Turn 2 Results
August, 1032 DR
The Sav Altulas Standard
Your Only Reliable News Source
Sponsored by the Bookbinder's Guild
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What follows is the month's contents of the Standard, summarized in reports on your desk, with occasional excerpts included for context.
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Doctor Vassari announces the opening of the Wallen Wing of Bloodhaven Hospital, made possible by generous donations from House Wallen and the Mercantile's Guild. The opening ceremony is marred, however, when several bodies are discovered underneath the stage the Doctor is delivering his speech from, arteries slashed and blood strewn about.
Mercantile's Guild troops move into Stockyards Deep after the Drover's Associations there begin fighting in the streets. The bloody fighting that followed all but destroyed the Drovers, leaving the Guild in charge of the neighborhood.
The remains of the Milanus Protective Association have vanished, leaving the Gatekeeper's Guard in control of Gateway Milanus. Rumor has it that the Guard is reporting directly to the Wardens these days.
Enormous Warden assault on White Market is only halted when Wyat Embler orders the use of weapons specifically banned in the city by both the old government and his masters in distant Veras. Warden troops regroup at a reasonable distance from Embler's safehouse as mortar shells begin to fall on the rest of the neighborhood.
Massive riots erupt on Deadman Hill in Runner's City, centered on the infamous Gatehouse Prison. Warden Exarn gives the order to deploy riot mages to the streets, wizards who use their control over the water pipes beneath the streets of the neighborhood to hose down the rioters, but they are swiftly countered by Blackfist sorcerers hidden in the crowds. In short order, all of the warden’s prized riot mages are dead, either in magical combat or by assassination. Little is known of what happened next. What is obvious is that Warden Exarn's forces retreated to Gatehouse Prison, blowing the bridge over the moat behind them, but were then attacked from inside by rioting prisoners. Eventually, the last of the wardens and guards broke through the mob of rioters and anarchists and fled the neighborhood. They joined up with the guards at the Harrowing Fields and made a stand there, finally holding back the Blackfist insurgents at the gate to the arena. The gates of the most infamous prison in the Shattered Lands now stand open, with the Blackfist flag hung over the makeshift bridge laid across the moat.
The Order of the Wren has raised an army in Lack's Own and stormed the Sanctuary of the Deranged, bringing an end to that vile cult.
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Excerpt from the Standard
Lower City Death Cult Brought to Justice!
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It is hard to convince the locals of Lack’s Own to move against the Blessed Mad—the madmen’s reign of terror has been too complete for too long. The voice of the Wren is persuasive, however, and he is able to convince them that they might have a chance. Indeed, he tells them, this might very well be their only chance. Wagons roll into Lack’s Own from the Tragic Court, carrying weapons to arm the people against those who have preyed on them for so long. Soon an army is raised in the streets, led by an elusive figure in a tattered cloak.
The Sanctuary is hard to find. None of the Blessed Mad will reveal its location; despite all of them having been there many times before, it may very well be possible that none of them actually know where it is. Their minds have decayed past the point of reason, and no amount of interrogation will lead them to betray their god of madness. Fortunately, the Order’s spies are clever. The Blessed Mad always seem to know when they are being followed, but they also tend to evade their pursuers within the same couple of blocks, which gives some sense of where they are going. A quick perusal of city records shows a vast space under the streets in that particular area, a church that fell through the ground during the long-ago Godsfear Quake.
The Order and their local allies storm the Sanctuary. They take the Blessed Mad by surprise, but the madmen are not people who expect logic to reign in their lives, so the advantage is short-lived. The locals are fearful, their bravery when they agreed to this mission evaporating now that they find themselves in the very heart of horror. Some of them recognize people they know among the bodies that decorate the Sanctuary; others, worse, recognize some among the still-living playthings of the cult; and, worst of all, some see familiar faces behind the gleaming knives of the mad, twisted into almost unrecognizability by insane grins.
The fight in the Sanctuary is brutal beyond belief. The Mad throw themselves at the Order with reckless disregard for their own safety, attacking with knives, rusty swords, nets, spears, or their bare hands. Room by room the battle is fought, with an ambush in each of them. Here, a madman drops from the ceiling and dies as he tears into a local man who, bare hours ago, was handed a sword and told the Order would help avenge his daughter. In the next room, acid seeps through the floor as a cultist douses himself and three Order soldiers with violent green toxins. A corridor later, in a room carpeted with decaying bodies, the Blessed Mad rise up from where they were lying with the dead and take the intruders by surprise, knives flashing in the dark.
