- Location
- Somewhere in the area
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
I don't know if higher or lower is worse.
I'm a High Fantasy Tax Collector, So What? A CKII Tax Collector Quest
- Thread starter hYGP
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
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- Tags
- death ck2 quest all proceeds go to real spiders are we revolutionaries or reactionaries today criminal justice discussion makes the gm fuzzy don't count your boats before they sail granary management if i lose my meows get me likes to replace them justice spider knock knock it's the finance ministry meows for discussion while supplies last taxation taxes this is not an empire quest
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Thanks for the rolls, but just to make my life easier what with tracking shit down we're taking silentorphan's 38.
- Location
- USA
Honestly, I don't think we should even be in a position to catch diseases since there's no real vector for transmission
Alas, I fear this may be a spiritual ailment. Fetch the priest!
Or, you know, It might fall unto the topical tropical dystopic entropic topic? Never underestimate fungal determination!
Or, you know, It might fall unto the topical tropical dystopic entropic topic? Never underestimate fungal determination!
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
...Potential worst case scenario for spiritual disease rolls.
We summon the Spirit of Oskaria, who swoops down and possesses Ophelia... then starts sneezing and coughing!
"Sorry... I've got a bad case of Sejm."
We summon the Spirit of Oskaria, who swoops down and possesses Ophelia... then starts sneezing and coughing!
"Sorry... I've got a bad case of Sejm."
I would make some caution on considering that. Because hYGP's usual mode of being ambiguous and sparse in describing characters is a road that goes both ways. Kerrie and Tekla, after all, didn't have their race pinned down before the start of the current case.
It's probably a mix of the latter two possibility. If Tara is supposed to be the Dragon Daughte- Actually:
It definitely is a power limiter of a sort. It is as much an armour as it is a shackle. The interesting thing here is that the armour 'locking up' is coincided with Emir drawing his sword. Which well, gives the impression that he's controlling her armour's function in some ways.
Sends some mixed signals with the adoption, that does. And to be fair, the whole coalition leader scene was basically very shounen in its trappings. If they weren't absurdly powerful, they wouldn't be there.
Okay, if we infer that he is the one who killed Tara's father. We also can probably (almost fully) infer that no one save for... maybe the other Pillars from knowing the big secret of Tara being the Dragon Daughter. So now here she is being adopted by him, there remains one question. The simple why. It seems interesting to figure out, at the least.
Especially considering that this is all is inexplicably weird. Or rather, has details that is- frankly- extraneous to a simple tax-spider troubleshooter. After all, the first crit we got netted us a manual to a continent-conquering Gundam. The supposed Spirit of Oskaria pointed us to the key to pilot of them. And then there's the whole high fantasy shounen angle. Something else aside from the Partition, I think, is about to happen.
Also I reread the interludes and uh:
Kerrie can apparently read minds or sense thoughts as a satyr, which as a race seems to be exceptionally hunted beyond the protection Oskaria has for inhuman folks.
It's also entirely possible she just cares about what other people think too much, or has some reason or another to care.
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I didn't get that impression at all from that. I figured it was just that she has to pay attention to those around her due to being a persecuted minority and actively hunted if found out.
- Location
- his hidden lair
So, do we have to worry about accidentally kicking off a spiritual arms race once nations realize they can create powerful spirits fiercely dedicated to their nation's interests with enough years of veneration?
It just seems to me like the precedent the Spirit of Oskaria sets is really dangerous. Either in the sense of powerful spirits to rally local spirits against the overarching consensus of the Compact and creating greater spiritual factionalism, or in the sense would be conquerors are going to want a spirit of nationalism dead ASAP rather than let its reveal create a feedback loop where the national mythos that made it becomes self-validating.
I'm not even sure it was a bad call to reveal it- it'll get out eventually and at least we can somewhat control the narrative right? But as someone new to the quest it seems like we let a massive genie out of the bottle and have no idea the full consequence. For instance, Oskaria is implicitly betraying the Compact by helping us piece together the means of operating a Calamity Frame. What happens in a hundred years when there are several Nation Spirits conspiring to give their chosen to keys to Armageddon to use them against their foe? We're introducing the concept of nation states and nationalism with divine providence added in. That changes everything.
