It is nearly one hundred years since the Regency War and, for all intents and purposes, the de facto collapse of the Third Galactic Empire. The authority of the central government has disintegrated, and while the Emperor has continued to reign throughout this violent age and still continues to claim the entire Orion Arm, the Regency - the true power behind the throne - has sat empty since the destruction of House Cardenas and the fall of their longstanding dynasty. In an era that scholars now call the "Age of Warring States," hundreds of minor noble families and petty warlords fight each other for local power in the Periphery Systems, while a consortium of fifteen major houses compete for the Core and for influence in the Imperial capital of Terra.

Great fleets clash in the inky void as warlords fight for supremacy over one another. At meeting tables across Imperial space, diplomats cordially wind and unwind threads of alliances, and assassins lurk behind every corner. It is an age of heroism, glory, bloodshed, and near-endless war.

But all of that feels so far away as you stare at the spartan metal ceiling of your cabin, a frown on your youthful face. As the galaxy moves on without you, it seems you're doomed to stagnate despite your high position - for as you lay quiet, listening to the hum of your light cruiser's FTL drive, you know it's taking you further and further away from your home, further and further away from your birthright.

You've always felt removed from the politicking and backstabbery that so characterized the courts of the noble houses. Oh, you'd gotten the training to be sure, but that can't be a true substitute for experience - and for all of your twenty-four Terran-years, you've been kept out of the loop of actual governance. War meetings, political meetings, all of the like - you knew about them, were educated about the proper courtesies and such, but for some unknown reason, you had never been invited to a real one personally.

You have every reason to be annoyed - this is unusual. You are the heir apparent to a Great House of the Empire, and you - you - have been dispatched to a distant world in the Periphery Systems to track down a roving band of pirates that have been harassing shipping. This is a task that could be performed just as easily by a single captain and a destroyer, rather than you and a small fleet of warships. You inwardly seethe as you glare at the metal sigil painted on the wall of your cabin. It is the sigil of...

[ ] Clan Falkenhafen, the Generals
[ ] Clan Fortuna, the Bankers
[ ] Clan Zhang, the Scholars
[ ] Clan Al-Mufti, the Administrators
[ ] Clan Metaxas, the Philosophers
[ ] Clan Strigoi, the Assassins
[ ] Clan Armitage, the Shipwrights
[X] Clan Rurikovich, the Outsiders
[ ] Clan Massarde, the Artisans
[ ] Clan Maryam, the Pious
[ ] Clan Yamato, the Warriors
[ ] Clan Sundiata, the Merchants
[ ] Clan Ashoka, the Industrialists
[ ] Clan Braganza, the Explorers
[ ] Clan Sakir, the Exiles

___

Welcome to my first CKII quest! This idea came to me when watching a documentary on the Sengoku Jidai, and is meant to invoke a mixture of that and space opera like Dune.

NOTE: In the descriptions of the Houses, there are the names of the heir apparents listed. You are not forced into that name or gender when the character is created, those are essentially example names.

Please hold all posts until I have reserved space for: the Characters Sheet, the Demesne Sheet, the Lore Sheet, and the Rules Sheet.

When voting on the house, I will hold a runoff if a clear majority is not established.

The Fifteen Houses (Please Read)

While there are thousands, if not millions, of noble families across the width and breadth of the Empire, a total of fifteen clans exert the most influence over the Core - the political, cultural, and economic heart of humanity situated in the Orion Spur. With the collapse of central Imperial governance, the Fifteen are the ones doing the majority of the warring, the scheming, and the plotting. The only thing that plays at unifying the Houses is the Council of Fifteen on Terra, where representatives from each of the clans meet once every five years. The Council is considered to essentially be a fancy dog-and-pony show, with little actually getting done during its sessions.

House Falkenhafen - The Generals

Head of House: Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm VIII
Heir Apparent: Kronprinz Ferdinand
Succession: Absolute primogeniture
House Falkenhafen was, less than two hundred years ago, a disparate band of other clans with similar language and cultural ties who, through intermarriage, treaty, or outright conquest, were united under the banner of Friedrich Wilhelm von Falkenhafen. Unlike the relatively united clans elsewhere across the Empire, the Falkenhafen territories, while large, are far less united - local system nobles will, if not kept happy, ignore directives from Brandenburg, or even sometimes outright rebel against the Kaiser's weak central authority. Of course, that's absolutely not to say that they are weak - if the Kaiser can marshal their forces, they can bring to bear a fearsome juggernaut that is the bane of all external enemies. Furthermore, House Falkenhafen's strategic position near the center of things has given them a lot of leverage in negotiations.
Bonuses: +2 to Martial and Stewardship. Four starting systems rather than three. +1 Martial actions.
Maluses: -2 to Diplomacy and Intrigue. Vassals are not particularly loyal to you, and will do their own thing if not sufficiently cowed.

House Fortuna - The Bankers

Head of House: Patriarch Marcus Augustus II
Heir-Apparent: Unknown
Succession: Dynastic Elective
House Fortuna has a rather meaningful name. Their founding legends remain confused as to whether they were named for their uncanny good fortune and their skill for making money, or whether the name itself made their success inevitable. Whatever the case, the Fortuna, while their territory, population, or military aren't that large, do have nearly bottomless coffers, as well as a banking establishment that houses nearly ⅙ of all the liquid wealth in the Empire. The Fortuna family is sprawling, wealthy, and hedonistic, leading pleasurable lives of wine, sex, and song (and often all three at once). Don't let their debauchery fool you - they are skilled administrators, and are second only to the Strigoi in their proclivity towards assassination and skullduggery. Cross a patrician of the Fortuna at your own peril - for when they rob you, it'll be your money or your life, if you're lucky and they don't take both.
Bonuses: +2 to stewardship and intrigue; highest starting credits; good income
Maluses: -2 to martial and learning; tiny starting military; few natural resources

House Zhang - The Scholars

Head of House: Queen Xihai
Heir-Apparent: Crown Prince Wu
Succession: Absolute primogeniture
House Zhang began four thousand years ago as a guild of scientists and scholars, based around a common desire to see the Empire advance into a new age. They founded universities, laboratories, and the like, essentially becoming the foundation of the late Second Empire's tech boom. They were rewarded with their own fief a thousand years or so before the Regency War, and have created the most technologically advanced demesne in the galaxy.
Bonuses: +2 to Learning and Diplomacy; four starting systems; +1 Learning actions
Maluses: -2 to Martial and Intrigue; small military;

