Behind the Serpent Throne: An Original Fantasy Quest of Betrayal, Politics, and Daddy Issues...
Behind the Serpent Throne (CK2)
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Behind the Serpent Throne: An Original Fantasy Quest of Betrayal, Politics, and Daddy Issues (CK2)
"Everyone who makes it in this world makes it because someone older and more powerful takes an interest. The most precious asset in life, I think, is the ability to be a good son."--Roy Cohn, Angels in America Part 1, Act 2, Scene 4.
They called his father the Old Man, and many, many more things behind his back, but he had always been known as the Whoreson. But then, he'd never known his father, and when his mother had died in exile with him, that was the last bond severed. It wasn't as if the Old Man was someone to be trifled with, and yet in some ways he was the trifling ghost just off-stage in the Xialo Play[1] that was his life.
They said that a dutiful son learned the past of their father, and their fathers father, and their ancestors all the way down to when the first men rose from the ash of the spirits' war. But then, he'd heard a drunk once argue, why wasn't there a similar duty for the fathers to know their sons, as they so often did not.
Until he received the letter, he hadn't even known that his father knew he existed, not anymore. Ten years, ten years since he'd last received a message or anything from the man, and it came wrapped in demands as it had before.
Yet despite himself, who hadn't heard of the man who all whispered to be all but the Emperor? His deeds, his legends, his dark violence and moods and temperment had defined a generation. Even in the Southlands, where they bowed only so often to the Emperors of Csirit, and had at times even overtaken the Empire, only to be eaten alive from the inside, his name was feared. Feared and remembered.
How and why did Father rise to power? (Note, this probably won't directly give some sort of stat bonus. Like, the father who was a general doesn't mean that his son will be a general or have a boost to martial. What it will affect is the nature of his rule and the empire, and some of the resources and relationships that might be going down.)
[] The son of a Eunuch on Last Night[2], he only escaped his unknown father's fate by cunning, being sent as the assistant to an ill-fated attempt to conquer the Western Marshes of Bueli. There were many rumors as to what happened there, but the end result was that the upstart general in charge of the army died, his forces routed, and Father rallied the remnants and succeeded in forcing a peace, at the tender age of seventeen. The boy general rose and rose, victory following victory, swelling the Empire and protecting its borders. Every year, it seemed, the silver gong rang out thirteen times, and every year Father returned to bow ten times to the Emperor and give great gifts, expressing his humility and submission, all the while smirking as his power grew. Even now, over a decade after he last took the field, he holds sway over the armies, and yet there is rot within the ranks, and many speak of the cruelty and ambitions which drive him always to make an enemy of others. The bureaucracy and the hereditary governors hate him, and yet his power has waxed even into his waning years.
[] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him the realm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[] Into the vipers' pit went the second and third sons of the hereditary governor of Hari-Bueli (Near Bueli). Only one of them emerged from court politics victorious, to go back to his father with the concessions he had wanted. The other, Father, stayed on and began to note the rivalries and tensions, to manipulate events from the bottom and the top. The right word to the right courtesan and a man could be humiliated, and his downfall, his failure, turned into opportunity. Every knife was his, every whisper was his as well, and he knew the names of the spirits that rested in the eaves of windows, he knew the names of everyone who could give him aid. He rose, and rose, yet did so in the shadows. When he unveiled himself, his enemies fled or bled and died, and the Emperor was his tool. The great massacre of Sarzi was his doing, and the Emperor in his wrath at finding traitors in his midst, turned over everything, one way or another, to one man. Father.
[] What do you call a man who has every talent and no talent? Who can sing and dance, can write a perfect verse of poetry and ride hunting through the woods in the same breath. Who dabbled at everything and excelled at many things? The first Emperor that Father met called him 'favorite' and 'lover' and cherished him close, and when his son rose to power, he was but a tool of Fathers. Father who was everywhere, talking endlessly, fighting endlessly, dueling any who stood in his way or beating them through bureaucratic tricks. There was nothing he couldn't do, except love a bastard. His power is vast and yet as fragile as the first snow, pure and clean in appearance, and yet soon sullied. Many thought he would be a passing man, like many other men and women who had traded love for influence, and yet even now, more than half a century after he had taken power, he held it still. It couldn't be by his looks, and so it must be by his excellence. Yet why would such a man, who had so long declaimed the power of the flesh, had gotten married only by politics and nothing more, now call his son back?
[] A monster is what he is. He had started out a student of the imperial academy, where the spirits were bound and the secret names of the world were compiled, strengthened. Learned. At the age of thirteen he had murdered a city of fifty-thousand people by doing the impossible. Even rumor only hints at how, but the plague that struck down the city at just the right time, and the credit that Father took for it, was but the beginning of a reputation of blood and mystical might that stretched beyond the borders of knowledge into legend. Even the priests hate him, and yet the Empire has grown strong under his rule, despite his apathy for the systems that are said to keep it going. The Emperor walks every day in fear of the man, and even as old as he is, none dare cross him. But then again, none dare love him either.
*****
But besides a Father, he had had a Mother, and for the first twelve years of his life, she had been all he had.
Where did Mother come from? (Influences some other factors)
[] Southlands (Cities): In the south, before the deserts, spread out like gems against the sea, are the seventeen great cities, whose glory is known far and wide, for all that the Empire might claim them at one time or another or others might contest their power and glory. His mother was born in the same place that he would spend most of his life until the day his Father drew him home, and she was always most comfortable with these lands.
[] Southlands (Oasis): Mother was a woman of the proud tribes and fragmenting empires of the deserts and the lands beyond the deserts, who practiced the dangerous art of making spirits into tattoos. There was an entire line of Emperors who married into the holy imperial line after having conquered half of the Empire and splintering the rest, who have this blood, and this combination of antagonism and assimilation continues to this day.
[] Anlan: The only Kingdom of the West, beyond the long plains who has the right to trade back and forth with Csirit, Mother was the daughter of a merchant, and nothing more. Yet from them she inherited the strange looks which might have stirred some passion for the exotic from his Father. But not too exotic, it seemed.
[] Imperial Province (Hari-Bueli): Always on the border, between grassland and marshland, between foreign invasions that failed and invasions outward whose success has always been fleeting, it is provincial: which is another way to say backwards. Half-barbarian, people mutter. A land grown wild lately.
[] Imperial Province (Hari-Nat): The northernmost province, right up against the vast mountain range that, it is said, divides the world of the living from the dead. And indeed spirits seem to pour from the unseen peaks of the mountain, and dark things lurk in its shade, and yet people here, traded ice and what little they could mine in the danger and sacred nature (of many religions, but not all of them) of the mountains.
[] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
[] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
[] Imperial Province (Hirand): The most traditional of the provinces, and the part of the empire with the richest farmlands, their belief in the value of family apparently had its limits in Mother, since he had never heard a word of or from his Mother's family in all of their exile, in all of those years when they might have reached out. Its emphasis on traditions certainly had its effects on his Mother, who always kept to the state religion and even in the Southlands kept to the traditions of the empire, and not those of the barbarians.
[] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
[1] A form of play involving actors in painted masks. The ghosts, or characters who are dead who are haunting those still alive, traditionally wear black masks.
[2] Those Eunuchs who are made so as adults as part of the Imperial Bureaucracy (or at least after they are children) have the traditional right to lay with a concubine on the night before their manhood is taken away. The few children who result are raised by the state and usually become eunuchs themselves.
*****
A/N: And thus begins yet another mistake. Well. Uh. I'm really hesitating to press the create thread button, but...oh, add another tag, that'll keep me from procrastinating.
Alright, so, since this is an original fantasy setting, asking more questions is probably a good idea. Don't post until I say so. Vote'll not be by plan for this unless there's some huge divergence where two factions split over some big interpretation thing or something.
Uh, have fun?
"Everyone who makes it in this world makes it because someone older and more powerful takes an interest. The most precious asset in life, I think, is the ability to be a good son."--Roy Cohn, Angels in America Part 1, Act 2, Scene 4.
