For a Dragon's Throne (Exalted GSRP)

[Maugan Ra]

For a Dragon's Throne
An Exalted GSRP​

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.
- Edward Said, Orientalism

-/-

The year is 764, and the Scarlet Empress sits upon the throne of the world. She is the Mother of Dragons, Supreme Matriarch of the Realm, Defender of Civilisation. In her hand rests the Sword of Creation and by her will are gods and demons brought to heel. The Dynasts of the Realm serve at her pleasure, their Great Houses but humble servants of her unmatchable vision, the Indomitable Legions an extension of her unflinching will. At least, that is the theory.

No one has seen the Empress in over two years. Such absences are not unusual, but previous incidents lasted weeks or months at the most, certainly never more than a season, and by now it seems impossible to deny that something has gone truly and irrevocably wrong. The Council of the Empty Throne was called, its attendees drawn from among the great and powerful of every House and Ministry, and after much careful debate and subtle politicking a decision was reached - if the Empress did not reappear within the next seven years, she would be officially judged to have abdicated her throne, and a successor would need to be found. In the interim, the mortal Tepet Fokuf was chosen to serve as Scarlet Regent, humbly fulfilling those necessary duties that the Empress was no longer present to attend to personally… and to bear the brunt of her wrath, should she return to find her children scheming to supplant her.

That was two months ago, and the world is beginning to change. The Matriarchs of the Great Houses have returned to their dominions and begun to plot and scheme, to reach out with tentative whispers and half-serious suggestions to their friends and rivals, to prepare themselves for the world to come.

The Realm was not meant to survive without the Empress; the entire structure of its law and culture depends on a single autocratic figure at the very peak of the mountain, and by its nature the Scarlet Throne will bear only one ruler. The woman who successfully claims it will become the most powerful and important person in all Creation at a stroke, those who helped her in her ascent will be rewarded with wealth and power beyond all measure… and those who opposed her may count themselves lucky if they live long enough to regret it.

Come, then, Dragon's Child. The Time of Tumult awaits...

​

Welcome to my newest Grand Strategy Roleplaying Game, this one taking place in Creation, the setting of the Exalted roleplaying game. Players will take control of the Great Houses of the Scarlet Dynasty - and, if necessary, the various cadet houses and patrician families that make up the remainder of the Realm's aristocracy - and compete to have a hand in shaping the future of the Realm.

There are two possible end conditions for this game; in the first, one among you will manage to forge a sufficiently powerful and successful alliance to claim the Scarlet Throne and crown themselves Empress (the realm is a matriarchy, and the winner of this succession crisis will be referred to as the Empress regardless of their actual sex or gender) in such a way that everyone else either consents or flees beyond reach. Coalition victories, parliamentary reforms and any other form of 'succession' would also count as a viable end-point for the game, and there is a powerful tradition in Dynastic politics that the loser be allowed to retire gracefully and with both land and honour intact.

The alternative, of course, is that the brutal infighting between various claimants ruins the Realm beyond repair or gives her many and varied enemies to slip the knife in and bring the whole bloodstained edifice toppling to the ground. Should the Realm Divide score reach level 6, the game also ends, with epilogues written to detail what becomes of the Realm's myriad heirs and successor states in this brave new world of dust and ash.

You may make a claim on up to three Houses. There is no requirement to specify why you like a given house or how you intend to play them, but it will help me figure out who gets which one when I assign the roles.

Only once the Great Houses all have players will I assign minor powers to players; should the player for a Great House drop from the game I will prioritise getting them replaced as soon as possible.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Mechanics​

For an Dragon's Throne will take place over a series of turns, each covering one year (with its five seasons) in the world of Creation. During each turn players negotiate with each other and write plans on how to make use of the various resources they have at their disposal, which must be submitted via a PM on Sufficient Velocity to me and my co-GMs @EarthScorpion and @Chehrazad.

There will be a deadline for each turn, after which point orders will no longer be accepted and some manner of plot contrivance will be devised to explain why your House stalls out in some critical but temporary fashion. Extensions to the deadline can be offered, either for the game as a whole or for individual players, but must be specifically requested in advance.

Reports will be written by me and a group of volunteer report writers, whose work will also be double-checked and approved by me. If you wish to volunteer to help write reports please let me know, but understand I will be expecting you to write at least one reasonably sized report per turn and that I will be keeping a close eye on things to make sure you don't abuse the OoC knowledge your position may obtain.

Base Mechanics - The Asset System

The Great Houses are less families and more subsidiary nation-states of the greater Scarlet Realm; wealth to beggar princes, territory to dwarf kingdoms and power to dictate the fate of Creation are all theirs in some form or another. To that end, this game will not be directly tracking material resources or political stations, but rather a more abstract series of Assets and Resources.

Resources

Resources are the sinews of the Empire - the numbers on a budget sheet, the tallies on a census, the raw variables that women of power spend so freely to secure their ambitions. Resources are generated by assets and spent on actions and plans, and do not accumulate across turns - unlike previous games, you cannot 'stockpile' your surplus points across multiple turns. The sole exception is Divinity, which can indeed be stockpiled but is much rarer and harder to produce.

The exact quantity or quality of a resource represented by a point is deliberately ambiguous, but can broadly be surmised as 'enough to do one thing, that lasts for one turn, in one place, to one target'. Thus a single point of wealth might fund a major celebration in the streets of a city, but without manpower you have limited control of what the money is spent on, and without influence few people will particularly care where the money came from or think better of you for it.

To expand the impact or scope of the action, spend additional points according to the following guidelines. Most cost increases are one-off expenditures, but some require the points to be committed in much the same way as asset upkeep, and will be marked with 'c'.

• Targets: Multiple targets in same area or field (+1), all targets in area or field (+2), target is in associated field or area (+1), multiple targets in associated or neighbouring fields or areas (+2), all targets in associated fields or areas (+3)
  • Note: area refers to physical locations, while field can be a more conceptual connection. If you are targeting a magistrate in Eagle's Launch, you could expand it to all magistrates in Eagle's Launch (+1), all magistrates across the province (+2), or all magistrates that those magistrates know and work with across the Blessed Isle. (+3)
• Duration: One extra turn (+1c), until a specified time or outcome (+2c), indefinite (+3c)
  • Note: This specifically refers to actions requiring constant reinforcement. Building a tower does not require committed capital if you're content to stop when the last brick is laid, but creating an annual arts festival to promote your brand would.
• Scope: Ambitious (+1), will be talked about for years (+3), a grand act of hubristic madness (+5)

There are four broad types of resource, each with their own uses:

• Wealth is generated by capital assets, and represents everything from jade bars in your treasury to shares in speculative trading expeditions to the Far West. It is used for virtually any action that requires financial backing and support, which is most of them, and many other assets will have a per-turn wealth cost to keep operational.
• Influence is generated by Characters and covert assets, and represents reputation, cultural cachet, personal favours/blackmail and the old girl's club of friends and political contacts. It is spent on actions that seek to sway popular opinion or secure some manner of political or legal advantage.
• Manpower is generated by Levies and represents the sheer quantity of organised labour it takes to get anything done on a national scale. It is spent on construction-oriented actions and on raising and maintaining military forces.
• Divinity is generated by Dynastic assets and represents the elite governing class of the Realm, the Terrestrial Exalted that form the bulk of its strength. It is spent on the creation of high-ranking assets, and on flexible but short-term boosts to your capabilities. Unlike all other resources, Divinity can be stockpiled across turns.

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Assets

Assets are what make your House a force to be reckoned with in the eyes of its peers and enemies. Nobody cares if you mark a hundred talents of jade on some balance sheet somewhere, but if you can stake a convincing claim to the finest orchards on the Blessed Isle or boast the services of the legendary swordswoman Falling Petals Sunder Steel… well, that's a different story.

Every asset is assigned a numerical rating between 1-5, generating an equal amount of the relevant resource every turn; it may also have a listed Upkeep cost, which is the number of points of another resource that must be spent on maintaining it each turn - failure to pay this cost may see the asset drop in value or be lost altogether.

Additionally, each asset may have a number of tags, which help to distinguish it from its peers. A tag might represent a personality trait, a unique relic, a particular skill set or any number of other things under the sun, but all follow the same mechanical framework (see the 'taking actions' and 'conflict and hostile assets' section for details). A character with the 'pious' tag will have an easier time swaying the monks of the Immaculate Order, but if you wanted to use them to make contact with the Heretic's Court that piety would be working against them.

(Note that this also works for other factions - if you have a character with the 'heavy drinker' trait, attempts to make them embarrass themselves at a diplomatic function will be significantly easier to arrange)

Finally, every asset is geographically located in a particular province. Actions must tap a relevant asset before they can be undertaken, and most assets cannot easily relocate - having a small mountain of gold is of precisely no value if the merchants you want to bribe operate in a region without any of your agents on-hand to contact them, while having a legion in the city won't help you lobby for favourable legislation (or at least, none that anyone outside the city will feel bound to respect).

There are six different kinds of asset:

• Characters are the heroes and villains that represent the public face of your House, the movers and shakers who will inevitably appear in the blood-soaked pages of history. They generate influence and have no upkeep.
  • Characters may move freely about the map with no limits on their speed, but may only take actions in a single province per turn, and may only be tapped as the primary asset for an action once per turn.
  • Characters have additional rules and guidelines governing their creation, see the 'Characters and Factions' post below.
• Capital Assets are what make you rich, be they jade mines or shares in major trading ventures. Each one generates an equal number of wealth points per turn, which can be spent on any action regardless of location.
  • You may opt to commit points of manpower to a capital asset in order to generate an equal amount of wealth, to a maximum of (asset rating) bonus per turn; sending fresh slaves to the mines, uniformed leg-breakers to the debt collectors and so on.
  • You may opt to exploit a given capital asset at any time. This doubles the number of points of wealth generated by that asset this turn, at the cost of permanently reducing its value by one at turn end. There may be additional effects depending on context, such as popular discontent or an uptick in banditry.
  • Capital assets cannot move, and are always public.
• Covert Assets are how you do things on the sly, and represent everything from elite kill-squads of highly trained ninja to folios filled with blackmail material. They generate influence.
  • You may opt to leverage a covert asset on a given turn; for that turn, it generates wealth equal to its value in addition to influence, but cannot be tapped for actions.
  • You may opt to burn a covert asset if so desired; this doubles the asset's effective rating for any actions and the amount of influence that the asset produces for the turn, but at turn-end the asset is destroyed.
  • Covert assets are not public; actions may only be taken against them if they were tapped or leveraged in the previous turn. Note that this does not make them public, merely potentially vulnerable - a hostile player will need to either spend a turn conducting a search/audit, or commit forces based on guesswork and conjecture.
  • Covert assets cannot move, but can be established and maintained in hostile territory. They have an upkeep cost measured in wealth, equal to (current rating/2), rounding up.
• Levies represent the ability of local authorities to source warm bodies for various projects. Every province has at least one levy, controlled by the player who owns that province, and may also support others representing cities, immigrants or a workforce of sorcerous automata. Levies generate manpower.
  • Levies cannot move.
  • You may opt to Conscript a levy, doubling the amount of manpower it provides for the turn at the cost of potential side-effects; damage to other assets in the province, reduction in levy value or the creation of civil unrest would all be potential examples, depending on exact circumstances.
  • Levy assets cannot be created or improved by player actions, nor can they be repaired if damaged, though they can be defended like any other asset. They arise and grow purely through narrative developments - slaughtering the local population to deny their labours to your adversaries is not something that can be undone.
• Dynastic Assets are similar to levies, representing the elite schools, extensive bureaucracies and specialised training programs necessary to create the Realm's elite ruling class. Every Great House starts with one Dynastic asset, located in their homeland. All others start the game under neutral or imperial control, with one per province and the rest tied up in famous schools or the constituent parts of the Thousand Scales. They generate Divinity.
  • Dynastic assets cannot move.
  • Creating or improving Dynastic Assets has an additional surcharge of (desired rating) Divinity.
• Military Assets are the final argument you have at your disposal, covering both formal legions and the informal collection of paramilitaries and mercenaries that the Great Houses frequently employ. They generate no resources by default, and their upkeep cost is equal to twice their current value, with the resource required depending on the unit; House troops require wealth and manpower, mercenaries exclusively wealth, while Immaculate assets and satrapial levies may require influence.
  • You may command a military asset to Forage for the turn, eliminating the wealth component of their upkeep at the cost of moderate damage to local capital assets.
  • Alternatively, you may command them to Plunder, in which case the asset cancels all upkeep and generates wealth points equal to its value. Doing so causes damage to all capital and levy assets in the area, and may have additional effects depending on circumstance.
  • You may Employ a military asset for the turn, causing it to generate Manpower equal to (asset rating) and allowing it to be tapped for non-violent action suitable for a levy.
  • Military assets may move to a directly adjacent province once per turn. They can move twice if at least one such move is into neutral territory, and three times if the majority of such moves are through allied/owned territory.
    • All military assets are either armies or fleets. Armies can move through land provinces normally, but require an accompanying fleet to travel across sea provinces. Fleets can only move through sea provinces, though they may take offensive actions against assets located in adjacent coastal provinces.
  • When used as the primary asset in a hostile action, Military Assets start with an Offensive Value equal to their rating in points, before any resources are committed or tags assessed. They cannot be used to subvert other assets, only to damage or destroy them.

Developing and repairing assets

Creating an entirely new asset requires the following investment: an appropriate existing asset that can be tapped, and (desired rating x desired rating) resources in up-front payment (wealth is always an appropriate resource, other resources may be substituted with appropriate reasoning).

• An 'appropriate' existing asset is an explicitly flexible definition. Recruiting a new character could be done by assigning an existing character to go through their old contacts, or it might involve tapping the covert asset 'debt-ridden lecturers' to have them send the next top-scoring graduate your way.
• The new asset will be created in the same province as the existing asset employed, or in a directly adjacent province for a two-point surcharge. It cannot be used the same turn as it is created.
• Tags may be assigned by paying for them at a rate of two resource points per tag; this is a surcharge for a positive tag, or a discount for a negative tag. The GM may also assign tags, both positive and negative, as appropriate - most newly raised military assets will have a negative tag of 'green' that lasts until they see action, for example.
• The rating of a new asset is capped at a value equal to that of the asset tapped to create it, though it does not have to be the same type. A three-dot character could be used to create a three-dot capital asset, but not a four-dot.
• Creating an asset at rating 4 or 5 requires the expenditure of one or two Divinity points respectively.

Improving or repairing an existing asset requires an investment of two resource points per tag or (desired rating) resources for a new rating dot; tags may be added freely in any quantity, while asset dots may only be added at a rate of one per turn. Additionally, improving an asset to level four requires the expenditure of one Divinity point, or two to improve it to level five.

Damage to an asset is represented by a special negative tag, and is bought off in the same manner - two resource points and a turn spent taking no actions, plus divinity if the base asset is rated at 4+.

Note that it is possible to develop assets 'naturally' as the game progresses, typically in response to other actions taken. Funding a massive public health initiative during a plague may well raise the value of your characters and create grateful sympathisers even if you did not specifically set out to do either.

Actions
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Whenever you want to take an action in the game, such as spying on your opponents or swaying public opinion to favour your claim on the throne, you must utilise your assets; your orders for the turn will consist of a number of actions using your assets to accomplish various goals and objectives set by your factions and your own personal ambitions for the game. An action will be designed according to the following process:

1. Choose an asset to carry out the action, referred to as the 'primary' asset, and specify the intended goal of the action. This is referred to as 'tapping' the asset; an asset can only be tapped as a primary asset once in a turn.
   1. There must be a clear connection between the chosen asset and the intended action. 'Blackmailed magistrates' can easily be used to arrest your opponents on false charges, but will have a rather harder time constructing an aqueduct.
   2. All assets tapped for an action must be located in the same province as the intended target. Alternately, if the primary asset is in a directly adjacent province, it may still be tapped for a two-point surcharge of the appropriate resource (typically wealth or influence).
2. Tap any other assets that you want to support the action, which must be located in the same province as the primary asset. These are referred to as 'secondary' assets. There is no limit on how many times an asset may serve as a secondary asset in a turn.
   1. The connection between a secondary asset and the goal is allowed to be more flexible. 'Blackmailed magistrates' could be used as a secondary asset for a construction project if you explain how you want to use them to suppress local protestors or uncooperative landowners.
3. Summarise all tags possessed by primary and secondary assets that could be applied to the action; these provide bonus resource points which can be spent on the action according to the relevant criteria.
   1. A given action can only benefit from a maximum of (primary asset value) points of free resources generated by tags.
   2. If you have less tags than the cap, you may spend Divinity to add extra tags on a 1:1 basis, representing your Matriarch assigning talented scions to the project. These tags persist for one turn and then fade.
4. If the points provided by the tags are not sufficient for your goal (and they usually will not be) you may commit other resource points from your pools to make up the difference, to a maximum of (2x primary asset value).
   1. Thus, tapping a four-point covert asset of 'blackmailed magistrates' allows you to spend up to eight points total of resources to achieve your goals, in addition to the 'free' points provided by tags.

