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[Exalted] The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

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Calico J said:
I have to say, honestly, it never occurred to me either that Nazat was genuinely in love with the Empress. Somehow she's just not someone I associate with that. Boy, he's got several big problems at once, doesn't he? And from a source he never would have predicted.
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Mortifying: Area woman shocked as her dad comes out as straight for her mom
 
[X] The Pure Wind Pagoda

I was already leaning this way for the map even before seeing the vote tally, though hesitating. Making it a three way tie is the push needed to guarantee I do it.
 
Hmmm... this is a tricky decision indeed. I think I'll have to split it between candor and symbolism. (I'm sure Mnemon is more than capable of implying a whole lot to Ambraea, while other people are listening, without necessarily giving much away.)

[x] Mnemon's personal chambers in the palace

[x] The Pure Wind Pagoda

Calico J said:
I have to say, honestly, it never occurred to me either that Nazat was genuinely in love with the Empress. Somehow she's just not someone I associate with that. Boy, he's got several big problems at once, doesn't he? And from a source he never would have predicted.
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Funnily enough it hadn't occurred to me that this wasn't obvious, and reflecting on that, I think the reason is simply because that's the option that makes everything feel worse for him. I choose not to examine what this says about me as a reader.
 
[X] Mnemon's personal chambers in the palace

Private meeting with big bad idol Onee-sama is more interesting to me than just another dime a dozen politico-speak. Big screwed up family is one my favorite tropes and I want more of that.
 
@Gazetteer we now know that Ambraea has expectations of Nazat getting along with Sola, but how would Ambraea expect an extended introduction with L'nessa or Amiti to end up were she to form Hearth bonds with them as well?
 
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Vote closed, Denouement 2 01 New
  • Voting
    • Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Oct 19, 2024 at 7:44 PM, finished with 46 posts and 36 votes.
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  • Voting
    • Gazetteer said:
    Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Oct 19, 2024 at 7:44 PM, finished with 46 posts and 36 votes.
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    M: "Join me Ambraea, together we can beat the snot out of my younger sister!"

    A: "Sorry, do you mean me?"

    M: "Pardon me, whenever I get angry I start thinking of V'neef."

    Edit: Pardon me, I don't know how to not be snot
     
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    Ah, I missed this vote! Well, no problem, my choice would have caused a tie, lol! Gloating over map it is then!

    Also great update by the way, the fraughtness is really reaching a breaking point
     
    Gazetteer said:
    The rest of the ceremony is more or less expected; a particularly generous stipend to establish yourself with, along with a demesne for your use, upon which you might have a manse constructed. Other, lesser gifts suitable for starting a Dynastic household, most of which will come into your possession once you graduate.
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    Gazetteer said:
    A demesne is a wellspring of geomantic power created by a confluence of the dragon lines that run through the ground beneath Creation. Most are aspected toward one of the five elements, with a rare handful instead brimming with the otherworldly Essence of the Sun, the Moon, or the Stars.

    Yours is an elemental demesne. At first, it's deceptively normal looking. A patch of scrubby foothill covered in rocks, grass, and hardy flowers. A tiny road winds through them toward a small canyon. As soon as you set foot in it, however, you feel the magic in the air, wild and untamed.

    The canyon is lined with fantastical caverns formed naturally into the stone, each a riot of pale purple crystals. It looks like nothing quite so much as a series of massive geodes, split apart all at once by a giant's chisel.
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    Yesman said:
    M: "Join me Ambraea, together we can be the snot out of my younger sister!"

    A: "Sorry, do you mean me?"

    M: "Pardon me, whenever I get angry I start thinking of V'neef."
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    lol. I'm pretty sure that's the conversation for the most public location. after all, I'm pretty sure there is at least one set of buildings somewhere that when looked at from above, depict Mnemon breaking V'neef's nose. :V

    One of the more likely topics, given the map of the realm and privacy, is probably Ambraea's Elemental Demense.
     
    Eh, I doubt it'll ever really be ours unless we join Sesus. It's near their lands iirc, and Enpresses property rights is just one of the things decaying right now in the Realm.

    I am very curious how the conversation would have evolved differently if we had it in private, but I guess we'll never know. And gloating over a map will be fun.
     
