Re auction:
A basic draft: Someone else, who wants to steal the book manages to get it
hidden in some furniture or something, that gets auctioned, and them buys
the furniture. Buyers can inspect the merchandise before the auction and
Synois, who has taken some pcs for protecting her money steals/replaces it
there, and then buys something else. A few days later the pcs witness a
shouting and shoving match between the buyer and the hider of the book.
If the furniture in question is a bed, there is a good reason to involve a
pcs in the sleight of the hand. After all you need to testlie in all the
available beds, to see if it is comfortable for 2 people in a number of
positions.
There might be actual thiefs or people who look like them, so the players
will not immediatly smell rat, because the auction is played out.
I'll need to come up with a good hiding place in the bed and with what
stuff Synois carries around with her, or has the pcs help her carry
around. And with some other beds to describe.
Re: death in the arena.
New idea. The convict will be on a long chain or rope in the "bedroom", so
he can move a bit. Or maybe it is a cage and he is otherwise from climbing
out.
Every hit by any Ingrun on the still living convict will
be rewarded, though the earlier it happens, the more it counts. A hit only
counts if the Ingrun climbs out of the bedroom fast enough (then she/he
can start again from square one).
So the optimized action for the Ingruns is to drop in, make a fast light
hit and start again. They will get swords (or propably some sort of spiked
clubs) that are optimized for drawing blood, while doing little damage.
There is also an other open thread that is propably good for a B story
somehow.
What happens to Minucia? She is very recently widdowed (the flamen
candidate) and given when she had been introduced she had the opposite of
sanctity with the pcs, i let that run as running gag a bit, giving her the
reputation "had her husband killed and got away with it". The family of
her deceased husband and her own family will both not be too keen patrias
potestas over her and rather pass that hot potato. Especially because with
that reputation she has little value on the marriage market for the time
being.
She will get exactly as much from the inheritage, that it does not cause a
scandal, including the house (the murder happened there, so it's not too
good sell anyway, because of the fear of ghosts) and some of the slaves,
because it is too much bother to sell them.
That will include her maid, which is interesting, because she and her maid
are not really on good terms. The maid had done a good job on reporting
what she had done to her husband, and enjoyed this position of power over
someone above her greatly. Minucia is generally nice to slaves so she will
sell her to a good household, where she gets an equal job also as maid to
a similiar reputable female noble and lets her keep any money she has
already earned toward bying her freedom and such. It just will be that she
no longer be the watchdog of her mistress, after all Minucia will not want
to inflict that on anybody, so the maid greatly resent the change and can
come back in some sort of revange intrigue later.
An other candidate could be her husbands secretary. Minucia had financed
her not approved activities out of her jewelry box, and in her husbands
opinion jewelry is a female thing, and he just has a husbandly duty to
provide some new regulary. While the secretary has not apeared much on
screen, so i could still change things, i have seen him as being more
practical versed in financial matters and shrewed then his master, so he
likely noticed some odd changed in the mistresses overall jewelry wealth,
but has seen no reason to report it.
Now he figures being owned by Minucia is likely better then any of her
inlaws, of an unkown new owner, so he'll start manipulate things to get
there. If i find nothing better, he convinces someone, that it is better
if he acts as agent of Minucia in the inheritage negotiations, rather then
someone, who really is look after her interests, but that will make it
neccessary that he is assigned to her household from the start and then
accept a bribe for that. Then he makes sure his new mistress gets a good
deal.
What can Minucia do to keep money coming in. I guess it is unrealistic
that she inherits anything moneymaking, other then the taberna (small
shop) that is usually outside a villa. She generally is smart but lacks
practical education and experience and she is shy and lacks self esteem.
She does have a few allies among other noble Roman ladies and few enemies,
barely being a threat to anyone.
I could see a setup though, where she rents out her secretary and her
prestiguous address to some merchant, who has not yet a representative in
Rome. The secretary will do all the public work, him being male and
civilized (he's a Greek), so that will not cause any scandal. Her contacts
to roman upper class women can occasionally be used, as can her contacts
to gladiatoral problem solvers.
One mans groundfloor is an other mans earthmissle
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Johannes Trimmel
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