The entire Regent Fokuf thing is just another example of the bad writing involving the Realm and how it's portrayed as a Baen villain, as @MJ12 Commando has gone into some detail beforehand.

Having him be a mortal is incredibly dumb for many reasons. One example is that goes against the Immaculate faith and that is one of the major unifying blocks of the Realm. Literally, if the person giving the orders in the Realm is not a Dragonblood, it means that the mortals who follow them risk getting worse reincarnations if they do bad things following them, because one of the tenets of the faith is that orders from a Dragonblood don't give a mortal bad karma for following them. The Realm is filled with legitimate believers in the Immaculate faith - and that includes freakin' Mnemon. Who genuinely believes in it.

There are plenty of other reasons, too, but a lot of the Realm is written in the Baen villain model and thus is pretty poorly written from a "this is an actual working society built by people who act like people rather than a strawman for Solar players to kick over" viewpoint.
 
Did you know that doubling down on the bad writing does not, in fact, make your writing good?

I mean if you want the Realm to effectively be decapitated it shouldn't have a Regent. It should have been impossible to find abyone tolerable enough to everyone to fill those shoes.
Isn't the point of the regent to be entirely ineffective and do basically nothing of note at all?
 
Isn't the point of the regent to be entirely ineffective and do basically nothing of note at all?

If his point is to do nothing and his ability to do nothing is important, he shouldn't exist because he's a waste of wordcount. "They're totally divided to the point where there are no milquetoast compromise nominees" gets the point out more effectively and with fewer words.

If Regent Fokuf exists he should be an actual player because it means you can't as easily set up an adventure in the form of "your PC party as newbie babby Exalts representative of every house are the compromise candidates to take the reigns of leadership. FYI: everyone is planning on you failing so they can replace you with their own handpicked toadies." Or something similar.
 
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…huh. We've finally found something in 3e that ES is arguing for.

Good thing I agree with him on all counts. Although he could be an Outcaste.
 
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If his point is to do nothing and his ability to do nothing is important, he shouldn't exist because he's a waste of wordcount. "They're totally divided to the point where there are no milquetoast compromise nominees" gets the point out more effectively and with fewer words.
It would be somewhat less believable for such a state of affairs to have existed for so long, though. Regent Fokuf, I think, serves the purpose of giving the Realm an illusion of stability.
 
If Regent Fokuf exists he should be an actual player because it means you can't as easily set up an adventure in the form of "your PC party as newbie babby Exalts representative of every house are the compromise candidates to take the reigns of leadership. FYI: everyone is planning on you failing so they can replace you with their own handpicked toadies." Or something similar.
I like this idea. But then, I always liked exalted best when it was doing politics. Hmn, has anyone tried running this sort of game?
 
If his point is to do nothing and his ability to do nothing is important, he shouldn't exist because he's a waste of wordcount. "They're totally divided to the point where there are no milquetoast compromise nominees" gets the point out more effectively and with fewer words.

His point is not to do nothing.

His point is to rubberstamp everything they put in front of him.


You think 'regent, therefore he must have some degree of power.' The Dynasts are thinking 'regent, therefore he's a puppet we can use to keep the Realm running along with everyone else off the throne while we quietly gather our forces to make our bid.'

Fokuf keeps the seat warm and ensures that the Imperial bureaucracy doesn't implode while the Houses are not yet ready to press the issue.

If Regent Fokuf exists he should be an actual player because it means you can't as easily set up an adventure in the form of "your PC party as newbie babby Exalts representative of every house are the compromise candidates to take the reigns of leadership. FYI: everyone is planning on you failing so they can replace you with their own handpicked toadies." Or something similar.

Oh, certainly, that's a possible result. 'Fokuf has been consolidating his position and is now making his own bid on the Throne and screw the Houses' is a valid interpretation of the situation, with him merely buying time by being such a spineless, worthless waste of space.

Otherwise, you can go with 'Fokuf had a heart attack, we don't know why (cough, Wood Aspect poison, cough). Rather than having to look for another worthless, spineless, easily manipulated, dedicated servant of Her Imperial Majesty, it took far too long the first time, we installed you lot as the commission handling the Scarlet Empress' duties while she is absent. (Also, do what I tell you to do, or else (this is of course said by every 'advisor,' seperately. Good luck handling all those conflicting interests!))
 
