[Fantasy and Sci-Fi] The Winterwier and Black Hole thread

[Charles Phipps]

They were related in the original novel.

So one could think of that as a fact which hadn't been revealed.

The Queen has many relatives.

Just none who have remotely the same pull or position as her.

[Phrozen]

Sample Leviathan Cabals

Unlike most other factions, Leviathan cabals are more apt to work together. Manly because the various groups are devoted to different aspects of crime. That doesn't mean they won't fight over territory but the ideological differences are not so stark.

Deadly Sinners MC: The Deadly Sinners Outlaw Motorcycle Club is global criminal organization and the biggest outlaw motorcycle gang in the world. They can be identified by the three headed devil patch they wear on their denim motorcycle vests. Their colors tend towards blue and black. Members ride chopper style bikes usually Harleys or Triumphs. Besides their vests, members usually get tattoos of the number 7 for the seven deadly sins or incorporate one or more of the seven deadly sins in their tattoos. The groups weapon of choice is a baseball bat. The Deadly Sinners run guns, drugs, and explosives. Most soldiers are unaware of the conspiracy but the upper echelon of the organization are fully aware. The Deadly Sinners mother club is in Boston.

Jailbird Kings: The Jailbird Kings started off as a prison gang in Illinois. The gang soon took control over almost all the street gangs throughout the midwest and up into Canada. The Jailbird Kings are mutli-ethnic and tax the street gangs under their thrall in exchange for protection while in jail and connections with drug and weapon suppliers. The population is kept small and pretty much to lifers. The Jailbird Kings or JBs can be identified by their tattoos most get a robin wearing a crown. The structure of the gang starts with Lords followed by Dukes then Counts and finally Barons. The Lords of the gang are all in solitary in maximum security cells which makes them incredibly hard to attack as they usually own all the guards serving in that unit.

The Bank: Dressed sharply in three-piece suits and wearing razor blade smiles, The Bank is the white collar part of Leviathan. The Bank is a bunch of bankers, accountants, investors, and businessmen. They are the venture capitalists of crime. Operating out of Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, The Bank preforms money laundering, investment into criminal enterprises, insurance, loan sharking, and provides hidden assests for its criminal clientele. Their customers are cartels, mafias, gangs, and even dictators. Though white collar, The Bank takes it very personally if they are stiffed. They will take your money, property, flesh, and even life as collateral if payment is not forthcoming.

[Libra]

Again, this looks like a very fine article Phrozen!

Just as a warning, I won't be posting for about a week or so beginning on the 10th of this month; I'll be away on Holiday and I will almost certainly not have access to the Internet.

[Libra]

The Westmark of Winterweir has its fair share of problems at the moment, like every other quarter of the Queendom, but ironically enough its biggest troubles in recent years have arisen from solutions implemented in an attempt to bring an end to the greatest single fear which has beset the Westmark since the War of Iron sowed fire and blood and devastation across it's fields, it's cities and it's strongholds: that any defence the Westweirfolk can raise from their own resources simply cannot prove adequate against the power of the Free Republic (for the west has always boasted more grain-merchants, farmers and fishermen than fighters).

It was this fear which fuelled the pathological greed and ambition of House Darkholme, for the former Paramount House of the Westweirfolk ardently desired the monies, mercenaries and the power at court which would allow them to make themselves secure forever against the Free Republic (a hunger made more acute by their bad habit of neglecting to economise when it came to their own luxuries), to the point of bare-faced thievery and far beyond. To say that life became an acute financial burden for the Free Folk of the West, farmers and sailors and Moonport-folk is perhaps an exaggeration, but not by much.

This unhappy state of affairs persisted and worsened for nearly a century, quietly smothering all potential opposition (sometimes literally), before the senior branch of the family disgraced itself at court in Aefin and was revealed as unworthy of trust thanks to the efforts of a much younger Lady Elsabeth, supported by The Queen, newly come into her own.

The core of House Darkholme found itself exiled to a place as far to the East as Winterwier extends for its unreliable conduct, tending towards the treasonable but not quite touching upon any such offences (which would have shortened everyone involved by a head).

