Grand Game

Murders of influential individuals were often the focus of Grand Games

> *"Most people would call it a scandal. Revelers call it a show."*
>
>

*- Piece of the Puzzle*

**Grand Game** was the popular term for major events of intrigue in the City of Revelmoore. Grand Games were characterized by the involvement of many of the city's opposing factions or nobility (often both), public fascination with the proceedings, widespread coverage by broadsheets publications like The Targe, highly valuable material stakes, and more often than not, the deaths of many involved.

There was no official decree that would name any event as a Grand Game; events that drew enough public attention would often be coined as Grand Games through virtue of their own ubiquity in the public eye. Most Grand Games would be considered such when most citizens of Revelmoore agreed that the title was warranted. The term, as well as the unique popular name for each Grand Game, was almost always coined during the events and rarely after.

Grand Games varied in length; some such as Ambermantle's Enigma lasted for multiple years, while others like the Night of the Violet Kiss lasted for a single night.

## Notable Grand Games

* The **Night of the Violet Kiss**: An infamous dinner party in which several city nobles were murdered by way of poisoned wine, with the sole piece of evidence being a small letter stamped with a kiss mark of purple lipstick.
* **Ambermantle's Enigma**: A Grand Game that revolved around Dagult Ambermantle's embezzlement of approximately one million taxpayer gold coins during his twenty-one year reign as Open Lord of Revelmoore.
* The **Bard's Lament**: A tumultuous love affair between a lowborn bard and a son of House Votanikos. The affair ended with the bard's public execution on charges which were eventually discovered to have been fabricated.
* The **Missing Gazebo**: The sudden and unexplained disappearance of a gazebo in the Sea Ward that served as a popular meeting place. Theories include the gazebo's possible nature as a mimic, or a prank pulled by the Mad Mage of the Undermountain, Halaster Blackcloak.
* The **Head of Ankev**: A popular attraction at a prominent museum in the Sea Ward purported to display the mummified Head of Ankev, an ancient lich of myth. The head was eventually proved to be a mundane human head enchanted by the spell *Nystul's magic aura.*
* The **Undermountain Triumvirate**: A period of several months where three adventurers, each of them male drow rangers, achieved fame for their exploits in the Undermountain. The three rangers competed with each other to delve deeper with each expedition; they would each eventually disappear and never return.
* **Lord Trencher's Folly**: An often-cited embarassing moment for the city's legal authorities in which three goblins managed to acquire an enchanted *Lord's Ensemble* and impersonate a Masked Lord of Revelmoore for a period of several months by standing atop each other and remaining mostly silent in meetings.
* The **Exile of the *Excelsior***: The daring theft of the flagship of the Revelmoore navy, the *Excelsior*, by pirates of Santa Quint. Unable to recover the vessel, the Revelmoore navy was forced to sink the *Excelsior*.
* **Turnabout Tabby**: A landmark murder trial that lasted for several months, in which the defense successfully argued that a murder was perpetrated not by a tabaxi citizen of Revelmoore, but a particularly vicious alley cat.
* **Ramrider's Retreat**: The shocking surrender of Don Grimkon Ramrider to the Xanathar Guild, ending the Ramrider family's centuries-long reign of terror over the criminal underworld of Revelmoore. The title is a play on words that references the underground settlement of Ramrider's Retreat