TaskForceCreation/TFCspoilers

Spoilers

No players. I mean it. Any player who reads this is no longer a player.

Saheel, the mentor

He chats with the UCS on a semi-regular basis. The Sidereals don't know about him. He's the one interceding for the DBs so that they don't get Mice of the Sun-sick.

Saheel's capabilities

Dude, he's a First Age Zenith. He's the proverbial 2-ton elephant, he does whatever he wants. For the purposes of the game, he definitely at least has the following:

• Wyld Shaping Technique, and perhaps some custom Wyld-weakening charms coming off of it
• Solar Circle Sorcery, probably every spell printed in all three circles, as well as a couple custom ones
• Knowledge of most Celestial MAs, high-Essence Elder Animal styles, and a SMA (to be determined)
• Lore, Occult, Presence, and Charisma at his Essence rating (8 or 9)
• Threefold binding of the hearted Sidereal advisor from the First Age
• Lunar Mate?

Saheel's Goodies

• A Customized Royal Warstrider of badassedness
• A nifty, N/A personal weapon of somesort
• Enchanted personal signet ring

The Manse

• Created by the S&S spell that just creates manse of any level on a demense and Wyld-Shaping Technique
• A couple First-Age Anklok manse-guards that went with him when he withdrew from the world
• Definitely a Solar Sanctuary that the Sidereal advisor helped mask, a la thief, with Astrology

Session one: The Perfect's Circle

In one of the last training missions before Saheel sends his group of Champions into the world to right wrongs, something goes terribly wrong. While flying with the Essence-gathering sails out, a lesser Air Dragon materializes next to them. In the confusion, something clogs one of the exhaust valves on the shrike and it is forced to land a few miles from Paragon. Coincidentally, a scouting party lead by the affable Alabster Sphinx comes across the party and invites them to rest in the officially Solar-friendly city of Paragon. Was it sabotage? Coincidence? There's only one way to find out.

Dramatae Personis

• "Righteous Viper," Dawn caste. Has the hots for Scarlet Whisper, the Perfect's wife, and would do anything for her. Doesn't like the PC group (especially the Dawn) because he's afraid they'll make him look less cool in her eyes. His real name is Small Happiness, given to him at birth by his Harborhead parents, who had their heart set on a girl who would grow up to be a Bride of Ahlat.

• Alabaster Sphinx, Zenith caste. He's from a small gem-trading village in the deep south, and Saheel actually came across him in his travels. Knowing little of Solars from the First Age except that they went sort of crazy, Sphinx decided to throw his lot in with a less precarious Utopia, although he does respect Saheel and his students-- especially the other Zeniths. Sphinx is in a loving though somewhat unique, committed relationship with Gentle Wind, and thinks little of his "duties" to the Perfect. He is also the Perfect's closest advisor, next to Whisper.

• Delicate Petal, Twilight caste. Petal is the ultimate girly-girl, inhumanly beautiful and well-learned in all manners of the feminine mystique. She's an incorrigable flirt, seemingly somewhat vapid, and gets easily distracted by shiny objects. As Ikselam put it, all of this disguises a heart of lead. Her job for the Perfect is making pretty, sparkly jewelry-- as well as highly sophisticated weapons of mass destruction. She says she likes the Shrike because it's sparkly, but really, she wants to godspear her hometown of Gem. She thinks it sucks.

• Gentle Wind, Night caste. Total James-Bondness. A pretty boy ladykiller who would be a supercriminal, if criminal activity were allowed in Perfect. He is the head of recruitment for new citizens-- he goes to women who have certain qualities that would make them good citizens-- money, power, prestige-- and woos them, but then says he is only allowed to involve himself with citizens of Paragon. They swear fealty to the Perfect, Wind toys with them for a week or so, and then breaks off the relationship. Lather, rinse, repeat. This is his job because he is 110% gay and deeply in love with Alabaster Sphinx-- therefore, he does not get attached to the women he flirts with.

