Carnelian Conspiracies

Carnelian Conspiracies
Category	Story Event
Type	Story
Linked to	Port Carnelian
Data ID	175552

Carnelian Conspiracies is a Sunless Sea Story Event.

Trigger conditions

Carnelian Conspiracies is triggered when you do the Find out what your spies need or Fulfil your spies' needs actions in Port Carnelian.

Story description

"Your Network needs something, to prosper. What is it?"

Game note: If you provide this successfully, your Network level may increase.

Interactions

Actions	Requirements	Effects	Notes
A Diplomatic Agent Port Carnelian is choked with spies. Bewildered Surface spies. Earnest spies from London. Elegant spies from the Khanate. Splendid spies from the Presbyterate. But there's always room for a small one.	Veils challenge (333 for 100%) 1 x Networks: A Diplomatic Agent Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 1 and ≤ 30	Failed event
		No word When you next call on your agent, you find her apartments cold and empty. A lamp has been knocked over. The floor is scuffed. -1 x Networks: A Diplomatic Agent +1 x Menaces: Khaganian Suspicion +1 x Menaces: Suspicion Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
		Successful event
		On a platter Your agent's opening gambit is to find, chart, and usurp an existing network. It belonged to a Surface spy, and agent of Russia. His interrogation was tedious, padded with tales of a damp Saint Petersburg childhood. -1 x Networks: A Diplomatic Agent +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian +1 x Vision of the Surface Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
		Rare successful event (20%)
		Old enemies Your agent sets two entrenched networks against each other, then takes advantage of their furtive struggle to set up shop. She observes their conflict with professional interest, sending back detailed reports. -1 x Networks: A Diplomatic Agent +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian +2 x Moves in the Great Game Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
Echoes Money buys secrets.	Veils challenge (333 for 100%) Networks: Port Carnelian * 50 x Echo Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 31 and ≤ 50	Failed event	Action requirements and outcomes depend on your Networks: Port Carnelian and Networks: Khan's Heart level.
		Bait The lead was too good to be true. Your Echoes procure nothing but hearsay. Meanwhile, shrewd eyes watch from dark windows. -Networks: Khan's Heart * 50 x Echo +1 x Menaces: Khaganian Suspicion +1 x Menaces: Suspicion Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
		Successful event
		A brisk trade Beneath the bustling arches of the Blue Emporium, merchants sell sapphires, porcelain and pickled puffballs. Your agents trade generous handfuls of coin, and receive secrets in exchange, or coded messages slipped into the goods. +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian +Networks: Port Carnelian * 50 x Echo Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
Insight One of your operatives is troubled. Her temper is short; a flaw in a spy. "My ears are full of thunder," she tells you, too loud. Her eyes have turned grey as rain clouds.	Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 21 and ≤ 30 The Gods of the Zee: Storm's Attention ≥ 1	You understand - your own sleep crackles with distant thunder She has suffered since finding a package of gouged Chelonate bones on her doorstep. A curse sent by a rival? You share a bottle of black wine and stories of your dreams. The spears of lightning. The voice of thunder. The prickling weight of the air before the first downpour. Afterwards, she sleeps, soundly. She wakes revivified. Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0 The Gods of the Zee: Storm's Attention = 0 +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian
An elucidation An asset - once forthcoming - has grown reticent.	7 x Tale of Terror!! Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 31 and ≤ 41	A cautionary tale You tell the asset - who perspires appropriately - of the bloody rites conducted in Storm's temple at Chelonate. How they are always looking for celebrants, willing or otherwise. The requirements are meagre: bones, to break. A voice, to scream. Your asset is eager to change the subject. Here come the secrets they owe you, gushing like spray from a cracked drainpipe. -7 x Tale of Terror!! +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
It just might work An embassy clerk has access to vital documents. Unfortunately, they are inconveniently moral: offended by bribery, impervious to blackmail. But you have a plan.	1 x Cask of Mushroom Wine 1 x Firkin of Prisoner's Honey 1 x Moves in the Great Game Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 41 and ≤ 45	Where malfeasance does not exist, it must be invented It is patient, precise work. Your agents inject the bottles in the clerk's wine-pantry with prisoner's honey. Week by week, they increment the dosage. His ability to distinguish the waking world from dreams begins to erode. One day, he does something while he's awake that he'd previously only have dared in dreams. Horrified, he tries to conceal his crime. You have him. -1 x Cask of Mushroom Wine -1 x Firkin of Prisoner's Honey -1 x Moves in the Great Game +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian +1 x Vital Intelligence Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
		Rare event (20%)
