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Shadowrun: Magic's Blight

Of course I'm here. ;)

Noms de Guerre - Psychological Thriller/French Indochina

_{A pair of Foreign Legionnaires fighting Viet Minh in an ambush, 1952}

TL;DR Summary:

• French Indochina, 1949-1950
• Historical/Psychological Thriller
• The French retook Indochina (Vietnam) after the Japanese occupied it in WWII, but encountered stiff resistance from the Vietnamese, who seek to dismantle the French colonial system in favor of self-rule.
• I have two characters; the Pole and the German. I am looking for a player to take up the role of the French nurse that is married to the German.
• The French nurse married to the German; the German is trying to escape his past and the Pole wants to kill the German for it; the Pole will find himself in the same hospital, unbeknownst to either party, that the French Nurse works at.
• The French nurse herself is a survivor of WWII, but of an age with the Pole. How she spent the war is up to you, the player. She could have been in France when it was occupied/liberated (possibly Resistance -- teenagers fought and died for France as maquis) or she might have been in exile in Britain or Canada. That's your end.
• Advanced Standards
• Based on a true story; both "Street Without Joy" by Bernard Fall and "Eichmann in Jerusalem and the Banality of Evil" by Hannah Arendt.
• At least a couple paragraphs per post, possibly more.

In Character Info:

Noms de guerre (French phrase meaning "names of war" or "war names") were frequently adopted by recruits in the French Foreign Legion as part of the break with their past lives.

The tale starts in Poland, where two very different men, a Silesian German man and a Warsaw Jewish boy both hail from. The German is a grown man with a university education and a commission in the Schutzstaffel (SS), the police-military arm of the Nazi party. He oversees the slave labor of Jews in the ghettos and the concentration camps on behalf of the department of labor within the SS. He is reckoned a war criminal by the Allies.

The boy, the son of a Warsaw professor of physics, manages to escape the fate of many Polish Jews; his father has him shipped to France to stay with a colleague's family, before Poland falls in 1939. When the Germans bring the thunder of their Blitzkrieg to France in 1940, he escapes again, this time to Great Britain. There, he lies about his age and joins the war fighting for a King and Country that are not his.

When the war is over, the two men go their separate ways; many Germans join the French Foreign Legion. The French gladly take in these men, even though many of them are wanted war criminals and the invaders and occupiers of la France, yet their need for troops in far-flung corners of their failing empire, in places like Indochina and Algeria, outweigh such considerations. These men are given new names and are hidden. The German man signs his name and joins his kameraden in la Légion étrangère.

The Polish boy, now a man, leaves Europe behind for Palestine, joining the camp survivors and many other refugees to build the new Jewish homeland. There is little peace to be found and he fights a second war as part of the newly-founded Israeli Defense Forces. Eventually he locates people, camp survivors, that he once knew as a child, people who knew his family, and he finds out the bitter details; where and when it happened and who did it. He even manages to find reliable information that the man joined the Foreign Legion.

While he is a serving soldier of the Israeli Defense Forces, he requests transfer to the Navy. When his ship pulls into Genoa, he jumps ship and makes for Marseilles, France, the home of the Legion, at least in France. The Polish man signs his name and takes on a nom de guerre in la Légion étrangère.

The German man is sent to to fight the Communists, the Viet Minh, in Indochine (Vietnam) where he meets and secretly marries a French nurse; she doesn't care about his past, and he doesn't go into details -- the past is done. Together, they plan for a bright and happy future with each other; she with the sort of charming man she always dreamed of, and he putting his own black deeds well behind him by adopting a new name in the Legion and obtaining French citizenship.

Meanwhile, the young Pole is wounded in battle, and he winds up in the same hospital, in Hanoi, where the French nurse works. He has stories to tell; the past isn't as done as she thinks it is.

Out of Character Info:

The plot is simple; the Pole is going to kill the German, but he's going to have to wrangle information out of the French woman to do it. He has to track the German down somehow, and doesn't have much information to work with. It may well be that they become friends and he tells her why he's there. Sympathy turns to shock as the tale unfolds and he describes the killer of his family, a callous, amoral monster...and her husband. There's a lot of psychological, emotional and moral choices involved. How you'd care to play it is up to you, I'm down with whatever the outcome.

There is a twisted element to this, of course. There's a potential for a sordid affair, guilt and conspiracy to murder. There's a lot of potential in the plot, but I'm looking for input, more or less, on where to take it. There is another twist, of course...the German is wealthy from the ill-gotten proceeds of the war years. Or at least, he has that wealth stashed away. Hello multiple motives and plot twists.

This is actually based on a true case; there was no woman involved, but an Israeli man did kill the man who had his family massacred, while both were serving as legionnaires in Indochina. When he came back after his time in the legion, he was tried for desertion in Israel, but was acquitted. He was even praised -- one less Nazi in the world. That's just a cool postscript, something I read in Bernard Fall's "Street Without Joy" a while ago. But it makes for a heck of a 1x1 idea.

Contessa e Condottiero

TL;DR Summary:

• Late Medieval-Fantasy, political intrigue and military. Magic optional.
• Set in a place much like 14th-15th century Italy; many city states fighting it out for supremacy.
• Fictional Setting - Rossaterri, the small city and home of the ruling Corneli family.
• Male role and female role; I'm playing the male. Female lead is expected to be strong and devious.
• The Contessa di Rossaterri, (insert Italian first name) Spada (her maiden name, meaning 'sword'), recently widowed, needs help holding her lands. If we use magic in the setting, she may, perhaps, be a magic user.
• Sir Geoffrey Falbrooke, a foreign condottiero (mercenary general) is exiled from his homeland and has spent a few years fighting in campaigns elsewhere.
• Advanced Standards; 2 Paragraph minimum, probably more.