They called his father the Old Man, and many, many more things behind his back, but he had always been known as the Whoreson. But then, he'd never known his father, and when his mother had died in exile with him, that was the last bond severed. It wasn't as if the Old Man was someone to be trifled with, and yet in some ways he was the trifling ghost just off-stage in the Xialo Play[1] that was his life.
They said that a dutiful son learned the past of their father, and their fathers father, and their ancestors all the way down to when the first men rose from the ash of the spirits' war. But then, he'd heard a drunk once argue, why wasn't there a similar duty for the fathers to know their sons, as they so often did not.
Until he received the letter, he hadn't even known that his father knew he existed, not anymore. Ten years, ten years since he'd last received a message or anything from the man, and it came wrapped in demands as it had before.
Yet despite himself, who hadn't heard of the man who all whispered to be all but the Emperor? His deeds, his legends, his dark violence and moods and temperment had defined a generation. Even in the Southlands, where they bowed only so often to the Emperors of Csirit, and had at times even overtaken the Empire, only to be eaten alive from the inside, his name was feared. Feared and remembered.
How and why did Father rise to power? (Note, this probably won't directly give some sort of stat bonus. Like, the father who was a general doesn't mean that his son will be a general or have a boost to martial. What it will affect is the nature of his rule and the empire, and some of the resources and relationships that might be going down.)
[] The son of a Eunuch on Last Night[2], he only escaped his unknown father's fate by cunning, being sent as the assistant to an ill-fated attempt to conquer the Western Marshes of Bueli. There were many rumors as to what happened there, but the end result was that the upstart general in charge of the army died, his forces routed, and Father rallied the remnants and succeeded in forcing a peace, at the tender age of seventeen. The boy general rose and rose, victory following victory, swelling the Empire and protecting its borders. Every year, it seemed, the silver gong rang out thirteen times, and every year Father returned to bow ten times to the Emperor and give great gifts, expressing his humility and submission, all the while smirking as his power grew. Even now, over a decade after he last took the field, he holds sway over the armies, and yet there is rot within the ranks, and many speak of the cruelty and ambitions which drive him always to make an enemy of others. The bureaucracy and the hereditary governors hate him, and yet his power has waxed even into his waning years.
[] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him the realm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[] Into the vipers' pit went the second and third sons of the hereditary governor of Hari-Bueli (Near Bueli). Only one of them emerged from court politics victorious, to go back to his father with the concessions he had wanted. The other, Father, stayed on and began to note the rivalries and tensions, to manipulate events from the bottom and the top. The right word to the right courtesan and a man could be humiliated, and his downfall, his failure, turned into opportunity. Every knife was his, every whisper was his as well, and he knew the names of the spirits that rested in the eaves of windows, he knew the names of everyone who could give him aid. He rose, and rose, yet did so in the shadows. When he unveiled himself, his enemies fled or bled and died, and the Emperor was his tool. The great massacre of Sarzi was his doing, and the Emperor in his wrath at finding traitors in his midst, turned over everything, one way or another, to one man. Father.
[] What do you call a man who has every talent and no talent? Who can sing and dance, can write a perfect verse of poetry and ride hunting through the woods in the same breath. Who dabbled at everything and excelled at many things? The first Emperor that Father met called him 'favorite' and 'lover' and cherished him close, and when his son rose to power, he was but a tool of Fathers. Father who was everywhere, talking endlessly, fighting endlessly, dueling any who stood in his way or beating them through bureaucratic tricks. There was nothing he couldn't do, except love a bastard. His power is vast and yet as fragile as the first snow, pure and clean in appearance, and yet soon sullied. Many thought he would be a passing man, like many other men and women who had traded love for influence, and yet even now, more than half a century after he had taken power, he held it still. It couldn't be by his looks, and so it must be by his excellence. Yet why would such a man, who had so long declaimed the power of the flesh, had gotten married only by politics and nothing more, now call his son back?
[] A monster is what he is. He had started out a student of the imperial academy, where the spirits were bound and the secret names of the world were compiled, strengthened. Learned. At the age of thirteen he had murdered a city of fifty-thousand people by doing the impossible. Even rumor only hints at how, but the plague that struck down the city at just the right time, and the credit that Father took for it, was but the beginning of a reputation of blood and mystical might that stretched beyond the borders of knowledge into legend. Even the priests hate him, and yet the Empire has grown strong under his rule, despite his apathy for the systems that are said to keep it going. The Emperor walks every day in fear of the man, and even as old as he is, none dare cross him. But then again, none dare love him either.
*****
But besides a Father, he had had a Mother, and for the first twelve years of his life, she had been all he had.
Where did Mother come from? (Influences some other factors)
[] Southlands (Cities): In the south, before the deserts, spread out like gems against the sea, are the seventeen great cities, whose glory is known far and wide, for all that the Empire might claim them at one time or another or others might contest their power and glory. His mother was born in the same place that he would spend most of his life until the day his Father drew him home, and she was always most comfortable with these lands.
[] Southlands (Oasis): Mother was a woman of the proud tribes and fragmenting empires of the deserts and the lands beyond the deserts, who practiced the dangerous art of making spirits into tattoos. There was an entire line of Emperors who married into the holy imperial line after having conquered half of the Empire and splintering the rest, who have this blood, and this combination of antagonism and assimilation continues to this day.
[] Anlan: The only Kingdom of the West, beyond the long plains who has the right to trade back and forth with Csirit, Mother was the daughter of a merchant, and nothing more. Yet from them she inherited the strange looks which might have stirred some passion for the exotic from his Father. But not too exotic, it seemed.
[] Imperial Province (Hari-Bueli): Always on the border, between grassland and marshland, between foreign invasions that failed and invasions outward whose success has always been fleeting, it is provincial: which is another way to say backwards. Half-barbarian, people mutter. A land grown wild lately.
[] Imperial Province (Hari-Nat): The northernmost province, right up against the vast mountain range that, it is said, divides the world of the living from the dead. And indeed spirits seem to pour from the unseen peaks of the mountain, and dark things lurk in its shade, and yet people here, traded ice and what little they could mine in the danger and sacred nature (of many religions, but not all of them) of the mountains.
[] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
[] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
[] Imperial Province (Hirand): The most traditional of the provinces, and the part of the empire with the richest farmlands, their belief in the value of family apparently had its limits in Mother, since he had never heard a word of or from his Mother's family in all of their exile, in all of those years when they might have reached out. Its emphasis on traditions certainly had its effects on his Mother, who always kept to the state religion and even in the Southlands kept to the traditions of the empire, and not those of the barbarians.
[] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
[1] A form of play involving actors in painted masks. The ghosts, or characters who are dead who are haunting those still alive, traditionally wear black masks.
[2] Those Eunuchs who are made so as adults as part of the Imperial Bureaucracy (or at least after they are children) have the traditional right to lay with a concubine on the night before their manhood is taken away. The few children who result are raised by the state and usually become eunuchs themselves.
*****
A/N: And thus begins yet another mistake. Well. Uh. I'm really hesitating to press the create thread button, but...oh, add another tag, that'll keep me from procrastinating.
Alright, so, since this is an original fantasy setting, asking more questions is probably a good idea. Don't post until I say so. Vote'll not be by plan for this unless there's some huge divergence where two factions split over some big interpretation thing or something.
Uh, have fun?
Last edited:
Character Sheets
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Name: Kiralo
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Profession: Mercenary Captain of the Wind-Dancer Rassit.
Languages known: Southland (most major forms and dialects), Csirit (main form.)