    Calico J said:
    I have to say, honestly, it never occurred to me either that Nazat was genuinely in love with the Empress. Somehow she's just not someone I associate with that. Boy, he's got several big problems at once, doesn't he? And from a source he never would have predicted.
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    Jokes aside: One of the things I have internalised about the Empress based on different sources that describe her from the books is that she's like, effortlessly, intensely charismatic in a way that few people are. Her presence is both commanding and compelling and people fall really easily into her orbit. It's probably not hard to fall in love with her even though you know she's got a legendarily long trail of other lovers she's toyed with and discarded over the centuries, in the right position.

    Nazat is on paper a cadet house Dynast, but in actual practice basically a foreign prince and the favourite son of a tributary monarch, and he went on this long journey with a diplomatic mission to the Blessed Isle and met the Empress, a woman still widely revered and worshipped in his homeland, and to his surprise actually caught her eye. This leads to an intense fling, after which the Empress... Basically decided to keep him.

    There was obviously formal negotiations with Nazat's mother, and an appropriately massive groom price paid when he was made an Imperial consort, but that is basically what happened. On one hand, there are political reasons why having him in this position is advantageous to the Empress, and Nazat knows this, but especially from his perspective it's easy to see this like, element of whirlwind romance. And then he eventually fathers Ambraea, and his genuine pride and affection for their daughter gets added to the mix.

    For the Empress's part, she was quite fond of him, when it suited her.

    nothingtoseehere said:
    Eh, I doubt it'll ever really be ours unless we join Sesus. It's near their lands iirc, and Enpresses property rights is just one of the things decaying right now in the Realm.
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    The dissolution of the property rights of individual Dynasts and Great Houses taking over whole prefectures as their own private dominions are definitely not something happening in the Realm right now, and none of the houses really have a vested interest in acting this way under the current circumstances -- they all have too much property spread across the Isle. We are years out from the actual Realm Civil War, and probably quite a bit longer from that sort of societal breakdown among the upper classes, if it ever gets that bad for them.

    Ambraea ending up on the opposite side of the civil war from House Sesus, specifically, would make things pretty difficult though, admittedly.
     
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    nothingtoseehere said:
    Eh, I doubt it'll ever really be ours unless we join Sesus. It's near their lands iirc, and Enpresses property rights is just one of the things decaying right now in the Realm.

    I am very curious how the conversation would have evolved differently if we had it in private, but I guess we'll never know. And gloating over a map will be fun.
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    it's legally Ambraea's and while it nominally neighbors a few Sesus holdings, the overall prefecture it occupies is a fair deal more divided, and Chanos is not the only prefecture it neighbors. As long as we don't align with an outright enemy of Sesus I doubt they'll make an issue of Ambraea taking it into her possession.
    Gazetteer said:
    Ledaal Shigora steals a look at you, coolly appraising. You can't say for certain what she's looking for in you, and you don't get the chance to ask.
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    Gazetteer said:
    Too 'morally rigid' for a Ledaal, when the Shadow Crusade does not offer us that luxury.
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    Gazetteer said:
    You killed that demon, you took up one of my aunt's swords without having to swear to use it against Anathema, but then you made good on that promise anyway!
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    looking back
    Gazetteer said:
    The third letter is from, of all people, Ledaal Shigora, the famed Anathema slayer and smith who had made your daiklave at your mother's request. This letter is the briefest of all, saying only that she wishes to speak to you, giving her location for the next month as an estate in the Scarlet Prefecture countryside, less than a day outside the city. It's genuinely intriguing, if significantly less promising as far as your future prospects are concerned.
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    I have to wonder if Keric wasn't the only one asked questions about Ambraea. as a woman who cares more about the slaying of Anathema than morality, Ambraea must seem quite the prospect to join the shadow crusade.
     
    Randino Treviani said:
    @Gazetteer we now know that Ambraea has expectations of Nazat getting along with Sola, but how would Ambraea expect an extended introduction with L'nessa or Amiti to end up were she to form Hearth bonds with them as well?
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    Oh, right, I forgot to answer this. L'nessa is gregarious and charismatic in a way that will make Nazat like her. Maia is pleasant enough as long as he doesn't get to know her too well, and even if they're trying to play it down in front of mixed company, he'll be able to tell that Ambraea has fallen hard for her.