House Al-Mufti - The Administrators

Head of House: Sultan Mehmed XIV
Heir Apparent: Crown Prince Saladin
Succession: Male-preference primogeniture
Clan Al-Mufti once dominated the labyrinthine bureaucracy of Terra in the days of the Second and Third Empires. On their homeworld of Damascus, great schools churn out armies of diplomats and administrators each year, and it is considered to be a mark of prestige for courts across the Empire to have an Al-Mufti finance minister, lawyer, or CEO. This has led to an incredibly efficient bureaucracy and government, although one that more often than not eschews military force.
Bonuses: +2 to Diplomacy and Stewardship; +1 Stewardship actions; +1 Diplomacy actions
Maluses: -2 to Martial and Learning; -1 Martial options;

House Metaxas - The Philosophers

Head of House: Archon Giorgios VII
Heir Apparent: Unknown
Succession: Popular dynastic elective
One of the oldest houses in the Empire, House Metaxas apocryphally traces its lineage back to the founding of the First Empire. The Metaxas are notorious politicians and thinkers, with some of their greatest scions able to argue any problem to death in an instant. This is of course the stuff of legends, but it is true that the children of the Metaxas family are given some of the best diplomatic training in the galaxy. Every Metaxas is expected to wield the stylus at least as well as a blade, if not better - but this is necessary to navigate their byzantine political system. The most unusual thing about the Metaxas is that they run the closest thing to an actual democracy in the entire Empire - the Baselius is elected not by a council of nobles, as with most electoral systems, but directly by the people - and the Metaxas have established government forums (both physical and electronic) for qualified citizens from every facet of society to put their grievances forward to their sovereign.
Bonuses: +2 to diplomacy and learning; +1 diplomacy actions;
Maluses: -2 to martial and stewardship; You are bound by the forces of public opinion

House Strigoi - The Assassins

Head of House: Voivoda Elena V
Heir Apparent: Crown Princess Magda
Succession: Female-preference primogeniture
The knives in the dark, the whispers in the shadows - it's a well-known fact among nobles that the Strigoi family are experts in the art of skullduggery. Often working for the highest bidder, the Strigoi have touched nearly every other great clan in the Empire in some fashion. It is rumored that they have incriminating information that could ruin every major noble across Imperial space, and even if that isn't quite true, the perception of this acts as an effective deterrent. There have been attempts to wipe them out in the past, but such endeavors usually end with the noble advocating such measures dead, or their reputation irreparably ruined. Some more fantastical legends have surfaced as well - that their operatives drink blood and can literally become shadows.
Bonuses: +2 to intrigue and martial; +1 Intrigue actions; +1 Intrigue options
Maluses: -2 to stewardship and learning; -1 relationship with all clans

House Armitage - The Shipwrights

Head of House: Earlessa Elizabeth V
Heir Apparent: Aethling Edmund
Succession: Dynastic Elective; usually de facto absolute primogeniture
House Armitage, for hundreds of years prior to the Regency War, served as the loyal shipbuilders for the Emperor's fleets. Their huge industrial capacity allowed them to fuel the early Third Empire's conquests of the Periphery Systems, and those they ally with rarely have to worry about constructing enough warships to fill their fleets, as long as resources are adequately provided. And therein lies the problem - while the Armitage have vast shipyards, and the money to provide them, they rely heavily on a stream of raw resources from the Periphery and from the rest of the Core. Should this be lost, the Armitage capacity to build and rebuild may be threatened.
Bonuses: +2 to Stewardship and Martial; +1 Stewardship actions; start with additional small fleet
Maluses: -2 to Learning and Intrigue; low income

House Rurikovich - The Outsiders

Head of House: Tsarina Ekaterina III
Heir Apparent: Tsarevna Anastasia Ekaterinovna
Succession: Absolute Primogeniture
The Rurikovich clan has been isolated from the other Great Houses, and to some is barely even part of the Core. Only two slipstreams connect them to the rest of Imperial space, and their internal situation is characterized by massive economic and social inequalities and a lack of development. That said, the Rurikovich have huge potential. Despite their isolation from the Core, only the Braganza have a better connection to the Periphery systems, and they have a vast population and a storied martial tradition. The Rurikovich fleet, once it gets going, has been described as a juggernaut on the battlefield, soaking up losses easily and running over foes without breaking a sweat. The problem is building, staffing, and properly utilizing these forces.
Bonuses: +2 to Martial and Intrigue; five starting systems instead of three; +10 to all exploration rolls
Maluses: -2 to Diplomacy and Stewardship; ship construction is 10% more expensive; isolated from the rest of the Empire due to slipstreams

House Massarde - The Artisans

Head of House: Prince Louis III
Heir Apparent: Archduchess Marie
Succession: Female-Preference Primogeniture
Clan Massarde is characterized by two things - culture and centralization. Their homeworld of Seine is an architectural and cultural marvel, with old blending seamlessly with new. Glistening glass towers pierce the clouds, and artisans find the libertine cultural air of the city a paradise for experimentation and new ideas. That said, the Massarde clan has its own set of contradictions - politically, the various Massarde vassals have been forced into compliance with the central government, as their members are forced to reside in mansions in the capital city on Seine, placing them under the direct controls of their liege. This isn't a well-liked situation, but the local vassals have been too weak to stand up to the central government for some time now.
Bonus: +2 to diplomacy and learning; vassals have been cowed for now; diplomatic and learning options are 10% cheaper
Malus: -2 to martial and stewardship; inefficient bureaucracy (-1 Stewardship options)

House Maryam - The Pious

Head of House: King Yohannes X
Heir Apparent: Crown Prince Iyasu
Succession: Absolute Primogeniture
House Maryam has a long and storied tradition of loyalty to the Emperor. A large portion of the Imperial Cult's hierarchy are scions of the house, and they were among the earliest supporters of the Cult's power-grab in the core. While a number of more pragmatic Maryam are beginning to eye the Cult's rule with suspicion and doubt, still others are compelled to support it thanks to their natural piety or through a pragmatic attachment to the current status quo. As it is, the Maryam will be the Cult and the Emperor's most loyal supporters - for better or for worse.
Bonuses: +2 to piety and learning; highest piety generation at start; has influence in the Imperial Cult (+2 Blades relationship, +2 Imperial Demesne relationship); Cult attention will be low.
Maluses: -2 to diplomacy and martial; the rest of the clans distrust you and see you as notorious kiss-asses (-1 relations with all clans except Sakir; -2 relations with Clan Sakir); opposing the Imperial Cult will, at least at first, send family and subjects into a rage.