It just seems to me like the precedent the Spirit of Oskaria sets is really dangerous. Either in the sense of powerful spirits to rally local spirits against the overarching consensus of the Compact and creating greater spiritual factionalism, or in the sense would be conquerors are going to want a spirit of nationalism dead ASAP rather than let its reveal create a feedback loop where the national mythos that made it becomes self-validating.
I'm not even sure it was a bad call to reveal it- it'll get out eventually and at least we can somewhat control the narrative right? But as someone new to the quest it seems like we let a massive genie out of the bottle and have no idea the full consequence. For instance, Oskaria is implicitly betraying the Compact by helping us piece together the means of operating a Calamity Frame. What happens in a hundred years when there are several Nation Spirits conspiring to give their chosen to keys to Armageddon to use them against their foe? We're introducing the concept of nation states and nationalism with divine providence added in. That changes everything.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Even if they want to do this, I doubt they will be able to thanks to the ongoing crusade. Note how the partitioning of Oskaria is meant to take place once the crusade is over. Now they could try to deal with Oskaria and the Spirit of Oskaria before the crusade is over, but think about what that would entail. It would mean not only abandoning the crusades, but also backstabbing an ally who is still crusading. Not only would that incite backlash from their more spiritual elements or opportunists from the rivals of those responsible for the backstabbing, but it would almost certainly piss off the Divine Compact big time and antagonise other countries who are involved with the crusade.
Therefore, while it is viable to invade Oskaria once the crusade is over, we get some breathing room to prepare while the crusade is ongoing as it isn't infeasible for the partitioning to take place.
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- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
To further this idea, I would like to point out that King Julius was praying to the Spirit of Oskaria before we had any involvement with it.
We didn't create any national spirit and I think this isn't a matter of creating them, but a matter of empowering and strengthening them.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
I think... spirits are basically ideas and ideals here, given identity and form. Justice as a spirit is stronger because people care about Justice as an ideal, and support it. Basically, what the King is doing here is trying to make Nationalism/Patriotism a Thing for Oskaria.
If that is the case, there is likely other national spirits, it is just unlikely any are getting the endorsement and cultivation that Oskaria has, leaving them very minor...
Sirrocco
Pedantic
I think there's basically minor spirits of almost everything floating around out there. It just that for the most part they don't matter. In this sort of a pantheistic environment, the distinction between "empower previously existing spirit" and "bring new spirit into being, then empower it" can get both fuzzy and, in some ways, unimportant.
- Location
- New York
In the real life Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the PLC was "a nation of nobles." Only the "szlachta" or the Polish nobility were considered Poles and all szlachta members, irrespective of their cultural/ethnic background, were regarded as belonging to a single "political nation" within the Commonwealth united by their power over the monarchy. The serfs were not considered lower class Poles, they weren't considered Polish at all! Modern Polish nationalism did not develop until after the Partitions.
If Oskaria is like that, a spirit of Oskaria might not be as powerful as the King might think if it is only powered by the nobility. But we have been trying to shape the spirit of Oskaria into the mass French Revolution type nationalism we are more familiar with. We drew the Spirit of Oskaria's attention to our attempts to prop up the worker cooperatives, the Spirit of Oskaria empowered the commoner militia in the standoff with the usurper nobles, and we are trying to encourage the living avatar of the nation into developing a disdain for the often corrupt and foolish nobility. That type of nationalism can be quite dangerous to the current system in Oskaria and the King might find out that he should have been more careful in what he wished for.
If Oskaria is like that, a spirit of Oskaria might not be as powerful as the King might think if it is only powered by the nobility. But we have been trying to shape the spirit of Oskaria into the mass French Revolution type nationalism we are more familiar with. We drew the Spirit of Oskaria's attention to our attempts to prop up the worker cooperatives, the Spirit of Oskaria empowered the commoner militia in the standoff with the usurper nobles, and we are trying to encourage the living avatar of the nation into developing a disdain for the often corrupt and foolish nobility. That type of nationalism can be quite dangerous to the current system in Oskaria and the King might find out that he should have been more careful in what he wished for.
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
We've got a lot of pins to stick in a bunch of ideas here, so remembering page 84 is probably going to be a good idea. In general though, I want to pin a couple of posts, because we're really going to come back to those.
whistling
Oh dear, we introduced modern nationalism in a world where ideas have power.....
We may have set the stage for global upheaval......
