Feudal Quest

Reputations are not necessarily true.
How would you know the difference if she was just under the protection of an Earth elemental, that triggers when she's in danger?
According to her, her father was an accomplished mage after all, and even Atalya has made the point that she has powerful protections.

Oh yes, purge the magic user.
Same way Dita's family got purged right? For being different?

Exploiting the prejudices of peasants does not strengthen your case in my eyes man.
And Dominic specifically does not share those prejudices, AND is a magic user to boot, so exploiting general ill feeling towards mages/magic users endanger himself AND his cousin.

And I will repeat: By the current laws, the only person who is obviously guilty of a crime is Kat.
There may be mitigating factors precluding grabbing her for them, but she is currently accused of responsibility for the deaths of two people.
Atalya does not have a single accusation or complaint lodged against her, nor is there evidence that anything is going on in her town.

Not even Kat suggested that she was mind controlling the town council either, and she is not a fan of the older woman, to say the least.

And take a while to summon or to control.
Note how Atalya has failed to send a demon after Kat, despite the 500 silver bounty on her head; she either can't, or thinks it's useless.

 

And will you eat crow when we find out that Atalya is a witch the hard way?

I doubt it. We know she binds spirits, and does it in brutal ways.

 

Yes. Obviously guilty. But there are more than enough hints to convict the witch. The brutality, the dark aura, the murder and take power ritual, those all scream witchcraft. Yes, we have no overt evidence of it. There is more than enough proof that she is at the very least seriously unethical and bad news. She lied about the mind control, she clearly is not trustworthy about anything that does not directly benefit her.

Yeah, she hasn't summoned the demon. Doing that sort of thing can cause News if she sends it out. Which is fucking dumb. One rumor and she is going to get burned. But doing it in the safety of her house without anyone else around, well . . . Plus it probably has a heavy price.

 

“Well, there may be other options,” you point out. “As far as I know you haven’t committed any crimes against the Crown or the Church, just some country baron. Right?”

She crosses her arms under her breasts, and wow that’s distracting. You’ve got to get this woman naked - wait, no, bad idea. Too many complications there. Keep it professional, Dominic.

“I still can’t believe defending my virtue is supposed to be a crime,” she grumbles. “Stupid country nobles hunting me through the woods like a peasant. I’m a Seeker, and a wizard, and both my parents were noble-born. But I guess that doesn’t matter if you don’t have a retinue of soldiers and a purse full of gold.”

“Well, anyway. No, I’ve been trying very hard to avoid the witch hunters instead of fighting them. Seekers aren’t supposed to kill humans, and my spirit guide is in enough of a huff over the thing in Timis. I’ve had a few encounters with bandits and bounty hunters, but nothing the Church or the King’s men would care about. Why?”

“I’m considering the idea of hiring you,” you tell her. “What exactly can you do?”

A flash of excitement crosses her face, before she gets her expression back under control. “Hiring me? I, yes, um, I can do all sorts of things. I made this hideout, and it wasn’t even a big deal. I can do pretty much anything I want with earth and stone, I just have to be careful about contamination.”

“I was wondering about that,” Dita puts in. “How do you work earth magic without the world's corruption leaking into you?”

Kat gestures at her tattoos. “That’s what a lot of this is for. Dad set up my wards when I was a child, and I’ve been fine-tuning them ever since. There’s an outer layer that sheds most of the corruption, and an inner layer that catches whatever leaks through and traps it until I can dispose of it safely. It also means I couldn’t do dark magic if I wanted to, which makes all these accusations of witchcraft really aggravating.”

“Anyway, I’m also a fully ordained Seeker.” She sees your blank looks and sighs. “A priestess of Thoth. You know, god of knowledge, opener of ways? Oh good, you have heard of him. We’re supposed to be allies and advisors for you Khersians, but I’m amazed how many of your priests don’t seem to have gotten the message on that.”

“We don’t get a lot of foreigners traveling through Borjeria,” you point out.

“I suppose. Anyway, dad was teaching me wizardry too. Most of the really good wizards in Egypt are Seekers, you see. But I’m still kind of a novice there, especially without my grimoire. I can do some simple things like invocations and wards, but I have to admit there’s a lot I still don’t know.”

“Hmm. Well, we might be able to work something out. You’ll need to dress more appropriately.”

“Well, of course! Do you think I’m freezing my butt off here because I want to? I can’t go near any of the villages around here without everyone coming after me to collect on that bounty, and I haven’t quite sunk to the level of stealing clothes from peasant women yet. Most of my clothes didn’t survive the winter, so all I’ve got left is my dancing outfit.”