Hostile/Violent Actions​

Since assets represent the core strength of your peers and rivals, it is inevitable that players will want to damage the assets of their opponent and protect their own from harm. In such cases, the following process applies:

1. The attacking player taps an asset and totals up the resource points they wish to commit to the operation - the Offensive Score. Generally one can commit a maximum of 2x(asset value) points, drawn from appropriate resources.
   1. Most assets start with a base Offensive Score of zero, prior to committing resources. Military assets start with a base Offensive Score of (asset value).
   2. Appropriate resources are dictated by the target and the method chosen. Wealth might be used to weaken someone's control through bribery or to fund an assassination mission, while influence could harm a character but probably not a legion.
   3. Divinity points may be spent to add tags to the attacking asset during this stage, with one point buying one tag.
   4. The asset employed for hostile actions MUST be in the same province as the target asset. Unlike normal actions, it is not permissible to be in an adjacent province.
2. The GM assesses the target asset and the plan, confirming that the operation has at least some chance of success. Crackdowns on covert assets which don't actually exist may be redirected towards some convenient scapegoat, while assassins going after the wrong target due to poor intel are a genre staple.
3. The GM then assesses the value of the target asset. This is referred to as the Defensive Score. If the defensive score is twice that of the offensive score, the attempt automatically fails.
   1. A player who suspects their asset may be about to come under attack during the coming turn may allocate additional resource points to their defence, to a maximum of the base asset value. A 4-dot character could be allocated two points of influence and two wealth, representing them shelling out for quality bodyguards etc, and would then be treated as an 8-dot character for the action resolution. They may also spend divinity points to generate defensive tags, as per the normal rules.
   2. Note that the base defensive value of the asset is always equal to their asset value, even if they've been tapped for another action. Jumping Cathak Cainan while he is conducting troop reviews in no way reduces the chances of him feeding you your own spine.
4. The GM then rolls 2d6, applying the following modifiers:
   1. OV is more than two points lower than DV (-2)
   2. OV is less than DV (-1)
   3. OV is more than two points greater than DV (+1)
   4. OV is twice the DV (+2)
   5. Each applicable tag on tapped asset (+1, maximum asset value)
   6. Each applicable tag on target asset (-1, maximum asset value)
   7. Circumstantial modifiers, plan bonuses etc assigned by GM (max +/- 2)
5. The result is then compared to the following table to determine the result:
   1. <=3 - The attempt fails, and the attacking asset is damaged. If it is already damaged, then the asset is destroyed.
   2. 4-6 - The GM offers the defending player a bargain or consolation. If they accept then the target asset is damaged, or destroyed if it was already so. If they decline then the attempt fails with no further consequence.
   3. 7-10 - The GM offers the attacking player a bargain or complication, such as exposed assets or collateral damage. If accepted, the target asset is damaged; if already damaged, the target asset is destroyed.
   4. 11+ - The attempt succeeds, and the target asset is damaged. If the target is already damaged, or the OV is at least twice the DV, then the asset is destroyed.

Subverting Assets
Sometimes you would rather gain control of an existing asset instead of destroying it: this is particularly important when it comes to levy and dynastic assets, which are often hard if not impossible to replace once destroyed. To do so, merely declare that this is your intent when submitting the action; instead of damage, a targeted asset will gain a negative tag along the lines of 'divided loyalties', or flip to your control at the start of next turn instead of being destroyed, as appropriate.

If you tapped a covert asset for this action, then the 'divided loyalties' tag will be hidden from the controlling player (though they may potentially still guess what you have done, generally as the consequence offered in a bargain or consolation). Instead of flipping immediately upon being 'destroyed', the asset remains with the original player until such a time as you wish for it to be flipped.

Finally, if a capital asset has been destroyed, then you may gain a 50% discount in attempting to develop a new asset of similar nature in the same location in a future turn, as your agents salvage what they can of the existing infrastructure and personnel.

 

[Maugan Ra]

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Characters

Plans aren't put into motion by perfectly spherical blobs in a vacuum. They are put into place by people. Bureaucrats, commanders, ambassadors, heroes and villains. Ones with their own strengths and weaknesses. In the Realm, such luminaries are almost invariably Dragon-Blooded, Exalted Heroes with near-divine power over the elements and superhuman prowess.

In-game, these are represented by Characters. Your House Matriarch will be one, and each faction will start with three more. These are specific, skilled people who can be trusted to plan and execute a variety of operations, each possessed of world-shaping skill and power. They will also generally be the voice through which I give you in character advice or feedback on plans. Mechanically characters are assets like any other, obeying the rules given earlier, but given how much of the game is likely to revolve around their dramatic undertakings they are covered in more detail here.

Every character has a character sheet that covers the relevant values and abilities of that character. Quick breakdown of each section:

Character Overview

• Name: The name of the character.
• House: The character's House. If the character descends from a notable family, that should be listed here as well.
• Faction: Which faction the character belongs to. Every faction has at least one Character, and you cannot recruit more until this minimum threshold is met.

Character Traits

• Aspect. The dragonblood's elemental aspect.
• Background: The Secondary School that the character attended.
• Temperament: The mood and disposition of the character.
• Quirks: The character's inherent advantages, disadvantages and other personal quirks. Every character has at least three, two generally positive and one generally negative.

Each trait functions as a tag for the character when employed as an asset, as explained previously. Aspects and backgrounds are common tags shared by virtually all of the Exalted in the Realm, and so are worthy of additional clarification:

Spoiler: Aspect

While every Dragon-Blooded is Exalted and possessed of all the supernatural puissance that term implies, each one is also blessed with an elemental aspect. This aspect influences their capabilities, physical appearance, heritage and psychology to greater or lesser degrees, with the changes growing ever-more pronounced with age and experience.

• Air. The Children of Mela are children of wind and storm, often born with pale eyes and hair that stirs in a non-existent breeze. Their gifts lend themselves well to precision and discretion, as well as blue-sky innovation and creative pursuits, while their personalities tend towards the idealistic and aloof.
• Earth. The Children of Pasiap are born of mountain stone, typically displaying skin like marble and eyes of polished diamond. Their powers are those of endurance and contemplation, the hands-on pursuits of craftsmanship and architecture. In personality, Earth Aspects tend towards the stoic and reliable, with a notable streak of perfectionism.
• Fire. The Children of Hesiash are passionate and bold, with ever-boiling blood and a breath of smoke and embers. Their abilities are those of the warrior and the demagogue, with a gift for athleticism and emotional manipulation, while their personalities tend towards extroverted enthusiasm and fiery tempers.
• Water. The Children of Danaa'd take to the waves in all their forms, moving with fluid grace and bearing scale-like birthmarks. They cannot drown, and are natural seafarers and explorers; on land they find the flow of logistics and commerce simple to understand, and many pride themselves on their adaptability and social nuance.
• Wood. The Children of Sextus Jylis are as vibrant and resilient as the spring bloom, with flowers in their hair and dirt beneath their nails. Theirs are the secrets of flesh and bone and all that lives, and there are no finer hunters, alchemists or chirurgeons in the Realm, gifts which only add to their lust for life and all the pleasures it provides.

Spoiler: Background

A Dynast's education begins at the age of four and incorporates every possible advantage and resource that a world-spanning superpower can hope to muster. Personal tutors, specialist retainers and indentured experts all play a role, but the true highlight of a young Dynast's upbringing is their choice of Secondary School. Seven years of intensive, specialised training are applied to turn out the women and men who will rule the world and everything in it, and every Dynast in power today got there due to the skills and connections she developed during those formative years. There are dozens of secondary schools across the Realm, but only five are of sufficient note to be represented by a tag:

• The Spiral Academy is based in the Imperial City, and teaches its graduates how to belong in those rarefied halls of power. Bureaucracy and mathematics are taught alongside social skills and artistic pursuits, and the tax office often employs students to help sort through its massive workload whenever they have a free moment.
• The House of Bells, in Arjuf Dominion, is the most prestigious and successful military academy in Creation. Every student placed with four of their peers to pass or fail as a unit. Graduates will find postings waiting for them in the Legions, while dropouts condemn their military careers to inevitable failure.
• The Cloister of Wisdom is as much monastery as secondary school, teaching theology and martial arts alongside ethics and meditation. Those who graduate tend to be the most individually puissant Exalted in the Realm, with the faith and moral codes to match, while many of the Immaculate Order's most senior monks count are counted among the alumni.
• The Heptagram is located on a barren, storm-wracked island of fell repute and no worldly value, and it is here that the Realm's sorcerers are trained. Occultists, demon-summoners, sorcerer-engineers and more have passed through its halls, and the relics held in its vaults could spell the doom of nations in the wrong hands.
• Pasiap's Stair is not for dynasts, but rather foreign-born Exalted seeking citizenship in the Realm. High in the mountains, such Outcastes learn in ten years of intensive, oft-uncomfortable training what a Dynast learns over a lifetime of wealth and privilege, and graduate with a Legion posting waiting for them and a hard-forged loyalty to the Realm and Empress above all... something the Great Houses are less than entirely fond of.

Characters may be designed manually, or if you prefer through the use of @EarthScorpion's prototype automatic generator (refresh to generate new characters).

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Factions

No house stands alone, they depend on an array of supporters whose resources and loyalty are essential to the House's day to day functioning. Most of these supporters fall in with others sharing a common identity or ideology about how the House and the wider Realm ought to be run – Factions in other words. Every Great House has at least three factions, or two for a lesser House, and they each have bonuses and negatives.

Each Great House has a court containing 8 Power, while Lesser Houses have a court containing 5 power. This is henceforth called the Court Influence. Factions fight over Power - representing their power at court - by issuing requests of House Matriarch. A Faction gains a share of Power every time their requests are fulfilled, representing the House Matriarch listening to the Faction's advice and thus appointing its members to important functions as such. No more than two factions can have the same Power Rating for a House. A Great House could have factions rated at 3-3-2, for example, but not 3-3-1-1 (as that has two pairs).

All Factions have a three Policies, which represent its desires and goals for the House and confer a point of Power upon the faction each time they are fulfilled along with a benefit. When no more Power is freely available, a Faction that has its Policies fulfilled will instead siphon a point of Power from another Faction. Similarly, every time a faction's policies and desires are specifically ignored or contravened, their power drops by one. No matter what, a Faction can never be reduced below 1 Power, unless it is totally decimated and violently purged. Nor can it rise above five power, at which point it is already ascendant and dictates House orthodoxy.

Factional Benefits
Each faction grants an array of benefits that scale depending on how much power it has. These benefits are calculated at the start of each turn.

• Every faction provides a character. If it has no character, then the faction counts as an asset you can tap to recruit one, with rating (power); this recruitment is free and costs no resources, though it still occupies the faction for a turn.
• A faction tag can be applied to any asset you possess without cost or time; for characters this represents personal allegiances, for other assets a significant proportion of their leadership drawn from the faction. Only one factional tag can be applied to any given asset, and it benefits all actions in-line with the faction's policies.
• Every faction generates (power) wealth each turn, representing donations and fund-raising from those ideologically sympathetic to your cause within the House and beyond.
• Every faction generates (power/2) manpower each turn, round up. This represents volunteers and increased recruitment among those who agree with your House's stated goals.
• Each faction offers three traits, which are unlocked at power 1, 3 and 5. This benefit the House as a whole, and are detailed below.

Custodian

Though the Realm is shaken and times are troubled, all things pass in time, and it is a Dynast's duty to ensure that the transition is as smooth and peaceful as possible. So say the Custodians, who draw their membership from those who feel genuine loyalty to the Realm as an institution and will fight to preserve it. Who becomes Empress and how she gets there matters little to them, just so long as there is a Realm left in the aftermath... perhaps even one ruled by the Deliberative as a whole, if necessary.

Policies:
- Support the Deliberative and the Thousand Scales, uphold the laws and order of the Realm.
- Keep the Realm Divide score as low as possible.
- Oppose the actions of those Houses that would weaken the Realm for their own gain.

Traits
1: Allied Legions - Membership of the Custodian faction grants the player an allied Imperial Military asset with a rating equal to the Faction Power. This Military asset will not act against the goals of the Custodian faction and will not break Imperial Law, but will otherwise follow the player's orders. If destroyed, a replacement asset appears in the player's capital the next turn.
3: Existing Authority - For actions in line with the goals of the Custodian faction, any assets under the control of an Imperial faction - Ministries, Legions, the Magistracy etc - can be tapped as though they were under your control. This cannot be used to generate resources, only support actions.
5: Ten Thousand Dragons Fight As One. Imperial agents, bodies and organisations will not take hostile action against you. Should such organisations be targeted for subversion or undermining by rival players, you will be granted the opportunity to offer the survivors sanctuary, automatically creating appropriate assets under your control.

Inheritor

The Scarlet Throne is empty, and it must be filled; next to this singular issue all others fade in importance, and the Inheritors will move heaven and earth to ensure it is their candidate that ascends to the throne as Empress. They might be motivated by a hunger for power, or a genuine belief in the worthiness of their chosen candidate, or they might simply fear the consequences of someone else beating them to it.

Policies:
- Stake a claim to the Scarlet Throne and publicly support and further it at every opportunity
- Undermine and destroy the claims of rival would-be-Empresses where possible
- Support the interests of those Houses and individuals who have stated public support for the Empress-to-be.

When an Inheritor faction is created, the House must nominate one character to be your claimant. Changing Claimant can be done freely if your Claimant is dead; otherwise, the faction must be "purged" to change its alignment, which can be done even if it is rated at 3+.

Traits:
1: Do It For Her - Actions taken by a Claimant character gain a discount of (faction rating) resource points, provided the goal of the action is in line with the policies of the Inheritor faction.
3: Claim the Scarlet! - When subverting an Imperial, Peasant or Patrician asset, success will generate an additional positive tag in the target, which will be in line with the Inheritor faction and/or your Claimant.
5: Lead by Example. Whenever your Claimant leads or supports an action, any similar actions taken by you or players who support you that turn gain a 50% discount.

Occultist

The short-sighted look to the throne and its gilded lies and imagine they look upon power, but to the Occultist true might is not nearly so obvious. It lies in knowledge and wisdom, in secrets hidden from the light and truths ripped from the minds of your enemies. With the Empress gone and the Realm in disarray, there will never be a finer chance to make sure that power rests in the right hands... which is to say, our hands.

Policies:
- Accumulate occult and sorcerous power by whatever means are necessary.
- Reclaim such secrets as are held by your rivals, for they are unworthy of the burden such power represents.
- Oppose censorious or restrictive laws and policies whenever it is possible to do so.

Traits:
1: Friends on the Other Side - Membership of the Occultist faction allows a House to recruit Occult "mercenaries", with a maximum rating up to the Faction Power. For example, a group with 2 dots in Occultists can recruit 1 and 2 dot Occultist mercenaries, but not ones rated 3+.
3: The Power of Knowledge - When attacking or defending an Asset, tags which the opposing side possesses which oppose the Occultist faction are treated as being negative even if they would otherwise be positive (such as "Censorious" or "Close-Minded") and additionally such tags provide twice the normal benefit to you.
5: Power In Sacrifice - You may convert manpower to influence at a 1:2 ratio whenever you wish. Additionally, any asset with the occultist tag (or an appropriate occult nature) may reroll the dice for any hostile action against non-occultist assets)

Immaculate

There are rules that the wise must follow, and a way that leads to the finest destination. These truths are contained within the scriptures of the Immaculate Philosophy and born in the souls of the pious, and as Exalted it is the duty of every true Dynast to live their life in accordance with such perfect examples. To the Immaculate, who takes the throne matters less than what kind of person she is, for an impious Empress is no Empress at all...