		Competition Unfortunately, your scheme is stymied by rival agencies. Spies buzz around the clerk (and his fabled filing cabinet) like zee-bats. You seek less well-marked territory. +1 x Menaces: Khaganian Suspicion +1 x Menaces: Suspicion Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
Bait! A rival agent besets your network. You need to draw them out.	2 x Secret Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 41 and ≤ 60	Hook, line, sinker No spy could resist these secrets and maintain a shred of professional respect. Your quarry betrays himself. Your agents pursue him into the fungal jungle. The matter ends with knives in the violet shadows, and blood on the stalks. -2 x Secret +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
		Rare event (20%)
		The Civet strikes! A Slender Factotum takes your bait. Is he your quarry? Your agents coop him up and conduct an improvised, but thorough, interrogation. He is a dupe! Meanwhile, your true target escapes with your secrets. He leaves behind a calling card stamped with a spotted, long-bodied cat. He couldn't be the legendary Civet - could he? -2 x Secret +1 x Supremacy: London Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
Your authority A rival spymaster proposes a meeting.	Hearts challenge (338 for 100%) Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 51 and ≤ 70	Failed event
		A failure to communicate You come together in a rowdy chop-house to haggle across tart wine and fatty plates of meat. Your counterpart is arrogant and aggressive. Before you've finished the second course, you know you'll be at war by pudding. +1 x Menaces: Khaganian Suspicion +1 x Menaces: Suspicion Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
		Successful event
		The upper hand You sit together at a pantomime. While the excitable audience roars at the stage, you and your counterpart make promises, trade lies, and draw boundaries. The negotiations are fierce, but when you shake hands on them you know you have the better deal. You part ways as the performance degenerates into slapstick. Cream pies begin to fly. +1 Moves in the Great Game +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
An addition to a tiger's library The Governor relies on a cadre of docile native tigers to act as intermediaries with their fellows. One of them has a weakness for pot-boilers.	1 x Romantic Literature Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 71 and ≤ 90	Miss Jenny's Diary The tiger is pleased. He asks you to read from one of the more explicit volumes. An hour later, he rumbles "One more chapter..." for the third time, lazily flexing his claws. -1 x Romantic Literature +1 x Terror +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
		Rare event (50%)
		Knowing your audience The tiger favours plummy heroines, stiff-moustached heroes, and the convoluted social obstacles that keep them apart. Will their yearning passions ever be consummated? You give him a copy of The Footman's Ghost. Its pages practically quiver with repression. The tiger purrs. -1 x Romantic Literature +1 x Networks: Port Carnelian Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0
Sate a fervence The Khanate's unofficial representative in Port Carnelian does not speak of his religion. According to this report, though, he reveres Judgements' Eggs. They sell them (reluctantly) in Irem and the Iron Republic.	1 x Judgements' Egg Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 91 and ≤ 100	The gods of the gods You show him the Egg, and not even a lifetime of lies can conceal his desire. He values his faith above his Khan. You squeeze him dry, extracting secrets the White-and-Golds have killed to keep. When you leave him, you advise him to look after his new egg. The Dawn Machine is searching for them. -1 x Judgements' Egg +1 x Strategic Information +3 Moves in the Great Game +3 x Networks: Port Carnelian Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0	Game note: This will increase your Network substantially, although not past 7.
An offering to the Banded Prince He dwells in a jungle ruin: an anachronism; a curiosity. His position is romantic, but titular. Or is it?	Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian ≥ 91 and ≤ 100 1 x Searing Enigma	Burning bright The Prince lounges in the arch of a high, glassless window. Kneeling, you recount the tale of how his forebears earned their title. His ears prick as you speak of a war behind mirrors. His eyes open when you mention the Satraps from across a smoking sea. He growls as you describe a battle against a legion of heart-takers, and tiger blood blackening a pebbled beach. You recite his full and original title: the Prince of the Smoking Shore and Duke of all the Isles, Archipelagos and Peninsulae that were once the Sovereignty of the Humbled Satraps. How the truth burns in him! His eyes blaze. Embers spark in his fur. You helpfully beat them out. It will be useful, having royalty in your debt. +3 x Networks: Port Carnelian -1 x Searing Enigma Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0 Triggers event: Port Carnelian	Game note: This will increase your Network substantially, although not past 7.
Seek another opportunity Perhaps you simply can't obtain what you need. Let the opportunity pass. Come back later.	Something Awaits You > 1	Times change Spies' desires are capricious and diverse. Networks - An Opportunity: Port Carnelian = 0 That's all for now	Game note: This will allow you to choose another mission when you come back - usually, but not always, a different one. It will cost Something Awaits You.