanginuated long ago. You don’t need to like people, but you do need to depend on them to survive.

What Can I Play?

You can play a human (or near human) with some minor edge over the rest of the herd. You cannot play an immortal dragon vampire samurai. Your character should have some life experience. I don't want to flat out say that they need to be a certain age but my personal preference is to avoid the teenage types who no sane detective would want covering their back when the tentacle hits the pentacle.

Notes On the RP

This will be a small group RP. I’m looking for 3-4 players tops. I want personal interaction to matter and I just dont see that in large group RPs.

This will be a collaborative rp and we will create the world as we go, feel free to introduce detail! I will exercise some limited forms of narrative control if necessary but my instinct is to let it ride if it fits in the framework of the fiction.

This will be an 18+ RP. Sex, drugs, sex drugs and horrible nightmares from distant space times ect.

Inspirations and Style

Inspirations for this include Call of Cthulhu, Harry Dresden, Supernatural, Delta Green, the Laundry Files. The goal is to be not quite as bleak as Lovecraft but to maintain something approaching that level of horror and danger. The protagonists can effect the outcome but plenty of stuff out there is well beyond the weight class of the Sunday Group.

How to Write a Collaborative Mystery

As long time Pennyphiles will know this is my fourth fifth attempt to get his rp up and running. In the past one of the problems with it was how can we present a mystery in a way that lets players interact with the mystery rather than I as the GM doling out all the intel? I'm going to allow players to introduce clues, and then have players formulate their best guess as to what is going on in the OOCs to steer the whole thing towards a coherent narrative. I may ask you to rewrite occasionally to facilitate this, or your character may simply be wrong or deceived about events you have describe.

This is somewhat experimental and may change.

Pacing

As my Father is fond of saying 'We didn't come here to fuck spiders.' What does this mean? I honestly don't know, but the tone of this RP will be active. I don't mind a certain amount of the internal life of the character being presented but wherever possible do something rather than picking up a cup of coffee and taking four paragraphs to do it. Quality is not quantity ect ect ect.

Pirates - Ye Be Warned

“Still with us. Yande curse them,” Jess replied invoking the Sea Goddess with the traditional globe of spittle over the side. The sea was rising rapidly as they ran for the deeper water of Shimmersea and the Witch was riding troughs that were half as tall as she was before sliding down the other side to plow her prow into the water. The foam that came off her bow glittered with the multicolored phosphoresce that gave the sea its name. At the top of each trough the topmen called the bearings on the Glimmers. The seemed to be shadowing the pirate vessel, forming two points of a triangle which prevented Jess from coming about one way or the other. Disturbingly, the ghostly vessels always semed to be riding the crest of the swell, never slipping down into the troughs.

“Shouldn’t we … put on more sails or something,” Galt asked, clearly nervous and probably miserably sick from the unfamiliar sensation of standing upon the rolling deck. It was a wonder he wasn’t casting his accounts to Yande as they spoke. Jess looked skeptical up at the rigging. The Witch was running almost directly before the wind with mainsail and topgallants set as well as a jib and storm spanker. The running rig was already fairly humming with the tension.

“If we put on any more canvas we might take the sticks out of her,” Jess explained, though she privately considered reefing the mainsail and running up royals and studding sails to better deal with the high seas. If the ships pursuing here were of normal human construction she might have tried it, but she dare not surrender even the few knots such an evolution would require.

“He is a jynx!” a hard faced man with scarring over both his arms snarled turning from the braces to glare at Galt. “I say we put him over the side!”

“Tend your line and shut your mouth!” Jess snapped as she glanced down at the binnacle compass.

“I got as much say as anyone here, and I say we put him over the side to appease the Glimmers!” the truculent crewman snarled, gripping the handle of a cutlass in emphasis. Jess pulled her own weapon free, a small sword that was longer than the fashion at sea, engraved with seashells and possessed of the slightest sweeping curve.

