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Black Kingdom Rising - Anime Villain Quest [CK2 Quest]

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chocolote12 said:
No, they'll hand over the cash in exchange for shiny trinkets, Annatar the Gift-Giver style.
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This will only work in the short term. Eventually they will figure out what we're doing and no amount of trinkets will make that look good.

"Hello, I'm a dark lord collecting donations to resurrect my dark master, a god of darkness and evil who tried to conquer the world in ages past and may or may not be an eldritch abomination beyond human comprehension. But don't worry he's totally a cool guy who won't try to enslave you...maybe."
 
Yeah, no matter if our intentions are just to bring back our Big E while avoiding conflict, people are going to take offense to that. And I have no doubt somewhere out there good remembers about the Ebon Emperor.

World conquest* is a far more likely outcome than somehow simply bribing people into letting us summon our eldritch evil. We're honestly positioned to be that special kind of reasonable, pragmatic evil that can make the world a better place in addition to achieving its goals.

I'm all for keeping our presence obfuscated and tricking people into achieving our ends, but I think that can only go so far. And I'm working under the expectation that actually bringing back the big kahuna is going to be an incredibly difficult and drawn out affair that requires us expanding beyond a single city.

*We honestly have some abilities that make actually conquering the world somewhat feasible. Using Ebon Power to improve quality of life, massive rituals to constantly siphon away small amounts of negative energy in the cities we rule, minimal need to get the populace killed fighting our wars.
 
pkong said:
This will only work in the short term. Eventually they will figure out what we're doing and no amount of trinkets will make that look good.

"Hello, I'm a dark lord collecting donations to resurrect my dark master, a god of darkness and evil who tried to conquer the world in ages past and may or may not be an eldritch abomination beyond human comprehension. But don't worry he's totally a cool guy who won't try to enslave you...maybe."
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People are literally paying us in magical wish granting devices to give us their energy. We have good relations with every faction we've encountered, because we've acted totally reasonably, besides having a chuunibyou fashion sense.
Karugus said:
I'm all for keeping our presence obfuscated and tricking people into achieving our ends, but I think that can only go so far.
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I'm not saying we'll never run into people who will foolishly oppose us (that we must then toss into the future where our Ebon is law), which is to say that I'm agreeing with you, but when we do, having good ties with everybody who has no clue what's going on will render unto us many keys to victory; take, for example, the literal wish granting device The Company handed us. That we can replicate.

What's the difference between somebody calling an obvious dark lord evil, and somebody calling a guy with bad fashion sense who's been your friend for a long time evil? One gets believed. The other gets countered by the verbose equivalent of "No, you!". By the time they've been swayed by the murderous and racist fanatics, even assuming that that occurs, we'll already be in sight of victory.

I mean, can we just stop and take a moment to comprehend that Sauron almost beat everybody with a cut-rate phylactery and a medium-sized compulsion to keep it instead of destroying it?

Good Public Relations are superpowers in and of themselves.
 
We are playing a VILLAIN quest and our special power is to CREATE AN ARMY OF MONSTERS.

Are you really telling me you want to play as pacifists? That you don't want to build the dark army and carve out an empire?

In that case why be a villain at all?? Even if it's possible to win completely by guile I really don't want to.
 
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pkong said:
We are playing a VILLAIN quest and our special power is to CREATE AN ARMY OF MONSTERS.
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An army of cool people that we like. Keep in mind that they can ride the Diplo train just as hard as we can; harder, since included amongst their ranks are such titans of persuasion as Count Cuddles, Fury, and the Plain Doll.

I want to build an Empire, yes. An Empire. Not a cult dedicated to the destruction of a world, but a vast gathering of like-minded individuals who follow a rule of law. The rule of law, in this case, might have what some would diagnose as a bad sense of fashion, but they're most certainly not inherently evil.

Because, you know, if everybody thinks you're inherently evil that kind of cuts down on recruitment. If you, say, take over a city, rather than the citizens sighing in relief that there is somebody capable of reestablishing order they're going to panic because they're now prisoners of the Dark Lord Grimvicious.

The key to ruling the world is that nobody feels the chains. Step one of nobody feeling the chains is not making them obviously chains.

Do you think the One Ring would have anywhere near as much success if it had been such obviously bad news?
 
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pkong said:
We are playing a VILLAIN quest and our special power is to CREATE AN ARMY OF MONSTERS.

Are you really telling me you want to play as pacifists? That you don't want to build the dark army and carve out an empire?

