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31

Roleplaying / Re: The Mercantile Mongoose: The New Ledgers of Calculon Rizz

« Last post by JDodger on March 12, 2023, 02:24:04 AM »

Roleplay from Calculon Rizz Player experience level: mentor Player play preference: rp-combat
Message sent to all nobles of Sandalak (21 recipients) - 1 month, 3 hours, 21 minutes ago

A LITTLE OVER ONE WEEK AGO

Calculon does not remember much of the kraken attack off the coast of Rhic, not much but the great barnacled tentacles crashing down, crashing down again and again, and no matter where he ran, from starboard to port, bow to stern, dragging his chest of remaining counterfeit Eastern coins, the tentacles followed...

The ship has been ripped to ribbons around him, and as he kicks futilely against the undertow, one hand clutching the handle of the chest of cursed gold even as it drags him further and further down...

Then suddenly, they are all around him, the tentacles, suckered and clawed and barnacled and grasping, and he has no choice.

He releases his grip, the chest drops into the black and briny depths, and the natural buoyancy of his big round head shoots him toward the surface...

It is a giant warrior who saves Calculon's life, one he knows well, one bound to him by fate and blood both, but it is no act for an action scene. There is no great broadsword a-chopping at massive tentacles. The gold has gone to the depths. The kraken has lost interest in Calculon and now snacks on the remains of his dead guards and sailors. Calculon is shooting to the surface, buoyed by his big round head, and the half-Toren giant Bo Dodger baits a bit of bluefin, casts, and catches Calculon by his corncob hair, quite by coincidence.

He reels in his funny former financial advisor and quickly realizes that the poor fellow has surfaced too swiftly. Tossing Calculon's senseless form over his shoulder, Bo breaks out in a run, heading for the healer's hut.

32

Roleplaying / Re: The Mercantile Mongoose: The New Ledgers of Calculon Rizz

« Last post by JDodger on March 12, 2023, 02:18:56 AM »

Roleplay from Calculon Rizz Player experience level: mentor Player play preference: rp-combat
Message sent to all nobles of Sandalak (22 recipients) - 1 month, 1 day, 22 hours, 58 minutes ago

Over the course of the next several weeks, Calculon had put into practice the plan put forth by the Bard.

The Printer, an old partner of Bard's, was brought in for the first part. Bits of bullion were beaten into indistinguishable, unrecognizable tender - unrecognizable to all but themselves, of course - counterfeit Caligan and Shadowdaler and Perleoni coins, even a couple runs of Sirionite stuff, all of it looking legit, and all of it cursed with the doom of death.

From there, they loaded Calculon's Sandie trading ship with chest after chest, going up and down the coast under a Perleoni flag, ship name Annabelle, registered to one Master-Captain Elvis McRickles (played by Calcy, to perfection of course.)

And they gave it away. Coin by coin, they filled the palms of the poorest and the most pathetic, toothless and grimy and lost souls wandering aimlessly along the docksides and thoroughfares, clueless for what to do but get high.

It was the coldest act of charity of all time - a mass subsidization of death.

For get high they did, those poor grimy clueless lost ones, got high off of the very worst crap in existence, and the coins began to move up the food chain even as its foundation dropped out.

The curse, it seemed, was a believer in seeking the path of least resistance. Most of the poor lost souls simply went and bought enough for an overdose to be a natural-enough outcome. Blue-skinned bodies started showing up in alleys and underways. There was concern about a bad batch.

Then the word began to spread, and more came. So they kept going.

The poor get poorer, the rich get richer. Coins circulate, coins go out of ciculation. Follow the money. This time, they already knew where the money was going - they just had to wait for it to get there, and hope that not too many of the wrong people died before it did.

Calculon wasn't waiting to see. As soon as most of the gold was gone, he and his remaining men - quite a few had gone AWOL for some reason - sacked a wealthy coastal farm for supplies and headed home.

