Kavir: Uprising

[SleepyKrew]

Nearly a dozen people have gathered inside a one-floor house in the underground village of Dungannon, located beneath The Crossing. Though they have different reasons, they are united in their goal: usurping the current rulers of Kavir. Candles have been lit for those who cannot see in the dark. Vornimar, a tall and slender drow (dark elf) closes the door and turns to address his guests.

"I doubt anyone else is coming. So, let's get started. I am at a loss, friends. Any time I think I have a good plan, it gets foiled, and more and more of my allies keep getting arrested. I don't know what to do, but I know I can't give up either. I feel like we have to give up on small hit-and-run moves. We need to do something big. Show the public and the government that we're the real deal."

I would like each of you to give a brief physical description of your character in your first post, as well as any details you want the other players to know.

[McMenno]

Alexander is a muscular half-elf, on the tall side. He has orange hair and a beard and moustache. He is clad in full plate armour, and his sword and shield lay by his side. He recently deserted from his position in Ralokrana City, and he came here in hopes of overthrowing the duke.

[brassherald]

A dwarf standing about 4 feet tall in height holds a fist to his head and takes a breath when he opens his hand, a locket falls around his neck, sitting safely between the spikes of his armor. He sniffs his nose, large and crooked and looks around the room. The left side of his face has a long scar which goes over his green eye. Sweeping his unkempt black hair back and briefly touching his matching beard, the dwarf says,

"I know how they work, they will catch you if you try to be sneaky, throw up some fake charges and keep you in the dungeons for your life. If you need something big, I'm your man, I may not be tall, but I swing a big sword."

he motions towards his greatsword, sitting on his back,

"I can hit hard. That what you mean by big? Do we fight a war?"

[McMenno]

Alexander squints. "If we knock at the doors of the castle with our weapons, that would be suicide. They outnumber us four to one in the best case scenario. No, in my opinion we should find a small outpost and burn it to the ground. Leave no survivours. Make ourselves look bigger than we are."

[SleepyKrew]

"I'm afraid we don't have enough supporters for a war effort. I like Alexander's idea. Perhaps we could do it at a time a duke or royal is visiting said outpost? Though finding out their travel itineraries would be tricky."

[brassherald]

Wolfgang says, matter of factly, "Why don't we just call a royal to the outpost?"

[McMenno]

"I'm afraid we don't have enough supporters for a war effort. I like Alexander's idea. Perhaps we could do it at a time a duke or royal is visiting said outpost? Though finding out their travel itineraries would be tricky."

would I know anything about this, specifically pertaining to those hailing from the desert?

[xRECKONERx]

Maxwell Manatonk stands at a meager 3ft 6in, and is 45 pounds soaking wet. Years of furrowing his brow grumpily have left him with an almost permanent wrinkle on his brow. His clean bald head is almost shiny. A long white mustache shoots out below his nose, and a long white beard nearly drags the ground. It is braided and beaded near the top, and the bottom of the beard is tapered off and wrapped with a multicolored piece of fabric. He wears simple sandals, a tattered, slightly oversized sleeveless robe, and always has his trusty walking staff with him.

From the corner of the table, a hooded gnome slams the book he was reading shut.

"Yeah, yeah. Leave it to the meatheads to want to resort to violence."

His voice is surprisingly gruff for such a small creature.

"I mean, Savras save us, we all

just

got collectively bent over and rammed up the ass because we tried this hasty, brutish shit. The royals are expecting brutality. Y'know how those guys got to be where they are? Sure, they probably cracked a few skulls along the way. But they did it by being

careful

and playing the long political game."

Maxwell Manatonk reaches a tattooed arm up and pulls down his hood.

"So, why don't we put the big swords down--"

He glances over at the dwarf.

"--I'm sure yours is bigger -- and start talking about how to win friends and influence people?"

[SleepyKrew]

"I'm afraid we don't have enough supporters for a war effort. I like Alexander's idea. Perhaps we could do it at a time a duke or royal is visiting said outpost? Though finding out their travel itineraries would be tricky."

would I know anything about this, specifically pertaining to those hailing from the desert?

As far as you know, Duke Ralokrana never went to an outpost unless there was a dire emergency. Each outpost could expect a few visits from one of the duke's top lieutenants per year, usually accompanied by a grand feast.

To Wolfgang, Vornimar asks, "Do you know someone who has influence over them? Someone that we can trust?" He then turns to Maxwell. "What do you propose we do? Most commoners don't care about our cause or actively despise us. They're blind to what we see."

A human speaks up. His voice wavers at first, but he gains more confidence as he speaks. "Vornimar, you know I support the cause. But my allies and I would rather live under the current rulers than use violence and intimidation to change things. I believe we'll win over more supporters if we proceed peacefully."

[T-Bone]

Leaning against the doorframe, Lililon Glenvyre gives a small chuckle, and some in the room turn to her. She flashes a smile and some in the room might swear that her eyes flashed gold for just a second. Some in the room were caught off guard, as Lililon wore a simple dress, and would have been mistaken for a barmaid had they been out in public.

"Peace. Right. 2,000 years of peace has achieved what...exactly? Stagnation is our enemy. Doing the same things over again and expecting different results is the enemy. Friend. What is your name, and where are you from? If you believe that our cause is just, how can you say you'd rather continue on because you don't like the tactics? Tell me."

[xRECKONERx]

Maxwell nods in agreement with Lililon.

"Commoners are just blind. But everyone has something they want. Something they need. See, I know my back water village isn't the only one with fuckin' problems. Everyone's got problems... except, maybe, the royals. And when a problem goes on long enough, it becomes so infectious that you'll pretty much worship the person who comes along and saves your sorry ass. We can be those people.

