Mont Saint-Gabriyon Prison Break

Jota's plan for the upcoming prison break:

Preparation

• Spread rumors that counter-revolutionaries have seized the prison.
• Acquire some weapons and some fast horses.
• Make a note describing a counter-revolutionary plot at the other end of town to occur at midnight tomorrow. (Hopefully implicate the Earl of Hereford).
• Get Arvid arrested while carrying said note.
• Either avoid dinner with Hereford, or skip out good and early?
• Sneak weapons and lockpicks to Arvid.
• Arvid spreads weapons, information to other prisoners. Also, picks locks.
• Cat secretly tries to get Nicolette's help as a Porte sorcerer.
• Scope out potential spark-points for mob formation: taverns?

At midnight tomorrow

• Cat attempts to whip up mobs to riot, either against the prison or the revolutionary leaders.
• Gert and Hans lead mob of counter-counter-revolutionaries into prison.
• Cat shoots mirror and throws jar of flaming oil on prison roof.
• Gert and Hans knock out warden, take keys. Go to dungeon to release prisoners.
• Arvid coordinates prisoners to use Porte and swords to help out.
• In all the confusion, flee with Agathe on horses!

Inky's plan

This feels like it has a few too many moving parts and implausibilities to me (like, it seems hard to smuggle in weapons to a prisoner in the cells and keep them concealed for any length of time; it also seems hard to start rumors of a counter-revolutionary presence at the prison when people can just walk over and see there isn't any sign of one; it also seems like this is a little redundant with a rumor of a counter-revolutionary plot elsewhere in the city). Here's an (in my opinion) simpler version:

• Get somebody arrested on a minor charge, like drunk & disorderly, so they will be in prison but not watched too carefully
  • Smuggle in lockpicks to them later, and at midnight they break out and then start breaking out other prisoners (don't worry about weapons, since if the guards aren't caught by surprise the prisoners are going to lose anyway, and if it works they can seize the prison armory)
• Two of the remaining three bluff their way in at midnight, perhaps on the pretext that one of the prisoners has to be moved at the last minute, and start knocking heads
• If everything works, then we beat up the guards and get onto the transportation pulled up by the fourth person and escape

Couple other notes:

• We're not making good use of the party. Would it be helpful to take Chevalier as a hostage? Or get his signature on a piece of paper, which we would then use to forge an emergency pass to transport wossherface to another prison?
• We could still find an ex-guard and see if he knows anything about the prison
• Are we going to be able to charge out the front gates again? Do we need to bluff our way out instead? If so, what could we disguise ourselves as that would be allowed out the gate at night?
• In any case, it'd be good to arrange transportation in advance; there's no telling what horses will be available in the middle of the night.
• Do we need to do anything with Nicolette? We really need to talk to her again before we kick things off. (The party would be a good chance to do that, but it'd be cutting things pretty close.)

Also, if nothing else works, here is another plan:

• Shatter the mirrors from outside somehow
• Wait for the prison to erupt in confusion and the guards to call for someone brave to help
• Charge in, claiming that we "ain't afraid of no ghost"
• ???
• Giant marshmallow man appears, levels prison

Lucian's plan

I think what makes the most sense is for each of us to choose something to do and be in charge of that, trying to generally work with each other. Jota's all up on the counter-revolutionary diversion idea, so I say great, let's let Hans be in charge of that part of the plan, and if he need prep help with anything, he can recruit us for that. Inky's up for having Arvid be the inside man (as it were), so he can coordinate getting himself arrested and how he wants to get his lockpicks (keep them hidden on his person? Have someone toss 'em in a window? Whatever.) As for me, if Hans is going to be off-site, Gert should definitely be on-site for the break, in charge of busting heads and doors and mirrors (she can be point-woman on the ghost; she has the hand mirrors that might work).

Which leaves maga, and I'm happy having Cat in on anything he finds the most interesting--there are a couple obvious places to fit in here: a) escaping, and b) Nicolette/Chevalier. The Nicolette side-plot is clearly a GM's darling ;-) so whatever we plan to do, I'm sure that'll come up. At any rate, one option would be to have maga keep an eye on Chevalier/Nicolette during the dinner party, then pull a gun on Chevalier and force him to drive a closed carriage out of the city with the escapees in it after the break, relying on his reputation to get past the gate guards.

(Also, from #helvetica:

[Helvetica] lpsmith says, "Also, if this were a movie, it would cut back and forth between the jail break and the very formal dinner scene, with Cat desperately bored, but trying to keep Chevalier occupied the whole meal."

[Helvetica] maga says, "and concluding with a shrimp fork in his eyeball"

[Helvetica] lpsmith says, "I'm imagining one scene cut where we have a prisoner overwhelm a guard and takes his sword. The camera goes for a close-up of the sword being plunged downward at the prone guard... and we switch to a close-up of a fork plunging down with equal force into a slab of meat. The camera pulls back to reveal a fixed maniacal grin on Cat's face as she tries to keep from going insane by taking out her frustrations on her dinner."

Final Plan

• Dinner party; Arvid gets himself arrested
• Kidnap Chevalier; Arvid unlocks as many cells as he can.
• Tromp into the jail with Chevalier trussed up; claim to be arresting him.
• Doors swing open; chaos; release mirror ghost
• Let random prisoners go free; bundle whats-her-face into Chev's carriage
• Cat holds gun on Chev, forcing him to get us through the gates of the city.
• Outside the city we tie up Chev; cut the horses from the carriage; escape