Who is Viola? As a Viscountess, where does her influence come from? Is she popular only among nobles or do the general Coven have the same respect for her? Judging by the composition of our little group I think Vincent is the real target here. The rest of the group are just collateral, being at wrong place at the wrong time... This sounds like a ploy to destroy D'Cerf blood relatives. Also, this is happening in the middle of the night, right? Right after a catastrophe at an event where everyone in the Coven would have attended. How did they managed to assemble all these nobles given the circumstances? Who are the nobles that are attending this trial? Do they all have the same motives - get rid of D'Cerfs? The whole situation is too organised to be an impromptu reaction. Ichthys, you said that some of them are neutral, but if this were planned, the majority would be of the " get rid of the heirs and steal the throne" mentality, and they would be in on the agenda. The majority would sway the neutral ones. We cant talk our way out of this by pleading innocence, its probably rigged. Trial by combat would also be rigged.

How about this. What if we turned the nobles on each other? This Viscountess, depending on her status, can be our ticket out. Given the option to speak about the happenings during the ritual, we can tell her exactly what happened during the rituals. Maybe we can report of an epiphany from the occult about changing times and enemy in the blankets, of a witch that would leave a trail of blood to control the throne and once seated on the top, this witch would turn on her own people, etc. etc. One of us, unrelated to Vincent, can accuse her of deceiving the other nobles into giving her the throne. Those involved in the plot will start to think twice. They know the Viscountess is a Machiavellian backstabber, what if, when she gets into power, she turns on her former supporters in fear of them conspiring against her? All followers of backstabbers will have these little seeds of doubt in their minds. We can feed the doubt .