Policies:
- Support and protect the Immaculate Order and its adherents at every opportunity
- Lead by example, undertaking virtuous actions in public fashion, that your lesser might see and be inspired.
- Resist the Anathema and all who work with them to the fullest possible extent of your abilities and resources.

1: Holy Fist - Membership of the Immaculate faction allows a house to recruit Immaculate volunteers with a maximum rating up to the Faction Power. For example, a group with 2 dots in the Immaculate faction can recruit 1 and 2 dot Immaculate volunteers, but not ones rated 3+.
3: Wandering Monks - For actions in line with the goals of the Immaculate faction, assets under the control of the Immaculate Order, or that bear Immaculate-supporting tags, may be tapped as though they were under your House's control. If another player owns the asset in question, their orders supersede your own.
5: Do Not Blaspheme. Hostile action taken against your assets with the Immaculate tag trigger reprisal from the Immaculate Order, regardless of success. On the next turn you gain access to an asset of equal size and type to the target, which will obey your orders and generate the appropriate resources for one turn. Immaculate-appropriate tags such as spiritual advisor or martial artist do not count towards the maximum allowed number of applicable tags in hostile actions taken against non-Immaculate assets.

Separatist

The Realm is already dead, and to fight for the fate of a corpse is to join it in the grave. The Separatists believe that the future of their House lies beyond the Realm, either in foreign lands or their current territory shorn of any greater imperial structure to bow before. Most bear no ill-will for those too blind to see the truth, but the Realm was never meant to survive without the Empress, and they will not waste time or lives pretending otherwise.

Policies:
- Oversee transfer of imperial power and organisations to House control, freeing us of the shackles imposed by greater authority.
- Acknowledge no other claim to the Throne, and do not make one of our own.
- Pursue the interests and fortunes of our House as an independent power.

1: Successor Syndrome - When trying to subvert Peasant, Patrician, or Imperial faction assets, Covert assets with the Separatist tag automatically succeed on all necessary rolls.
3: The New Regime - Forewarned for a break-up of the Realm, Separatists subtract 1 from the Realm Divide when it comes to internal consequences for territory they control (with House authorities seamlessly subsuming the role of imperial authorities).
5: Allies Abroad - Victories on the Blessed Isle create a Levy and Capital asset rated from 1-5 based on the scale of the victory, based on volunteers and the backing of foreign powers who want to see the Realm divided. These assets decay at a rate of one per turn.

Expansionist

Creation will not wait for us to get our house in order, and to neglect our Empire in pursuit of an empty throne risks becoming an Empress unworthy of the title. So say the Expanionists, who caution their peers against turning inwards and instead focus their efforts entirely on the threats and opportunities presented by the world beyond the Realm's current borders... or the threats of heresy and sedition bubbling up from within.

Policies:
- Maintain control of the Satrapies and crush rebellion wherever it may surface
- Identify and eliminate such threats to the Realm as might arise, promptly and decisively.
- Expand our borders and acquire new lands, peoples and riches for the greater glory of the Realm.

1: Deniable Assets - Membership of the Expansionist faction grants access to all mercenary rosters, regardless of your presence in a particular Direction.
3: Keep the Satrapies In Line - Expansionists refuse to take their eyes off the jewel of the Threshold, and treat Realm Divide as being 1 level lower when it comes to external consequences which affect their Directional holdings.
5: Triumphs Abroad - Victories in the Threshold create a Levy and Capital asset rated from 1-5 based on the scale of the victory, based on a popular upswelling of support for your House. These assets decay at a rate of one per turn.

Mercantile

Time is money is power, and to the Mercantile mind there is never enough of each. Running an Empire is expensive, claiming one even more so, and to that end they support the constant and relentless accumulation and employment of wealth in all its forms, either to secure the throne for the House or the debt of she who takes it in their place. Jade sat stagnant in a vault is useless; Jade that buys obedience and security is priceless.

Policies:
- Acquire more capital assets and diversify our portfolio as much as possible.
- Honour all debts and ensure others honour theirs, even if they are not to us.
- Maintain as many people in our debt (and thus, our power) as possible.

1: Buy Them Out - When trying to subvert Peasant, Patrician, Bandit and Pirate faction assets, Capital assets succeed automatically at any relevant rolls. At Realm Divide 3+, this benefit extends to Imperial assets, save for the Imperial Legions.
3: Trade Ties - For actions in line with the goals of the Mercantile faction, or which target those in your debt, you may tap Capital assets as though they were Covert assets. This does not affect the resources generated, only the kinds of actions that your assets can support.
5: The Universal Language - Exploiting a capital asset gives you three times its value in wealth, rather than merely twice. Additionally, you may convert wealth into influence at a 2:1 ratio whenever you desire, or at a 1:1 ratio if the wealth is given to a debtor.

Supremacist

The Realm is the greatest nation on the face of Creation; the richest, most powerful and most influential polity in existence. To the Supremacists, that makes dynasts like themselves the greatest people in Creation, and they will damn well act like it. Though the idealistic image of the Realm that the Supremacists hold dear bears precious little resemblance to reality, they are quite willing to fight for it all the same... and, ideally, make others die for it as well.

Policies:
- Celebrate and defend the Realm and its culture at every opportunity
- The foreigner is our slave or subject, never our equal
- Work against any influence that threatens to undermine or weaken the Realm in any way, other Houses included.

1: Cultural Supremacy - Actions taken by Supremacist characters gain a (faction power) discount on all resource costs, provided the action is in line with Supremacist policies.
3: Whispering Campaign - When taking or being targeted by hostile actions, tags opposed to Supremacist values are automatically negative. If they were already negative, the modifier is doubled.
5: Loyalty as Vice - Assets with the Supremacist tag ignore the first time they would be damaged in a given turn.

Changing Factions
So long as a specific faction has only 1 or 2 power, it may be purged from the House and another elevated in its place. This is an action that requires the use of the House Matriarch asset, or the character associated with another faction that has at least four power, but is otherwise free. The unwanted faction is removed, and all benefits and characters associated with it are lost, either forced into political exile or suffering a more final fate. If another faction character is employed, that faction gains one more power, after which a new faction is created at power one.

A faction can be purged and replaced a maximum of once per turn.

Expanding the Court
At game start, most Houses start with a total of eight power split among three factions. Increasing your Power is dependent on becoming more akin to an Empire in your own right. A Lesser House that becomes of a similar scale to a Great House will have its Power increase. Likewise, if a Great House becomes above its peers and more akin to an empire in its own right (whether as a separate entity or by subsuming the old authority of the Scarlet Realm) then its Power will rise.

There is no maximum on how many factions a given House may split its power between, though several are naturally opposed in ways that make raising both to a high level something of a tricky proposition. A Great House will always have a minimum of three factions, a Lesser House two.

Loss of Dynastic assets may also result in the reduction of the power cap. If this happens in such a way that existing factions have more total power than the new cap, the player must choose factions to lose power to bring the House back under the cap, which happens immediately at the start of the next turn.

 

[Maugan Ra]

The Blessed Isle​

A continental landmass at the very heart of Creation, crowned by the Imperial Mountain and perfectly balanced between the five elements, the Blessed Isle has played a pivotal role in world history since long before any existed to record it. It was home to the gods before Heaven existed, headquarters of the deific forces in the Titanomachy and host to the capital of every Creation-spanning empire since. Tradition and cultural cachet play a major role in this importance, but so too does simple geography; the Pole of Earth that lies buried within the heart of the Imperial Mountain blesses the entire Isle with abundant mineral resources, while its perfect harmony of elements allow farmers to harvest their fields three or four times a year without fail. Minor towns on the Isle frequently boast population numbers to match the capitals of Threshold kingdoms, and the rewards of the Realm's imperial exploits has only exaggerated this disparity.

The majority of For A Dragon's Throne will take place on the Blessed Isle, a full map of which can be found here, courtesy of @Chehrazad.

As you can see, the Realm is broken down into a number of provinces, each of which contains a single Dynastic asset representing formal authority over the people living within its borders. The owning player of a given Dynastic asset is subsequently the 'owner' of that province, be it via force of arms, ancient rights or Imperial mandate. At game start each Great House owns a single province, specified below as their 'homeland', and will be looking to take control of others through Deliberative agreements or more direct means (note that until Realm Divide advances beyond stage one, establishing such control can only come via Deliberative agreements).

Controlling a province provides two primary benefits. Firstly, the Dynastic asset is always an acceptable asset to tap when taking formal actions against other assets within that province, as you wield legal authority and practical control to freeze out your rivals or empower your allies. Secondly, other factions can only establish non-covert assets within a controlled province with the explicit permission of the owner's player.

Details of the various provinces can be found below, broken up into broad regional clusters for ease of reference. As the game progresses and changes are made to the map - be it in terms of provincial ownership, public infrastructure, natural disasters etc - the below lists will be updated.

Dragon's Blanket

Encompassing a great swath of the northeastern Blessed Isle, the downlands of the Dragon's Blanket consist of grassy ridges like the sinuous bodies of dragons curled beneath a blanket of endless green. Rustic herding and mining villages pepper the landscape, their populace wary of strangers. The hills are riddled with mines and caves. Hermits, the dispossessed, and bandits make their homes within. Others serve as lairs for wild beasts and weird spirits. Rumors tell of bandit hoards or First Age treasures hidden deep within the caves.

Chanos (Sesus Homeland) - Harsh northern winds lead to long winters, and infertile hills and scrubland make Chanos good for little more than mining. Cities of stone burrow into the earth, while Chanos city serves as a gateway to the north and home base of the Air Fleet.

Mavinyos - Ships crash with unsettling frequency on Mavinyos' coast, and many of the small villages, enclaves and rough-and-tumble ports were pirate coves once upon a time. Some still are.

Six Vines - Ruled by a collection of patrician families for centuries, this province is a cosmopolitan riot of ethnicities, cultures and mercantile concerns from all across the threshold.

Imperial River Basin

The Imperial River's headwaters begin upon the eastern slopes of the Imperial Mountain, and make their way east to the sea. Folk have been immigrating to the Imperial River basin since the Empress' accession, making this the most heavily populated region on the Blessed Isle. The plains here are thickly settled, long since stripped of old-growth forest and purged of dangerous wildlife. Rice and other crops stream from numberless villages into towns and cities clustered along the Imperial River's many tributaries. Dynastic households maintain the Basin's many manses, their geomancy tuned over the centuries to moderate the weather and enhance the growing season.

Pangu (Cynis Homeland) - An extremely fertile 'breadbasket' province, Pangu's landscape has been sculpted by its Cynis masters into a living artwork. Every glade is beautiful, every river crystal clean, every town and city a den of vice and sensory delight.

Hawk - A small prefecture largely focused on farming, Hawk is proud of its austere, traditional scions, many of whom go on to positions in government.

Numinous Rolling Wave (Imperial) - Overflowing with powerful essence-winds and dragon lines, the geomancy of this province is of paramount concern to the Realm. Every town, road and village is placed with exacting precision so as not to disrupt the geomancy, and death is the punishment for unapproved construction.

Scarlet (Imperial) - The Isle's most densely populated province plays host to every family of note, and only specific nature reserves remain free of development; the rest have benefitted richly indeed from all the spoils of Empire. Here sits the Imperial City, capital of the Realm, as well as the headquarters of virtually every notable Imperial institution.

Luo-Han Plains

This warm and pleasant region of the southeastern Isle, thick with farming villages, prospers under the Immaculate Order's eye. New itinerant monks often take their first rounds here, in the Palace Sublime's shadow, while personal agents of high-ranking Immaculate elders pass through on their way to and from meetings with their superiors. Prefects, governors, and ministers know better than to abuse the peasantry under such close attention, nor can peasants conceal large portions of the harvest from tax collectors. Venerable mortal monks often request burial in quiet places in the Luo-Han countryside, or in villages that they had pleasant memories of from their rounds. Though not as often visited as such great religious sites as Myion or Juche, these scattered cenotaph-shrines receive a steady trickle of pilgrims.

Aru-Thistle - A patchwork of isolated farming hamlets and idyllic valleys, Aru-Thistle is most notable for the extremely high spirit population, with minor deities drawn from leagues around. The populace are piously Immaculate to the point of zealotry as a result.

Sdoia - Home base of the Wood Fleet, Sdoia prefecture is divided between the highly militarised coastal regions, and the seemingly endless profusion of lodges, summer getaways and private residences that fill the wooded inlands.

Bucolic Hymn - Filial loyalty and a preference for plain speaking characterise the inhabitants of this land, often leading to clan-wars and protracted vendettas rooted in freely spoken insults. Some of the Realm's most notorious fortress-prisons can be found here.

Turu - League upon league of farms and plantations make this strategically important breadbasket a source of endless frustration to the Realm, because for centuries anyone appointed from outside to administer the place has resigned in disgrace less than a year later.

Incas - Dairy ranches and orchards make Incas a modest breadbasket province, but it is the silk farms and the weavers and artisans who use it that put this place on the map, along with the stark influence of the Palace Sublime - high temple of the Immaculate Order.

Kizuna - Hillside villages and densely populated valleys mark a land both rich in minerals and dangerously prone to destructive earthquakes. The spirits of the land flock here in great numbers, and there is wealth and danger both to be found in abundance.

Vane - Descendents of a Shogunate splinter-state dominate the isolated mountain valleys and terraced hills, groaning with fertile crops and rich mineral veins. Meanwhile the lowland cities swell with the profits of trade and live in blissful ignorance of their neighbour's revanchist ambitions.

Corin (Ragara Homeland) - Rough and rocky hillside roads lined with the bodies of crucified criminals serve to connect Corin's myriad mining towns and great centres of industry, while mountainside vaults and manses protect House Ragara's ancient wealth and darkest secrets.

Dragonwrath Desert

The Dragonswrath Desert is a sun-blasted expanse of sandy dunes whose inhabitants, largely dispossessed folk hiding from the Realm's eye, eke out a desperate existence. Myriad shattered marble and gold remnants lie scattered like glacial boulders across the sands — according to local legend, remnants of an ancient battle between the dragons Dhoresh and Mhaltin, who sleep beneath the encircling mountain ranges that share their names. These irregularly shaped stones protrude here and there from the sands, surrounded by sacred ropes festooned with Immaculate wards.

Halcyon - Precision geomancy has turned this land into a picturesque paradise of emerald hills and shining silver beaches, and it makes for a favoured vacation spot for much of the Dynasty's more contemplative scions, who in turn have cultivated a rich artistic tradition in the locals.

Dragonwrath - Separated from most of the Realm by a desert, shielded from the ocean by Radimel's Seat, Dragonwrath province is almost shockingly peaceful and inevitability isolationist, home to the Idigi peoples who have farmed and fished here for time immemorial.

Radimel's Seat - Once an idyllic paradise, Lunar geomantic sabotage has rendered the eastern half of the island a scorched wasteland. The western regions groan under the weight of immigrants and refugees, cruelly exploited by their more fortunate neighbours.

Dhorash - Isolated and mountainous, the mining towns and hillside farms of Dhorash have always been a hotbed of seditious sentiment. The capital of Empress' Mercy is named for what she did to the last major rebellion that boiled up from this isolated backwater.

Arjuf and the Tarpan Wastes

This was once among the Blessed Isle's lushest regions. Orchards speckled fertile farmland along the Tarpan River's course and across the shores of Iris Lake. But the land's verdancy was the fruit of Solar magic, and early in the Empress' reign that magic began to wither. Offers of Imperial assistance and geomantic repair work brought many of the local regions under the Scarlet banner; those that consented prospered, while those who refused or sought their own solutions are largely desert. Soil blows away to reveal plains of bare rock. Thornbushes cling to life among stands of dead trees. The retreating lakeshore has left behind acres of salt flats and bone-dry reeds, and what remains of the lake is too brackish to drink.

Arjuf (Ledaal Homeland) - Rich farmland, winding rivers and low, dry hills produce a bounty of crops that feeds much of the southern isle; every inch meticulously regimented by Ledaal hand, every family kept strictly in line by Ledaal honour and unflinching law. Home to both a major port and the famed House of Bells military academy, Arjuf's peace and prosperity has always been brittle.

