Getting through Customs the hard way.

Looks like I forgot to mention that this fight isn't happening in a town or city. My player decided to avoid civilization as much as possible while traveling and rolled reasonably high on his Wits+Survival rolls, so the fight is taking place in a lightly forested area. I'm trying to figure how many small villages will start reporting "strange golden lights on the horizon" to the local Immaculates.


Thanks for the advice on the local spirits.
 
In the Realm? I doubt any of them would avoid reporting strange and scary things to the Immaculates or army (who would subsequently go to the Immaculates).
 
Kyeudo said:
Looks like I forgot to mention that this fight isn't happening in a town or city. My player decided to avoid civilization as much as possible while traveling and rolled reasonably high on his Wits+Survival rolls, so the fight is taking place in a lightly forested area. I'm trying to figure how many small villages will start reporting "strange golden lights on the horizon" to the local Immaculates.
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Depends on how you envision the local Immaculates treating the populace.


There are some who genuinely want to help the villagers they're sent to minister to. Some who have the knack of knowing how to treat the villagers with dignity and respect. And there are some...who aren't.


A village with an Immaculate priest who's just counting the days until he can get back to the Palace Sublime (and lets everyone know it), and views his parishioners as beneath his notice is likely not going to be reporting any bright lights in the sky to the Immaculates.


Not sure if you want this plot hook, but not all Immaculates are dogmatic, unbending individuals only capable of yelling, 'Die, Anathema, die!' If he witnesses a supposed Anathema behave counter to popular belief, well, a logical person may change his perspective, would he not? In one of the Caste books (Twilight, I think), an Immaculate priest does just that.


Imagine if your player happens onto several Dynasts having a 'conversation' with an Immaculate they have a difference of opinion with (i.e. the Immaculate caught a group of Dynasts doing something grossly illegal even by Realm standards for DBs, but they got him before he escaped, and plan to kill him). If he saves the Immaculate, the Immaculate may just start to doubt some of the truths he grew up with. Especially if he's a Lost Egg.
 
With the appropriate survival and resistance charms I think a solar could actually do it... :mrgreen:
 
Only if you want to walk / run on the water (use racing hare method and say "Jesus was a n00b !") or eventually swim faster.


But for long distance, a combination between the elemental hazard resisting charm, the food gathering charm and negating other penalties etc etc... you can potentially swim your way back to civilization even if you're in the middle of nowhere and get to your 5* hotel with a caveman look but still being healthy as hell (I love that moment in Die Another Day).
 
Okay, so I've got an idea on how to give my player an option out of the direct heat. A spirit, wanting to further his own goals later on, sounds like a good way to keep him from getting run down by the Wyld Hunt immediately, if I can present it properly. Of course, further complications are sure to follow.


My player is most likely (given his skill set) to try to sneak aboard a ship heading south when he finds his way to a port. He just doesn't have the Charms to automatically succeed on swimming the ocean and rolling out the whole thing would likely lead to a dead player somewhere south of Arjuf. So, I need to figure out just how tricky it will be for the Wyld Hunt to try to keep him off of a ship.


What's the Realm's port situation? Do they funnel all major trade into a handful of ports spaced every couple of hundred miles or are there thousands of smaller ports handling the Realm's incredible trade volume?
 
I assume lots of small ports where there logically are dragonblooded interests and geography agrees with them or can be bitch-slapped into agreeing with them.


Outside of that, there should be a few major ports every hundred miles or so.
 
The ports in the West and South are more plentiful and less restricted. There are few ports in the North with ships bound for the Threshold. There are few ports in the East with ships bound for locations other than Port Calin (where the Realm conducts trade with the rest of the East since Lookshy cuts off River access).
 
Hmm, looks like he got lucky when he decided on the South. Even with all the Dragon-Blooded that the Wyld Hunt will muster out to track him down, a large number of ports to cover means that each city will only be crawling with Terrestrials instead of wall to wall elemental-themed death. With some help, maybe he'll manage to sneak through somehow.
 
O.o
Me thinks thou art making it too easy for the kid.
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Probably, which is why I keep trying to mine you guys for ideas as to the state of the Realm.


Still, I'd say he's still fairly screwed over. I mean, he's 100% guaranteed to have the Wyld Hunt, the Immaculate Order, and every Dragon-Blood up for some excitement on the lookout for an escaped-slave (with accompanying tatoo marking him as such) turned Anathema. With all the supernatural tracking effects dropped on his trail, it will take a little something to even give him a chance.


