"Raindrops & Roses"
Freeform LRP Event, 13th August 2005

"You are invited to a party held at Lemuel D'Artois' Ducal Palace in the Port of Glass, to celebrate the twenty-second birthday of his latest wife, Caroline D'Artois. The attendants will be a mix of D'Artois, merchants, criminals and other nobles from the Port, and foreign notables - both those attached to the Embassy and those attending for the occasion. Anyone with an ear to the ground will know that such parties are popular breeding grounds for political manoeuvring, and that this occasion in particular is rumoured to be a fertile one for anyone contemplating the idea of regime change in the Port."

This event is an In Character social occasion set in the White City world. No prior knowledge of the setting or of the system is required to play - the game will be a freeform live roleplaying event with no game rules involved. You can play an existing character from the setting, generate a new character using the character generation rules found elsewhere on this website or ask the organisers to provide you with an NPC for the evening. Drinks and snacks are available from the downstairs bar, costume is encouraged but by no means obligatory - just dress up nicely!

When - Where - Cost - Organisers - Attendance - Notable Guests - Background - Debriefs

An Introduction to the Port of Glass & the wider World (.rtf document)

When: Saturday 13th August from 7 p.m.
The venue is booked all day, people will probably start arriving from around 6:00 in the evening onwards, the actual event is scheduled to start at 7:00, time-out will be between 10:30 and 11:00 and we need to vacate the room by 11:20. Please arrive in plenty of time for the start, there may be XP penalties for late arrival.

Where: The Mitre public house, Oxford High Street, OX1 4AG
The Mitre is a Beefeater restaurant and public house in Oxford city centre, on the corner of the High Street and Turl Street, close to Carfax Tower and Lincoln College. Maps to the Mitre can be found here on Streetmap.co.uk and here on Multimap.com.
Those travelling to the event from outside Oxford may want to have a look at the travel details below.
The event is taking place in the private upstairs function room - go in through the front doors and look for the door on your right leading to a short hallway with a set of stairs curving up to the right. At the top of the stairs, take the door on the left into the function room, which overlooks the High Street.

Cost: £5
The charge is £5 for the evening to cover room hire. Drinks and miscellaneous snacks can be purchased from the bar downstairs. Don't bring any of your own drinks or snacks, the venue management would not be pleased.

Organisers
Helen W & Chris N - you can contact them via the event@flrp.anang.com email eddress.

Attendance
If you wish to attend the event, please let Helen and Chris know as soon as possible. Many people will be playing NPCs, of whom they have a large spare cast; if anyone feels they don't have an appropriate PC but would like to attend anyway, please do consult them, they have plenty of roles to fill. If you do intend to play a PC, please let them know in advance.

Notable Guests
All respectable guests can assume they have a copy of the Official Invitation (.rtf document).
A full brief on who's who in the Port will be following soon; for the moment, a few of the notable names that are supposed to be attending:

• Duke Lemuel D'Artois - NPCed by Joe R
  Lemuel, our favourite semi-psychotic demi-god. Well, apart from Toquell. He inexplicably dotes on his new wife, Caroline.
  
  
• Caroline D'Artois - NPCed by Celine
  Lemuel's new wife, Caroline is a true rarity under his rule: an innocent. She isn't stupid, exactly; she's just supremely good at thinking the best of everyone, and very, very young. She has just Come Out into society, and caught Lemuel's eye at her party. She's the daughter of a perfectly normal merchant family, and Lemuel, rather fascinated by her, has not viciously abused her. Yet. She's nice to pretty much everyone, she's sweet and generous, and she has genuinely fallen in love with Lemuel, seeing him as a fairly awesome, incredibly powerful man who has deigned to notice her. She hasn't noticed that he's a raving homicidal lunatic yet.
  
  
• Karl D’Artois – NPCed by Matt
  Karl D'Artois is the fraternal twin of Niske D’Artois, offspring of the wife Lemuel took prior to Serafine's mother. He knew Serafine from childhood, and quite liked her in as much as anyone in the Family really likes each other. He hates his twin brother, Niske; they never got on, even from the cradle cage, were rivals in all things, and are of completely different styles. Karl is an austere and chilling person, dangerous, and brings to mind a drawn stiletto. He’s a plotter, a behind-the-curtain man. He sees his brother as a fop, a fool, a skiving incompetent of a peacock.
  