In that case why be a villain at all?? Even if it's possible to win completely by guile I really don't want to.
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The point is that we choose a particular origin. This origin revealed to us that our duty is, in fact, not primarily to be a villain.
Our duty is to save the Ebon Emperor; of course some/many might take offense to that, but it makes us nonetheless a hero in our own right.
If our QM does this right, which I believe they do, this means we will see a story where everyone has their good reasons for what they do, where 'evil' is just a word and 'good' can be attributed to everyone to some degree.

Had everyone chosen another background in the beginning, your thoughts would be spot-on. Here however, I can not agree. This story will see Jacob as an anti-hero far more than a villain. We will win glory, we will triumph... but not with indiscriminate violence and oppression, I do not think so.

To be honest, turning the whole premise on its head as @shibosho did after the option on meditating was chosen was a wonderful thing. It lets us explore a character who is their very own person, not a cardboard cutout; it allows us to see all those shades between black and white that so many other authors never even think of.
I am sorry to say so, but for me, trying to play this pragmatic but kind way -as I felt we went so far- is many times better than your vision of where this Quest should go.

Being evil just for the sake of being evil is stupid. If we have no reason to be, then we should not.



Aside from that... @chocolote12, we seem to think alike in this regard, if for different reasons.
 
Villain wise. Best we can do is get Incubator expression to see value/merit in a Black Kingdom, merit etc all. And by proxy a faction or two of Magical Girls, or at least enough to not worry on being killed by Magical Girls at least.

Longer term though, I'd bet it'd be impossible to befriend every faction, especially the Exorcisms if my inking on them as a cliché proves real.

-

Overall, PR wise the best we can hope for is Magical Girl diplomatic blunt therapy, and ninjas. Whilet refining our Ebon not Human Tanks and Shadow Stalkers to eventual counter response.

All while at a push, get maybe a Mage or two at our side, and prepare for inevitable attack/war against at least one faction and fridge branches, independentso if we're unlucky... And that potential childhood hero impelled to deal against the Black Kingdom.

EDIT: As for Light and Dark, along a possible debate for tryang to play the Morale High Ground in spite of murder and captives...

If, we can somehow SL Max the Company, set up anow economically friendly harvest engine for both parties, which leads to a PR front. Along with a strong enough cute Force to stonewell a faction, escalate to Big Boss Hank Scorpio tier...

And ultimately save, and befriend the Ebon Emperor to recover, and play shadow safe on PR face to not cause cataclystic disasters that'd call on heroes. That could be a victory.

And if we PR stunt so hard, our childhood heroine won't go by fate and attack/Rebel against us? Then evenue better.
 
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Naron said:
The point is that we choose a particular origin. This origin revealed to us that our duty is, in fact, not primarily to be a villain.
Our duty is to save the Ebon Emperor; of course some/many might take offense to that, but it makes us nonetheless a hero in our own right.
If our QM does this right, which I believe they do, this means we will see a story where everyone has their good reasons for what they do, where 'evil' is just a word and 'good' can be attributed to everyone to some degree.

Had everyone chosen another background in the beginning, your thoughts would be spot-on. Here however, I can not agree. This story will see Jacob as an anti-hero far more than a villain. We will win glory, we will triumph... but not with indiscriminate violence and oppression, I do not think so.
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I feel like you are misrepresenting the quest. The ebon emperor is evil. The fact that he is currently in need of rescue is beside the point. No matter what our mc thinks the rest of the world will see bringing him back as an evil act.

And for good reason. The guy did try to conquer the world and might try again after he recovers. Disliking him is hardly unreasonable. We're the weird ones for being on his side.

Besides, the nature of good and evil is beside my point. It seems like every quest on this site people try to turn into a pacifistic diplomatic adventure with a happy ending.

Just once I want a quest where we fight the war instead. And here we have the perfect chance a villain quest where are power is explicitly "create dark army" and our goal is "create dark empire to revive dark god" yet you are still trying to twist it into a hero quest where we can make everyone happy.

Just once I want evil to win. And I will be severely disappointed if our am actually lets us convince everyone that reviving a dark god is somehow a good thing.

P.s you keep mentioning Sauron and the ring, but I think you forget his giant army of orcs and demons. He didn't keep those around because they looked cool...
 
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While i do agree that creating evil is our goal and its what i want to happen at this current point i dont see the harm in atleast getting some allies to help in that plan say the company and all their magic girls. But at some point we do have to start taking the evil path and just start creating the black kingdom and taking over the world.
 
