Baalak on 27/11/2007 at 23:13

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No, you were right. I opened up Shipping and snuck up to the mail room. J. Rampone, staring me in the face. I have NO idea why I thought it was Robert, or where it came from. I've used it in my game already, so I don't think I'll be switching it, but, still, thanks for reminding me.

Ok, glad that that's over with. Anyway, yes, I cropped the mission down to Building A alone, and basically ignored the NPC's in Building B. As I'm running the game before the Metal Age, there are no mechanists in building B, and I guess N. Rampone has 12 more contracts. Hopefully I'll map Building B out sometime and let the PCs come back.

Anyway, here again is a quick overview of the changes:

J Rampone, the Vice President, is under my game, Robert Rampone. He's corrupt and blackmailed Lady Angelica when he discovered her smuggling the ingredients to drugs and poisons out of the building, and now works with her.

Angelica Jabril, not actual nobility by a long shot, is an alchemist and supplier of controlled substances to chemists and poisoners. She is working with Robert Rampone, unwillingly but the business has picked up, and has recently found out about Sven Mynell's eight legged secret. In exchange for her silence, she requested the venom sacks from the spiders, and the deal was to go down the night after the robbery.

Sven Mynell had managed to keep things quiet, and is very upset that Angelica found out about his secret ingredient. When his recipes are stolen from his safe, he will be likely to blame her, especially since he lost the key to it in his smoker. He's unsure whether or not he should report it, though, because it could let his secret out even more than it already is. He's very afraid he'll lose his business and reputation.

Cid Capezza isn't a mechanist in my game, but is an inventor specializing in optics, as I said before. He had many of his blueprints hidden in a secret safe in his workshop. Unfortunately, he sacrificed secrecy for security, and they were stolen by the PCs. Angelica and Robert had been complaining of the noise in his workshop, and there were threats of eviction if the problem wasn't solved, but Robert is on his back because he heeds basement access, and may stumble upon the trap door to Robert's secret room and start asking too many questions. He's likely to leave when he discovers the robery, and will likely blame Robert for it, somehow.

The PCs stole evidence of the smuggling and Robert's involvement from the secret room they found, and are planning on blackmailing the criminals. They figure that in exchange for not blowing the whistle, they can get Angelica and Rob to keep quiet about Mynell's steaks without blackmailing him, and then in turn make an offer to Mynell to get Angelica off his back in exchange for something.

The PC's are also planning on breaking into a high-scale Homeowners' Insurance company to steal insurance records. They figure that, if the insurance salesman needs to know what his clients own and how much it is all worth, knowing that information too would help them be better prepared to break in and steal said insured property. I'm just not sure that their plan is in the spirit of Thief... Then again, Garrett always did seem to have a map and know where the valuables were.

Any thoughts?

[RIGHT][INDENT]- Baalak called Insured.[/INDENT][/RIGHT]

Baalak on 28/11/2007 at 03:57

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A very good point, jtr7. I can involve them in the Mages plotline I'm working on that way. I'm looking forward to that. I also hope to have the PC's try to break Cutty out of Cragscleft and raid the Bonehoard at some point, but that's not for the inexperienced. Before I can get deeply into those ideas, though, I need to make sure they survive and flourish long enough for them to be able to have a chance at succeeding.

Answering your questions:

I figured that Mynell had been throwing the parts he didn't need down the garbage chute, which is probably what tipped Angelica off. I figured that spiders not being terribly bright, any males which survived long enough to mature would probably breed with their mother, and then be promptly eaten. For harvesting, I added some hooked polearms to the room's equipment, so a few people could insert them through the bars and fish the tiny spiders out. I also made the bars a lot tighter, so they couldn't escape.

The City has many people who are looking for ways to kill without all the mess of a blade, or to augment the killing power of a blade. I have an NPC who used to run an Ink-Making shop as a front for his murderer-for-hire business, when he was younger, but still makes and sells home brewed poisons (man of which also make good ink) to those who are in the know. He has a drop point in the information the PC's stole, and they could run into him if his supplies run out and Angelica doesn't have the spider venom she promised him, eheheh. Remember, unhappy wives need to get their poison somewhere!

