How far will the Guild go?

[The13Fates]

Continuing with the rising tension of my campaign, my players have now been responsible for at least 3 buildings being demolished by explosives, 2 of these being in Malifaux City proper, one in the Quarantine Zone. So the Guild have pretty much set up military checkpoints everywhere to prevent further attacks and are putting a lot of resources into finding those responsible, by any means necessary.

How far is the Guild willing to go to maintain control over 'their' city?

How do you think other factions (Arcanists, Ressers, Thunders) will respond to these checkpoints and aggressive tactics?

[Kimberly]

What follows are my personal opinions!

 

Are these buildings of any importance to the Guild? Because then they may see this as an assault on the organization and I could imagine their grip trying to tighten more on the city.

 

As for opposing factions, I could easily see the factions being mad as hell about the destruction if none of it is related to them, because the Guild is probably wanting to put blame on one or more of those groups. Serial bombing buildings is likely to get the group in hot water with several groups, but I bet you can have those troubles make for some fun opportunities for the Fated. 

[The13Fates]

1 hour ago, Kimberly said:

Are these buildings of any importance to the Guild?

The Q-Zone building was a warehouse that a Resser group was stockpiling with... parts; the two other buildings were a Church and a Gentleman's Club (both unfortunately containing guild captains and guards at the time).

So not "important" structures but can definitely be seen as an attack to both Guild and Ressurectionist parties, as well as making the movements of 10T and Arcanists more difficult because of it.

[Amateur Contender]

I could  see the Guild taking the opportunity rally public support, whether they actually care about the buildings or not. If they were waiting for an excuse to go after an opposing faction, or to just gain more control under the guise of "being tough on crime", this will be it. I could see an inflammatory, rabble-rousing article being printed in the Tattler and/or a noticeable increase in Guard hostility towards the local populace or certain social-economic communities. Does the Guild know if the buildings were destroyed through magical or mechanical means? Will there be a rumors of people disappearing from their beds in the middle of the night accompanied by whispers of Criids' name?

If the Guild escalates into this obvious totalitarian style of government I very much doubt that the M&SU would stand idly by as (as far as I know) one of their strengths lies in public hatred towards the Guilds' overbearing presence. 

[Amateur Contender]

I just saw the bit about the Resser warehouse. Is that associated with any one Master? I'd imagine a Seamus-type would react differently than,say, a Molly-type.

[The13Fates]

34 minutes ago, 11Anthonyc said:

I just saw the bit about the Resser warehouse. Is that associated with any one Master? I'd imagine a Seamus-type would react differently than,say, a Molly-type.

The closest analog would be Nicodem, although as my general Malifaux knowledge is mainly Arcanists with a dip in 10T, I decided on "powerful NPC necromancer" rather than the Master himself.

[Amateur Contender]

I was told that Nicodem may have dedicated his necromancy towards pursuing immortality. Ressers on the whole have differing goals and philosophies that drive what they do. That being said, Necromancers really aren't tied to the traditional principles guiding the Guild or the Arcanists. Of course, this is all just how I interpret the lore!

[Timmir]

Yeah it's important to remember that Resurectionists, as a faction, are much more segregated then the other factions. Sure a few of them will come together to work on a common goal together. However, for the most part, they are all individuals who happen to all use necromancy in some way, and got lumped in the same group because of it. For this reason, blowing up the warehouse will likely only end up bringing the ire of the Resurectionists of those who are tied to it. Though, as mentioned before, how they will react to it will completely depend on who they are. Some may end up seeking the shadows to hide and wait for things to cool down. Others may end up deciding to try again after securing a new location. Then you have those who may just end up seeking bloody revenge on those who have so horribly thwarted their devious plans. Perhaps some combination of the three. Or maybe you can think of something much more clever then I listed here. 

 

As for the whole guild situation. Buildings being destroyed honestly wouldn't be completely unheard of given Kaeris and the Arcanists exist. So their reaction may very well depend on how well the PCs were able to cover their tracks. A thing to note that with these buildings being demolished as it were by explosives rather then fire, a skilled investigator might be able to figure out that it might not be the usual suspects involved in this after all. However, as mentioned above, they would definitely still use these disasters to their advantage with both hit pieces with the Tattler with interviews from the 'love ones' who were lost during these terrorist attacks. All the while looking for anyone who could of been involved in the case before deciding to just create a 'fall guy' for it.  Not to say they won't still investigate the crime and tighten their hold if someone rather important to one of the Guild's higher ups were involved in the explosion. It's just convenient to be able to get rid of some trouble maker and try to assure the public that they know what they are doing with a single stone. 