  
• Niske D’Artois - NPCed by Dom
  Niske D'Artois; fraternal twin of Karl D’Artois, offspring of the wife Lemuel took prior to Serafine's mother. He knew Serafine from childhood, and quite liked her in as much as anyone in the Family really likes each other. He hates his twin brother, Karl; they never got on, even from the cradle cage, were rivals in all things, and are of completely different styles. Niske is a man of fashion, an accomplished man: a hunter, a duellist, a drinker, a wencher, a liver of life to the fullest he can be. He loves the stage, the limelight, and as much sex as his tongue can handle. He considers his brother to be a waste of blood, a coward, a cringing clerk.
  
  
• Emmanuel D'Artois - NPCed by Xan
  Dangerous, spoiled, psychotic little bastard. Never had any talent for magic, but his skill with a blade is legendary. Has reputedly never lost a duel, and brags loudly about the time he thrashed Fal-Kar De Almedia into a sobbing heap. Rumour has it he won’t let the evening end without calling someone out – whether the slight is real or imagined.
  
  
• Silvestre D’Artois - NPCed by Chris N
  Silvestre D’Artois is one of Lemuel’s older and more staid children; indeed, due to the Duke’s frustratingly well-preserved state, most strangers would guess him to be Lemuel’s brother. He runs the legal drugs trade inside the Port, including that part of the trade which involves finding dealers in contraband, nailing their ankles to their ears and dropping them into pits of glass shards. He is a calm and collected gentleman who is rarely fazed. Sooner or later, he is going to have to kill Raddigan Bey for smuggling, but he seems to be putting it off because he sees him as a worthy adversary.
  
  
• Rose D’Artois (High Priestess) - NPCed by Vicky
  A usually quiet, apparently unassuming lady, who nevertheless commands equal parts fear and awe from her attendant acolytes and congregation. Has been the High Priestess of the King in Fragments for some thirty years, ever since the brutal, protracted and entirely accidental death of her predecessor. Has been known to become somewhat hysterical in matters of religion. Is not a sorceror of any colour, publicly believing that magical practice would distract her from the contemplation of the King. Is of the school which believes that the reassembly of the King would be his destruction, and thus generally promotes apathy in all areas except religion.
  
  
• Lieutenant Ambriel Chermes, Broken Guard - DPCed by Helen W
  Ambitious Broken Guard officer in her early thirties. Worked her way up the ranks rather than buying a commission, and is by all accounts an honest, loyal and efficient soldier and investigator. Unusually for the Guard, doesn’t seem to be under any particular thumb; seems to do well out of remaining entirely neutral in D’Artois feuds.
  
  
• Thaddeus de Verlay - NPCed by Rich
  Emmanuel D’Artois’ tutor and political advisor. Was originally hired to keep the boy in hand – that is, to curb his psychotic impulses – but, recognising an opportunity for personal advancement, swiftly formed a strong alliance with Emmanuel and, if anything, encouraged his homicidal tendencies. The two now operate as a team, Emmanuel’s Family name opening doors where Thaddeus’ ingenious political mind cannot. The de Verlays have long provided attendants, priests, tutors and spouses for the D’Artois family, and Thaddeus is a loyal scion of the line.
  
  
• Raddigan Bey ("The Baron") - NPCed by Julian
  Raddigan Bey is the current criminal overlord of the docks. He is portly, ill tempered and arrogant. Someday, Silvestre D’Artois will get bored of him and arrest him for smuggling.
  
  
• Imelda Foucard - NPCed by Helen L
  The daughter of a minor noble house, Imelda was briefly the odds-on favourite for Duke Lemuel’s next lady before Caroline came on the scene. She’s a dedicated disciple of the Bride of Brittle Tears and quite a good Glass sorceror.
  