House Yamato - The Warriors

Head of House: Tenno Yoshiaki
Heir Apparent: Crown Prince Yoshihide
Succession: Male-Preference Primogeniture
Where House Falkenhafen produces generals and admirals, House Yamato produces warriors. The ancestors of the Yamato ascended to rule Chiyoda, a high-gravity world, some eight thousand years ago, and have become some of the Empire's fiercest soldiers since. A complex system of honor and valor in combat has evolved as well, similar to old values of chivalry and to the ancient Bushido warrior code. Scions of the noble families in Yamato territory are expected to follow this code to the letter.
Bonuses: +2 to martial and learning; Base personal combat skill is 3/4 of your Martial rather than 1/2; +1 Martial option
Maluses: -2 to intrigue and diplomacy; honor is incredibly important publicly, so actions must reflect that; Construction is 10% more expensive due to high gravity

House Sundiata - The Traders

Head of House: Mansa Ouati
Heir Apparent:
Succession: Absolute Primogeniture
The Sundiata have had the simultaneous fortune and misfortune of ruling one of the most vital trade hubs in the Galaxy. The Kounbi Saleh system is connected to no less than six different star systems, as well as being the only non-Cult controlled system in the Empire with a direct slipstream to Sol. In effect, House Sundiata are the effective arbiters of trade between the spinward and trailward sides of the Empire. Raw materials from the Periphery and manufactured goods from the Core flow through Sundiata territory like water, allowing them to do a considerable amount of business. Currently, however, their main sources of protection are hired mercenaries and a common understanding that a war would disrupt vital trade and likely lead to the offending clan being ganged up on for its trouble.
Bonuses: +2 to stewardship and diplomacy; strategic position; high starting income; good starting money
Maluses: -2 to martial and intrigue; two systems; weak military; center of attention; INCREDIBLY enviable territory

House Ashoka - The Industrialists

Head of House: Grand Prince Mahendra
Heir Apparent: Lord Samprati
Succession: Dynastic Elective
House Ashoka's economic empire is based on their vast productive capability. Ashoka's factories churn out consumer goods at a vast rate, making the worlds of this particular family among the most productive in the galaxy. While the family itself owns a good chunk of the productive capability, the majority is owned by private citizens or other families - who have banded together into a powerful Merchant's Guild that has one goal - the protection of their economic independence. The Guild, while it has no fleets or armies, is fully confident in its ability to crash the Ashoka family's wealth and power if they wanted to - and they are most likely right.
Bonuses: +2 to diplomacy and stewardship; High income from factories; incredible productive potential (+1 Stewardship actions)
Maluses: -2 to martial and intrigue; Powerful corporate world that is sometimes opposed to the nobility; most of the productive capacity is privately owned

House Braganza - The Explorers

Head of House: Prince Felipe VII
Heir Apparent: Duke Augusto II of Gran Providencia
Succession: Absolute primogeniture
House Braganza, of the fifteen Houses, is uniquely tied to the Periphery. Braganza ships have roamed far and wide through the unknown regions of human space, uncovering worlds lost to time and colonies left to their own devices. (And, more often than not, they made war with them and took what they had.) However, these campaigns are expensive, and while Braganza has a lot of territory, it's expensive territory to keep. The current Prince has a lot of economic problems to deal with.
Bonuses: +2 to martial and diplomacy; +10 to all rolls made against Periphery actors; +10 to all exploration rolls
Maluses: -2 to learning and stewardship; low starting income

House Sakir - The Exiles

Head of House: Pharaoh Rameses VII
Heir Apparent: Crown Prince Thutmose
Succession: Absolute Primogeniture
The capital world of the Sakir lands, Iskandariyyah, is not actually the Sakir homeworld. That is the planet now known as "Primus's Rest," conquered one hundred years ago by the Imperial Cult and made into a fortress for the Blades of the Primus. For a century since their defeat, the Sakir family has attempted to rebuild on Iskandariyyah, planning for the day when they inevitably put the Cult in their place and retake their home. When they fled, they took much of their vast wealth with them - but they were unable to take the vast works of art and masterpieces of architecture they'd created over thousands of years.
Bonuses: +2 to stewardship and learning; Advanced equipment and large sum of money taken in their evacuation; unified populace (+1 Stewardship actions)
Maluses: -2 to martial and diplomacy; still rebuilding after losing a war 100 years ago; -2 to Cult faction relations.

The Imperial Cult

While thousands of religions populate the galaxy, from the ancient Abrahamic faiths to the new, rapidly-spreading Bioticists, the most dominant religion (and, as one might expect, the state religion of the Third Empire) is that of the Imperial Cult. The Cult technically doesn't worship the Emperor or Empress as a living god - instead, they worship him or her as the mortal avatar of the Primus, a being that is composed of the collective hopes, dreams, thoughts, and desires of all of humanity. The Cult fully believes in the concepts of Darwinian evolution and the conventional scientific theories of the creation of the universe, and believe that the Primus was not the entity that created mankind, and instead the other way around.

Ironically, the Imperial Cult began as a fringe religion in the First Empire nearly six thousand years ago, and it wasn't until the ancient Empress Justinia started to style herself as "Justinia Primus I" that the Second Empire began to officially adopt the religion as its state faith. While the Throne's power has waned in favor of the permanent Regency by the time of the Third Empire, the Sovereign remains a powerful religious force in the Empire and serves as the head of the faith.

The Cult has a rigidly established hierarchy of augurs, bishops, and priests, with each region of the Empire split into dioceses. For the purposes of simplicity, at the onset of the Third Empire about a thousand years ago, the Cult reorganized the dioceses so that each major system connected by a slipstream was given its own diocese and its own bishop. Each bishop is responsible for maintaining "moral and spiritual authority" in their diocese, and collecting tithes from the local lords. Most lords do pay these tithes, despite technically fighting to usurp the power of the Cult, as the religious authorities in their fiefs are more than capable of making their lives incredibly difficult.

Two major star systems are under the direct control of the largest and most influential holy order in the Empire - the Order of the Blade of Primus. The Blades are an army of warrior-monks, who maintain their own fleets and armies of mercenaries thanks to the Cult's huge power. Furthermore, they maintain the closest thing the Empire has to a secret police - the Daggermen, who have only been matched by the Strigoi in their influence and effectiveness, and are unchallenged in their reach; thanks to the ubiquitousness of the Cult, there is no place the Daggermen cannot go.

With the Emperor withdrawn into hedonism and isolation on Terra, the Cult's hierarchy and, most importantly, the Blades and Daggermen, are essentially free agents beholden to none but their faith and their own ambitions. They could be powerful allies, and they could be even more formidable foes - but one thing is certain. They benefit from a divided Empire, as their grip over Terra and the Imperial Demesne has only grown in the aftermath of the Regency War. If a certain house becomes too powerful and too ambitious in their eyes, they will react… accordingly.

Doctrine and Practices

In terms of the practices of worship, the Cult's requirements are actually rather lax. In fact, practices are deliberately kept sparse to allow different peoples across the culturally diverse breadth of the Empire to apply their own practices to the faith. In terms of rituals common to all who follow the Cult, the sacrifice of food in a prayer brazier once a day and prayer in a temple once a T-month is all that is asked - although different families, different planets, and even different towns might require different things of their faithful. Local deities might be rationalized as "scions of the Primus," and otherwise largely left alone. Even messiahs of other religions are not exempt - as early as the Second Codex (see below), the Cult was claiming Jesus Christ and Gautama Buddha, among other religious figures, as scions themselves.