Titles: Imperial Envoy to the Council of Generals, Traitor Thrashing General
Stats:
Martial (6d5):22+5 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Brave)+2 (Victorious General)+1 (Diligent)=31
Diplomacy (4d5, drop 1s):17+1 (Attractive)+1 (Court-Trained)+1 (Poet)+1 (Giving)+2 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Diligent)=23
Intrigue (3d5):12+2 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Diligent)=15
Stewardship (3d5): 12+2 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Organizer)+1 (Diligent)=16
Learning (3d5)=8+1 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Father's Son)+1 (Mother's Son)+1 (Diligent)=12
Personal Combat (5d5): 16+1 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Energetic)+1 (Face of Battle)+2 (Brave)=18
Magic (3d4)+1 (Diligent): 12
Traits:
Other Characters:
*****
Resources:
Expensive Hari-Su tapestries (x1)
A Primer On Foreign Magic: +5 to all relevant Action Rolls (Involving researching, using, understanding or countering foreign magic.)
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Profession: Mercenary Captain of the Wind-Dancer Rassit.
Languages known: Southland (most major forms and dialects), Csirit (main form.)
Titles: Imperial Envoy to the Council of Generals, Traitor Thrashing General
Stats:
Martial (6d5):22+5 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Brave)+2 (Victorious General)+1 (Diligent)=31
Diplomacy (4d5, drop 1s):17+1 (Attractive)+1 (Court-Trained)+1 (Poet)+1 (Giving)+2 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Diligent)=23
Intrigue (3d5):12+2 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Diligent)=15
Stewardship (3d5): 12+2 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Organizer)+1 (Diligent)=16
Learning (3d5)=8+1 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Father's Son)+1 (Mother's Son)+1 (Diligent)=12
Personal Combat (5d5): 16+1 (Rassit Mercenary Captain)+1 (Energetic)+1 (Face of Battle)+2 (Brave)=18
Magic (3d4)+1 (Diligent): 12
Traits:
Attractive: He has classical Csiritan good looks. Dark hair and eyes, delicate and yet powerful features, smooth and pale yellow skin, the body of a warrior, but eyes that flash with intelligence. It's a potent combination to win friends and influence people. +1 Diplomacy, +1 to Diplomacy rolls for initial impressions with those who are vulnerable to his charms.
Ayistin: A Spirit he posssesses, ???.
Brave: Kiralo is not afraid, not of something so small as death in combat. There are far greater fears that should keep a man up at night. +1 Martial, +2 Personal Combat.
Courtier-Trained: He is trained as a courtier, and has some considerable skills in this regard. +1 to Diplomacy, no penalty to Diplomacy when in a court setting.
Csiritan Looks: He looks pure Csiritan and receives no diplomacy penalties when interacting with other Csiritans. Might receive small penalties for diplomacy rolls if someone doesn't like Csiritans.
Diligent: Being able to buckle down and do one's work as hard as they can is very important. Kiralo receives a bonus of +1 to Diplomacy, Stewardship, Intrigue, Martial, Learning, and even Magic (because diligence can be very useful.)
Giving: Kiralo has been generous in the past, and more than that, has sympathy for those beneath his station. This is generally seen, as long as it isn't taken too far, as a positive thing, and his reputation generally improves. +1 Diplomacy.
Dad Issues: He hates his Dad. Go figure. -6 for Diplomacy checks with his father...but his father recieves the same penalty for any rolls of his own towards Kiralo.
Energetic: He's hard to put down, hard to keep contained. Filled with an enjoyment towards life, and plenty to keep him busy, as well as the physical hardiness of the young, he is less likely to get sick and less likely to respond to adversity by getting stressed. Also, +1 to Personal Combat.
Face of Battle: He has seen war, pure war, the sort of battle that might happen once in a generation if the Southlands are ready, and he has survived and triumphed. +1 Personal Combat.
Father's Son: His father has tried to drill the classics into him from a distance, and it has had some small amount of success. +1 Learning, +1 Learning when related to understanding traditionalist arguments.
Friend of the Lowly (Peasants): Kiralo knows peasants, and has befriended some throughout his life. No penalties to diplomacy with peasants if given time to make a good impression, +3 to Learning and Stewardship related to knowledge of peasants and their lives.
Gay: Kiralo is only attracted to men, both romantically and sexually. This fact is relatively well known in the Southlands, thanks to his general fame, though probably won't be in Csirit.
Hear a word in your ear: Kiralo knows the value of spies in a campaign, and knows how to cultivate them for the purpose of providing up-to-date strategic and tactical news. +1 to intrigue when related to military spies.
Improvised Poetry Duel: Having 'dueled' someone in a poetry contest, Kiralo has learned to think on his feet. Or at least how to figure out poetic meter on his feet. In addition to having a bit of a reputation in the Southlands, he also receives no penalty to Diplomacy checks to do poetry on the quick.
Master Scout: He is a superb Rassit when it comes to scouting out the enemy and the terrain, in knowing just what to look for, though it tends to require a personal touch.
(Rassit) Mercenary Captain: To be a mercenary Captain of a unit of Rassit was a heavy burden and task, and one that required charisma, a sort of native cunning, the ability to always have a little money set aside for paying for benders...and a damn lot of martial prowess. +5 Martial, +2 Diplomacy, +2 Stewardship, +2 Intrigue, +1 Learning, +4 Martial when leading/using Rassit/LIght Cavalry, +3 Stewardship when handling logistics for armies, +5 Learning when it comes to military topics, +4 Personal Combat while mounted, +1 Intrigue when it comes to military tricks and ruses, +5 for all Magic rolls related to the Rassit (speed, storms, wind, etc).
Mother's Son: Jia was smart, and more than that, trained and knowledgeable in Csiritan culture, and she's taught him much of what she knows. About the way she lived, and the way the people of Csirit live. +1 to Learning, +2 to Learning Rolls involving Csiritan Religious Knowledge or Culture.
Musical Bent: Kiralo knows many musicians, and knows the way they talk and the things they need. +2 Diplomacy when interacting with musicians, has a surprisingly competent singing voice, +3 to Learning to remember old songs, +2 to Stewardship involving, well, organizing musicians.
Not-Yet-Dead-Poets'-Society: Kiralo has befriended Narasim, an old poet whose knowledge of the courts and of the old forms of the Southlands are considerable. They exchange letters and information back and forth.
Poet: Kiralo is a poet, whose works span quite the range, and who has written short plays, short and long poems, and more than a few other things, though he has not published anything, instead shopping it around and showing it off to various parties at court and elsewhere. It's been rather successful within those confines. +1 Diplomacy, +4 Diplomacy when writing poems, +4 Learning involving poetry.
Religious Disputant: Kiralo has experience with other religions, especially those of the Southlands. He also has knowledge of the arguments against them, or for his own religion, or at least for the validity of it. +4 to Learning related to those religions, +4 to Diplomacy rolls for arguing one's theological case.
Still as the Waters: Kiralo is religious, despite it all, and his faith is strong for allt hat, other than a few religious disputes, it is reasonably silent and ingrained. +4 to all Learning rolls involving the Iritan Faith/Imperial Cult (stacks with Mother's Son).
Strategic Insight: Kiralo has proven himself very canny indeed when it comes to understanding the way war is fought and the targets that are chosen, having correctly guessed the general path of an entire war correctly. +2 to Martial when divining the strategic goals of (organized) enemies whose basic nature is understood.
Terrain Master: At the battle, he showed great skill with terrain, skill which he has shown before, and which bodes well to his future as a leader of men. +3 to Martial checks involving finding and using terrain tactically.
Victorious General: Few enough men in this day and age can say they won a war, or fought it from such circumstances and came away with such 'glory' as war can bring. Kiralo has learned much about the command of men, and has a reputation that will not soon be forgotten. +2 Martial, ???
Warrior of the Peace: All know that, on battle and off of it, stalking the negotiating halls as a courtier, he is one of the men who helped end this war and usher in peace. +2 to Diplomacy checks with the Southlands.
Organizer: Kiralo has experience organizing both in a civilian and military capacity, but he has gained far more experience organizing the use of supplies and limited resources. +1 Stewardship, +1 to rolls involving military supply chains, logistics, etc, +3 to rolls involving civilian logistics of distributing limited resources, managing budgets involving such, etc, etc.