  
• Horatio Cristofori (“The Governor”) - NPCed by Joff
  Some thirty years ago, Lucrezia Cristofori’s eldest son Horatio was convicted of paying some thugs to assault and murder a De Courci household servant who was reputedly carrying his bastard. Refusing trial by combat, which would effectively have been an honourable execution for the young man, he was stripped of his lands and sentenced to exile. The Port of Glass gladly took him in, and he’s barely left the city since. He now effectively rules the White City expatriate community in the Port, hence the nickname – exiles both voluntary and involuntary answer to him, travelling merchants find their lives to be much easier if he signs off on their itineraries, and Ambassadors regularly pay him their respects even though he may not set foot within the Embassy grounds themselves on pain of death.
  
  
• Alicia Fane - NPCed by Ellie
  Some woman from the dock area. A gossip. Keep getting this weird whispering noise in my ears when I talk to her, I think she whistles or something. Raddigan Bey’s been hassling her recently for some reason.
  
  
• Arturo de Verlay (High Priest) - NPCed by Dan
  Young, ruthlessly ambitious High Priest of the King in Fragments, single-mindedly focused on destroying anything which stands between him and the immanence of his god. Is of the school which believes that the King in Fragments must be reassembled to bring him to full power, and hence advocates the search for the Fragments in question. Leads a cadre of young, active, ambitious priests who involve themselves in all walks of life and regularly go off adventuring for the Port in the hope of finding Fragments. Thaddeus’ younger brother.
  
  
• Capt. (ret) Dominic Laird, Broken Guard - NPCed by Chris N
  Dominic Laird is interested, first and foremost, in law and order. He knows that the Port of Glass is a hellhole. He also knows that Lemuel D’Artois is a madman, but that isn’t the point. He’s the Port’s madman, and that’s what matters. Besides, half these scum deserve to get sold to the Vitriarchs. He’s recently retired due to losing an eye in a training accident, but continues to teach promising warriors in his spare time.
  
  
• Wat Miller, “The Farmer” - NPCed by Arthur
  A botanist, pioneer, gentleman-farmer and explorer, Wat Miller rose from a youth of total obscurity to become one of the most remarkable people the Port of Glass has ever produced. He set off East at the age of fifteen to make his fortune, and returned five years later, tanned, emaciated and the de facto owner of fifteen hundred acres of the most fertile grazing land the coastal region has to offer. Next he went West, and spent some years among the weavers studying the cultivation of spiders; then north, where he is rumoured to have learned the secrets of certain strange hallucinogenic herbs from the Eagle tribe. No risk is too great, no challenge too daunting for the Farmer, and now – braving the wrath of the Bodach, the Port of Glass and the White City – he has set up a Silverleaf plantation somewhere hidden deep in the Garden Lands. He occasionally visits the Port to gloat, and is something of a hero to rural peasants.
  
  
• Engel Karlsson - NPCed by James W
  No-one is entirely sure why Engel is still alive, other than that Lemuel seems to find him entertaining. He is a roister, a doister, a ranter and otherwise a general causer of mayhem. He’s independently wealthy but prefers peasant company to noble on average: he also buys a lot of rounds, so the peasants prefer his company to most.
  
  
• Jeniveive De Almedia, White City Ambassador - NPCed by Tristram
  The White City's current Ambassador to the Port of Glass. She is relatively new, and treated with contempt by the jaded expatriate community. She doesn't seem to realise that this position is a very quiet and polite death sentence; certainly the De Courcis register complaints in the strongest possible terms every time one of their Ambassadors suddenly turns up missing, mad or dead, but that doesn't stop it happening with depressing regularity. By previous standards, she probably has about a month to live.
  
  
• Belinda Thaler, Crossroads Ambassador - NPCed by Jen
  Belinda Thaler is in every way the opposite of her opponent in the local diplomatic stakes. She is an old hand, having served in the White City before taking over as Ambassador to the Port some twenty years ago. She is dignified, sarcastic, extremely talented and knows her ground very well indeed. She has benefited, as has her City, from the favour of Lemuel D'Artois, and she therefore likes the Port exactly how it is.
  
  
• Francesca Corelli - NPCed by Laura
  A tearaway socialite and thrillseeker from the White City, this young and beautiful lady's past is fraught with rumour and intrigue. She seems to have a terrible fascination with all sorts of terribly dangerous people, and it's said that her father threw her out for bringing a Vinechild home. She will be the guest of Horatio "The Governor" Cristofori at the celebration.
  