Caracal - All life and fortune in Caracal comes from the river which shares its name, or one of the many tributaries, all of which groan under the weight of grain barges and ore transports throughout the year, the wealth of its neighbours funnelled down to the sea.

Bizen - A famed rural retreat, the majority of dynasts who settle in Bizen are retirees or wounded veterans, seeking only to live in peace among the rivers and islets. By strong social convention, rivalry and ambition are left behind when one arrives; unannounced visitors are held to be an excellent chance to demonstrate one's personal hospitality.

Juche (Nellens Homeland) - Ancient birthplace of the Immaculate faith, mountainous Juche is a land of piety and civic pride stretching back to the First Age, every town and village carefully developed by its Nellens masters over centuries. The lowliest peasant here dreams herself a queen among women, much to her neighbour's resentment. (+Improved Road Network)

Damson - The rocky fields and scrub-covered hills of this province make an ideal lair for bandits. The dynasty counters this by settling retired veterans here in great numbers, with myriad tiny farms and homesteads built on the legion-earned land grants.

Nine Envies - The humid conditions and fertile soil make this land ideal for cash crops, and slave-worked plantations cover virtually all land not rendered unusable by rough hillsides or shale valleys, which tend to host decadent mansions or small bands of rebellious slaves.

Willow's Edge - Places of great sorcerous power can be found in the wasteland's depths, their study forbidden by the Empress and more practically by the veritable legions of unquiet dead that rest below the desert sands.

Seven Stars - Spirit courts of light and fire coexist uneasily with Immaculate hermits and isolated temples in this barren and blasted land, which is otherwise almost entirely abandoned.

Ashara - Life clings stubbornly to the rivers and isolated oasis here, where the people laugh freely and ask no questions about one's past. All else is sand and dust.

Plains of Rusted Iron

In the lands west of Arjuf, the soil remains red-orange with rust, centuries after the Empress invoked a storm of iron thistledown amid the Contagion to shatter a Fair Folk incursion. The area remains a backwater, its prairies and tangled scrubland haunted by a dwindling handful of hobgoblins, gryphons, and other faerie servitors. Peasants in the Plains' few towns and villages remain superstitious about what might dwell in the wilderness. They're distrustful of strangers and loath to offer hospitality. And when a shepherd or traveller disappears, they blame Fair Folk who survived the Empress' wrath in havens beneath the earth.

Justicar - Heresy blooms in this idyllic land with shocking ease, hiding among farms handed down from mother to daughter for a hundred generations or in the shadow of untamed woodlands and mountains that have known no footsteps for centuries unbroken.

Last Breath - Once the capital of an empire that dominated the Blessed Isle, Last Breath remains home to the Kashkassu people. They are migratory herders for the most part, still practicing their ancestral arts of swordplay and mysticism despite regular Immaculate purges, and they dream of reclaiming lost glories.

Red Sky - The fields of this province have long had a problem with salt build-up from both negligent irrigation practice and the storms that roll in from the south west during the Season of Fire. The land is so low-lying that storm surges can flood fields for miles in land. Those few peasants who have been permitted to stay are forced to work in levies to build levees, while the remaining farms are watched over by hard-eyed imperial officials. Old ruins half-sunken in the soft soil dot the landscape.

Daoshin Peninsula

A warm, wet region beset by seemingly constant rains, the Daoshin Peninsula is a patchwork of plains, marshlands, and wooded hills. Though there's much fertile soil to be had, the marshes are mazy and treacherous, and most of the region is but lightly inhabited. Aside from a few cities like Myion, the Daoshin is seen as a rustic backwater.

Falling Rain - A quirk of geomancy extends the rainy season in these lands to cover the majority of the year, and everything is either built on elevated plateaus or surrenders to the marsh. Rumours abound of sunken palaces and rotting temples deep in the marshland, but Falling Rain guards its secrets well.

Wading Crane Rookery - A wedge of coastal wetlands and scattered islands make up this backwater province, where insular fishing villages carry on millennia-old traditions and ruins from the Time Before jut periodically up from beneath the roiling waves. The island of Iora lies just offshore, lashed by rains and forgotten by most.
Iora: [Properly fortified] [Extensive Excavations]

Myion (Cathak Homeland) - Now consecrated by the Immaculate Faith, Myion's soil still turns up blasphemous relics, monoliths and artifacts with shocking regularity. Heavily fortified port-cities and fertile farmlands produce, feed and supply much of the Realm's holdings in the south-west, the logistics managed with signature Cathak diligence and skill.

Brilliant Autumn Shades - Shielded from the vicious winds of the Great Western Ocean, the fields of this prefecture grow samphire and long-grained sal-rice. The normalcy cannot hide the dark rumours about the aristocracy and whispers of blood-rites and cannibalism chill the hearts of the peasants when they are deep in their cups of rice wine.

Silk-and-Pearl Peninsula

This westernmost reach of the Blessed Isle has always brought wealth to the Realm. Mulberry-grove villages on the southern coast produce masses of raw silk alongside their rice crop, while folk from the north coast and adjacent Tongma Archipelago dive for pearls and byssus. The peninsula's ports, once comfortable from the silk and pearl trades, now grow richer still through commerce with Wu-Jian and the distant West. The Silk-and-Pearl Peninsula's native folk descend in large part from Western Contagion refugees. Rural areas remain culturally distinct; the cities are more cosmopolitan.

Voice-of-the-Tides (Peleps Homeland) - A dozen different ethnic groups make this land their home, brought here by the sea and unified in their cosmopolitan diversity by Peleps discipline. Western plunder and imports have made the land very rich, and the Water Fleet guards its home port with zealous fury.

Steel Wind - Once a rich agricultural hub, the Empress deliberately ruined the province with taxation and fines in punishment for its dynastic master's disloyalty. Now home to ghost-towns, infertile farms and played out mineral veins, Steel Wind burns with resentment that will take generations to calm.

Golden Sun - The myriad inlets, islands and cliffs along Golden Sun's coast make a wonderful Dynastic getaway, with sumptuous palaces and expensive yachts hosting decadent parties every summer and falling vacant each winter.

Blossoming Flower - Host to a surprising range of climates and elevations, this land has been deliberately cultivated as an open-air zoo, with imported wildlife living side-by-side with 'authentic recreations' of threshold villages staffed by ethnic slaves.

Skyhewn Shade - The Serpentine's many tributaries fall from the mountains in an array of stunning vistas, winding their way past rumpled hillsides, terraced wheat farms, pear orchids and isolated monasteries. The province is held to be blessed, for ancient sorcery means that it is all but impossible to feel sad or discontent within sight of the capital Bright Obelisk.

Fields of Rue

A patchwork of plains, hills, and woodlands in the northwestern Isle, the Fields of Rue suffer from erratic weather that tends toward cool, wet, and windy. The region encompasses many ancient battlefields, from First Age and Shogunate struggles to some of the last major resistance to the Empress' ascension. Many villages and towns are built around Immaculate temples raised over tombs and burial grounds.

Ayreon - Often swathed in mists that roll in off the shore and only lightly populated, Ayreon's backwoods inhabitants pride themselves on their self-sufficiency and pious mastery of the sea. Superstition is rife here, but only rarely evolves into outright heresy thanks to diligent Immaculate supervision.

Rue - Attempts to maintain external authority over the villages, hamlets and isolated hideaways of Rue's fertile valleys and open plains have historically failed more often than not. The populace send their taxes in promptly and expect in turn to be left alone by their nominal imperial overlords.

Eagle (V'Neef Homeland) - Once a timeworn backwater known only for its vineyards, Eagle Prefecture has risen with its new lords, and now overflows with money and talent as it competes for the title of 'gateway to the west'. The culture clash between V'Neef's radical and cosmopolitan house and the staid conservatives who lived here originally has only grown more pronounced with time.

Tempest - Lashed by storms and a favourite target for north-western raiders, Tempest province is in the middle of an economic boom after the discovery of massive deposits of black jade all along the coast… which imperial surveyors insist were not there half a century ago.

Ventus - Wild and pristine, mineral-rich hills of Ventus breed a stubborn, self-reliant people, while the prisons and mines hidden beneath the snow-capped mountains speak to the Dynastic soul - the artistry of suffering concealed behind natural beauty is a popular one among the artistic class.

Howling Heart - A sprawling mountainous region named for the sound of the wind through its mineshafts and valleys, rich in Jade and home to myriad cabals of occultists studying the forbidden arts with Imperial sanction.

Nuwa - Peaceful, prosperous and pious, Nuwa has not known heresy or civil disturbance for over five centuries, and is the homeland of a shocking proportion of the Order's senior hierarchy.

Imperial Mountain

Broader at its base than many nations, miles high and taller than any other point in Creation, the Imperial Mountain is a landmark visible from every point on the Blessed Isle, albeit as no more than a dim blue shape on the horizon to coastal folk. It's the center of Creation. Countless dragon lines flow from it, flooding the world with Earth Essence. Some say the Earth Dragon dwells at the mountain's heart, others that it's home to weird Mountain Folk cities, or cradles sorcerous engines driving the Realm Defense Grid. None know the truth. The Empress, with the Immaculates' approval, forbade her people from mining the sacred mountain — a stricture that jade-hungry houses may soon flout.

Legend speaks of a great city — perhaps first of all cities — at the mountain's crown. Called Meru, it was home to gods and Exalted before the Anathema arose, and was a place of marvels, ringed by similarly wondrous cities along the highest slopes. No living Dynast claims to have visited Meru. The higher one climbs, the colder and thinner the air, the more chaotic the power that grounds itself in demesnes and broken manses, and the more dangerous the creatures that stalk the slopes — wrathful elementals, bound demons, mad gods, and unnatural beasts spawned by unraveling sorceries of the Anathema.

Dejis (Mnemon Homeland) - Rugged country inhabited by rugged folk, the hills and valleys of Dejis feature a great many mines, quarries and hillside terraces. Long rule by House Mnemon has made the land beautifully sculpted and the people surprisingly cosmopolitan.

Endless - Highest and least populated of those provinces which border the Imperial Mountain, Endless Prefecture is a primarily rocky region dotted with temples, shrines and pilgrimage routes.

Lord's Crossing (Tepet Homeland) - At the centre of the Blessed Isle, one might almost think the Shogunate never fell. Millennia-old cities border moss-covered tombs and imposing statues of heroes centuries dead, while bustling markets compete for attention with open-air theatres and the workshops of famed artisans.

Serpentine - At the behest of the Ministry of Renewal, over half the population of the wetlands and river valleys of Serpentine province have been relocated. Those peasants who remain have been housed in new, purpose-built villages built at well-spaced intervals, and are being taught to farm with new and much more efficient methods which will no doubt soon bring their productivity up to the rest of the Isle.

Winter Blossom - Cool dry uplands and fertile river valleys disguise what used to be a major shadowland. Death comes easily here, and the dead rise readily, which inclines the populace towards iron discipline and an unyielding sense of martial piety.

The Thousand Scales - Government in the Realm​

The Scarlet Realm is driven and administered by a vast web of interconnected departments, bureaus and committees, collectively referred to as the 'Thousand Scales of the Dragon'. Some hold great power and are fought over ferociously by the Realm's constituent houses, others are irrelevant or highly specialised sideshows used as sinecures for Dynasts past their prime or who might embarrass their House in a more prominent position. Virtually all, however, are designed to have some manner of jurisdictional conflict or overlap with a different department, creating frequent clashes that require appeal to a higher power to resolve - in this way did the Scarlet Empress prevent her ambitious scions from amassing private empires that she could not check or otherwise make use of.

That higher power is the Deliberative, the governing and legislative body of the Realm, created relatively early into the Empress' reign as the Realm solidified and her subjects began demanding more say in the laws that governed their lives. Though the Empress maintained veto power over all laws and commandments that the Deliberative pronounced, it was a power that political realities forced her to use sparingly; in her absence, the Regent Tepet Fokuf has been appointed, having been chosen for his pliable and unambitious nature to essentially be a glorified rubber stamp and scapegoat for any public backlash (or imperial displeasure, should the Empress turn out to not actually be gone forever).

• The Greater Chamberis filled with Dynasts, each Great House contributing on average a dozen political representatives personally appointed by the Empress (or nowadays by the Chamber itself). This is where all laws, appointments, rulings and other legal or procedural decisions are first made, subject to an arcane and frequently unspoken framework of rules, etiquette and legal requirements that few outside the Deliberative itself can hope to understand.
  • Any Great House player may send a private message to the GM at any time with details of a proposed law. The GM will then format it and present it to all Great House players for a vote - success requires a simple majority, or six of the ten Great House players at game start. A successful vote is then passed to the Lesser Chamber for confirmation.
• The Lesser Chamber is made up of delegates drawn from patrician families, wealthy peasant merchants, threshold client-nobility and all other influential powers not already subordinate to the Great Houses. Delegates are appointed by the Greater Chamber as vacancies arise, but are immune to dismissal by all save the Empress; while it has no power to introduce law, it also has the power to frustrate the ambitions of its betters, and is entirely willing to frustrate those who take it or its constituent members lightly.
  • Once a measure has passed the Greater Chamber, the GM will bring it to the attention of all non-Great House PCs, inviting them to vote on it. Such a measure passes automatically unless two thirds of Lesser House players vote against it, in which case it stalls and is annulled.

The Deliberative cannot raise or dissolve a Great House, adjust existing satrapy lease agreements or infringe on those powers specifically noted as belonging to the Empress alone; beyond that, the limit is solely what the rest of the Dynasty will let them get away with. Note that while NPCs will generally comply with legal commands from the Deliberative (unless they have strong reasons to do otherwise and are willing to defy the collective judgement of the Realm to do so), it is entirely up to a given player whether or not to conform with a given law or commandment. Refusing to do so will generally raise the Realm Divide score, while making a show of compliance will lower it.

While the full duties and composition of the Thousand Scales can and does fill entire archive buildings, for the purposes of this game it is worth highlighting a few of the more prominent components.

• The Magistracy serves as the Empress' right hand, a collection of personally-appointed Exalted with the plenipotentiary authority of the Empress herself who roam the Isle and see justice done. With the legal authority to pass judgement on literally any Dynast save the matriarch of a Great House and staggering levels of popular support - built on a reputation of selfless heroism, humble compassion and righteous conviction - the Imperial Magistrates are the greatest check on the Realm's power players and corrupt officials. Bribing one is generally pointless, for they have the right to commandeer any item or service without compensation but are legally forbidden from amassing wealth or property of any kind, and each owes great and extremely personal loyalty to the Empress who trusted them with such power in the first place. Removing them by force is easier, but by no means guaranteed - each is an Exalted hero of great skill and experience, and many have friends and backgrounds in the unlikeliest of places.
• The Imperial Treasury receives all tax and tribute paid by individuals and organisations within the Realm itself, storing it in great fortress-manses scattered across the Isle; subsidiary and allied bureaus deal with the Realm-backed cash system and satrapy-derived tribute. Much of the funding goes on paying the Legions and maintaining the Realm's infrastructure, but the Treasury can and frequently does extend loans, lines of credit and imperial investments to various other Houses and organisations. Bal Keraz, the Empress' Exchequer, is a humourless old man with a legendary hatred of corruption and a noted willingness to destroy anyone who disrespects him and his ministry.
  • Players may access some of this Wealth by directly requesting it from the Treasury via an appropriate asset-based action or by passing a motion in the Deliberative. Note that the Realm's budget is handled by the Treasury, not the Deliberative.
• The Knowledgeable Advisors serve as the Realm's 'Foreign Office', keeping careful watch on and contact with both foreign powers and the satrapies. Every Satrapy accepts a Great House patron to oversee (but not rule) them and collect tribute, an Imperial garrison force and the presence of Immaculate monks who help enshrine the Philosophy as state religion. The Knowledgeable Advisors keep a careful watch on all parts of the satrapy system and provide those who ask with their vast knowledge and extensive network of contacts, but with the Empress gone their ability to act on what they know is almost non-existent... at least, legally.
  • Assigning the leases of new and existing Satrapies was a privilege the Empress reserved for herself, used as punishment and reward for the Great Houses as she liked. With her absence, a greater share of the directional tribute is possible to obtain only through violence and subversion... or, potentially, gentlewoman's agreements over who actually gets the funds each satrapy provides.
• The Realm Defence Grid is not a ministry or a bureau, though many contribute to its upkeep and repair. It is a network of war-manses and essence engines across the Isle that, when linked together, can obliterate armies and shatter fortresses anywhere in Creation. Only the Empress had access to the Imperial Manse that housed the control room; indeed, it was her control of this ultimate weapon that made her Empress in the first place. Anyone who can repeat her trick will almost certainly become her replacement at a stroke.
• Faxai-on-the-Caul is not a formally recognised ministry, but plays an important role in Dynastic Society all the same. The Caul is a small continental landmass in the Southwestern Threshold, held to be sacred ground by both the Dragon-Blooded and the Lunar Anathema; Dynastic parents who make pilgrimages to each of the Caul's sacred sites are virtually guaranteed to see their children Exalt, while Luna's Chosen have their own designs on the sacred temples. At present the city of Faxai is the only remaining Realm foothold on the sub-continent; any Great House who managed to reclaim more of the sacred land would receive significant public and political support for their claim on the Scarlet Throne, especially from the Immaculate Order.
• The All-Seeing Eye is the Realm's espionage and covert operations agency, granted Imperial mandate to ensure "the continued prosperity of the Realm and its Princes of the Earth". It is generally believed to operate on a cell-based structure dispersed across the Realm and Creation as a whole, unchecked by any bureaucratic oversight or tethered to any formal headquarters, each of which reported to the Empress solely and exclusively. With her absence, no one else has any idea of the Eye's disposition, capabilities, resources or loyalties; certainly the Regent has yet to hear from any of its operatives, and it is generally assumed that the entire agency has gone entirely rogue.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Across the Eight Directions​

Though the Dynasts of the Blessed Isle have traditionally regarded themselves as the most advanced and civilised people in Creation, the truth is that the world is a vast and beautiful place, filled with stunning vistas and fascinating cultures. There are nations, religions and cultural traditions out there fit to fill a thousand libraries to bursting, many of them with histories stretching back over centuries and adherents numbered in the tens of thousands, but as the Scarlet Throne falls empty and the spectre of civil war looms, all of that ceases to matter. All that truly concerns the scions of the Realm about the land beyond their shores is this - what threats yet exist that cannot possibly be ignored, and how much blood is there to be carefully squeezed from the stone?

