Blood of the Gods: A Fantasy CKII Quest

[Cavalier]

Looks like the Royal Magician is in the lead, followed by the Dowager Queen. I'll note that @Arcus2611 is right on about choosing the Magician as your mother. The PC is going to have legitimacy issues that will be a major challenge.

Of course this is to an extent about choosing your challenges and advantages; other choices offer more legitimacy or powerful supporters, but the Magician is the only way to learn a foreign system of magic.

Your Father is also, mind, relevent. Maybe more to the strengths of the realm proper.

 

[Crowhunter]

[x] Eurydice

[X] Your father founded a great repository of learning and papyri where foreign and native scholars alike could gather together and consult all the knowledge of the world. One benefit is that the annual floods can be predicted with greater precision, sparing many lives of the fellahin.

[X] The Royal Magician. It was a desperate attempt to preserve a lineage from a dying man, facilitated by the strange magic of the pale sorceress from a far-distant land

 

[permeakra]

[ ] Your father was a great hunter and warrior, who slew lions and hippos to safeguard the people. He brought back the arms of a thousand invading barbarians, and forced the peoples of the south to provide tribute of ivory and gold.

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Probably, military bonus. While traditionally pursued in CKII quests, I really hope to avoid it here.

[ ] Your father lived but a short time on the throne, through no fault of his own. He was the only surviving grandson of the Great Ancestor, who reigned long and brought the favor of the gods upon Kemet with his many temples.

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Bonus to piety, possibly native magic available. IRL would be a questionable choice as it would result in power-restling with priests.

[ ] Your father was diligent in the preparations for the annual flood, and kept the granaries full against urgent need. When a locust swarm descended upon Kemet for five years the people did not starve because of the great wealth of grain available.

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Stewardship? Useful.

[ ] Your father discovered a conspiracy against him led by his father's favorite concubine, which would have cursed him with black magic. He convinced his own father to lend him the power to root out the evil the resided in the harem and the bureaucracy.

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Espionage/intrigue.

[ ] Your father founded a great repository of learning and papyri where foreign and native scholars alike could gather together and consult all the knowledge of the world. One benefit is that the annual floods can be predicted with greater precision, sparing many lives of the fellahin.

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Scholarship/science. Would be really relevant in, say, 19-20th century, but in ancient Egypt.... not so much.

[ ] Your father established his authority over the bickering city-states of the Kanaan and treated with the King of distant Babel-Ur as a brother. His letters were heeded by monarchs near and far as a source of wisdom and profit.

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Diplomancy. Also, foreign trade.

Out of choices available, IRL military and intrigue should be the most relevant in short term in case of legitimacy troubles. Stewardship and Scholarship should be more useful in a long rung.

 

[force200]

[X] Your father established his authority over the bickering city-states of the Kanaan and treated with the King of distant Babel-Ur as a brother. His letters were heeded by monarchs near and far as a source of wisdom and profit.

[X] The Dowager Queen. Sister-Wife to your Father the Pharaoh, blood of his blood, the lineage of the Great God has reached a full fruition in your veins.

Wouldn't be CK2 without Xwedodah

 

[Crow]

[X] Eurydice

[X] Your father founded a great repository of learning and papyri where foreign and native scholars alike could gather together and consult all the knowledge of the world. One benefit is that the annual floods can be predicted with greater precision, sparing many lives of the fellahin.

[X] The Dowager Queen. Sister-Wife to your Father the Pharaoh, blood of his blood, the lineage of the Great God has reached a full fruition in your veins.

 

[Cavalier]

Alright, voting closed.

Anyone want to do the talley? Otherwise I'll count it up myself after dinner.