Hero Of The People (Csrae): In the city of Csrae, it is known that he gave generously during New Years' Week, and that he gave wisely. People talk, and people who talk make judgements...and these judgements have been positive. +5 to diplomacy when it involves the city of Csrae, +2 to Stewardship for actions related to the city, +1 to Intrigue for actions related to the city.
Ayistin: A Spirit he posssesses, ???.
Brave: Kiralo is not afraid, not of something so small as death in combat. There are far greater fears that should keep a man up at night. +1 Martial, +2 Personal Combat.
Courtier-Trained: He is trained as a courtier, and has some considerable skills in this regard. +1 to Diplomacy, no penalty to Diplomacy when in a court setting.
Csiritan Looks: He looks pure Csiritan and receives no diplomacy penalties when interacting with other Csiritans. Might receive small penalties for diplomacy rolls if someone doesn't like Csiritans.
Diligent: Being able to buckle down and do one's work as hard as they can is very important. Kiralo receives a bonus of +1 to Diplomacy, Stewardship, Intrigue, Martial, Learning, and even Magic (because diligence can be very useful.)
Giving: Kiralo has been generous in the past, and more than that, has sympathy for those beneath his station. This is generally seen, as long as it isn't taken too far, as a positive thing, and his reputation generally improves. +1 Diplomacy.
Dad Issues: He hates his Dad. Go figure. -6 for Diplomacy checks with his father...but his father recieves the same penalty for any rolls of his own towards Kiralo.
Energetic: He's hard to put down, hard to keep contained. Filled with an enjoyment towards life, and plenty to keep him busy, as well as the physical hardiness of the young, he is less likely to get sick and less likely to respond to adversity by getting stressed. Also, +1 to Personal Combat.
Face of Battle: He has seen war, pure war, the sort of battle that might happen once in a generation if the Southlands are ready, and he has survived and triumphed. +1 Personal Combat.
Father's Son: His father has tried to drill the classics into him from a distance, and it has had some small amount of success. +1 Learning, +1 Learning when related to understanding traditionalist arguments.
Friend of the Lowly (Peasants): Kiralo knows peasants, and has befriended some throughout his life. No penalties to diplomacy with peasants if given time to make a good impression, +3 to Learning and Stewardship related to knowledge of peasants and their lives.
Gay: Kiralo is only attracted to men, both romantically and sexually. This fact is relatively well known in the Southlands, thanks to his general fame, though probably won't be in Csirit.
Hear a word in your ear: Kiralo knows the value of spies in a campaign, and knows how to cultivate them for the purpose of providing up-to-date strategic and tactical news. +1 to intrigue when related to military spies.
Improvised Poetry Duel: Having 'dueled' someone in a poetry contest, Kiralo has learned to think on his feet. Or at least how to figure out poetic meter on his feet. In addition to having a bit of a reputation in the Southlands, he also receives no penalty to Diplomacy checks to do poetry on the quick.
Master Scout: He is a superb Rassit when it comes to scouting out the enemy and the terrain, in knowing just what to look for, though it tends to require a personal touch.
(Rassit) Mercenary Captain: To be a mercenary Captain of a unit of Rassit was a heavy burden and task, and one that required charisma, a sort of native cunning, the ability to always have a little money set aside for paying for benders...and a damn lot of martial prowess. +5 Martial, +2 Diplomacy, +2 Stewardship, +2 Intrigue, +1 Learning, +4 Martial when leading/using Rassit/LIght Cavalry, +3 Stewardship when handling logistics for armies, +5 Learning when it comes to military topics, +4 Personal Combat while mounted, +1 Intrigue when it comes to military tricks and ruses, +5 for all Magic rolls related to the Rassit (speed, storms, wind, etc).
Mother's Son: Jia was smart, and more than that, trained and knowledgeable in Csiritan culture, and she's taught him much of what she knows. About the way she lived, and the way the people of Csirit live. +1 to Learning, +2 to Learning Rolls involving Csiritan Religious Knowledge or Culture.
Musical Bent: Kiralo knows many musicians, and knows the way they talk and the things they need. +2 Diplomacy when interacting with musicians, has a surprisingly competent singing voice, +3 to Learning to remember old songs, +2 to Stewardship involving, well, organizing musicians.
Not-Yet-Dead-Poets'-Society: Kiralo has befriended Narasim, an old poet whose knowledge of the courts and of the old forms of the Southlands are considerable. They exchange letters and information back and forth.
Poet: Kiralo is a poet, whose works span quite the range, and who has written short plays, short and long poems, and more than a few other things, though he has not published anything, instead shopping it around and showing it off to various parties at court and elsewhere. It's been rather successful within those confines. +1 Diplomacy, +4 Diplomacy when writing poems, +4 Learning involving poetry.
Religious Disputant: Kiralo has experience with other religions, especially those of the Southlands. He also has knowledge of the arguments against them, or for his own religion, or at least for the validity of it. +4 to Learning related to those religions, +4 to Diplomacy rolls for arguing one's theological case.
Still as the Waters: Kiralo is religious, despite it all, and his faith is strong for allt hat, other than a few religious disputes, it is reasonably silent and ingrained. +4 to all Learning rolls involving the Iritan Faith/Imperial Cult (stacks with Mother's Son).
Strategic Insight: Kiralo has proven himself very canny indeed when it comes to understanding the way war is fought and the targets that are chosen, having correctly guessed the general path of an entire war correctly. +2 to Martial when divining the strategic goals of (organized) enemies whose basic nature is understood.
Terrain Master: At the battle, he showed great skill with terrain, skill which he has shown before, and which bodes well to his future as a leader of men. +3 to Martial checks involving finding and using terrain tactically.
Victorious General: Few enough men in this day and age can say they won a war, or fought it from such circumstances and came away with such 'glory' as war can bring. Kiralo has learned much about the command of men, and has a reputation that will not soon be forgotten. +2 Martial, ???
Warrior of the Peace: All know that, on battle and off of it, stalking the negotiating halls as a courtier, he is one of the men who helped end this war and usher in peace. +2 to Diplomacy checks with the Southlands.
Organizer: Kiralo has experience organizing both in a civilian and military capacity, but he has gained far more experience organizing the use of supplies and limited resources. +1 Stewardship, +1 to rolls involving military supply chains, logistics, etc, +3 to rolls involving civilian logistics of distributing limited resources, managing budgets involving such, etc, etc.
Hero Of The People (Csrae): In the city of Csrae, it is known that he gave generously during New Years' Week, and that he gave wisely. People talk, and people who talk make judgements...and these judgements have been positive. +5 to diplomacy when it involves the city of Csrae, +2 to Stewardship for actions related to the city, +1 to Intrigue for actions related to the city.
Other Characters:
Name: Kueli
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Profession: Kiralo's Right-Hand-Man
Martial (5d5): 20+1 (Brave)+2 (Second in command)=23
Diplomacy (4d5)=9
Stewardship (4d5):16+1 (Father's Son)+2 (Second in Command)=19
Intrigue (5d4):14+1 (Father's Son)+1 (Lustful)+2 (Second in Command)=18
Learning (3d4)=7
Personal Combat (6d5, drop 1s):21+2 (Brave)+3 (Second in Command)=26
Magic (3d4)=7
Brave: He is seemingly without fear, and certainly without many of the fears that hold one back in a fight. +1 Martial, +2 Personal Combat
Drinker n' Smasher: He's been in more bar fights than Kiralo has had birthdays, and he's won most of them. Receives no penalty to Personal Combat while drink.
Father's Son: His father was a merchant and a spy, a rogue and a scoundrel who seduced a famous Rassit's daughter. He's...not one, but he picked up a lot. +1 Intrigue, +1 Stewardship.
Glorious Mustache: He has a well-waxed and perfect mustache that all can see and admire as being the greatest mustache that has ever existed. Effects: ???, probably nothing!
Jokester: He makes jokes and rude, wry comments all of the time almost endlessly. +/- ??? to Diplomacy.
