A ChristMASKS Love Letter for Sonia, the former Bull turned Soldier.
Dear Sonia,
In Darkhavia, the winter holidays are a time of chilling ghost stories, children cowering in fear of shaggy beasts with whips and sacks, and the omnipresent threat of severe punishment for misdeeds. Of course, that’s pretty much how things are year round there… Enjoying your new citizenship? Well pull up a blanket and try to get cozy. It’s going to be a very Darkhavian Christmas.
Viscount Consternation, current ruler of Darkhavia, has come to Capstone with two goals in mind. The first: throw his weight around with F.A.T.E. to teach them there’s a cost to kidnapping Darkhavian citizens.
The second: make it clear to everyone at the Forge that his care for Darkhavia is so deep and so magnanimous that he will rise to the defense of even someone who deserves it as little as you do.
That’s fine by you, of course, since you have a plan to recruit the recovering Invictus junkies at the Forge to humiliate Viscount Consternation. These kids are all jonesing for superpowers, right? Why not recruit them to the Forge’s cause and fire them up for the fight against the Rime Court. Of course, you know that Consternation can’t comply with this plan, because Nix says it will take Baron Devastation to grant fire powers to more Forgelings. But forcing Consternation to confirm this publicly should knock him down a peg, and help underline the need to bring Devastation back. That’s the idea, anyway.
Roll +Soldier, that is, +1.
On a hit, choose someone at the Forge to join your conspiracy. The GM will tell you what important resource or intel they bring to the table.
But if this works, Consternation will be looking for revenge. On a 10+ choose two, on a 7-9 choose one.
He doesn’t find a way to take his humiliation out on:
You, Sonia
Dr. Nix
Furnace and Aislin
On 6-, he turns the tables and Nix joins in (for cover, she says). Still couldn’t she have distanced herself without stooping to breaking that promise/betraying that trust? What happened and what condition do you mark?
Hope your little scheme turns out to be worth it. Merry Christmas, Sonia Ignacio.
XXOO,
Your Gamemaster
P.S.: You haven’t been forgotten, Halfpenny. There’s still room in your stocking for a little loose change…
And here’s the conclusion to my response. I had a lot of fun with the Hobson’s choice presented, and picked (as the player) what my character wanted to avoid.
“At least Sonia had stayed silent for the whole public disaster. But, even so, she knew Consternation was likely to blame her, even if she hadn’t been as culpable as she was. For the rest of his visit (which was shortened to spare him further embarrassment) she took every extra shift of grunt work she could, in order to keep their paths from crossing. But if he went after her, she was sure she could withstand whatever punishment Consternation could threaten her with. She’d stood up against him twice, and this time, whatever he did to her, she’d won a serious victory. She’d gone into this with her eyes open, willing to make a sacrifice.
Still, when the baronet finally left, the knot of tension in the small of her back unclenched for the first time since she spoke to Benjy. She knew Consternation would want to hurt her most, so if he’d left her untouched, the danger had passed.
She was exactly right, and also exactly wrong. The viscount had drawn the precise conclusion about Sonia’s guilt that she expected, but he’d learned more about his problematic asset Ignition than she knew. To hurt her most, Viscount Consternation knew now that his blow shouldn’t be directed at Ignition herself. The orders he’d given before departure should leave her severely chastened before long.
(Which is to say, my dear GM, I rolled a 9 (8 + 1), and I’m choosing that the blow fall on Nix + Furnace and Aislin).”