World Smoke and Steal Worldbuilding and Planning

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World Smoke and Steal Worldbuilding and Planning

Vacyr

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Inner Sanctum Nobility
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WIP for RP with @A. Shadow Dweller

Location:
Kingdom of Arkon

Plot:
When word reaches the Spymaster of Arkon that secret plans that might spark war if fallen into the wrong hands have been stolen, they send their Royal Assassin Jocelyn after the thief. In order not to rouse suspicion, Jocelyn Byron, strikes an unlikely deal with Adrick and his crew of known smugglers through underworld channels. She gets to catch the suspect and they get a hefty purse for their cooperation and no questions asked. Little does she know, Adrick is the thief responsible.

Main Characters:
Jocelyn Byron - Royal assassin, orphan, adopted daughter of Thomas and Eloise Byron, real name Jocelyn Roy. Ten when Pentakot/Arkon war ended.
Adrick Yardent - Nostovic "Merchant" and underworld known smuggler. Fifteen when P/A war ended

Side Characters:
Yardent's crew:
  • Nevaro - first mate (gray/blue eyes, black beard
  • Olwyn - ship-wright (carpenter), cousin to Wyn
  • Wyn- navigator (red hair, hazel-green eyes), cousin to Olwyn
  • Kerina - boatswain (stores, rigging, anchor, sails working order); light honey brown eyes, brown hair cut short) Calls Jocelyn "JJ" for Just Jocelyn.
  • Idros - cook, brother of Drados, black hair peppered with white, braided beard
  • Drados - cook, brother of Idros, glass eye, black hair peppered with white, braided beard
  • Magdon - sailor
  • Stevren - sailor (dark curly hair,
  • O'Finnegan - sailor who played the Fiddle Off
  • Lucky - sailor
  • Calder - sailor who saw J in A's bed and spread rumors
Commorant's contacts:
  • Unknown benefactor
  • Old Gull
  • Lefty
Arkon:
  • Commander Thomas Byron - Jocelyn's adoptive father
  • Eloise Byron - Jocelyn's adoptive mother
  • Efraim Bonacorsi - King's spymaster
  • King?
  • Captain Loris - ARA Montague captain
  • Henri LaTrec - golden hair, honey eyes, sibling to Simone
  • Simone LaTrec - golden hair, honey eyes, sibling to Henri
  • Callum Roy - Jocelyns deceased father, Tails River Valley
Ports of importance:
Trena, Donsti, Pilova, and Port Silas (military presence)
-- unscheduled stop in Notneau
Initial meeting in Danum
Ilora is where Arkon capitol is
Volotev pass - where Henri said Jocelyn and him met