Lustful: He likes the ladies, and in general they tend to like him. It gives him an interestingly sneaky frame of mind. +1 Intrigue
Rassit Second-in-command: He handles the logistics, he talks to the scouts and spies, and he's a hell of a fighter and a heck of a lover. He's Kueli, the most interesting man in the world. +2 Martial, +2 Stewardship, +1 Intrigue. +3 Personal Combat. +2 Martial for Rassit, +3 Stewardship for handling logistics in war, +5 Personal Combat while mounted.
Sociable: He likes a good conversation, and if he doesn't always hit the right notes, well...it is what it is. +2 to Diplomacy...with people who are able to loosen up a little.
Spirits: He's actually really good with Magic...in an even more specific band. +8 to magic specifically related to being a Rassit.
Spirits!: He's somewhere between pious and not-pious at all. It's sorta weird. He curses a lot and knows a lot about Southlander beliefs...but Kiralo also has very strong evidence that the truly devout think he's rather iffy at best.
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Profession: Kiralo's Right-Hand-Man
Martial (5d5): 20+1 (Brave)+2 (Second in command)=23
Diplomacy (4d5)=9
Stewardship (4d5):16+1 (Father's Son)+2 (Second in Command)=19
Intrigue (5d4):14+1 (Father's Son)+1 (Lustful)+2 (Second in Command)=18
Learning (3d4)=7
Personal Combat (6d5, drop 1s):21+2 (Brave)+3 (Second in Command)=26
Magic (3d4)=7
Brave: He is seemingly without fear, and certainly without many of the fears that hold one back in a fight. +1 Martial, +2 Personal Combat
Drinker n' Smasher: He's been in more bar fights than Kiralo has had birthdays, and he's won most of them. Receives no penalty to Personal Combat while drink.
Father's Son: His father was a merchant and a spy, a rogue and a scoundrel who seduced a famous Rassit's daughter. He's...not one, but he picked up a lot. +1 Intrigue, +1 Stewardship.
Glorious Mustache: He has a well-waxed and perfect mustache that all can see and admire as being the greatest mustache that has ever existed. Effects: ???, probably nothing!
Jokester: He makes jokes and rude, wry comments all of the time almost endlessly. +/- ??? to Diplomacy.
Lustful: He likes the ladies, and in general they tend to like him. It gives him an interestingly sneaky frame of mind. +1 Intrigue
Rassit Second-in-command: He handles the logistics, he talks to the scouts and spies, and he's a hell of a fighter and a heck of a lover. He's Kueli, the most interesting man in the world. +2 Martial, +2 Stewardship, +1 Intrigue. +3 Personal Combat. +2 Martial for Rassit, +3 Stewardship for handling logistics in war, +5 Personal Combat while mounted.
Sociable: He likes a good conversation, and if he doesn't always hit the right notes, well...it is what it is. +2 to Diplomacy...with people who are able to loosen up a little.
Spirits: He's actually really good with Magic...in an even more specific band. +8 to magic specifically related to being a Rassit.
Spirits!: He's somewhere between pious and not-pious at all. It's sorta weird. He curses a lot and knows a lot about Southlander beliefs...but Kiralo also has very strong evidence that the truly devout think he's rather iffy at best.
*****
Resources:
Expensive Hari-Su tapestries (x1)
A Primer On Foreign Magic: +5 to all relevant Action Rolls (Involving researching, using, understanding or countering foreign magic.)
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Empire and Setting Info
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Forces and Etc Kiralo currently commands personally
Military Forces--
Name: Wind-Dancer Rassit
Numbers: 750 Rassit, 45 elite Rassit scouts, some number of trainee Rassit to replenish the ranks to a small degree.
Skill level: Veteran
Morale: Superb
Mobility: Unsurpassed
Cost: Moderate
Leadership:
Captain--Kiralo (Effective Martial: 33, DP: 23 St: 13)
Second-in-command (and effective logistics officer): Kueli
Master of Wind and Arrow (Logistics): Martial: 15, DP: 14, ST: 13
Keeper of Secret Names: M: 11 MG: 17, D: 8
Sub-Leaders:
All have a Martial between 12-18, owing to this being a Veteran band of Rassit led by a famous and skilled Captain. All have a Stewardship between 8-12, and a Diplomacy over eight. Individuals will be rolled for as they become relevant, basically.
Military Forces--
Name: Wind-Dancer Rassit
Numbers: 750 Rassit, 45 elite Rassit scouts, some number of trainee Rassit to replenish the ranks to a small degree.
Skill level: Veteran
Morale: Superb
Mobility: Unsurpassed
Cost: Moderate
Leadership:
Captain--Kiralo (Effective Martial: 33, DP: 23 St: 13)
Second-in-command (and effective logistics officer): Kueli
Master of Wind and Arrow (Logistics): Martial: 15, DP: 14, ST: 13
Keeper of Secret Names: M: 11 MG: 17, D: 8
Sub-Leaders:
All have a Martial between 12-18, owing to this being a Veteran band of Rassit led by a famous and skilled Captain. All have a Stewardship between 8-12, and a Diplomacy over eight. Individuals will be rolled for as they become relevant, basically.
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On Mechanics
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Mechanics
Like every other CK2-Quest, I'll be modifying the basic formula. I'm not actually sure there is a basic formula for how much people mess with it, or exaggerate it, or add their own doo-dads on top of it. Each turn for at least the next while will consist of one month, and the details behind what turns will involve comes after we talk about stats.
Stats aren't everything, and there's also a lot of different stuff that needs to be addressed.
The stats are as follows:
Martial: Ability to command troops, manage supplies, keep up morale, anything and everything to do with the art of war, including the art of war in peacetime. There are traits that can allow this stat to be modified or increased by other stats for certain purposes (such as Stewardship for logistics), but it in no way covers personal combat, though barring certain exceptions, a high martial tends to correlate with a relatively higher Personal Combat. But this isn't a culture where the general must lead from the front.
Diplomacy: The ability to talk to other people, to convince them of what's best for them (whether it is or not), to lie to them, though also the means and forms of etiquette, how to write a lovely poem and how to know just the right diplomatic formalities to add to the missive to the foreign potente.
Stewardship: Both one's ability to navigate and control bureaucracy, and one's understanding of economic policy. To a certain extent, this is a very abstracted stat, since a good merchant might not make a good bureaucrat, but in this Quest it'll probably be a relatively important one, honestly. I was tempted to name it Statecraft, but there might be at least some element of financial control going on here.
Intrigue: The ability to manage, control, and use spies, hidden information, and covert operations to one's best advantage. Don't expect it to be a golden ticket, the world is wide, but it's something that most people in court are at least not going to be particularly incompetent in.
Learning: Knowledge, plain and simple. The type of knowledge depends, and my idea is that there will be traits that increase Learning in certain areas to represent specialties. A well-learned man is one who knows the great poets forward and back, who can recite the 100 Precepts and the 50 Ways, who reads multiple languages with ease, and yet knows the language of the non-barbarian, the only language that matters, to a degree beyond the commoner. Who knows history, rhetoric, astrology...it's a very versatile set of things packed into learning, really.
Personal Combat: Sometimes tied to Martial...but sometimes not. Represents ability to fight personally, ability to lead small groups of men (such as knowing how to cut through the chaos to order you and a friend of yours to punch your way through a bunch of drunks in a bar brawl), and also a character's ability in any sort of sport or hunting activity. Anything physical.
Magic: Everyone has a little, from the blacksmith who whispers to a local flame sprite for a little more heat for the forge, or to one of the lesser names of local iron for a stronger shoe for his wife's father's horse, to the grand scholars who attempt to do rather more than coax and beg the spirits. Some countries, of course, have less widespread knowledge, but in Csirit, everyone has a little knowledge. Emphasis on a 'little.'
The Scale
1-4: Mediocre
5-8: Subpar.