As the Sandie trading ship sails off southward, Calculon cannot be blamed for not noticing the strange shimmering that seems to follow from their wake. He is too busy grousing about his financial losses and trying to push aside his concern over his still-missing brother.

The shimmering that his ship seems to cast forth grows as they tack a more direct route to South Island. Much like the coins, it is a ripple that will grow into a tidal wave to crash upon the East - but Calcy is heedless as always of the destruction he leaves in his wake, and he stares out into the blue horizon and curses his ill luck with money.

Of course, things can always get worse.

What Bard could not have known about, having never been to the South Island, was that there was another curse.

This particular curse did not care that the couple thousand remaining foreign coins onboard Calculon's ships were in fact counterfeits made of Southern gold.

The kraken attacked just off the coast of Rhic.

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Roleplaying / Re: The Mercantile Mongoose: The New Ledgers of Calculon Rizz

« Last post by JDodger on March 12, 2023, 02:17:57 AM »

Roleplay from Calculon Rizz Player experience level: mentor Player play preference: rp-combat
Message sent to all nobles of Sandalak (22 recipients) - 1 month, 2 days, 16 hours, 56 minutes ago

It takes a great deal of logic-work to figure out that there is, in fact, no way to profit from the Southern gold, and even longer to convince Calculon not to means-test with some of the ship's crew.

"After all," Bard finally reasoned, "If you give it to someone for the expressed purpose of their obtaining information for you, isn't that the same as hiring them?"

"...Indeed!" Calculon finally squeaks after much brow-scrunching consideration. "And to hire is to purchase labor! A spending! An expenditure!"

"Exactly," says Bard, lighting another spliff.

"But these... what did you call them?!"

"Mogweed junkies."

"Indeed...! But wait! Another thought!"

"Oh?"

"Is it not said that one spends in charity?"

"Oof. We might need one of your oarsmen for some 'means testing' after all."

The oarsman doesn't die, so they get to work, once Bard has convinced Calculon not to further investigate if the curse is real at all.

"Ten thousand gold!" Calculon wails. "Tetraxian had better pay me back!"

"Oops!" Calculon catches himself and covers his big mouth with both hands.

"Never mind! Charity! Yes! Brotherly love!"

34

Roleplaying / Re: The Mercantile Mongoose: The Ledgers of Calculon Rizz

« Last post by JDodger on March 03, 2023, 05:00:49 AM »

FOURISH SEASONS AGO

EAST CONTINENT - HAMADAN

ON A DARK AND STORMY  NIGHT

"Well!" Calculon squeaks. "What a dreadful cast of characters! I hope we don't meet this Florist fellow, or this great brute Teery, or any of those scary red-hooded assassins!"

Bard stares at him for long moments, relights the end of his spliff. "We kind of have to meet at least some of them, to get your brother back and all."

"Oh... well, of course!" Calculon sputters, biting his lip as the cogs of his brain start to turn. "But of course, at the same time, why meet them at all when we can defeat them ...asymmetrically!?"

Bard cocks an eyebrow, for the first time intrigued. "How so?"

"Well..! Remember your trick with the firework powder?!"

"Yes..."

"And remember how you told me about how South Island gold is all..."

"Cursed, yes, curse of death..."

"Well," Calculon says, a smile starting to grow on his big round face, "Who can resist free money?!"

Bard looks off to the side, blows out a scraggly cloud of smoke, and slowly nods. "Let the coin circulate. You're a sick bastard, Calculon Rizz. It's a !@#$ed-up plan... but I think I know how to make it work."

35

Roleplaying / Re: The Mercantile Mongoose: The Ledgers of Calculon Rizz

« Last post by JDodger on March 03, 2023, 04:57:23 AM »

FOURISH SEASONS AGO

EAST CONTINENT - HAMADAN

ON A DARK AND STORMY  NIGHT

"There's something else we need to discuss," Bard says as he lights another spliff.

"Oh?! What's that?!" Calculon had been just about to shake hands and take his leave, which he is sure will relieve the phantom pressure of the crossbow beneath the table.

"It's your brother, Tetraxian."