  • Adrick steals the valuable chest from ARA Montague
  • Danum is the port city the agent returned to after the theft so he could send word to Bonacorsi. Where Jocelyn started her investigation
  • Jocelyn convincing Adrick to ferry her around (Danum and Trena, she meets some of the crew) and agrees to have dinner with Captain and sleep on his couch
  • After a day of annoyance, Jocelyn reveals herself to not be noble blood and Adrick cools off/starts to enjoy her company. She meets Wyn, Kerina, and Nevaro.
  • Trena - Jocelyn finds Montague - gets logs and a bad mood from being called a murderer by Captain Loris. Returns to CdL and gets into a fight with Adrick (he's worried she's come home late and his middleman never showed up)
  • Between Trena and Donsti - storm, weather delays journey. Bonding experience. Adrick finds out Jocelyn is good for something other than money
  • Donsti - Jocelyn hears of Adrick's alter ego and a few others who could have been hired by the Old Gull who is responsible for Montague theft, Adrick learns from Lefty there is a Jocelyn Byron in polite society, the Commanders' orphaned daughter but it doesn't come into play until after the brawl.
  • Bar brawl? Adrick gets hurt, Jocelyn tends to him and more is revealed about her/him to each other like Jocelyn's orphaned past and Adrick connects the dots that she's the commander's daughter.
    • She reveals that its hard to talk about herself, growing up during the war, and she doesn't know if her handler will kill her if she doesn't get the mission done
    • Adrick almost asks her to stay on his ship because he's intrigued by her/wants her to be free from the squabble of kingdoms
    • Nevaro shouts at Adrick about Jocelyn and thinks Adrick is trying to sleep with her which Jocelyn overhears
  • Awkward day of avoiding each other while Adrick heals with magic salve
  • Inventory day where Adrick learns that her weakness is physical touch (which he'll exploit alongside verbal back and forth they have)
  • End of day three to Notenau, Kerina teaches Jocelyn to fire a gun and Adrick hijacks lesson as an excuse to make Jocelyn uncomfortable again
  • Day four, they reach Notenau
    • Jocelyn
    • Adrick opens the chest to find Bonacorsi's plans and discovers:
      • Record of Bonacorsi's plans and progress for starting a war with Pentakot
      • LD, sometimes D, assassinations (list of diplomats/politicians they've gone after)
      • Pentakot has weak replacements from his work that will fold when war strikes and their house of cards will fall
      • Bonacorsi was negotiating with kingdom on far side of the sea for their support in the coming weeks
      • Arkon King will be poisoned at the Peace Summit and Pentakot will be framed
      • Yew tree seal
    • Jocelyn arrives back at the ship and Adrick can tell something is worrying her. They have another sweet moment. Adrick hugs her, she says its nice, and Adrick tucks her into bed.
  • Next day, Calder catches Adrick with his shirt off leaning over Jocelyn in his bed, word slowly spreads around the ship they slept together.
    • Adrick shows Nevaro all the gold is present from Jocelyn and she's not looking to swindle them.
    • Later that day, word from Calder gets out and gets to Kerina which Nevaro overhears and Kerina doesn't buy Jocelyn's attempts at telling her nothing happened between her and the Captain.
    • Nevaro throws Adrick from quarterdeck in blind rage and tries to rally crew against the Captain/Jocelyn which doesn't work
    • Runs at Jocelyn who dodges expertly out of the way. Adrick, wounds having opened, stops Nevaro from killing one of them and issues a punishment of night watch until further notice
    • Later that day, Jocelyn checks up on Adrick.
      • She asks him what he meant about "having her under control" which turns into Adrick saying he can't control her trouble but he can control her through his flirtatious touches.
      • Riles her up and intends on leaving her with an almost-kiss to the lips saying he doesn't sleep with his benefactors but sees that she wanted the kiss and steps back to her. Finally, they have their passionate kiss
      • When questioned why he didn't walk away, Adrick tells her he didn't want to in a poetic way
      • Jocelyn reveals she isn't a good lair and is glad he didn't walk away and she is in fact Jocelyn Byron, daughter of Thomas (Arkon Commander) and Eloise, confirming what Lefty told Adrick in Donsti, and Jocelyn Roy daughter of a Huntsman from the Tails River Valley
      • Two discuss what to do about Nevaro now that they -have- done something wrong. Adrick brings up a Stone Oath (blood on stone, make oath, throw into sea as a promise)

  • Ideas for future:
    • ...
    • Bonacorsi's plans (later used to turn Jocelyn's reality on its head)
    • Port Silas:
      • She has her suspicions of him being the thief (which she denies) but when Adrick goes to meet the main guy, she's killed him and its all confirmed for her that Adrick is the thief (heart sinks)
      • Is Jocelyn captured and kept in the brig?
    • Nevaro either breaks the Stone Oath and sells out Jocelyn while in jail to Pentakot (successfully or unsuccessfully) or he keeps her identity of being a Byron a secret but doesn't for Lady Death
    • When Adrick finds out she is the assassin in the documents, he has a hard time figuring out just how much she lied to him about, claiming she didn't want a war while actively making it possible for the next one to kick off. Although he does believe her in the end but it causes some angst. But Jocelyn going into shock after learning about Bonacorsi's plan makes it pretty clear she didn't know what she was doing = more ammo for his hate for the crown.
As for the middle man, the twins tell her that she's right on his tail-- when the Montague showed up in Trena, he got spooked and ran instead of waiting for Adrick. He stopped in Donsti on the way to a more distant port where he is known to hide out, not Pilova or Port Silas, so Jocelyn has to make the tough call to go off course and add days to her journey, hoping that the Gull will give her the information on where to find the thief, or at the very least the intel.