“I’ll not take second guessing from you Branch, not on this, or on any dammed thing,” she snapped pointing the sword at his mid section. Branch didn’t try to draw his sword, but ran his hand over a shaved head and glared. Branch was a bosun and the next senior officer after Krycek in the informal hierarchy of the ship. He had long resented Jess but while a dab hand at his craft of handling ropes and sails, lacked the skill of navigation.

“I call for a vote,” he snapped. Pirates near him began to take note, clustering around and shouting their opinions. Most weren’t even aware of what the issue was merely shouting ‘Branch’ or ‘Red Jess’ depending on where they personally lined up. Jess didn’t bother to enlighten them.

“Me or Branch?!” she demanded, not lowering her sword.

“Red Jess!” came the shout from the majority of the crew within earshot.

“Anyone for Branch?” she demanded, turning a slow half circle with the point of her blade. No one responded, even previous partisans unwilling to voice what would obviously now be a losing vote.

“Then trim the sheets and stand by to…”

“Light!” one of the topmen screamed.

“Where away?!” Jess demanded, though she was already running for the ratlines, scrambling agile up towards the dangerously swaying tops.

“Two points off the starboard bow!” came the reply but Jess, having already reached the crosstrees could see it well enough. She unsnapped her spyglass and peered at the smudge of reddish light on the distant rolling wave tops. It was bigger than the ship, a rend in the sky that crackled with red energy. A Rift. Rifts were another of the strange phenomenon of Shimmersea, like the Glimmers they were known only from tavern tales and stories told on the orlop decks in the dark. Allegedly they were portals which took you to a different place in the sea, sometimes hundreds of leagues from where you entered. Jess didn’t hesitate.

“Helm! Two points starboard!” she shrieked down to the deck.

“Two points starboard aye!” came the response and in a few seconds they were headed right for the glowing red portal. Jess slithered down the rigging and dropped to the deck beside Galt with a thump.

“Where are we going?” he demanded. Jess grinned, teeth flashing with distant lightning.

“We are about to find out.”

____

A half hour later no one needed a glass to see the rift. It towered before them, twice the height of the ship, crackling with scarlet bands of energy that rimmed a vision of a different seascape viewed as though through dirty glass. Jess was pleased that Branch had already challenged her, because otherwise the crew might well have refused to follow her order to steer straight for the portal.

“Are you sure about this?” Galt asked nervously as they rode up the swell to look down upon the glowing portal.

“I’m sure,” Jess lied, glancing behind them to where the ghostly forms of the glimmers were now hull up and closing fast. The crew had already attached lines to anchor themselves to the ship and Jess hastily added one for herself and Galt The Weather Witch plunged down the swell in a flare of rainbow water that splashed up over the deck to soak the crew, then the bow was lifting and they struck the face of the rift.


Jess blinked as she came to. She was lying atop Galt on the deck. Torn sails and parted lines snapped above her, but the wind was light and the storm was gone, replaced by a sunny sky and a gentle breeze. She pushed herself to her feet, to find they were all but drifting. Off to starboard was a large island, covered with green jungle and close enough that she would have to get a sea anchor down in a few minutes. It was covered in a beach of pristine white sand and the arms of a shallow bay extended around them. The smell of greenery and flowers was heavy on the air. All around her other members of the crew were waking up, shrugging of the effects of arcane transition.

“Are you alright?” she asked Galt.

Bodacious Bounties: Bounty Hunter AU

Jocasta snagged a piece of pizza and hopped up onto the edge of the pool table, crossing her booted feet as she curved the pizza and took a mouthful, chewing hungrily. Drones poked their occulars up from behind cover evidently feeling somewhat embarassed. She masticated the delicious pie for a moment and swallowed a mouthful.

"I learned in the navy," Jocasta admitted. Cygi marched across the deck in an ancient naval uniform, the tune of 'Anchors away' blaring. Jocasta snickered and took another drink, feeling the warm lemony liquor spread through her body.

