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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


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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I guess you could find Poseidon/Neptune kinda erotic if you're into guys?
I think it's this:
You know how the old, more-than-a-little horrible, stereotype about sailors being gay is down to months at sea crammed in like sardines with no other company but each other and memories of raucous shore leave at ports of call? Now remember that in this universe, "Europe" has gender segregated quarters in navies. So now the stereotype is for both men and women. And het couples. And whoever else gets sorted into one or the other by dumb old officers.

Ships are just romanticized rolling high schools, is what they're saying.
 
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[X] The Otrusian navy, it's composition and recent history.
[X] The Otrusian government, and how it turned socialist.
 
... we're spying on Italian Navy.

Fucking hell. The intelligence department must be more inconsistent and head-up-it's-ass than the one in Lord Admiral K's run of Rule The Waves.

Unless somehow they figured out how to get a good navy, in which case we should investigate for time-travelers.

The Italian navy, especially WWI era,was actually fairly competent. Their designers especially knew their stuff, IIRC an Italian naval architect came out with the dreadnought plana before HMS Dreadnought was a gleam in Fishers eye.
Now the budget was horrible, the government dysfunctional (though notably the French were worse on both counts when it came to boats...), and everything delayed horribly by chronic lack of shortages in steel and funds so by the time they built the damned things they were obsolete, but that's pretty much every navy other than Britain and the US in this era.
 
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How exactly is it determined how much we will read up on? Basically, should I vote for what I want to see, or for whatever's leading, to make sure we only read up on one thing and aren't idiotic enough to get more stress?
 
[X] Potential vacation spots you could bring Aiko: pretty islands in the Superum Sea? Secluded coves along the coast? Romantic mountain vistas?

I want to research the Navy too, but there is time for that later or maybe while en route, and she could use the lack of stress right now.
Sketch and AG have set up the most compelling early 20th century naval alternate history scenario I've ever seen and then spent a year talking about lesbians.
Probably due to the inherent eroticism of the sea. :)
 
A large part of it is that I don't know anything about boats at all, and have to rely entirely on @Artificial Girl.

They don't have wings, how am I supposed to know!

(In case people are curious, the distribution of labour on Castles is roughly that Artificial Girl handles a lot of the Navy and Princess stuff, while I do much of the casual dialog and introspection. That's hardly cut and dry, but we do try to play to each other's strengths. I can't write formal language worth anything, I always want to make my characters say 'yeah' and stumble over words and use slang and colloquial language that Haruna wouldn't be caught dead saying!)
 
[X] The Otrusian government, and how it turned socialist.

The government: "Try not to cause an international incident."
Also the government: "Btw, please spy on their latest battleship, we have Ideas."
 
[X] The Otrusian navy, it's composition and recent history.
[X] The Otrusian government, and how it turned socialist.

Haruna learns to speak nerd.

Really loving the glimpses we got of the broader gayaverse. Just imagining Berlin- and for that matter Frederick the Great (dude was trying to run away to Paris with his boyfriend von Catte and had a torrid love affair with Voltaire, fight me historians!)- to day nothing of Paris etx. Also socialist Not!Italy is an interesting idea and I can't wait to see it.
 
[X] The Otrusian navy, it's composition and recent history.
[X] More about the city of Serenitas. What was there to see you could bring Aiko to? What might she like there?
 
[X] The Otrusian government, and how it turned socialist.
[X] More about the city of Serenitas. What was there to see you could bring Aiko to? What might she like there?

I want to hear about their revolution, but having a few things to do with Aiko would be nice too.
 
[X] The Otrusian government, and how it turned socialist.
[X] More about the city of Serenitas. What was there to see you could bring Aiko to? What might she like there?
 
I don't imagine that we'll be able to get an in-depth look at the ship, or really any photos, but if we have an excuse of treating Aiko to Otrusian seaside cuisine, we might be able to catch a look or two and pass on some first impressions.
We can always ask for a tour of the ship, if we use our royal title instead of our naval rank they might not even realize they need to hide the sensitive parts of the ship.
Getting away with one or two photo's of each other taken in the port where the ship is in the background will be something that we can do. The other option is having lunch near the ship and drawing what we saw once we are back at the hotel.
 
We can always ask for a tour of the ship, if we use our royal title instead of our naval rank they might not even realize they need to hide the sensitive parts of the ship.
Getting away with one or two photo's of each other taken in the port where the ship is in the background will be something that we can do. The other option is having lunch near the ship and drawing what we saw once we are back at the hotel.
These are socialists though. Depending on how they got to be socialists, they may not like royalty much.
 
These are socialists though. Depending on how they got to be socialists, they may not like royalty much.
True, but most places that are still engaged with the diplomatic world (as unlike, say, 1920s Russia) still are ok with treating foreign dignitaries as honored guests/tourists. So if we play up the 'tee hee, I'm just a simple princess', we could get away with a lot of touring.
 
[X] The Otrusian navy, it's composition and recent history.
[X] The Otrusian government, and how it turned socialist.
 
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