In terms of belief, the Cult's holy books - the three Codices - state that the Emperor is the Avatar of the Primus, a god in mortal form whose soul (or, as the Cult calls it, the "Avatar") has been chosen as a vessel for the deity's wisdom. The Avatar of the Primus is not known to be imbued with great physical or miraculous power, but is to be obeyed as the word of the god itself. As the Primus is meant to be an avatar of humanity as a whole, it is considered that the Emperor is simply carrying out the will of the people.

The Cult preaches that the avatars of the dead merge with the Primus once the body is gone. The good, faithful, and righteous are allowed to remain in this permanent state of bliss, while the unfaithful and/or wicked are condemned to be reborn. The worse the crimes committed in life, the lower the birth - a good person who simply wasn't pious is reborn as a noble, while a wicked person might be reborn as a peasant. Needless to say, the Nobility has used this often as a way of "justifying" their hold on power.

There are two main messianic figures as recorded in the Codices. The first is the legendary Solomon Buthelezi, the author of the First Codex and the first self-declared Avatar of the Primus. Born to low beginnings in Namibia in Year 0 Buthelezi (-8380 Shahzad), Buthelezi allegedly wrote the first Codex at the age of 27 after an industrial accident led to a powerful moment of faith. For most of his life, he gathered followers, his charisma and proclivity towards good works allowing him to cull together a large congregation in the freer air of South Africa. By the age of sixty, he had amassed about six million followers on three continents, and people began to take notice. In more authoritarian regimes, the "Followers of Primus" were persecuted, and his ideas suppressed. They also received criminal backlash against them, as nationalist groups opposing his pan-humanistic message attacked their places of worship. According to the Second Codex, penned one hundred years later by his successors, Buthelezi and a large cadre of followers migrated to a Mars still early in the process of terraforming, where they established a religious colony that grew with other followers migrating from Terra.

The second messianic figure is the Empress Justinia I, first monarch of the Second Galactic Empire, first of House Forsythe, and the first to officially adopt the religion of the Followers to the Empire. This was following a bloody and brutal civil war, in which Justinia (then known as Jane Forsythe) usurped Emperor Maximilian VII and the previous Diehl family. She authored the Third Codex, firmly entrenching the monarchy as an integral part of the Cult. Justinia also changed inheritance laws across the Empire, so that inheritance of the family name and titles was through the higher-ranked person in a union.

Structure

While the Emperor is de jure the highest authority of the Imperial Cult, the actual leaders are the Council of Augurs - the body responsible for divining the will of the Primus. Under them are the Grand Bishops, overseers of each Slipstream System and the surrounding systems, and the Quaestors, "Cult secretaries" who are essentially in charge of running the Cult bureucracy and de facto the Imperial Demesne. Under the Grand Bishops, the Bishops are assigned to oversee the local Cult on planets or, in the case of heavily populated planets, one billion people. Under that, it is largely local temples and priests who are in charge of their own parishes. Some Bishops establish complex networks of priests and parishes and micromanage the lot of it, while others just give funding to whatever local priest asks for it and doesn't generally interfere otherwise.

The Imperial Family

Galactic Emperor Ardeshir Primus I Shahzad
​

House Shahzad has reigned over the Empire in some form or fashion for two and a half thousand years, defining all of the Third Empire and the latter half of the Second. They were at one point a cadet branch of a long-dead house, before slowly growing a power base and violently overthrowing the previously-regnant Saratov Dynasty. Hafiz Shahzad, better known as Emperor Hafiz I, established a long and storied dynasty that has lasted all the way down to the current Emperor, Ardeshir IV.

Ardeshir himself is something of an enigma; he only appears from the Imperial Palace in Persia on holidays and for official appearances, instead preferring to remain in solitude and leave the affairs of state to the Cult and its hierarchy of priests. His family is characterized by its hedonism and opulence, but the Emperor's vices and appetites are unknown. In the case of royalty, absence makes the heart grow fonder, so Ardeshir is one of the more-worshiped Emperors of recent times. The current heir to the throne is Crown Princess Sahebeh, a much more outgoing individual than her father (and that may not be a good thing, considering the debauchery she regularly engages in.)

Map of the Core Systems

The Third Galactic Empire and the Regency

Unlike its predecessors, the First and Second Empires, the Third Galactic Empire is not actually ruled by the centralized power of the Emperor or Empress on Terra. Instead, the machine of state has traditionally been under the control of the permanent Regent, a military leader from one of the sixteen traditional noble families. Like the Imperial Throne, the Regency is traditionally hereditary, with the eldest child of the previous Regent taking the position upon the death of their parent. This practice had continued nearly uninterrupted for the better part of three hundred years under the Shahzad dynasty, until the Regency War and the subsequent extermination of the Cardenas dynasty of Regents.

The Regency War

In 2561 Shahzad, Regent Javier XI Cardenas faced a problem - he had no children who had lived to adulthood. Whether this was a medical problem on his part or his wife's, or simply terrible luck, it made sure that the aging Regent would have to pick a successor from among a number of unsuitable candidates. His younger brother Felipe had the strongest claim, but Javier personally detested the man and his brash manner - he personally favored his youngest sister Elena, who had been shuffled off to military school as a girl and in his opinion was a more capable leader.

However, seniority was the established rule of thumb, and Javier's advisors advised against choosing Elena, who they thought of as an upstart and a potentially disruptive pick. Indeed, there were already whispers of rebellion among Felipe's supporters, who plotted to invade Terra with the fleets of supporting clans and any military officers or mercenaries who could be bought off. Elena herself began preparing the uprising that many thought was inevitable, contacting her old friends from the Imperial Naval Academy and recruiting mercenary forces of her own. The aging Regent waffled back and forth, unable to decide.

Things were even further complicated when Javier's wife Augustina gave birth to a healthy baby boy, now commonly known as Javier the Younger, who, with one fell stroke, had now signed the death knell for the hopes of both Elena and Felipe. Enraged, Felipe's allies blockaded Terra, demanding that Javier abdicate in favor of his brother. Elena, sensing an opportunity to grab both a compliant puppet Regent and the moral high ground, marshaled her forces to break the blockade of Terra, leading to a titanic battle in orbit of Mars. While Elena won the day, and Felipe's forces fled, they were not truly routed, and regrouped under the older usurper's banner. A ten-year civil war followed, with the fifteen other great clans of the Empire joining in on either side to set the Core Worlds ablaze, and much of the Periphery Systems broke off to form petty fiefdoms and warlord states.

Much of House Cardenas, including both Elena and Felipe, were killed in combat or assassinated before its "end," and Javier the Younger disappeared into the Periphery regions after an uprising on Terra killed his father and stormed the Regent's Palace.

