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Burden of the Emerald Empire (A Legend of the Five Rings Tale)

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Sirrocco said:
*Snip*
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Fair Enough.
Although Medinaat al-Salaam is the regional trading hub, even through sheer number of people coming there to trade it should raise the highest taxes of any city. I mean for starters it has 4 nations fighting over it do to its importance for merchants and economy.
But again, that only helps if we could hold the city against foreign aggression.

[X] In tiny squid we trust.
 
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Okay going to tally here, but...
Yeah can I get a few more votes? 3/2 isn't exactly solid for something like this.
Adhoc vote count started by gman391 on Mar 7, 2018 at 8:22 PM, finished with 24 posts and 5 votes.
  • [X] Keep the city but give the Pelmyrians, Senpet, Ivory Kingdoms, and the Yodotai a trading district each and open up trade.
    -[X] Try to sell our continued control of Medinaat al Salaam to the Ivory Kingdoms as Humanitarian duties and to restore order in the town offer exceptions to tariffs if need be to smooth it over.
    [X] In tiny squid we trust.
    -[X] Add Governing the City to the duties of the Dragon (They are already weird and could use the extra revenue stream)
    [x] Plan Carve Out
    -[x] We tell the representatives from the Senpet, the Ivory Kingdoms, and the Pelmyrians that we really did come out here just to end the threat of the Shadow Dragon (you know - the one who converted many of the inhabitants to Glass Golems) and that we might have considered just going home, except that the Yodotai are an existential threat to basically everyone, and they are absolutely going to eventually try to conquer the city by force and then probably come after us after that, and we're not okay with that. For the first time in basically forever, we want allies, and we want to set things up so that we're all working together against this threat.
    -[x] Also, the city is devastated, and it could use some help getting back on its feet - preferably help from multiple directions. It certainly doesn't have anything like the level of military protection that it will need... and recent events have demonstrated that the level of military protection it *had* was woefully inadequate. Something should be done about that.
    -[x] As such, we intend to meet with the Sultan, and negotiate returning the city to him, but that we intend to carve out small-to-moderate sections of the city for each of the non-Yodotai empires represented here, as part of the city charter... places where that empire's rule held (and not subject to the taxes of the city). In return, each of the empires would be responsible for providing a garrison of a certain minimum size, which would come to the defense of the city in the event that it is attacked, and making clear what the rules *were*, so that those who lived in the city could decide for themselves which quarters to visit and which to avoid. This would also serve as a center for cooperation between these great empires in response to major outside threats (like, say, the Yodotai) and other diplomatic efforts.
    -[x] To our own people we declare that land outside the Empire is *not* the sacred land of Rokugan, but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily utterly useless.
    --[x] to the Mantis, Unicorn, Crab, and Scorpion, we point out that this still lets us use Medinaat al Salaam for what it's actually *good* for - the benefits of diplomacy and trade - and lets us do it in a more controlled environment, where the gaijin will have to come to us, and conform to our rules and customs. It lets us do that without the level of bloodshed that woudl have been necessary to try to hold the entire thing.
    --[x] to the Crane and Lion, we reassure them that this scrap of ground doesn't really matter in the same way Rokugan does, but that holding it gives us a way to establish diplomatic interaction with other empires in a setting that is both controlled and not in Rokugan proper. That, in turn, will help us stave off other future threats before they get to Sacred Rokugan itself. We can just have this little appendix over here that you don't have to worry about, and that can make the rest of the problems go away. Anyway, it's a whole lot better than trying to hold the entire city, right?
    -[x] We make a new Imperial position that's basically "Running our chunk of Medinaat al Salaam, and also external diplomacy"
    -[x] We explain Paneki's situation to the representative from the Ivory Kingdom, and invite them to offer assistance, if they'd like to help those poor refugees get back home safely and non-starved.
    -[X] Add Governing the City to the duties of the Unicorn
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Well, since you are here @gman391 I had crack/derp question based on the latest update: What would it mean if Hida actually went to Pelmyr in his travels and Hisao acknowledged it in his position of Emperor? I've been guessing a flat -50 Clan rating to all the Clans in political shenigans as a minimum but theologically? Would that change them from just being normal Gaijin or damn them, as they had the chance to be Rokugani but didn't come back with Hida?

Also what Sacred Material do Gaijin use to deal with Jigoku forces and other things that need jade to actually hurt efficiently if 99.9% of jade is located in the Emerald Empire?

Plus I guess the closest analogue for Secretary of foreign affairs would be the Opal Champion? Is there a canon selection process or will we need to fly blind here?
 