“You dance?” Dita asks, clearing intrigued at the image of Kat doing so in such a revealing outfit.

Kat grins. “Oh, yeah, dance magic is fun. There’s this gypsy tribe we used to meet up with every now and then, and some of the women really took a liking to me. Well, at first they just wanted to trade for conception wards, but that’s fair enough. Anyway, I learned a lot of the stuff they use to enthrall gullible townies, and even some of the moves they don’t show outsiders. I can’t quite pull off Husband Seducing Dance yet, but my Maiden’s Innocent Longing can make a river pop a boner.”

Dita giggles. “A river?”

Kat nods. “Oh, yeah. The spirit of the Rhine offered to induct me into his court if I’d let him bone me. But I’m fire-natured, so I had to say no. Besides, I’m still holding on to my virginity. That’s one of the most valuable things a wizardess has to bargain with at my age, so if I can’t find a husband I at least want to make a good deal for it.”

Dita is blushing brightly by this point, not being used to such frank talk about that kind of topic.

“I think I’m starting to understand how you got in such trouble,” you comment. “Did you dance for that guy in Timis?”

Kat scowls. “No! I’m not stupid, Dominic. He just… it was summer, and I was working outside all day putting up the new wall for his father’s castle, and I guess I wasn’t covered up as much as you prudes think a girl should be. But I wasn’t trying to lead him on! When he started flirting with me I thought it might actually go somewhere, you know? I would have been ok with giving him a nice blowjob or something if he’d bothered to ask.”

“But no, he thought he could treat me like one of the maids. Didn’t listen when I told him no, that I was saving that for marriage. Didn’t believe me when I warned him I had defenses, even if he was stronger than me. Dumbass. Turns out swords aren’t much use against an enraged earth elemental.”

Ouch. Yeah, you can see that. If Baron Timis is one of those lords who makes a habit of abusing his peasants, and his son decided that Kat’s relatively destitute state meant he could treat her the same way, that would get ugly fast.

Still, it leaves you a little wary. Kat could be a valuable asset, but a woman that beautiful could also stir up a lot of trouble if she’s not careful how she acts. You’re not sure if the culture gap will be a major problem or not, so maybe a trial period is in order?

“Alright, how does this sound?” You say. “Come and work for me through the end of the summer. I’ve got a keep that needs repairs and some haunts I need to put down, and other things will probably come up. You’ll get the same pay and accommodations as a knight, and as my personal retainer Timis’ men won’t be able to arrest you. If I like your performance we’ll talk about a more long-term arrangement in August.”

She slips into bargaining mode like an old pro. “A knight’s pay? Can a knight repair a breach in your walls overnight? I’m a unique commodity, my lord. Perhaps you should consider…”

Desperate or not, she’s a lot better at bargaining than you are. Maybe that’s a benefit of growing up in relative poverty? But her points are quite reasonable, and… well, you don’t like the thought of leaving someone like her hiding half-naked in a cave in the hills. An extra silver or two isn't going to break the bank.

Retainer Acquired:
Katiana Nevyana - age 17 - Cost: 7 SP/month
Body 0, Mind 2, Soul 4, Charm 3
Merchant 2, Woodscraft 1
Earth Sorcery 3, Fire Sorcery 1
Wizardry 2 (dance magic, invocation, protection & wards) [-2 penalty: no grimoire]


You make it back to Corzu without any significant encounters, and by then you've seen enough minor demonstrations of Kat's powers to be confident that if anything she's downplaying what she can do. If she really think's she's only an 'apprentice' wizard, she must be comparing herself to some damn scary people.

But now you have to decide what to do about Atalaya:

[ ] Arrest her for witchcraft, and execute her.
[ ] Pay her something for her trouble (write in amount) so she doesn't get suspicious, and plan to investigate her when you have time. You suspect she may be evil, but aren't going to act without solid evidence.
[ ] Pay her something for her trouble (write in an amount) and leave her alone. She could be useful.
[ ] Try to hire her too. If one mage is good two must be better, right?
[ ] Write-In

 

[X] Pay her something for her trouble (5 sp) so she doesn't get suspicious, and plan to investigate her when you have time. You suspect she may be evil, but aren't going to act without solid evidence.

 

[X] Pay her something for her trouble (75 sp) so she doesn't get suspicious, and plan to investigate her when you have time. You suspect she may be evil, but aren't going to act without solid evidence.

 

The reward for the Sorceress' capture was 500SP. Paying her 5SP is an insult.

 

[X] Pay her something for her trouble (50SP) and leave her alone. She could be useful.

