Coup d'état

I will soon leave Holtburg for some time (with Advoc). I talked to Kolson about it and he will stay behind to manage the Exchange while I'm gone. Here are some actions that need to be done:

Exchange's management:

• Find a job in a company we want to infiltrate for that informant I interviewed. I don't know which company it would be best to send him to, so roll knowledge politics.
  
• Convince the caravans' guard to turncoat their current company for the right price while making sure they're not going to put our organization at risk.
  
• Find someone who could command our "military forces" and a professional spy who could help us start our own network. The diplomat I just hired (Qui-Gon) might have some contacts. I also assigned 10 of our employees to this task (meaning we get many GI checks), so feel free to order them around.
  
• Assign Qui-Gon to the Passing Through office.
  
• Higaide's people from the relief branch of the Exchange (which I called the Guardians) are certainly waiting the permission to leave Holtburg for Glenden Woods. Give them Exchange armbands, some money and wish them luck. Just not enough money to get them robbed. By the time they get to their destination, we should have set up an Exchange office so we'll be able to give them more resources this way.
  
• I think the 20th is pay day for our employees. We'll need Arch to tell us how much it will cost us.
  
• Van is selling our food to small companies. I tasked two employees to help him with the paperwork. Make sure it's still going.
  
• Who amongst our employees could we trust with the Hub access I can bestow upon them? I can petition the Mites to revoke such right, but I  would prefer to avoid that kind of recourse.
  
• If Rory doesn't want to train the troops anymore, find someone who could do so without scaring away the humans. Because of their belief in sanctity of life and all that.
  
• Find someone who can command for us the people we have in Janwall. That one is kind of a priority. We also have to trust the person we would put in charge. Maybe someone amongst our employees who distinguished themselves? Biggs and Wedge maybe, when they get back.
  

General tasks:

• Interrogate Lefttenant. Also, just to clarify: as soon as Kolson and Javan brought him here, we put him in his own cell to make sure he wouldn't escape. And yes, we're respecting the Dericost Accords. Don't torture him.
  
• Learn about the noble families in Holtburg who have interests in the caravans that are being hit. They might prove to be our allies in the coming fight. You should ask our diplomat Qui-Gon about it (tell him only that the bandits are receiving help from another organization, totally not the military). 
  
• Discreetly probe these same families to see if they would be amenable to an alliance against the usurpers.
  
• The party members who haven't already done so should go see the Mites and pass the interview to gain access to the Hub for the rest of their lives.
  

I'm not forcing anyone to complete these tasks. I know Kolson will do some of it, but I'm planning to do it myself by the time I get back if it's not done. While I'm gone, I will do like I said: find out what the political situation around Aluvia is and approach potential allies.

Here's the updated link of the Exchange's activities to figure out how much we must pay our employees: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4pdKgiss7uFN2ZaS2p3MEhFblU/edit

I'm sorry but this is what I thought of the moment I heard of the Exchange's armbands.

I've no idea where this is from (I'm not geek enough o_o) but that's what I had in mind. You just take the Exchange's emblem, reverse the colors and there you have it.

I'll have to review for what I need done before I gather the refugees and inform them of the wonderful opportunity for emigration. I will also present the same opportunity to the refugees we gave swords and armor. Fair's fair.

I would very much like to gloss over all  or most of those goals with a skip through time to the point where they've been completed by the people most suitable for the respective tasks.

Exchange's Management

• Find a job for an informant: Not humans, not weird crystallized creature(Javan). Falls to Kolson, who has experience with...that.
  
• Convince caravans guard to turncoat: Rory and Higaide will good cop/bad cop this. I will be the bad cop.
  
• Find A)leader for Exchange militia and B)a spymaster who will recruit spies: After NPC GI checks, Kolson and Higaide will roll Awareness and Diplomacy for good candidates. Kolson and our thief/yellow mage(both? same?) will be present when 'interviewing' them to filter lies from truth and intent.
  
• Assign Qui-Gon to 'Passing Through': you betcha. Office created, NPC assigned. "You, go here and do this job." Done. If necessary, Rory will stonewall him like that chief-of-police/editor-in-chief you usually see giving the protagonist a hard time in the movies.
  
• Send Higaide's Guardians to Glenden Woods: Done. Rory will do the handouts and send them on their way with a pat on the back.
  
• *New name for Guardians*: the setting already has a universal job position called "Guardian(s)".
  
• Van, you still doing the food selling?: I name this task to Javan because he should have a thing to do on this list. He will visit him for a few minutes each day to get feedback from him, that he is in fact doing his job. Van will file a report for bureaucracy's sake every week until Zeiss returns, and then he will fill them out for Zeiss instead.
  
• Hub access privilege for loyal NPCs: We will get a list of 1-2 of our most loyal NPCs from each branch(including militia). We'll all keep an eye out put our heads together to form this list. Handwaved.
  
• New Master-at-Arms: Until the coup blows over and the refugees are ready to ship out, you will have Rory's full support as trainer and contraband inventory record-keeper(actual inventory duty assigned on rotation to two NPCs at a time, assumed they are NPCs who have a knack for numbers). After that, though, you might need to get someone else, so until then Rory will be keeping an eye out, and you have full discretion on which candidate is picked when he does in fact leave the Exchange. May the best (secret) candidate win.
  
• New 'Overseer'/warlord for the Exchange branch in Janwall: Kolson will see to that.
  