The Queen, duly grateful for this opportunity to make a clean sweep of the local opposition to her plans to strengthen the defences of the West in a manner which was not designed to simultaneously enrich House Darkholme, extolled the virtues of the Lady Elsabeth Vs the vices of House Darkholme, in propaganda tailor-made to draw the teeth of any opposition from cadet branches of the former Paramount House in the West and convey the image which she expected the local aristocracy to live up to from now on (along with the subtle threat of the sort of individual who would be unleashed upon them if they failed to do so.
(Which would, in fact have something of the opposite effect, by virtue of planting youthful branches of the Military Aristocracy and growing them into family trees rich with fighters)

At this point the freefolk of the West, anticipating real concessions from their new Jarlking as he sought to create the friendships and loyalties which would ensure his new dignities went as smoothly as possible, with the burden of providing manpower and monies to the defence of the Queendom also eased by contributions from tithes exacted from across the land, might well have been content to enjoy their release from the smothering extortions of House Darkholme, even if the new opportunities offered by the Exile of that House and the new arrivals offered them little opportunity to relax.

Had Queen Alusanne appointed anyone but Torvian of the House Warwise, the first of his Name, to be Jarlking over the Westweirfolk they might even have been able to do so. Instead, with a fine knack for turning a silk purse into a sow’s ear Torvian has effectively recreated many of the vices of old House Darkholme in new forms through his obsession with costly rituals and upkeep of a vast host of martial young aristocrats whom he refuses to release from his personal service, along with a refusal to grant Moonport the status of Free City or see the wealthiest local families raised into the dignities of a Noble House.

Quite frankly he finds himself in an even worse position than the last Lord Paramount of the Westweirfolk, since the latter expected nothing from his predecessor but extortion and were seldom disappointed; the problem is, the Westweirfolk had been encouraged to expect better from their new overlord by the exile of their previous Overlords, as well as the fulsome words of the Queen’s Decree (in praise of Lady Elsabeth and in condemnation of House Darkholme).

If it were not for the fact that his obsession with setting his own House in order has kept him from actually paying attention to the local free folk (rich or poor), he’d have probably triggered a rebellion already – quite frankly it’s only a combination of his distraction, folk memory of the injuries inflicted during the War of Iron and abiding local discretion which has kept resentment from boiling over into outrage.

At this point it’s only matter of time before discrete protests become strident, with inevitable results when that egocentric martinet in Moonport deigns to pay attention to them.

The saddest thing about the demands of the Pilgrimage of Saint Elsabeth is that they boil down to "Please let us play a role in looking to our defence" - what they ask is that local trained bands be employed to man the defences rather than hireswords, that Moonport be made a free city and that the host of landless knights now on the land be leashed through being tied down to a fief (they're not too fussy about whether they're sworn to equally new Lords and Ladies drawn from deserving Westweirfolk families or to families 'from away' to use the local idiom).

Quite frankly the Pilgrimage of Saint Elsabeth is less interested in getting a bigger slice of the pie than they are in making sure their own is no longer at risk of being snatched away by Amanians or nibbled away at by anyone else; for all the tax burdens they bear the Westweirfolk are still modestly prosperous - their grain commands ever-increasing prices, thanks to the continuing distractions imposed upon Tythan harvests - and would like to be allowed to ensure that they remain so.

One final note:- a visit from the Lady Elsabeth would soothe the locals tremendously, if only as a reassurance that SOMEONE hears their pleas and that the hope their sacrifices support Nobles worth a pin is not a pipe-dream (not to mention bring to bear the opinion of a knightly lady whom even other Aristocrats might listen to with respect on the side of the freefolk): the problem is that she is extremely unlikely to be permitted to do so, due to the fact that her perpetual enthusiasm effectively represents a diplomatic incident waiting to happen and that even Winterwier can ill afford that sort of Trouble breaking out on their Amanian frontier.

If only there were some well-intentioned gang (ahem, FELLOWSHIP) who could act as a brake on Lady Elsabeth's wider enthusiasms and add subtlety to her raw energies willing to take a hint and make a tour of the West ...

[Libra]

The Queen has many relatives.

Just none who have remotely the same pull or position as her.

Fine fodder for a 'Power Players in Winterwier - Queen Alusanne' article, should I ever get around to typing up one! (I'll have to work out how I see the precise details of the Royal Family of Winterwier, but I'll get there!).

[Charles Phipps]

Hans Gunther
King of Leviathan
A.K.A The Scorpion

Hans Gunther has an origin like a Bond villain. The son of a Romani girl raped by a Nazi in 1944, Hans was left abandoned on the doorstep of a monastery by her parents after she died in childbirth. This monastery was actually a secret base of the Divine Order and he was raised by the Abbot as a member.

Hans, however, saw the power of religion was waning in the post-War World. Given he was living in East Germany at the time, this was an accurate summation. At age 19, he betrayed the Divine Order monastery to The Sickle, and was initiated into the communist branch of the Balance.

