Two weeks and a day to the Acaeum dinner . . . .

I have five definites for the Friday morning game:  Blackmoor, Invincible Overlord, Prufrock, Rabbit_67 and stratochamp.  Both Blackmoor and Rabbit_67 have sons in attendance, but I'll leave spaces open for regular members first, if anyone else PMs me.  (There's at least one other maybe I know of, who won't be certain until we get to Indy.)  There are eight characters to choose from, and I think we need at least six to have any possibility of success.

Rules are pretty much 1E AD&D, Player's Handbook and DMG.  No Unearthed Arcana.  Beasties, however, need not be from the MMs, or even anything you've ever heard of.  

The list of available characters follows.  If you're in, please PM me your first, second and third choices, along with your e-mail address (if I don't already have it).  I will send character sheets well enough in advance so you'll have a chance to familiarize yourself with your character.  As you will see, I do modify the rules here somewhat -- e.g., no level limits for demi-humans, and humans can multiclass.  Magic items will be included on the sheets (as well as spells, for the casters), and will be right out of the DMG, to keep things easy.

Your choices are:

12th level Human ranger
12th level Dwarf fighter
14th level Human thief
12th level Human magic-user
10th/11th level Human fighter/magic-user
10th/10th level Elf ranger/cleric
10th/10th level Human fighter/cleric
12th level Human fighter

The next background installment will be posted in a few days or so.

You all follow the Grandmaster into the prince's tent.

The space within the tent is large, approximately 40 feet square, and furnished lushly.  Crystal lanterns hang, shedding a soft light on plush couches, tables with fruit and goblets of wine and liquors, and a great, canopied bed.

On the floor lie the bodies of three guardsmen, each in a pool of blood, their heads missing.  The body of the prince lies sprawled on the bed, blood soaking the fine blankets, his head missing as well.

"A page found the prince and his personal guard so about an hour ago," says the Grandmaster.  "There were five guardsmen outside the tent.  They saw no one enter or leave, and heard nothing.

"Perhaps I need not say it, but I have a problem.  I have here a murdered member of the imperial family, and without his head, he can neither be raised nor resurrected.  I need to find out who killed him, and recover his head, all before the imperial regent arrives to question how this happened under my nose.

"So I've called each of you here.  You may wonder how this concerns you.  I could appeal to your sense of justice.  While the good prince certainly had his . . . faults . . . he didn't deserve to be slaughtered so in his bedclothes.  But perhaps a call to justice isn't enough?

"The imperial regent will arrive soon.  His name is Inqadarus N'dor.  You may have heard of him.  He is a powerful man, head of a faction of Great Families that bemoan the decay of the Empire.  They would see Orrodon the Capital restored to its rightful place.  They particularly despise these Western Provinces, and their treasonous insistence on more and more independence.

"Now that the rebellion in Sanadoria has been quelled, the Empire has twelve legions, with nothing to do, no lands to conquer, no plunder to take . . . .

"Make no mistake.  Inqadarus will use this murder as an excuse.  He will blame the anarchy of the Western Provinces.  So he will order those legions here, to bring his sense of order at the point of a lance.

"You have grown accustomed to the Emperor's inattention.  Have you seen what twelve legions can do?  I have.  I don't believe you wish to find out.

"So solving this murder is just as much in your interest as it is in mine.

"Why did I call all of you here?  Together, you represent the major powers of the Western Provinces.  As I said, Inqadarus will blame the West for this treachery.  He will have no reason to believe so.  But . . . that doesn't necessarily mean he would be entirely wrong.  I don't know who killed the prince.  But whoever did it was very good, and likely had powerful allies.  Though I can prove nothing . . . one of you may very well already know exactly what transpired here.  And so, I can't trust any one of you alone.  But conspiracies are only successful if few know, and thus I am confident that not all of you are involved.  So I can trust you as a group.

"That's all I know.  The crime scene is before you. Find the prince's murderer, and bring back both the murderer's head as well as the prince's . . . before the regent arrives."

With that, the Grandmaster sweeps out of the tent, leaving you alone.