They simply wouldn't believe it. Hisao would probably be given heavy pressure to quietly retire and the Toturi political power would fall to nothing within a week of it coming out. Theologically it would more impact what exactly the Emperor was. The blood of the Hantei was what allowed the previous dynasty to commune with the heavens. Some would argue that the blood of Akodo with his noted impiety simply wasn't up to the task. That might provoke a civil war, or maybe not its hard to say. Regardless the fact is that the Great Clans have bound up in a lot of their self image the idea that they are the chosen heirs and children of the founders. They're just not prepared to accept the idea that others could be chosen. Anymore than an American would accept that George Washington sailed off and became the Ming Emperor.

The answer to the second question is, you're making a lot of assumptions about the jade distribution.

But there are other 'sacred' substances. The Ivory Kingdoms uses as one might guess, a special form of Ivory. The Senpet use blessed objects (typically made in the form of a weapon from one of the giant scarab skins they have laying around.) The Yodotai rely on Icons forged out of platinum, and the Pelmyrians use 'blood' Iron.

The Opal Champion as of yet doesn't exist. It is just the hypothetical name for the Foreign Office head if you guys decide that you want to make it something decided by a competition. Yes Hisao and his Council do essentially need to build a foreign office from scratch. The Kasuga reputation makes them unable to leverage themselves into a respectable roll.
 
[X] Keep the city but give the Pelmyrians, Senpet, Ivory Kingdoms, and the Yodotai a trading district each and open up trade.
-[X] Add Governing the City to the duties of the Unicorn
-[X] Try to sell our continued control of Medinaat al Salaam to the Ivory Kingdoms as Humanitarian duties and to restore order in the town offer exceptions to tariffs if need be to smooth it over.
 
gman391 said:
The answer to the second question is, you're making a lot of assumptions about the jade distribution.
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gman391 said:
Kyuden Hida: While the foreigners do have some Jade, although most of it is imported from the Zanj
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gman391 said:
Crab have heard rumours of foreign jade stocks, and hope that this presages some sort of treaty where they can get even more jade, they're wrong, but that's the hope.
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Apologies if my assumptions were without merit, the fact that there is no jade at all/worth trading among the Pelmyrians, Yodotai, Senpet and the Ivindi which naturally between all four empires is fairly large area of the world. You already said the Zanj have Jade that other Gaijin import from, but who are the Zanj? Are they Foreign nation or a different species?

@veekie @Neshuakadal @wingstrike96 do you mind including the subvote:

-[] In that vein try and get the Ivindi, Senpet, and the Pelmyrians invested enough in the rebuilding that they will help defend the city from being conquered outright by the Yodotai.

in your votes? As it is an important point that I hadn't considered and should be addressed, as we will need help in order to hold the city for the time being, and letting the Senpet, Pelmyrians, and the Ivindi maintain garrisons in the City will help reassure them that we don't intend to shut their merchants out.
 
Zanj are a different Empire entirely, but past the Yodotai and Senpet, Kasuga don't know much about them. They're a quasi Ethiopian like nation in terms of geography/trade importance. Most of the other nations aren't really interested in selling Jade atm which is why the Crab are wrong.
 
Okay... so now it's tied, and I'm not clear on why. Could someone explain to me the benefit of keeping the city, rather than keeping a trade quarter? What is the purpose that is served? I just look at the idea and think that that's a morass we're going to be pouring time and effort and energy into and quite possibly losing. If it was close enough to Rokugan to integrate properly, that would be one thing, but it's a fairly long trek across the burning sands, or a fairly long boat ride. We'd have to treat it more or less as a colony, and this is a colony that has an existing populace that's likely to become displeased, and a number of other empires standing around actively interested in taking it from us (well, two, at least).

In particular, if someone does take it from us militarily, we're not getting it back. The only way we managed to get the army to take it in the first place was the obvious clear and present danger of the Shadow Dragon. Trying to take it a second time wouldn't be worth it militarily, and would be *deeply* costly politically... which means that to get anything of lasting value out of the place we have to make sure that it's never taken from us in the first place, and the whole thing looks *awfully* precarious to me.

So what's the win here? I'm not seeing anything that a Rokugan-held city gets us that a Rokugani Quarter doesn't other than the taxes. Do people think the taxes (after all local expenditures, and the difficulty of transport back to Rokugan) are going to be that overwhelmingly amazing? Am I just missing something? (Not intended as a purely rhetorical question. I could be missing something. It's happened in the past.)
 