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If he had no spine or spirit, how'd he Exalt?

Do we really want wimpy Dragon-Blooded to be a thing?
You mean they aren't already? DB;s exalt because of their blood purity, not any merit, IIRC. I specifically recall "total asshole exalts as DB, bullies others even harder" as being specifically a thing. So why not "total wuss"
 
Do we really want wimpy Dragon-Blooded to be a thing?
... Yes? It's kind of an important part of the Dragonblooded narrative, that they've slowly become decadent, venal and prone to weakness as the millennia have thinned their blood, until they are but a pale shadow of what they once were.
You mean they aren't already? DB;s exalt because of their blood purity, not any merit, IIRC. I specifically recall "total asshole exalts as DB, bullies others even harder" as being specifically a thing. So why not "total wuss"
Merit still plays a part (although morality never really did; a 'total asshole' can exalt as any splat, and this is something of an important statement about the nature of Exaltation), but it's not as large a factor for Dragonblooded as it is for others.
 
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…huh. We've finally found something in 3e that ES is arguing for.

Good thing I agree with him on all counts. Although he could be an Outcaste.

No. Because in the Creation I use for Kerisgame, the disappearance of the Fourth Scarlet (after the death of the Empress-in-Waiting and the Dowager Emperor against the Bull of the North, ruining the intended 3-user protocols which have held sway since the First Scarlet instituted them) has not caused everything to fall apart, because 700 year old polities do in fact have lines of succession and the ruler cannot in fact set things up so everything depends on them because they are not a Solar and thus do not get "fuck you I'm the lynchpin of everything" effects.

Regent Fokuf does not exist in my Creation, because the Realm is being run by the Imperial Ministers while Princess Nemone tries to leverage her status as a half-trained replacement Empress-in-Waiting who hasn't successfully activated the Realm Defence Grid yet into full status. And that means the Realm is not being ruled by a weak ineffectual figurehead, but by a group of strong, competent, ambitious and acceptably corrupt ministers - and if the High Lord of the Imperial Treasury might be sending assassins to weaken Princess Vanefa's hold on the Realm Merchant Fleet while the Minister of Agriculture making a play on behalf of House Cathak while other ministers are trying to indict him... well, that's just making political things for Dynastic PCs to do and other PCs to interfere with.

But that's linked to things like how me and @Aleph and @Jon Chung have quite a strong dislike for the way the Empress... basically ignores a lot of the constraints and nature of the Dragonblooded and has to be given things like a Super Special Long Lifespan and the like. So the First Scarlet died around 200 years after the Contagion, having trained up a successor using Shady And Questionable Means [1] to add them to the emergency users list of the RDG and spending her last few years in retirement. And she died a glorious national hero and the mourning even reached areas which hated the Realm and her tomb was wonderful and lavish and is totally not an intended location for PCs to raid to desecrate the tomb of one of the greatest heroes of Creation who have some plan for her hungry ghost to try to use it to activate the RDG, oh no, not one bit.

[1] Quite a few candidates exploded. Or melted. Or were absorbed by the machinery. The Defence Grid is... exacting in who it'll accept as an emergency user. And none of them are quite the same again.
 
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Am I the only one who actually likes the canon depiction of the Scarlet Empress, occasional dumb post-Crusagion feats ascribed to her notwithstanding?
 
and her tomb was wonderful and lavish and is totally not an intended location for PCs to raid to desecrate the tomb of one of the greatest heroes of Creation who have some plan for her hungry ghost to try to use it to activate the RDG, oh no, not one bit.
*perks up with interest*

... wait. Hmm. On the one hand, shinies. On the other, another fucking Exalted hungry ghost. The last one of those I encountered was... not fun.

Hmm. I'll have to think about this.
 
Am I the only one who actually likes the canon depiction of the Scarlet Empress, occasional dumb post-Crusagion feats ascribed to her notwithstanding?
No, but some people have higher SOD thresholds for things like social sciences realism than others. I don't really care so much with exalted, since they have such a different reference pool and all this magic BS HAX, but I can get really shirty about EP's failings in that regard.
 
To be blunt, I value the Realm more than I do the Empress. The Empress as portrayed does not work with the social structure of the Realm and forces shitty sociology on it to make her special. Therefore I will excise her and replace her with a proper Dragonblooded Empress in a Dragonblooded structure which plays to their themes and nature better, rather than a wannabe-Solar absolute ruler.

