Broken Traditions (CK2)

[Dimensionist]

SB Quest

There was a time when humanity roamed the stars amidst a universe of equals. A time where the miraculous was commonplace, where progress and prosperity abounded. A time when nothing seemed impossible, or out of reach.

A time of legend, and glory. But the age of glory has passed. Humanity finds itself alone, trapped on a world not it's own, no escape in sight.

Now, few even believe in such fanciful tales. Fewer still have even an inkling as to how such an age could have come to be, and absolutely no one who believes knows how it ended.

But you believe, don't you?

"I do. But the glories of the past are not my concern. I believe, yes - but the bustling present holds my attention far more than legends ground into dust."

Understandable. You do, after all, find yourself responsible for a great many people. And in this time of suspicion and fear, of rapid and uncontrolled change, that responsibility is certainly a heavy one to bear. I wonder - will your people survive? Will your Tradition? The Traditions must be upheld, after all, though some will doubtlessly fall before the coming change.

"Yes, some will fall. I can only hope that mine - and that of my people's - is not one of them."

Hope can be fragile, but it is something to treasure all the same. Ah, but I forget myself - in our discussion, I have not afforded you even the most basic of courtesies.

Tell me, young one - what is your name?

[ ] [WRITE-IN Name]
[ ] [WRITE-IN Appearance] (preferably images, though descriptions are also fine)
[ ] Focus:
-[ ] Balanced
-[ ] Focused on 4 stats (as opposed to 5) [WRITE-IN Which stats to focus on]
-[ ] Focused on 3 stats (as opposed to 5) [WRITE-IN Which stats to focus on]
-[ ] Focused on 2 stats (as opposed to 5) [WRITE-IN Which stats to focus on]
-[ ] Focused on 1 stats (as opposed to 5) [WRITE-IN Which stats to focus on]
(The name and appearance will also determine gender)

And where do you come from? What is the Tradition that you protect, and which protects your people in turn?

[X] "I belong to The Unity, a Paladin in service to the prophet's vision. My Tradition is the Roc with it's wings spread wide, accepting all." [Largest faction, Low starting authority, Tradition of integration and camaraderie, located at the center of the supercontinent Yussan]
[X] "I am of the Daivya, a Prince(ss) of Divakaram. My Tradition, as that of all within the Svarnajal, is the three-eyed, three-faced Bodhisattva, who sees all." [Medium-sized faction, middling starting authority, Tradition of adaptation and innovation, located at the southeastern side of the supercontinent Yussan]
[X] "You speak to the Osh, tribal chief of the Bo-Shu. My Tradition is of the Jikininki with a million forms and faces, as in the tribes before the Bo-Shu." [Smallest faction, highest starting authority, Tradition of consumption and death, located at the southwestern tip of the supercontinent Yussan]

Wonderful, wonderful. It is my ardent hope that a believer, such as yourself, will see a return to the glory of the past, if not bring about an even greater glory of the future. It is in you I place my greatest hopes, though you are not the only one who I will approach on this matter.

Grow, young one, and rise to power. Only then may the possibility of survival come about - for these are times of great change and strife ...

... and humanity is not alone in this world. Not for much longer, I fear.

-XXXXXXXX-

A/N: First quest on SV, with this also being my first CK2 empire builder quest, I think. Should be interesting, if nothing else.

A bit of important information: All of the factions, including the world, come from an original setting I was working on. As such, there is some important background on pretty much everything in the first post, and the most important things - the Traditions. There'll be a Q&A session for that, so don't worry about it - you'll have all the info you want before you make your final pick. I just couldn't add it to this update because I can't account for all the info you'd want making it a bit of a waste anyway, and it looks better concise like this.

I will be using rolz.org for all the dice rolling involved in this quest, room name BTCK2SV (to be made later). I will also be using a system that more closely follows CK2 than the existing one - Piety isn't another stat, it exists alongside Prestige as separate from character attributes. Martial does not determine a character's ability to fight, merely his/her strategic and tactical acumen (and there will often be a specialization or division in this matter, hidden though it is, that can be intuited from descriptions of the stat). There is a separate mechanic for that - Personal Combat Ability.

Stats and their bonuses are as follows: 1-10 = negative modifier, -5 for every 2 stats below 10 (-25 at 1). 10-15 = no modifier. 15-25 = +5 for every 2 stats above 15 (+25 at 25). The higher the stat, the greater the chance of a positive trait and also the level of positive trait possible. The degree of success or failure of endeavors built around said stats varies depending on the stats in question, as does the tier of potential endeavors - so the stats vary in effect exponentially from low to high. Human stats are capped at 30. Personal Combat Ability, on the other hand, can vary immensely - it depends on the mastery of your Tradition, your experience, your skill with weaponry and combat in general, etc. At PCA 10, you can hold your own in a fight with a trained squad of mercs (4 mercs, that is). At 100, you're an army-killer, potentially a city-killer. At 1000, you're a planet-buster (though I doubt anyone in this quest will even come close to 200, let alone 1000, it's there for reference). This is all a general comparison and varies based on enemy stats and skills, circumstances, types of opponents, morale, etc.