The Threshold
For the purposes of this game, the world beyond the Blessed Isle is divided into eight broad 'directions', each of which is mechanically treated as a special type of province. They may host assets, be developed or invaded and otherwise targeted as normal. Note that due to the sea provinces separating them from the Isle assets in the threshold cannot directly target those on the Isle or vice-versa; additionally, the Threshold starts without any Dynastic assets, and developing any out there would be seen as a move strongly aligned with the Separatist ethos.

Each direction contains dozens of different states and ethnic groups, some loyal to the Realm and others fiercely opposed, but as contestants in the looming war you only care about the following:

Tribute - The Imperial Legions have spent centuries viciously subjugating a myriad lesser states to the Empress' will, and more still have been brought into the fold through cultural or economic dominance. These satrapies pay vast quantities of tribute every turn, represented by a single massive wealth-generating asset for each direction whose value far outstrips anything you can obtain from the Isle proper. At game start, every "directional asset" is divided between two or more Great Houses, providing them with their share of the wealth of empire. In the past this division was managed by Imperial dictate and dynastic politicking, but with the Empress gone more and more of her squabbling children begin considering more direct ways of increasing their share of the pie.

Mercenaries - Each direction maintains and generates a pool of soldiers-for-hire, ranging from levied janissaries to professional freelance warriors. These are mostly military assets in their own right, but characters and tags that can be applied to other forces might also exist. A player may only recruit such a unit if they are receiving at least part of the capital from the Directional Asset.

Foreign Powers - The Realm is Creation's sole superpower and cultural hegemon, but it does not rule all or even a majority of the world as a whole. Foreign powers exist free of the imperial yoke, which might be bargained with or conquered for factional advantage over the course of the game... or which might take the opportunity presented by a distracted Realm to carve out their own little slices or the world or take revenge on the oppressive juggernaut now that it has begun to falter.

Note - Moving a mobile asset between the Isle and a particular section of the Threshold takes an entire turn's movement. Assets moving from the Isle must start their turn in a coastal or sea region; those moving from the Threshold arrive at a chosen coastal region within the same general geographic quadrant (this requirement is fairly loose, but one cannot recall troops from the North-East and have them arrive on the Daoshin Peninsula on the far side of the Blessed Isle). Mercenaries begin in their respective Threshold regions, and can be moved to the Isle on the same turn they are hired. Thus, assets in the threshold could theoretically move to the Isle and then take an action in their destination province upon arrival; fear of such invasion is one reason the Imperial Fleet was always kept at such an elevated level of strength (since armies require fleets to travel with across sea regions).

The North - Glittering Jewels and Hungry Ice

From the temperate southern coast's pine scrub and prairie, the land grows ever more bitter as one travels northward. Outside of city walls and village palisades, untamed wilderness stretches beyond the horizon. Ghosts lure the living into trackless mires to steal their warmth and claim their company in death, while the alluring Winter Folk ride to the hunt on steeds whose hooves never break the snow-crust. Wolves and tigers haunt vast boreal forests beneath curtains of rain, fog, and snow, while on the shores of the White Sea whole cities migrate on wind-driven sledges between mineral veins at the foot of endless frozen mountains.

Fortitude was once the prison-city of an long-lost Empire, where condemned souls toiled in the lightless depths for treasures to pay their debts. Now it is a place where the darkness is worshiped, the winter is hated, and every man believes he is cursed. It is a place where people are born believing that only their deaths can atone for their lives, and that the only way to erase the stain of darkness on one's soul is to lead a heroic life and to die an immortal death.

Medo's swift-riding death commandos were once the terror of the north, striking out from their mountain fortresses and walled valleys. Now their finest youths are tithed in service to the Realm as jannissaries, and the loyal ghosts of their ancestors stand guard on cyclopean walls to shield their people from all the horrors of the night. The world is thin here, and the underworld perilously close to the surface in a hundred different places.

Whitewall is a holy city, ruled by triplet gods of silver and ice and protected by sacred pacts with Fae and Dead alike. By the terms of the pact are spirits forbidden from laying hand on any that travel the great road, making the city a natural hub of trade and cultural exchange, but the price in blood and souls demanded is not always so easily met. It is rumoured that darker things still take advantage of Whitewall's famed neutrality, a charge the Syndic-Gods are famously loathe to answer.

The Icewalkers were never a nation in any real sense, instead a lose grouping of nomadic tribes bound in service to individual totem spirits, but with the coming of the Solar Anathema that changed. Now the Bull of the North counts himself head of a tribal army a hundred thousand strong, blessed with daemonic allies and fed by the tribute of a hundred terrified lands. The Tepet Legions may be the north's only hope of salvation...

The North-East - Cold Shadows and Untouched Splendour

The tundra gives way to great boreal forests of pine, spruce, and larch, broken by bogs, rich river valleys, and swaths of prairie. Hunter-gatherer tribes make camp in the sheltering shadows of the ancestor-trees beneath whose roots they bury their dead, while tree-city dwellers throw prisoners of war to hungry Fair Folk who haunt the forest floor. Loggers, miners, and farmers have established colonies throughout the area over the last century or so, and while some native peoples trade peacefully with the newcomers, others regularly raid settlements and caravans. All contest the region with wolves and feathered lizards, soul-thieves and savage gods, and all manner of monsters born of the Wyld.

The Linowan Tribes dwell in fortified island-cities and ply the great rivers in canoes large enough to hold entire war-bands or merchant caravans. They regard excellence as the highest virtue, no matter what form it takes, and have mastered the sorcerous art of binding spirits to ornate masks that lend their wearers great power and mystical abilities.

The Kingdom of Halta rests among the treetops, it's safety bought by human sacrifice delivered regularly to the Fae Folk that haunt the forest floor. The Oracle Tree stands at their heart of their capital, and from its spore-granted visions do the Kingdom's high priests determine the course of their people's future.

The Haslanti League is a coalition of city-states scattered around the inland sea of Mela's Fangs that sprang up after the citadel of Bagrash Kol fell from the sky. Forced together by the sorcerer-king's mad ambition and fuelled by the secret treasures of his fallen Empire, the League dominates trade and transport across much of the north-east. They know more of the lost secrets of old than most, and rumour has it their fleets of airships are being joined by vessels capable of powered flight.

The East - Vibrant Cradle of Riotous Life

Carts laden with lumber, crops, and ore—escorted by soldiers to ward off bandits, wild beasts, elementals, and foraging enemy troops—trundle past vine-draped ruins and haunted woodlands to converge on the gaily-painted gates of market towns. Brown-water ships haul cargoes down labyrinthine tributaries of the Yanaze River to the crowded cities of the Scavenger Lands. The bustling alchemy of urban life turns grain to bread, lumber to houses, and ore to cups, statues, horseshoes, and ploughshares—and spears to fuel the
endless wars of the East's numberless principalities. This rich, populous realm has been a cradle of civilization since humanity's dawn, and First Age ruins still yield wealth to scavengers canny enough to master their perils.

Great Forks is a city of gods, a little slice of heaven on earth, where the bureaucracy of a thousand temples holds sway over thronging orgies and reverent sermons to myriad divinities. Founded at the intersection of the Rolling and Yellow rivers, Great Forks is supported by vast plantations of marijuana and qat, harvested by divinely bonded slaves that make the city one of the richest in Creation.

Lookshy still counts itself as the Seventh Legion of the Shogunate, and its Dragon-Blooded rulers remain staunchly traditional and highly militarised to this day. The pre-eminent military power of the East, it was coalitions led by Lookshy that thwarted the Realm's last two great attempts at eastern conquest, and their centuries of mercenary work have kept the skills required for such bloody independence well honed.

Thorns is one of Creation's greatest cities, a hub of learning and culture to put all others to shame. Its bazaars bustle with merchants and glitter with goods from across Creation; poets in basement teashops and aristocratic boudoirs sing of love both shared and unrequited; philosophers address their disciples beneath vine-drenched pergolas. Ruled by a hereditary line of philosopher-kings, the people of Thorns look to the future with unbridled hope.

Nexus sprawls at the juncture of the Yellow and Gray Rivers where they feed the swollen Yanaze. Built on, around and under the ruins of a First Age metropolis, the modern and ancient cities intertwine to create one of Creation's foremost trade hubs. Irimoya-roofed shrines and teahouses with elegant rice paper doors stand cheek-by-jowl with brick warehouses and shantytown shacks, while strings of paper lanterns blaze over the brightly colored awnings of the city's bazaars and blast furnaces roar with the sun's own fury. The city is infamously lawless, a libertarian paradise where everything is for sale and only the passage of armies and the obstruction of trade are forbidden.

Ixcoatli is known as the Empire of the Winged Serpent, a land of pyramid-temples and great libraries beneath the canopy of the great eastern jungles. Here serpentfolk warriors and raiton-winged scholars come together in a grand system of divinely ordained castes and honour-codes, trading the jungle's most potent treasures in exchange for the slaves needed to keep their theo-militaristic culture secure.

The South-East - Seething Cauldron of Civilisation

The lands beyond the Summer Mountains are a realm of tangled trees and wild beasts, girded by ape-ruled jungles and savannas lorded over by lions. Empires burgeon around the coasts of the Dreaming Sea—an ocean extending from the edge of the world, its depths teeming with life and its waves reived by ships of glass and gossamer. The land is equally abundant, yielding a great wealth of crops, spices, precious metals, ivory and gems to bedeck the temples of Southeastern gods and the palaces of rajahs and ranis.

Prasad's ruling dragon-blooded are technically drawn from Cadet Houses pledged in service to the Realm, but those loyalties have always been tenuous. The Immaculate Faith has grown astray here, and now the princes of the Dragon Caste in their silks and jade-steel plate consider themselves to be gods in the flesh, bearers of a divine mandate to conquer the world and indulge in all its earthly pleasures.

Ysyr was built atop the ruins of the mountaintop ruins of Pinnacle, a First Age city whose great essence-engines have long since gone astray. Now the radiation twists nine in every ten Ysyrian children into stunted mutants... and blesses the tenth with physical perfection and the gift of sorcery, which elevates them to the ruling caste. In Ysyr one is either a sorcerer or a slave, and their hunger would see such rules applied to the rest of Creation in their turn.

Volivat sits a hundred fathoms below the surface of the Dreaming Sea, kept dry by a colossal dam whose engines power their civilisation. Master alchemists and gene-smiths, the Yennin of Volivat name themselves the 'children of ten fathers', combining the essence of eleven parents into each newborn child to create champions the equal of any Exalted hero.

Dis is a cyclopean city of black basalt and crimson glass, squatting on the slopes of an ancient chain of dormant volcanos. The Gigantes who inhabit it wield strange sorcery and experience time in a different way to mortals, but their immortal Empire has long since been broken by the vigour of the younger races, and it is only a matter of time before their last bastions fall in turn. Desperation is rapidly driving them to strange plans and unwise bargains...

The South - Regal Kingdoms of Endless Summer

In the cool Southern night, lighthouses shine like suns from city harbours to guide ships home. With the dawn, hillsides smoulder like jewels—amethyst vineyards; ruby fields of opium poppies; emerald orchards aflame with orange and lemon, pomegranate and persimmon. Workers labour in the noonday heat, the fruits of their toil brought to gilded treasury-temples for their gods to select the choicest portions. Caravans carry the surplus past brooding necropolis and looming ziggurats to cities grown like termites' nests, their
mud-brick abodes climbing toward the sun. In their shadow, forges blaze with new-minted metal and glass while bazaars glow with the rich hues of spices and fire opals. The land grows hotter and water scarcer inland. Hill tribes engage in brutal wars amid the maquis. Horse-archers ride across the sweltering steppes, alert for game beasts or the dreaded Lion Folk. Nomads and merchants meet under oaths of hospitality in towns along the green banks of rivers and the shores of inland seas. Farther south, the last vegetation gives way to the many faces of the desert: barren ridges, stony plains and salt flats encircling a vast central sea of sand speckled with emerald and sapphire oases.

Harborhead is among the most troublesome of the Realm's satrapies, for here every adult is a trained warrior and to go unarmed is to be a slave. The Brides of Ahlat lead the Five Peoples in rituals of battle-prayer to their bull-headed warrior god, and the periodic rebellions have bloodied some of the Realm's finest regions. With the Empress gone, local chieftains select the finest of their cattle for sacrifice, and prepare to try their luck once more.

The Varang Confederacy are obsessed with the perfection of the celestial order, arranging their cities in perfect mandalas and assigning each newborn to a caste based on immediate horoscope readings. One would have to go far indeed to find better architects, glassworkers or astronomers, but the Varang offer their services selectively, and only to those whose work favours the Perfected Hierarchy.

Chiaroscuro was once a First Age acropolis - even shattered and broken its crystalline spires and half-functioning generators make for a magnificent palace, and it is here that the Tri-Khan of the Dehlzan rules. His people are seasonal nomads, and with their warlike migrations they offer safety and security to travellers and merchants, making the city one of the most cosmopolitan and prosperous settlements in the South.

Gem is built into and under the husk of a dead volcano, and with the mineral wealth from its depths paid for swords and bows to create a great mercantile empire across much of the South. One deals in precious stones with Gem's approval or not at all, and its noble houses guard their monopolies on trades and services with bloodthirsty zeal. A hundred lords have tried to lay claim to Gem; ninety nine graves now litter the sands for miles around, and the Despot Rankar VII laughs as he invites others to try their luck.

The South-West - Fragrant Flowers and Bitter Smiles

Realms west of the Firepeaks are as rich as the South and prostrate as the West. Foreign powers, whether Dynasts or Lunars, mortal princes or corrupt gods, subjugate the peoples of these humid lands—jungles and forests, marshes and savannahs—to claim their wealth and resources. Buccaneer fleets ravage shipping lanes while slavers and Fair Folk prey upon impoverished villages. Near the centre of things, the folk of wealthy satrapies hide their hatred behind adoring smiles, then kneel in secret before forbidden gods to call curses on their suzerains. Closer to the world's edge, towns and tribes lie scattered across coastal islands or encircled by monster-haunted marshlands and smouldering volcanoes.

