Renofox posts!
Thread shudders and begins to move!
Some time ago I made an all social skills character, and have been playing it as a kind of trader/conman character. I built a successful company, amassed wealth and had connections with powerful officials and a local bandit clan to keep the competition to minimum. Everything was running well, so I didn't know what to do with the character. Until I saw Abuth Feverlog...
Feverlog was a dwarven bard/inventor, who travelled around playing an instrument he had invented himself. He was terrible, and would have been better off as a beggar than a bard, playing his unbearably annoying little horn in the hopes that it would catch on. I was already planning to retire my character, so I decided to spend the rest of his time messing with the bard.
The peasants gathered around the dwarf were rapidly losing their patience at the starting note that seemed to go on forever, and seemed to be on the verge of either leaving or pelting him with rotten fruit. They noticed my arrival and waited for my reaction before going haywire themselves. Instead of condemning the dwarf, I just closed my eyes and smiled blissfully. I told my lackey that this music had the divine melodies so complex that only great philosophers had even contemplated their existence, and asked if he agreed. Being my boot-licking servant, he naturally agreed with everything I said. The peasants were confused, but since I was well-known as a brilliant man of high societies, the "emperors new clothes" effect started taking effect and the social climbers among the crowd started "hearing" the music as well. By the time the concert was over the crowd was cheering, his tip cup was full and he had been asked to appear at two private events.
For the next three days, I dragged my associates to see the bard with me. The more powerful ones agreed with me pretty noncommittally, while the ones with more to lose joined me in praising the dwarf. I invited all who agreed with me to join a private meeting and made exceptionally generous deals with them, all while keeping the discussion around the intricacies of Feverlogs music.
I was going to keep promoting him for a little longer, but a perfect opportunity just happened to fall into my lap. A local duke was getting married, and planning a grand ceremony with hundreds of guests. I pulled all the favors I could and spent a fortune on spies, bribes and mercenaries, but I managed to orchestrate the kidnapping of the future duchess! I didn't ransom the duke for money - I demanded that he invites Feverlog to play at his wedding, and pretends to like it.
As the day of the wedding drew close and the attempts at locating and rescuing the bride failed, the duke finally succumbed to my demands. The kidnapping had been kept secret, so when the wedding opened the appearance of Abuth Feverlog, now dressed like a nobleman and his crappy little horn remade with gold and jewels became as a surprise to everyone. Some of the guests already knew him thanks to me, and now that the duke himself had hired him they were all boasting about how they had known about him for a long time and how they had realized right away that he was destined for greatness. The show of course was absolutely awful, but with the duke himself applauding along with his new wife, everyone was soon applauding wildly out of sheer social pressure.
The word of Feverlog and his groudbreaking new instrument quickly traveled throughout the lands, and soon aspiring copycats and entire music schools formed around him. My adventurer never swung a sword or killed a dragon, but what he did was even more unlikely: He made a dwarven vuvuzela into a high-class instrument.
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Topic: Playerlogs from 2050 (Read 109740 times)