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--- resources:adventure:charm [2017/03/06 21:15]
amy [narrative]
+++ resources:adventure:charm [2017/03/07 12:03] (current)
amy No, autocorrect, not Guitar Darrish
@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 ===== The Soirée =====
-Various citizens present themselves on the Wednesday. After quite a large amount of scrutiny, particularly regrading their documents and shoes, the following party is cleared to attend the soirée: An aesthetic young Leader Priest, an apparently humourless clerk from the East Empire Company, a young fracturing mage from the College itself, an ordinary sort of healer, a pitiful blind man, and a charismatic young woman who appears to not have a profession and whose address, on further checking, seems to not exist; must be a clerical error, she seemed nice. They are to arrive at 6.23pm promptly at the Porters' Lodge where they will be shown the way to the Auditorium.
+Various citizens present themselves on the Wednesday. After quite a large amount of scrutiny, particularly regrading their documents and shoes, the following party is cleared to attend the soirée: An aesthetic young Leader Priest; another, slightly-less-aesthetic part-time Leader priest; an apparently humourless clerk from the East Empire Company; a young fracturing mage from the College itself; an ordinary sort of man who apparently runs a community group on Tuesdays; a pitiful blind man; and a charismatic young woman who appears to not have a profession and whose address, on further checking, seems to not exist, must be a clerical error, she seemed nice. They are to arrive at 6.23pm promptly at the Porters' Lodge where they will be shown the way to the Auditorium.
-On arrival, a Porter delegated to managing the Cloakroom once again inspects their shoes before their weapons are deposited in the cloakroom, with appropriate tickets dispensed. They are greeted by Professor Oppenheim Black, who explains that they are to mingle with the Strossbourg guests and demonstrate the better side of Acryn. With varying degrees of charisma and aplomb, the guests 'mingle'. They meet the Strossbourg Ambassador, several Strossbourg mages, and a few College of the Stars Professors: Antonia di Carta, Henry Blackheart, and the rather dysphonic Archdean Rath, of the Department of Inadvisable Experimentation.
+On arrival, a Porter delegated to managing the cloakroom once again inspects their shoes before their weapons are deposited in the cloakroom, with appropriate tickets dispensed. They proceed to the Auditorium, where a string quintet plays and canapés are on offer. They are greeted by Professor Oppenheim Black, who explains that they are to mingle with the Strossbourg guests and demonstrate the better side of Acryn. With varying degrees of charisma and aplomb, the guests 'mingle'. They meet the Strossbourg Ambassador, several Strossbourg mages, and a few College of the Stars Professors: Philomena di Carta, Henry Blackheart, and the rather dysphonic Archdean Rath, of the Department of Inadvisable Experimentation.
-===narrative===
+They are informed of the schedule for the evening: an exhibition of junior mages' research in the main gallery, followed by a guided tour of the adjoining galleries, dinner, more 'mingling', and a fireworks finale.
+The exhibition kicks off. The guests meet a proud Binding student who has made Bind Item work upwards, a DPhil student breeding baby clawfiends to be tame, a Scribing junior who has made Symbol of Warding emit pink bubble hearts, and so forth. Shortly into the exhibition, a couple of enchanted paper candle lanterns, designed for children's parties, spin out of control and set fire to the clawfiend enclosure. The guests grab weapons from the exhibit on the production of arms, and defeat the clawfiends, lanterns, and the clawfiends' irate keeper. Seeing their prowess and prompt action, Professor Black hurriedly renegotiates terms and hires the party as security. They collect their arms from the cloakroom, check out the culprit paper lanterns and a couple of surrounding galleries, and debate looking over the fireworks display for any potential shenanigans.
+They are interrupted by an attempted theft on a prized diamond chandelier, on display for one night only, in an adjacent gallery. They deal with the thieves and Bobby deals with the diamonds. Chasing some thieves down passages of the Natural History Museum, they find them dead in a pit recently caused by Fracturing magic. Joshua shakes down Bobby and many missing diamonds are mysteriously retrieved.
+The guided tour starts. The Strossbourg Ambassador listens politely to stories of geodes. The soirée, however, is about to become a political target.
+The newly-formed Acryn Association for the Advancement of Anomalies' Rights, or AAAAR, bursts in through a window. They are lead by a streaker for maximal international attention. Activists, several naked, chant about the evils of the Wayfinders' Guild before being subdued. In the confusion, one bleeds out next to the World's Largest Iron Pyrite Formation. Bobby admits to the killing. A debate follows about whether Bobby could have resuscitated the activist. The Watch arrive and cordon off the area. The guests are shepherded to dinner.
+At dinner, the guests 'mingle' with notable mages such as Ghita Darrish, Principal Francesco Fractura (who gives an inspiring speech) and Professor Dammerung, who seems to have a few really rather worrying stories. Half the party exclaim in horror and question him further, and half the party try to gloss over the stories to appease the Strossbourg guests.
+Bobby and one of the Unification mages head to Dammerung's laboratory, where he seems to do nothing more evil than be strict about deadlines.
