Anarea 1-off D: Breaking the Law 7 to 26 Aval 2000
There are three principal NPC Player roles in "Breaking the Law". You are respectively the Law Player, the Neutral Player and the Chaos Player (abbreviated in obvious ways). Your function is to play in character the various NPCs allocated to you, together with any others you may properly introduce. Your characters will range from Gods, through wandering Monsters, to servants. But they will all have one thing in common: they interact with the Player Characters.
You represent the abstract Forces of Law, Neutrality and Chaos respectively. Not all the NPCs allocated to you will fit within these categories. Some are unaligned or independent in the struggle, some are even in opposing camps. The purpose of giving them to you is partly to obscure your true purposes from the Players, and partly to give you all something to do in each Scenario. In addition you may freely swap NPC control amongst yourselves as you see fit.
You must play each individual NPC allocated to you in character. This may involve his acting contrary to the interests of the Force you represent. Remember here the importance of confusing the Players as to your true aims. They must not choose which of the NPCs to trust or mistrust on the basis of who is playing him. It is also the case that not every servant of a particular Force will act at all times in its best interests. Remember this too when playing NPCs of your own Alignment. If you really do find yourself unable to play a particular character, then swap him.
Acting in character also involves limiting oneself to the information the particular character knows. This applies even to Gods. Your Force taken as a whole will have a lot of information, but no one member of it will have all that information. You will also receive, as Scenario sheets are handed out, certain information possessed exclusively by other Forces, some of it known to NPCs under your control. Be careful.
Each Force has a certain ultimate long-term objective. These may be considered to be your respective "Victory Conditions", and are as follows:
|
Law Player: |
To solidify Anarea into Pure Law |
|
Neutral Player: |
To preserve the Law / Chaos Balance of Anarea |
|
Chaos Player: |
To dissolve Anarea into Pure Chaos |
The Forces you represent are abstract concepts, and do not exist per se. Their objectives may not therefore necessarily be those of any particular member of the Force, although the Aspects of the principal Alignment Gods of Law, Neutrality and Chaos; SARAN, KOROS and DALA, compel Them to follow those objectives. In SARAN's and DALA's cases they are very much long-term objectives, and They need not be overly concerned if They do not achieve them now. However, SARAN is now in the final stages of Her Masterplan. She could afford to fall back a step or two for another thousand years or so, but She would not readily accept such a loss of face.
Lawful Precognition (as a simple Summoning of AGALIAREPT, Demon King of Neutral Law, will reveal) indicates that the Law emanating from the Sun Diamond will not be stopped, and sees nothing beyond the projected solidification of all Anarea on the last day of the month. Yet it is a truism that Lawful Precognition takes no account of the influence of Chaos (in its widest sense) upon the World. There is therefore still hope for the Forces of Neutrality and Chaos.
So how can the Law be stopped? The game is concerned with the Quest of those who historically achieved it, but there may well be other ways for them, or for others, to succeed. Other solutions by the Players are allowed for in the game design. Solutions by other Beings or Forces are for you to attempt (or thwart).
You are not restricted to the mix of NPCs specified. You may specify any other Being or Whatever within your Force, either ones you know to exist in Anarea or ones you reasonably design yourself, and may plot its actions on or off stage. However, I reserve the right to allocate such self-designed NPCs to other NPC Players, or to play them myself.
You must also not lose sight of the fact that the game is about the Quest of the PCs. Things taking place which they do not perceive will be resolved in the broadest outline only, and the results will only be reported to you insofar as they are perceived by the PCs or affect the responses of NPCs with who they have still to interact.
The most obvious response to SARAN's move by the Forces of Neutrality and Chaos is a joint attack by Their Higher Powers, together with Those of sympathetic Lawful Alignments, upon the Higher Powers of Neutral Law. There are three main points to bear in mind here. First, the Higher Powers of Law are significantly stronger with the influence of the Law, even if They are not within Its immediate sphere of effect. Secondly, it is practically impossible to get the Forces of Chaos to co-operate in anything, even with Themselves, and even if this could be achieved it would surely be self-defeating, as being the first step in Their assimilation into Lawfulness. Thirdly, there is the unwritten code of Divine Intervention.