 

[Cavalier]

Prologue: Naming Day

The High Priest of Atum began with the lineage of your forefathers, stretching back fourteen unbroken generations to the Great Ancestor, who had restored order to Upper and Lower Kemet at the command of the gods. The splendor with which he had showered the priesthood of Atum was stressed more than any other aspect of his eventful reign. Beyond the Great Ancestor there was Atumnepheret, who conquered the Kanaan after a terrible rebellion and laid waste to the cities of the Mittari and brought back to Kemet tens of thousands of slaves. There was also the glorious Sarepentepher, who subjugated the wild tribesmen of the desert oases and who voyaged to Sheba to bring back plentiful gold and incense and ivory for the use and decoration of the Grand Temple of Atum here in the capital.

Your father, Amenheb II, had founded the Garden of Ptah in honor of the craftsman-god and thereby showed his devotion to the prosperity of his people during his short reign.

Of your mother, there was silence.

After his oration the Dowager Queen grabbed you by the hand and tugged you over to the fountain. Her grip was too weak to hurt but the look she gave you made you flinch back in fear. She hmmphed softly and dragged you closer still, until you were hugging up against her cotton skirt. She placed her hands on your shoulders to make it clear you were not to move before stooping down and pooling some of the fountain water in her hands.

The High Priest began reciting a hymn to the creation of the world from the stillness of the Primordial Waters. The Great God Atum, creating himself by union with the feminine principle inherent in his being, established the primordial mound upon which his tears became the human race. The union of the waters and earth produced humanity, and nourished humanity in the yearly cycle of inundation. And such blessed union, the basis of the fortune of Kemet, formed the foundation for the fortune of the population and all things.

The Dowager Queen spilled the waters in her hand upon the earth, which greedily swallowed it. She bent to claw a bit of the mud and rose. "As the union of the waters and earth bless Kemet," she said, "let you be blessed with fortune, little Meritamun."

She rubbed some of the dirt upon you, pressing her thumb as hard as she could into your forehead. You now had a name. And with that the musicians on the side struck up their instruments and played a sweet melody as officials were presented before you to offer their own blessings and produce gifts.

They were boring gifts, things like wheat and perfume and ivory and jade. A chunk of rock that was claimed to have fallen from Duat, a piece of star-metal, did grab your interest briefly. But you were tired out and the crowds were becoming a bit much. You started walking away, but the Queen Dowager grabbed you by the shoulders again. Her nails dug into your flesh and your eyes teared up.

Eunuchs hustled you away before you caused a scene. They guided you from the Great Hall of Reception into the maze of the palace itself, taking you to your large room and its comfortable bed. You lay down and drifted off to sleep in a long nap. You will remember little of this day, though the hateful gaze of the Dowager Queen would always linger in your inner thoughts.

What had you done to make her so upset? You would eventually understand, but not for some time longer.

You awoke as the sun descended down into the Nile. The balcony of your room was open up and allowed you to watch the waters slowly swallow the great disk of the Boat of Ten Thousand Years, the barque of life-sustaining Ra. You wiped your eyes to clear them out, and as you did so a pale white hand appeared from the shadows to caress your cheek.

"My darling girl," a soft voice spoke out, seemingly from nowhere. Your mother peered around from the corner of your bed. Her lidded eyes seemed sad. "Your aunt has named you Meritamun. She would claim you if she could. But you are my precious daughter and I will give you a name as well. A True Name, one they will never know. One that she cannot use against you. And I will teach you of the arts and the truth of the world so that you will be safe."

She smiled as she bent down to stroke your hair.

"A mother will always love her child, no matter what," she cooed, and you drifted back to sleep.

OOC: Well, there are going to be Challenges ahead of you. The next part of CharGen will be up tomorrow, and you'll start directing the development of little Eurydice. And you do have the advantage that she basically won the genetic lottery in chargen. Two 20s and an 18 on checking for Traits does that. But she's going to need every advantage she can get.