"We had a couple of zero-g tanks," she explained. The zero gravity pool tables allowed 3-D play which the Navy thought was good for pilots. The force projected walls slowed the balls, but there was a great deal more ricocheting than in the regular game. A good shot could often sink three or four balls in second and third order collisions. It also meant that the table changed radically between shots.

"I was pretty good, but always a little heavy with the stick," she admitted, winking at Neil as she took another bite of Pizza.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"Did your little bugs see any signs of the others?" Buri demanded. Jocasta was studying funerary inscriptions, making notes in her notebook. Beren, who had been travelling with her for some time now, noticed that the book never seemed to fill up, no matter how many scrawled notes and hasty diagrams were drawn on its pages. He shook his head, dismissing it as yet another of Jocasta's seemingly endless quirks.

"They didn't see them no," Jocasta explained as she copied down what appeared to be a warding spell of some kind. There was enough similiarity in dwarven surnames that she thought maybe she could begin to create a key to deiciphering the writting language, if she lived long enough and had the lesuire.

"But from what I did see it didn't look like the collapse was that far across the city. Assuming there is anything of the city left at all, I'd say they have a pretty good chance." She paused to trace a rune stone with a fingertip.

"Of course, they are as stuck down here as we are and we might all starve to death before we find the surface," she added cheerfully.

"The dwarf roads might be a way out. Assuming they aren't collapsed and the Gundarogs haven't completely overrun them," Buri replied, sounding stoic if not exactly confident.

"Little chance of the latter, but if we can get through, we might make it to some dwarfhold or a minehead," Beren replied seizing on the idea at once. Buri looked skeptical.

"It's near a thousand miles to the nearest hold I know of, not much shy of that to any shafts," he cautioned.

"Its not as though we have any better ideas," Beren countered. Jocasta lifted her head to interject when Buri cocked his head curiously to the side. A moment later Beren's eyes narrowed.

"What?!" Jocasta demanded.

"Gundarogs," the pair answered at once in identically grim tones.

"The earthquake must have stired up the hornets nest," Beren concluded grimly.

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

“Pverhap zere are bitter uses for your teem zen watching aftour ze untrustworthy femme?” Eleanor suggested her tone unimpeachably innocent. She looked Kasimir up and down.

“And zen again, pverhaps not.” This comment bought a titter though the gathering which cased Kasimir to stiffen further. Further awkwardness was forestalled by the orchestra striking up a waltz. Oderick raised Eleanor’s hand and led her in the stately steps of the dance.


“You should not be so had on young Kasimir,” Oderick told her as they glided along, following the path of other couples in the great open space. Oderick was not a great dancer, but managed to avoid standing on her feet, which was really all she could expect from these unshaven brutes.

“He iz an uncouth boor,” she replied a trifle snippily. Oderick laughed with natural good humor.

“No doubt, but it is no easy thing being one of Todbringer’s bastards. Much is expected and no leeway is granted,” Oderick explained. Eleanor made a noncommittal sound and dismissed the man from her mind. Kasimir would never trouble her again.


“Ashante Lady d’Aberville,” Chancellor Teobald Henniker said as he took her hand at one of the partner changes. She had danced a half dozen with Oderick before it became apparent that a riot might ensue if he continued to monopolize her time. The stately waltz had given way to more spritely sarabans and roundels which owed much more the common people than the output of the cultural elites in Altdorf and Marienburg. Fortunately Emmaline was a quick learner and she had a wealth of prior experience. Dances were an excellent way to meet rich marks after all and she had spent a fair number of evenings with Brettonians learning how they did it to prepare to become Eleanor. They stepped off into the dance and it quickly became apparent that Henniker had far more talent for it than Oderick.