  
• Neara Therapainas - PC played by Helen L
  Neara Therapainas was recently appointed to a lectureship in Statescraft at the College of a Thousand Arts. She is not noble, and her education, which took place in obscure foreign parts, was not diplomatic per se. Nevertheless she appears to know her way around politics, and she has a talent for persuasion. The rumours connecting her to a well-known Eastern courtesan have never been substantiated - however, it has certainly been observed that she is privy to far more delicate information concerning the male members of the nobility than the female ones. She is accompanying the White City Ambassador as the representative of the College, mostly because no-one else was stupid enough to volunteer.
  
  
• Carlos de Mamushi - PC played by Joe W
  A charming, if frequently foppish, young socialite. It is whispered that he was thrown out of his father's household after an incident with the Crossroads Ambassador's daughter, and that he has incurred staggering gambling debts in one of the Black Griffin's back rooms. In recent months he appears to have turned over a new leaf, becoming a regular attendee of services at the Exalted Church of the Light and winning the open acclaim of the De Courcis for his stalwart service to the White City.
  
  
• Bartholomew D'Artois - PC played by Ben
  Bartholomew D'Artois is another of Lemuel's many children. For the past several years he has been a member of the embassy staff in the White City, where his many notable services to the city have helped maintain good relations between the two states.
  
  
• Shardface - PC played by James
  A former spy who had sucessfully infiltrated the Cristofori Family, Shardface spent a brief while occupying the body of Selena Curiana after his former body died and is now riding around in one of the Crystal Vessels belonging to the Port of Glass Embassy in the White City. He sees his 'differently corporeal' status as a useful way to follow the ways of the Faceless Lord, as he does his habit of assuming the personality and name of the last person he spoke to.
  
  
• Bill McKenzie - PC played by James
  So it's like this. A little while ago one of the Port's assassins got uncovered through the actions of this party of adventurers, right? And of course the Embassy in the White City denied all knowledge but to soften the blow issued invitations to all the members of this party. Because some hungover clerk was under the impression that it was a party of nobles, and didn't notice that one of them was a frothing, psychopathic, semi-coherent Blood sorceror. Well, nothing to worry about, he's probably lost the invitation by now or eaten it or something.
  
  
• Commandante Iarendo D'Artois ­ NPC
  Having recently succeeded the previous Commandante D'Artois, who was killed in an action off the southern coast some months ago, Iarendo is a sturdy and bluff young man who believes in working hard and drinking harder. Military life seems to have suited the former dilettante, and he appears to be truly committed to the cause of stamping out piracy on the Southern Seas.
  
  
• Franc(i/e)s Dedlock, Majordomo - NPC
  This NPC can be a male Francis or a female Frances depending on who plays them.
  Dedlock, the stalwart, discreet and implacable Family servant of the D'Artoises, began as a wine-servant at the age of fourteen and has been serving the Ducal household ever since. Now approaching sixty, this incorruptible majordomo is as comfortable conversing with kings as with tradesmen, and while exercising perfect etiquette, possesses that slightly superior sneer of butlers the world over that suggests that everyone (except his lord and lady) is an equal, or perhaps a slight inferior.
  
  
• Jos Cormel, Merchant (originally from Crossroads) ­ NPC
  A minor name in the long-distance pony-cart industry, Cormel Trading would rather like to be a major name, thank you very much. Jos is new in the job of factor for the House in the Port of Glass, young, ambitious, and working very very hard.
  
  
• Inigo Roberts, Pirate Merchant Venturer ­ NPC
  Dashing, chivalrous, a blade, a card, the esprit of every soiree and the heat in every bedroom. Or at least, that's the reputation. Runs a surprisingly fast ship out of the Breathing Isles and has never been caught doing anything illegal.
  
  
• Doctor Miriam Eleusis, Visiting Scholar ­ NPC
  Miriam is a peripatetic pedagogue, a travelling teacher who gained her degree at the College of the Thousand Arts but performed most of her research in her birthplace, the City of Crossroads. She has since spent most of her time travelling, educating the poor (whether they want to be educated or not) and compiling research for her papers. Her areas of study are many, but her particular interests lie in theoretical magic and comparative theology.