An Teng is the Scarlet Dynasty's favour pleasure resort, where the vistas are beautiful and the locals so wonderfully accommodating. The Tengese surrender their wealth and their bodies to their colonial overlords with servile smiles, for they learned the cost of rebellion long ago. Few among the Dynasty have the slightest idea how fierce the hatred hidden in their hearts truly is. As the Realm weakens, they may soon be given a chance to find out...

The Lintha are equal parts family, demon cult and criminal syndicate, and from their mobile island-base of Bluehaven they reave the south and west with merciless abandon. Their coming is feared by all save the Realm, and even admirals of the Water Fleet regard Lintha pirates with a wary edge to their disgust. Yet it is also rumoured that one can hire the Family to strike at ones enemies, and that they keep careful records of all such deals - certainly no attempt to form a coalition against them has yet born worthwhile fruit.

Lathe is a city-state built into the monstrous husk of an ancient primordial beast, miles high at the shoulder and slain by some forgotten hero a handful of miles off-shore from the Cinder Coast. It's endlessly regenerating flesh and organs fuel a vibrant alchemical tradition, its skull plays host to a great Orrery, and around its feet rests one of the greatest docks and shipyards to be found in this corner of Creation. Its just a shame how often the locals seem to go mad and start worshipping demons.

The West - Dreams of a Distant Horizon

Cut off by thousands of miles of open water, the West is a world unto itself, isolated from the rest of Creation and only recently developing trade and cultural ties with the Realm. Most civilization in the West is to be found dispersed across the great chain that dominates maps of the Direction. The isles lie so near to one another that even primitive vessels can sail between them, and ships of a hundred styles cling close to fishing villages or glide from port to distant port. On the larger islands, among wooded hills and alpine meadows, farmers, miners, and loggers work the land without ever seeing the ocean that circumscribes their homes, knowing it only through dealings with coastal folk and from the depredations of seaborne raiders and maddened pelagic spirits. Each island is unique, with its own peoples and princes, gods and monsters, traditions and treasures. Taken as a whole, they form a great cultural tapestry woven together by merchant ships and divided by hostile navies, pirates and privateers, typhoons, jealous storm spirits and marauding Fair Folk

Wu-Jian is the most heavily populated bluewater port in the world, having abandoned horizontal expansion for vertical centuries ago. Midway between the majority of the West and the Blessed Isle, it plays host to millions in a teetering mountain of skyscraper-slums and sprawling dockyards. That such a place functions at all is miracle none can quite explain, but function it does, and prosperously at that.

The Wavecrest Archipelago is dominated by volcanoes whose hungry gods must be constantly appeased with human sacrifice; when the tradition is observed, they bless the lands with fertility and wealth, making the local city-states fantastically prosperous and well-populated. Bound by common culture if not by law, the Archipelago plays a decisive role in most western political decisions.

The Denzik City-Ship is a vast flotilla of thousands of junks, galleys and barges lashed together by myriad ropes and chains of divinely-blessed iron. It is a city on the move, complete with temples and forges and market squares, and the slow path of its annual migration feeds much of the international diplomacy and trade that the West feeds on; attempts to halt or divert the flotilla have always come to nothing for no reason anyone can rightly discern.

Makelo is a rising imperialist power in the mid-west, prospering under the direct protection and tutelage of the Forge-Goddess Ninegala. Those who study under her learn to make exquisite works of stone and metal, weapons and armour of surpassing quality that has allowed the city-state to subjugate its neighbours and from their enslaved labour profit immensely. Ninegala offers her divine wares to any willing to meet her price, but so strange and exacting are her requirements that few are willing to strike her bargains.

The North-West - Lashed by Storm and Steel

Between the White Sea and the Great Western Ocean, the coastal nations and island-states of the North West are frequently beset by foul weather and fouler predators. Villages of wood and peat crowd close against gloomy cities whose rooftops are thick with chimneys to keep out the chill. Folk huddle within damp, crumbling walls for warmth and for protection from mortal raiders, hungry ghosts, and Fair Folk. Out on the moors, the clangor of sword and shield echoes amid cold rain and fog, raitons circling by the hundreds overhead. Across the long winter months, aristocrats intrigue while serfs drink, brawl, and pray for spring. But spring is also for war, and aside from force of arms the only thing a warrior of the North-West respects is holy ground, be it sacred to god or ancestor; angering either could spell the doom of an entire kin-band or settlement.

Gethamane existed long before man came to the Groaning Mountains; a subterranean city built by unknown hands, etched with prayers to unknown gods, it none the less made for a much-needed redoubt for the refugees that made it their home. Fungal gardens and hidden springs offer food and water, while underways of slick black stone seem to spit forth monsters and treasure with equal regularity.

Grieve was a stagnant backwater for many years, until its savants at last devised the White Elixir, by which one might be frozen at the very moment of death and thereby attain a macabre kind of immortality. Now carefully preserved nobles and scholars walk the city's gardens under parasols to keep away the burning sun, while merchants and workers flock to the city by the thousand in desperate hope of being found worthy of addition to the city's deathly elite.

The Principality of Skullstone resides within a Shadowland, partway into the underworld, and here the dead rule and life is but a preparation for one's eternal station. All manual labour is undertaken by mindless and inexhaustible zombies, leaving the citizenry free to pursue lives of leisure and self-improvement. It's reigning Deathlord, the Bodhisattva Anointed by Dark Waters, is a proud patron of the arts and utterly convinced that all of Creation will prosper under his enlightened rule. With the Realm weakening, he may soon have the chance to put his ideas to the test...

 

[Maugan Ra]

Realm Divide​

The Scarlet Realm has stood unbroken for seven hundred years, forged in the fires of the Twin Calamities and enduring every horror and upset Creation has thrown at it since. The institutions, legitimacy and cultural legacy of such a triumph will not fade easily... but without an Empress to keep the Houses in check and the spectre of civil war looming, each day brings the greatest nation on Creation one step closer to oblivion.

Realm Divide is a mechanic used for tracking the progressive breakdown of law, order and legitimacy within the Realm as a whole. It is represented by a single score, which is raised and lowered by the actions of all players in the game each turn; it matters little if your faction is determined to be law abiding and pious if your neighbour is setting fire to everything in the next room over. When the Realm Divide score reaches certain benchmarks, a Limit Break is triggered, advancing the process of Realm Divide to the next 'stage' and triggering an increasingly dangerous breakdown of what makes the Realm a nation in any real sense. Only one limit break can occur per turn, and at game start the Realm begins at stage one: Steady.

The exact score required to advance a Realm Divide stage will depend on the number of players actively participating in the game and what the current Stage is - specifics will be listed in the wrap-up report at the end of the each turn's report cycle. Depending on the current stage, certain actions may be listed as restricted or forbidden - restricted actions require an influence expenditure of (primary asset) to go ahead, while forbidden actions are precisely that. This represents your own subordinates and supporters baulking at what you ask of them.

The Realm Divide score is increased by the following actions:

• Military conflict against other Dynastic factions
• Flouting Deliberative commands and laws, or undermining the institutions of the Realm's government
• Directly attacking Levy resources or otherwise inflicting damage on the civilian population and infrastructure of the Realm
• Taking restricted actions
• Allying or cooperating with foreign powers against Realm factions.
• Working with or tolerating those deemed Anathema in any fashion.
• Any other action that the GM decides undermines or subverts the law, social order or cultural unity of the Realm

The Realm Divide score can also be reduced, though only plot-specific events can undo a Limit Break. Actions that reduce the Realm Divide include:

• Paying your taxes in full, or making up for another's shortfall in the spirit of civic duty.
• Repairing public works of infrastructure that have become damaged, or defending and supplying Imperial organisations such as the magistrates, without claiming any ownership.
• Publicly yielding to the expressed will of the Deliberative in some obvious fashion.
• Dissolving your Separatist or Inheritor faction
• Any other action that the GM decides reinforces or augments the law, social order and cultural unity of the Realm.

Stage One: Steady

The Empress has disappeared, but her fate is unknown and there is significant public support for the idea that she is simply attending to some unknown duty and will return any day now. Even if the Matriarchs think otherwise, they know better than to speak too loudly of what they suspect; as far as anyone needs to know, their current manoeuvres are aimed at improving their relative position so that they can present it as fait accompli to Her Imperial Majesty when she returns.

- Withholding tribute is forbidden
- Establishing sovereignty over provinces is forbidden
- Alliances are restricted
- Raising armies is restricted (Cathak, Tepet, Sesus allowed)
- Raising fleets is restricted (Peleps, V'neef allowed)
- Hostile actions against legitimate Imperial organisations and bodies is forbidden.

Military actions against Patricians and Peasants are Forbidden.
Hostile actions against Patrician Capital or Covert assets is Restricted.
Hostile action against Peasant assets is Allowed, but they may be defended by Imperial institutions if the methods used as egregiously illegal.

- Natural disasters and famines will be dealt with automatically by Imperial authorities.
- Infrastructure and public works are automatically maintained and repaired by Imperial bodies.

- Hostile actions against another player's non-Covert assets are forbidden.
- Hostile actions against another player's Covert assets are allowed.

Stage Two: Unsteady

The Empress is gone, and she isn't coming back. Such is the public consensus, grudging though it be, and now thought turns to the matter of succession. Uncertainty grips the Realm, along with the dawning realisation that there is no plan or precedent for something like this, but the public maintains faith in its leadership and expects a peaceful outcome. Perhaps some manner of council will anoint a successor? The Matriarchs and senior figures of each House have begun naming their preferred candidates for Empress and gathering support for their cause.

-Withholding tribute is restricted
-Establishing sovereignty over prefectures is restricted
-Alliances are allowed
-Raising armies is restricted
-Raising fleets is restricted

Military actions against Peasants are Restricted.
Military actions against Patricians are Forbidden. Hostile actions against Patrician Capital assets is Restricted. Hostile actions against Patrician Covert assets is Allowed.

- Civic bodies begin to suffer, increased chance of famine, natural disaster and criminality on the Blessed Isle.
- Infrastructure is no longer automatically repaired by Imperial bodies, only maintained.
- Rebellions become possible in Satrapies and the wider Threshold. Foreign powers begin funding covert assets in Realm territories.

- Hostile actions against another player's Character, Dynastic or Levy assets are forbidden.
- Hostile actions against another player's Capital and Military assets are restricted.

Stage Three: Fractured

The Throne is empty, and increasingly regarded as a prize to be taken rather than a duty to be granted. Claimants have gathered factions around themselves and begun vying directly against one another - bloodshed is expected and increasingly acceptable, and mobs supporting one side or another clash in the streets. Military action is frequently employed, but generally veiled in terms like 'restoring order' and 'securing vulnerable assets'. The general expectation is that one side will emerge victorious and the others will bow their heads and serve.

- Withholding tribute is allowed
- Establishing sovereignty is restricted
- Raising armies is allowed
- Raising fleets is allowed

Military actions against Patricians are Allowed Hostile actions against Patrician Capital assets are Allowed

- Civic bodies are ineffective; matters of banditry, natural disaster, famine and plague are left for players to address.
- Invasions become possible in Satrapies, foreign powers consider funding rebellion in Realm territories.
- Wyld Hunt is reduced in effectiveness, Anathema can operate within the Threshold without impediment.

- Hostile actions against another player's Character, Dynastic or Levy assets are restricted.
- Hostile actions against another player's Capital or Military assets are allowed.

Stage Four: Broken

Civil War is open and undeniable. People no longer talk in terms of support and legitimacy but in territory and alliance, and support for a rival claimant is perceived as treachery and punished as such. For many, this has become a fight for survival, as few expect the new Empress to show any kind of mercy to those who stood against her in bloody conflict. What bodies and institutions of the Realm remain are openly taking sides, or else retreating into hiding in hopes of enduring through the storm of conflict.

- Establishing sovereignty is allowed.
- Peaceful cooperation with non-allies is restricted.

- Provinces not specifically garrisoned or secured will generate bandits and rebel/independent armies at varying rates.
- Infrastructure breaks down, works not maintained by players cease functioning
- All remaining Imperial bodies, legions and organisations transfer ownership to favoured players or form factions of their own.
- Wyld Hunt has failed entirely. Anathema begin arising on the Blessed Isle.

- All restrictions on targeting assets held by other players are removed.

Stage Five: Divided

The Realm no longer exists in any meaningful form - there are only competing factions, each striving to see their successor-state triumph over all the rest. Law and social order exists within reach of a blade and no further, and many have begun to doubt that there will ever be peace, that the Throne means anything worth fighting for. It is accepted logic that one is either ally or enemy, and that while enemies yet live no safety or prosperity is possible.

- Peaceful cooperation with non-allies is forbidden.

Stage Six: Dust and Ash

The Realm is gone, and it will not come again. Too much blood has been spilt, too much of what was built has been torn down, for any hope of peace or continued legacy. Perhaps in ten generations some new empire will rise to control the Blessed Isle in its entirety, but it will claim to be the Realm of old only in propaganda that none truly take seriously.

If the Realm Divide score reaches this stage, the game ends.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Setting Lore​

This game is set in Creation, the setting of the rpg Exalted; for those players unfamiliar with the setting, the following guide has been provided. Note that this is written from the perspective of your player characters, the Dynasts of the Scarlet Realm - bias, inaccuracies and propaganda are to be expected, but relatively few outright lies.

​

The Exalted

In the Time Before, when the fires of creation had not yet faded and the world was still new, the Gods chose from among the assembled ranks of mankind their champions. These warriors would be imbued with great power and with it wisdom and responsibility, that they might protect Creation from any danger even as they ruled it with foresight and grace. Having thus created the Exalted, the Gods withdrew into Heaven and beyond the veil of corporeal form, leaving the world to its new custodians.

Greatest among the Exalted were the Dragon-Blooded, who born in their veins the immortal power of their progenitor-patrons, the Elemental Dragons from whose form all of Creation was formed. They were strong as the mountains, fast as the northern wind, as furiously passionate as wildfire. More than that, they alone could pass their great power down to their children, preserving Creation for future generations even as they fell in battle or retired into meditative contemplation of the elements.

To be Exalted is to be more than human. It is to be faster, stronger, smarter and longer-lived, beyond the frailties of sickness and old age. The Dragon-Blooded command the elements themselves, bear great relic-weapons forged of sacred jade, and wield world-shaking martial arts that would kill a mortal to learn. It is to stand as the rightful heir to the Creation-Ruling Mandate, the divine right of rule passed down to your ancestors by the mightiest of the gods, to take for your own the title Prince of the Earth.

​

Spirits

Creation is an animist setting; every rock and tree harbours its own patron spirit, and they vary immensely in power, nature and personality. The God of the local river might flood his banks if not given a jug of rice wine every new moon, while the Goddess of the Imperial Mountain only rarely concerns herself with the doings of those mortal ants upon her mighty back. Some gods are tied intimately to their domains and exist as part of them, while others are celestial bureaucrats shuffling papers in their heavenly manses; all are proud, powerful and capable of bestowing great blessings or curses upon those who please or antagonise them.

Beneath Creation lurks the underworld, where the drifting shades of the departed play out fantasies of memory before succumbing to the call of Lethe and entering the cycle of reincarnation. Bloody-clawed murder victims, charismatic priests of oblivion and the magnificent Death Lords can all be found by those who know where to look; necromancy is a forbidden art in much of Creation, and those who practice it are feared and hated in equal measure, for their blasphemy grants them great power.

Hell is a real place, a cityscape of brass and obsidian the size of the world, but the demons imprisoned within have nothing to do with mortal sin. Their crimes were made against Heaven and the Gods; as chosen champions of the latter, the Exalted possess both the ability and moral authority to bind their vanquished foes into service. Strange fusions of flesh and spirit, every breed of demon was created by the Lords of Hell to fulfil a specific purpose; the Jade Lions are warriors and missionaries, while the Faceless Priests hunt lawbreakers with immortal tenacity. Sorcerers can bind such things to their own purposes, but often find themselves held at a cautious distance by wider society for their strange knowledge and occult pursuits.

​

The Immaculate Order

It is the right and duty of all Exalted to act as intermediaries between spirits and mortal-kind, but for the monks of the Immaculate Order such pursuits are their life's work. When a demon slips into the world through the end of twilight or a dead monstrosity claws its way out of the grave, it is the Immaculate Order that stands ready to repel them with fist and blade; when the local god demands more prayer on pain of drought, it is the Order that negotiates with him on the peasantry's behalf… and slays him if he steps out of line.