9-12: Average (for a courtier or other trained/educated/etc person in the field)
13-16: Skilled.
17-20: Exceptional.
21-25: Renowned.
26-30: Master in the area.
31-35: Legendary.
35+: All but unheard of.
Traits will be used a lot more, though a lot of them will have very specific or non-mechanical effects.
I'll likely be stealing from any and all Quests that I like.
*****
Now, as to the turns. There will be two different important pools to consider. Money is generally not an object less in the sense that you have infinite money than in the sense that it's not going to be a problem except on the large scale where it's going to mostly be the realm's problem. If money does become an issue, I'll figure out a way to manage it that doesn't involve figuring out an exact number of gold.
Besides which, this is an empire! This Quest is set in a decadent court that wastes disgusting amounts of money every day of every year. So it feels against the spirit of things to start counting coins...that's for dirty merchants.
So this Quest will use a two-part Influence Dice system. Influence Dice are a form of resource that was first seen by me in @Imrx's amazing Quest.
The second type of Influence is pretty much a straight lift from his own system. The voters choose where to put any Influence they have to do certain actions, with no minimum based on category. Putting multiple influence dice means that the highest roll is taken, increasing the chance of success or even critical success.
Influence will be really, really hard to grind up, and most likely the main character will be starting with 1 point of this type of Influence, which is called "Policy Influence." This Influence thus, yes, involves anything that would actually influence the world in the immediate term. This is what you use to fight wars, to gather armies and build or more likely repair roads, to humbly accept or arrogantly send diplomats from one of the lesser barbarian lands, assassinate foreign heads of state, replace all the tax collectors in a region with corrupt cronies that will funnel the money into black budgets to use to build your own personal army to overthrow the Emperor and other such worthy ventures.
Court Influence does none of that, and is far easier to acquire. Court Influence consists of most personal actions, and then a wide variety of lesser actions, from practicing one's poetry, to bribing minor officials, from assassinating a bureaucrat in your way and blaming the Eunuch who tried to deny you access to the Emperor, to winning the loyalty of the peasantry with lavish gifts, to helping the son of an ally cheat on his Civil Service Exam, thus gaining his gratitude in the future.
In other words, a lot of it is petty, venal, political shit. So why should you care? Because it's how you get shit done. It's how you gain Policy Influence, by successfully making sure your friends get ahead and your enemies get dead, by making sure the Emperor's courtesans are eating out of your hand, and whispering sweet lies in his ears…
This is what politics is, in a court like this. Do it for its own sake, or do it because it's the only way to get ahead, either way, most of the actions you'll be doing won't be transforming the world. If you're looking for discovering gunpowder (though too late on that) and inventing the printing press (also too late) and starting an industrial revolution (not likely), it'll be quite a while, if ever. But exercising, gaining, and holding onto power is its own constant treadmill.
You should reflect on the fact that the main character's father has been in the game for literally over half a century in almost all of the backgrounds, and has been all but in charge for decades, and then register what a feat it is.
But yeah, Court Influence is the sort of stuff that would fall below the notice of Imrx's Influence Dice. It's the ceremonies too (you can host banquets and stuff as an action as well), it's every little bit of what it's like to be in politics of this kind, at least hopefully.
It's not particularly glorious.
Finally, there are allies and assets and the like. These are pretty obvious, and come in both 'relevant for Interludes and/or Court Influence' levels and 'genuinely a big deal' levels. A personal bodyguard, no matter how amazing, isn't going to have much to say or do with, say, fighting your wars for you, but might provide additional option to gather together a personal guard or train you. A single assassin is certainly very helpful to have in your pocket, but good luck sending them halfway around the world to kill an upstart noble in the Southlands. They can try to help, but there's a limit.
On the other hand, a private army, a spy network, a top official who knows people who know people, a Hereditary Governor (some of whom qualify, others of whom are puppets themselves, or have all but given up their power to others in some way), or even just the sheer power of a vast network of court officials...these are things that can grant Policy Influence or open up some fascinating new options.
*****
Future revealed mechanics (such as the 10/-10 scale for financial resources), and some specifics about how certain things work (especially dice rolls for actions) will be provided as they become relevant.
Skill/ Morale chart:
-20/-10/-5/+0/ +5/+10/+15/+20/+25
Wretched, Green, Inexperienced, Professional, Bloodied, Veteran, Elite, Legendary, Inhuman
Broken, Horrible, Mediocre, Average, Steady, Good, Great, Superb, Perfect
Roll a d100 with all factors taken to establish relative advantage/disadvantage. It's slightly more complicated than that.
Factors: Terrain, what else has happened, Martial, Troop Skill, Troop Morale
Like every other CK2-Quest, I'll be modifying the basic formula. I'm not actually sure there is a basic formula for how much people mess with it, or exaggerate it, or add their own doo-dads on top of it. Each turn for at least the next while will consist of one month, and the details behind what turns will involve comes after we talk about stats.
Stats aren't everything, and there's also a lot of different stuff that needs to be addressed.
The stats are as follows:
Martial: Ability to command troops, manage supplies, keep up morale, anything and everything to do with the art of war, including the art of war in peacetime. There are traits that can allow this stat to be modified or increased by other stats for certain purposes (such as Stewardship for logistics), but it in no way covers personal combat, though barring certain exceptions, a high martial tends to correlate with a relatively higher Personal Combat. But this isn't a culture where the general must lead from the front.
Diplomacy: The ability to talk to other people, to convince them of what's best for them (whether it is or not), to lie to them, though also the means and forms of etiquette, how to write a lovely poem and how to know just the right diplomatic formalities to add to the missive to the foreign potente.
Stewardship: Both one's ability to navigate and control bureaucracy, and one's understanding of economic policy. To a certain extent, this is a very abstracted stat, since a good merchant might not make a good bureaucrat, but in this Quest it'll probably be a relatively important one, honestly. I was tempted to name it Statecraft, but there might be at least some element of financial control going on here.
Intrigue: The ability to manage, control, and use spies, hidden information, and covert operations to one's best advantage. Don't expect it to be a golden ticket, the world is wide, but it's something that most people in court are at least not going to be particularly incompetent in.
Learning: Knowledge, plain and simple. The type of knowledge depends, and my idea is that there will be traits that increase Learning in certain areas to represent specialties. A well-learned man is one who knows the great poets forward and back, who can recite the 100 Precepts and the 50 Ways, who reads multiple languages with ease, and yet knows the language of the non-barbarian, the only language that matters, to a degree beyond the commoner. Who knows history, rhetoric, astrology...it's a very versatile set of things packed into learning, really.
Personal Combat: Sometimes tied to Martial...but sometimes not. Represents ability to fight personally, ability to lead small groups of men (such as knowing how to cut through the chaos to order you and a friend of yours to punch your way through a bunch of drunks in a bar brawl), and also a character's ability in any sort of sport or hunting activity. Anything physical.
Magic: Everyone has a little, from the blacksmith who whispers to a local flame sprite for a little more heat for the forge, or to one of the lesser names of local iron for a stronger shoe for his wife's father's horse, to the grand scholars who attempt to do rather more than coax and beg the spirits. Some countries, of course, have less widespread knowledge, but in Csirit, everyone has a little knowledge. Emphasis on a 'little.'
The Scale
1-4: Mediocre
5-8: Subpar.
9-12: Average (for a courtier or other trained/educated/etc person in the field)
13-16: Skilled.
17-20: Exceptional.
21-25: Renowned.
26-30: Master in the area.
31-35: Legendary.
35+: All but unheard of.
Traits will be used a lot more, though a lot of them will have very specific or non-mechanical effects.
I'll likely be stealing from any and all Quests that I like.
*****
Now, as to the turns. There will be two different important pools to consider. Money is generally not an object less in the sense that you have infinite money than in the sense that it's not going to be a problem except on the large scale where it's going to mostly be the realm's problem. If money does become an issue, I'll figure out a way to manage it that doesn't involve figuring out an exact number of gold.