+Professor Blackheart is concerned about mana crystals that have been stolen today from around the College, including from the fireworks ritual, although it is unclear whether any guests are paying attention.
+Philippa waxes lyrical about all the good the research of the College is doing for Acryn.
+Gerard tries to promote the quality of College teaching.
+The Strossbourg Ambassador learns about the College of the Stars' ethical approval processes, or lack thereof.
+A College mage activates the tracking spell on the stolen diamonds. There is a bright gleam from Bobby's pocket. She hurriedly dumps her loot in the toilet.
+Joshua catches wind that there is a disturbance in the Mammalian Anatomy gallery and subtly herds the party out. They discover a group of thieves, recently returned from upstairs, plundering all the skulls, presumably for the underground Fracturing magic supplies market. They stop the thieves but note that the head of the blue whale, the largest skull in existence, is unaccounted for. Bobby and Ozymandias follow the trail up the stairs without stopping to help.
+Through twisting corridors, dilapidated staircases, and dusty galleries they ascend. They hear rushing footsteps ahead and pursue. They fight their way through spine-shooting cacti and sharp antlers. The rest of the party catches up and Octavian informs them that they are in flux. This fits with Gerard's knowledge; he's never heard of anyone coming up here, even crumbly old professors. Bobby is ahead and recognises the fleeing figure from earlier. They fight through flux museum exhibits, including a display case of shrunken bear heads, and emerge onto the rooftops.
+Over the side of the faux-crenellations, above one of the main quadrangles, is suspended the whale skull on a rickety platform. Mage Philomena di Carta, not looking entirely in her right mind, is in the middle of a large ritual.
+Fortunately Joshua subdues her, but Gerard recognises that a large Faultlines spell has gone off, with the skull as its centre. He scrabbles furiously at the ritual. It is beyond his experience and ability, but he recognises a powerful Fault of Memory bound up with the Faultlines. Worried this could wipe the memory of Acryn, he tries to deactivate it. Philippa helps by using a Leader miracle to shout for magical aid, adding that everything is fine, really, they just need help RIGHT NOW. In response, bells start sounding in alarm all over Acryn. People from streets around start running towards or away from the College,  depending on their levels of bravado, self-preservation and common sense. A collection of mages bursts onto the roof as Joshua, Octavian and Bobby lever the whale skull back to safety. Dammerung and a random first year Binding student help to stabilise the whale skull before Faults of Memory can detonate, and Gerard destroys the ritual.
+Bobby searches Professor di Carta and discovers a love letter to Professor Blackheart. They wake her and she rants about how Blackheart has left her. She insists that her ritual was only to wipe his memory of her infidelities, nothing more cataclysmic, and is enraged to discover they have stopped it. Desolate, she hurls Crack the Fabric at the sky.
+Already weakened by the prior Tuireann incursion - one of the things the College is trying to entreat Strossbourg to forget - reality rents. Draconic entities and the Keeper, the protector god from the other side, fall through. The Keeper and the party try to hold off the entities. Ozymandias swoons before the manifestations of his gods and Philippa sends out a further miraculous shout. The sounds of a disturbed mob drift up to them and some scared mages once again appear. Thinking quickly, Gerard uses Fault of Memory on di Carta, persuading her that her ritual went off as expected and this is the horrifying aftermath. Di Carta sets to fixing her Crack in reality.
+Ozymandias tries to seek spiritual guidance from an attacking horrific three-faced skull entity, before being struck down by both confusion and physical blows. Waves of draconic entities flood in and look to overwhelm the party, before di Carta finally seals the Crack.
+Alive and with varying degrees of confusion, the people on the rooftop breathe a sigh of relief. Ozymandias scoops up the fallen skull, wondering what he did to displease the Dragons.
+The mages hosting the soirée, desperately trying to get the evening back on track and give the large crowd in the quad something to focus on other than Philippa's Shout and the very obvious aerial rent in reality, decide to set off the fireworks as planned. Except that Di Carta had stolen several of the mana crystals earlier in the day, and the party never got around to checking them. The fireworks don't ascend as planned, but start shooting over the rooftops, bringing jolly bouncing blazing fire in their wake.
+The rooftop guests flee.
 ====Debrief====
@@ Line 66: / Line 107: @@
 **Philippa** has decided that her fabrications about priests and mages working together is a thing which actually should happen, and tries to encourage that to happen by contacting the College. She gets put on a long list of possible projects for students, to partake in some sort of divine/magic combined projects which definitely won't end in horrible explosions.
-=====Snackies & Wibble=====
+ =====Snackies & Wibble=====
+**All (including other associates, members and 'Contacts' of the College of the Stars)**
+  * An offer to visit the University of Strossbourg and enroll in their Ethics course. If players chose to do this, it will take two adventures until they have completed the course. After these two adventures have elapsed, they may credit themselves with a University of Strossbourg Diploma in Magical Ethics. This will have prestige effects at GM discretion.
 **Gerard Vidati**
   * 30R

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