In Character Info:

Conti Donato Corneli of Rossaterri is dead of an illness, leaving behind a widow who is beset at all corners by those who wish to absorb her land into their holdings; while there are many mercenaries throughout the land, few will take employment under a woman and take orders without trying to overcome her and take the lands for themselves. And yet, she has to find someone to help her fight her enemies; a capable woman, the daughter of a condottiero, she consults a family friend who recommends a man, a foreigner, known as "The Gambler" to fight as her condottiero, her mercenary general.

Sir Geoffrey Falbrooke, the Gambler, is an exiled Vendish noble. Because of the scandal of his marriage and the political enmity between him and certain members of the Vendish court and his own quarrels with his father, he is unwelcome back in his homeland, where his wife has taken up with another man and his family has disowned him. Nonetheless, the King of the Vendish Isles, Hugh III, owes his crown in part to Sir Geoffrey's brilliance in fighting the brutal Regency War and helps him establish a free company in the Cities of the Sun Coast. A drinker and a cad, he is a noble-born warrior with the cunning of a fox who fights his battles with his brains and can turn the odds of most any battle with the brilliance of his maneuvers. When the call comes to come to an unknown land, Acalia, a place rife with warring city-states, he agrees to come and fight, for the lure of riches. He already is established with the city of Tarbaz, through which much trade passes. There, he just recently finished his five-year contract wherein he fought the wars and gave the boy Sultan of the city, who inherited too early, a much-needed education. Now that the Sultan is of age and capable of fighting his own battles and Falbrooke needs, in order to flourish, patronage in Acalia. Rossaterri's trade contacts are floundering due to the instability, but trade from Tarbaz would bring new life its port.

Out of Character Info:

I think the IC speaks for itself in that the characters are somewhat established, and the setting is suitably Italian; this is all based on the situation that prevailed at the end of the Hundred Years' War between England and France. After the war, many men formed Free Companies (Sir John Hawkwood comes to mind here) and found employment in Italy's city-states as warriors, some of them even achieving very high rank and a couple of them (such as Francesco Sforza (English "Forceful") becoming rulers of the cities (Milan in Sforza's case) outright. The Contessa is only recently married and just as quickly a widow, but she's trying to keep her lands together against more dangerous opponents on the outside. Her father was a Condottiero before he was a Duke, but he is dead now and she has to look out for herself; she can expect little help from the rest of her family, who have problems of their own. Instead, she is forced to look to outside help.

It helps if there is a knowledge of politics and history, and maybe an interest in courtly intrigue; I would like to develop Rossaterri as the RP goes on, doing a little nest-building as part of the plot along with the personal interactions. Perhaps the place has problems, and is a fixer-upper. The direction this new regime under the Contessa is in your hands, perhaps, and you will take ownership of the setting somewhat. The plot, of course, will be the personal interactions between man and woman, foreigner and native, in a chaotic and malevolent environment of conspiracy and assassination. True to 15th century Italy, I might well establish a Catholic-esque Church, whose machinations will be keenly felt throughout the country.

The requirements are listed above; I would like to see a sample of writing before committing to doing this plot with anyone; no offense, I just want to make sure we're a good fit for each other. This is a collaborative plot, so if you like to build things, imagine things and brainstorm, then I'm the player for you and this is definitely the plot for you. How much fantasy we throw in, magic and the such, is up to our discretion, but I'd prefer to keep it low-magic. However, if you'd like, we can make the Contessa a witch/wizardess/sorceress. That would be a cool twist as well as giving the enemies around her a reason to whip up the hate and distrust.

Shadowrun: Magic's Blight

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do now for a character, since my initial character idea was a Street Sam, and I don't really like doubling down with classes. Not super keen on doing a Mage or a Shaman, but I suppose I could give it a shot if need be.
So yeah, gotta love conundrums like that.

@Zed

I think that there's a huge diversity in Street Samurai, just as there are in riggers and physads and mages and shaman types. So yeah, bring on a second samurai, I say.

Shadowrun: Magic's Blight

I honestly see the advantages of having a traditional rigger with the vehicle and one that controls surveillance drones that can keep an eye on things. There's advantages to be had with each rigger and they certainly don't overlap. I mean, we have a physad and a samurai, but they are very different in their approaches, by the looks of it.

We just need a mage basically.

Shadowrun: Magic's Blight

We really need a mage or shaman.

Shadowrun: Magic's Blight

I expanded Good-Crow's bio a bit to weave in the fall of the California Protectorate and his involvement in that doing smuggling runs.

Shadowrun: Magic's Blight

Verily, I'm trying to get a ping on what sort of chap to write which is the most annoying part/time consuming part for me (apart from naming, which is terrible).

@Vigfast

Well, no one's got an ork, troll or dwarf yet. We lack deckers, mages and riggers so far. No shaman types either.

That's not to say anything is a dibs, I think it's fine if we have an extra Samurai or something. Or physad, or whatever. They come in all different flavors, after all.

Shadowrun: Magic's Blight

Looking forward to updates. We should really get this moving if we're going to get moving, guys. Just my personal observation that when there is momentum, we need to use it. ;)