From Sian:
I think we also all need to think about how to get into Jerris. There are really two main possibilities.
- we form an army and take it by force
- a small group of us slip into the palace and confront Calcaneous.
I personally think that the best would be to mix both. Form an army and get Captain Maddox etc to lead it against Jerris whilst we slip in the side door. This may keep Calcaneous from using all of his force on us - as he will have to maintain some form of control on his undead army.
And then someone can take up the sword with the Orb of Aldur and smite down .... oops wrong story.
From TomC:
Another possibility would be to blockade the city by forming a fleet and capturing back all Jerris ships at other locations. Then if we are able to form an army we have a method of assault and transport.
Other aspect are that we some how convince every one outside of Jerris and some inside that the Pretender is just that, and the rightful heir has the full support of the real Arimus. If this is the case, when we confront the bad guy and assault the city there may be as little bloodshed as possible.
From BenG:
My 2 cents...
I think sneaking into the city - especially if we can get some covert support from inside (i.e. only completely trustworthy people - close friends - in the household guard, infiltrators, tomb guards (me), questors (Catcherine / Al), army (Cullen), spies (Al), navy (Tom, Sian) etc. or all of these) would be the best bet. Obviously some disguise and planning to work out how to enter the palace would help.
As for taking the city by force - whilst a diversion is good - I can't see this having much of an effect (certainly a few air ships and a handful of people won't help). Also I think we'd have some difficulty (from what we've seen so far) in raising either a fleet or an army - after all the people support Aramis and so do the other key nations... Trying this may just result in getting our current allies captured / killed (and they may come in handy for a quick escape should we need them). That said if we insist on this perhaps Cullen can help...
Likewise trying to convince any large number of people that "this windling is the REAL Aramis" - who (even if this were true) wouldn't be the heir to the throne (Sian is) would be near impossible.... most people would know nothing about Aramis other than by looks. Only a public display (say by a Questor of Mimbruje - the Witch Hunter is one of these??? - who can project what actually happened at the Arch might help this, and even then we know very few people in Jerris show up to public events, and many may still choose not to believe. The Questors may not even be prepared to help?. And I certainly wouldn't trust the Witch Hunter.
Convincing the group that Ethilion isn't guilty of whatever she has been accused of may be a better bet, but the difficulty in proving this still applies.
In short.... the only way I can see such a small group having any effect is by covert means.... even assuming we can sneak our way in I think we'll be hard pressed to defeat the bad guy - it did take a lot of Theran mages last time (perhaps we could try and use Als character to gather Theran support?)... then again this may just alert the bad guy...
From the GM:
Convincing the group that Sian isn't guilty of whatever she has been accused of may be a better bet, but the difficulty in proving this still applies.
Ethilion (and all the Moriarty's) were accused of Using Blood magic primarily and consorting with horrors among other things