"I see you met young Reinhardt?" he asked as they twirled trough the other couples, the echoes of music cascading pleasantly around them. Eleanor frowned slightly, genuinely perplexed as to why this was coming up as well as a little irritated to be forced to deal with the bastard after she had put him from her mind.

"Oui a rather beerish young man," she sniffed. Henniker arched an eyebrow.

"Beerish?" he asked. Eleanor gave him a 'what can you do' smile.

"Beer, like the uncouth pig," she explained. Henniker nodded and smiled.

"Boorish, yes I see," Henniker agreed his eyes sharpening. It was an easy trick, to make a man feel superior to you and it worked nearly every time it was employed, the fake Brettonian accent was a wonderful opportunity to use it without seeming too bubble headed.

"So you do not all together agree with the Count and his party then?" Henniker asked, as though her words had given slip to some deep political intrigue.

"Ze only opiyon I ave of ze Duke is zat 'is bastard is a beer...boor," she repeated. Henniker was nodding as though they had just shared a confidence. The waltz turned, taking them close to the wall where Emmaline caught a glimpse of a stern looking man in the hat and coat of a witch hunter. Whether because of religion or occupation he stood alone among the Ulricans. His eyes seemed to search the crowd, but to her relief slid over her without showing any sign of interest.

"Perhaps we will speak more later mademoiselle," he told her handing her off to her next partner with a courtly bow.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta had the momentary impression that trying to kiss Beren had caused the earthquake. In fact, perhaps kissing Beren inevitably summoned disasters. The whole cavern was shaking itself apart before in a cacophony of screaming rock and shattering masonry. A great crevasse ripped across the middle of the Dwarf city tumbling houses and great monumental buildings like waves crashing on sandcastles. Great gouts of sulfurous gas gouted from below, filling the air with the reek of volcanism. There was a titanic cracking noise as one of the massive stalactites came away from the cavern roof. It seemed to fall in slow motion, gracefully sliding down into what must have been a palace. Dust exploded outwards in a billowing cloud as thousands of pounds of stone crashed to earth.

“We have to get out of here,” Jocasta declared in what might have been the most self evident statement she had ever made.

“But the others…” Buri began before obviously realizing there was nothing they could do to shelter the rest of the party from a disaster on this scale.

“We can regroup later!” Jocasta snapped, “Assuming we aren’t pancakes!” Buri nodded and took off at a run. Jocasta didn’t bother to ask, merely sprinting after him at best speed. Behind them the roar of breaking rocks grew worse as the ceiling, perhaps weakened when the stalactite had fallen began to crumble inwards, raining down in a shower of rocks and boulders. Buri ran straight for the nearest cavern wall, hurdling over a low fungus garden wall before emerging onto a long boulevard that terminated in a gate of sorts that had been hewed into the rock of the cavern. A pair of blindfolded dwarf statues held hands up in bar. The rock fall was very close behind them know, the smaller pebbles of the leading edge raining down on them as they ran. Larger boulders fell among them as the dust and grit closed in front of them like an enveloping rain storm. Jocasta threw herself into the shelter of the tunnel only a few heartbeats before a boulder the size of a wagon crashed upon the place she had been standing a moment before. She hit Buri and tripped, throwing out her arms to cart wheel awkwardly before hitting a wall and slumping to the ground.

Rocks and gravel continued to pour through the opening for several seconds before the rumbling and the stones subsided. Jocasta sat against the wall, panting hard. Beren, his axe slung across his back was doubled over, breathing hard with his hands on his thighs. Buri lay senseless on the floor, his head bleeding from a gash where a rock had struck him. The tunnel around them was regular, clearly dug or improved by the dwarves of the city, and it’s walls were covered by an impressive mosaic which stretched off into the darkness. Time had not spared the mosaic, broken tiles had flecked away from the wall over the years and lay like dandruff by the tunnel walls but the overall images were still distinguishable. The small colored tiles depicted dwarves of all ages and trades, marching down into the earth, weapons and tools held aloft.

