Episode description[edit | edit source]
This episode carries content warnings for death.
The sun rises on Palisade and the work week begins. Delegates move quick and quiet through the back halls of Kesh palaces while their lords plot and scheme. Nidean settlers pray to their Divines and then take up their shovels to do the work of civil expansion. The most determined Frontier Syndicate technologists woke up hours ago, beating the sun’s rise just like Exenceaster March says to do in his popular entrepreneurial handbook. And in a castle on the southern continent, the occupation’s leader thumbs the trigger of her horrible device, as if the sun itself could see the gesture and would leash itself appropriately.
This week on PALISADE: Today Is a Monday
I trust I can rely on your vote.[Note 1]
Dossier[edit | edit source]
Organizations[edit | edit source]
Expand People[edit | edit source]
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Contents[edit | edit source]
Opening[edit | edit source]
“
Cross, it's Lock. We're on, uh, day 10 of the hike down here. Got a broadcasting cable or a transmission tube or something, testing it out with this report. Ration supply solid, morale's okay, we're good on ammo. Been hearing some strange things sometimes, but the crew is, you know, they're solid steel. Honestly, I sort of hope we do run into some opposition, let 'em blow off some steam, crack a dizzy or two. One of these pilots, the Plough, young kid, doesn't have it yet, but wants it, you know, wants a taste of the real thing. You can see it in their eyes. They're a true believer, they got that holy cause in them. A good little disciple. Can't wait to show how faithful they are.
You remember being that young, Maidstone? Were we ever? Maybe that's a Nideo thing, youth. You and me, we weren't always old. We were brats. We used to run through the streets, too, but... were we ever really kids? I don't know. First time we met I was trying to ask you out same time I was trying to lift your wallet so I could afford to buy us dinner. Shit, maybe that is young girl stuff. But look at us now — top merc outfit on the planet, exclusive invite from Mister Frontier himself.
We're doing okay. We're doing okay. Shit, getting all nostalgic but I'm the one who's supposed to be mature. It's just, it's this place. I wish you could see it. From down here, it's unbelievable. The scope, the ambition. Someone, someone sat down at a desk and they dreamt this place up: the walls, the fountains, the bridges, the stores, all of it. And then, they built it. And you can draw a line from back then, 5,000 years ago, to today, to us, to the whole damn Principality. That's what these people don't get, these fucking — these dissidents and the fence-sitters, and, hell, I know we both have family back with the Pact, but them too. All their slogans and their signs and their chants and their songs. They really think that poetry is on their side, that they're the only ones who know how to make art. Well, fucking look at me. I'm at the bottom of a monument as big as a planet. The whole galaxy's a monument. A monument to greatness, a monument to what we can build together.
I've been thinking about it. What if we, uh, when I get back, what if you and me... learned that instruction pact. Exempt? Delete. Exempt, delete. Infective pedestrian. Sharp toll. Sharp toll. Sharp toll!”
Plot[edit | edit source]
Faction Game Overview[edit | edit source]
"Today Is a Monday" is the first episode of PALISADE's faction game, which will function as the conflict turn for this season's game of Armour Astir: Advent. The conflict turn will take place after the sortie turn but before downtime turns.
These episodes will deal with large-scale interactions between The Cause and The Authority, each of which is comprised of several subdivisions. We are introduced to these subdivisions and to the three wayward factions.
The Cause is comprised of:
- Jade Kill
- Violet Cove
- Grey Pond
- Carmine Bight
- Rose River
- Blue Channel (represented by the season's PCs during sortie and downtime turns)
The Authority consists of:
- Stel Kesh's Bilateral Intelligence Service
- Stel Nideo's Divine Crusade
- The Frontier Syndicate's March Anecdatist Foundation
The wayward factions are:
Events[edit | edit source]
Riah Connadine announces an operation codenamed Adagio in G: the Bilateral Intelligence Service is attempting to bring Palisade on-cycle.
Marlon Styx hears a Crystal Palace prediction that he believes foretold his own "crosswise" allegiances.[Note 2] He becomes a conflicted double agent, spying on Violet Cove for the Bilats and vice-versa.
Gentian holds a picnic reception at the foot of Crusade. Her retinue bickers and, in the case of Ramondre and Ignadiah, flirts. The lost Duchess Constantina Malady arrives, as foretold by the Dim Liturgy, on a black horse with white fetlocks. She brings with her a mysterious gift in a huge, ornate trunk that is carried by enslaved Delegates.
Margate Lock observes from a distance as the members of the Blue Channel leave the Fundament node with Partial Palisade; she has collected a lot of intel about those events. She retreats and is pursued by Candles Penumbra. Candles kills Lock, but not before Lock is able to send her intel about the Fundament nodes to the Frontier Syndicate.
Cast[edit | edit source]
- Austin Walker (GM; the March Institute; Jade Kill and Grey Pond; the Five Afflictions)
- Jack de Quidt (Bilateral Intelligence Service; Rose River and Carmine Bight)
- Art Martinez-Tebbel (The Divine Crusade; Violet Cove; Crown of Glass)
Other Characters[edit | edit source]
- Riah Connadine
- Fool Factotum
- Gentian and her retinue: Ramondre, Ignadiah, Perevel and Clawed
- Kenneth Marian Colver
- Margate Lock
- Candles Penumbra
- Gucci Garantine (on a call with Candles)
Notes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Lyrics from the song Electioneering by Radiohead
- ↑ "From the River Styx comes the finned fish, but his brain and allegiances is crosswise."