Casting Shadows

This week’s seed is for All for One: Regime Diabolique and gives the group a chance to be altruists, or revel in greed and desire.

The seed:

A lackey for the least sympathetic musketeer in the group reluctantly approaches to ask a favor. The friend of a friend has been given a letter, canceling his leave, giving him a promotion, a raise, and a small plot of land, but sending him to lead a small troop of green soldiers ordered to reinforce troops hard hit by ongoing battle. Already injured in the wars, and scarcely recovered, the friend is an almost certain casualty of some noble’s perverse game of politics.

This will no doubt be an all-too-common tale, and as it is all risk and no reward, no one will fault the character(s) for giving it a miss. If they go for it, great, but if not – perhaps better.

If they go for it, the idea is simply to adjudicate them doing whatever it is they think is plausible to prevent the death by war of this friend of a friend of their lackey. This can lead to many opportunities for roleplaying persuasion, blackmail, negotiation, threats, or some combination of the set.

It may lead to high adventure as they ride off to save, support, kidnap, or otherwise physically intercept the decided hand of fate.

If they wish to know more, then by all means let them find about the friend of the friend, and the friend.

The Friend of a Friend

He is noble, kind, not that smart, but quite brave, and a loyal musketeer who has already served more than his time at the front. He is a bad shot, a poor blade, but a good cook, and comes from a line of tailors. He doesn’t seem to deserve either the good or the ill which comes with this letter the lackey mentions.

If they do nothing, so be it.

The Friend

The author of the letter is a stunningly gorgeous damsel with love in her eyes and an engagement promise still ringing in her ears to… the suddenly ill-fated friend of a friend. One look at this woman will send men off to war, but worse has clearly had someone with the power to send people to war send her lover, an otherwise bland fellow, off to war again… and for nefarious purposes.

What is going on?

If they do nothing, the damsel will implore the lackey to let her make her case to the characters in person. She will use all her wiles to get her way, and is not too adverse to obtaining new suitors, but is still quite attached to the one she hopes to marry. She is not above playing people off of each other to get what she wants, and is cleverer by far than most people she is likely to meet in her lifetime.

She hopes the group can rescue her love and keep the rescue from becoming known to a noble that she has recently had the misfortune to attract… a louse-ridden lout with close ties to the King’s family.

What will the group do?