CR Planning: May 2015

[undergroundmods]

CR Planning: May 2015

Welcome to the Underground! As promised, this is a follow-up post for players who have been accepted into the game to discuss your characters' AU backgrounds with canonmates and other characters, and to establish pre-existing CR (character relations). Feel free to revise your character's history as appropriate to fit in with other characters in the game.

You can use this post to:

• Discuss your character's background history with other players and make changes where needed.
• Work out shared history with canonmates and build in cross-canon CR.
• Say what kind of CR you're looking for and reply to others to offer CR.
• Say hi to the members of your faction and begin discussing your in-game strategy.
• Start thinking about what territories you might want to make a claim on.

There will be a plotting post on the 18th where you can stake your territory claims for the opening month of the game, choose a prompt from a list of plots and start planning the events listed in the calendar.

Read the factions page to remind yourself who your allies and enemies are, then take a sneaky look at the territories map as it currently stands and have a think about your faction's goals. Do you want to make an aggressive grab for power? Sit tight and defend the territories you've already got? Play nice and build alliances with other factions? There's no right or wrong way to play: the tactics employed by your faction are completely up to you.

As before, this is a player-led discussion, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Happy planning, and I look forward to playing with everyone when the game opens!

Comments

Sylvia Redbright

[brightwitch]

Anyone want to confirm plans or request CR with Sylvia? Information here.

She's in charge of the Redbright Institute and Circle Daybreak, so if you're a member of those factions then she will likely have an influence on you even if it's not direct. Also if you're Circle Midnight then it's basically her fault that you have to live in hiding.

ALSO just to give everyone a heads-up, since the game hasn't opened yet and I know you guys will be wondering how this whole territory war thing will work in practice... I will be leading a territory claim with Sylvia here in the first month of the game. (In the future all territory claims will be player-led.)

The Redbright Institute is going to claim Barnet.

There will be more info in the upcoming plotting post, so sit tight! In the meantime, here's a brief outline of Sylvia's overall strategy for the Redbright Institute:

• Extend the green safe zone to the north of London
• Take over disputed territories and make them peaceful
• Stamp out dark magic completely
• Eventually, negotiate with the vampires and werewolves to broker a peace agreement
• Support Circle Daybreak and Night Council where possible

And her strategy for Circle Daybreak:

• Make a slow expansion to gradually dominate the entire south of London
• Avoid pissing off the vampires unless they get aggressive
• Support Redbright Institute and Night Council where possible
• Aggressively squash any attempts by Circle Midnight to gain territory

City-wide domination, folks. Only you can stop her.

[acrookedchild]

I would love to get a minor confrontation with Sylvia to spur Abby into the political action I think she'll take to. Basically an attempt at talking and "but we're all the same" and it just... going badly.

If that works for you.

[brightwitch]

Sure! The game will open with an event at the Redbright Institute, so that would be the perfect opportunity for Sylvia to meet Abby and explain the error of her ways.

[acrookedchild]

Awesome! I (sort of) apologize for the fact that Abby will be a pebble in the shoe annoyance for awhile. But I'm so looking forward to it.

[brightwitch]

No need to apologize! Circle Midnight have the advantage in terms of numbers right now, I'd love to see them working against Sylvia.

[mensrea]

Sylvia, you're such a badass.

SO, I'm not sure WHEN it will happen, but once Stiles learns about Redbright Institute, he might try to finagle some kind of meeting with her. He totally wants in, LET HIM STUDY AT YOUR SCHOOL LADY WITCH. Like we discussed before, I'm absolutely down with him being rejected -- ICly, he's just going to make the attempt.

He'll be fairly interested in the politics behind the Underground as well, but it's hard to tell how he'll get involved right now when he's just arrived.

[brightwitch]

Would you like to gatecrash a Redbright party, Stiles? Because he could totally gatecrash the party and find Sylvia. He will be roundly rejected, but still! A valiant attempt could be made.

[mensrea]

YES, that would be EXCELLENT. Look at him, totally not a lame human. HELLO FELLOW WITCH PEOPLE, IT IS I, STILES STILINSKI, ALSO A WITCH PERSON. WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA.

I'm totally all for this, AW YES.

[brightwitch]

Sylvia watches as absolutely nothing happens.

...Could someone escort this young man off the premises, please.

[mensrea]

Them's the breaks, alas...

[livelongenough]

Obviously, she and Henry will know each other. He'll be happy to help where he can with Institute plans.

[brightwitch]

Excellent. She expects your undying loyalty, Henry. Trusted allies are the best sort of allies. I like the idea of them being old friends too, maybe they even met in Sylvia's youth? Is there any point in Henry's history that could fit that?

[livelongenough]

Definitely! I kept Henry's travels vague. He might have met her when Abraham was young and they were in London instead of New York after an accidental recognition in NY.

[brightwitch]

Would that be 20-30 years ago? Even back then Sylvia was a high-ranking witch, so she would have been well-known in the witch community. Although if he visited the Redbright Institute, he would have met her father first.

[livelongenough]

It could have been 20~ years ago. Henry would've just been talked out of continuing his search for his missing wife, so he could easily have been in London to regroup his thoughts, etc.

Whether he met her father or not is something to consider!

[brightwitch]

Twenty years ago sounds good! I'm thinking given that Henry works at Redbright now, it would make sense if he had met Sylvia's father. If Sylvia knew that her father trusted Henry at one time, that would make her more favourable towards him.

[livelongenough]

That sounds perfect. He might have helped him in an unofficial physician capacity. Technically, he gave up the profession, but he always acts when others are in need, so. That might have cemented trust and given Sylvia a reason to hire him when he returned... looking not a day older.

[brightwitch]

I can go with that!

[biophilia]

Wow, I love this. And, aha, things are going to get really interesting for Ginko, as much as he hates being Involved. HE DOESN'T REALLY HAVE ANYONE ELSE IN DAYBREAK TO CONFER WITH ... but I'm sure that will change. I'm thinking the way his role ended up going he's off her radar? I'm not sure how informed she likes to be of new witches associating with established covens.

[brightwitch]

I think Ginko being off Sylvia's radar is a good idea! She doesn't keep tabs on every new witch that joins every coven. That would be a lot of witches.

[biophilia]

Ah, perfect. I wasn't sure how rare witch genes were in this 'verse (like, the number of actual practicing neopagans versus the number of witches in a show like AHS:Coven).

[brightwitch]

They are rare, but in a city as big as London, that's still going to be quite a big number.

[entitles]

Potential somewhat strained or negative CR here? Most of Balem's magic falls under the dark n' dangerous category and while he's not too concerned about infighting among witches, the Midnight folk are more likely to barter for his aid.

[brightwitch]

Haha, there's a decent possibility that she has at least heard of Balem and his reputation. She wouldn't be a fan.