In all of this chaos, the Imperial Cult had remained neutral, waiting for a point to intervene. With both of the leaders of the Cardenas family dead, and with the Empire descending into chaos, the Cult, backed by the Blades of the Primus, invaded the Sol System, sweeping aside any disunited resistance, and declared that the Emperor himself, through the Cult, would now rule the Empire instead of a pack of squabbling nobles. (The Emperor honestly had no idea any of this was going on, having been kept in isolation in a palace in the Middle East throughout the whole mess.)

The Cult, with the initial shock of its entry into the war on its side, was able to seize and hold a large portion of the Core systems, before the noble families were able to stop their squabbling for a little while and beat them back to a pocket of systems immediately surrounding Sol. The situation has changed little since then - the Cult continues to rule Terra and the surrounding regions under the guise of the Emperor's will, and the Fifteen Families who survived the Regency Wars continue to refuse to recognize this. They endlessly squabble for power, establishing and breaking alliances as the galaxy continues to burn around them. No one house can hope to challenge the power of the Cult alone, and even if they did, the other houses would likely unite in opposition to stop them.

The Periphery

While 80 percent of the known human population resides in the core worlds, and seventy percent of that in one of the 54 "Slipstream Systems," the remaining twenty percent has spread out of the Orion Spur and into the uncharted systems of other arms. It is impossible to truly know just how far the Periphery has spread, especially in this time of war, but at least three thousand star systems are recorded to be populated as of the current year, and four hundred have a population greater than one hundred million. These colonies are largely self-sustaining, as the importation of food and supplies is incredibly difficult, leading to an independent "frontier spirit" that sets them apart from the Core. The Empire technically claims all of them as part of its territory, but a large portion vehemently disagree - and as it essentially only controls Terra and its surrounding worlds, the "Empire" can do little to stop this wave of independence.

FTL (IMPORTANT)

There are two main forms of faster than light travel in this universe, and the two complement each other, both with advantages and disadvantages. The most commonly-used is the gravity drive, also known as the "warp drive," which is similar to early models of Alcubierre drive - it creates a field of space around it with "warped" dimensions, essentially shortening the trip and technically allowing a ship to travel faster than light. The benefits of this system are legion - it's (relatively) cheap to build, it's omnidirectional (ie. a ship could theoretically get between any two places in the galaxy), and it can be activated from anywhere in a star system. There are three large drawbacks, however. First, when in use, it hogs power - not merely because of its own energy drain, but also because shields have to be run at full power constantly to prevent the tiniest bit of space dust from ripping the ship apart. Secondly, it requires twenty minutes to spool up, making emergency jumps difficult. Thirdly, and most importantly, it is slow. Calculations note that it would take over 25 years to get from Norilsk to Gran Providencia as the crow flies, and that's discounting refueling stops and any necessary repairs should shield power run out.

The other is the slipstream. For lack of a more scientific explanation, the slipstream connects two points in space with a corridor of "slipspace," allowing near-instantaneous travel between the two spots regardless of distance. While this sounds like it should be the ideal drive, there is one very big caveat - slipstreams cannot be artificially generated by the technology available to the Empire, and as such they must be located first - and both ends, at that. Coincidentally, entrances to these streams also tend to be in systems containing life-bearing worlds - lending credence to the incredibly popular theory that they are artificial. The fact that both ends need to be discovered before a slipstream can be opened also indicates to scientists that most of the systems with slipstream nodes likely have far more streams than they let on.

As a result, a miniscule fraction of even the Orion Spur has been surveyed - and much of that discovery is in star systems within a few lightyears of a slipstream. This is a big reason why the Periphery Systems are so divorced from the core; with no discovered slipstreams, the Periphery is much more difficult to control. In this age of warring states, systems run the gamut of "Imperial in name only" to "Independent and loving it." As much as that rankles to the elites of the Core, there is little to be done at this juncture.

Ground Weapons/Small Arms

The humble coilgun is, and has remained for four thousand years, the most common weapon in the arsenal of both land forces and space forces - although with major power differences. Land units use them as they are cheap, reliable, and hardy, although richer clans and the forces of the Imperial Cult also employ expensive, complicated, and relatively unreliable plasma weapons. Lasers are also common as stealthy weapons; while they don't have the stopping power of a coilgun or the ablative properties of a plasgun, lasers are silent killers used most often by special forces and espionage services. They do nothing against modern body armor, but exposed flesh offers no such resistance.

Thanks to a vibrant dueling culture in certain areas of the Empire, a number of dueling weapons have become prominent again. There are the classic swords, of course, but energy blades are also prominent - on low power, they can inflict self-sealing wounds on unarmored flesh, making them perfect for nonlethal duels - on high power, they can be incredibly lethal. In addition, for smaller examples, they are just a hit when unpowered - making them ideal stealth weapons for concealment. Swords, both energy and otherwise, are also often used as ceremonial decorations for nobles and officers; as a noble, you will have been presented with one of your choice.

Ship Weapons/Doctrine

As for space, lasers are used only as CIWS and point defenses, whereas mass drivers (essentially large coilguns) are used as the primary weapons of most vessels. Larger warships will sometimes employ plasma lances for medium-range engagements; they do enormous damage on direct hits and burn through armor easily, but they are relatively inaccurate and easily dispersed by shields. Close-range fighting is decided by torpedoes, guided missiles of varying kinds designed to penetrate armor and detonate inside the hull of a ship. Most torpedoes are tipped with fusion warheads, as that is generally all that is needed to inflict a mission-kill, but particularly affluent fleets will sometimes use antimatter warheads.

The traditional navy builds its fleets around the theory of the "dreadnought group," the basic unit of most larger navies. The dreadnought, the largest and most powerful vessel in space, is accompanied in battle by enormous supporting fleets of battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers, torpedo destroyers, frigates, and the like. However, due to the collapse of the Empire and the fragmentation of the Imperial Navy a hundred years ago, most of the clans make do with mere battleships or battlecruisers. Carriers do not exist, as space fighters are rendered impractical by point defenses. Energy shields are standard among warships and rather common for large merchantmen, making space combat an often long, drawn-out slugging match as ships of the line pound away at each other from thousands of kilometers' distance to batter down the other's shields. Most battles are decided in the first five to ten minutes of combat, with positioning and initial range being the deciding factor in these engagements.

Battles often end with retreats for the outmatched side, but there is one caveat - a ship cannot retreat at FTL or even at high speeds without its shields, as the tiniest bit of space-dust would tear even a dreadnought apart. As a result, if a ship loses its shields in combat, it must stay and fight to the death or surrender. Uneven battles often become a race to destroy a weaker enemy's shields before they can spool up their warp drives.