In Donsti, I think it would be good to have a message sent to Adrick from the Gull informing him to just go directly to the top guy in Port Silas (where Jocelyn will kill the guy and catch Adrick).
In the meantime, when they go to the more remote port, this is when Jocelyn is informed that the Cormorant is the thief, and is also filled in on the instructions to meet in Port Silas. After she gets the info, she kills the middle man, given how Bonacorsi wanted to eliminate anyone involved.
 
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Name: Jocelyn Byron, formerly Jocelyn Roy

Alias: Lady Death

Age: 25

Hair: Deep chestnut

Eyes: Mostly an icy blue with a brown patch in the right iris

Physical Appearance: 5'6, lithe build that is tempting in the trappings of her gender and inconspicuous in the trappings of her trade

Scars: thin, three centimetre scar on back of left shoulder (stab wound); a collection of small scars on and around her left elbow (bite marks from attack dog); long, ropey scar starting at the dip of her waist and curving over her right hip to her back (narrowly avoided gutting from a sword); starburst scar on right shin (puncture from broken bone)

Language(s): Common, passable and fleeting knowledge of the local languages where she is assigned on missions to better blend in

Sexual Orientation: Straight



Weapons on her: At any given moment, at least two small daggers, and sharp hair pins that will do in a pinch

Weapons in her wheelhouse: Her common upbringing made her skill with a bow and traps, as well as lethal talent with knives. Her adoptive father trained her to use swords in various fighting styles, and her current profession has extended her knowledge significantly in throwing knives and darts, poisons, and generally honed her body into a weapon in and of itself

Magical Abilities: Unknown



Family: Her biological parents were killed in the last war against Pentakot, shortly after which she was adopted by Commander Thomas Byron and his wife Eloise.

Background: Born to a weaver and a woodsman in the village of South Bend, Jocelyn had a quiet early life with her parents. They were not wealthy by any means, but were rarely left wanting, kept paid and fed by her parents' efforts. From a young age, she was introduced to both her mother and father's trades, assisting her mother with spinning yarn and weaving, while accompanying her father into the surrounding forests, both gathering resources and hunting wild game. Of the two, Jocelyn found herself drawn to the woods more than anything, the rich air and quiet, the satisfying knowledge of where to find mushrooms and herbs, the awareness that she needed to engage during a hunt.



They led a peaceful life, and it was easy for Jocelyn to be oblivious about the goings on around the kingdom, the war and chaos that had not yet reached her village aside from the gossip and growing fear she would hear from her neighbours. The war was as real to her as a bedtime story. At least, until it made its very real presence known while on a hunt with her father.



A contingent of soldiers had been cutting through the land to join with a larger army. They had not moved delicately, not bothered to conceal their presence, and Jocelyn and her father had seen them coming long before the father and daughter could draw their attention. At the time, Jocelyn had been more displeased by their interrupted hunt than aware of why it was significant that the soldiers did not wear Arkon Blue, but she slipped away into the brush as her father instructed, kept low and silent as three soldiers approached.



What followed, both in the coming minutes and coming days are memories that Jocelyn can not easily access, both subconsciously and due to her intentional repression of what she had witnessed, what she herself had done. But there are glimpses that still haunt her: her father's blank stare up at the canopy of the forest, his life bleeding out of him from the slash at his throat; the mad dash she had made when shock had released its hold on her limbs long enough to go to her village only to find its charred remains; the days she had spent following her clumsy prey, observing the camps they set; the sound of men choking on their own blood; the blood that coated her hands as she knelt in the middle of the silent camp, utterly numb to what she had done.