We want support? Gotta earn it. So let's just fuckin' earn it already. There's gotta be some people around who could use the help of a group just like ours."

[brassherald]

Wolfgang looks at the drow and says, "I do not know anyone we can trust, but, what if we send a letter? We just tell them that they should be at this outpost a certain time or bad things will happen, then, when they ignore it, we make bad things happen. Then we send another letter, and keep doing it until the noble is at the location."

Wolfgang then looks at Maxwell, "If you wanted to help, why come to a revolutionary group and not just be a city guard? The issue isn't that we have a bad name, it's that people are scared of the nobles coming down on them when they do the right thing."

[McMenno]

Alexander turns to Vornimar.

"The duke almost never gets his hands dirty with some outpost, but lieutenants sometimes visit them. I'm afraid that's the best we'd get."

He then speaks to Wolfgang.

"Dwarf, that's about as subtle as going up to their castles and knocking on their door, asking them to please step down so we can take over. It's not going to cut it."

[brassherald]

"I thought we wanted to be big, not subtle."

[xRECKONERx]

Wolfgang then looks at Maxwell, "If you wanted to help, why come to a revolutionary group and not just be a city guard? The issue isn't that we have a bad name, it's that people are scared of the nobles coming down on them when they do the right thing."

Maxwell narrows his eyes at Wolfgang.

"You know, I spent years in my village trying to help people. The bastards didn't care -- they wanted mighty warriors to slay our enemies with brute strength. Well, guess what happened? That brute strength did butt fucking nothin' when the royals got involved. I want to help because I don't want us to make the same idiotic mistakes again.

Who wants to be big? Why would we put a target on our backs? Why not just yell and scream HEY NOBLES, UPRISING OVER HERE! PLEASE SWIFTLY SHUT US DOWN!

Nah, I'm not about to see that happen. Let's be smart about this."

[AniX]

H is a changeling, clearly observable as one even if you've never thought you met one before (you have, but you might not have realized it). "He" (the form he currently occupies most resembles a male humanoid, as far as you can tell) is 6'0'' and very thin, his skin a ghostly white and his eyes completely coal black. He is bald. He is nude in the technical sense, in so much as he is wearing no clothing, but his body is completely devoid of anything that would offend the sensibilities and large devoid of any features at all, resembling more just a white silhouette of a person than a person in and of himself. His face is plain and likewise featureless, with just big black eyes, two slits for a nose, and a thin, small mouth.

"Leave it to the uni-forms to think so...binarily." He says, giving a thin smile with his small mouth. His voice is the sort of voice that one cannot help but pay attention to in the moment it is speaking, but one you would struggle to recall if pressed about it later. "Friends, the solution is that we do neither and both. The gnome is right: The commonors don't respond to anything but violence but violence gets us killed. So what we want is a explosion without the flames. So let's make one. If we want to look bigger than we are, we simply need to kill a royal without actually killing a royal.

He pauses for a moment before speaking again, but as he does so he begins to shift from his face to that of various important figures, giving a weird effect as his voice shifts to that of each figure in turn as he speaks: "Violence without actual victims. We go from town to town, village to village, carting some captured royal. Nobody high enough that the ruse would be found out, but high enough that people will take notice. We fake an execution of that royal then and there, in a way I sincerely hope doesn't hurt overly much, showing the people that they need not be afraid, that we are ready to protect them and, if they join us, ready to free them. By the time they know it is all for show, they'll be in too deep to abandon us and we will all need to hang together or hang separately."

[McMenno]

"That does sound appealing. We could take a lieutenant. Or we could just make someone up ourselves! It's not like the common rabble know what's going on beyond the borders of their village. But I don't know any spells that could be useful to fake an execution, and I wouldn't know how to do it my mundane means either. Gnome, you're a wizard, right? Got anything useful in that spellbook of yours?"

[SleepyKrew]

The conversation is interrupted by three sharp knocks on the door, followed by a voice. "City guard. Open up." She says this twice, first in Undercommon and then in Common. The gathered rebels give each other panicked looks, and Vornimar seems like he's about to faint.

[McMenno]

Alexander says loud enough for the others to hear it, but not the guard: "I think I can handle this."

He starts walking towards the door

[T-Bone]

Lililon would like to hide. Maybe duck behind something on the other side of the room, or perhaps move towards the back exit.

[xRECKONERx]

Maxwell mutters under his breath. "Ugh. Idiots." He darts to the door to make it there at the same time as Alexander.

[brassherald]

Wolfgang moves to the side of the room, taking the practiced look of a guard who just was told to be somewhere and now was there. It wasn't hard, he was told to come to this meeting, he came to the meeting, he just needed to stand like he had back in his guard days.

[AniX]

H quickly transforms into the most non-descriptive form he can before the guards burst in, a drow dressed in clothing nearly identical to the other patrons. Notably, he does NOT include the changeling symbol on his chest after doing so.

[McMenno]

Alexander opens the door. What does he see?

[SleepyKrew]

The other rebels move toward the back with Lililon. Vornimar shakes his head and slumps in his chair while whispering, "There's no back door. This house is against a cavern wall." Some frantically try to find something to hide behind. Some confusedly look at Wolfgang. Others simply stand still, watching Alexander and Maxwell.

Alexander opens the door. Outside is a female drow wearing the armor of the city guard. Her hand is raised. It seems like she was about to knock again. A male duergar gray dwarf stands next to her, also in guard armor. The drow looks at Alexander and then at Maxwell. Gesturing at the latter, she asks in Undercommon, "Is this your residence, sir?"