Besides which, this is an empire! This Quest is set in a decadent court that wastes disgusting amounts of money every day of every year. So it feels against the spirit of things to start counting coins...that's for dirty merchants.
So this Quest will use a two-part Influence Dice system. Influence Dice are a form of resource that was first seen by me in @Imrx's amazing Quest.
The second type of Influence is pretty much a straight lift from his own system. The voters choose where to put any Influence they have to do certain actions, with no minimum based on category. Putting multiple influence dice means that the highest roll is taken, increasing the chance of success or even critical success.
Influence will be really, really hard to grind up, and most likely the main character will be starting with 1 point of this type of Influence, which is called "Policy Influence." This Influence thus, yes, involves anything that would actually influence the world in the immediate term. This is what you use to fight wars, to gather armies and build or more likely repair roads, to humbly accept or arrogantly send diplomats from one of the lesser barbarian lands, assassinate foreign heads of state, replace all the tax collectors in a region with corrupt cronies that will funnel the money into black budgets to use to build your own personal army to overthrow the Emperor and other such worthy ventures.
Court Influence does none of that, and is far easier to acquire. Court Influence consists of most personal actions, and then a wide variety of lesser actions, from practicing one's poetry, to bribing minor officials, from assassinating a bureaucrat in your way and blaming the Eunuch who tried to deny you access to the Emperor, to winning the loyalty of the peasantry with lavish gifts, to helping the son of an ally cheat on his Civil Service Exam, thus gaining his gratitude in the future.
In other words, a lot of it is petty, venal, political shit. So why should you care? Because it's how you get shit done. It's how you gain Policy Influence, by successfully making sure your friends get ahead and your enemies get dead, by making sure the Emperor's courtesans are eating out of your hand, and whispering sweet lies in his ears…
This is what politics is, in a court like this. Do it for its own sake, or do it because it's the only way to get ahead, either way, most of the actions you'll be doing won't be transforming the world. If you're looking for discovering gunpowder (though too late on that) and inventing the printing press (also too late) and starting an industrial revolution (not likely), it'll be quite a while, if ever. But exercising, gaining, and holding onto power is its own constant treadmill.
You should reflect on the fact that the main character's father has been in the game for literally over half a century in almost all of the backgrounds, and has been all but in charge for decades, and then register what a feat it is.
But yeah, Court Influence is the sort of stuff that would fall below the notice of Imrx's Influence Dice. It's the ceremonies too (you can host banquets and stuff as an action as well), it's every little bit of what it's like to be in politics of this kind, at least hopefully.
It's not particularly glorious.
Finally, there are allies and assets and the like. These are pretty obvious, and come in both 'relevant for Interludes and/or Court Influence' levels and 'genuinely a big deal' levels. A personal bodyguard, no matter how amazing, isn't going to have much to say or do with, say, fighting your wars for you, but might provide additional option to gather together a personal guard or train you. A single assassin is certainly very helpful to have in your pocket, but good luck sending them halfway around the world to kill an upstart noble in the Southlands. They can try to help, but there's a limit.
On the other hand, a private army, a spy network, a top official who knows people who know people, a Hereditary Governor (some of whom qualify, others of whom are puppets themselves, or have all but given up their power to others in some way), or even just the sheer power of a vast network of court officials...these are things that can grant Policy Influence or open up some fascinating new options.
*****
Future revealed mechanics (such as the 10/-10 scale for financial resources), and some specifics about how certain things work (especially dice rolls for actions) will be provided as they become relevant.
Skill/ Morale chart:
-20/-10/-5/+0/ +5/+10/+15/+20/+25
Wretched, Green, Inexperienced, Professional, Bloodied, Veteran, Elite, Legendary, Inhuman
Broken, Horrible, Mediocre, Average, Steady, Good, Great, Superb, Perfect
Roll a d100 with all factors taken to establish relative advantage/disadvantage. It's slightly more complicated than that.
Factors: Terrain, what else has happened, Martial, Troop Skill, Troop Morale
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Posting can now begin.
[X] A monster is what he is. He had started out a student of the imperial academy, where the spirits were bound and the secret names of the world were compiled, strengthened. Learned. At the age of thirteen he had murdered a city of fifty-thousand people by doing the impossible. Even rumor only hints at how, but the plague that struck down the city at just the right time, and the credit that Father took for it, was but the beginning of a reputation of blood and mystical might that stretched beyond the borders of knowledge into legend. Even the priests hate him, and yet the Empire has grown strong under his rule, despite his apathy for the systems that are said to keep it going. The Emperor walks every day in fear of the man, and even as old as he is, none dare cross him. But then again, none dare love him either.
[X] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
[X] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
[X] A monster is what he is. He had started out a student of the imperial academy, where the spirits were bound and the secret names of the world were compiled, strengthened. Learned. At the age of thirteen he had murdered a city of fifty-thousand people by doing the impossible. Even rumor only hints at how, but the plague that struck down the city at just the right time, and the credit that Father took for it, was but the beginning of a reputation of blood and mystical might that stretched beyond the borders of knowledge into legend. Even the priests hate him, and yet the Empire has grown strong under his rule, despite his apathy for the systems that are said to keep it going. The Emperor walks every day in fear of the man, and even as old as he is, none dare cross him. But then again, none dare love him either.
[X] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
Magical!
[X] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
Magical!
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Also, questions are not only accepted but encouraged, since this is an original setting. As noted, this first part has less to do with what the main character will be (though Mother has more to do with it) than what the situation is like starting out both in terms of how things are going, resources, what sort of man Father is, what sort of Empire he runs from the shadows, etc.
Though in all cases he's kind of a jerk.
Though in all cases he's kind of a jerk.
- Location
- Iceland
[x] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him therealm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[x] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
[x] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
- Location
- nz
[X] A monster is what he is. He had started out a student of the imperial academy, where the spirits were bound and the secret names of the world were compiled, strengthened. Learned. At the age of thirteen he had murdered a city of fifty-thousand people by doing the impossible. Even rumor only hints at how, but the plague that struck down the city at just the right time, and the credit that Father took for it, was but the beginning of a reputation of blood and mystical might that stretched beyond the borders of knowledge into legend. Even the priests hate him, and yet the Empire has grown strong under his rule, despite his apathy for the systems that are said to keep it going. The Emperor walks every day in fear of the man, and even as old as he is, none dare cross him. But then again, none dare love him either.
[X] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
[X] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
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[x] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him therealm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[x] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
[x] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
[X] The son of a Eunuch on Last Night[2], he only escaped his unknown father's fate by cunning, being sent as the assistant to an ill-fated attempt to conquer the Western Marshes of Bueli. There were many rumors as to what happened there, but the end result was that the upstart general in charge of the army died, his forces routed, and Father rallied the remnants and succeeded in forcing a peace, at the tender age of seventeen. The boy general rose and rose, victory following victory, swelling the Empire and protecting its borders. Every year, it seemed, the silver gong rang out thirteen times, and every year Father returned to bow ten times to the Emperor and give great gifts, expressing his humility and submission, all the while smirking as his power grew. Even now, over a decade after he last took the field, he holds sway over the armies, and yet there is rot within the ranks, and many speak of the cruelty and ambitions which drive him always to make an enemy of others. The bureaucracy and the hereditary governors hate him, and yet his power has waxed even into his waning years.
[X] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
[X] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
[x] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him the realm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[X] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
[X] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
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Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
[x] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him therealm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[x] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
[x] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
[x] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him therealm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[x] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
[x] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] A monster is what he is. He had started out a student of the imperial academy, where the spirits were bound and the secret names of the world were compiled, strengthened. Learned. At the age of thirteen he had murdered a city of fifty-thousand people by doing the impossible. Even rumor only hints at how, but the plague that struck down the city at just the right time, and the credit that Father took for it, was but the beginning of a reputation of blood and mystical might that stretched beyond the borders of knowledge into legend. Even the priests hate him, and yet the Empire has grown strong under his rule, despite his apathy for the systems that are said to keep it going. The Emperor walks every day in fear of the man, and even as old as he is, none dare cross him. But then again, none dare love him either.