And I think the great hero of Creation who died as an old lady in her sleep and passed to Lethe at a good age for a Dragonblood - and then the world moved on as all things must - is much more fitting for the Exalted I want than the super-special saviour who got to break Dragonblooded age limits and built a Baen villain power set up and warped the setting around her and got everything handed in her lap, etc etc.

(That's why even in Exalted games where I don't use the more overhauled history, the Empress 'vanished' because she died in her sleep in the Imperial manse and should someone break in, they'll find her decayed and partially mummified corpse in one of the bedrooms.)

(The Ebon Dragon is making things look like he's kidnapped her and is going to marry her because... he's the Ebon Dragon. And seriously, who the fuck is stupid enough to believe him when he makes veiled references to his 'Scarlet Bride' and builds an entire replica of the Imperial Palace out of black stone? He trollin')
 
The key element to the narrative is that some event has to have occurred which forces the Realm to turn its attention inward and withdraw troops from the Threshold. Because that's what needs to happen for your Solar PCs not to be roflstomped by three legions the moment they start making enough noise.

Granted "300 Solaroids have started 500 rebellions in 200 locations across the Threshold" might also work as an excuse why your particular PCs can feel free to take over The Lap or Whitewall. But that's very messy.

So any solution to the Empress Problem should still involve the Legions and Immaculate Wyld Hunt suddenly finding their budgets for foreign adventurism cut severely. At least until your story needs them to have overcome their internal squabbles.
 
Granted "300 Solaroids have started 500 rebellions in 200 locations across the Threshold" might also work as an excuse why your particular PCs can feel free to take over The Lap or Whitewall.

If you're taking over the Lap, you're getting the Realm hitting you like a jade grand goremaul. No two ways about it. It's a major satrapy, a large income source (described as the most valuable satrapy) and a breadbasket that feeds itself, other satrapies and exports grain back to the Realm. If the Realm is so self-absorbed that it ignores you taking over a location of national strategic significance, you're playing on Easy Mode against a paper tiger and thus your accomplishments don't really mean much.
 
This is a flagrant mischaracterization of my position.
Is it? It's a bit hyperbolic, and is of course worded to make you look silly, but when you get right down to it it's not all that different from the position you take further down in this very same post.

What. No, seriously. This is the kind of effort that allows mortal sorcerers to accomplish Solar CIrcle workings. Not ex-mortal sorcerers, genuine mortal sorcerers who for some strange reason still have unboosted mortal dice pools.
Not... really? I was talking specifically about Ambition 3 Solar Circle workings, but even dropping down to Ambition 1 (thereby cutting the required successes almost in half) leaves things marginally practical at best. Let's run some numbers.

Bob the mortal sorcerer has Int 5 Occult 5, a relevant specialty, and, to be generous, we'll say that he's got another die from "superior sorcerous working tools" that are somehow applicable. Two more from the stunt, and that's 14 dice. Not too shabby. Add a success from spending willpower; that's 8 successes per roll.

And then the Means. He has the assistance of a large group of fellow Terrestrial Circle Sorcerers and several relevant divinities (+1, since they don't stack), and some incredibly rare and potent exotic components that mortals have no business getting their hands on (+2). 8 rolls at difficulty 5 (Finesse 1 + 4 from working above his level), 4 threshold successes per roll, puts him at 32 successes total. Not going to cut it. He's got a chance to squeak it in if he (somehow) manages a rank 2 stunt on every roll, or if he snags two more Means from a complementary ability and spell, but if he doesn't want a worryingly high risk of wasting a decade of everyone's all-too-short mortal lives, he should really have both. Better than I thought it would be, but still on the impractical side.

If you want to to have good chance of safely completing the most powerful feats of sorcery, you should have at least two of the following:
  • A basic laboratory with an enslaved demon, combined with some mundane experience in the subject matter and a relevant spell to build off of.
  • Substantially more extensive preparations, including more comprehensive equipment and supplies, exalted skill in the relevant subject, exotic reagents or extra time.
  • Be an unsurpassed mathematical savant, capable of freely leveraging numerical calculations across a wide variety of fields to consistently exceed the limits of solar excellence. (5 Lore charms).
  • The assistance of a supernally inspiring Solar ally, who empowers those around him to act beyond their abilities with his presence. (3 and/or 5 Presence charms)
  • Be a talented generalist and skilled improviser, capable of using superhuman dexterity, speed, and clever preparation to turn events in your favor. (6 Larceny charms)
  • Consistent achievement of 3-point stunts on each interval of the working.
Okay, so five of these are perfectly reasonable, but there are threeproblems with the FSSA entry.