Within the Realm, the Order plays the role of mediator, guardian and watchdog. They lead the mortal population in prayer and caution them not to step outside the role that heaven and their Exalted masters have set out for them, but so too do they enforce morality and legal diligence among the dynasts who rule the Realm. The Dragon-Blooded are divinely appointed rulers, yes, but those who fail in their duties or display excessive cruelty to their subjects can expect to find themselves replaced in short order, be it through religiously-motivated rebellions or a furious monk breaking down their palace gate.

The truest enemy of the Immaculate Order are the Anathema - ancient monsters who have stolen the power of the gods for their own, wicked Dragon-Blooded who have fallen from grace, and all manner of other threats to Creation are counted among their benighted ranks. Against such threat the Order maintains the institution and cultural tradition that is the Wyld Hunt; when an Anathaema is discovered, it is the holy duty of all Dragon-Blood to declare truce and band together against this threat, to hunt them to the ends of the world if that is what it takes. There are monks who spend their entire lives hunting such monsters, and centuries of experience have made them supremely skilled at the arts of cold-hearted murder.

​

Technology

The majority of Creation can be thought of roughly equivalent in technology and development to the late iron or early post-classical age. Woodblock printing is widespread, as is literacy and knowledge of the natural sciences, while the Realm's economy is based on a class-divided version of fiat currency (peasants use paper scrip, aristocrats used jade coinage). Magic naturally distorts this expectation somewhat, with gods and sorcerers playing a major role in the development of medicine, engineering and the material sciences. More notably, however, Creation is also a post-apocalyptic setting, with specific areas and organisations retaining fragments of a world far more advanced than the current one.

The current Age of Sorrows, born from the twin calamities of the Great Contagion and Balor's Crusade, was preceded by the Second Age. The Shogunate ruled Creation then, and possessed the knowledge and resources to deploy whole legions of power-armoured troops backed up by sorcerer-engineers and supplied via continent-scale mag-lev train networks. The Realm maintains a significant portion of this knowledge, most notably in the form of the multi-story Warstriders that accompany its legions into battle, but generally lacks the tools to make the tools to put the theory into practice.

It is said that before the Shogunate came the High First Age, where the daemonic Anathema ruled and crystal spires pierced the dome of heaven... but such stories are blasphemous nonsense, of course, and impossible to verify anyway.

​

The Wyld

Creation is flat, or perhaps simply sits atop an infinitely tall spire of rock. Travel far enough from the Imperial Mountain and the comforting embrace of conscious civilisation and one will find once iron-clad rules growing weak and twisted - gravity changes with the moon, impossible creatures hoot and scream, and one's own body begins to mutate in accordance with the mad whims of the elements unbound. Travel further from the beaten path, with naught but courage to guide your way, and you will find there is only the Wyld; a fathomless abyss of chaos and creativity, where narrative and convention hold sway in place of physical law and mortal order. Here can be found the glittering palaces of the Fae.

The Fae, also known as the Raksha and the Princes of Chaos, are a strange and alien breed. They are less living beings and more stories come to life, and they hunger endlessly for the vital essences and fragile beauty of Creation: those who fall into their grasp are called the Dream-Eaten, mind and soul scoured away to leave an empty husk behind. Iron burns them like acid and Creation's rigid order displeases them; held at bay by ancient oaths they cannot break, they search endlessly for a way to make the world their plaything, stealing away children or leading great armies of nightmare creatures against the world's defenders. It was in breaking one such invasion, known to history as the Balorian Crusade, that the Scarlet Empress earned her title and her throne - an insult that the Fae have never forgiven.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Available Factions​

The Great Houses

In the earliest days of the Realm, the Empress stood alone as supreme and only ruler, but as the years passed and she began consolidating power, the need for subordinate powers became apparent. Thus were the Great Houses formed, each led by a mighty Dragon-Blooded hero of proven strength and loyalty - supporters, former rivals and her own children among them. They were granted the right to a family name, swathes of territory, powerful legal rights and commensurate duties, all of which would come together to form the building blocks of the Empress' new Realm. Today, there are ten Great Houses recognised by the Imperial Bureaucracy; at least a dozen more have fallen to disaster or misadventure in the preceding centuries, or been stripped of power by the Empress herself for some unthinkable crime.

The houses are more than mere families. Each has spent centuries amassing not just glory and jade, but also relationships, traditions, and vendettas. Likewise, their numbers have grown; even the smallest house counts hundreds of Dragon-Blooded in its ranks, and most have well over a thousand. Each house's scions fight side by side in house legions and garrisons, join forces in the intrigues of the Thousand Scales and the Deliberative, and cooperate in business ventures throughout the Blessed Isle and across the Threshold.

Each Great House forms a nation unto itself, embedded into the Realm's body politic. And while many deem themselves patriots, others — perhaps most — are members of a Great House first and Dynasts second. While the Great Houses have ever vied against each other for power, influence, and wealth, the stern hand of the Scarlet Empress bent their conflicts to serve her will. With her disappearance, their ambition is unchecked, and all eyes turn to the empty throne.

Cathak - Fire That Marches Against The Tide

All Dynasts are trained as soldiers, learning tactics and strategy alongside art and culture, but it is in House Cathak that the martial traditions of the Dynasty flourish in full. They learn strategy at their mother's knee, are raised as generals and dragonlords from the cradle, and temper their fiery passions with a soldier's unflinching discipline. Politically blunt, a Cathak scion can still charm her way through a salon with tales of war and service in exotic, far-off lands, and many have a reputation as dashing heartbreakers and closeted romantics.

• Politics By Other Means. You are a military House, starting with four legions and the legal right to raise more. Your characters gain one free martial tag each (such as 'veteran officer' or 'fearsome duellist'). Military assets ordered to plunder generate influence as well as wealth, as they find mercenary work and support local proxies; alternately, they generate influence equal to their rating when tapped by a non-Cathak character for an action.
• Faith and Duty. A deeply pious matriarch at the helm for centuries has left his mark on the House. You cannot dissolve your Immaculate faction, and while it has at least three power any action you take that could benefit from an 'Immaculate Support' tag is treated as having one. All military assets gain the 'Immaculate Monks' tag for free.
• Queenmaker. Cathak Cainan is an old man, and his sister is but a decade or three younger. You have no Inheritor faction and cannot develop one, as nobody believes a Cathak Empress is likely or desirable as anything more than a placeholder. All actions you take aimed at establishing sovereignty over a province carry an influence surcharge equal to (target dynastic asset rating).

Cynis - Wood Nourished on Fallen Tears

Everyone likes House Cynis. They throw the best parties, make the best lovers, and are always willing to help their friends out with whatever they might need. Yes, everyone likes them… well, every Dynast does, at any rate. Other people tend to take issue with the House's sprawling drug trade and underworld ties, its legal monopoly on the slave trade and its habit of using blackmail to turn enemies and rivals into quietly compliant pawns. Every Empire in history prospers by the suffering of others, but Cynis has made exploitation into an art form.

• Flowers of the Court. Your characters gain one social or decadent tag each for no cost (such as 'genuinely likeable' or 'trained courtesan'). Moreover, you may take up to two decadent actions each turn without expending a given character's action.
  • Note: Decadent actions here refers to dynastic politicking, salons, gala balls, orgies and other such sins of the elite.
• Human Resources. You have a number of special Levy assets, which generate manpower so long as the corresponding section of the Threshold remains under imperial control. Moreover, every asset you possess gains a single tag based on the ready availability of enslaved labour, be it 'indentured janissaries' for a military unit or 'Manchurian house-slaves' for a spy network.
• Soiled Reputation. Your scions have a real problem being appropriately pious and holy, and you cannot develop an Immaculate faction. Any rebel forces that spawn in your lands will gain the 'Immaculate Training' tag for free, and may gain other benefits if the Order has particular reason to dislike you.

Ledaal - Air that Raised the Bones of Giants

No one questions Ledaal's competence, loyalty or pious zeal. Everyone acknowledges that when the monsters come for blood, Ledaal spears will be there to force the darkness back. They just wish that the House would loosen up a little and stop being quite so bloody self-righteous about everything. The House itself cares little for such opinions; founded by a woman who turned her own mother in for heresy, it cares only for duty, and views the infighting sure to result from an empty throne with a growing sense of looming dread.

• Shadow Crusade. Your characters and military assets gain the 'Sorcery' tag for free. Additionally, any assets employed in Crusade-related actions - raiding tombs, confiscating arcane lore and thwarting threats to the Realm and Creation - pay zero upkeep and generate one more point of the appropriate resource that turn.
• Respected. You cannot dissolve your Expansionist faction, and while its power remains at 3+, any action you take that could benefit from a 'pristine reputation' tag counts as having one. A similar malus is applied to actions taken against you.
• (Be) Someone Else's Problem. Your levies generate one less point of manpower than their rating suggests, and you pay an additional point of upkeep for every military or covert asset that operated in the territory of another Great House in a turn.

Mnemon - Earth Carved in the Image of One

Priests and poets, lovers and scholars, House Mnemon are by far the most pious and devout of all the Great Houses, their identity indelibly shaped by the centuries old sorcerer-matriarch at their head. Centuries of support for the Immaculate Order has bought the House respect and obedience from all levels of society, even as they dabble in exotic foreign philosophies and aesthetics that border on the heretical, and with the right of first refusal on all imperial construction work their architectural skills are much in demand across the Blessed Isle and beyond.

• Inviolable Piety. The Immaculate Order supports your claim; any action you take that could benefit from an 'Immaculate Support' tag is assumed to have it. Moreover, for every asset you possess with an Immaculate faction tag (or something similar, such as Pious or Monkish Advisor) you gain one wealth per turn.
• Heir Apparent. Your House Matriarch is a political colossus, a superlative administrator and the finest sorcerer the Realm has ever known. Mnemon is a unique character who can be tapped as the primary asset for two actions per turn. Assets tapped for an action led by Mnemon ignore the first level of damage they would suffer that turn, and if she is ever slain this trait is replaced by another shaped by the manner of her passing
• Dragon's Pride. You cannot dissolve your Inheritor faction, and any cooperative actions or alliances made with other Houses fail automatically if they have an Inheritor faction of their own.

Nellens - Dragons of the Blood Resurgent

Named for a mortal politician who died centuries before their House was founded, the scions of House Nellens are derided by their dynastic peers as weak-blooded dilettantes that insult the very idea of what it means to be Dragon-Blooded. They compensate for this social handicap by diversifying their assets and making the best possible use out of every single scion, Exalted or mortal. Nellens alone can challenge Ragara in the mercantile arena, and has learned to be extremely resilient in the face of displeasure from its so-called betters.

• Diverse Portfolio. You begin play with seven characters rather than the standard four, three of which are mortal. Mortal characters lack an aspect tag but cost only five wealth to recruit. Additionally, capital and cultural assets that are not tapped for an action generate one more point of the appropriate resource than normal.
• Most August Conclave. Your factions have ten power to divide between them rather than the standard eight. Additionally, assets you have may bear up to two faction tags each, rather than the usual one.
• Weak Bloodline. Your mortal characters die rather than getting damaged when attacked by enemy assets. Moreover, whenever a tag of 'shunned by high society' would penalise your actions or boost those taken against you, you are assumed to possess it.

Peleps - Water that Wreathes the Crown of Centuries

Daring, romantic and adventurous, the scions of House Peleps often seem to have just stepped out of a theatrical epic. While their heroism and valour is unquestionably larger than life, the psychological toll of the House's relentless perfectionism and internal rivalries is a powerful burden to bear. House Peleps is a naval house, commanding the Imperial Fleets in the name of the Empress and projecting Imperial power all across the threshold… but with the Merchant Fleet and its funds stripped away by imperial edict, they find their military behemoth increasingly difficult to support.

• Scions of Daana'd. You are the Imperial Navy in all but name, and begin play with five Fleets and the legal right to raise more. All oceanic and coastal provinces are treated as allied territory for the purposes of how far you can move per turn. Finally, all characters start with a tag reflecting their naval expertise (such as 'seasoned sailor' or 'bloody-handed raider').
• Twice As Bright. You can choose to 'burn' a character, pushing them to succeed no matter the cost to body or mind. This grants them a re-roll on any action they or their commanded assets take that turn, keeping the highest roll. However, the character is then unable to act next turn, and will be more likely to perish as the result of hostile action..
• Starving Beast. Your immense capabilities are beyond your ability to support. Your military assets have a two-point surcharge on all their upkeep costs, and generate only half the normal amount of wealth when plundering. Until you find some way to compensate for your economic weakness, be it reclaiming the merchant fleet or finding a similar source of income, your Secessionist faction cannot be dissolved.

Ragara - Earth Slaked on the Blood of Dragons

Nominally a family of investment bankers and jade moguls, House Ragara's hunger for wealth and power goes further than sensible observers could possibly imagine. Already the richest of the Great Houses, leveraging debt and investment into a standard of living that would turn a guildsman to stone from envy, Ragara's gaze has turned of late to occult secrets and blasphemous lore. The family vaults groan with profane power, enough to condemn them a hundred times over, and still the family hungers for more. There will never be enough to slake their appetite.

• Imperial Bank. You can offer loans to other players; those who take them generate a capital asset of 'Ragara loans' at a mutually agreed upon value, requiring no investment to create, which generate wealth and can be tapped for actions immediately. A maximum of one loan can be given to any particular player per turn. For every two points in this asset, you gain one point in a covert asset in the same Province/House. Additionally, every point of wealth you give to another player in a turn generates a point of influence for immediate use.
• Dug Too Deep. You cannot dissolve your Occultist faction; so long as it remains at power 3+, any action you take that could benefit from a 'forbidden sorcery' tag is assumed to have it. When you burn a covert asset, you can choose to cover your tracks by inflicting collateral damage on (asset rating) other targets in the same province.
• Reap the Earthquake. You begin play with a floating pool of 'negative' assets, which represent dark rumours, escaped horrors and the accumulated consequences of your own actions. These assets scale in response to your own actions and can take actions to express their displeasure, but can also be attacked like any other. Most begin hidden, but others may become known to other players, who can choose to tap them to take action against you by lambasting your failures in the courts or funding demon-hybrid rebels in your hinterlands.

Sesus - Fire that Makes the Shadows Strong

A legion is the ultimate argument, wealth grants power, but knowledge is the finest weapon, and House Sesus guards its knowledge closely. One of the Realm's three military houses, Sesus makes its mark in the practice of asymmetrical warfare; poison, sabotage and terror tactics are their hallmarks, and the dark reputation and sinister allure of its scions tends to elevate them in the eyes of their peers. Always underestimated by their rivals, House Sesus is perfectly content to let others have the first word, just so long as they get the last.

• Warfare is Deception. You are a military house, and begin with three legions and the legal right to raise more. You may elect to treat your military assets as covert ones for a turn; they generate influence and can be tapped for actions associated with sabotage, dirty fighting and terrorism. Such assets may be leveraged and burned as any other covert asset.
• Parable of the Scorpion. You treat the Realm Divide score as one step more fractured for the purposes of determining what kind of actions your covert and deniable (principally threshold mercenary) assets are able to take, and actions you take do not advance the Realm Divide. Whenever an action you take could benefit from a 'extensive spy network' tag, you are assumed to possess it.
• Once Stung, Twice Shy. Actions you take cannot lower the Realm Divide score, as nobody believes they are genuine. All of your capital assets produce one less wealth than their rating suggests, with the surplus being funnelled into 'off-the-books' investments and black projects you have no knowledge of.

Tepet - Air that Carries the Prayers of Tomorrow

The original Tepet led his legions in an invasion of the Blessed Isle; defeated by the Empress, he asked only clemency for those who followed him. The Empress granted it, and took Tepet as her consort, granting him a Great House mere decades later. Modern Tepets are every bit as honourable, pious and unconventional as their founder, willing to tolerate almost any kind of behaviour from their scions provided they lead their subordinates by peerless example. The winds of fortune have born them ever higher of late, but they might yet fall further than most could dream…

• Winds of Battle. You are a military house, and begin with three legions and the legal right to raise more. Your military assets all gain the 'spiritual allies' tag for free, and all of your characters gain a tag that represents their personal pursuit of excellence (such as 'savant of steel' or 'legendary admiral'.)
• Unbroken Honour. Whenever it would be to your advantage to treat your assets as having the 'loyal' and/or 'incorruptible' tags, you are assumed to have them. Instead of foraging, you can choose to garrison a military asset, allowing them to waive upkeep so long as they remain stationary and defend their hosts from all aggression.
• Gone Native: Many in your House believe that the Realm is unworthy of their excellence, and that the future lies elsewhere. You cannot develop a Supremacist faction, nor dissolve your Separatist faction; attempts to cooperate with Supremacist Houses, or with legitimate imperial bodies, incur an influence surcharge as though the action were restricted. New characters may choose a 'background' trait reflecting their foreign or iconoclast origins.

