Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

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Lieutenant Arisukawa Haruna

Balance Stats
❁ • ❁ Work / Life ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Warrior / Princess ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Radical / Respectable ❁ • ❁

Tactical Stats
Gunnery 0, Navigation +2, Command +2, Technology -4, Personal -2, Strategy +3

Stress: 3​


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PLEASE READ THE QUEST RULES BELOW

You collectively vote on the actions of Arisukawa Haruna, the first woman to serve openly in the Imperial Akitsukuni Navy.

This quest is set in a universe which is much like our own circa 1910, but with different politics, cultural norms, and ideas about gender and sexuality, as well as some unusual and advanced technology in places.

We are using this quest to explore themes like breaking the glass ceiling, divergent outlooks on gender and sexuality, colonialism and imperialism, and the place of royalty.

Content Warning
This quest goes some dark places.

There is violence, often explicit, often unfair, often against undeserving targets.

There are not always good options forward. The protagonist is not necessarily a good person.

There is implied content and discussion of sexual harassment and assault.

This is a world where people are often racist, sexist, queerphobic bigots. Sometimes, even the PC and the people they are friends with.

Voting Rules

We will tell you if write-in votes are allowed. If we do not say that write-ins are allowed, they are not. This is to prevent people from unrealistically hedging their bets.

You may proposal other options in a non-vote format, subject to approval, on non write-in votes.

We will tell you when a vote allows approved voting. If we don't say the answer is no, pick an option. We like making people commit.

Discussions makes the GM feel fuzzy.

Game Rules
When we ask you for a roll, roll 3d6. You are aiming to roll equal or under the value of your stat. If you succeed, Haruna gets through the situation with no real difficulties. If you roll above the target value, Haruna will still succeed, but this success will cost her something or add a complication.

Whenever Haruna loses something or faces hardship from a botched roll, she takes Stress. The more Stress Haruna has, the more the job and the circumstances she's in will get to her, and it'll be reflected in the narrative. Haruna must be kept under 10 Stress: if she reaches 10 Stress, she will suffer a breakdown and the results will not be great for her.

Haruna loses stress by taking time for herself, by making meaningful progress on her dreams, and by kissing tall, beautiful women.

Meta Rules
Author commentary is in italics so you know it's not story stuff.

Please don't complain about the system or the fact we have to roll dice. We've heard it before, we've heard it a thousand times across multiple quests. We're not going to change it, and it wears at our fucking souls.

Just going "oh noooo" or "Fish RNGesus Why!" is fun and fine. Complaining at length because you didn't get what you want less so.

If you have a question, tag both @open_sketchbook and @Artificial Girl. If you only tag one of us, you will be ignored. Seriously, we both write this quest.

And yes this is an alt-history type setting with openly gay and trans people, ahistoric medicine, and weird politics. Just... deal, please?

This quest employs a special system called Snippet Votes. Please read this post for more information.
 
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[X] Another thirty seconds won't hurt. (Roll Subterfuge, Will get you limited actionable intelligence you can work on later.)

Haruna's Stress is getting fairly high, and there will likely be other things happening in this arc that we'll want some slack for.

Additionally, I'd rather not leave this in the hands of dice if at all possible. Perfect is the enemy of good enough, and this is highly likely to get us good enough intelligence. The other options increase the odds of merely getting a partial success or even outright failing. A mere partial success compared to a full success will likely negate a good portion of the benefit of the riskier options.
 
[X] Another thirty seconds won't hurt. (Roll Subterfuge, Will get you limited actionable intelligence you can work on later.)

tbh I'm half tempted to vote to completely ignore this because Stress 8 seems very EXTERMECONCERNSKELETON.JPG and losing some of it would be super-nice but on the other hand Kaiser Willy there buying guns and probably some fashionable brownblue shirt makes me want to start screaming externally.
 
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[X] Forget the party. This is serious. (Roll subterfuge, Very Hard roll. No stress relief. On a success, get enough to implicate both of them. A partial will give you a hard choice.)

tearlessNever said:
Extreme, yes, but as good a victory as we can get.
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If we can get it. It's a dangerous move for Haruna, and we'll need to roll very well. But frankly? It's worth taking the chance, it can severely damage the Purity Party and its influence in Akitsukuni military forces.
 
[X] Another minute couldn't be too bad? (Roll Subterfuge, Hard roll Will give you enough intelligence to implicate the XO on a success.)
 
[X] Another thirty seconds won't hurt. (Roll Subterfuge, Will get you limited actionable intelligence you can work on later.)

Being seen at the party and not getting caught are very important.
 