Vennik Kilgor, in my game, has been requisitioned to make swords for the army in the Baron's war against Blackbrook, sells hammers to the ORder of the Hammer, and makes specialty items for nobility or whoever else can afford it. If you don't mind a bit if a wait, he can make you a downright excellent blade. I doubt the PC's will ever make sue of his services, though one did swipe a dagger from his showcase.

I'll keep the entire Rampone Dockside Shipping in mine when I figure out what's happening there in the next few days. If I took liberties the first time through, it will probably be even less recognizable the next time.


For next game, I need to figure out what the inside of an insurance firm would be like in the City. I think I'm envisioning it quite a lot like the upper parts of Shoalsgate Station- fancy interior, lots of lighting, protected room for the storage of sensitive information (the evidence room). Maybe I'll play through Framed to get a better idea of what I should be doing there.

You guys don't happen to know where I could find a website with floor plans for buildings, would you? I've searched google and come up pretty empty.

[RIGHT][INDENT]- Baalak called Spirited.[/INDENT][/RIGHT]

Baalak on 28/11/2007 at 04:43

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How come you find it so easily, and I spend days looking, and... That is so not fair! Heheh. Thanks, jtr7. I'll go over those and draw something up.

A slight side note which bothered me about Rampone Dockside Shipping. The only way into the suites was via the bay doors. The small doors were locked from the inside, with no way to unlock them. That must have been a real hassle for the tenants, especially since Cid Capezza's note in the office implies that the bay doors are still new. How did they get in before?! I put locks on the outside as well as in, and told the PC's the bay doors would draw all sorts of guard attention if they were used. Solved that quandary.

Thank you again, jtr7. I really appreciate your search. If I draw something on the computer, maybe I'll post it.

[RIGHT][INDENT]- Baalak called Busy.[/INDENT][/RIGHT]

Baalak on 3/12/2007 at 14:05

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The fruits of my labors are (http://www.aesirgames.com/thief/images/Insurance_First_Floor_1.pdf) thus:

The floor plan is very rough, the PDF is amateurish, and the program left a watermark, but hopefully this will open smoothly. The PC's are going to break into an insurance company to steal information about which items in a nobleman's manor are insured against theft. They're hoping that will provide what amounts to a loot list, and I can't see a reason not to let them pull this off.

I don't foresee an office building having much in the way of living security, merely locks and perhaps an alarm which may be beyond their ability to bypass. I figure that there should be some sort of locked 'vault' type place where the important records are stored, and they're probably not going to be able to get in at their current level of proficiency, but I will be kind (read: nudge them towards the adventure I want them to go on) and allow them to find a folder on the Rumford Manor tucked in a lazy clerk's desk.

Too bad I can't leave well enough alone and feel compelled to design all 3+1 floors for this building. Any idea what sorts of businesses might share an office building with an insurance firm? Anything which my thiefey friends might want to poke their noses into?

They're hoping that they can get in, copy the information they're looking for, and get out without leaving any evidence that they were there. If they can do that, I see no reason why they couldn't come back again and again to get more loot lists for their next assaults on the City Nobility.

[RIGHT][INDENT]- Baalak called Sneaky.[/INDENT][/RIGHT]

Baalak on 5/12/2007 at 20:26

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I should have seen that one coming! Hehe.

I'm thinking Lawyers, an Architect, a Printer, Accountants... Lots of good information for them to gather, but not much in the way of loot. I really hope they come back here more than once, now that I've finished the second floor. Viewable in pdf format (http://www.aesirgames.com/thief/images/Insurance_Second_Floor_1.pdf) here.

This building has gotten itself very large.

[RIGHT][INDENT]- Baalak called Carried Away.[/INDENT][/RIGHT]