“What is this?” Jocasta asked, peering closer as the glow worms re-emerged from their hiding places.

“It’s a Funerary Road,” Beren said.

“Families would bear their dead down into the tunnels below the city. Each family would have a particular place, sometimes secret places to lay their dead to rest,” Beren replied, picking pebbles out of his hair.

“Actually Jocasta, it’s the road to the tavern where they kept all the booze and food and fun magical items,” Jocasta said in her Beren impersonation. “Plus there is a bath and a magical portal to the surface.”

“What the hell are you talking about girl?” Buri demanded somewhat groggily.

“It seems if I want good news I need to get it from myself,” Jocasta replied.

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

Emmaline was not best pleased with the new comer to her social circle but she controlled her irritation with practiced ease. The remainder of the small group were not so skilled. Oderick stiffened slightly and shifted his body to clear his sword arm. Some of the young court nobles glared at the man. The reaction from the women was guarded interest though they were obviously not keen for this to be remarked upon. She was familiar with the pugnacity of duelists, her friend Hannah, an infamous blade back in Altdorf, was forever leaping into situations where wiser people feared to tread. Certainly there was nothing good that could come from this sort crashing about in her schemes like the bull that bumped the beehive.

“I do not know you sir,” Eleanor responded with the chill of a slight offended aristocrat as she wracked her brain for where exactly Athel Loren might be in relationship to the county of Coucernne. A few of the hangers on tittered at the cut but unexpectedly Oderik spoke up.

“This is Kasimir Reinhardt my lady,” Oderik interjected, “he is one of the counts ba…err that is to say extended family.” A few of the courtiers snickered at Oderik’s slight hesitation but the smarter ones masked their reactions, unsure as to why Oderik would do the younger man the favor of smoothing over an awkwardness. They might be northern barbarians but at this level of society everything could be political.

“Kasimir, this is Eleanor de Aberville, Contessa Coucernne , a guest in our fair city,” Oderick went on. Emmaline smiled and extended her hand for Kasimir to kiss in the Brettonian fashion. Kasimir did so and then straightened.

“I am not truly ze Countessa,” Emmaline admitted, her eyes sparkling slight at the unexpected truth in her castle of lies, “not until my fither passes nes pa?”

“Long may that be delayed,” Oderik replied, perhaps slightly less than truthfully.

“And to your question Kasimir Coucernne is in the south east, not near Athel Loren,” Oderik continued, clearly please to be able to show off his Brettonian geography. Emmaline suppressed a sigh of relief, having been spared from having to make a split second decision on the matter.

“I ave zeen it as a trivillor only,” she amplified, forced now to invent a circumstance in which she might have viewed the famous forest.

“Of course ve did not rid into ze voods zemselves, that would be tres parilous but I saw it from afar,” she concluded. Emmaline decided that was enough detail for a polite anecdote to someone of lower station and moved on.

“You vere ze von who killed Cloose-o-vits were you not? ” Eleanor asked, her Brettonian accent struggling mightily to render the name of the dead courtier. The courtiers stiffened as she had known they would. She was using her supposed ignorance as a foreigner to put Kasimir on an awkward footing.

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

Like most things in the City of the White Wolf, the Grand Ball was tied to the Cult of Ulric. Apparently it celebrated Taal, the God of Forests and growth, turning over dominion to Ulric who among his other titles, was the god of Winter. There was, it was said, a meeting in the forests between a great stag and a mighty wolf that symbolized the whole celestial dance and everyone and their brother claimed to have witnessed it, or knew someone who had. Emmaline knew this deep theological lore not because she was either learned or interested in the Cult of Ulric, but because every bearded northman assumed she knew nothing about it and just couldn't wait to correct her ignorance.

"I saw the Wolf once when I was a lad," a jowly man who was some kind of a court functionary told her in a conspiratorial tone.

"Oh oui monsieur?" Emmaline replied with false enthusiasm.