 

Of course this is just how I would interpret this going on and you should do whatever you feel is right for your own game. The Guild is definitely not an organization to be trifled with, and will make you lives a living hell if your not careful around them. I've even played with the idea that the Arcanists could use this as a reason to induct the players after saving them if the law ends up to close to their comfort. Though I am not sure if they would approve the destruction of civilian property or not. I think it would depend on how much it hurts the Guild itself and if any of their members were caught up in the explosion them selves.

 

Ehh... Just some thoughts I had.   

[solkan]

Yeah, if the players are going around blowing up buildings, I'd think that the Guild would be concerned with three things:

1.  Finding out who's doing that.

2.  Controlling the aftermath and counter-strikes

3.  Manipulating the situation in the Guild's favor

Because the old police/detective story narrative about what happens when someone attacks a gang stronghold would be that whatever it is that's going on, power balances are getting disrupted and that's going to put people into action either for payback or for opportunity.  It feels like that's more of what setting up checkpoints would be for--slowing down the retribution and power shifts, and trying to discourage the situation continuing.

The Guild does have limits.  One of the more dramatic (and resource conserving) things to do would be to get a lead on the people blowing up buildings, and feed that information to the people whose buildings were blown up.  And then send then in people to clean up the survivors.  Besides, Ten Thunders is known by us to have had agents in the Guild, the Guild information getting back to the Ten Thunders or other parties can happen for lots of reasons.

 

[The13Fates]

So far, brainstorming with suggestions written:

Guild Advantage

- Guild uses opportunity to rise public image of them. Interviews with loved ones, memorial services etc

- Begin propaganda campaign on a scapegoat, blaming Arcanist bombings, perhaps "unstable Soulstones" to be the cause.

- Can use more aggressive tactics in the form of "keeping the peace".

Guild Disadvantage

- Guild blamed for letting things escalate and endangering the public. "Why post guards if these atrocities still happen!?"

- Protests and riots in the streets (possibly pushed on by Arcanists or Thunders maybe?)

- Guild forced to take extreme measures, lowering public opinion further, to contain the situation, sparking Arcanist/Thunders members to step up as candidates for parliament.

 

Any other ideas/additions?

[solkan]

The other important thing to remember is that the Guild exists in Malifaux for a very specific purpose.  Everything the Guild does is supposed to support that purpose, but that's general enough that lots of people get away with side projects that are at best general support.  The previous Governor General probably let a lot of that get out of hand.

Blowing up a building in the quarantine zone may not actually cause to care, other than the appropriate people being detailed to watch to see if anything further develops.  Blowing up the buildings in the "occupied" areas of Malifaux City start becoming a threat to the mission.

Unless something really radically changed that I missed, the Guild doesn't care about public opinion in Malifaux beyond keeping the population there not a threat, and keeping soul stone production functioning.  As far as I know, there's no "parliament" involved.  It's a colony overseen by the Governor General.  In the Above the Law book, they set out the Guild hierarchy with its offices and commissions.  Stuff like the M&SU is sort of a working compromise--the miners cause less trouble if they feel like they have some say in what's going on.

So I want to say that this part:  "lowering public opinion further, to contain the situation, sparking Arcanist/Thunders members to step up as candidates for parliament" isn't a valid concern.  The Guild control of Malifaux city is a non-presentative military governorship, with "personal freedom" just what happens when you only have so much manpower and you need to let people lead some sort of normal life to get stuff done.  

I'm not sure where in the timeline you're setting your campaign.  But according to the M3E timeline, Malifaux City was under martial law from 1903 to 1904 and that eventually including rationing.  So if you're asking "How far can the Guild go?", that's how far they have gone in the past.

Total martial law.  Check points.  House to house searches.  There were riots and those siege trains in the stories for the war-game.

Earlier when I wrote that the Guild has limits, that's a matter of organization.  The Guild has to deal with a lot of different problems at the same time, so it usually can't or won't focus all of its resources on one specific problem.  But if the problem became big enough, and your story needed something big enough, there are probably Earth side military forces that could be brought in to combat a rebellion.

That's what the Arcanists or Ten Thunders would end up setting off if they tried to depose the Governor General, I think.  But that would be really, really expensive and no organization would want to go that far if they don't have to.