Dreadnoughts

Though they are technically classified as "warships over ten kilometers long," dreadnoughts are the ultimate expression of naval power. With a massive spinal mass driver, and with a hull bristling with hundred of other weapons, a dreadnought can shred small fleets at medium-long range. However, they are vulnerable at short ranges, and they are so hideously expensive to build that nobody outside the Cult bothers to construct them. The only dreadnoughts currently in the hands of the Clans are old, mothballed vessels that were once ships of the now-fragmented Imperial Navy.

Battleships

Battleships are the primary ships of the line for most of the Empire, mile-long behemoths with heavy mass drivers for its main weapons. They are generally used as artillery platforms, firing ferrous slugs at ranges of tens of thousands of kilometers. They are capable of influcting punishing damage at long and medium ranges, although they should not under any circumstances engage at close range.

Battlecruisers

Lighter and more maneuverable than their larger counterparts, battlecruisers sacrifice armament and armor for greater speed. This makes them useful for pursuits, and less vulnerable at close ranges, but getting into a line battle in a battlecruiser is a recipe for disaster - they don't have the shields and survivability to outfight a battleship.

Cruisers

Cruisers are the workhorses of the average fleet, and come in two flavors - light cruisers, and heavy cruisers. Heavy cruisers are, in most battles, the heaviest combatants on the field, as they are cheaper to build than battlewagons - and they are also meant to be the center of most cruiser lines in battle. Light cruisers, on the other hand, are the most common line combatants, and the smallest ships capable of mounting plasma lances or spinal cannons. In other roles, they serve as destroyer leaders for patrol missions or raids.

Destroyers

The humble destroyer is a close-range vessel, primarily armed with torpedoes for runs against capital ships. Their small size makes their mass drivers weak and useful only for fighting off ships of similar sizes. Destroyer squadrons are also used for patrols, often led by a light cruiser adapted for the purpose.

Frigates

Tiny and fast, frigates aren't actually meant for combat - they are primarily scout ships equipped with powerful sensors that are usually dispatched ahead of a fleet to gain enemy positioning and numbers. They are then able to relay this information back to a fleet's capital ships, thereby lessening the problems of time delay.

Communications

FTL communications are sometimes incredibly easy, and sometimes incredibly expensive and unwieldy. First, the easy - slipstreams are capable of transporting information just as easily as ships. Laser comms can be beamed through slipstreams by specialized quantum relays, receiving comms data from all over a system and beaming it through to an equivalent relay on the other side.

The difficult: outside of the 'streams, "quantum communications" are a problem. They are instantaneous, but (as is becoming a theme) power intensive and are only able to send a few gigabytes of information per hour - enough to hold a video chat as long as bandwidth is open, but not enough to send entire hard drives of information without waiting for hours on end. The energy drain also increases with distance, making long-range comms impractical for those outside of militaries and elites. As such, there is no unified "galactic information network," instead a group of smaller networks that are able to communicate periodically. This has led to the rise in an "information gap" - citizens of the Core, specifically those very few systems that have slipstream connections, enjoy fast communications with Terra. In contrast, citizens of non-Slipstream systems (or worse, the denizens of the Periphery) have to wait minutes, hours, days, or even weeks for a communication to get through.

Medical/Biotech

The average human lifespan in the Core Systems is 180-200 years, depending on clan and world. People in the Periphery live shorter lives, usually 150 or so. Much of this longevity is due to the relative ease of biological rejuvenation therapy, advanced cybernetics, and replacement cloning. Genemods and cybernetics are almost commonplace among the middle and upper classes, ranging from basic functional augmentations to strange and fantastic cosmetic augs and, most strikingly, the cocktail of genemods and cybersuite that the average soldier undergoes. Human cloning does exist, as does controlled age acceleration, but the idea of clone armies is very impractical, morally ambiguous, and hideously expensive.

Ruler: Tsarina Anastasia V Rurikovich
Consort: None
Heir Apparent: Tsarevna Ekaterina "the Younger"
Succession Type: Absolute Primogeniture
Other families of the Empire

Mandate - Pursuit of Justice

Mandate: Pursuit of Justice

• Win Condition: Successfully reduce corruption from 4 of the six ministries within 20 turns.
• Critical Win Condition: Same as above, but with all 6 ministries.
• Critical Failure: 0-1 ministries have had corruption reduced within 20 turns.

Members (Main Branch)

Members (Main Branch)
Anastasia Ekaterinovna
Ekaterina Ekaterinovna (Younger Sister)

• Ekaterina the Younger is a quiet, unassuming girl. While she had a similar upbringing to you and Ivan, with your mother's social Darwinism and borderline emotional abuse, she bottled it up and sticks to her books. She is decidedly less ambitious than Ivan, although a great deal smarter - which, in your opinion makes it highly likely that she won't oppose you.

Pavel Ekaterinov (Younger Brother)
Alexei Svetlanov Aristarkhov (Father)

(There are other members from other branches, but they are unlikely to play much part.)

Status Effects

Status Effects

• Close to the Periphery: House Rurikovich has always had a close relationship with the denizens of the Periphery. According to legend, the first army Rurik himself commanded was a motley crew of the Periphery's flotsam and jetsam, and this tradition has continued. +10 to all rolls involving the Periphery (this does not include exploration rolls).
• Corruption: House Rurikovich and its vassals have always had something of a problem when it comes to corruption, both in the public and private sectors. There will be a 6% penalty to income as long as this effect remains in play - 1% for each Ministry.
• Inefficient Ship Upkeep: House Rurikovich's ships are powerful and well-built, but where their tech lacks is in their mass-production of their parts. As a result, they need to import many of them for the purposes of quality control - making their maintenance much more pricey. +10% to ship upkeep.
• Orbital Damage: The orbital facilities of Moskva have been severely damaged by the battle there. As a result, Moskva shipyards are unusable until this status is removed - although you will still be paying upkeep in the form of repairs.
• Paying Tithes: The House Rurikovich is currently paying the stipulated 3% of its income as a tithe to the Imperial Family and to the Imperial Cult.

Basic Finances

Report on Finances
Current Reserves: 19,477 (24,477 if Felix is chosen)
Income per Turn: 99,302
See a detailed report HERE.