Raptor580 said:
While i do agree that creating evil is our goal and its what i want to happen at this current point i dont see the harm in atleast getting some allies to help in that plan say the company and all their magic girls. But at some point we do have to start taking the evil path and just start creating the black kingdom and taking over the world.
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Yes of course. We should build up power and gain allies. I'm not saying we shouldn't be smart about this or be evil for the sake of it.

I'm just trying to head off this notion that the EE is just misunderstood and we're really a hero of justice who happens to wear black and own a death army...
 
pkong said:
Just once I want a quest where we fight the war instead. And here we have the perfect chance a villain quest where are power is explicitly "create dark army" and our goal is "create dark empire to revive dark god" yet you are still trying to twist it into a hero quest where we can make everyone happy.
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As much as it would be interesting, there's just one problem. Jacob, namely.
He's too much of a soft heart. He has friends (from forces of Light, none the less!) and a loving family.
He may not be against draining criminals and even killing them, but so far he hasn't hurt a single innocent.

I mean, look at this here, after meditation in week 1:
shibosho said:
The Ebon Emperor will not awaken to command you.

You haven't been given power in order to take over the world.

You haven't been given power in order to crush the forces of light.

You've been given power in order to save the Ebon Emperor.

And when someone asks you for help with the last of their strength...

You're gonna give it to them.
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Does this sound as "I AM SO VERY EVIL!!!1!" speech?
Sure, it may not have been Ebon Emperor's intention, but we are free to not really be evil.
At least not too much.

I mean, we could try,and most probably succeed at making him a true villain.
Just saying- it's a humorous, somewhat light-hearted quest.
Not exactly a grim quest of evil that attracts plotting bloodthirsty players.
 
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pkong said:
Yes of course. We should build up power and gain allies. I'm not saying we shouldn't be smart about this or be evil for the sake of it.

I'm just trying to head off this notion that the EE is just misunderstood and we're really a hero of justice who happens to wear black and own a death army...
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Agreed at some point hat evil army will conquer and we at the head.
 
pkong said:
I feel like you are misrepresenting the quest. The ebon emperor is evil. The fact that he is currently in need of rescue is beside the point. No matter what our me thinks the rest of the world will see bringing him back as an evil act.

Besides, the nature of good and evil is beside my point. It seems like every quest on this site people try to turn into a pacifistic diplomatic adventure with a happy ending.

Just once I want a quest where we fight the war instead. And here we have the perfect chance a villain quest where are power is explicitly "create dark army" and our goal is "create dark empire to revive dark god" yet you are still trying to twist it into a hero quest where we can make everyone happy.

Just once I want evil to win. And I will be severely disappointed if our am actually lets us convince everyone that reviving a dark god is somehow a good thing.
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I believe you are misreading my argument as well, but... well, whatever.

In all honesty, I could not care less whether Jacob is good or evil. What I do not want to see is being evil just for the heck of it; our protagonist was established as not being a sociopath, so this kind of behaviour would make no sense.
What I hope to get from this is an interesting story that examines the concepts at work, nothing more and nothing less. The premise we are given is what it is, so there can be nothing done about it.

Additionally... this may just be my interpretation, but... what does it matter?
Jacob has vowed to save the Ebon Emperor; I looked over our traits a few minutes ago, they include the former as well as the trait Driven. If we have to be 'evil' to do so properly, so be it. If doing this by moving through the different layers is more useful, so be it.
If being good or pacifistic or whatever is the best course of action, so be it. I personally do not care, for as long as we do not do something just for the sake of doing it.

If I made it sound as if I thought that the Ebon Emperor was a good guy all along or something like that, I apologise; that was not my intention. However, people can change... and unless I am disproven by canon, I will continue to believe that the eons of being sealed away changed this being we are going to free; be it for better or worse.


Either way, I guess we have to agree to disagree; this discussion is fairly pointless for both sides, I guess... feel free to put up another statement to this to wrap things up, but please do not push this any further. We would only be going in circles.
 
Naron said:
If I made it sound as if I thought that the Ebon Emperor was a good guy all along or something like that, I apologise; that was not my intention. However, people can change... and unless I am disproven by canon, I will continue to believe that the eons of being sealed away changed this being we are going to free; be it for better or worse.
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If anything, if I'd throw a pitch to those wanting to maintain a 'morale high ground' instead of go beyond Hank Scorpio tier villainry. Then maybe preparing a recovery 'pool' for mid game saving of the Ebon Emperor, and ideally throwing a pitch reaffirming/reinforcing our developed Black Kingdom, with an emphasis on not causing undue 'enemies' along the lines of "The Prince", may lead to a sort of victory if that can influence the Emperor's future policies/actions, which in turn could lead to hell a load of leeway/persuasion...
 