[X] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
Laurent queeeeeeeeeest.
[X] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
Laurent queeeeeeeeeest.
NuclearConsensus
Herald of the Thorned One
- Location
- the Philippines
[x] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him therealm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[x] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
[x] Imperial Province (Hari-Os): This long thin strip of a province is one of great wealth and power, though his Mother knew little enough of its power. Laying their on the coast, the vast cities competed with the Southlands and fought off the Sea-raiders, and traded and fought off the Water-People, whose acts had gone far beyond merely working with spirits into...into areas where no human should go, according to many religions. Wealth and power congregated into one area, and his Mother had been born in poverty and squalor. At least the Southlands weren't so different from her home, in the ways that mattered?
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
[X] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him the realm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[X] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
[X] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
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-
[X] What do you call a man who has every talent and no talent? Who can sing and dance, can write a perfect verse of poetry and ride hunting through the woods in the same breath. Who dabbled at everything and excelled at many things? The first Emperor that Father met called him 'favorite' and 'lover' and cherished him close, and when his son rose to power, he was but a tool of Fathers. Father who was everywhere, talking endlessly, fighting endlessly, dueling any who stood in his way or beating them through bureaucratic tricks. There was nothing he couldn't do, except love a bastard. His power is vast and yet as fragile as the first snow, pure and clean in appearance, and yet soon sullied. Many thought he would be a passing man, like many other men and women who had traded love for influence, and yet even now, more than half a century after he had taken power, he held it still. It couldn't be by his looks, and so it must be by his excellence. Yet why would such a man, who had so long declaimed the power of the flesh, had gotten married only by politics and nothing more, now call his son back?
[X] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
[] Imperial Province (Yeadalt): The strangest of all of the provinces, home to the greatest number of non-official languages and even cultural groups, it is here that heresies and cults form like mushrooms. They form, they spread, they are harvested or destroyed. It is a province in which the ruling elite, of the Csiritan stock, is far outnumbered by those whose ways are not those of the empire. It is also home to some of the strangest tales, the strangest ways to do magic and live, in all of the twelve provinces, or so rumor goes. Besides the cults, the religions, and the many peoples, here flourish too criminal groups, who band together against all outsiders and cause banditry and chaos.
For the father, option 5 and option 2 both sound interesting, so I'm not sure what to vote for that.
Edit:
[] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him therealm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
[X] A monster is what he is. He had started out a student of the imperial academy, where the spirits were bound and the secret names of the world were compiled, strengthened. Learned. At the age of thirteen he had murdered a city of fifty-thousand people by doing the impossible. Even rumor only hints at how, but the plague that struck down the city at just the right time, and the credit that Father took for it, was but the beginning of a reputation of blood and mystical might that stretched beyond the borders of knowledge into legend. Even the priests hate him, and yet the Empire has grown strong under his rule, despite his apathy for the systems that are said to keep it going. The Emperor walks every day in fear of the man, and even as old as he is, none dare cross him. But then again, none dare love him either.
For the father, option 5 and option 2 both sound interesting, so I'm not sure what to vote for that.
Edit:
[] The son of a minor scholar of great distinction who passed the difficult exams of Highest Merit, his penmanship was always flawless. He wrote with distinction on all of the topics of the world, and if that is all Father had done, then perhaps the world would be a different place. But he entered into the bureaucracy in his twenties like a knife through a dying man, and when he ousted the Third River school, publically humiliating their policy and leading to the suicide of Go-Asho, he was on his way up. The master of these strange rituals, his penmanship is as perfect and cold as the northern frosts. Every inch of the realm is encompassed in his words, every goat counted. Everyone knows that there is nothing that does not fall under his sway, and yet the army chafes at his actions. For all know that he resents those who go to war. "It is the silver gong for a reason, and not the gold" went one of his most famous axioms. Under him therealm has turned inward, and he has polished it as a collector might polish an antique sword, or as his father's father might have polished his words until there was nothing spare.
[] Imperial Province (Irit): The land of rivers and of the lake from which the first Emperor was said to have emerged ten-thousand years ago. If one believes the imperial myths and ignores all of the problems with the myths, the Empire has existed for that long, a chain unbroken truly, or at most only in letter but not in spirit. She was a shrine priestess on the holy island in the center of that holiest of lakes, and yet pregnancy is the one thing they could not accept, and far she fled, taking the teachings and secrets with her.
[X] A monster is what he is. He had started out a student of the imperial academy, where the spirits were bound and the secret names of the world were compiled, strengthened. Learned. At the age of thirteen he had murdered a city of fifty-thousand people by doing the impossible. Even rumor only hints at how, but the plague that struck down the city at just the right time, and the credit that Father took for it, was but the beginning of a reputation of blood and mystical might that stretched beyond the borders of knowledge into legend. Even the priests hate him, and yet the Empire has grown strong under his rule, despite his apathy for the systems that are said to keep it going. The Emperor walks every day in fear of the man, and even as old as he is, none dare cross him. But then again, none dare love him either.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Remember, you can ask questions!
- Location
- Iceland
Shouldn't supar be bellow mediocer ?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I was more expecting a setting question, but...
"Subpar: below an average level."
I assumed that Mediocre is worse than 'below average.'
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
- Location
- The interblag
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] What do you call a man who has every talent and no talent? Who can sing and dance, can write a perfect verse of poetry and ride hunting through the woods in the same breath. Who dabbled at everything and excelled at many things? The first Emperor that Father met called him 'favorite' and 'lover' and cherished him close, and when his son rose to power, he was but a tool of Fathers. Father who was everywhere, talking endlessly, fighting endlessly, dueling any who stood in his way or beating them through bureaucratic tricks. There was nothing he couldn't do, except love a bastard. His power is vast and yet as fragile as the first snow, pure and clean in appearance, and yet soon sullied. Many thought he would be a passing man, like many other men and women who had traded love for influence, and yet even now, more than half a century after he had taken power, he held it still. It couldn't be by his looks, and so it must be by his excellence. Yet why would such a man, who had so long declaimed the power of the flesh, had gotten married only by politics and nothing more, now call his son back?
[X] Southlands (Oasis): Mother was a woman of the proud tribes and fragmenting empires of the deserts and the lands beyond the deserts, who practiced the dangerous art of making spirits into tattoos. There was an entire line of Emperors who married into the holy imperial line after having conquered half of the Empire and splintering the rest, who have this blood, and this combination of antagonism and assimilation continues to this day.
I think I prefer my bastards flavored with a hint of desert, and a father who is terrible not because he is a monster or greedy or burdened with a normal vice, but because he is excellent, particularly his excellence at politics. The narrative potentials...mmm...
Only if you're Immortan Joe. Normally mediocre = so okay it's meh. Subpar is, "I know you're not good at this, but you're not terrible"
[X] Southlands (Oasis): Mother was a woman of the proud tribes and fragmenting empires of the deserts and the lands beyond the deserts, who practiced the dangerous art of making spirits into tattoos. There was an entire line of Emperors who married into the holy imperial line after having conquered half of the Empire and splintering the rest, who have this blood, and this combination of antagonism and assimilation continues to this day.
I think I prefer my bastards flavored with a hint of desert, and a father who is terrible not because he is a monster or greedy or burdened with a normal vice, but because he is excellent, particularly his excellence at politics. The narrative potentials...mmm...
Only if you're Immortan Joe. Normally mediocre = so okay it's meh. Subpar is, "I know you're not good at this, but you're not terrible"
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dpara
slightly confused ascendant
Are there gods to spirit-of-a-pebble entities, and if so how aware and active are they?
How common is magic?
There is an institutional magic system? So magic is formalistic? inheritable? teachable? mostly ritualistic?
mmh Cults? ..so there are Outside realms trying to enter this ..layer? sphere? disc ;p ? of reality.