- Location
- his hidden lair
I mean absence of evidence is hardly evidence of absence but a few things. None of our neighbors have demonstrated the capacity and we're pretty well hooked into the Compact to look for rumors of a nation spirit. Second our national founding mythos actually seems really strong in all actuality for all we're horribly miss governed with presumably large minorities that buy into the state heavily for protection like the Colonists. Thirdly, the magical strongman who ruled one nation was mentor to the one who seized power in another nation. That can absolutely happen in nation states but those sort of personal relationships defining state policy and even who rules is a strong hallmark of a more feudal government. We saw when Agueda argues with his fellow learned men that there's actually a pretty strong humanism philosophical trend with an emphasis on state citizenship, and I'm not sure how much of that bent is a specific result of Oskaria's extensive (and failed) attempts at political reform and that social class paying more attention to the Second Wyvern War.
If you're seeing evidence the other nations have been also developing nation state spirits I'm curious to have it explained for me.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Have we asked? Has it come up?
I mean shit, something like 12-18 months of in-game time passed before the quest figured out that the protagonist was a giant spider. We shouldn't assume we know everything that's going on.
What I'm saying is, there is no obvious reason other nations shouldn't have national spirits. Localities have spirits- cities and rivers and forests and whatnot have them. Abstract concepts like Order and Justice have spirits. There is nothing so mystically unique about Oskaria that only Oskaria should have a national spirit. Other nations have their own founding myths and heroes. Other nations have their own governments and traditions.
There is no readily apparent reason why Oskaria should be unique in this respect. Oskaria's spirit may be doing something other national spirits don't do, or not doing something other national spirits would do, but it would be reckless for us to make plans based on the assumption that other nations don't have spirits like Oskaria's. Especially since it looks as if in this setting you can basically create a spirit out of the ether by directing prayer at it, given that this is how Oskaria's spirit was created in the first place.
- Location
- his hidden lair
I mean, I can't imagine a Nationalism Spirit not looking to see if there are other Nationalism Spirits it has to roll up it's sleeves and get ready to throw down against. I'm explicitly assuming we don't know everything that's going on, but I'm also acknowledging we're indirectly working with a spirit who would be keenly paying attention to that development.
Maybe Oskaria wants the Calamity Frame in our hands for this exact reason, but Ophelia Oskaria isn't sublte, so I'm not going to assume the Spirit in the vein of the July Days is all that subtle either- not with an agent it's willing to hand the keys to a literally world ending WMD to.
I mean- that's the thing- nation states are a pretty distinct historical development. The idea of a unified and nation state of Germany for instance is a historically recent development compared to locals identifying with their village, towns, Free Cities and what have you. Several parts of France were notoriously independent- Normandy being a part of England's demesne, the wars over Gascony and Aquitaine in which the King of England was indirectly the King of France's most powerful vassal. The Duchy of Burgundy being a rebellious vassal of France along with parts of it being nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire.
One should never assume a setting that's playing feudalism straight can assume nationalism as a given.
As for why Oskaria developed it sooner? It's mythos is founded in mass warfare and depopulation, major die offs and massive militarization and centralization. Considering the historical account for Oskaria during the Wyvern Wars didn't seem like it was written by Oskarians, it seems that the other neighboring nations weren't hit as hard by it. Moreover Oskaria is implicitly the only local nation with minorities that so thoroughly depend on the state itself for protection. This is in addition to the fact Oskaria was paving the way through government centralization and political theory before the Sejm wrestled power away from Julius. I'd be surprised if the two neighboring leaders didn't have substantially more centralized and powerful governments, but I'd be surprised if they had existed as such for particularly long- simply because they don't seem to have endured disasters that so thoroughly scarred the people that a strong unitary state with a professional military was the only reasonable response. Military necessity tends to be a major impetus for increasing the power of the state and we just have no clue if the other nation's had such an impetus for Oskaria demonstrated the power of a more modern nation and military during the relatively recent Third Wyvern War. Considering the Wyvern Wars were a big enough deal to long be alluded to, and that the participants in it became Oskaria- I don't think it hit the other local nations nearly as hard.
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
By the way @huhYeahGoodPoint, I really would know some info on Oskaria's neighbours and the major powers of the world. We only got some names of the former plus that the dragon steppes exist and nothing on the latter, Without any non-Oskarian info, it is nearly impossible to figure out the overall political picture and what might be going on because we have effectively zero information on anything outside of Oskaria.