Society Name: East Torphan
The Devil Revealed
King Villard sits down in his easy chair w/ a glass of wine. A thin bony hand pushes a scroll across the small beautifully crafted end table. The King nods his thanks to his spy master, Sebelacus picks up the scroll and begins to read the report.
He glances occasionally at the man across from him, using the training Sebelacus had given him to do so inobtrusively and w/o revealing emotion. Villard was sure he would be critiqued later. The spy master's training in reading people's emotions, and manipulating people's moods was amazing eventually all his diplomats would need to be trained w/ these skills. And even learning how to explain things to different people depending on their particular pattern or way of thinking was priceless.
There were times he still questioned his good fortune to have this man fall into his lap but he would use him and hope for the best. His gut said it was a wise choice but Sebelacus has now taught him how even gut instincts could be misled. And his magicians had laid many a spell on the man, though w/ his power of word and thought Villard was sure there was a loophole through which his prize might slip some day and even harm his people.
Suddenly, w/ a startled yell, Villard half leapt out of his chair, and he turned towards his spy master. Sebelacus raised an eyebrow, and quietly nodded. "Yes, your majesty, to the best of our knowledge this is true, the V'raal hold the Empress and two children of her's by the V'raal High Lord on their island.
Villard turns to the former spy master for Cedonia, and asks. "She was once your Empress, what would you have me do? I would leave no Royal in the hands of those evil demons."
For once, a small trace of emotion showed for the briefest instance on Sebelacus' face. "If you would my lord, I believe we might be able to rescue her. It is extremely dangerous and by no means certain. It has been 15 years and the children are certainly nearing the age of majority and some might say within it. If there is a V'raal plot for Cedonia it will happen in the next few years I believe."
Burcancy Actions
Actions 1-4 Rescue the Empress & Children (1st of 3 yrs.)
This will consist of a series of related actions.
A- THE SEARCH FOR INFORMATION
First continued tracking of the V'raal spy ring, and infiltration. Additional consideration will be given to taking out certain pieces of the spy ring so that Burcancy double agents nad counter-spys might advance both before and after the rescue attempt. The previous successes should assist. The greatest draw-back is that the V'raal it is incredibly difficult to imitate the grace w/ which they move, and their fighting is Legendary. Secondly, they live on an isolated island, there are only rumors about some of their background and skills. Much information needs to be obtained quickly. We have found some information through a disgruntled pretender to the throne but this source is very limited.
Luckily, the Brotherhood is the most powerful collection of mages outside of Mir and can assist in the spying, tracking and transportation efforts. Although, the V'raal might have come out of the Dreaming, and their reputation quite fearsome, their magical talents are far below that of those who practice in Burcancy. Disquises will be created, skills such as dexterity can be temporarily enhanced, and Sebelacus can train some of the agents who will attempt to infiltrate the V'raal stronghold to imitate the inhabitants to the best of their ability. If they do try and imitate a V'raal for short periods of time, they might pull it off if not then they will only try for the humans that live on the island.
First goal is geography, bring back maps of the area and the palace. Find where the Empress and children are located. Find out the iteniary of these people and the calendar of the court. Note the guards, and the other lords, who is most dangerous. Finally, what is the location and size of the V'raal fleet, their graneries, and library. All will be considered for secondary targets.
B-PREPARING FOR THE ASSAULT
The mages are to prepare as many bracelets of binding as possible to capture the Dark Elves who are mages or deemed most dangerous. These bracelets will bind magical abilities and will limit the skills of even those who know the Dance w/ effects similar to slow, weakness, etc.
The Weather Mages, the Burcancy combat mages will intensify their training in working alongside regular troops. And although their combat and magic skills are quite formidable, additional training will be implemented to assist them in fighting against the elven warriors.
The Brotherhood is to take the knowledge they have gained over these many years in creating the Weather Mages and learning control over the weather to create a huge storm complex over Arelcar. If it can be timed, a hurricane or typhoon will be released alongside the rescue attempt. The fury of the storm will hopefully create some problems for the elves and the storm's powers should help feed and fuel the Weather Mages. The storm will be built extremely slowly to make it look natural.
