The Abduction of Shakesphere [IW]

[ericthered]

On a certain echo, William Shakespeare has reached the end of his life. He's in perfect health, but documents show he will soon catch a fever while drinking with friends, and died shortly afterwards, on April 23rd, 1616. A perfect candidate for importation to Homeline.

The PC's will be infinity agents assigned to extract Shakespeare without the locals noticing, and more importantly, to ensure that no independent actors take him for themselves. And independent actors will be there, hoping to influence the bard into working for their Patrons. All of them will be polite enough to try and convince him to work for them later, and all of them will try to maintain the historical narrative.

So I need a bunch of plots on how to extract Shakespeare. I have a few ideas. They include giving him a drug that makes it look like he's dead for a while, then infiltrating the mortuary and replacing the body. Another is replacing Shakespeare with an actor who will play the part of the bard until the time of death is nigh. And there may be a group whose plan is to steal him from whoever succeeds. But I could use more ideas.

Thoughts? Plots?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

giving him a drug that makes it look like he's dead while, then infiltrating the mortuary and replacing the body

The Bard will likely see parallels between this and his work on Romeo & Juliet. Bonus points for that. :)


One thing that could be done - since Shakespeare had the patronage of King James VII and I (of Scotland and England, respectively), somewhat inherited from Elizabeth's patronage - is to "invite" the Bard to the Royal Court to discuss background for a new play (there seems to be hints that Shakespeare and James discussed much when the former was working on MacBeth). The "King" he meets with would be an imposter.

Or, the party discovers that someone is planning the above. Using someone else's plot to pull off your own is classic. ("Of all the dirty, backstabbing, underhanded schemes ... now why didn't I think of that?")

[Daigoro]

Is it possible to find a Shakespeare from another timeline, where he isn't famous, and use the twin as the double? Look to The Comedy of Errors for more inspiration. Or following Twelfth Night, the time-twin is actually Wilhelmina Shakespeare.

[Mark Skarr]

The Stalwart Empress lands in the forest nearby. Under Alistair’s illusion spell, Todd drives the Battle Jitney into town, parking it near the Bard. Wells, telekinetically ties Shakespeare up while he sleeps. Alistair, Ana, Pinky and Todd sneak into the residence, while Wells keeps a look out to bring their target into the Battle Jitney. They'll explain the rescue, after it's accomplished--after all, it worked with Ana . . ..

Of course, all of their careful planning goes out the window when some Robo Mages jump in to abduct Shakespeare. Their plan is to sleep spell him, then, once asleep, shrink him and place him inside their abduction chambers (small, life-support equipped, sealed boxes in their chests) before jumping back to their central library.

The resulting firefight levels several buildings (TL9 weapons are dangerous) and the locals get to see the Battle Jitney high-tail it out of town as a panicked Shakespeare wonders what’s going on. But, at least the rest of the world thinks he was killed in the ensuing fire.

There’s a reason Infinity is one of the enemies in my Infinite Weirdos game . . ..

[ericthered]

I was mostly trying to minimize the craziness for this adventure... though it does open up the playing field quite a lot.

replacing him with an actual copy of Shakespeare is pretty good, as its likely to fool even other out-time actors. And I suppose that's who you're competing against: the original timeline will mostly accept any replacement just fine.

Getting him to travel to a place where you hold all the cards is a solid tactic: a single letter can send every other team scrabbling for gear and hidden cameras while you have everything set up perfectly. King James works well, though I suppose a few other friends and acquaintances will be just fine.

Sticking a radio tracker on the guy is likely to be really useful. Actually, most of them should be bugs as well. The only trick is this might be obvious enough that most teams will scour him and discard any devices. Or just rely on jamming. If you can get a transmitter swallowed without anyone noticing that would be very useful though. I suppose surveillance is a battle-ground unto itself. A radioactive isotope may be trackable as well, and much harder to jam.

I'm thinking of locals it would be useful to co-opt. The best ones are: the morgue, the doctor (*might not be an actual doctor), family members/ any servants (though this may be harder), and local law enforcement.

In the end, the switch has to be made. You can make it while he's alive, while he's "dead", or after someone else has grabbed him.