Hazard said:
y? It's worth taking the chance, it can severely damage the Purity Party and its influence in Akitsukuni military forces.
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Thing is, we know the future. We know that Purity First is going to suffer massively under the Shell Crisis, so I don't see the point of doing this.

Aircraft Designer Quest precedes this one, and thus fixes points in the timeline that we can't change.

We can get the Captain and the XO of the ship, perhaps, but we're not going to change politics.

In addition, Stress is a worrypoint. We're at extremely high stress already, and getting involved in any shenanigans is unlikely to be a relaxing affair. Haruna is likely to snap if she gets involved in any kind of interrogation.
 
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10ebbor10 said:
Thing is, we know the future. We know that Purity First is going to suffer massively under the Shell Crisis, so I don't see the point of doing this.

Aircraft Designer Quest precedes this one, and thus fixes points in the timeline that we can't change.

We can get the Captain and the XO of the ship, perhaps, but we're not going to change politics.

In addition, Stress is a worrypoint. We're at extremely high stress already, and getting involved in any shenanigans is unlikely to be a relaxing affair. Haruna is likely to snap if she gets involved in any kind of interrogation.
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Here's the question: How much credit do you want for that happening?

Remember, Asuka is very bad at following politics. They would have no idea what was happening in Spring 1910 when the Purity Club had "some kind of big scandal with a princess I guess."
 
[X] Forget the party. This is serious. (Roll subterfuge, Very Hard roll. No stress relief. On a success, get enough to implicate both of them. A partial will give you a hard choice.)
 
[X] Another thirty seconds won't hurt. (Roll Subterfuge, Will get you limited actionable intelligence you can work on later.)
 
[X] Another minute couldn't be too bad? (Roll Subterfuge, Hard roll Will give you enough intelligence to implicate the XO on a success.)
 
I suspect that getting a target on her back from the Purity Club would also involve her getting a ton of points with the other big parties. The Constitutional Nationalists weren't expected to hold power, but they did. Did they, perhaps, benefit from the only major party more conservative than them being gutted? Were some of the Fairness Party's gains (and the Monarchists, maybe) come from Haruna being the one who helped wreck the Purity Club?

Maybe you're not interested having Haruna engage in politics, and that's respectable, though I don't think that's completely avoidable. If you are, though, she's going to make enemies, and I wouldn't mind her enemies being ones I dislike anyway, and if she makes them while stripping them of some of their power, all the better.

Regardless of the political angle, I feel it's important to note that her idiot cousin and his idiot friends will likely, at some point, use those weapons they're smuggling. I'm not comfortable letting that pass, particularly so soon after she decided not to do that sort of thing.

open_sketchbook said:
"I didn't want to be one of those great, um, women who failed to discern right and wrong because of my private desires. I didn't want to put career above what was right. Again."
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open_sketchbook said:
"I wasn't going to do it again." You finished. "Not here. I wasn't going to just pass on the order and let innocent people die because I was too hesitant to do something."
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Yeah, it's not an equivalent situation. Nobody is right in front of her with a gun, and she hasn't been given a direct order, but there are some pretty bad consequences that could come from letting her cousin continue with his nonsense when he's already at the stage where he's trying to smuggle weapons into the country to arm his political allies.

[X] Forget the party. This is serious. (Roll subterfuge, Very Hard roll. No stress relief. On a success, get enough to implicate both of them. A partial will give you a hard choice.)
 
Kinruush said:
I suspect that getting a target on her back from the Purity Club would also involve her getting a ton of points with the other big parties. The Constitutional Nationalists weren't expected to hold power, but they did. Did they, perhaps, benefit from the only major party more conservative than them being gutted? Were some of the Fairness Party's gains (and the Monarchists, maybe) come from Haruna being the one who helped wreck the Purity Club?
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Honestly, not seeing it. I mean, to go by party.

The CN kinda likes the Purity Club as a common enemy of the socialists. No love won there.
The NI like Haruna because she's part of their gender equality program. However, they have ties with the Purity Club in regards with the Navy taking over the army. So neutral.
The Fairness Association are socialists. They don't royalty.
The United Communist League. These really don't like royalty.

The main problem is that the vast majority of the parties that would appreciate the downfall of the Purity Club are inherently opposed to Haruna as princess.

In addition, there's the obvious thing that we're at 8 stress, and that unveiling a conspiracy is going to be a stressfull thing even if everything goes right.

Artificial Girl said:
what you hear will probably weigh on you.
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10ebbor10 said:
Honestly, not seeing it. I mean, to go by party.