C-THE STRIKE
The attack will consist of 3 main groups. Each group will consist of Weather Mages, regular mages and fighters. Each will teleport to the Palace. Each group will carry have several soldiers carrying caltrops to seed important corridors and some brooms. It is hard to move gracefully w/ a caltrops on the ground around you or in your feet, and the brooms will should help allow the troops to move the caltrops out of the way as need be.
The first group will go directly for the Empress and the children. If the family members are separate, go after them one at a time, back-up can be called if need be. And if any of them need to be left behind then so be it. Hopefully, removing some of the elements of the V'raal plot will be enough to break it up. It has been 15 years since the kidnapping, there has been plenty of time to indoctrinate the Empress and/or the children. Assume they are hostile and have either magic training or weapons training in the Dance, capture them to the best of your ability. Use the bracelets to bind if necessary. Assure them they maybe released later but now they must come along. If they can not be captured then let them go, they are to be left alive.
The 2nd group will go directly after the High Lord, if he can be taken out hopefully communications and the coordination will suffer. Some of the other lords and mages should be considered secondary targets by this team. Also, if all other goals are met, and other teams do not need back-up, this team can attempt to loot the Library.
The 3rd group is a large reserve contingent, they are to cause as much destruction w/in the Palace as possible but they are to avoid major firefights unless called by one of the 1st two groups. The last group will also open a portal into the Palace through which the Burcancy will send an invasion army.
10 smaller groups of regular mages and fighters will strike after the first teams hit at the harbor, shipyards, graneries & the library. If available a Weather Mage might attend a few of these groups so they can call down part of the storm, but most of the combat mages will be assigned to the palace. These groups are to pop in and ready to get out if they met any strong resistance. The harbor, shipyards, graneries are to be destroyed to the best of their ability. The library will be looted, and if enough is removed or strong resistance encountered then it is to be fired, burnt to the ground. These sites can be attacked again later w/ more forces if the rest of the plan is going smoothly.
Enough damage might send many of the Dark Elves back into the Dreaming. Also, some of those that are captured might be oath-bound to serve the Burcancy. And if victory is total the whole island might become a new territory of the Burcancy. If all fails, the Burcancy might be haunted by the V'raal for a thousand years and exterminated.
Plusses
Quadruple Action Bonuses from previous successes tracking spies 3 year action, depending on information timetable could go much earlier Brotherhood magic skill Weather Mages Training from Sebelacus, spy master Intense training of all troops Storm cover Multiple strikes Large invasion force King Villard's influence King Villard will personally join 1st assault group
Possible Minuses Some spies are difficult to blend in High Lord has a foreshadowing of something happening during such a storm Legendary Fighting skill of the entire populace of Arelcar luckily many are split up Empress and children split up
Action resolution
Action 1-4
I'll do this the obvious way: there are three years, and three tasks, so I'll just equate each year with one task. Joel: if you want to change this, please consider submitting several actions, for example 'Actions 1-2: spy', 'Actions 3-4: prepare'.
Resolution: Diff = Hard (-1) + Dice (000-) + Extras (+2) = 0 Mixed results
Results: Partial information is gathered, but some spies are lost - it can be assumed that the secrecy has been slightly compromised, although the Vraa'al don't know the purpose or identity of the author behind the spies. Most probably they assume it is somebody from Cedonia.
Interpretation:
The spies have a hard time getting on the island; it can be assumed that some of them have even been discovered, so it can also be assumed that the Vraa'al know to except something.
However, with help from the mages, Sebelacus manages to pinpoint the location of the Empress and her children: the Empress' self-image projects most evidently from a small palace compound on the coast, a little way from the main harbor city. The children are harder to locate, but apparently they mostly stay within the city. With help from the mages, it will not be difficult to find the Empress during the attack. Finding her children quickly will be more difficult, but not impossible.
The layout of the harbor city is easily mapped. There are no big libraries. The granaries are located near the city gates. The fleet is small, and stays mostly on sea. Their dry dock is inside the harbor city.