 

[Kipeci]

That was a real slick way to incorporate the Greek name reasonably with the setting while still adhering to voter choice, I appreciate that. Kind of a shame that the legitimacy is a wreck and we have not much of a power base to rely on, that's going to make implementing just about any reform that the scholars suggest rather difficult without somehow bewitching a good many of the nobles. It'll get better over time, I guess, because the Pharoah is pretty clearly connected with the divine and through it the weather and better prediction of anomalous weather will certainly impress many. The trouble is in getting to survive to that point.

 

[force200]

What were the voet results?

 

[Kipeci]

Eurydice for name, dad set up library, mom was a foreign magician.

 

[Nervos Belli]

This has my attention. We need to send trade expeditions to not!Punt as soon as we end up in charge, assuming we do.

 

[Cavalier]

Interregnum Years 5-6
Regent: Dowager Queen Neferet

Choose Tutors (Up to three)
[X] Temple Priests
[X] Royal Scribes
[X] Your Mother

Choose Focus (one)
[ ] Martial
[ ] Diplomatic
[ ] Stewardship
[ ] Intrigue
[ ] Piety
[ ] Learning

Cat Crossed Your Path
You took the chance as your handmaiden turned to talk to a servant-boy carrying a carafe of wine through the hall. You took a left and ran, the young woman turning in alarm and chasing you through the alabaster halls of the palace. Soon you reached a part of the palace that was unfamiliar; the textiles and murals enlivening your wing of the palace disappeared, and there were more men and women milling about in rougher dresses instead of the fine livery of serving staff. You glanced around to find your escort but she was gone; all you had wanted to do was not have to sit still for the royal scribe so long!

You stumbled along further into the unfamiliar and now poorly lit halls looking for someone familiar. A soft mewing sound attracts your attention from a room to the side. You step in past the partly-open door, into a dark storage space filled with amphorae. You almost walk into a furry pile of cute stalking its way out. The dun-and-black striped kitty meows at you, and brushes up against your legs. You do what any young girl would do and reach down to pet the cat. It purrs as you stroke its head and your hand wanders down its back as you marvel at the warmth of its soft fur. Your fear fades away, fascinated to be touching the little creature. You pet and pet the cat harder and harder…

It hisses and arches its back up. You step away, surprised and shocked. The cat bounds away further down the hall. Do you follow it, or head back down the way you came in search of your handmaiden?

[ ] Chase the cat.
[ ] Find an adult.

Playmates
Your childhood isn't all boring tutoring sessions and boring rituals and crowds and servants. There are other children in the palace, none of them your siblings, but some are noble enough to be allowed into the presence of the divine. And others, children of the servants, are so lowly as to be beneath notice.

Your attending handmaiden keeps a wary eye on you as you enter a chamber of the royal harem long set-aside for the younger children of the Pharaoh. Furrows of running water flow into a pool at the back, where small palm-fronds and fragrant flowers are arranged to form an indoor garden. Pillows of goose-down are set up to lounge inside the garden with a wicker chest full of toys set aside for the children. A pair of eunuchs stood watch from the doorway, albeit more to keep order than to guard against enemies. Even as you entered the rush of water and moisture in the air was a welcome relief from the summer heat inside the palace.

You see three other children over by the toybox fighting over a pair of reed boats. They wear the same kind of fine muslin skirt that you do. Two others are racing around the furrows leading to the pool. Their skirts are coarser flax. You are drawn over to the pool by the oppressive heat, but even as you do so you consider what to do.

[ ] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.
[ ] Impress the other children by winning the race.
[ ] Sit down by the pool and watch what happens.

OOC: Well, this is the template for the next few updates. Eurydice is too young to take any kind of active role in the affairs of state or even to decide things for herself. Thankfully there's a Regent in place to make decisions for her. The Regent may change due to death or political circumstances; when Eurydice gets older she'll have a more active hand in determining who she wants to learn from and might even be able to take part in intrigues around the Court. But for now, she's still a child.