• Scarlet Whisper, Eclipse caste. The Perfect's wife, and the first Solar to ever swear fealty to him. She harbors a silent jealousy of Sphinx's relationship with the Perfect and fears that someday she will no longer be as important to her husband as she is now. She does not realize the Perfect is deeply in love with her, and looks to him as almost a father-figure, someone to get praise and attention from. She would sooner die than dissapoint him; unfortunately, she does not realize she already has by thinking of him more as a father than a lover.

Stuff to happen

The Perfect's Circle is glad that the Perfect has a chance to get the Shrike, but they dislike this business of the Perfect possibly aquiring a whole new badass circle of Solars. Because of this, they are equally as likely to arrange the PCs accidental death as they are of arranging the PC's accidental escape. Meanwhile, the Shrike can't fly for a month since it landed without a maintenence crew, and the Perfect is using every second of that time to convince them every and any way he knows how that they should swear fealty to him.

Good things about this

• The PCs' first introduction to other Solars-- and they aren't off kicking ass in the name of the UCS like Saheel said they would be?
• It comes out that the Perfect's Circle was able to ground the shrike because the Twilight remembered its one weakness from a past-life memory of the Shrike's construction. "WTF? Past lives? No, seriously, WTF?" The first small hint that they are different, even from normal Solars.

Other Mission ideas

Gem

For some reason, Gem must be destroyed. More on this later.

Ooops!

A small village has a shaman who is going to summon a great evil. Oh no! When the PCs stop it, they find that the shaman they killed had forced the local Fair Folk to swear that they would never harm the village as long as he was alive, and the guy wasn't planning to summon a great evil at all. Ack! How could the information they recieved have been so wrong? It's the fault of the Big Bad Deathlord! --Also, perhaps they killed a Sid-to-be or something who happened to be part of the village. This would piss off the Bronze Faction.

Overplot goodies

• The Circle won't know about the Sidereal advisor for quite some time. Towards the end of the game, after they've interacted with him a little and gotten to trust him, they come back to the Manse one day in the shrike and-- wow! Saheel's been murdered. See, thing is, the Sidereal wasn't -really- threefold binding of the hearted. He couldn't be, he was an infernal. Then there can be a nice little bit of fiction written up where Saheel knew all along, it just "had to be" that way-- that's why he left, he wanted to take the Infernal out of Creation before the Infernal could harm it. Of course, as noble as that was, the Dragon-Blooded all over the world are starting to get really sick..

• One of the unnamed deathlords has a perfect Abyssal circle that's sort of a mirror of the PC group, and probably a "Soulsteel Faction" Sidereal advisor. The Deathlord has been sitting around, chilling, not really doing much with the whole DL-politicking thing, but got sudden inspiration on how to make creation fall. A good deal of the small plots will be machinations by said deathlord. As soon as they defeat this guy and they're like, "Ah ha! Creation is safe!" the above can happen. :)

Oh, one more thing

Crowned_Sun: Also, what's the whole "past life memoryes, WTF?" thing about??

dissolvegirl: Umm.. the PCs don't have any First Age memories. This is because (with the exception of one of the two Zeniths) they are new shards.

Crowned_Sun: nodsnods. I didn't see that anywhere, so it made little sense.

dissolvegirl: New shards that the UCS created at the behest of Jupiter, because a great destiny was laid upon them to fight the last battle of the primordial war, whatever that meant. ;) And they were placed in Saheel's care.

dissolvegirl: I should really stick that up somewhere on the spoilers.

Comments

This campaign sounds like it will be much fun for your players. Maybe a 'Recover Ancient Plot McGuffin from FA factory Cathedral' style plot, where the factory-cathedral is about be destroyed by the volcanic erruption or somesuch of the <insert powerful magical phenomena powering factory>. Maybe there could be a demon guarding it or something. - Kraken

More suggestions. Well, Suggestion: Foiled! wherever our team of intrepid heroes go, whoever they try to save, the are twarted. people killed, buildings destroyed etc. the episode culminating in a confrontation with the Abyssal servent of the big bad deathlord as he tries to foil their latest rescue. - Kraken

For the 'Ooops!' bit: "I am afraid that he was, indeed, summoning a great evil. Are you not here? Are you not Anathema? He called you to our village, and now our very doom has come upon us." - Quendalon