 

Huh, so the very earth is corrupt, wonder how that plays with regency magic if it's not just haunts that are the issue. Anyway now that we have two people who can handle magic besides us I'd say it makes more sense than ever to go stack the Body stat. Also I think we should just kill the witch, the cost of paying her any kind of reasonable fraction of 500sp is a huge cost which we're hard pressed to cover, and being known to have paid it to a witch is not going to be good for our rep. Plus we're going to have a very full schedule in the coming months, having to worry about her scheming behind our backs isn't conducive to getting things done, any kind of investigation isn't going to be able to be carried out discreetly anyway so we can just search her house after we carry out the arrest.

[X] Arrest her for witchcraft, and execute her.

 

[X] Write in: Put her on retainer and hire her as needed, use this relationship to quietly investigate her activities and ascertain her character, and for the love of the gods, don't let her know that we've hired her rival.

 

[X] Summon Atalaya to Corzu Keep

[X] In the courtyard annouce she has been accused of witchcraft and let her plea her case

[X] Dita is to be on the walls with the archers watching for any attenpt by Atalaya to use magic and if Atalaya does to cut her down with a rain of arrows.

[X] Kat is to prepare an ward between Dominic and Atalaya

[X] If Atalaya isnt a witch pay her 50 sp


So instead of killing Atalaya right heres a chance for her to plead her case

[x] investigate, then kill

 

She's going to find out about Kat one way or another, either from gossip or just from seeing the results of her magic as we have her do stuff. I don't really see how calling her to trial does much either, it's not like that will make any new evidence crop up beyond what we already have, which is compelling but not ironclad. Though now that we know a bit more about Kat and her credentials I'd say that's more reason than ever to give more weight to her word about the necromancy and demon summoning. So even if you don't want to kill her trying to hire her seems like a horrible idea.

 

[X] Pay her something for her trouble (75 sp) so she doesn't get suspicious, and plan to investigate her when you have time. You suspect she may be evil, but aren't going to act without solid evidence.

Fitzgerald, if you were a witch who'd just sent a noble to deal with a rival mage who saw you using forbidden magic, would you willingly go into a place where said noble is summoning you, particularly in such suspicious circumstances? At the very least if you're going to try for something of the sort do it in a manner that won't arouse her suspicions.

 

I don't think I've explicitly mentioned this before, but asking an NPC at your current location questions is a free action. So the next time there's a big debate about something your retainers might have information on you can always ask them. The only downside to this is that if it's a sensitive topic the NPCs might have some reaction to being questioned.

 

In that case

"Katiana what are the tells of witchcraft versus wizardry"

 

[X] Pay her something for her trouble (50 SP) and leave her alone. She could be useful.

With the bounty set at 500 SP, a 10% fee for a magical device that led us right to the person in question seems reasonable without being insulting. The fact that we aren't intending to collect the 500 is largely irrelevant to the value of the services provided. While we aren't exactly overflowing with cash, we've got enough that we can afford to not be cheap.

I don't really want to hire her formally because if nothing else she's somewhat disagreeable, and as long as she lives in our land we know where to find her if we want something anyway. I'm not sure how far that labor tax extends, but if it applies to everyone we should be able to require 60 days of magical services from her absolutely free, with no rudeness, violation of custom, or legal trickery involved. If we can do that we've already got much of the good which we could get from hiring her, with no additional effort expended on our part.

Arresting her is basically execution on thin suspicion, as we've discussed previously. We don't have much to go on. Calling her and openly accusing her- what exactly will that do for us? Obviously she'll say that she's not a witch, we say "prove it", and she... what? How can anyone prove that they're not a witch? It would just be putting on a pointless show and getting no real information out of it, unless she actually is a witch with such lack of subtlety and nerve that upon being accused she openly summons a demon or something. And in general, treating her in a hostile manner is likely to provoke her to treat us as hostile in turn- if we actually try to kill her and she actually is a witch, what's to say that she won't have demons leap to the last defense of her life? Better to be friendly and leave her with no inclination to do any particular plotting.

It should be more than enough to give her some pay, a general "I'm told your magic feels rather sinister, but don't go causing me or my peasants any problems and help out if I ask and we'll get along just fine," let her know that we appreciate the assistance and warning against mind control, but that Katiana is working for us now because we're not fool enough to let the chance to have our keep and roads repaired for a fraction of the cost and time it would otherwise take slip through our fingers just because someone in Timis is flinging around a bit of silver.

Then we leave, and not worry about this situation any longer because we all parties involved have gotten something positive out of the deal, no one should have reason to feel deceived or betrayed, and we have a fief that isn't going to properly run itself.

