The Once and Future Queens

[Still Phoenix 23]

Heirs to Beran

The run begins with Scout vanishing and Managaratha reappearing, but the latter is severely injured with all the broken bones from before he vanished. Stella, with ecumenical help from Vidan to avoid the issues with Rush's holy ground, calls on the Mother to heal him. The funeral is still going on inside the church, and it ends without any surprises.

The night passes peacefully, and the next day [Phoenix 24], the group heads to the temple of Navere, (protected again by Vidan's ecumenical miracles from thwackback).

Violet, the high priest of Navere in Berana, tells Vidan that the first round of accusations of assassination by the contenders has been settled due to the Slith prisoner, but the kingdom still needs an heir within the next 4-5 days to prevent it from falling apart into factions.

There are six factions, two of which support the same candidate. The contenders and their supporters are as follows:

• Prince Varen: The oldest child but illegitimate, supported by both the Rushites and hotheaded. He clashed a lot with Olason, as they were both hotheads.
• Princesse Anne: The oldest legitimate child.
• Prince Quentin: The only surviving descendant of the lord of the northern half of Berana, with a claim on their support.
• Prince Morgan: He was previously named heir by King Olason, but was removed again after a significant military loss. Olason married Morgan's mother before he was born, so there is a tiny argument that he is not legitimate.
• Princess Wendy: Not of age yet, but her mother, Queen Mary, is the current queen and has her own support.

We also learn that there is an engagement party for Princess Bolga (King Olason had about thirty kids) tomorrow, and that People Of Note will be meeting to discuss the slith the following day.

Violet continues the briefing: Franklin, the steward, is the one most likely to be listened to by everyone, although he remains apolitical between the contenders as a matter of policy. Violet says that Naverre doesn't have a "preferred" candidate, but does think that the candidate should be "proper". However, as Olason was the first king, there is no succession history, so there isn't a clearly defined "proper".

We briefly discuss the candidates and Vidan proposes that everyone infiltrate a different faction, but this plan does not survive contact with the mechanic. Diomarche asks about Princess Friga (who is at Middlesea). Her mother is Nessa - Olason divorced her twenty-five years ago, and she's still on her lands. Prince Marek, her younger brother, was at the funeral.

The group goes to the castle to talk to Franklin and brief him on what they know about the slith assassin. Franklin seems less fond of Varen and Quentin but maintains his apolitical stance.

Diomarche goes to the Temple of Rush, to get their opinion on the slate of heirs. Varen and Morgan are known for their military expertise, though it is unclear which ones will be more anti-slith and less focused on conquering their neighbors.

Through the later gatherings, we will get a better idea about the heirs and their factions: Prince Varen: Crosses (Rush) and Fists (hawks) Princesse Anne: Top Hats (nobles) Prince Quentin: Leafs (magic / weird / shamany / Orellian-favored) Prince Morgan: Lemons (the disaffected) Wendy / Mary: Roses (alliance-building)

The Wake

The group attends the wake for King Olason. Some of the better-informed are familiar with us as the slith-catchers, while others aren't sure who we are. Vidan pays his condolences to Queen Mary (King Olason's marriages were all political except for this one, which was a love match), who is interested in relations between the Empire and Victoria, that Vidan is more informed about. Vidan discovers that Queen Mary is the doubler for the Roses faction, and she seems willing to listen to his advice - no one playing the mechanic has a briefing, so they will all be playing fairly randomly.

Vidan's miracle of witnessing gives him his Koalition instincts, including that the wake - the card Germany - is the largest one available. So whoever takes it will have a starting advantage.

The party investigates the mechanics - we can uncover specific cards by talking about things they care about, and then can decide whether to play them or put them back. This lets us add more cards (at a cost of using them up) for the teams we are interested in, or pull more cards on small countries for the factions that we're trying to spike.

Between the fact that Vidan has started by talking to Queen Mary and the fact that we are strongly in favor of alliance-building, we kind of fall in behind Roses, though not without a lot of wavering about "should we figure out who is best?" and "but the most important thing is to make someone win".

Roses come out on top of Germany; the points are divided, and Vidan gets another insight: the lose condition is clearly "nobody has enough points at the end". We can tell that the points are apportioned based on who had the most card points, but not exactly how: Roses and Lemons did the best; Fists and Crosses did the worst.

Someone sneezes when Gale and her half-orc perfume comes near them - their card is the two of acorns, which is a surprise because they weren't in the mechanic. Clearly the Acorns are the bad guy faction. Vidan does recall "thwart the broken priest" as another option for Adventures. Nesh checks the half-orc's pockets - he seems to be from the Empire, but doesn't have anything obviously incriminating. However, being a half-orc is suspicious enough, so we surreptitiously surround him.

Not surreptitiously enough, as it turns out. He puts his hand in his pocket. Vidan calls on Naverre, and declares that Minions of the Breakers shall not interfere. Everyone paying attention can tell he's a half orc. The guy says "Sorry to bother you..." and vanishes, using the thing in his pocket. Oh well.

Vidan gets the steward to get Lord Henry to invite Gale and Diomarche and Nesh to the hunt tomorrow.

The Hunt and the Engagement Party

[Phoenix 25]

The Hunt is Italy, and Portugal is the engagement party.

Our general strategy is to pull roses at the hunt, and pull top hats / leafs at the party, because it's small and the high cards will be wasted. We can also tell the Queen to play low roses at the party.

Managaratha talks about magic at the party and pulls a midlarge Leaf. Vidan remarks to the Queen that Navere suggests the party isn't the most important gathering, so she will play a low rose. The groom is from Orange, and his family is at the party, with guests from Orange with presents. People eye the gifts, wondering about weird horrible daggers. Stella spots a concerning sword, and thinks she's seen something like it, since she got to Red. (On thinking about this later, that the guy who wanted to arrest Gale for sparring had one.)

At the Hunt, Gale tries to get a rose card by talking about battle magic and coordinating attacks, but this also pulls a Leaf. So it's much more about the overt text than the subtext.

As we seem to be useful, the Queen arranges for invitations to Admiral Jefferson's retirement party, and a Rushian tournament, both to take place on the day after tomorrow.

The Slith Meeting

[Phoenix 26]

There are people talking inside and outside. Inside is Great Britain (big); outside is Luxembourg (little). Vidan tells the Queen the meeting is important. Gale pushes for alliances and flips another rose. Nesh convinces a cross card to support roses. The current score is:

Roses: 25
Fists+Crosses: 6
Hats: 8
Lemons: 4
Leaves: 7

Can we talk Varen into dropping, in exchanging for being appointed a high military position under Wendy? Vidan talks to Violet about this idea, and she advises not talking to Varen until later. You can switch individual supporters in the mechanic, but shouldn't change the teams until after.

The lemons take Luxembourg! That is ideal in that they have burned a lot of their high cards on a small score.

Retirement Party and Rush's Tournament

[Phoenix 27]

At the tournament of Rush, Nesh and Stella try to locate any more Acorns - they think that the person in the mechanic who isn't doing something is the high priest of the Nameless. Does that mean they're Bent? Or do we not understand the mechanic well enough?

Gale gets on well with the retiring admiral, being natural nemeses.

Fists/crosses win the tournament (as makes sense), but that puts Roses comfortably in the lead with everyone else tied, at

25 to 8 / 8 / 8 / 7

Violet declares that Berana's Rule of Succession now includes: If you die without an heir while married, your spouse gets to name the heir. That is now the Rule of Succession.

Next up: the Coronation

Loot

• 5 eps
• 8 skill points

Things that we are still worrying about

• the potential broken priest (Greg)
• the weird sword.