Hans Gunther was trained as a member of both the Stazi and the Gru under various cover identities, becoming a Knight with missions to eliminate the Faction's rivals. Hans had no objections to murdering people but had higher ambitions than serving as an assassin - no matter how well paid.

Hans convinced his masters in the Sickle that he could best serve their efforts as an agent who fostered revolutions in foreign countries. Hans Gunther set up a covert trade in arms, drugs, and slaves which he set up with the assistance of the KGB.

The majority of these activities were kept from his Soviet masters while the Balance dismissed any moral objections as undermining the corrupt capitalist societies of the West. The Sickle took off more than it could chew as Hans covertly assassinated most of the ideologues in the organization and slowly started replacing them with his own people.

Hans Gunther was already a billionaire by the time that the writing was on the wall for the Soviet Union. By the time the Soviet Union fell, Hans Gunther had taken over much of the Russian mafia with many of the defections by trained personnel to organized crime being the result of his direct handiwork.

It was in this environment that Hans Gunther was approached by the King of Leviathan, an aging 132 year old Italian mafiosi to serve as his 'Duke' and proxy. Hans Gunther responded by murdering the man and making the other Dukes into his pawns with the oldest trick in the Conspiracy - cash.

Having worked his way up to the position of King of a Faction, Hans Gunther proceeded to adjust to the post-Soviet World. He did this by revealing his master agenda to his personnel lieutenants: to foster global chaos whenever possible and profit from the results.

Hans Gunther arms the same terrorist groups he assisted as a Sickle operative in order to increase a need for arms and drugs to sell by committed ideologues. Hans also weakens the governments of the world by humiliating them with chaos and distracting them from regular organized crime with chaos. Hans was already experimenting with this process during the 1980s in South America and is making an active play to collapse the Mexican government in order to create a narcocracy.

Hans is also experimenting with using legitimate corporations as a means of attacking world stability as well. Hans intends to continue attacking the underpinnings of democracy with lobbying groups so powerful that they effectively become national powers in their own rights. In this, he has many associates in the Balance who believe this is the best way to help the world. Hans believes this is moronic and will simply mean paramilitary groups and mobs will have less resistance from crippled central governments.

The frightening part of this is Hans really doesn't have a central plan. A true sociopath, Hans has no real interest in women or art or even his legacy. Instead, he is solely interested in power and its accumulation while he's alive. He has no friends, loyalties, or ideology other than the advancement of his wealth and power. This purity of purpose has, frighteningly, made him extremely successful in the Conspiracy.

Hans has numerous enemies in the rest of the Conspiracy, especially the Divine Order and the Agency. The One World Order isn't too fond of him either. Hans has managed to avoid them all, however, by faking his death. As far as the world is concerned, the mythical "Scorpion" is a ghost with no origins and probably doesn't exist. It certainly isn't a person related to a deceased East German arms trader supposedly killed by the Agency years ago.

The Scorpion appears as a man in his early forties and has effectively stopped aging due to the Conspiracy's longevity treatments. He prefers Neru jackets and no longer leaves his highly well-defended bases anymore, surrounding himself with brainwashed soldiers and worshipful pawns who would never betray him. The Scorpion, due to a love of spy movies, has two affections. He keeps a set of pet scorpions in a personal aquarium that he dotes on and uses honest-to-god death traps to dispose of disloyal Leviathan opponents (or too competent ones).

Affect of Death: Due to his extreme narcissism, he has done his best to kill off all of the talented Queens and Bishops he can to be replaced with extremely talented accountants who more or less serve as his mouthpieces. This has hampered the growth of the Leviathan but guaranteed his position. If killed, the surviving leaders of Leviathan would have no idea where the majority of assets were or even which gangs were under its control.

[Libra]

One can only hope that some enterprising individual gets a chance to help The Scorpion form a much closer connection with those horrible mascots of his - preferably one which lasts just as long as it takes for a pitfull of stingers to strike home (unless of course King Leviathan was wise enough to disconnect the scorpions from their venom, in which case I can only hope some appropriately satisfying alternate method of hoisting the fellow by his own petard can be arranged).

By the way, keep up the good work Charles!

[Charles Phipps]

In the final confrontation with the Scorpion in the Plot Point Campaign, there were numerous options for dealing with him.

My personal favorite was kicking him into his office open air pit filled with thousands of the little buggers.

Double points for irony that in an earlier Adventure Seed, he held the PCs suspended over it.

