renaissance How to make friends and influence people

[Nozbat]

It's late August 1521. In Skåne the Skånemarkedet is in full flow. Herring are caught, cleaned and gutted, Lüneburg salt is liberally applied. The quality is checked and the salted fish that will feed Europe over the winter is stored in barrels and sealed. The Player characters, all Salt Merchant Journeymen, sit by their ledgers interrupting the their idle gossip of their prowess in drinking contests to harangue the Gill-women for not working fast enough. Double entry accounting is about as interesting as it gets around here.

But then the Danish Kings Custom Officer, Krister Skarsgård arrives with a troop of halberd wielding thugs. He accuses the Hanse merchants of short weights and confiscates 20 barrels of salted herring along with their accurate weights. Matthias de Kveelder fortunately asks for a receipt for the impounded goods from Skarsgård, who begrudgingly hands it over.

Everyone knows this is a game the Danish play every year, with slight variations. The bribe is eventually paid for overtime and the barrels and weights are released from the Customs Impound stockade but not before valuable production time is lost.

Its just the normal interaction by the Danish state to the Hanse until Jürgen notices that the man talking to Skarsgård fits the description of the person who may have murdered their late master, Sülfmeister Herman Memminger, in Lübeck, last June. Matthias is delegated by his brothers to follow the man and his retinue as they head back to Falsterbo and into the Royal Enclosure.

They tell Meister Sommersveld what they have learned and are given the task of finding out more about the man with the palsied left arm, the limp and a midnight black right hand. They believe he had been looking for De Occulta Philosophia, Heinrich Agrippa's book which would be banned as a heretical work if he had not taken the advice from Abbot Johannes Trithemius to delay publishing. The book had been sent by their father to Memminger, wrapped in a sealed package, and carried to Memminger by the brothers as a gift from their father. They had found it hidden in the late Sülfmeister's room under a loose floorboard and had kept it from the murder investigation, partly to protect their father, partly out of duty to their Meister's reputation, but most of all to gain forbidden knowledge.

They employed a Gill-woman, Herdis Vandilsdötter as their translator. The plan was to bribe some of the Royal Enclosure servants into talking about their masters. Learning that the servants frequented Den Spikade Sillen, a Falsterbo waterfront tavern, for afterwork drinks, they soon discovered using a translator to subtly ask of their employers wasn't their best idea. Mathias then hit on the idea of the universality of music. Centuries before the idea of an open mics or the Eurovision Song Contest were thought of, Mathias tuned up a lute and broke into his song, 'The Bastard Bürghers of Antwerp'. The crowd didn't understand the words but they loved the soulful lute playing. Just to show he was not a one-hit-wonder, Mathias played his other songs, 'The Bloody Flux', a lament for his uncle who possibly died of the Bloody Flux, or was possibly poisoned by his father, and his lovesong for Adrianne, the shoemakers daughter, cunningly entitled 'She heels my sole".

The musical interlude was a success and along with the liberal purchase of large amounts alcohol, the servants told them of the sinister Rittmeister Brannt von Sennheim. He was the Danish Kings representative in Falsterbo, he was not well liked and had a reputation for harsh cruelty. They worried that he may have been consorting with demons and had been given a black right hand as a sign of his fealty to Lucifer. They were glad that he had been recalled by the King and would be leaving shortly.

Mathias was an overnight sensation at the Spikade Sillen. If he had lived five centuries later, he might have wished he'd uploaded his songs to Spotify as there would have been 100 downloads at least, or his fame could have been spread by YouTube clips, particularly of the chorus of The Bloody Flux, which has that Euro-anthem quality. Sadly, he had to make do with the local printer who they agreed could print the song and Mathias would get a tenth of a pfennig for every pamphlet sold. 

So, planning to win friends and get the dirt on a rival? Employ lutes. Available from the local stockist. Works every time. 

[Butters]

Lol, the only time I've managed to get my Players to do anything similar the dice rolls were not in their favour which caused the person they were entertaining to have a heart attack. I do like that this kind of roleplaying is an option as it helps make the characters more rounded and less prone to building murderhobos.

[Nozbat]

15 minutes ago, Butters said:

dice rolls were not in their favour which caused the person they were entertaining to have a heart attack

Rolling a 01% was a bonus.. and it went well with the game. However, I'd have given him a bonus for trying it and the Bloody Flux song is an anthem! They had tried seduction .. but whispering into the interpreters ear, who then whispered sweet nothings into the seduction targets ear.. kind of fell flat.. so singing was a good option.

The players are definitely not murderhobos..and they are only too aware of it, having a genuine fear of anyone who has a sword and knows which end is the pointy bit ... in fact I have serious difficulty in getting them to do anything dangerous.. the usual attitude is.. "its above my pay grade.. lets pass it up the line". While I think that's not an unreasonable attitude to have, I'm not sure how many scenes I've had to move to the next 'venue' as they pass up opportunities to delve into situations. They are after all, and as they often remind me, Salt Merchants. However, they seem to be keen to start a fledgling Hanse Secret Service. We'll see.

I've had to resort to interesting tactics.. frame them for murder, threaten execution most horrible etc.. but they eventually get there. Plot devices are a GMs best friend

 

[Joerg]

20 hours ago, Nozbat said:

So, planning to win friends and get the dirt on a rival? Employ lutes.

Or, if you're with Mathias, employ the lout.