One by one the madmen die, and by the time morning comes all that is left is the blood and the fire. The Sanctuary is no more. Once the fighting stopped, the last members of the Blessed Mad running off into the dark, the locals gathered their dead and torched the pit that they had fought in. The street sags there now, where the support pillars have burned through, a monument to the cult that once terrorized the people of Lack’s Own.
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The artificers of the Foundry in Little Veras have joined the Technists Guild wholeheartedly.
The Vilenus Tong has been driven out of Resseville by the Champions of Sovereignty, led by King James I. Reports of the ice elf Tong freezing civilians into human walls to block off Champions advances have been confirmed by multiple sources.
The Esoteric Society of Gentlemen Explorers has cleared most of the bears off one of the major islands in Brecombe Lake.
The Sausage Guild has publically returned the contents of the vaults they seized last month to the Exchange.
The Exchange has begun constructing vaults at the tops of towers.
House Laurier now has full control over the Pond neighborhood. It is rumored that they have developed contacts with local merchants from the city-states of the Merchants Water.
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Excerpt from the Standard
Merchant's Water Comes to Lomb Circle
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The bright, sun-kissed waters of the Boundless Isles have marked the man running this shop like the touch of some strange and foreign god, his deeply tanned skin and sharp dark eyes making him stand out from any crowd in this northern Shattered Lands city. The shelves of his store are crowded with the eclectic array of merchandise that marks the true Waterman merchant-prince, from Tybish spices to Arypsian wines, from Buronian silver to Lomaran knives. There are maps tacked to the wall behind the counter, covered in lines drawn in different colored inks, proudly showing the many trade routes that brought these goods to this place. Stacks of wooden crates can be seen through the door behind the Waterman, the seals of far-off trading companies stamped on them like brands on cattle—Darrigan East Exports, Kempthorne, Far Isles, Kerriglass Messenger and Delivery, and many more.
“Hello there,” says the man behind the counter, smiling an easy merchant’s smile. “What can I do for you today?”
Waterman Contact discovered in the Pond neighborhood.
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House Laurier troops, led by Guy Laurier, have driven the Third Street Runners, Underdogs and Bloodsworn gangs out of Tremorous, and have begun rebuilding the neighborhood to its pre-earthquake glory.
House Orthax, House Beteoui and the various Dwimmercant Families have joined the Party led by Lord Henry Wallen, with the construction of a Party House in Dai being funded by House Wallen.
Much of Southside Black in the Blacksgage district is on fire or otherwise destroyed in the aftermath of a major magical battle between the Librarian of the Elements and Silas Mok, who was finally killed by the Librarian's summoned creatures.
It is rumored that a large number of University Guard, ordered by the Librarian to hunt down the source of some particularly nasty rumors, went missing in Scholar's Compass on the night of the full moon.
The Millford Standing Guard is now funded almost completely by members of the Silversmith's Guild who have set up shop in the neighborhood.
The Hearthfeather Family has fled to Pews, where it is said they have converted to the Church of Neposh in exchange for protection against the Wrekan Family. Heartsblood is now under the control of the Wrekans, with support from the EBSA.
Public speakers from the Ram Revolution are hailed as visionaries in Imperial Third, less so in Pits.
The Ram Revolution has started a small bank in Rot's Borough, with hopes to expand its operations.
The Goblin Games in Hobbespot turn bloody as the armies of goblins being made to fight in the arena to settle a dispute between the Underwood and Silviat families turn on their masters. It is only the guards brought by Marcus Heladuit to guard a sales presentation he was delivering to the assembled Family members that prevented the goblins from overrunning the arena. This has left the Heladuit Court in command of the Games--and he who commands the Games commands Hobbespot.
The Heartspear Secret Police have been driven out of Orn Totre by the Fists of Neposh, with help from the Ram's Republican Army. The Police did not try to surrender, but rather fought to the last man. Later on it is rumored that the upper ranks of the Heartspears survived, and are hiding elsewhere in the city. All that is known for sure is that the leader of the secret police, the one called the Thousand Voices, is not among the dead.
The streets of Fractures have returned to some semblance of normalcy, even as soldiers from the Militia of Order and Justice fight demons beneath the earth.