I plan to have every crate, bale, and passenger boarding any ships leaving port checked out, every ship itself searched before being allowed to depart, and high-Essence Dragon-Blooded practically everywhere (he's currently having trouble with a 50 XP Wood Aspect in combat). Spirits will be at every gate and thoroughfare using Measure-the-Wind to sniff out any and all the Exalts coming into town.


Any other measures I should include?
 
Wanted posters, so the nice mortals can point out the EVIL anathema for a reward. ^_^
 
Water Elementals checking every port to make sure he doesn't try to hide under the ship until it leaves the dock.


The local patrols going along the shorelines (probably only once every hour or two, since there's not going to be that many flying DB's and local flying gods just zipping about) checking to make sure he doesn't try to leave from a beach. Too bad he's not a Lunar.
 
Curfews for all slaves after 6 PM. Any slaves found out of their masters' residences/places of work after this time without their masters get executed immediately.


Deploy Air-aspected DBs with three- or four-dot Dragonfly's Ranging Eyes.


Random searches at all hours of the day and night of anywhere that could harbour a person. Stores, warehouses, homes, farmhouses, henhouses, doghouses and outhouses. Get some mortal police sweeping the sewers, too.


Captain Hesperus
 
Haku said:
Wanted posters, so the nice mortals can point out the EVIL anathema for a reward. ^_^
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I call this the shadowrun syndrome... with all the super spiritual/technological security systems, you sometimes forget the basics... people :lol:
 
Honestly, if it were me I'd let him get to a place where he can escape the isle but only by allowing innocents to suffer or by ignoring something that might further his motivation goals. It just seems like "solar on the blessed isle" is too "dramaful" to give up without forcing the character to make some hard choices.
 
Oh, I plan to make his escape as epic as I can. He took Conviction 4 and Compassion 3, so that just screams "Make me make hard choices!"
 
I think you're going overboard with this...


At least with DBs with Magitech toys deliberately looking for him, just DBs + mortals who've been told to look out for this escaped slave who had his soul eaten by an anathema demon and whose done HORRIBLE things to poor innocent mortals + spirits/demons/elementals looking for him... that would be hard to beat.


Now, add in another anathema getting caught in front of him... give him a choice of saving the poor NPC whose been given a beat down and breaking his cover or making an escape... :lol:
 
While clichéed, having another slave-turned-anathema caught just ten feet away due to the player's blowing of cover is a good deus ex for the player's sake. A failed compassion role (or a bit of limit) later, and Bob the NPC Solar who was keeping quiet takes your player's character's place, and the PC gets away since security drops: they caught the monster, time for the burning at the stake.


Of course, the player's made the decision to not be subtle, and worse be openly confrontational with local dragon blooded authority. Do you want to bail him out? It sets a precedent one way or the other.


Dragon blooded have tracking Charms. If those Charms reveal that he escaped using <insert port name here>, the god of that port is going to get worked over hard by Immaculates. Since no sane god would want that, all the gods will be making efforts to keep him from using their port (note: may not tattle, may send off to a rival god's port with a plan instead).


He'll need a port with a ship capable of cross sea travel. That rules out small fishing ports, as the locals won't go that far, and he doesn't have the sail capable of "awesoming" his way across the sea in a two man dingy. Assume the port god, then, is powerful. He'll either need to offer a service worth the Immaculate anger, or defeat the god's best Essence 4 or 5 efforts. This could be burning an uppity local town that was thinking of making a competitive port ("since that's what anathema do, right?"), planting evidence that the whole city's god overruled the port god (which leads to the port god getting promoted to the whole city's god job), or just being capable of stealing a ship while the god warns all the Immaculates.


Of course, if he steals a ship with his Archery-fu, you'll need to ask yourself how he sails a known-anathema-occupied ship accross the inland sea without dots in sail. Hostage sailors would work, as long as he remains threatening and never sleeps...


Overall? I'd go with the "you blew it", and make the port god very ambitious with a plan on how to take his boss' job. Sets up a potential infiltration mission into the city god's sanctum: borrow his ritual fancy wax sealing stamp, wax and stamp orders (which the port god wrote and supplied) to let the anathema through, leave the stamp and return. The port god now has stamped sealed orders he can open, let the player through, and hand off to Immaculates when they break down his door in two days.
 
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