Ben's warblings regarding how to kill a paranoid schizophrenic emperor

So, I'm putting up this section in order for us to begin to get some direction as to how we might approach this whole "penetrate an impenetrable fortress guarded by an entire country in arms and kill their beloved emperor, then escape alive" thing. Feel free to contribute anywhere, I'll start with my thoughts

--Edmiao 21:37, 29 January 2007 (MST) Any character who wants to prepare, research, investigate, whatever may do so before this friday in preparation for the The Jin Dynasty. you may ask questions as much as you want. you all have 3 weeks prep time in addition to whatever travel time it took you to get to Buech. In addition, in Buech you will be briefed by Uusam Military Intelligence.

Who

The who of this whole thing breaks down, fundamentally, into two components: Us and Them.
Us: Obviously, our group. But who else could we enlist? Are there freedom fighters or opposition members in huen rae, konn, or shin itself that might be able to help us get to the city, into shin in the first place, etc? Alternatively, do we have contacts that we could at least milk for information regarding some of the other sections?
Them: 1.) The Emperor: duh. nevertheless, I think there are some things we need to consider here, in order to maintain our "gamers overanticipate" rep. First off, I don't think that we should assume that the Emperor is target #1 until we have hard evidence to prove that this is the case. Obviously, he's the one we are being paid to kill, but I'm still curious whether he's really the problem. I mean, no one's seen him for years: could he be dead/a moron/totally insane and someone else is calling the shots? Alternatively, is the real threat some mondo-nasty general (ie Hannibal didn't rule carthage, but it was his defeat that ended the second punic war): if we kill his best officers, is shin defeat guaranteed?
2.) The enemy lineup: I think this breaks down into four categories: the general shin populace, soldiers, guards, and agents: I'd say that they also proceed in that order in terms of their direct nastiness, and in reverse order in terms of frequency. At the lower levels (soldiers, populace), they won't be looking for us and we have a chance of fooling them. At the higher levels, not so much. Furthermore, although I think we've got a good chance of taking a few of any of the levels in combat, the real danger of the top tiers (guards, agents) is that they can potentially call up an unlimited supply of the lower tiers (guards, soldiers, populace) to overwhelm us. I also expect that among the agents and/or guards, there will be a few that match or even outrank us in terms of sheer nastiness. Here, it is also worth considering if the emperor himself could be a total badass or just a schmuck. Things will be much easier in proportion to his schmuckiness.

Us

Roster

Let's list our characters and capabilities, since any reasonable strategy we invent will involve us:
Wei Feng, kindly doctor, proficient in poisons and the darker side of chi and acupuncture
ZhiZhi Qiu: a gypsy drummer with good connections in the underworld and a knowledge of the seedier side of life. Stands out like a sore thumb in polite company and is easily recognizable by dress, numerous tattoos, and a very strong Gypsy accent.
Viktor Kreikil: a mung master horseman. He can do acrobatic stunts on a horse that most men can't do on the ground. He fights he fights he fights. (Nate)
The Faceless: a legendary assassin for hire. Hired only by blind drop, none have ever seen his face except as the last thing their eyes ever witnessed.

What

Killin' the emperor. But if we want to get specific, it means locating the emperor (see "where"), entering shin undetected, entering his residence in a state of detection only large enough that we can defeat those who are alerted, killing the emperor, and then escaping (see "how")

When

To me, an important question is: how much time do we have? Shin hasn't made a move in a few years while it mobilizes its now considerable resources, but how soon is it going to make its move? Even then, the making of a move may actually make it easier to get inside shin. This mission drastically changes in terms of how much planning and training we can do, and how cautious we can be in our approach, depending on whether he has to be dead in a week, a month, a year, or any time in between there. This section is also largely dictated by our travel time, which I expect will take up a significant portion of whatever our alloted period is.

--Edmiao 21:31, 29 January 2007 (MST) You have 6 months to finish the mission. Based on Uusam estimates, Shin cannot martial enough naval forces to make a full landing in the south for at least 5 months. A worst case scenario, it would take at least one month over land or by sea to threaten the Uusam capital Wa Sin. Travel time overland, the longest conceivable route: from Buech thru Mae Dison, around Konn through Mung lands, down through Huen Rae entering Shin from the west through Jiang and to the capital in Shin Jin would take a solid 3 months ride with alternating mounts (two per person). Guess if you went into the Unpa Desert to the far west, it might be even longer.

Where

Presumably this breaks down as Shin -> Capital City -> Imperial Palace -> heavily guarded interior chamber(s). But again, I say we don't take it for granted. Do we know for certain where the emperor is? Does he always stay there? If he moves around, that would be almost too good to be true, cause I feel like we'd have a much better shot at him if he wasn't always in his impregnable fortress. But given that he's in the forbidden city, or whatever, who does go in and who goes out? Can we get maps/plans of shin/capital city/palace? What about sewers? Since a number of us are likely to be conspicuous in the extreme inside shin, are there "safehouses"/hiding places that we can define in advance between which we can move in our approach towards the emperor?