[X] Keep the city but give the Pelmyrians, Senpet, Ivory Kingdoms, and the Yodotai a trading district each and open up trade.
-[X] Add Governing the City to the duties of the Unicorn
-[X] Try to sell our continued control of Medinaat al Salaam to the Ivory Kingdoms as Humanitarian duties and to restore order in the town offer exceptions to tariffs if need be to smooth it over.
-[X] In that vein try and get the Ivindi, Senpet, and the Pelmyrians invested enough in the rebuilding that they will help defend the city from being conquered outright by the Yodotai.

Ok
 
[X] Plan Carve Out

Sirrocco said:
So what's the win here? I'm not seeing anything that a Rokugan-held city gets us that a Rokugani Quarter doesn't other than the taxes. Do people think the taxes (after all local expenditures, and the difficulty of transport back to Rokugan) are going to be that overwhelmingly amazing? Am I just missing something? (Not intended as a purely rhetorical question. I could be missing something. It's happened in the past.)
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I think the push is mostly because it's a shiny trophy and SV is just terrible about grabbing at shiny trophies. Also keeping the city will open more events for us. More things going on. More things to do.

Additionally we haven't had a truly unmitigated failure...yet...and people are maybe taking that for granted. That even if the situation is logically untenable we can push through by the power of our protagonist's plot shield. Try to swallow something bigger than our head but even if we end up choking on it we can salvage something.​
 
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wingstrike96 said:
[X] Keep the city but give the Pelmyrians, Senpet, Ivory Kingdoms, and the Yodotai a trading district each and open up trade.
-[X] Add Governing the City to the duties of the Unicorn
-[X] Try to sell our continued control of Medinaat al Salaam to the Ivory Kingdoms as Humanitarian duties and to restore order in the town offer exceptions to tariffs if need be to smooth it over.
-[X] In that vein try and get the Ivindi, Senpet, and the Pelmyrians invested enough in the rebuilding that they will help defend the city from being conquered outright by the Yodotai.

Ok
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How do you propose to do that last? Bear in mind that our current culture and lack of outside understanding gives us serious difficulties with external diplomacy.
 
Sirrocco said:
How do you propose to do that last? Bear in mind that our current culture and lack of outside understanding gives us serious difficulties with external diplomacy.
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True, but if we don't start eventually we will never get any better at it.

I guess we could try pointing out that the Yodotai are going to try to come take it from everyone anyway, so its in their own best interests to help protect the city, especially if we try our Imperial Treasurer's idea about not taxing merchants. Free Trade has a way of making People fight to keep that sweet deal for themselves and not let another country try to set up a monopoly.

I mean we don't have a lot of foreign political skill, but the Otomo have been playing the Clans against each almost since the Family was formed at the dawn of the empire, surely the idea of play the other factions against the Yodotai can't be too hard to grasp.

I also don't think it is only the Great Powers that come to trade at the City of Medinaat al-Salaam, there should be a considerable amount of minor powers that come trade there.

Also, Regarding the Current Culture: Won't the Kami and/or the Various Clans remove the Toturi's Mandate of Heaven if we try to change the Culture of Rokugan too much? I think the QM is willing to let us vote for Dumb Ideas, but I don't think he will offer choices that are flat out impossible. If keeping the city was flat out impossible, not just because of someone else taking it back, but if Rokugani Culture will cause trying to run a Gaijin Trading city flat out fail by itself then I don't think the QM would offer the choice to try because Rokugani Culture is that inflexible.


Though Frankly no matter what we do, we either need to appoint a Imperial Ambassador or make a Opal Championship for handling Foreign affairs on Hisao's behalf. I mean imagine how much less headache inducing it would be to have to insist on the Kow-Tow every time we receive a foreign ambassador with a chip on their shoulder, when we could just sidestep it by having our Representative do all/most the talking?
And how would we determine who is best suited for handling Diplomacy with Gaijin?

@gman391 assuming nobody attacks (for whatever reason), how hard is it to maintain supply lines to the Jewel of the Desert? (or JotD as I'm getting tired of typing it out all the time)
And if we appoint an Imperial Ambassador, what clans would send candidates for consideration? Awful waste of political capital if only one or two clans nominate someone.
 
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WRT getting the other empires invested in the defense of the city, I think it's doable.... I just think that it's a lot harder if we try to keep control of the city (for a number of reasons) and even worse if we don't have a coherent plan on how to get buy-in.
 
@keenscythe
I've taken to calling it the Jewel myself.

