From Alison:
One option we discussed on the way to Gladesville yesterday seemed to perhaps be a good option but was dependent upon TomC knowing how to switch bodies. It involved sneaking into town somehow, somehow gaining access to Calcaneous, Aramis swapping into his old body (and hence forcing Calcaneous into Tinkeepo's), somehow killing or silencing Calcaneous/Tinkeepo, Aramis pardoning Ethilion and the rest of the party, Ethilion taking control of Jerris, then Aramis switching into another body (where's he gonna get that from?) before he dies in his decrepit old body.
If TomC doesn't have that knowledge, then it's obviously not gonna work. There's also lots of other ifs involved, like how we sneak into town, how we overpower Calcaneous, etc. My concern with any other course of action is needing proof of who Aramis is and who Calcaneous is. Otherwise, even if we get rid of Calcaneous, we won't be welcomed back in to rule by the people of Jerris or Calcaneous' allies. Do we have anything that we can use to convince the people that we aren't the bad guys?
From Catherine:
Mereoni is going to have to get back to town real soon. She and Ogre are already overdue on her visit to the area and tongues will start wagging. She also has to go back to find Avar. She would like to be shipped across the poison forest and dropped on the other side outside of town. There will need to have a very good reason why she's late and tell what she found. There will need to be some "discussion" on the tale she tells.
This will give the group a "spy" in the city who can report on occurances. Also gives her a good opportunity to appraoch Calcaneous to see if he would like any assistance with his"health". If the group can give her a specific list of what types of info they would like obtained they'll need to work it out pretty quickly. Light sprites only work for the span of a week so after this communication will get much harder and slower.
As for retaking Jerris - one option (dont shoot me) is to make sure Calcaneous knows that Ethillion and Aramis are on their way... This may prompt him into sending his army leaving the city vulnerable to an "orc" incursion (sponsored and controlled by us of course). With Mereoni and one or two others in the city there may also be an opportunity for the body switch which I think is an excellent idea. There is however the issue of how much Aramis knows bla, bla bla. Don't forget most of the books on this type of thing now reside in Jerris. I'm sure that is going to be easy to get hold of the info but it's in Jerris.
[Some discussion follows, not worth including here. This results in general agreement that the best way of retaking Jerris is by sneaking into town and getting at Calcaneous.]
From Sian:
I think we need to sneak in and take a look around then collect our thoughts and pile our loot and friends and see if we have enought to take it by force or just try to sneak a small group in.
I am leaning towrds the second of these options. I don't think that we can get enough people to help us take on a city. The orcs are friendly and will form an alliance with us if we take over but won't actually help us take the city. We could try to talk the army in helping us as they are not in the city but I doubt it. Besides, if it looks like Aramis (Calcaneous) is fighting his brother Ethilion, then how are we going to get the citizens to see that we are friends again once we have killed Calcaneous and Aramis has his real body back? I think better to kill Calcaneous silently then Aramis invites Ethilion back.
From Alison:
I agree. Mereoni, can you somehow sneak us into town? Do you have contacts that can help hide or disguise us?
Major issues with this plan that we must address
- How do we get into town?
- How do we gain private access to Calcaneous?
- How does Aramis kick Calcaneous out of the body? He doesn't have any of the information or books on how to do so. Calcaneous has them all. He's probably even put up wards against it somehow.
- How do we then kill Calcaneous (Tinkeepo)? Are we strong enough as a group?
- Aramis will probably need a new body quickly. Can we find one? Does it need to be recently dead?
We need to have an alternate plan in case Aramis can't switch bodies. This will probably include just killing Calcaneous (Aramis's old body is destroyed anyhow), and then somehow having proof that we did the right thing and are the rightful, just rulers.
Get your thinking caps on guys, especially those that can get there early, perhaps gain access to TomC, and talk about it as a group. I'll get there as soon as I can.