First, "skilled improvisation, dexterity, and speed" have no business being relevant. Preparation does, sort of, but preparation is kind of assumed when you're spending weeks (minimum) on the project.

Second, that's not really what that branch of the Larceny tree seems to represent. The prerequisites are "Prepare for one big larcenous act", "Excellency, but spending future initiative instead of motes", "I know when you're bluffing", and "I cheat at cards so well it's like magic". Then you hit FSSA, which is something like "I can count on getting spectacularly lucky once in a while".

Last, and by far most importantly, it's far and away the strongest option here. It takes a basic excellency from 11.5 successes to 20.7. That's enough to get you to Ambition 3 Solar Workings all by itself - 16.7 net successes is more than enough to get 75 successes in 5 rolls. Mind you, that's with no Means at all, Difficulty 5 (so either Finesse 3 + Celestial Circle Sorcery or Ambition 5 + Solar), no spending Willpower for an extra success, and no stunting. It's easily stronger than any two other options on the list put together, and probably stronger than any three.
 
The key element to the narrative is that some event has to have occurred which forces the Realm to turn its attention inward and withdraw troops from the Threshold. Because that's what needs to happen for your Solar PCs not to be roflstomped by three legions the moment they start making enough noise.
Well, the one person who can access the Realm's WMDs is gone.

Maybe she doesn't have any successors, she was about to announce who was going to be taught the secret of the Sword of Creation before she vanished. No-one's sure where she's gone - is she gone for good? Was she assassinated by someone selfish enough to risk the Empire's nukes for a power-play? Is this a test? A religious event? Has she gone on a secret pilgrimage? Is she being tortured by those filthy Lookshy traitors for the secret of the Defense Grid even as we speak?

So the machinery to replace her starts grinding away, but it's slowed, confused, and still reeling from the defeat in the North, where a whole Solar Circle showed up when they were expecting, at most, just the one Anathema. And now it turns out that wasn't an isolated incident, and the longer they take, the more Solars show up, the more unruly the Threshold becomes, the more authority is claimed by local satraps - as emergency measures to combat these threats to the Realm, of course (and hey, maybe they even believe that).

Toss in other dominoes to speed the process of collapse to taste.

All that really matters is that no-one in the Realm can decide who's next to sit on the Scarlet Throne, and that they do need someone on there. You can do that without making this the first succession ever, if you want to - and you can do it without introducing such a degree of centralization that removing one woman causes the entire system to break down. Perfectly normal corruption, self-interest and factionalism with a hefty dose of interesting times can take care of that, to my mind.

Especially if we ascribe a fair amount of the Scarlet Throne's internal power to the authority over largely unregulated forces like the Immaculate Order or All-Seeing Eye, who are now pursuing their own agendas backed by "what the Throne would want us to do".

If we're to reach for the obvious pop culture example, Game of Thrones kicked off a full civil war just fine without Robert needing to be the secret linchpin of the Seven Kingdoms.
 
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Did you know that doubling down on the bad writing does not, in fact, make your writing good?

I mean if you want the Realm to effectively be decapitated it shouldn't have a Regent. It should have been impossible to find abyone tolerable enough to everyone to fill those shoes.
The point of Regent Fokuf is to demonstrate how thoroughly the Great Houses are gutting the Realm. He is an example of the problems plaguing the Realm.

If we're to reach for the obvious pop culture example, Game of Thrones kicked off a full civil war just fine without Robert needing to be the secret linchpin of the Seven Kingdoms.
Well, sure. He was also king for, what, 15 years? After seizing power in a civil war, no less. It would be shocking if his death - which was an assassination by someone plotting for their house to seize power, mind you - didn't cause a civil war. He didn't have a stable hold on his kingdom, and everyone in a position of power remembered him seizing the throne.

How many people in the Realm remember the Scarlet Empress declaring herself ruler of the world? How many of those people aren't Celestial Exalts that can't admit to living that long?
 
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