[Libra]

Sounds like an extremely fitting demise; one suspects that such an outre death is oddly fitting for a man whom I'd probably do my best to write as a deconstruction of the classic Bond movie villain.

Oh, by the way, your most recent entry on that personal blog of yours is an interesting insight into the creative process (although I now feel obliged to ask which half of Gabriel is draconian, upper or lower?).

Ah well, I'm away on Holiday for a week beginning tomorrow; I'll post when I get back.

Be Well, one and all!

[Phrozen]

Hans even has his own theme song.

[Charles Phipps]

The Minotaur
King of the Labyrinth
A.K.A King Minos of Crete, A.K.A The Dark One

The Minotaur is not only the leader of the Labyrinth, he's also the founder. Born roughly three thousand six hundred years ago in Crete, the Minotaur isn't the mythical monster. That was actually his son. You see, the Minotaur is the original King Minos of mythology. He's still kicking around, albeit not in the best shape.

Minos was one of the original Third Generation Conspirators, a priest-king of the genetically engineered "god" Poseidon who was in charge of administering to the advanced civilization on the island. Absurdly intelligent, you're all aware of his less than stellar relationship with his god, leading to the punishment of his wife being forced to give birth to a monster. Later, his daughter Ariande betrayed him to the One Land Order hero Theseus. Being the daughter of the treacherous Minos, however, Theseus decided to abandon her.

Minos, unsurprisingly, decided this final insult was one too many. Still, one might argue that his reaction was a tad extreme. Using his expansive knowledge of magic, Minos contacted hyper-dimensional entities existing beyond the borders of reality. One of these was a malevolent genocidal being he called Kronos and possessed an army of Demon Lord-like beings he termed Titans.

Minos unleashed these beings and their thousands of followers with a spell that triggered one of the Conjunction of the Spheres. This destroyed the Cretean civilization and also filled the world with horrible monsters beyond the sanity of most beings to comprehend. Minos considered this a small sacrifice to destroy the Olympians and used the distraction to seize one of their ambrosia trees.

The staggering nature of Minos' crime came to haunt him, however, as the Conspiracy was formed in the aftermath of his actions. While the ambrosia provided him with immortality, there would be nowhere to hide if it came out. Also, ambrosia was a source of immortality greater than anything leftover after the Conjunction. He feared, correctly, they would kill him to seize his power.

Minos thus created his faction for the explicit purpose of protecting his life. Whereas the other Factions such as the Philosophers and the Shields of Athena might have set up a society built on justice and mercy, Minos used his influence to argue that it had been knowledge of the supernatural that triggered this horror. He argued, instead, that lies and deception were the best tools for protecting humanity. The Conspiracy would become invisible and only in the darkness would they be safe.

A proper list of Minos' actions since then would be impossible to compile, especially since he swiftly learned to work through five or six layers of proxies at best. Unlike what television would tell you, this often meant Minos didn't have complete control over the situations he unleashed but he's only ever needed a general influence to stay ahead of them. Minos has, ever, attempted to keep civilization down so that no one can challenge him.

While none of these events are confirmed at his hands, the Enlightenment has actually been developing a file they think he has been involved in;

* Copying much of the Library of Alexandria for his vaults before ordering its destruction, several times.
* The arranged 'marriage' of Atilla the Hun with a Roman Emperor's sister to weaken Rome.
* The encouragement of Roman use of barbarian mercenaries in hopes of eventually getting them to divide up the empire.
* The entirety of the politics in the Byzantine Empire. If only there was a word which described the labyrinth-like politics of that country's plots and counterplots.
* Attempting to artificially spread the Black Death in places that the Conspiracy had educated.
* Using witch-burnings as a method of eliminating genuine practitioners of white magic and eliminating all historical reference to magic despite its former prevalence.
* The interwoven treaty system of 1900s Europe.
* Protecting mid-20th century despots from plots to assassinate them (I kid you not, the Conspiracy used to be good at preventing people like that from rising into power)
* Murdering Mao's Enlightenment associates and replacing them with communist fanatics.
* The collapse of Wallstreet, several times.
The Enlightenment questions how much of this is true as much of it seems to be ridiculous to be true. I mean, SURELY no one can be that evil.

It is a testament to Minos' skill that he has always managed to hide the fact that many of the Conspiracy's worst failures and nastiest excesses were things he encouraged. The truth is, it wasn't as difficult as it could be as the Conspiracy has always been ahead of its time. Convincing members that they shouldn't use their advanced knowledge to vaccinate the natives in the New World and instead "let the savages die" wasn't as hard as it should be. Minos has always supported the easiest, most short-sighted, most basest instincts in humanity and usually been rewarded with an endless stream of short-term successes.