PurposefulZephyr said:
As much as it would be interesting, there's just one problem. Jacob, namely.
He's too much of a soft heart. He has friends (from forces of Light, none the less!) and a loving family.
He may not be against draining criminals and even killing them, but so far he hasn't hurt a single innocent.

I mean, look at this here, after meditation in week 1:

Does this sound as "I AM SO VERY EVIL!!!1!" speech?
Sure, it may not have been Ebon Emperor's intention, but we are free to not really be evil.
At least not too much.

I mean, we could try,and most probably succeed at making him a true villain.
Just saying- it's a humorous, somewhat light-hearted quest.
Not exactly a grim quest of evil that attracts plotting bloodthirsty players.
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I'm not sure I agree. I mean so what if he loves his family, evil can't have families?

Sure he's trying to save the ebon emperor but that's like saying I'm trying to rescue the devil from hell, still doesn't make it a good thing to do.

Also, sure Jacob seems like a good kid but these are early days. The true test will come when we face good guys who are trying to stop us and we have to choose between killing legitimately good people and completing our task.

Btw, I would like to note that he wasn't just willing kill those criminals, he felt nothing when he did. I feel like that was foreshadowing something...

Naron said:
I believe you are misreading my argument as well, but... well, whatever.

In all honesty, I could not care less whether Jacob is good or evil. What I do not want to see is being evil just for the heck of it; our protagonist was established as not being a sociopath, so this kind of behaviour would make no sense.
What I hope to get from this is an interesting story that examines the concepts at work, nothing more and nothing less. The premise we are given is what it is, so there can be nothing done about it.

Additionally... this may just be my interpretation, but... what does it matter?
Jacob has vowed to save the Ebon Emperor; I looked over our traits a few minutes ago, they include the former as well as the trait Driven. If we have to be 'evil' to do so properly, so be it. If doing this by moving through the different layers is more useful, so be it.
If being good or pacifistic or whatever is the best course of action, so be it. I personally do not care, for as long as we do not do something just for the sake of doing it.

If I made it sound as if I thought that the Ebon Emperor was a good guy all along or something like that, I apologise; that was not my intention. However, people can change... and unless I am disproven by canon, I will continue to believe that the eons of being sealed away changed this being we are going to free; be it for better or worse.


Either way, I guess we have to agree to disagree; this discussion is fairly pointless for both sides, I guess... feel free to put up another statement to this to wrap things up, but please do not push this any further. We would only be going in circles.
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In the interest of wrapping this up, the reason I care so much about this isn't due to IC reasons but due to SV reasons.

This keeps happening to me. I find a good villain/anti-hero quest and people ruin it by consistently picking the "good" options, even when the "evil" options would be objectively smarter.

There are plenty of hero quests but few villain quests. Especially when people keep trying to turn them into hero quests

I just don't want that to happen again, so I got a bit defensive when I saw you start implying that we were good guys and should try to win without fighting.

But I'm ok with diplomacy if, when the time comes that fighting is the "smart" choice, you're ok with violence.
 
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pkong said:
In the interest of wrapping this up, the reason I care so much about this isn't due to IC reasons but due to SV reasons.

This keeps happening to me. I find a good villain/anti-hero quest and people ruin it by consistently picking the "good" options, even when the "evil" options would be objectively smarter.

There are plenty of hero quests but few villain quests. Especially when people keep trying to turn them into hero quests

I just don't want that to happen again, so I got a bit defensive when I saw you start implying that we were good guys and should try to win without fighting.

But I'm ok with diplomacy if, when the time comes that fighting is the "smart" choice, you're ok with violence.
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Oh? Does this really happen often?
Granted, I do not follow that many Quests just yet, but I can only think of one where the PC is actually on the side of evil.

Aside from that, I do not mind the violence. It is just rarely a good option when intrigue or actual diplomacy might work better. As with the Witches from previous updates however, there are times where indiscrimante violence does serve its purpose.
 
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Jacob's Family Members WIP
  • Informational
    • Alright, here's some basic details about Jacob's family. Will probably expand on it in the future since I'm tired.

    Maximillion "Max" Anderson

    A well-composed and gentlemanly man who is honest to a fault with an unshakable will. His terrifying visage is at odds with his gentle personality and nerdy habits. Love his family very much. Works as a manager for his company.