Fiefs

Moskva Fief

Moskva Fief
Central System: Mir
Capital World: Moskva
Capital City: Posadka
Development: High (20 Orbital slots, 25 Land slots)
Facility Slots:

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Kyiv Fief

Kyiv Fief
Central System: Letom
Capital World: Kyiv
Capital City: Tarnapol
Development: Low (11 Orbital slots, 16 Land slots)
Facility Slots:

• Orbital: 7/10
  • Spaceport x2
  • Military Shipyard x1
  • Orbital Defenses x2
  • Orbital Extraction x2
• Land: 10/15
  • Extraction x3
  • Urban x1
  • Agricultural x5
  • Military x1

Vassals

House Yusopov

House Yusopov
Leader: Duke Pyotr Yusopov
Fief(s): Dnieper
Relations: 5(0) - House Yusopov is pragmatic to the extreme - a sentiment you can get behind, to be sure, but it does mean that they have reserved judgement of you for now.
Tithe: 50,000

House Goryemkin

House Goryemkin
Leader: Duke Vasily Goryemkin
Fief(s): Mikhail
Relations: 5(-1) - House Goryemkin has always been somewhat restive, but the previous Goryemkin lord led a revolt over 50 years ago - which your grandfather soundly crushed with the help of House Yusopov. As this is still living memory for many in the "Wheat Clan," resentment lingers.
Tithe: 22,500

House Aristarkhov

House Aristarkhov
Leader: Baron Vladimir Aristarkhov
Fief(s): Norilsk
Relations: 5(3) - Your father is an Aristarkhov, and two of your Aristarkhov uncles are vital members of your inner circle. Currently your most-supported house.
Tithe: 13,000

Military

Military

Fleets

Fleets

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Armies

Armies
A Legion is ~300-500,000 troops depending on type.

• 1st Home Army (Moskva)
  • 4x Infantry Legion
  • 1x Armor Legion
• 2nd Home Army (Moskva)
  • 4x Infantry Legion
  • 1x Armor Legion
• 3rd Tank Army (Moskva)
  • 2x Infantry
  • 2x Armor
• 4th Shock Army (Moskva)
  • 3x Infantry
  • 2x Armor
• 5th Home Army (Kyiv)
  • 4x Infantry
  • 1x Armor
• 6th Home Army (Kyiv)
  • 4x Infantry
  • 1x Armor
• 7th Shock Army (Kyiv)
  • 3x Infantry
  • 2x Armor
• 8th Tank Army (Moskva)
  • 2x Infantry
  • 2x Armor
• 9th Shock Army (Moskva)
  • 3x Infantry
  • 2x Armor
• 10th Shock Army (Moskva)
  • 3x Infantry
  • 2x Armor

The Okhrana

The Okhrana
Assets:

• Moskva
  • Listening Post: x1
  • Intel Post: x2
  • Hit Squad: x1
• Kyiv
  • Listening Post: x1
  • Intel Post: x1
  • Hit Squad: 0
• Mikhail
  • Listening Post: x1
  • Intel Post: x1
  • Hit Squad: x1
• Dnieper
  • Listening Post: x1
  • Intel Post: x2
  • Hit Squad: x1
• Norilsk
  • Listening Post: x1
  • Intel Post: x1
  • Hit Squad: 0
• Meuse
  • Listening Post: 0
  • Intel Post: x1 (Defunct)
  • Hit Squad: 0
• Al-Haq'ah
  • Listening Post: 0
  • Intel Post: x1 (Defunct)
  • Hit Squad: 0

Summary of Installations

Space Installations

Space:

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Land Installations

Land:

• Extraction Facility: Including mining, drilling, fracking, and all the like, Extraction facilities represent the extraction of natural resources that can thus be processed into other things. They cost 10,000 initially, and produce 12,000 per turn. They take 3 turns to build.
• Urban Center: Rather self-explanatory; urban centers represent the huge concentrations of populations that characterize cities, manufacturing centers, and the like. Their base cost is 30,000, and their production is 20,000 per turn. They take 6 turns to construct.
• Agricultural Center: From thousand-acre automated farms and towering arcologies to protein vats and meatpacking plants, this facility represents the ability of a planet to support its population. Every Urban Center directly controlled requires two Agricultural Centers, or at least imports of food from other sources. Base cost is 5,000, with an upkeep of 1,500 per turn. They cost 2 turns to build.
• Military-Industrial Center: Representing the capacity of your world to construct and maintain the materiel for your ground forces, each Military-Industrial Center allows you to produce 1 legion. Base cost is 30,000, and requires an upkeep of 5,000 per turn. They take 4 turns to construct.

Intelligence Assets

Intelligence Assets:

• Listening Post: Usually established secretly on an outer system body or in a system's Kuiper belt, a Listening Post allows the Okhrana to observe naval and trade movements. These are small stations, usually disguised as wildcat mining operations or research stations, and they are by far the most vulnerable. A Listening Post costs 2,000 to establish, requires 500 in upkeep, and takes 1 turn to construct.
• Intelligence Post: These are operations established planetside, whose purpose is to monitor the population of a given system. They use a combination of locally-recruited agents and specially trained Okhrana operatives to gain this information. An Intelligence Post costs 5,000 to establish, requires 1000 in upkeep, and takes 2 turns to construct.
• Hit Squad: These specialized teams of assassins, when deployed to a planet, are on call for any wet work the Okhrana needs doing. Assassinations can only be ordered if a Hit Squad is available on the planet, or if you task a Hero Unit to carry it out. A Hit Squad costs 1,000 to establish, requires 100 in upkeep, and takes 1 turn to construct.

Character Rules

Like most CKII quests, there will be 5 basic stats that govern your ability to lead your dynasty:

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• Diplomacy: Your ability to negotiate, both with foreign powers and with your friends and colleagues. A necessary stat for diplomats, politicians, and the like.
• Martial: Your ability to lead, both on a small scale as an inspiring battlefield leader and on a large scale as a strategist. A necessary stat for generals and admirals.
• Stewardship: Your ability to manage the financial and bureaucratic aspects of ruling a state. A necessary stat for bankers, bureaucrats, and businesspeople in general
• Intrigue: Your familiarity with the cloak-and-dagger, and your ability to both use and prevent the use of subtle tactics. A necessary stat for spies and spymasters.
• Learning: While this is definitely an abstraction, learning is your general knowledge about the sciences, mathematics, and essentially how well-educated you are, not simply how smart you are. A necessary stat for scientists, scholars, and engineers.

Furthermore, I have added the stat Piety, as I have seen in a number of other CKII quests:

• Piety: Your general knowledge about the dominant religion of the Empire, the Imperial Cult, and your ability to present yourself as a faithful individual. Note that this does not make you a believer, that is up to you. A necessary stat for priests, as one might guess.

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In addition, I have added Personal Combat Skill, which is not the same as the other stats in that it is based on another stat - it is base ½ of your Martial, plus or minus any other modifiers - and does not have an Advisor or an action economy.

As seen in other quests I've read, this is the scale for how your abilities in each stat are judged:

0-4: Incompetent
5-8: Poor
9-12: Decent
13-16: Competent
17-20: Expert
21-24: Masterful
25-28: Legendary
29 and higher: Incomparable

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You will be given a total of six advisors, one for each stat. They may or may not be completely loyal to you, but there may also be consequences for removing/replacing them. Play will happen in turns of one year, starting in the Terran year 2673 Shahzad when your character is 25.