There are chances to pick up extra stat points or traits from Tutors. In this case the Dowager Queen has not seen fit to assign anyone in particular for Eurydice's education. So her education is being handled by priests and scribes to provide a basic level of knowledge. Fortunately her Mother is picking up the slack!

You can however select a Focus here. That's what draws Eurydice's attention the most and represents who she is listening to and what she finds (relatively) interesting. A Focus means extra chances to pick up extra points in the stat in question and might lead to Trait gain or even improve her relationship with other characters. Right now Eurydice doesn't know much of anything about the Court but that will change in due time.

And then there are the individual events, little scenarios and vignettes that offer a chance to further define her character. Stat gains and Traits are possible, as are changes (good or bad) to relationships.

 

[Zaratustra]

[X] Piety
[X] Chase the cat.
[X] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.

@Cavalier quick question: last update you said we won the genetic lotery, so what traits did we get ?

 

[Nervos Belli]

[X] Intrigue
[X] Chase the cat.
[X] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.

Given we're in a figurative nest of vipers, getting our intrigue up to the point we can figure out who hates us and why seems paramount. Kitties are always important, and might lead to us finding some cool parts of the palace. The only one I'm unsure of is the children. In CK2 terms, dividing the boats seems like an Arbitrary/Just choice, winning the race could be boastful/proud or competitive, and observing could be quick, or shy. I vote the first because learning how to give orders properly is something we need to do, and this is a relatively low consequence time to practice. Of course, we're also five so none of it may stick.

 

[Crilltic]

[X] Intrigue

While all the stats are tempting (muh piety). I feel like Intrigue or Diplomacy would be the best fit for the fact that we're a low legitimacy monarch ruling in a nest of vipers, and Intrigue is likely going to be better than Diplomacy for the situations we'll probably find ourselves in.

[X] Chase the cat.

This is not-Egypt. That's a cat. Obviously this is divine favor. Obviously.

[X] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.

Hey, maybe we can get the Just trait out of this. Or maybe we'll just make a fool of ourselves as the other kids disregard our authority. Who knows?

 

[Cavalier]

[X] Piety
[X] Chase the cat.
[X] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.

@Cavalier quick question: last update you said we won the genetic lotery, so what traits did we get ?

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You'll find out as Eurydice does.

And yeah the choices do have multiple possible outcomes based on a roll I do. They're approaches, really, and what's important is what they say about the character.

 

[Kipeci]

[x] Diplomatic
[x] Find an adult.
[x] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.

To explain my vote, working from such a devastating cut to our authority from our status we're going to need to develop our diplomatic skill greatly. That's basically a measure of our ability to generally make friends and influence people; we are going to have to make a lot of allies because we have no real power base to rely on outside of I guess the relatively squishy scholars who really don't count for much. Diplomatic skill is the best reasonable bet we have towards getting the folks who actually have power right now to like us, since we can hardly direct armies and build impressive towers and the like yet but we're definitely capable of being an amiable and good, cute kid who gives a fantastic impression. Learning the social realities around us through that method is also going to be important to avoiding the childish gaffes we've been displaying all throughout, and will be the key to realizing the proper times and places to exert our royal authority.

The second-vote is pretty clear. We're the bottom rung of a dynasty, when Eurydice kicks the bucket the dynasty is swept up into the waste-bin of history and anyone and their brother can grab for power under the excuse that the divine bloodline has become extinguished. That means that some people (which people, we don't quite know) have incentive to get us killed. As such, we should always try to avoid being in a situation outside of the reach of our caretakers who are charged with keeping us alive. It's breathtakingly reckless, it shows that we don't adhere to order (which is what we want to promote considering that it's the reason our butt is supposed to park itself on the throne) and I don't want the character to be established as someone who just dashes off to look at the shinies rather than taking a more careful approach to evaluating the circumstances.

Last one ties in with the diplomacy option. We want to have experience in settling conflicts among those of lower station; it's what our rightful role should be to maintain peace in the kingdom, this appears to be as good of a starting point as any. It is proper that the first instinct should be towards establishing peace.

