Casting Shadows

This is a seed for the supernatural, swashbuckling, musketeers RPG from Triple Ace Games, All for One: Regime Diabolique.

The seed
This seed is all about old problems coming home to roost.

Planting the seed
This seed can be planted at any national event or festival, when the city population expands with visitors, delegates, merchants and other folk from far away. The characters are on duty, minding the King’s business. At a time of tension for the musketeers as musketeers, old grudges, slighted lovers, cuckolded strangers, and so on come crawling out of the woodwork to vent their frustrations. This seed makes the assumption that the players have offended some NPCs in the past…

The details
The King has been under tighter guard than usual of late due to threats and rising political tension. Also, the unspoken competition of appearances between the King and the Cardinal is growing. Each is fielding more and more men for basic duties, and insisting that they look sharp and inspire confidence as they serve. Egos on both sides are swelling, and conflict and argument is becoming even more commonplace than before.

Duels are being punished even more severely than ever, and a hefty reward has been posted for verifiable reports of dueling. Of course this just adds a layer of thrill, not a layer of restraint on the actions of these elite and devil-may-care soldiers.

In the midst of all of this, there is an actual plot ongoing to discredit M. de Treville as both a liar and a traitor to the crown, and he is under house arrest – able to aid no one. The accusations are false, but the documentation behind them is excellent. An excellent forger must be involved, and de Treville needs help from his loyal musketeers to track him down – but everyone is busy and about to get busier.

Due to the festival, the streets are swollen with people from all over, and this is their opportunity to spy the musketeers in all their finery and with all their swagger, and realize, “He done me wrong!”

Vengeance!

Challenges, slaps in the face, cups of wine hurled, spittle, clawing nails, or even a stiletto in the night… It’s like it is raining revenge and the musketeers have no shelter.

What’s going on
The Cardinal has found a talented young man with a flair for duplicating the style and flow of others’ writing and has gotten one of his noble sycophants to dupe the fellow into writing letters which implicate prominent officials, the first of which is de Treville. Both the noble and the forger have been given reason to believe that they are recreating real evidence which was destroyed by the perfidy of the Musketeers, but of course this is not the case.

As for the vengeance… when you love them and leave them, sometimes they track you down and stomp on your balls. C’est la vie~

Enjoy~