Thread: For the King [Musketeer: the Sorcerers Crusade]

Background Setting 1625ish It is the 17th Century and France is the unofficial capital of Europe. Tailors and swordsmen copy the French cut. French absolutism is the model of government everywhere except the Netherlands and England. Italy might claim that haute cuisine is merely Italian cookery with French ingredients and that French music is merely a copy of Italian, and Spain might claim that France have appropriated their grand sense of noblesse and the Spanish love of style, but only in France do all these ingredients come together. The centre of French culture and society is Paris at least until Louis XIV will move his court to Versailles. He leaves Paris because even he will be unable to dominate the City. Paris straddles the river Seine in the centre of the Isle de France , the heart of French royal holdings from the Merovingians onward. The oldest part of Paris is the le de la Cit Island of the City. The Cathedral of Our Lady Notre Dame and the Palais du Justice high Court of Justice are on this island. North of the river is the Right Bank. It plays host to the administrative buildings of Paris, including the Palais des Tuileries , the Louvre, the Palais Cardinal the Cardinals residence and City Hall. In the 17th century, the Right Bank is also the home of Pariss unsavoury elements and poor neighborhoods. The city arsenal, the infamous Bastille, and the Knights Templars Commanderie a prison at this time are on the upstream end of the Right Bank. The Left Bank is the most fashionable part of the city at this time. The residences of Louis XIII and queen mother Marie de Medici are here, as are the most exclusive fencing salles and the most popular duelling locations. It is also home of the Latin Quarter the Sorbonne University district, which even in the 17th century had a reputation for wild living While the Romans used open-air quarries to build the earliest settlements that later became Paris, French building projects from Hugh Capet on mined the stone blocks, generating underground quarries. This left extensive networks of galleries and tunnels under parts of the city, including areas that became hotbeds of intrigue and duelling action in the 17th century. Some galleries are as large as the greatest halls aboveground. Some tunnels are barely narrow enough to admit a single man. The quarries are not completely interconnected ... so far as anyone knows. Rogues could easily disappear into their depths. Likewise, they could host any number of conspirators. The quarries are mostly on the Left Bank, and total nearly 200 miles of twisting tunnel length. The most extensive single network is more than 60 miles long and lies under or near the Sorbonne, the Club Cordelire an exclusive nobles fencing club northwest of the Sorbonne, the Carmes-Deschaux , the Medicis Palace, the St. Germain Fair a flea market, and La Charit free meals for the poor. The majority of the other networks are found outside the city proper, south of the Left Bank. The residences of the cardinal and the king are not over a quarried district. Neither are the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Palais du Justice, nor the Templars prison, by amazing coincidence. The only quarries north of the Seine are outside the city proper, but just east of the Bastille and the Arsenal. How convenient. The famous boulevards of Paris won't exist for another 200 years. Except for the grounds immediately surrounding palaces and the finest htels, Paris is still a medieval city of twisting narrow streets, dead ends, and haphazard layout. The broad streets and centralized design we know today are a product of 19th-century military engineering designed to make the city easier to defend by a limited number of mobile troops and prevent the construction of barricades by rebels. Famous People 1625ish D'Artagnan is a musketeer with dark hair and mustache, dark complected, with a long face, hooked nose, and prominent cheek bones. He is frequently in the company of Athos almost 30, of somber appearance, average build, and noble, graceful mien, Porthos a large, strong man with a booming voice, and Aramis a gentle, patient man. Cardinal Richelieu is the most powerful man in France. His will is of iron and his mind as sharp as any in his day. He is a master diplomat, grand schemer, and power behind the throne. There is a genuine friendship between Richelieu and Louis XIII, but also friendly rivalry. Cardinal Richelieu has a firm grip on the political situation of Europe at any given time. He has the most extensive, powerful, and efficient spy network in the world. His henchmen will commit murder for the cardinal, and he is fully capable of ordering such drastic measures, though he prefers to use the Bastille. He is generous to his friends, implacable to his enemies. He has an amazing ability to win foes to his side. If he considers France to be endangered, nothing will stop him from removing the threat. Louis XIII is a weak king given to vanity and petty jealousy. His father was Henry IV, a strong and much admired man, who was assassinated when Louis was a boy. Louis tries to live up to that impossibly strong, boyishly unrealistic image of kingship and is doomed to condemn himself for failure his whole life. In the years of his youth, his mother Marie de Medici was the regent, and treated him with contempt. She doesnt