As well as many other famous and notorious faces. There are rumours that some White City adventuring types will be attending, although nobody believes the ridiculous suggestion that Captain "Ripper" Bill McKenzie somehow got hold of an invitation.

Background
If you've not played in any of the White City LARPs before then it's probably worth a look at this background document (.rtf document) or at the page which gives you an introduction to the setting.
Violence, sorcery, poison etc. will not be tolerated at this event. Good examples of reasons to decide to settle things later include the several hundred members of the Broken Guard with crossbows lining the Palace walls and the presence of Lemuel D'Artois, who tolerates fuckery even less than your GMs do. Play nice.
Information about the Port of Glass:

• For those entering the Port by land there are three entrances, watched over and defended by human guards, Glass Sentinels and possibly other, stranger things.
  • The North Gate is where almost everybody comes into the Port by land. It is heavily checked, to avoid people smuggling stuff in and out of the City, but quite crowded.
  • The East Gate is usually kept locked and is heavily fortified, since people generally fear attack from the East.
  • The West Gate is usually kept locked and doesn’t get much use at all.
• The River Gate is where the barges travelling the Great River enter the Port, and is watched and checked as heavily as the North Gate.
• The Docks are crowded, dense and dangerous. A good place to go for information and a slit throat.
• The Avenue of Faiths is a kind of a religious shanty-town. Here anybody and everybody with a god or a cause or an ideology gathers like flies round a dead dog.
• The Bazaar is a bustling marketplace. Traders from all over flock to the bazaar, you can buy anything there. It is also the setting for regular executions.
• The House of the King in Fragments is the single biggest temple in the Port of Glass.
• Laughing Hill is where the big houses are and the rich folks live. It is said that the residents have regular “hunts” through a deranged artificial woodland known as The Glass Wood where a collection of synthetic trees and weird vegetation grows up through the cobblestones. Uncannily realistic statues of deer, men, birds and all manner of other creatures dot the treeline.
• The Plaza of Songs is where one finds ambassadorial residences and hospitality in general. Also the headquarters of the Broken Guard and the main prison in the city.
• D’Artois Mansion is the Ducal palace, rumoured to be built over something called "The Labyrinth of Selves".

Post-Event Debriefs
Because this game will hopefully become an element in a planned on-going plot sequence involving the Port of Glass and the politics of the D'Artois Family, many of the NPCs you will all be bringing to life may recur in later games. It is therefore crucially important that if any of them learns something significant or tells any of their secrets to anyone else, the organisers will need to know about it as such things may well materially affect later plots.
To that end they would be grateful if anyone playing an NPC (player characters, obviously, do not need to do this) could return a debrief sheet to them at event@flrp.anang.com detailing their memory of the evening, any salient events, perceptions, and most importantly, salacious gossip and rumour that they recall. They would also be interested in hearing about any acts that people felt were candidates for XP bonuses.

Travel:
By coach: Coaches from various parts of the country stop at the Gloucester Green coach station, which is a ten minute walk from the venue. In particular, there are 24-hour coach services between Oxford and London which stop at the Gloucester Green coach station and also on Oxford High Street, five minutes' walk from the venue; People travelling from London may want to look at details of the Oxford Espress and Oxford Tube coach services.
By train: Oxford railway station is a fifteen minute walk from the venue, for those who don't want to walk that far the number 5 bus runs from the railway station to Queen Street which is a few minutes' walk from the venue. Check the National Rail site for timetable information.
By car: Those coming by car are best off parking in the Westgate multi-storey carpark off Oxpens Road (a ten minute walk from the venue) or, if they don't want to brave Oxford's labyrinthine and confusing one-way system, in one of the Park-&-Ride carparks on the Oxford ring road and taking a Park-&-Ride bus in to the city centre. Pay-and-display parking is also available on Broad Street, St. Giles and Mansfield Road, but spaces can sometimes be hard to find and there may be time limits on how long vehicles can stay there. See the following website for general information on parking in Oxford.
It's also worth having a look at the maps page put up for CamarillaUK events by Chris V.

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