By the time a heavy coat was being wrapped around her shoulders, Jocelyn had been too tired, too empty to object as she was led away from the small camp into a much larger one. She noted the blue uniforms, made herself sip the tea that a kind, wary eyed man gave her, asking for her name, her story. To his credit, the man was patient, fitting for someone of his rank, she would soon learn. Commander Byron watched over her personally, keeping her away from the curious eyes and whispers in his war camp before he sent her off to the capital, to his wife. The girl had seen enough of the war to last her a lifetime, what she needed now was peace, ease.



Eloise was at more of a loss than her husband when Jocelyn arrived with little more than the poorly fitting clothes of a soldier on her back and a blank face. She would write to Thomas, suggesting they send her to a temple or an orphanage that was better equipped to deal with the children orphaned by war, but the Commander was adamant. The connection was slow to form, but in the months that passed, there was a delicate kinship between the child and the lady, the older woman coaxing some words from the girl, getting preferences on clothes, sweets, music. By the time the war at last came to a close and the Commander returned, there was no question about Jocelyn remaining in their care.



She was raised privately, often away from the other children at court, if only to avoid the ridicule regarding her origins and her peculiar behaviour. Her upbringing was an odd continuation of what she'd had in South Bend, learning the gentle, feminine hobbies from her adoptive mother when she was not catching up on the education she had lacked in her forest village, while Thomas nurtured her appreciation for the outdoors, taking her riding, hiking, teaching her to swim, and eventually, teaching her how to fight.



He had been hesitant about it at first; in fact, Thomas had kept her well away from the royal barracks where he worked, away from the soldiers and the sound of clashing, sparring weapons. But Jocelyn had been drawn to it, watched the movement of the blades, the precise footwork practised in the training ring. When she was 15, Thomas at last asked if she would like to try.



It was like a missing piece finally being nudged into place. There was a certain fluidity, a meditative quality to training that cleared Jocelyn's mind, put it at peace. Working alongside Thomas and the soldiers under his command felt natural and slowly, finally, she began to feel like she fit.



But the life of a soldier would have been wasted on her, or at least that was the opinion of Efraim Bonacorsi. The king's spymaster had long been curious about the Commander's ward, had heard the stories of how she'd been found in a camp full of dead men, uninjured herself yet covered in blood. The girl was a little monster, a she-demon that Lady Eloise was parading around in fine clothes, a quiet pretty little thing that contained such capacity for death. And when it appeared the girl was not only skilled but impressionable, following the orders of the Commander without question, Bonacorsi coveted the loyal soldier for himself, though a soldier wasn't quite was he was looking for. What he wanted was a tool, a weapon, an assassin, and if there was anything that could be said about the spymaster, it was that he was very good at getting what he wanted.
 
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1714963598853.png AdrickYardent4.jpg
Name: Captain Adrick Yardent

Alias: Cormorant

Age: 30

Hair: Copper brown / auburn

Eyes: Jade

Physical Appearance: 5'10" (180cm) Slender, muscular. Scar on eyebrow that made the hair never grow back

Language(s): Common, the Depths Tongue

Sexual Orientation: Straight

Weapons on him: Damascus cutlass, hidden blade, flintlock pistols

Weapons available on his ship: Cutlasses, flintlock pistols, boarding axes, grappling hooks, black powder grenades, small cannons

Kingdom: Free people's of Nostovic (chain of islands)

Religion: High Sea Pantheon

Magical Abilities: Unknown

Family:
Father: Gideon Yardent (musician/teacher)
Mother: Lydia Yardent (retired cartographer and harbormaster)
Adrick hasn't been home in 4-4.5 years (when he became Captain)

Background: TBD

Ship Details:
Name: Clair de Lune (Moonlight)
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TBD

Nostovic
  • Free people's chain of islands, no monarchy
  • Speak plainly and honestly
  • Prideful and caring/protective of their own/people they love
Line for later:
"you made the fatal mistake of keeping me alive, assassin. I won't be so easily swayed from the things I want, and I've wanted you for a while now."
 
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