 

[Shard]

[X] Martial
[X] Chase the cat.
[x] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.

 

[Arcus]

Let's look at the tutors we have. We have the royal scribes, who are presumably learned bureaucrats knowledgeable in things such as bookkeeping and administration. We have the temple priests, who would know a lot about the gods and are also probably learned men. We have our mother, who we know is skilled in the arts of magic. The royal scribes could teach us stewardship, the priests could teach us piety, I'm assuming that learning is what you need for magic so our mother probably has a lot of that.

It's highly unlikely that any of our teachers are going to be good at Martial. Similarly, I doubt that Diplomacy is going to be their area of expertise here. Maybe our mother could teach us Intrigue. Given our current choice of tutors, I would recommend steering away from choices like Martial and leaning towards either Learning, Stewardship, or Piety.

With that in mind:

[X] Learning Intrigue

[X] Chase the cat.

Oh look, a cat. I don't particularly care either way but this seems more fun.

[X] Impress the other children by winning the race.

Not too passive, but not too aggressive either.

 

[giodan]

[X] Martial
[X] Chase the cat.
[x] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.

 

[Arcus]

[X] Martial

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Just who is going to teach us Martial? These are our current tutors:

[X] Temple Priests
[X] Royal Scribes
[X] Your Mother

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I doubt Temple Priests know anything about warfare. Our mother is a magician, not a warrior. The Royal Scribes? They might be able to teach us about the tactics and theory, but I doubt we'll be able to learn any of the practicals, and even military theory is unlikely to be their area of expertise. We know that we can be assigned different tutors later on. Unless you think that our choice of tutors has no bearing on our education, but if that were the case why would they be even brought up?

[x] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.

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Last one ties in with the diplomacy option. We want to have experience in settling conflicts among those of lower station; it's what our rightful role should be to maintain peace in the kingdom, this appears to be as good of a starting point as any. It is proper that the first instinct should be towards establishing peace.

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I have to disagree with this choice here. As it stands, we do not have the authority to make other people listen to us. Our first priority has to be to establish our legitimacy and our fitness as a ruler. So, instead of trying to settle this dispute with authority we don't have, we should instead try to impress the other children, and get them to acknowledge our superiority. Similarly, before we can start meddling in the affairs of state, we first need to show that we are the best and the most suited to rule, that we should be the one on the throne and not someone else.

 

[Skjadir]

[X] Learning

[X] Chase the cat.

[X] Sit down by the pool and watch what happens.

 

[RedV]

Cool quest.

[X] Martial
[X] Chase the cat.
[x] Wade into the dispute and use your authority to distribute the toys.

Low legitimacy means being a military dictator or intriguing against our opponents true courtier style to get accepted.

Learning seems more of the build great works stat, and that ddoesn' sound as important here. Plus, way too much learning and piety focus in CK2 style quests has burned me out of that.

Little miss fascist dictator sounds fun. and new.

 

[veekie]

[X] Temple Priests
[X] Royal Scribes
[X] Your Mother
[X] Intrigue
[X] Chase the cat.
[X] Sit down by the pool and watch what happens.

I think watching to gain context before deciding to stick our oar in is better. We can't lean on authority, not with our legitimacy issues.

Reason and attention reigns

 

[Arcus]

Little miss fascist dictator sounds fun. and new.

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Trying to play at being an absolute monarch when you don't have the respect of powerful subjects or a solid powerbase you van rely on is the sort of thing that gets you a knife in the back/a lifetime stay in a dark dungeon.

Learning military strategy from people who don't really know much about military strategy is useless if we can't get the soldiers to listen to us.

This is assuming there are any good military manuals out there that the scribes can use to teach. We'd probably have pretty good access to books (and the options for the previous pharaoh help), but this would require someone to have actually written a (good) manual first.

I would also think that we'll be able to change our education focus later on.