Play Report 32.1 — Some Ongoing Concerns

During what are looking to be some off-weeks for normal sessions, I’d like to cover some of the motion of the world in the campaign.

The Occult-Futurists at the Compass Rose:
As detailed in this report, the Occult-Futurists are trying to decipher the Compass Rose’s functions. A little more than the two weeks have passed, and Luisa has learned the spell Fire Form. She now understands the Magnetic North, True North, and Largest Open Flame arms. I roll to check if she understands the Rose’s use as a spell focus: a percentile roll of 60 on a 15% chance does not do it.
The remaining arms:
1 — Moon/Eldritch Darts
2 — Donkey Constellation/Implant Object
3 — Nearest Boat/Fiery Hands
4 — Buried Giant/Hammer of Doom
5 — Simurgh/Scented Wind
I roll a 2. This is one of the simpler ones, but relies on some specific cultural knowledge. I think it is within Luisa’s power to research but not know immediately, so I roll another d6: in three weeks time (2 weeks and a day from last session end) from the discovery of Fire Form, she will learn of the Donkey constellation, the spell Implant Object, and roll again with a 20% chance to understand the Compass Rose as a spell focus.

Matilde and Miss Marlowe:
A short follow up on this play report:
Miss Marlowe has returned to the crossroads and has used some of her resources to hire bodyguards. She is now accompanied at all times by nine mercenaries. I would like to write a post on mercenary companies at some point. Since she is suspicious of the Catagean Merchant-Industrialists, these mercenaries are from the Kingdoms of Law.
Matilde has successfully joined the bandits at the Lair of Driftwood. She goes by Alice among them.

Runalt:
Runalt is planning to send forth a new painting to create a new Nightmare Grove very soon. His last two being thwarted in rapid succession, he will send a Tomb Guardian to observe the next one. It will be in hex 0605: more isolated than the previous, but interestingly close to the Fire Cult Remnant and the Brother To The Stones.

The cats of the Spectre Protection and Manipulation Agency:
Almuund’s cult has had a foothold in the Thickets Collaboration for a while now, and I think that some official expansion of the business is in order. Almuund’s colleague Nougat is still suffering under a nightmare curse, but the care of Dr. Platt combined with bringing in notable artifacts to the Agency means that his position has been cemented as a valuable asset. Several new cats have arrived to provide assistance and work under their supervision, and Dr. Platt’s retainer fee is being put down as a company expense. The cat people are ingratiating themselves into the collaboration slowly — their profit driven outlook meshes poorly with many of the anarchists, but the novelty of their feline form to the humans, a genuine expertise on the dangers of hauntings, and the crafting of some market-based-freedom rhetoric has gotten them various in-roads socially.