"Yes quite right, I was deep in the forest on a hunting trip when I saw a great stag on a rise, naturally I crept towards it and then this great wolf stalked from the undergrowth not twenty feet away!"

Emmaline repressed a sigh with professional determination. Either this wolf really got around, or the countryside was teaming with an unmanageable number of the brutes. More likely the sightings had more to do with drunken braggadocio then lupine demographics however.

Whatever it's tenuous theological underpinnings, the ball was the social event of the season. The Great Hall was a magnificent sight. Its floor was polished stone, colder and more austere than the wooden floors that were the rage in Altdorf, but the chill was made up for by hundreds of banners which hung along its wall in shimmering silk. Supposedly every house that owed fealty to the Elector was represented in the display, and they ranged from ancient lineages to jumped up merchants who had purchased their titles in the last generation or so. Colorful glass lanterns were hung from strings tied high around the mighty pillars that supported the vaulted ceiling, glimmering down like varicolored stars. The pillars themselves had been wrapped with interwoven vines, half lush and green, half dead and withered, their symbolism obvious. Little copper emblems of stags were hung from the branches alongside small tin wolf heads. Upon arrival Eleanor had been gifted with a small golden hart pin, a symbol Rhya and apparently an indicator that she was unmarried. Other women wore similar charms, although the quality varied. The slight flicker of Charmon, the Golden Wind of Magic, betrayed which charms were real gold vs polished brass or copper to Emmaline's eyes. As always it was difficult not to stare, but there was enough jewelry around to mask her fascination.

The Great and Good of the city were in attendance. The phrase 'anybody who is anybody is at the Grand Ball' was repeated with almost the same monotonous regularity as the wolf and stag story, if that were possible. Ladies of all ages pranced in their fine silks, or handsomely embroidered linens, showing themselves off for all to see. Middenheim apparently lacked a formal debutant system, and the Grand Ball served the same function. Emmaline privately wondered if linking marriage with the inevitable decline into winter and death was a good idea, but it was easy to keep such speculation from her lips. The men were no less preening than the women, though they went out of their way to be a little less ostentatious about it. Cloaks of wolf skin were much in fashion, although only Knights of the White Wolf were permitted to wear the badge of their order. Half the men seemed to be dressed in military uniforms of some kind though Emmaline knew for a fact that half of them were merchants who had never been within leagues of a battle. The other half seemed to be wearing the same styles of doublet and hose which had been the fashion in Altdorf two or three years ago. The appearance of bearded northern rustics in such garment was vaguely ridiculous.

"Enjoying the ball?" Oderik asked, appearing at her side with two glasses of wine. He passed on to her and she sipped at it before smiling and letting out a little gasp.

"From Bourdeax?" she asked in delight. Oderik beamed apparently pleased that she had recognized the vintage. He would be less pleased if he knew that Emmaline couldn't tell a good wine from vinegar and that the source of her knowledge was a servant whom she had slipped a few Gelt to keep her informed as to what 'Dear Oderik' was up to under the cover of pretended jealousy.

"You like it?" he asked, smiling from ear to ear as she nodded enthuastically.

"Oui, a taste of home," she continued.

"Not to worry mademoiselle, by the spring your father shall be rescued and you will be free to return to him, though perhaps..."

Oderik was cut off by a small commotion near one of the doors. A young man was striding into the hall, the obvious displeasure of one of the older nobles who had tried to block his path. He seemed familiar and Emmaline narrowed her eyess.

"Is zat ze garcon who keeled that man earlieeer?" Emmaline asked, working her Brettonian accent for all it was worth.

"What? OH... yes Kasimir, one of the court bastards," Oderik responded, his face had a measuring almost respectful look to it.

"Not in the best odor after that little performance," the Knight continued sipping at his wine as he watched Kasimir.

"Heilwig was an ass, but a well connected one, it will cause problems for young Kasimir by the White Wolf," Oderik continued.