    He would try his best to pretend not to be profoundly uncomfortable with Amiti, and Amiti would pretend to be oblivious to this for the sake of a pleasant dinner atmosphere. The Pure Way thinks that extended contact with corpses and the dead befouls the spirit, and only suitable for the lowest caste in Prasadi society.
     
    Gazetteer said:
    Oh, right, I forgot to answer this. L'nessa is gregarious and charismatic in a way that will make Nazat like her. Maia is pleasant enough as long as he doesn't get to know her too well, and even if they're trying to play it down in front of mixed company, he'll be able to tell that Ambraea has fallen hard for her.

    He would try his best to pretend not to be profoundly uncomfortable with Amiti, and Amiti would pretend to be oblivious to this for the sake of a pleasant dinner atmosphere. The Pure Way thinks that extended contact with corpses and the dead befouls the spirit, and only suitable for the lowest caste in Prasadi society.
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    thank you. I love how nuanced your answers can be.

    another question
    Gazetteer said:
    "In a sense," Nazat says. "With most of the generals gathered in one place, the Exchequer of the Imperial Treasury informed them that the throne could 'no longer afford' to maintain the legions. That they would be removed from command. At this point, the houses' forces moved in and made it clear that this was not optional." His tone makes it absolutely clear that he doesn't believe that this had anything to do with finances. It seems obvious to you that it was a naked power grab by the houses, made in advance of anything the Legions might do to assert their unmatched martial power in the Empress's absence. Your father almost immediately confirms this. "It is expected that the houses will divide the legions up amongst themselves — the Great House matriarchs or their representatives have started to gather in the city, in the weeks since. They will convene a council to discuss that, as well as the future of the Realm."
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    if the Scarlet Empress had returned, in the midst of the imperial legions being dissolved, what is the very first thing the more notable House Matriarchs would have done?
     
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    Randino Treviani said:
    if the Scarlet Empress had returned, in the midst of the imperial legions being dissolved, what is the very first thing the more notable House Matriarchs would have done?
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    everybody would throw themselves to her feet and try to shift the blame to anybody but themselves. There is a reason Imperial Regent is such a non entity, he is meant to be a scapegoat.

    Truthfully it doesn't matter at what point Scarlet Empress comes back, it doesn't matter if she has not armies and her enemies are stacked against her. She can destroy them all thanks to Imperial Manse which holds the controls to Realm Defense Grid aka Sword of Creation. It is a series of warmanses acros the Blessed Isle that chanels their powers to single point where it can be fired to anyplace in the Creation and it is powerful enought to destoy cities and armies. It is like a magical nuke really. It was fired once to stop Balors Crusade and that made single Shogunate soldier in to the Scarlet Empress we know today.

    So here is the thing, the reason she never used that again is that firing it outside the Blessed Isle causes destruction to happen on the Isle, you know earthquakes, fires and floods that kind of thing. But Realm Defense Grid also has a warning mode that allows user to create a hologrom on the Mount Meru that can be seen and heard across the entire Creation and as soon as Empress uses almost everything will calm the fuck down or becalmed down. Fair Folk will flee, Satrapies will fall in line and Grear Houses will stop fighting. Which is why everybody is searching for her so ardently.
     
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    How much of the Realm actually knows the details of the Realm defences grid though? It's in othe he history books, but it's not been fired in 700 years and I doubt the Empress encourages curiosity on the subject - Mnennon and Ragara knows but their whole houses and the Realm at large? It's a mcguffin which is more for Exalted PCs than the Realm at large I feel.
     
    Tasoli said:
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    Ahh. I suppose Beg, Blame others, and Blather apologies should have been obvious.

    I suppose what the empress does, which is make an example of one of the great houses, is pretty obvious, so it's a question of who the top 3 candidates are?

    The obvious first place pick is Peleps. Bad blood with two of the empresses favored daughters and destroying them let's her empower V'neef to step up and consolidate the realms navy under her or set up Ambraea to do so.
     
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