And that depends on a few things. Right now its not easy, but its not super hard either. The Ide have been sending caravans to the city Moto for generations now, scaling that up will take a lot of work and require you set up some sort of road or something out that way. But that's doable, if the focus of several years of work.
Strictly speaking its more a matter of remaining committed than anything else, it is expensive and most of the clans don't get a real benefit from it directly, because the Unicorn are the middle men and will like most middle men charge through the nose.

As for the Mandate of Heaven being revoked...maybe. Hitomi and Yakamo both keep their own counsel as the theoretical heads of the Celestial Hierarchy. While they did bless you, their rule is somewhat precarious just by dint of being born human rather than deific. Strictly speaking the prohibition against foreigners comes about way after Doji finished setting up the Empire. So there's no divine injunction from the Heavens that they have to be excluded, but culturally its a challenge. Even the Unicorn who are the most accepting of outsiders, still to a degree look down on foreigners, even if they allow foreigners to join ranks and naturalize unlike every other Clan.

That said it depends a lot on how you handle the cultural currents which are inevitable if a presence in the Jewel is maintained. The Heavens might have a lot more to say if the people of Rokugan start worshipping Perun instead of them, eh?
 
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Year 5:End
  • Threadmarks
    • --Plan Carve Out
    Pelmyrian Diplomacy=Success
    IK Diplomacy=Success
    Senpet Diplomacy= Success
    Sultan Diplomacy=Failure
    Conquest Faction=Failure
    Pragmatist Faction=Success
    Traditionalist Faction=Success

    The Pact of Empires would prove a landmark of diplomacy for the Emerald Empire and one of the earliest standards by which future diplomatic efforts were measured. Emperor Toturi IV skilfully outmanoeuvred the Yodotai ambassador and convened an arrangement with the other three great powers interested in the fate of Medinaat al-Salaam. The city would again become independent under the heir of the last sultan, but with a notable set of changes. First four of the city's districts would be partitioned between the four empire in perpetuity. Within these districts the laws and customs of the ruling empire would hold and it would be entirely exempt from the laws of Medinaat al-Salaam. Second while independent on paper, Medinaat al-Salaam would be host to garrisons from the four different powers, and answer not to the Sultan but to the local representative of said Empire. Lastly all four empires, Emerald, Ivory, Senpet, and Pelmyrian swore to guarantee the independence of the city.

    However, while all four of the great powers agreed, to the endless frustration of the Yodotai who soon turned inward to another bloody civil war. The Sultan's heir, did not. He denounced the partition as jackals pulling apart the corpse of Medinaat al-Salaam and refused to take the Peacock Throne. When the Senpet attempted to persuade him, he fled to the distant land of Zanj. In lieu of the Sultan it was decided that....

    [] Each of the Four Ambassadors would govern the city in a rotating term of four years each.
    [] That the people of Medinaat al-Salaam would be asked to elect their own leader.
    [] A nobleman of the city would be raised Sultan.

    While much has been written on the diplomatic coup that Toturi IV engineered, even more has been written on the strange failures with his vassals. In the end the majority of the Empire would accept the Pact as the best deal that could be arranged, and that the existence of an outpost to keep foreigners away from sacred Rokugani soil was ideal. However, the now named 'Conquest' faction. Refused to accept this, lead by Moto Chagatai and Yoritomo Okimoto, they agitated stridently against giving the city up to anyone. Much to the surprise of nearly everyone as the Emperor had installed Okimoto to his position, and Chagatai was good friends with the Shogun who supported the Emperor.

    The questions that would come to dominate the sixth year of Toturi IV's rule would both reflect this strange new internal dynamic, and the new needs of holding a part of the world that had never seen rule by the Emerald Empire. The young Emperor had ruled for five years now and he was beginning to be known as...

    [] The Cunning (Raise Air Trait by 1)
    [] The Builder (Raise Earth Trait by 1)
    [] The Victor (Raise Fire Trait by 1)
    [] The River (Raise Water Trait by 1)
    [] The Blessed (Raise Void Trait by 1)

    -Annals of the Toturi
    ===========================

    AN: So reached year 5. I couldn't think of a good way to get this out as a normal update so here we go. Year 6 will be more normal, but that update will come after I finish making a summary post for the first five years. As it stands, thank you all for following up to this point. If you're wondering where the dice rolls were for your diplomacy, I've moved them off site to a discord server with a roll bot, that is much nicer to input. You can also chat with me there if you want.
    Link is found: here
     
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    • I'd suggest raising one of the local nobles, this avoids constantly changing partisan leadership, preserves more neutrality and may improve how the locals feel about the new situation, it also avoids democracy which is really not a concept we'd approve of. Not sure which trait to take.