have much influence with Louis in his manhood and is eventually banished to her homeland of Italy in 1631. By the time he is 20, he has already picked out the name he wishes history to remember him by Louis the Just. Flatterers will call him that after any decision he makes it calms his nerves and makes him feel better. In general, he is uncomfortable making important decisions and defers to Cardinal Richelieu in nearly everything. Occasionally he will take control of the army during a war and surprise everyone with true bravery and sound military judgment. Perhaps if he had more self-confidence he could be a great soldier? Anne of Austria is is Louis XIIIs queen until his death in 1643, at which point she was regent for Louis XIV until 1652. She was chosen for him by his mother when he was young, and neither of them really wanted to marry the other. Nonetheless, Anne is very beautiful, and Louis wishes she were completely in love with him. On her part, Anne wishes Louis would trust her and put some energy into wooing her. They are two spoiled children who never really grew up. Anne is a prisoner in her palace. The king mistrusts her and is jealous of any who go near her. His pride wont let him woo her himself, though he is the king! The cardinal is out to disgrace her. Any letter from her home country of Spain is viewed with the greatest suspicion she is suspected of treason. Likewise, England is Frances enemy, and every attempt Buckingham makes to contact her brings more risk of suspicion of betrayal in more ways than one. She is nearly powerless, and any Musketeer helping her will be discreetly and graciously thanked. Guilio Mazarin is a Papal envoy to France. An odd choice, given that he seems to carry himself with the ready swagger of a mercenary or soldier rather than the practiced graces of a diplomat. Julie la Maupin has very fair skin, and bright blue eyes. She's tall, androgynous, but with perfect breasts. Brash, forthright, even brazen, she is the worst nightmare for any braggart or chauvinist - she can out-drink, out-fight, and out-insult anyone. Her habit of dressing as a man is notable but accepted as an eccentricity appropriate for an entertainer. Prodigals Outcasts 1625ish Aisha ibn Maryam is a curiosity. She runs a small shop on the Left Bank selling exotic herbs and spices, and openly practices her Muslim faith. Rather more secretly, she is a Ahl-i-Batin shaykha, favouring the arts of diviniation. She maintains a lonely vigil in the cold northern lands, offering a harraam resting place for weary mages that likewise find themselves far from hom. Brother Donadieu runs the Enfants-Rouge orphanage as part of his devotions as a member of the Celestial Chorus . His singing attracts a small but growing audience of the poor and dispossessed. Do you hear the people sing? Adeptus Maior Tristan of Paix of House Bonisagus makes his home at the Sorbonne. Gruff, balding, and given to addressing people mainly in Latin or Attic Greek looks, acts, and talks like one would expect a member of the Order of Hermes to do. His primary interests relate to arcane theory, and what will, in centuries to come, be deemed arcane archaeology. Mother Anna is a witch. She has no time for titles like 'wise-woman' or 'herbalist' or other nonsense. She follows the Old Ways of the the Verbena . At 25, she's relative young to be in a position of relatively seniority, but as she points out, she's both the most senior and the most junior of her kind for at least a hundred miles. Julie de Treville is the only child of the current captain of the musketeers. As such, she grew up knowing more about firearms and warfare than most professional soldiers would ever learn. As such, she was the perfect Artificier recruit. She heads a small lodge of Mauls. Inquisitor Carolus von Augsburg is a member of the Cabal of Pure Thought . He spends his time lobbying the Cardinal to take stronger measures against heretics, liberals, and other undesirables. Contessa Maria de la Serra is the wife of the Spanish Ambassador to France. She is also the preeminent member of the High Guild in Paris some would say France. She is fabulously wealthy in her own right, and rumour has it that she spends her days counting her wealth and cackling. Captain Titus MacLeod is a 6ft tall, ginger Frenchman with a Scottish brogue. He is currently unhappily assigned to the nascent French navy in an attempt to modernise and formalise it. He also is the senior Void Seeker in the city, always ready to share wine or more likely rum with fellow explorers. Francois Villon is the 5th generation Toreador Prince of Paris. He is elegant, tolerant, and a staunch supporter of the Convention of Thorns . Goratrix of House Tremere is an unwelcome interloper in Francois' courtly ideal. The weaselly little cainite shitbag has a finger in every dark and sinister pie, and is rumoured to have been involved in the supression of the Templars. Madame deFarge is a crimelord or perhaps crimelady? and head of the catacomb-dwelling Ratkin . Having successfully out-competed the local Nosferatu for dominance of the city's underworld and information networks, she is the place to go if someone needs something in the underworld - both metaphorical and literal. The Ratkin in this city are in the odd position of dominating the local Garou - the Bone Gnawers , although this is more by mutual agreement than outright conquest.