Casting Shadows

This seed has been planted for All for One: Regime Diabolique, and I am certain it will grow well, and flourish into an enormous tree with many branching stories as it is to be set in Paris, and as everyone knows, the streets of that noble city are lined with so much fertilizer produced by the inestimable number of dogs which roam free, one could plant a stone and expect it to sprout.

The seed is simple, short, and somewhat sweet. If played right, it could sprout into a whole campaign, but at the very least will provide at least one very tense, and very, very adventurous session.

The seed:

A woman who is not a woman, and a child who is not a child, seek protection they do not need, versus enemies they do not have, from allies they beseech, but do not truly wish to maintain, in order to complete the spurious last request of  still-living widow who was never married to restore the freedom of a man who is a man but who is not using his real name, from unjust captivity under a lettre de cachet, which was actually just and prevented terrible deeds from being done, just in the nick of time.

The only way to fulfill this last request and free the man is for the characters to obtain an audience with the king, and redeem a favour the crown has owed to them in exchange for the prisoner’s release.

What is going on:

A treasonous band of treacherous traitors have identified the group as men who have the potential to earn the ear of those in high places. They have patience, and they have intellect, but what these plotters do not have is any hope of ever getting close to the King. Well… without the aid of some courageous but unwitting accomplices.

The woman is, of course, a man who is no longer fully functional in that way, and extremely bitter about that cruel cut of life’s blade.

The child who is not a child, is of course and adult, but one whom stature gave a miss when it was time to distribute heights above 3’9.” Contrary to stereotype, he is not a criminal mastermind the likes of which the 1600s have never seen, but he is a mean little s.o.b. who can hold a grudge for a very long time. He favours knives, poisons, and is not above making an infernal pact if he thinks it will give him the edge he needs to get revenge in this life. Eternity in Hell will just give him that much longer to gloat.

The widow is, of course, a pure fiction, and can be used to great effect by the GM to generate leads, false and true, which will empower our heroes to discover their predicament, and not imperil the King – too much. Everyone needs a little peril, and a last-minute revelation, just as the audience with the Monarch is about to commence, would not be out-of-place.

The man, incidentally, is also a pure fiction, but again, through all sorts of bizarre twists of fate could come to represent a whole series of adventures in imprisonment, lies, deceit, and discernment for our stalwart band of characters.

Tools:

The group uses any means necessary from romance to elixirs to outright bald-faced, tear-jerking lies to manipulate the band into doing what they want.

What do they want?

That, I leave up to you~  but trying to kill the King might be taking things a bit too far.