Casting Shadows

This week’s seed is for All for One: Regime Diabolique. It is intended to be a light-hearted romp, but in the hands of exuberant and life-loving players, there should be plenty of opportunity for hilarity, combat, chases, escapes, and wooing. One should never forget the wooing.

The Seed

One of the musketeers’ friends from childhood is well on his way to being ordained into the priesthood… or rather he was, until last week. This week he is quite thoroughly in love, and has sought the group out to beg their aid in winning the fair maiden’s hand before his swollen heart explodes and kills him where he stands.

Planting the seed

Before planting this seed, GMs will first have to establish, or convert an existing NPC for the role of the friend. Players should all know this young man and his all-encompassing passion for the Church, his devoutness, and his true Christian generosity. His virtue should be something of which they can be both feel proud and feel profoundly uncomfortable. It is always a joy to see him, but no one can really be themselves while he is around without feeling that little twinge of guilt, and a desire to go to Confession – just in case.

When he comes to them, distraught and bewildered, most red-blooded musketeers will probably feel that little bit of relief to discover their saintly friend is human after all. Without wasting time, he will take them aside and beg them to help him win the “purest, most divine woman in all France.”

You can already see where this is going, no doubt.

The details

The woman is of course sought after by others, and is only slightly more virtuous than the average street trollop, but that is neither here nor there. Our young priest-to-be cannot see straight past the shaft of Cupid’s arrow protruding between his eyes. More experienced men will find it hard not to pity and envy him all at once. His desire is so pure and so enormous it rivals the sun in its intensity.

Further investigation will reveal that the object of his desire has at least three lovers, and a husband who is often away on business to the South… for the Cardinal. The danger of all this should be daunting, but what daunts a musketeer? Moreover, what daunts a musketeer when a friend is in dire need?

What is going on

A lot is going on, actually, but the main thrust of it is that the friend’s attraction is very real, but it has been magnified and distorted by a spell. The same enchanter will attempt to confuse and befuddle the thinking of the musketeers as well, to ensure that they get involved in aiding their friend to proclaim his love to his fairest.

The reasons could range from wanting to incite further complications between the King’s musketeers and the Cardinal, but could grow more complicated depending on the breadth and depth of your existing campaign. If used as a one-shot (which I am considering) this could be a personal vendetta against the husband, using the wife as a cruel sword to twist in the man’s black heart.

There should be trouble with the lady’s other lovers, tongue-lashings from the friend’s priestly advisor, sage advice on wooing from lackeys and bar keeps, threats from the Cardinal’s men, threats from the husband’s servants, and through it all, the demented fervour of the truly lost to love. Sweets Madness~

As always, the deeper story depends on you, doesn’t it?

Enjoy!

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• Review ~ All for One: Regime Diabolique (Casting Shadows)