Chapter 2: Preview

Calendar Dates: January 10 - February 10
Note: Beginning on January 10th, we will be changing the game to the 2:1 day ratio as discussed in the previous OOC posting and these events will be spread out over a two week IC time period. Specific dates to follow as we get closer!

Quick Navigation
The Nine
The Company
Leithians
True Leithians
Westies
Resistance
RAC

Since each faction will have an impact on each other, it's highly recommended that you stay privy to the movements of all factions--even those your character isn't involved with!

The Nine: Poisoned Well

Praise the Trees! Following the successful delivery of the Derrish heir, the Quad and the ruling nine families have remained whole. Lady Derrish is on the mend -- some suggest suspiciously fast -- but it’s difficult to say when the best hands in the J Star are at your beck and call. Investigations, backed and funded by the formidable Land Kendry on behalf of their allied house, have been launched into the surrounding royal houses, with particular attention paid to Land Hyponia.

No house, however, is safe. As the investigation goes deeper, rumors begin to circulate that Land Kendry might have an ulterior agenda and are merely using the illness as a cover for something larger -- but that’s a silly thing to suggest..

Of course they have an agenda. They’re a Nine.

The company: cleaning house

As their masters have a scrutinizing eye turned on them, so too do the dogs that serve them. Company employees are tasked not only with maintaining order in Old Town during its busiest week, responding to the crisis on Leith, and contending with the beck and demand of their paranoid superiors, but will also be undergoing an intense internal affairs investigation for possible connections to the True Leithian attacks that occurred on Westerley last week.

Few, if any, stones will be left unturned.

Westies: Harvest Week

With most of the claimant papers returned, Westies can breathe a small sigh of relief and gather the broken pieces of Old Town to rebuild -- but not for long. As Harvest Week kicks into gear, Westies are reunited with loved (and not-so-loved) ones and start their rowdiest celebration yet, filling the streets with enough debauchery and crime to keep the bars full and the jail cell doors revolving. Joy flows from pockets and chips like there’s no tomorrow, an entire moon hellbent on trying to forget the tragedy of the week past.

They almost catch that break, too.

Leithians: Pocket Posies

While Harvest Week is a rampaging party on Westerley, it’s a much calmer celebration on Leith. A moment in which the moon collectively sighs and basks in a smaller, quieter population.

But this normally placid time period is marked with a silent and potentially lethal threat. Within the first few days of Harvest Week, an alarming number of hospitals report maximum capacity in their psychiatric wards as patients--some voluntarily, most not--are checked in with reports of hallucinations and delusions. Soon these same individuals shift wards as their fevers spike and some slip into a comatose state, never to wake. Leith is put under emergency quarantine and any ship attempting to land without a sanctioned order or warrant is turned back.

Somehow, the sickness still spreads.

True Leithians: Second Stage

Wounded but ruthless, the True Leithians regroup following the unanticipated retaliation experienced at the hands of angered Westies and cunning RAC agents. Desperate and with fewer voices to offer contention, the organization enacts the second part of their plan -- sacrificing their own for the sake of building a political campaign against Westies -- and releases a bio attack within Leithian city-centers. Slow-acting and quickly-spreading, the attack doesn’t bear fruit for days and some of the first patients admitted with symptoms are the very same men and women who acted as vectors in the first place -- but it’s worth it, to them.

Because the trail, this time, doesn’t lead back to them, but back to the soils of Westerley. And in the eyes of the Quad, a group hellbent on protecting Leithian soils wouldn’t attack their own--but Westies? That kind of savagery is right in line with their reputation.

Resistance: Sleeping Dogs

Tenuously rebuilding their base deep in the Undercity, the Resistance is biding their time and keeping their head down for the next two weeks, acting only as necessary to extract their agents within the Company should they become potentially threatened. In the meantime, supply runs are still being conducted when possible and contacts are being established within the Scarback order, adding some authentic gold to those wash of robes manning the bunker.

Reclamation apprehension COALITION: Holding Pattern

Temporarily gaining the favor of the Nine, much of the investigations into the royal houses will be handled by these ever-neutral third party agents -- as well as every other problem in the Quad that the Company doesn’t want. RAC agents, normally given leeway to travel without much restriction, may find themselves temporarily stranded as the Leithian crisis quarantines ships and flags agents who have recently spent time on the infected moon.