--Edmiao 21:35, 29 January 2007 (MST) I will tell you that Jason's character may have information regarding a possible secret tunnel into the Forbidden City (which is why he was recruited to the team). Cheesy? maybe, but come on, it would be impossible otherwise. It'll still be nearly impossible. No one has ever seen the emperor. Anyone with KS Shin 8- or KS 6 kindoms knows that the emperor never leaves the Forbidden city. Additional details are unknown unless you have greater KS.

--BenofZongo 02:08, 1 February 2007 (MST)How wide is the huang canyon? how deep? what is the arrangement of the guard posts (if any) on the shin side? Presumably, the only shin settlements shown are the largest ones: what is the density of known settlements in the different regions of shin? What is the setup of shin guard posts along other borders?

--Edmiao 10:58, 1 February 2007 (MST) Think the grand canyon. Huang Canyon has very steep sides, but there are some old paths that go down to the bottom and back up the other side. Unfortunately for you, these paths have been poorly maintained for the last 400 years since the completion of the Generation Bridge. Those with considerable climbing experience and appropriate gear could make the crossing in 4 or 5 days. Previously there were no watch towers or patrols along the canyon. Now both sides make periodic light patrols up and down the shore, consisting of a few riders passing by every 3 days or so. It is likely that these could be evaded with careful planning and if a spot with variouis nooks was chosen for the crossing.

--Edmiao 11:00, 1 February 2007 (MST) Ben, in edit to a prior email response: In the last 6 months, there has been rumor of large Grundle migrant worker movements from Grundle to the west towards Konn.

--Gdaze 2 February 2007 (MST) I know its late to add this, but have we thought about the Shin River or Huang Lake? I know we have a limited amount of time, but I see no reason why we must go over the Huang Canyon. Also I know the Shin River seems kinda... well like it would be well guarded, but it is a stright shot. At least for getting in anyway.

How

and therein, sayeth clive owen, lies the rub. Our plan will need to deal with each component above, and will need to probably address a number of contingencies (what those are will undoubtedly become clearer during session one). I'm going to break it down based on the "where" section for now: 1.) Getting into Shin: I think the basic question is obviously, where are we least likely to be detected? But this question consists both of where are the borders least guarded, and where will we fit in the best once we're across. Sneaking in: On land, a first guess would be Konn or Huen Rae for me, because I think these places won't be too happy with being conquered, and we would thus have a better chance of getting help or at least of not being informed upon. Furthermore, there would probably be more chaos in these places than in shin itself.
By water: could we boat our way into the interior of the country? They've got a big navy, but perhaps the crag have some salty pirates that could sneak us in for a considerable sum, or something. Alternatively, could we stow away on/hijack/imitate a Shin-ish ship and sneak in that way? The disadvantage here is that we'd have to let a bunch of people in on our secret, but the advantage might be that we could cover huge distances without risk of detection. Imitation: could we disguise ourselves as shin-folk and just meander through the countryside? I think this is extremely unlikely, but we don't need to discard it right away. Capture: We could allow ourselves to be captured as spies/smugglers (something innocuous would be good, so that they aren't super suspicious), let them carry us into the country, and then execute a daring escape. Very risky, especially if they don't take us farther into shin, but it might circumvent some problems. 2.) Traveling through Shin: I think this will actually be very difficult. Judging by real dictatorships, moving around a fascist country isn't something you can just DO. You need papers, or escorts, or whatever, and you need to do it according to pre-approved routes, etc. This means that we either need to sneak through to entire country, or we need to find a legitimate reason (such as a phenomenal disguise, or the captured option, above) to move through shin. Sneaking brings with it the problem of not getting food easily, finding good hiding spots, and having to travel very slowly and carefully. 3.) Cities/Capital city: Fundamentally, hiding in a city should be easy. Of course, anyone with an accent would have trouble ever opening their mouth, but, I would guess there would be lots of hiding spots. Then again, the capital city is likely to be crawling with guards and agents, so I think the main thing is that we would have to be very quick about things once we get to this point. 4.) The palace: If we make it this far, we're pretty much rockstars already. Likely skewered/tortured rockstars shortly, but hey. If we can't get plans to the place, we will need to extensively case the joint, probably with our sneakier members getting info on the inside (either by going in or by interrogating people who get to go in): once we make our move, we'll have to move lickety splits. Besides the fundamental problem of navigation, the fact that this whole place is built to protect the emperor will mean that wherever we go, we'll probably have to either ambush/trick/hide from somebody (again, unless we have some amazing navigation going on). If we can reach the emperor, we'll have to kill him FAST, because he's likely to be surrounded by hoards of doting followers who will all scream bloody murder when we bust in. After that, we face another considerable task in getting out of the fucking place.