V'Neef - Wood that Tenders the Garden's Grace

Founded less than fifty years ago, the dynasty's youngest Great House is still laying down roots. V'Neef was planning on another few decades of favouritism and patronage from the Scarlet Empress; in her absence, the young Matriarch will need to exercise every scrap of social skill and treasure every ally to remain standing. Fortunately, V'Neef is well served in this matter, for her House was pulled together from hundreds of different outcastes, houseless legends and ambitious patricians, and has no shortage of talented scions to secure its future with.

• Favourite Daughter. Whenever it would be advantageous for you to have the 'Imperial Favour' or 'Popular support' tags, you are assumed to possess them. Additionally, each of your Characters may choose a single tag representing their personal background, such as 'Saint of Blades' or 'Tomb Raider'; no two characters may have the same tag. Finally, when other Houses wish to take hostile actions against your assets, they treat the Realm Divide score as one level more stable when determining permissible actions.
• The Merchant Fleet. You are legally responsible for ferrying tribute from the satrapies to the Blessed Isle, giving you the legal right to raise fleets. For every five points of tribute paid by a direction each turn, you receive one point of wealth; by default the Throne takes half of this in Tax. As the Realm's control of its outlying territories wanes, so too does your income.
• Shallow Roots. Your scions are loyal to the Empress and her Realm, not to the House or its young Matriarch. You cannot dissolve your Custodian faction, nor can you attempt to damage, destroy or subvert legitimate Imperial organisations or other Great Houses; this restriction is removed if they can be argued to have opened hostilities.

Lesser Houses

While the Great Houses are the public face of the Realm and maintain a death-grip on the dragon's share of its power and wealth, the Empress was always careful to never allow them complete dominion of the Dynasty that served in her name. There are enough cadet branches, patrician families and formally recognised bloodlines in the Realm to fill a library, each lesser in every way than the Ten Houses but still elevated far above the peasantry and their supposed rivals beyond the Dynasty's borders. Some guard their independence jealously, others cultivate patron-client relationships with one or more Great Houses, and all find themselves faced with hard decisions to make in this Time of Tumult. Certainly no Lesser House has the strength, wealth or prestige to make a claim on the Throne directly, but they could most certainly help one of the Great Houses solidify their claim... or, perhaps, work together to achieve greater ends still...

All Lesser Houses follow the same rules, and are open to player-made homebrew. Note that in playing a lesser house you may be asked to give up your faction if a Great House becomes vacant, due to the relative importance of the factions for game balance.

• Lesser Houses begin with one 4-dot character, two 2-dot characters and a 3-dot levy asset. They then gain twelve points of other assets to assign as desired, to a maximum rating of four dots.
  • Any stationary assets must be placed in the same province as their starting levy asset, or at most one directly adjacent.
• Lesser Houses may choose two tags, based on their particular traditions or background. Whenever it would be advantageous for your asset to have one of those tags, you are treated as if you do.
  • One such tag may be traded for another mechanical bonus of similar scope - this must be explicitly approved by the GM in advance.
• Lesser Houses suffer a -1 modifier on all tests made to take hostile action against a Great House asset. They cannot form or maintain an Inheritor faction.

 

[Maugan Ra]

This game is now open for recruitment! There is a discord server that will be linked here once I have finished setting up the necessary roles and channels, but for now, feel free to post claims for various factions. Justifications are not strictly necessary but will help me when deciding who gets what - if you want a Lesser House, pitching their background and traits as advised above would be a good idea.

Don't worry about picking out assets, defining characters or the like just yet, these will be handled after all factions have been assigned.

Finally, if you would like to be a report writer or co-GM for this game, let me know - report writers can still play their own factions, co-GMs cannot.

 

[Crilltic]

1. Mnemon





2. Cathak
3. Peleps

I'll try and write up something more informative after work, but I think you already know why I want to play Mnemon

 

[Wade Garrett]

1. HOUSE CYNIS

2. SPECIAL: The Crimson Regent, Tepet Fokuf

3. A Lesser House considered uncultured bumpkins whose main holding is a Menzoberranzan esque cavern city, their main Assets are the mines, and they have a chip on their shoulder about the "uncultured bumpkins" thing

 

[DeceitfulCake]

Hey, new to the forum (came from the Exalted Discord), but would love to join!

My preferences are:
1. House Ledaal
2. House Tepet
3. House Nellens

Can't write more right now, as gradschool apps are bearing down, but happy to go into more detail on why I am looking at those tomorrow!

EDIT: Also interested in volunteering as a report-writer!

 

[bookwyrm]

1. Sesus- That scene in Chernobyl with the KGB's "circle of accountibility" really struck me, that mindset of trusting absolutely nothing and the bleak cynicism somehow holding together with true believer fanaticism and self-justification.

2. Tepet, the Bull in the North delenda est

3. A definately-not-mafia Patrican family that runs the networks of the dockworker guilds and the youth gangs to get things where the Great Houses need them to go and be "honorable vigilantes" against those heinous immigrant triads. The mob, criminal syndicates where you can buy local and help sponser your favorite sporting teams!

 

[Logos]

I'll admit that I'm not the most familiar with Exalted, but this seems an excellent opportunity to learn. Having done a bit of research, here's what I have for preferences.

Edit 2: Some more details on what I see in House Cynis.
1.

Spoiler: House Cynis

House Cynis holds something of a reputation as The house of debauchery, even among the decadent dynasts of the second age, a reputation which has earned them a fair few friends, but no allies. A precarious situation to be in, when many turn their hands to dominance. Unfortunately for those who would dismiss the house as merely the arch-hedonists of the dragonblooded, it is no accident that the house maintains its monopoly on the hard trade, and that many of the Realm's most sought after drugs first find their way ashore under the auspices of House Cynis.

Behind dense hedges and tangled courtyards, it is said that even those depravities the Realm would find unconscionable or perhaps even treasonous can be indulged in. Cynis does not judge, but they do remember. And secrets, have a power all their own. Power enough to tear the Realm asunder, or to suppress the petty squabbles of the Houses.

Fortunately for all, the Cynis sisters believe in a stable realm.

Spoiler: Internal politics

House Cynis is ruled, albeit loosely, by a triumvirate of sisters - Cynis Wisel, Cynis Belar, and Cynis Falen - who each pull the house in different directions.

Wisel is the most conservative of the sisters, looking more towards the future than the present. When she takes action, it is well considered beforehand and often quite decisive. By the systems of this game, she would be aligned with the Custodians, at least at the start of the game.

Falen, by contrast, is a dreamer, and quite aggressive when she takes the lead even at the cost of considering her actions at length beforehand. She has the best sense for business of the sisters, and thus tends to take the lead in such matters. In game terms, she'd be heading up the Expansionist faction in House Cynis.

Belar, by contrast to the other two, is more introverted even if no less given to excess. Her side of the house however looks less towards mortal pleasures, but instead delves deeply into the mysteries that sorcery can unlock. Here is also where many of the house's spymasters congregate, for Belar is known to keep her finger on all manner of information. In game terms, she'd be starting the game as a member of the Occultist faction.

2.

Spoiler: House Nellens

In an age governed by Gaia's chosen, it would be foolish indeed to overlook the fruit of mortal endeavor, for scarcity breeds creativity. Thin-blooded and working with the mortals of the Realm rather than ruling over them, House Nellens have well-earned the ire of society both for their weakness and the bucking of tradition.

And yet, in weakness there is opportunity that those with strength to spare would not think to grasp. A mortal stands as Regent, all others regarding him as a mere puppet to move as they will. What happens, when a puppet begins to move on its own, pulling free of its strings?

And in the most dire of circumstance... it is said that a mortal who pushes past their limits to accomplish something truly great may call down the Anathema. A calamity, to be sure, but one that might well be directed.

3.

Spoiler: Lesser House

TODO: Write up the concept.

I've got nothing at the moment, but if it gets to this point I think there might be something to be written for a Guild extension with a paper-thin vineer of dragonblood support. Having mortals be actively in-charge and being focused on trade and opening the Realm as a market would make for decent motivations for such a faction.

Alright, perhaps I do have a bit of something. Will probably come back to this to do a proper writeup later.

 

[Lamjam2012]

1. House Ragara - The Shark Tank house of bankers and occultists, House Ragara is certainly one of my favorite houses within the Realm. Their financial tactics - though hated by many - must be admired for their brilliance, and clearly are one of the more powerful allies to have on ones side in a bid for power in the Realm.

2. House Ledaal - The Icy Fang of the Realm, this house's cutthroat devotion to the Realm and to its protection is what drives me to want to play this House. When playing this house, I hope to accrue power to defend the Realm. While others focus on Politicking, the true body of the Realm will be defended by her Icy Fang.

3: House V'neef - the youngest of the houses, V'neef's mercantile fleet marks her as the up and coming house within the Realm. To play V'neef is to play an investment, and it's critical to manage the investment carefully, else V'neef falls to the generational wealth, power and influence built by her peers.

Heyo! I'm Lamjam2012, an Ex3 fan since its release and a super eager applicant. I'm super fascinated by the idea of a game based on empire building and maintenance, resource management, and overall accruing of power and influence. While I feel Exalted is wonderful for its epic moments of personal achievement, I feel the greatest achievement in all of Exalted are the empires that are built from nothing but earth and blood, and the Realm is the prime example of what makes empires so immense and powerful. I hope to be accepted, and to either compete to scheme for the throne, or to defend the Realm's borders and realize ultimate, powerful ambitions!

 

[theajl]

Interested in co-GMing; I have about six years of experience running tabletop and I think closer to five than four now in faction-scale Quests, though none of it on this account. I'm in GMT if that will be an issue?

 

[Shard]

1. House Nellens
2. House Ragara
3. A lesser house, which will probably be somewhat similar to the above. I'm thinking a house who are based in the Luo-Han plains, maybe Turu or Aru-Thistle. Known for their general isolationism from the other houses and their scholarly (read: Occultist) pursuits.

I don't know much about Exalted, but it has always seemed interesting.

 

[Lucienz]

1. House Peleps
-An extremely interesting situation to be in. I actually tend to focus on economics when playing these types of games and there's an interesting balance at play here for House Peleps given that they purposely had the the Merchant Fleet removed from them by the Scarlet Empress in order to attempt to balance them out. As a result, they've lost their greatest source of income and a Peleps player will need to find an alternative source of income without taking any reckless or stupid actions that would cause other Great Houses to build a navy of their own or march on their homebase (since they lack land troops) once the Realm starts falling apart. I find this darkly humorous since the experience of their naval officers is one of their only strengths and thus if they choose not to use it they're likely going to eventually collapse in on itself. They need a source of income or a Satrap but have to do it in a way that doesn't step on anyone's toes.

2. House V'neef
-House Peleps...except better in every way. Their sole drawback is that they are locked into the Custodian faction but given that they control the Merchant Fleet that's not exactly a "drawback" since they have the strongest incentive to keep the realm together (unlike every other House like House Ledaal which would actively have to sacrifice its interests in certain circumstances to protect the Realm). If I were a Dragonblood from House V'neef I would laugh hysterically and gut my idiot matriarch if she tried to explain to me that supporting any faction besides the Custodian faction and thus allowing other Great Houses to potentially not send their wealth back to the Blessed Isle was the best strategy. It isn't even barred from raising military ships as a naval House so it can even start messing with House Peleps from Turn 1 while the realm is still stable or just laugh hysterically and start exerting control over the waters of the Blessed Isles. The only difficulty from this House comes from keeping the Realm together which as noted before is something anyone with a brain would do anyway. Not as interesting to me as House Peleps but I can see having to hold together a Custodian coalition and backing a strong Inheritor House as having it's own appeal.

3. Lesser House
-A military House with strong interests in Greyfalls that makes a lot of money by shipping off Dynasts who fail to Exalt to Greyfalls where they can live like kings as opposed to be unexalted embarrassments they would be in the Blessed Isles. Will likely be extremely terrified when House Tepet loses against the Bull or if they manage some miracle will use the new peace to begin considering its options.

 

[HalfTangible]

Well.

A grand strategy nation game set within Creation?

Color me interested enough to loan you my first child. to register to a brand new forum

1. House Tepet - The legions of Tepet, even before joining the Realm, once commanded the respect of the Empress herself. But the Battle of Futile Blood ruined everything for the House. If it can be turned around, who could stand against them? (love me some AU, love me the Roseblack, and if Tepet still loses, I get to play a military underdog~)
2. House V'Neef - WFHW and the HOTS manuscript both paint V'Neef as simultaneously the favorite of the Empress and the absolute underdog in this war. V'Neef has been thrown into the deep end, but can she learn to swim? (underdog? or perhaps more accurately, sidegrade? yes please~)
3. House Cynis - The quickest way to a dragon's loyalty is through parties, pleasurable company, and drugs. Who could resist? (... I like throwing the wrench of love and affection into political situations, sue me)

(I am more than willing to play a lesser house, I just put in my 3 GH picks because you said you wanted to fill those up first)

 

[dash931]

My claims, as discussed:
1. Cathak
2. Tepet
3. V'Neef

 

[Etranger]

1. House Ragara - Knowledge is power and time is money; with enough knowledge and enough money, I am INVINCIBLE, IMMORTAL, UNSTOPPABLE.

2. House Sesus - Fighting fair is for idiots.

3. House Nellens - So what if breeding is objectively equivalent to personal power? I have ambition.

Also, I've been playing Exalted since 1E and have a truly ridiculous amount of lore buried somewhere in my head, if that matters.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

1. House V'Neef

-V'Neef is a house that would certainly have liked to play the long game. As it is the House's relative youth prevents it from leveraging its assets and standing on its own like the older Houses can. Having to either keep things stable or make uncomfortable alliances with larger powers or most probably thread the needle and try to do both is the name of the game.

2. House Ragara

-A financial titan marked by its unorthodox bargains House Ragara just wants to reap and grow and views the coming conflict as a time of harvest. The main problem House Ragara faces is keeping the wars to come profitable for themselves and expensive for their enemies. In a time where both other Houses and more anathema than ever pose threats to profits, Ragara looks towards occult assets or other such grand gestures for answers to its problems.

3. Lesser House
- Relatively less wealthy and not overly respected (by Dragonblooded standards) household noted for its scholars, occultists and architects with moderate connections to the Heptagram and to a lesser extent the Thousand Scales. This House would be cautious of rocking the boat due to its shallow resources but if (or let's be hones once) the Realm starts to become unstable or a suitable prise is dangled this House will act greedily and even completely recklessly so it doesn't get left behind.

 

[TenfoldShields]

1. Ragara



With a generous side helping of the Black Monday Murders

Spoiler: As Such

There is no 2.

 

[Weygand]

1. A lesser house with deep connections to merchant organisations, leveraging its clout to work their way up the thoroughly greased pole of a power vacuum and reach yet greater heights of larceny. Regarded by most as upstarts if not outright intruders, they are an omen of a worrying move from vizier to nobility - the dragonblood runs thin, indeed. Their primary asset is a series of wise investments in and around Corin's mining companies.

2. House Ragara - By far the most interesting to me of the primary roster, if my above appetite for rampant speculation didn't already tip you off.

there is no three.

 

[samdamandias]

1 House V'neef
-Three words: Dragon Mariner Attitude
Less snarkily, V'neef has to find a way to turn their social and financial capital into political and military capital without rocking the boat, threading the needle between making sure that the Realm doesn't fall apart while at the same time making sure that they aren't holding the short end of the stick.

2 House Ledaal
Because there are very few problems that cannot be solved with MAGMA KRAKEN judicious application of sorcery by a creative and motivated person.

3 House Nellens
Flexibility and breadth over depth means that Nellens would play primarily reactive, trying to solidify control where other houses are weaker instead of trying to weaken those other houses directly.


I would also be open to playing a minor house