One-off tasks

• Interrogate Lefftenant: Rory will do this. Kolson may want to be there, in which case he can be good cop. We should have a couple lie-detector NPCs with us for this. And probably explain how far we intend to take Intimidation methods.
  
• Noble families' interests in caravans being hit(or otherwise get dirt on the nobles): Done, Qui-Gon shall do it.  Javan is a better liar than Kolson, but they will assist each other when telling Qui-Gon anything about why we want him to learn this stuff.
  
• Probe families for hints of treachery or potential alliance: get our spy-people on it. And our GI check NPCs.
  
• Interview with the Mites: Hurray, roleplay with proper Mites! We will take turns.
  

By the way, Higaide isn't here but... somewhere else out of Holtburg. Out-of-character, we'll know in the 20th post. There's also no need to have a good cop bad cop scenario for the caravans guards; they might actually refuse if you do that. It's something that requires diplomacy. Lefttenant however...

Oh, there may be other people in this setting called Guardians, but I'll just steal their names.

We also don't have any spy people, which is why I want to find a spymaster.

And I don't want to just hand wave the people we trust the Hub access with. That's a very, very important gift at this point.

Overall though, that's a fine job you did there Rory. Thank you.

Oh, I see what you mean: hand waving the "interviews" that make sure these people are trustworthy. Got it.

By the way, while Javan could tell lies better than Kolson, he wouldn't. The only moment Javan did was under another player's control (in the only place where you shouldn't lie as well), to which I call foul. That's one point in my character that I'd like to keep intact.

The Deception skill is there because his 'hobby' is learning about politics and such. So it makes sense he'd be extra wary of lies, hence why he's skilled in it. As such, if you need someone to help detecting lies, Javan is all for it.

Anyway, checking Van from time to time sounds like something Javan can do while he waits for the Scarves to check in.

I understand Essoje. Actually, having Javan along as a lie detector of sorts would be very handy as Kolson is still playing catch up with that skill. Would you like to team up for my errands?

I'll post them in detail when I get back from dinner but we'll basically be doing some hiring and meeting with folks for info and work. We'll leave Lefftenant for last.

Sure, sounds good. That, and I can get some use out of that skill, even knowing I'll get my roll results under single digits because my luck.

@Zeiss: That's the armband from the Ministry of Peace, aka Space Nazis. They're from Babylon 5 and they're insidious in their evil. *pause* The mere fact that their name is Ministry of Peace should probably say a lot.

As an aside I'm loving watching you guys plan all this.

I remember one time I setup a heist situation (it was actually a military fortress with a VIP they were rescuing) in another campaign and the players spent two whole sessions planning the whole thing, while I just sat there taking mental notes and enjoying the show. Loved it.

...Well, I was talking about the armband itself, not the organization behind it.

And I'm happy to hear you enjoy watching us plan our takeover/doom. I feared you might find this boring, but I guess I'm learning new things everyday.

I admit I'm a little surprised the entire party is fully okay with simply waltzing in and trying to take over a chunk of the Kingdom, but hey... expansionist ambition for the win!

@Arch After being on the ropes for almost the entire campaign so far I think everyone is ready to have more of a say in this crazy world we all play in. Hopefully a certain political operator behind the scenes doesn't get it into her desolate head that we are rivals to be crushed. That could get very awkward very quickly.

Are the Dericost Accords that different from the Geneva Conventions?

@Essoje We have so many irons in the fire it's not even funny.

1. I'm thinking we can get our Hub interviews out of the way first. You never know when that kind of travel will come in handy.

2. We'll hit up Qui Gon for info and to get him set up in his office with his orders. I don't really see the need to lie to him, we just won't tell him the whole truth. Our recent anti-bandit activities should be more than enough to cover up our additional motive in asking for this info and for pursuing this inquiry to our advantage.

3. If we still have some time after doing all of that we'll see about asking Lefftenant some questions. I'm not sure if we'll ever get anything out of him but it's worth a shot.

If you agree to these and after Arch clarifies the Dericost Accords for me, I'll post this up and we'll get started.

*rubs eyes* The Dericost Accords are lengthy. I can't possibly summarize them. Treatment of prisoners as guests, removal of what most people would consider war crimes from legality, no unauthorized alteration of enemy souls, combat oriented towards minimal loss of life... that sort of thing.

Huh. Let's just not torture him then. Less complicated this way. That probably covers a lot of the Dericost Accords.

@Kolson: Sorry for the delay, sleep got the best of me.

1. Agreed, better mobility is a thing we desperately need right now.

2 & 3. We might want to hit Lefftenant first, in the remote possibility names come up from his interrogation, together with more info we can use when meeting Qui Gon. If you think the Qui Gon deal simply must be solved first tho, let's do it.

I'm mostly waiting to be able to move again. I haven't much to add, except thanks for taking care of my Crew in my absence.

Also, the Lefftenant seems like a relatively decent guy, and probably amenable to doing what's best for his people - a bit like Radnaal, just without all the crazy jumping. So maybe there's not much reason to bad cop him or use scare tactics when interrogating him. Just my two cents.

Also, would we have any contacts like Ursolan who might know the layout of the Holtburg... uh, palace (whatever the building the bad guys are housed in is called)? Being able to finesse this totally seems to be in our interest, especially if we're able to sneak in and bypass the main enemy force.

Still waiting on you Kolson.

Sorry guys, been fighting something off and getting ready for my friend's wedding on Saturday. I'll get a post up.

*brings tons of video games to the event*

"That enough for a wedding present?"

He really doesn't have time to play anymore. Which is too bad. He always had my back in the war games we played together.