Getting the Governor

Games Root
1

Cid’s first big objective is: humiliate the Governor. This will help break the mystique the Eyrie cultivates. Specifically, pluck his feathers and exhibit him at the theater, in front of everyone. Then let word spread to other Roosts.

How do we get him? Climb the Roost, blow the roof, drop in, force him at swordpoint to come with us, and leave the same way. This needs to be done at night, on a day where we know for sure he’s really there.

He’ll have guards! How do we get them out of the way? Lure them away by creating the illusion of enemy action and air of paranoia.

How do we create that illusion? By forging documents and arranging for the people in the shacks to help us suggest that forces are massing in the forest.

:white_check_mark: How do we find the people in the shacks? Forge an order sending a watcher to check up on those people, and trailing that watcher - the Eyrie will know where those people live, even if we don’t. From there, it’s a question of convincing people who have reason to hate the Eyrie to act against the Eyrie - this shouldn’t be too difficult.

How do we foster an air of paranoia? Start publishing forged orders. At first these will seem to be good, productive things. Nobody will cop to writing them, but we should create stuff where it would be risky to ask that kind of question anyway.

Then we’ll move up to posting orders for the eviction of a few members of the Eyrie from their homes. If we boil the frog (so to speak, Tomo) by building up from innocent to risky orders, the Eyrie is placed in a difficult position: sow the seeds of doubt about any future orders, or go along with it to uphold the perception of authority.

Part of this project can be demoralizing the guards, by planting evidence the governor intends to cut their pay to fund some other initiative. For example, what did the village lose to build that theater?

What do we need to pull this off?

  1. Physical materials to create the forged orders (may involve Cid’s Toolbox, Depletion, theft, etc.)
  2. An idea of the web of influence we want to weave, in order to foster paranoia about the system (could require Read a Tense Situation etc. rolls)
  3. Support from the people in the shacks
2

Ways this can go wrong:

  1. The first and biggest is “at the first sign of mysterious happenings, the newcomers in town get rounded up”, which means us. We should be ready to run at any moment. it happened lol
  2. The Eyrie escalates their security, e.g. requiring special stamps on all documents. We steal the stamps and replicate them, and continue the plan.
  3. The Eyrie requires hand delivery & personal receipt of orders. This is good for us in the long term, as it makes the bureaucracy more inefficient, but requires us to change strategy.
3

Creating documents:

  • :white_check_mark: Steal a seal
  • :white_check_mark: Kidnap a watcher
  • :white_check_mark: Implicate the watcher as working with the Marquisate (e.g. by leaving an offer letter and/or Marquisate coins in their home)
  • :white_check_mark: Impute that Tomo is Ayase, who has associated with the Marquisate in the past
  • They can eventually be freed, but by that time nobody should believe their story
4

Next phase of the plan: the shacks.

This has changed Cid’s planning somewhat, mostly by complicating it rather than forcing it to adjust. If the exiles are in fact forced laborers, that just means we need to free them before they’ll help us. It also means doing it in a way that upholds our lie, which will be challenging.

So much depends on what we scout out, but here’s a few things I’m thinking about.

  • If they’re forced laborers, someone is there doing the forcing: guards, and a commandant
  • Where do those people sleep at night? At the camp with the prisoners, or do they have homes they return to?
  • How many prisoners per guard? 1:1? 10:1? 20:1? The fewer guards there are, the simpler this gets for us. The more guards there are, the more secure the camp is, but the more expensive it is for the governor to pay for.
  • What labor are they actually doing? Useless stuff like pulverizing rocks? Cutting down trees for lumber? What does the clearing and the Eyrie actually get from them?
  • If these folk were undesirable, what about any spouses or children they had? Are those people at the camp? Driven off? Worse?

So…


There’s three ways forward that I can think of right now.

  1. :white_check_mark: Convince the guards they’ll come under attack by the Marquisate, soon. This means forging messages to them indicating an attack is coming, and doing some furtive scouting around their camp to convince them. The big question here is: if they report this to the Governor, will he back them up, or tell them to do their best and not reinforce them? I hope the latter.
  2. Give the guards false orders that the prisoners are to be transferred elsewhere, in such a way that makes them not go back to the Governor for confirmation. We would need an “elsewhere” to go to, a reason for it to happen, and a reason for them not to report back.
  3. Ambushing the guards on their way home at night, assuming they don’t stay at the camp.

If the guards stay at camp full time, one option is to impersonate a messenger from the Eyrie. That would require us to intercept any real messengers, which would probably be detected sooner or later. If Alvin was very good, good enough to pickpocket letters and drop them into a messenger’s bag without the messenger noticing, that would be something, but it doesn’t feel like we can count on that.

:white_check_mark: One tactic is to use the whistle. Blow it several times, each time leading some guards into traps or other tough situations. Let the guards figure out that bad guys have a whistle. Then lure some watchers or other folks from the clearing to approach the shacks, appear before them (to get them to blow the whistle), and run for it. The guards will fall upon the approaching watchers, thinking they’re the bad guys.

5
  • Prisoners are on a chain gang
  • Prisoners are chopping trees to clear forest. Creates an open area around the shacks, making it harder for prisoners to hide & move around.
  • 100 prisoners, ~25 guards, including 2 commander types
  • There are families and kids here

The shacks are about ~1 hour away from the Tonnery clearing

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6

Cid has a new role model

7

While we are waiting and seeing how things change in Tonnery, I feel like some of our plans won’t have changed:

  • We can forge fake orders for the watchers & guards
  • We can mix those with more fake offer letters & agreements, indicating that guards might betray the Governor for Marquisate coin
  • We can watch the roads for messengers from the Eyrie, ambush them, and possibly replace secret communications in their pouches with our own forged stuff
8

It feels like we’re ready to make our move against the Governor. If we did our job, the guard situation will be chaotic and we’ll have an opening to grab him.

Our next moves would be either to deal with the roost rebuild, or chase after Ayase, depending on what kind of leads we get.

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