A large force from the Militia of Order and Justice is pushing out the gangs in the Mains, hoping to make the area safer for ordinary citizens.
Two hand presses being delivered to customers by the Technists Guild were ambushed and destroyed en route by thugs hoping to collect on bounties posted by the Bookbinder's Guild.
The Peacocks who run the Painted Court are muscling in on the opium dens of the Everdie, Macetile and Dumdros gangs.
The various gangs and witches of Old Jack's Run have come to a tenuous truce.
Labor unrest increases in the Smokeyards district.
The Blackjack Boys have been seen patrolling Redress Street with new and complicated magitech weapons.
Someone has been feeding the Sav Altulas Standard slanderous stories about the EBSA. However, the effect of these stories is counteracted somewhat by the propaganda that the EBSA has commissioned from the Bookbinder's Guild, showing the organization in a positive light. The net result is that the slander negates the propaganda, and vice versa.
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Excerpt from the Standard
EBSA Staff Consume Flesh of Children in Ritual Murder-Bestiality Pact!
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Full story on page 3.
Paid Advertisement:
In times of trouble, who brings you healing when you cannot afford a doctor? Who keeps your streets safe and your family fed? Who keeps this city running, day and night, through fire and flood? Who has seen to it that Sav Altulas is regarded as the lone, shining jewel in these Shattered Lands?
For a hundred years, the EBSA has striven to support the citizens of this great city. No matter the trouble, know that we will always be there to help.
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The Gear's Chosen, after an exhaustive analysis of the copy of the Liber Technologica given to them by the Technists Guild, have announced that it is heresy and publicly burned it. They have followed up the book-burning by declaring holy war on the Technists Guild. How they hope to accomplish this from the other side of the city is anyone's guess.
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Mail and Behind-The-Scenes
Imperial Trade Ministry to Mercantile's Guild (ESP-D 3)
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If we thought that money could rid the Shattered Lands of bandits, we would have gladly paid that price many times before. However, with the Wardens off their usual caravan routes and instead occupied in the city, we suppose we should start looking into other means of protecting our traders.
We are willing to offer you a loan of [10 t.WEL], but be warned that we will expect swift results and repayment. Failure in either of these matters will result in action by the Imperial Chancery.
Regards,
Minister Moth
Imperial Ministry of Trade and Commerce
Lucas Deplorian to Wyat Embler (ESP-D 4)
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Mr. Embler,
I have received reports of your recent actions in response to intrusions into territory you deem to be under your control. While I understand that your handling of the situation has been the best it could be under the circumstances, I cannot help but feel that you have allowed events to escalate beyond your ability to control them. This (if I may quote your last letter) "barbarian invasion force" was stirred to action when your men ambushed them as they were attempting to travel through the neighborhood two months ago. You believed that they were a threat to your operation and had them eliminated, as is your prerogative, but in doing so you must have expected the retribution that would result. Your failure to do so does not reflect well on your management of my operations in the city.
As such, I hereby inform you that Mr. Nielson has been dispatched to Sav Altulas. He will arrive in one month's time, at which point you will be relieved of command pending a full review of your actions. Until that time you are retroactively granted permission to use the heavy weapons that we had sent you for sale to Cord Witchbrother, with the exception of the Ember n152 Prototype, the Demonmouth guns and the third-generation mutagens. In addition, I feel I must warn you that Mr. Neilson has orders to execute you without trial if he discovers that you have so much as touched the unmarked black box that was meant for sale to the Lord Protector of the Protectorate of the Blood. We understand that some shipments have been disrupted due to the situation you have found yourself in, but there is no excuse for halting delivery to such a highly valued customer.
Regards,
Lucas Deplorian
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Bounty Board
All prices listed are in t.WEL unless otherwise stated, and will be paid out immediately upon confirmation by the bounty poster.
Skeeve Redeye: Poisoner, serial killer, alchemist, dollmaker and rumored demon.
2 from Agia Lonecutter, 5 from Illarym Empire (up 1 from last month)
Unknown Raiders: Whoever stole the Imperial weapons meant for the Wardens from the caravan delivering them to the city.
2 from Imperial Trade Ministry
Blackfist Press
1 from Bookbinder's Guild
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Turn 3 Begins
September, 1032 DR
EoTs due Saturday