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During each turn, your advisors will present you with a number of options. At the start, each turn will allow you to choose one option per advisor, although the gain of later traits or a difference in the status of each department may allow you to get more actions or options per turn. Each attempt at a certain action will need to beat a certain target number on a d100, modified by 1/2 your relevant stat + 1/2 the minister in question's stat.

You will also receive Personal Actions, actions you can take as a character that don't apply to you. This will be the most open-ended for write-ins, although I will provide you with some options each year. They will be modified by your full PC stat. This also applies to certain "story" rolls done during interludes.

Finally, you will receive Heroes, skilled assistants who have joined your cause for one reason or another. You have three actions per turn at the start of the game that you can use to send them out to carry out your will.

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Statecraft Rules

On your Demesne Status Screen, you will receive the information you need to run your fief. This will include the numbers of your fleets and armies, the worlds you control, and abstraction of your funds in Imperial Dinars. You will receive an income every turn based on the worlds and mining stations you control, and have an upkeep based on your fleets, facilities, and alliances.

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With regards to money, you CAN go into debt and remain there. HOWEVER, should this continue for more than three years, you will begin to see… penalties imposed on you until you get back in the black. The penalties will become more severe the more debt you incur, and the longer you remain in debt.

I will also note the Relationships with the other families and notable persons. The scale will be from 1-10, with 1 being "Unquestioned loathing" and 10 being "Deeply bonded allies." 5 is "neutral," as one might expect; the higher/lower your relationship, the more likely you might see events involving one of these powers.

Personal Relationship Rules

If you look at the Relationship stats for all six of the potential Heroes, there are two values - one normal, one in parentheses. The first scale goes from 1 to 10, and there are no barriers to its movement. If, for example, you punch a person in the face, you might lose five relationship points. If you go to either extreme, 1 or 10, you can go no higher or lower.

The second value, the one in parentheses, is arguably more important - it essentially shows how important you are to this person, and how loyal/disloyal they are. This is tied to your regular 1-10 relationship stat, which can increase or decrease it. This value can go from -5 to 5.

To explain better, I'll use an example. Let's say we have a person with a stat of 5(0). This indicates that this person is essentially completely neutral to us on a personal level. They are in the middle of their personal relationship stat (the 5), and have no particular lasting issues or commonalities with you (the 0).

Say you do a few favors for them; they are somewhat grateful, and your personal relationship stat increases. Let's say you earn a total of 6, technically surpassing the limit of 10. What then? Well, you make a roll on a d6. If it succeeds (which I will address later), your Loyalty stat goes up 1. As you have "advanced" to another level, your Personal stat resets to a neutral 5. As a result, your stats become 5(1) with this person. They now feel that you are slightly more trustworthy as an individual, and you can count on them for more things.

On the other hand, let's say you were working against them, and you managed to hit a Personal stat of 1. Once again, you roll a die; if you succeed, that means you have gone down a level to 5(-1); this now means that they find yoususpicious, not enough to discourage mutually beneficial arrangements.

A "success" on the die depends on your Loyalty level. The deeper you go into a relationship with someone, the harder it is to reverse it. As a result, the target number is one more than your intended level. Let's say you have a loyalty of 0, and reach either extreme; that means that your target number is 2, meaning you have to get a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 on your die to go up or down a level. On the other hand, if you're at Level 4 trying to reach Level 5, you have to score a 6 to increase it. Getting back to 0 is an automatic success if you're at Level 1.

One thing to mention: after 2 turns, wherever your Personal stat is, it will start to decay at a rate of 1 point per year back to its neutral value, which is 5. Loyalty, whether Positive or Negative, does not decay.

Loyalty Scale:
-5: Murderous Hatred
-4: Hatred
-3: Dislike
-2: Rivalry
-1: Suspicion
0: Neutral
1: Cordial
2: First-Name Basis
3: Friendship
4: Ally
5: Undying Loyalty

Voting Rules

Unless otherwise noted, voting on a turn-by-turn basis will be done by plan, meaning that you vote for one coherent plan instead of whichever option you feel is best.

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I will allow write-ins in most cases, but I will have to approve them before they are counted.

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In most cases, voting will be by plurality, although for some more important votes I will add a runoff.

Love, Fear and Fame

Introducing the newest three sliders: Love, Fear, and Fame! People often forget the context of Machiavielli's infamous "better to be feared than loved" adage - his actual advice was to be both loved and feared, if at all possible, and if not, only then should you rely on terror.

Love and Fear represent the opinions of the Empire at large on your conduct and methods. Ruthlessness, destruction, and military prowess tends to increase your Fear, while retreating from decisive battles, losses of face, and compassion people see as unwarranted or undeserved can decrease it.

On the other scale, philanthropy, diplomatic solutions, and good old panem et circenses increase your Love, and failing to provide for your people, social faux pas, and acts of unspeakable brutality lower it.

Both stats move in a way similar to the Personal Relationship slider: with a "superficial" value from 1-10, and a "deeper" value from -5 to 5. The same rules for changing the scale - a d6 roll at either extreme - and decay towards neutrality at the same rate.

Love Scale
-5: Inhuman
-4: Pure Evil
-3: Hated Tyrant
-2: Malevolent
-1: Uncouth
0: Neutral
1: Benevolent
2: Beloved
3: Woman of the People
4: Paragon of Virtue
5: Galactic Messiah

Fear Scale
-5: Adorable
-4: Impotent
-3: Laughingstock
-2: Ineffectual
-1: Weakened
0: Neutral
1: Respected
2: Intimidating
3: Terrifying
4: Untouchable
5: Lovecraftian

The Fame scale is slightly different, and is a 1-100 scale of how well the Empire knows you. Whether it's positive fame or infamy depends on your Love and Fear scores. Fame, unlike PR, Love, and Fear, is much harder to decrease through direct action - though it decays at a rate of 2 per year to represent the rate at which people forget your exploits or are otherwise distracted by the rest of the Empire.

The first digit of your Fame score is your level. With Fame 32 you have level 3 Fame, while with Fame 57 you are at Level 5 and so on. Fame decay cannot bring you below the first number of that level until three years have passed without increasing Fame. For example, if your fame decays from 62 to 60, it cannot decay further without 3 years passing - though on the fourth term afterwards it will be reduced to 58.

Certain rolls will call for a Fear or Love check. That means that the bonus used will be your Fame level x the Fear or Love level in question. This applies as well to negative Fear or Love scores - though they are maluses instead of bonuses.

Fame Scale
0-9: Unknown Noble
10-19: Planetary fame
20-29: System fame; most Minor House lords
30-39: Average Great Clan Lord
40-49: Untested Great House ruler
50-59: Famed on Terra
60-69: Talk of the Imperial Court
70-79: Emperor's Interest
80-89: Household Name
90-99: Galactic Influence
100: Practically Emperor