    Anastacia "Stacy" Anderson

    A loving and caring mother and wife who always seems to always have a cheerful smile on her face. Somewhat of a klutz but her cooking skills are unparalleled. Has a fairly active social life and often goes out to meet up with her friends from High school and College.

    Michael Jay Anderson

    Elementary school kid. Likes all kinds of superheroes including magical girls. Strong sense of justice and like to play heroes with his friends. Quite athletic but does not have a head for numbers. Looks up to his older brother. Currently crushing on a girl at his school.

    Vivian Marianna Anderson

    Middle School Student. Is currently going through her bratty teenage daughter phase. Often seen tapping away on her phone texting someone. Is tsundere for her entire family. Likes being fashionable and cute guys. She secretly adores her older brother due to him protecting her when they were younger. Completely Normal
     
  • Informational
    • Welp... except for father and sister, the whole family is somehow already involved in the magic business.
    Not that Jacob would know that, but still...
     
    So we have a terrifying looking dad, an ex-magical girl mother, a potential magical girl as sister-in-law, a hot-head brother and a tsundere imouto sister...

    Yeah, life is still going well for us
     
    shibosho said:
    Michael Jay Anderson

    Elementary school kid. Likes all kinds of superheroes including magical girls. Strong sense of justice and like to play heroes with his friends. Quite athletic but does not have a head for numbers. Looks up to his older brother. Currently crushing on a girl at his school.
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    .....
    This one is going to be troublesome.
    shibosho said:
    Vivian Marianna Anderson

    Middle School Student. Is currently going through her bratty teenage daughter phase. Often seen tapping away on her phone texting someone. Is tsundere for her entire family. Likes being fashionable and cute guys. She secretly adores her older brother due to him protecting her when they were younger. Completely Normal
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    "Completely Normal", ha, yeah right.

    *sigh* One day there will be a protagonist who actually has a completely normal family.
     
    pkong said:
    I feel like you are misrepresenting the quest. The ebon emperor is evil. The fact that he is currently in need of rescue is beside the point. No matter what our mc thinks the rest of the world will see bringing him back as an evil act.

    And for good reason. The guy did try to conquer the world and might try again after he recovers. Disliking him is hardly unreasonable. We're the weird ones for being on his side.

    Besides, the nature of good and evil is beside my point. It seems like every quest on this site people try to turn into a pacifistic diplomatic adventure with a happy ending.

    Just once I want a quest where we fight the war instead. And here we have the perfect chance a villain quest where are power is explicitly "create dark army" and our goal is "create dark empire to revive dark god" yet you are still trying to twist it into a hero quest where we can make everyone happy.

    Just once I want evil to win. And I will be severely disappointed if our am actually lets us convince everyone that reviving a dark god is somehow a good thing.

    P.s you keep mentioning Sauron and the ring, but I think you forget his giant army of orcs and demons. He didn't keep those around because they looked cool...
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    You're coming at this sideways. We are in this to revive the Ebon Emperor. We are not in this to be Evil. Evilness is irrelevant to our goal; we do not get extra points if we kick puppies before every checkpoint. Because Evilness is irrelevant to our goals, it is up to us to decide how we will go about reviving the Ebon Emperor. People actively work against evil. The way to complete our goal that results in the least complications possible involves, therefore, in part, not committing blatantly evil acts; not murdering puppies for laughs, because the pet store owner can body us through concrete, for example.

    People fight evil. They don't fight random merchants with terrible clothing, because random merchants with terrible clothing aren't evil.

    By the time they realize our goal is evil, we'll be a lot further along than our hypothetical parallel-world counterpart controlled solely by you, because unlike you the people who might set forth to oppose us will be too busy handing us the ladders to get over the castle walls in exchange for shiny trinkets.

    How does the saying go? The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn't exist?
     
    PurposefulZephyr said:
    Do you take that from sources the images come from?
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    Well... the material there states that the mother is an ex-MG and the brother interested in one. Jacob himself is obviously already involved in the mess.

    Edit: On a guess, the father is probably Badass Normal and the sister a blank slate at the moment.

    EditEdit: Heh, the QM deleted what stood there before; I guess the notes of who is a Magical Girl were not supposed to be in there to begin with.
     
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    Well.
    I, for one, vote for a special option - Phantasm Seekers Family Observation unit.
    Just 4 of them checking whether our family is involved in magical mess or not.
    A week or two of observation could be enough.
    And privacy?
    Well, we do have half-conscious menial workers who will edit out the non-magical bits, so we won't really breach their personal space too much.
    Unless both of the parents are involved in magic and employ it for more... intimate deeds.
     
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