The Focus choice up there exists to modify the rolls I'm going to be making for your character's stats. I'll be rolling a 5d30, and you can add modifiers as you'd like based on your focus - focusing on 4 gets you a +2 on those 4 and a -8 on the one you leave out. Focusing on 1 gets you a +8 on that and a -2 on all others. And so on and so forth. It all balances.

Depending on your final choices of faction, there will be additional modifiers - if you can correctly guess them all, I'll give you a +1 modifier on all your stats. Otherwise, you can just ask me and I'll tell you, though that +1 will be forfeit.

This is intended to be a fun game, so don't be too cautious - a single crit fail won't kill your character/allies or irreversibly ruin your faction, barring extreme circumstances. That said, stupidity will be punished accordingly. So, if you, say, challenge a civilization-ending threat with your MC and a band of plucky sidekicks and don't have PCAs of 100+ on all of them? Well, that counts as an extreme circumstance. You've been warned.

I'll leave this post with that - you can ask questions before you make your vote, and I'll be happy to answer them. Good luck!

 

[Dimensionist]

Alright, nation background - bear with me now.

The Unity - effectively a multicultural, multiracial conglomerate of cultures and nations that have all homogenized into one specific identity. This is the most powerful and largest political entity in the entire supercontinent. Paladins are effectively highly decorated and respected officers, heroes in effect who do not, in fact, rule over a town (though they can found a Chapter and be given rulership of a certain parcel of land if they work hard enough/prove useful). It's exceedingly ordered on the macro scale, exceedingly chaotic on the micro scale. It's Tradition is what keeps all the chaos contained and productive - it's one of camaraderie and integration and many cultures find themselves assimilated in short order, along with their Traditions - not even due to anything overt, but because the customs and culture developing due to the tradition of The Unity tend to lead to it (though there is a little - okay, a lot - of influence of the metaphysical weight of the Tradition there too). They are the quintessential 'good guy' faction, and they work damn hard to ensure that rep is maintained.

It originated, as the option suggests, through the actions of a prophet - a man named Aaron Stone, a man who grew from a no-name quarry slave in an old Theocracy to a messiah. He preached unity of purpose and people, of combining strengths and shoring up weaknesses. Protected people who were being oppressed, then turned right back around and did the same for his oppressors when they became his peers. He preached forgiveness and understanding, growth through compromise and agreement, and effectively recreated an entire Tradition from bits and pieces - fitting, for a Tradition that aims to use bits and pieces of other Traditions to recreate the full glory of the original Tradition.

Internal problems? Almost non-existent. This is a nation - a sprawling collection of tightly bound nations - forged on camaraderie, and their Tradition enforces it further. It is hellaciously difficult for internal strife to happen here, though not impossible.

Standing against other nations? Pretty much everyone is against them, considering them basically the Borg, but nicer. It's fear, mostly - they're afraid of having their culture subsumed, as it seems to be on the macro scale. Of becoming just another group in the crowd. The irony of the diplomacy faction having every other faction at best neutral to them, I guess.

Further details to be found on SV.

The City-States within the Svarnajal area - Each city-state is basically a single city hundreds to over a thousand kilometers wide, the size of a small country. They house several dozen million people each, with the total population of the entire system reaching over half a billion. All of them are port cities, some of them on islands, and are fortresses in effect. To be honest, they're technically not even just one political entity - each city-state is basically it's own country - but they're bound by an extremely tight military and economic alliance and so for most purposes they basically count as one. Even considering this, however, they're extremely fractious, and there's a lot of jockeying for power and position within the city's elite. There's a massive information war going on at all times, with people fighting and killing over information and advancement. This is the faction with the highest amount of internal unrest - not just among the three factions, but among all polities in the supercontinent. They were formed rather naturally, really, with the people who possessed bits of knowledge of a certain Tradition all finding themselves near each other and hence founding their cities here, near the ocean and resources, with the Traditions commingling to form the present-day Tradition.

Threats around them? Well, there are a good deal of nomadic tribes surrounding them who hate the City-States (and vice-versa). It's a long story, made up of a number of diplomatic gaffes, aggressive actions and atrocities, so suffice to say it won't be solved soon or easily. They have a trading partner in the form of the nation of Unkar located in the small continent called Svarnabhumi south of the supercontinent. The other nations near them are neutral.

Finally, the Bo-Shu tribe. It's a fusion of the Bo tribe and the Shui tribe. They both had similar Traditions, which effectively integrated together after the Feast of the Fallen that happens after each military conquest of a tribe. The Bo tribe conquered the Shui tribe, by the way. Conflict is a fact of life in the wasteland that is the southeastern tip of the supercontinent - a wasteland that shouldn't be there, considering the proximity to water, but is due to a man-made disaster sometime in the distant past. Crops don't really grow there well, but that's fine - flesh grows there just perfectly. This, in a sense, helps considering their Tradition, and while flesh does 'grow' in that place, it's still limited compared to the population, which means the tribes are constantly jockeying for resources. The Bo-Shu tribe currently has the prime position right next to the ocean, and is poised to enact some serious change in the political structure of the wasteland. Internal strife isn't as low as with The Unity, but it's damn near non-existent all the same considering how harsh people are and how harsh measures are accepted - you don't challenge leadership and your superiors lightly here. Threats around them? Basically just the other tribes. They're fairly isolated. Heck, most countries don't even know they exist, they're so isolated.

EDIT: Finally done.