Sadly, the Modern Era is a nightmare for him and one that has been in the makings since the Renaissance. He has been consistently outmaneuvered to the point civilization is more advanced and the Conspiracy more capable capable than ever. He has ample blackmail material and spies but so do plenty of others. The rest of the world has learned his tricks and it's a dangerous new world when The Prince is widely read as opposed to something only the Conspiracy had ideals similar too.

Minos has other problems too. Ambrosia wasn't quite the panacea it was advertised as being or solar flares has mutated it. He's not sure which. For the past six hundred years, it's been failing him. Minos is immortal, after a fashion, but he no longer has eternal youth. He's trapped in a dessicated corpse-like shell that needs to be fed ambrosia intravenously 24-7 in order to give him even the slightest animation. Now, Minos never leaves his hermetically sealed base, instead using astral projection and advanced Terra'ssar technology to communicate with his followers.

Minos is completely helpless in his spider-like wheelchair, depending on his genetically engineered bodyguards for protection. These take the form of Bull-Men, mostly out of nostalgia. He also is attended by similarly genetically engineered "daughters" he has named Ariande.

They are beautiful, intelligent, and devoted to their father but have a peculiar tendency to turn on him. While he's killed dozens, he has yet to work this kink out of them and a properly charismatic hero might convince one to betray Minos' location. They'd only have to navigate a literal maze of death-traps and monsters thereafter. The help of the Ariande's would be invaluable to this (or a simple attack by ninja-commandos, You Only Live Twice style).

As King of the Labyrinth, Minos has numerous enemies but his greatest one is the Enlightenment. They are not so easily fooled as other groups and have been slowly piecing together the layers of his plots for the past two thousand years. Almost all of his deeds and actions have been uncovered and they're mostly considering how to destroy the monster and his network once and for all now. Minos would be horrified to find out that they're really just debating what sort of intelligent, young, headstrong people deserve Minos' base and all of its riches (since the Enlightenment prefers to stay one step behind).

Affect of his Death: No idea but it can't hurt since he is objectively worse than Hitler.

[Charles Phipps]

I confess, I wonder what would happen if Minos met the Freedomverse Minotaur.

Sounds like an extremely fitting demise; one suspects that such an outre death is oddly fitting for a man whom I'd probably do my best to write as a deconstruction of the classic Bond movie villain.

More like a Reconstruction. Hans is richer than God but uses it to do large-scale terrorist plots just like Blofeld. The reconstruction plot being that he can do this because he's part of the Conspiracy and it's to make even more money.

The death traps thing sounds silly but you'd be surprised how many criminals think it's cool as hell.

Oh, by the way, your most recent entry on that personal blog of yours is an interesting insight into the creative process (although I now feel obliged to ask which half of Gabriel is draconian, upper or lower?).

Hehe.

Hans even has his own theme song.

Excellent choice, Phrozen.

[Phrozen]

The Ambrosia stopped working because like any drug Minos body is developed a resistance to it. It takes more and more to have an effect.

If any person would penetrate his compound, they would find well basically an old washed up junkie. That is the ironic part, the fabled King Minos master of the conspiracy for centuries is a slave to his own addiction.

[Charles Phipps]

The Ambrosia stopped working because like any drug Minos body is developed a resistance to it. It takes more and more to have an effect.

If any person would penetrate his compound, they would find well basically an old washed up junkie. That is the ironic part, the fabled King Minos master of the conspiracy for centuries is a slave to his own addiction.

A quite viable interpretation.

The ending of the Plot Point campaign has the PCs possessed of Minos' files (dating back to Alexandria), his orchard of ambrosia, Terra'ssar master computers from one of their UFOs, the Labyrinth trained to accept any orders from their invisible master, and nothing really preventing them from becoming some of the most powerful people in the world (Minos handles all of his computer work via his voice - talking to the dummy AI, hence there's no security - a part of him may also subconsciously realize anyone who gets this far DESERVES to rule the world).

They can be masters of the universe but, really, do they want to go that path?

Or do they say, "well, I'll be DIFFERENT from Minos."

[Voltron64]

Personally, I'd go for "You know what? Let's go into space."

Also, Minos really cares nothing for humanity, he's really just an opportunistic bastard who gets his jollies on keeping others down.