 

"Does necromancy or Demon-Summoning leave any traces or require any reagents or specific items that could be discovered should I search her residence? Also my faith holds Necromancy and Demon-summoning to be abominable, wizardry to be corruptive, and sorcery to be somewhat foolhardy, how accurate are these assessments"

 

[X] Pay her something for her trouble (50 SP) and leave her alone. She could be useful.

 

If wizardry is corruptive, why did Dominic's father allow him to gain it as a skill? A level 0 skill, but the foundations are still there.

 

The "foundations" are that we read a few tidbits about it in a book, not exactly hard to slip past the old man considering he has land to run and a possibly upcoming civil war to prepare for.

 

Surely such a book would be banned, no?

 

Finding her when she is hiding in the wilderness in a cave she created herself is probably significantly more than 10% of the work required to capture her. Just paying her that much might be insulting, especially if making that device took a lot of time or was expensive.

 

Didn't she make it while Dominic was waiting? Can't have been that difficult.

 

As far as I remember she never said that she made it while Dominic was waiting. She did however say

So it is very possible that she has spent a lot of time and resources on developing a method to track her.

 

[X] Pay her something for her trouble (50 SP) and leave her alone. She could be useful.

 

Still, that's worth a whole lot of nothing without someone to actually go find her.

 

50SP is quite a lot for someone like her, and having the tacit understanding that we are thanksful for her help and won't look too closely at her magic as long as she harms no one should make her feel much safer, too.

I wouldn't actually be surprised if the reason she went against Kat (before Kat said she was evil) was truthfully because she was worried about the waves Kat was making could harm her. E.G, she is solitary by nature and appreciates her safety.

[X]DarkLight140

 

Ask this. I think the arguments that we don't have any evidence against Atalya are ignoring the idea that we could actually spend a few hours investigating her.

 

Yes, we should really do that.

 

This leads to a long conversation with Kat and Dita as you head back to Corzu.

As the writeup on the Lore page notes, witchcraft is all based on bargaining with demons for power. This means the withc quickly becomes tainted by demonic magic, and will gradually become twisted and inhuman as her power grows. However, because of this experienced witches often become quite adept at disguise magic, using illusions to hide their true appearance or necromancy to steal a normal woman's appearance.

Unfortunately ordinary priests and sorcerers generally can't tell what kind of magic someone is using. You'll generally get a sort of creepy or hostile feeling from a witch's magic, but there are lots of ways you could get the same impression from morally neutral forms of wizardry. So witch hunters usually just assume anyone who does ritual magic must be a witch, and burn them all.

Amazingly enough, both of the girls say they can solve that problem. Kat knows more than enough about ritual magic to if a spell is based on demonic magic, and can generally see through illusions when she's trying. Dita's second sight allows her to tell what kind of magic someone has just by looking at them.

Of course, convincing the Church to accept their word on such things could take quite a bit of doing.

Oh, incidentally, during the course of this conversation Dita mentions that it's possible for there to be white witches - they're rare because you'd have to find an angelic being who is willing to bargain with you, and some kind of sacrifice that isn't inherently evil. But she claims Inovia has a couple of angels (called Lightbringers) active in the world, and they sometimes do that sort of thing with mortal worshippers.

Also, Kat claims that one of the spells Atalaya tried to cast on her when she was a prisoner was a highly sophisticated conceptual ritual to steal her beauty without taking on her exact appearance (i.e. basically a stat point theft). When asked she'll claim she can definitely identify Atalaya's spells as demonically based, but surprisingly she isn't pushing to have the woman burned - apparently she has some reluctance to get a witch hunt started someplace she's going to be living.

There are many different styles of both witchcraft and wizardry, so it generally takes an expert to figure out what they're looking at from that kind of evidence.

They both agree with the general principle that the earth itself is tainted with evil, and that most of the ways a wizard can gain power come with a price in either corruption or sanity. They also both agree that sorcery is only a problem if it increases your exposure to such things (i.e. Earth Sorcery exposes you to the corruption of the earth, but Fire Sorcery is no problem).

That's a major reason why Kat isn't far more powerful than she is. She's been working a very slow, careful road to power, with most of her effort going into personal defenses to increase her resistance to corruption and insanity. Even so she has to carefully manage her exposure, and after a big ritual she'l usually need to spend several days meditating and purifying herself.

Dita is completely unconcerned about being corrupted, because she's pretty sure that her 'light' sorcery is actually some kind of holy power granted by Inovia.

He didn't. I put Wizardry 0 on your character sheet so you'd know the skill exists, but Dominic has no idea how to actually perform it.