Day 33 — A man with a plan and a model

KahuPachinkoRyutoOona Katoa

Chapter summary

The crew founds the Fires of Moa, recruits its first followers, and budgets an audacious ironclad heist.

Connections

Session notes

Montage time! It’s time to form a cult.

Let’s build a cult.

Starting points:

Boggarts: 30
The one guy who joined us willingly from the Island
We’re currently being hunted

Beliefs: Reform the world in the fire of the old Moa

Recruitment methods:

The theater and with pamphlets
- The Mink
The cannery workers
- Pachinko has the pull here
The dockyard workers
- Being pressured by the Carolingians to align with the religion

The pirates of pirate’s cove are not with us. There is some suspicion from the old guard. There’s no merchant class of Moa’Toans that we could leverage.

Strategies:

Stoke fires nationalism
Feckless Moa’Tor government and their submission to foreign powers
Counter-reformation
Personal grievances against Albians and Carolingians
Promises of wealth and prosperity
Personal interventions / relying on charisma and the totem and some magic

We’re going the Mamdani way.

Kahu is a believer, has felt the powers of something and has felt the presence of something. He thinks the Carolingian Saints represent a threat to Old Moa. He knows he is right because has felt the signs.

Kahu is doing a first round of charisma, 23 on the diplomacy roll. Firebrand’s Ryuto rolled a 25.

Ryuto feels fire is nice and he likes the idea of a fire-based religion.

Organizational chart:

Kahu → Speaker
Ryuto → A firebrand
Oona → Nothing for now, a sympathizer of the old gold.
Pachinko → The Alchemist
- Wants to help his friend Kahu and likes to make friends with the community in the cannery. The fire fits with Pachinko’s theme.
- Use his underworld connections to establish a foothold.

Outcomes:

With a 19, Pachinko recruits most of the orphans.
Kahu and Ryuto recruit many followers, mostly factory workers.
Oona does some religious research.

The Banana Stand is the church fund: We have 22,000 gold.

Oona was researching the religion, she doesn’t find how it’s always on fire. It’s all very pagan religion so there’s not many records. It’s a practiced religion where people do things every day, most of the rituals are about making sacrifices in the volcano, that’s getting harder for people as there’s no volcano nearby. Are there other people like Kahu? Fire powered people? – Being an oracle with like a fire curse or a priestly figure would make sense, his abilities are not completely unheard of. The faith of Kahu is novel and not seen before.

Things that happened in the last few months:

The Carolingians have been actively recruiting and baptizing people. They are not “convert or die”, they’ve been doing peacefully. The orphans we didn’t recruit, is because they’ve become Carolingians because they’ve been throwing money around. St Sebastian has been around in our island, healing people.
We’re the enemy of both the government and the anti-government. We ghosted the uncle of the king so he is also not happy with us. We kept the relic. They’ve been cracking down on us with bans on official gatherings of people.
A week after the ironclad was brought into the harbor, the delegation from the Celestial Empire arrived and after a lengthy discussion. There was an official handover to the Celestial Empire. But because it’s broken, it’s been sitting in the harbor for the last 3 months. We know that they’re wrapping up the repairs. Even though both sides didn’t declare war after this incident, the tensions are high between west and east, there’s kerfuffles in the open water.

The rituals:

The baptism -> Walking over coals -> The Tempering

Jebbediah, Pachinko’s most accomplished cannery worker who is very good at managing up is put for the position of Mercury. The assistant of Pachinko.

We’re going after the ironclad.

Questions about the ironclad:

The weapons are operational.
We don’t know how the weapons work.
How many days until they leave?
- Sail within the week.
The engine is operational.
How many people are on board at a time?
We know the layout of the ironclad.
We know how to start the engine.
How many people do we need?
- 30 Boggarts
- 20 people
They get supplies in a very controlled manner.

Plan:

Hire a bunch of people
Give them invisibility potions

Funds allocation:

100 mercenaries - 5000g total

10 Fire breathers - 200g each / 2000g

100 potions of invisibility - 2000g

4 crew adventuring party - 4000g

20 x 14 extra potions - 280g

Our invisibility potions - 400g

Retrofitting barrels - 5g

Colored lamp - 5g

Apocalypse on the Shore by Jebbediah - 1000g

Saint Jeremiah of the apocalypse

Fireworks - 1000g

Delivery people bribe - 500g

Mariachi band - 250g

Plan:

Take over the elevator invisible
Everyone else comes in boats
They disperse over the ship with invisibility potions