"Oh?! How is old Tetrax?! He always was my favorite non-twin brother!"

"Well, he's been kidnapped."

"What?! Kidnapped?! Tetrax?! Who would dare?!" Calculon shoots up from the table. "We must go to rescue him at once! Yes! Out the door, all of us, now!"

"Not so fast," says Bard, motioning Calculon to retake his seat. "You asked who, right? A good question, among several others. Like how, like why. Like where is he now."

"...Yes!" Calculon concedes reluctantly, sinking down into his seat with his hands in his lap. "So! I assume you have the answers?"

"For all but the last," Bard says. He sighs, he smokes, he leans back in his threadbare throne, and he sings Calculon a song...

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Roleplaying / Re: The Mercantile Mongoose: The Ledgers of Calculon Rizz

« Last post by JDodger on March 03, 2023, 04:55:54 AM »

FOURISH SEASONS AGO

EAST CONTINENT - PARTORA NEW INTEL SUGGESTS HAMADAN

ON A DARK AND STORMY  NIGHT

"So you want me to launder ten thousand weight of gold bullion?" Bard's spliff has smoked down to about half now, and smolders comfortably between his hard-set lips.

"Exactly!" Calculon has eaten, drank the scary man's funny tasting coffee, and started to relax. Business as usual! he thinks, and he hums a merry tune as he nurses a morsel of meat from between the well-picked ribs of a demolished fish.

"Well, there's a problem." the Bard says, his eyes quietly burning into Calculon's as the smoky leaf burns in his mouth.

Calculon's face falls. "Please don't shoo..."

Bard silences him with a sharp glare. "Problem is, your gold's cursed."

"Cursed?!?!" Calculon flies up from his chair, hands spasmodically grasping at his wispy golden tufts of thinning corncob hair. "How can money, glorious money, hard currency, bullion, be CURSED?!?!"

"South Island gold is all cursed," Bard states flatly. "You should have waited for a reply before loading ten thousand weight on a damned ship and sailing up here."

Calculon stares at him in shock and horror. "Cursed how?" ​​​​​he asks.

"Curse of death," says Bard, raising an apologetic-yet-chiding eyebrow at Calculon. "Spend it on another continent, you die. Fast."

Calculon collapses back into his chair, sinks his face into his upstretched, supplicating hands.

​​"I'M BROKE!" he sobs.

37

Roleplaying / Re: The Mercantile Mongoose: The Ledgers of Calculon Rizz

« Last post by JDodger on March 03, 2023, 04:54:18 AM »

FOURISH SEASONS AGO

EAST CONTINENT - PARTORA

ON A DARK AND STORMY  NIGHT

The night wind along the scarp is bitter sharp, and a few shadowy figures shudder their ways down the water's edge along the seawall to a particular inn, no more than a shack thrown up along the dockside really, and quiet for such a spot. Inside, a lone candle burns dull against a dirty window, and the door creaks as the first man, the largest, throws it open and peers inside.

"Just him, Boss," he says, breath foggy and damp along the edge of the candlelight, and he holds the door open as a far shorter and slighter figure slides in, followed by the others.

The Boss he addresses is cloaked and hooded in sable ermine, and shivers a great deal less as they step inside the frigid and mostly-empty common room. A long bar lines an interior wall, a few dingy tables and chairs are strewn about, but not a drop or crumb to be found on any but the one in the far back corner, the one that stands vanguard for a wrap-around seat that, while tattered, appears quite comfortable, by the thickness of the cushions and the foggy-breathed but quite relaxed figure that sits thereupon.

He, too, is clad in sable, but his cloak is worn and patchy. He flips up an eye patch to reveal a more-or-less normal-looking eye beneath, and the candlelight plays along a scarred and weathered face, a hawkish nose and a dyed-black beard, but it seems to reflect even more dully from the dark eyes than the dirty windows, those steady-gazing eyes behind which burn a far fiercer fire than the candle can hope to contest.