    [X] A nobleman of the city would be raised Sultan.
     
    I would also say that we should raise a noble, especially if we are the ones that are raising his family up to be sultan, rather than the other three powers. That would give us a lever to use in trying to get better deals or laws passed that are in our favor. After all, without us, he would still be a noble under the Sultan, rather than the Sultan himself. Don't know how much influence we would have in the designation process though, or how much we can influence without the other powers that be getting uppity.

    So, in that regards, I'll be going for:
    [X] A nobleman of the city would be raised Sultan.

    On to the elemental ring increase. I'm not entirely sure how the mechanics on that operate if the sheet on the character sheet describes our elemental ring levels or the Empires, or someone else's so I'm going to go on a more narrative bent here. And in that sense, I'm going to go for either the "Cunning" or the "Builder."

    So Air first. We just recently created a diplomatic agreement that shut out a whole Empire, while making three other empires relatively happy with us and giving us a buffer zone to keep people away from our sacred lands. We have been able to deal muddle through various crises with some pretty sweet diplomatic decisions (especially regarding that one huge problem with designating our heir to be our Uncle) and we have managed to arbitrate some pretty hefty disputes. People might not always be happy with our decisions, but they rarely have been outraged. Also, we kept our treasurer with some pretty crafty politicking.

    The rationale for Earth is second then. We are the Emperor who reorganized the entire legal system, codified very important traditions and laws, and basically made everyone's life a little easier for capturing corruption and resolving disputes. And, if I am remembering correctly, we focused our earlier years on rebuilding and improving the infrastructure of the Empire to be better than it has been in a long while.

    So, while we have done a lot of good things in the rebuilding and managing of the Empire, I remember the more cunning political moves more fondly, and so I am going to go for
    [X] The Cunning (Raise Air Trait by 1)
     
    [X] A nobleman of the city would be raised Sultan.
    [X] The Victor (Raise Fire Trait by 1)

    "Fire options focus on military or inventive solutions"

    I personally rather have an empire with 3s in all stats than one at four dots, that helps keep our options open so we have maximum flexibility to address any given situation.
     
    [X] A nobleman of the city would be raised Sultan.
    [X] The Builder (Raise Earth Trait by 1)

    We have enacted changes and we had to fight our subordinates' stupidity every step of the way. Raising Earth is well warranted.
     
    That's... fascinating.

    I think... I think I'll pass on the temptation to try to game the stat buff, and go with one that makes sense.

    Hisao... has been changing things. He's aggressive and innovating, and people keep trying to kill him and failing. He's pragmatic, and cares deeply about the integrity of sacred Rokugan against all threats.
    [] The Cunning (Raise Air Trait by 1)
    [] The Builder (Raise Earth Trait by 1)
    [] The Victor (Raise Fire Trait by 1)
    [] The River (Raise Water Trait by 1)
    [] The Blessed (Raise Void Trait by 1)
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    The Cunning... well, we do keep pulling out unconventional answers. At this point, people who scheme against us int eh courts pretty much have to be *expecting* us to pull a third option out of nowhere. If anything, I suspect they're trying to cultivate the art of positioning things so that whatever bizarre tactic we come up with is mostly to their advantage.


    The Builder makes sense. We've been rebuilding the laws, we've been preventing internal wars, and preventing external wars from becoming internal. We've been seeing to it that Rokugan has *time* to rebuild, and then working at making sure they have the resources to do it with. Even this thing we're doing with The Jewel fits. It's solid. The Crab all grunt in a satisfied-but-not-smiling-too-much way. "Good Kaiu blood, that is."

    The Victor is okay. We won a major war. We keep not dying when people try to make us die. Internal challenges against us tend to go rather poorly for the people who bring those challenges, and reasonably well for us. It... doesn't feel all that compelling, though, at least to me.

    The River is *tempting*, because the stuff I *want* to do is Water, and an extra keep die would help with that a lot, but I don't see it as something we've demonstrated a huge amount of.

    The Blessed might make some sense. We did really rather well with the whole Monk thing, and we *have* been largely successful, in a way the common people can appreciate.

    so...

    [x] The Builder
    [x] A nobleman of the city would be raised Sultan.

    ...because Builder and Cunning both fit, and I like Earth answers more. I honestly think that we might *need* Air more, in some ways... what with the various sneaky threats floating around, and the unhappy Scorpion and the unhappy Crane, but between the two, I'm just more of an Earth guy, at heart, and I'm going to vote that.
     
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