The problem with Divine Intervention is this. All the Higher Powers have vested interests in the affairs of people on Earth. The Clerical Gods in particular (and They are probably the most powerful of all) require large numbers of potential worshippers who are able to choose to worship Them of their own free will. Other Powers have Their own objectives. Each can seek to further His aims by exerting direct or indirect influence upon mundane affairs. But each has opposing Powers Whose interests conflict with His own, and Who can be expected to react accordingly to the influence He exerts. The interplay of indirect influences of Higher Powers upon the World goes on all the time, and, indeed, is instrumental in the functioning of the World in all its facets. But the conflict of direct influences upon the Earth, commonly known as "Divine Intervention" can be dangerous. Because it is potentially so powerful, the opposing Powers will be obliged to respond in kind, and a mutual escalation of force then becomes likely. Given the insignificance of mundane power in the face of a battle of the Gods upon the Earth, the reason for the original Intervention becomes irrelevant, and the end result is inevitably the wholesale destruction of a subject in which both sides originally had an interest. Only TERRIK then stands to gain, and the usual response to direct Intervention by Him is forcible removal to a suitable desert. There is another good reason why Higher Powers tend to avoid direct conflict, and that is that there is a chance, albeit small, of Their being killed, and that is not a risk which immortals take lightly. There is therefore an unwritten truce in these matters, which is nevertheless broken occasionally; such instances only serving to underline its wisdom.
Considerations of Divine Intervention apply both to straight conflicts between the Higher Powers and to direct Interventions by any of Them in the Quest, and mean in fact that the latter is likely to result in the former. In such desperate times some conflict is to be expected, but most Powers should realise that of itself it is unlikely to solve the problem of the Law. Even a victory will be meaningless if the victors are still subsumed into the Law. To play the Higher Powers in character you must appreciate that, even in a crisis such as this, Their preferred response will wisely be the customary indirect manipulation of events.
Unlike some previous 1-Offs, all the PCs are essentially working together to achieve the same goal. Their common opposition to the Law can be deduced from the fact that they have all Law-cloned into the Emperor's opponent in the initial Duel. But they too have to play in character, and it will be difficult for them to follow a course of action opposed to that of their Empire's patron Goddess. The possibility may therefore exist of recruiting "traitors". Also, the party of the Questers is not necessarily limited to the PCs. NPCs such as Ander of Gytrasan, Durin the Reckless, Frith the rebel and others may seek to join the party, and not all of them have exactly the same aims as the PCs.
You may hold secret discussions with each other at will, provided that it does not interfere with our running of the PCs. You may only speak privately to a PC to the extent that an NPC under your control is able to do so. We must also ensure that PCs do not leave the room for secret discussions unless they are able to do so in character, in which case they will be deemed to have done so. When you are holding such a discussion, I do not wish to be present, but you must obey the following ground rules. All discussions must be in character: you must therefore specify to each other which character you are playing, and must then play Him in character (see above). The Higher Powers are able to communicate with each other fairly freely, usually by telepathic Spells provided both parties are willing, but other NPCs may in practice be unable to communicate privately in character. Where NPCs communicate in the presence of the PCs, it must be run before the Players.
The game design is presented as an unspecified number of Scenarios. Scenario sheets will be supplied for your use when running. Here are specified the NPCs under your control, and the information you will require in order to play them. The following standard format is used:
Scenario [no.]. ([NPC Player(s) holding at beginning)
([NPC Player controlling])
([NPC Player known to])
In addition there exist Character Specifications and Information Sheets, for the Players as well as for you.
Those Scenario Sheets held by each of you at the beginning are enclosed. As the Players enter each Scenario the relevant Scenario Sheet will then be handed to all three of you.
Each Scenario represents a particular episode in the historical Quest of Decus XXI (or in a possible alternative history, depending on which Version of the 1-Off is being played). However, some of them represent alternative possibilities which the Questers could explore, but which they did not investigate historically. This does not mean that such Scenarios are necessarily dead ends: some of them may lead to possible alternative solutions to the Quest. I have tried to cover the various sensible possibilities which have occurred to me, and if the Players' thinking is the same they will stay at all times within the predesigned Scenarios. But we must be prepared for them to go off at a tangent. This may involve their following up a potential solution I had not envisaged, their being diverted by red herrings served up by NPCs, or their simply becoming lost. In such cases we must not let the Players realise they are no longer in a predesigned Scenario, as they are bound to realise that the Scenario Sheets are being used.
The "Dummy Scenarios" will work like this. Essentially we make them up as we go along, following my lead so as to avoid contradicting ourselves. You will continue to consult Scenario Sheets to the same extent as you have previously been doing, but these will really be those for different Scenarios, used purely as dummies.
You may draw freely upon your knowledge of Anarean history, but be careful. Some things which are history in the early 2500s have not happened yet in the Year 2000; notably the Northern Civil War and the accession of the House of Bjørn, the assassination of LOFIR, the fall of the Valdrean Noble House of Mastrin, the Foundation of the Temple of Heaven on Earth, and the conflicts which led to its disbandment and the Foundation of the Temple of Peace on Earth. Also, some of the historical events prior to the Year 2000, especially more recent ones, have been changed; for example the survival of Durin the Reckless. One of the most insidious effects of the Law is its power to alter reality, and not just within its immediate sphere of effect. And when reality is altered, it is as if it has always been the case. Even the Gods may not realise what has happened, although They will probably be aware that changes are taking place in some way.
Over to you. You may freely plot and specify things in advance of the run: during the first week of Aval, but subject to the above constraints.