The slight one stands before the table, upon which sit but two cups and two plates of cold but well-dressed fish - his guards will have to wait for supper, it seems. He shivers, crosses his arms and speaks first. "You are the Bard?" he inquires with a hushed but shrill nervousness.

The Bard, otherwise still upon his threadbare throne, holds up his hands, scarred palms outward. "And you are?" he asks quietly.

The slight one shivers - no, bristles, his shoulders hunching up not from cold, but in indignant annoyance. "And I am?!" he squeaks wrathfully. "I?! Me?! Well, I'm... I'm Calculon! The one who sent you the letter!"

"Oh," says the Bard drily, scrunching his eyebrows and looking down to pull a long... thing, like... something wrapped in a leaf. Seemingly conjuring flame from his fingers, he sets one end on fire and places the other in his mouth. Great clouds of smoke begin to billow forth, which sets Calculon to hacking.

"Oh?!!? Oh?! Put that out, oh!!" Calculon squeals, covering his face. "Gross! Smoking!"

"The Mercantile Mongoose," the Bard replies with a wry grin. "I didn't expect you to be such a sensitive little fellow."

"Sensitive!!?" Calculon wheezes, his hand going from his face to the sword-hilt hidden under his cloak. The bulkier figures behind him begin to rise from their various dingy chairs, but an upraised finger from the Bard makes them pause.

Spliff between his teeth, Bard takes a long sip and exhales. From the right side of his mouth, he growls, "Look under the table."

One of the guards has a better angle than Calculon, and lets out a quiet "!@#$."

Calculon, wide-eyed, bends nearly in half and looks.

A miniature crossbow, fixed to the underside of the table, pointed right at a place you'd rather not be shot, and the Bard's finger deftly wrapped around the trigger.

He shoots up straight and smiles widely, big teeth shining out from his big round head.

"So, Mister Bard! Shall we talk business?!?!"

38

Roleplaying / Re: The Mercantile Mongoose: The Ledgers of Calculon Rizz

« Last post by JDodger on March 03, 2023, 04:49:27 AM »

Letter from Calculon Rizz
Message sent to all nobles of Sandalak (22 recipients) - 1 month, 1 day, 11 hours, 4 minutes ago

Calculon's STUFF TO DO!!! list

1. Buy coffee ✔️
2. Get to Sandy City
3. Write thank you notes to Asher and Nix
4. Sue Chancellor Three
5. Recruit archers

6. Buy better coffee

Calculon Rizz
Noble of Sandalak

39

Roleplaying / The Mercantile Mongoose: The New Ledgers of Calculon Rizz

« Last post by JDodger on March 03, 2023, 04:48:35 AM »

Letter from Calculon Rizz
Message sent to all nobles of Sandalak (22 recipients) - 30 days, 6 hours, 24 minutes ago

Dearest Senator Nix, my friend, and also-dearest Governor-Hammer Asher, also my friend!

Hi! It's me, Calcy! How have you been?! I have been great!! OK! Polite catching up done! On to business!

This letter is to inform you that you are in breach of copyright! My copyright! Yes! The right of the Merchant of Might, the Mercantile Mongoose! The Conqueror of Commerce! Me! Calculon Rizz!

You stand hereby accused of a bold and boisterous breach of aforesaid inalienable commercial right, the right of copy! My legal beagles will be at your doorsteps shortly! With big writs and big sh'...! I told you all about them before! Their bark is wor  bite is worse than their barks, their poo is worse than their chew! And they're coming for you!

The Original War Incorporated is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CalcCorp! We mothballed it when I decided to sail off into the sunset for a while!

So! What are you doing calling yourselves the ORIGINAL War Incorporated!?!?!

Calcy's back and feeling LITIGIOUS!!!

Calculon Rizz
Noble of Sandalak

40

Roleplaying / Re: A Dance in Castle Ubent 2: The Clink of the Coins

« Last post by JDodger on March 03, 2023, 04:39:22 AM »

Red Hood 1: Get him now,
.                      Before the militia comes.