The CN kinda likes the Purity Club as a common enemy of the socialists. No love won there.
The NI like Haruna because she's part of their gender equality program. However, they have ties with the Purity Club in regards with the Navy taking over the army. So neutral.
The Fairness Association are socialists. They don't royalty.
The United Communist League. These really don't like royalty.

The main problem is that the vast majority of the parties that would appreciate the downfall of the Purity Club are inherently opposed to Haruna as princess.
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You've made assumptions about the first two there, which aren't really borne out. Like, equally plausible is:

CN - The Purity Club have been defeated, and better yet, the left doesn't seem to have gained from it, because it was a princess not some poxy socialist that defeated them.
NI - Princess Haruna bashes reactionaries, shatters gender norms and doesn't afraid of anything
Fairness Association - She might be a relic of an oppressive system, but she's against the fascists, and is committed to trying to reform Akitsukini. She's the least bad royalty.
UCL - Probably yes, they still hate her.
 
veteranMortal said:
CN - The Purity Club have been defeated, and better yet, the left doesn't seem to have gained from it, because it was a princess not some poxy socialist that defeated them.
NI - Princess Haruna bashes reactionaries, shatters gender norms and doesn't afraid of anything
Fairness Association - She might be a relic of an oppressive system, but she's against the fascists, and is committed to trying to reform Akitsukini. She's the least bad royalty.
UCL - Probably yes, they still hate her.
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You're forgetting the electoral results. Pretty much all gains went to the left, just none of them in particular.

open_sketchbook said:
New Independents and Fairness both made minor gains to fill the gap, jumping up to 26% and 11% respectively. The rest was all minor parties, with the Monarchists finally making the 1% mark and the Communists at an astonishing 2%. There was also a sub-percent party called the Women's Equality League which most of the papers roundly mocked.
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Edit: Well, except for the monarchist party, that is.

For the other 2, I think your opinion is too rosy. The Fairness association is not going to like royalty just because one piece of royalty revealed that the another piece of royalty was corrupt.
 
There are a lot of potential ways the various factions could interpret or respond to Haruna, but I think the deciding factor in exactly what that is is how they'll answer these sorts of questions: "Has she done something that helps us? Is she useful to us? Could we benefit from our leadership having a positive relationship with her? Could we gain more from being friendly with her or opposing her?"

Regardless, my point with that is that even if we gain enemies, we won't only gain enemies.
 
@Kinruush put the argument I was gonna make better than I could, honestly.

[X] Forget the party. This is serious. (Roll subterfuge, Very Hard roll. No stress relief. On a success, get enough to implicate both of them. A partial will give you a hard choice.)
 
There's very little need for a big scandal. The secret police are going to be more than happy to see relevant people receive sudden transfers, cousin kicked upstairs to mind a desk and a window somewhere with strict warnings to keep his shit in order. If people ask where a given co-conspirator went to? Well, the navy is a large place, there are many duty stations.

But behind the scenes, they have taken a very serious kick to the intimates.
 
veteranMortal said:
They don't have to like royalty to like Haruna more after this than before this.
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If your argument is "we'll gain allies", then they kind of have too.

OneirosTheWriter said:
There's very little need for a big scandal. The secret police are going to be more than happy to see relevant people receive sudden transfers, cousin kicked upstairs to mind a desk and a window somewhere with strict warnings to keep his shit in order. If people ask where a given co-conspirator went to? Well, the navy is a large place, there are many duty stations.

But behind the scenes, they have taken a very serious kick to the intimates.
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True, that's the other risk. Everything getting covered up, and as a result only the people we hurt knowing what actually happened. Well, them and the secret police.
 
10ebbor10 said:
If your argument is "we'll gain allies", then they kind of have too.



True, that's the other risk. Everything getting covered up, and as a result only the people we hurt knowing what actually happened. Well, them and the secret police.
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More likely the people we turn in are simply never seen again, bar our cousin. The Japanese secret police didn't kid around and I doubt the Akitsuni police do either. They'll start with the people we turn in and then very quietly and very ruthlessly see what else turns up.
 
[X] Forget the party. This is serious. (Roll subterfuge, Very Hard roll. No stress relief. On a success, get enough to implicate both of them. A partial will give you a hard choice.)
 
[X] You have enough. Go enjoy your party, talk to the MPs in the morning. (-3 Stress)
 
[X] Another thirty seconds won't hurt. (Roll Subterfuge, Will get you limited actionable intelligence you can work on later.)

The guns will be stored on the ship. We just need to pay attention to what gets loaded, and where, and we can roll up this whole thing when we return and they try to make delivery. Regardless of how well we tie our cousin to this, it's his ship and he can be held accountable. Let's play it slow.
 
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