In the Wake of Monsters - an Advisor's Quest

[Exmorri]

(Credit to @BoneyM for the inspiration. Be the change you want to see in the world, they said, and I wanted more like that. Further quest information in next post.)

Has it only been a year? Less, even, since the Abominations came? Rains of fire and poison over the city, behemoths on land and sea, alleys painted in madness-inducing glyphs of blood, insect-men and land-krakens. The calendar says they arrived to wreak havoc less than nine months ago. Your mind insists it was years the city of Silverport suffered. Surely so many atrocities could not be contained in so short a time? The Guardian Clan, butchered by the Queen when they rejected her. The Dragon Clan, decimated by the Shadow for who knows what. The men and women turned to stone in an instant, not even out of hostility, but merely because they stood in the wrong street when the Abominations fought. The screaming pillar of fire, its words seared into your mind. The waking nightmares. The spiders. You shudder to think of it.

Suddenly, they were gone. The bells rang in the last night of the new year, and in the morning, the Abominations had vanished.

For a while there was fear that they might return. But a week passed peacefully, and a month held no horrors, and it became clear that Silverport, City of Cities, had weathered the storm. Now it is time to rebuild and shape the future. The new Portlord and the old Clan Heads will shape it the most, of course. But in your new position on the Privy Council, as personal advisor to the Portlord, you are firmly in the second rank of influencers...

What position have you been appointed to?

[ ] Diplomacy: The Chancellor is responsible for handling relations with powers foreign and domestic, with people and with gods. You speak with the voice of the Portlord, and will be responsible for maintaining connections and soothing tempers.

[ ] Martial: The Marshal is in charge of military matters, strong right hand to the Portlord. It is a position of great power, but also one of danger and responsibility - though it can be led just as well from the back as from the front. And in times of danger, where better to be than surrounded by armed and loyal men?

[ ] Stewardship: The Steward is responsible for bookkeeping and economy, giving you direct access not only to your own budget but to all incoming wealth as well. A heady position, but also one that attracts a lot of blame when things go poorly, and a lot of expectations to be able to wave a wand and make money appear.

[ ] Intrigue: The Spymaster is the feinting left hand to the Marshal's strong right hand, responsible for skulduggery, espionage and counter-espionage. You have the most leeway in this position, but will likely also get the most blame for things that go wrong entirely outside your control.

[ ] Learning: The Sage is responsible for counseling correct behavior in crises and dilemmas, teaching rectitude and virtue to children and heirs of importance, as well as interacting with with those spirits, gods and ghosts who are not amenable to the Chancellor's diplomatic approach (which is frankly most of them).

--

Appointment to the Privy Council is not strictly meritocratic, particularly at the start of a new Portlord's term when there are political favors to be repaid. A good measure of skill is needed, but familial backing helps a great deal too, as well as some reason or passion to put yourself forwards. What drives you?

[ ] Avarice: You are among the dozen best-paid men in Silverport, but even greater opportunity can be found with the lucrative projects and bountiful budgets your position has access to.
(Bonuses to embezzlement attempts and other profitable avenues; willpower rolls to keep from dipping directly into the budgets you control if you make no off-the-books income or other improvement in personal wealth in a particular year.)

[ ] Vainglory: The role of advisor is prestigious, certainly, but hardly glorious - unless you go above and beyond the call of duty, and sometimes above and beyond what was asked of you, and sometimes even above and beyond sanity and rationality.
(Bonuses to large, revolutionary, or otherwise impressive projects or achievements; maluses to more mundane assignments.)

[ ] Nepotism: You have a large family, many of whom are eager for prestigious and well-paying jobs. You do this for them because you love them, of course. Actually getting some peace and quiet at home is just a side-benefit.
(Reliable source of very loyal candidates for key roles; malus to all rolls if these positions are not found on a regular basis. A very prestigious position might buy you a few years, or you could fill sundry middle management positions every year.)

[ ] Inspiration: To you, this position is merely a stepping stone towards a pet project that consumes you.
(One inspired super-project of dubious utility and questionable safety with bonuses to working towards it when given official permission; minor maluses to all other projects as you neglect them in favour of tinkering with your passion. Completing a super-project will give you peace for a few years until a new one occurs to you.)

[ ] Revolutionary: You are grossly dissatisfied with the social order, whether due to personal affront or reading too much philosophy. It must be changed.
(Bonus to social reform actions; slowly accumulating malus if you go too long without making any changes or at least doing away with reactionary opposition.)

[ ] Foreign Agent: You have deep-seated loyalties and favours owed to some state other than the great city you call home.
(You will be expected to keep your place of origin informed of all relevant developments in the city, and occasionally take certain actions and pursue specific goals given by a foreign lord.)

[ ] Abomination Agent: You sought refuge in the eye of the storm, and swore fealty to the monsters in human shape. You know in your heart they are not truly gone, and they will expect you to prepare the way for their eventual return.
(May draw on support network of other cultists. Overuse or indiscretion risks discovery, which is likely to have severe consequences.)

--

Finally, from what clan have you been appointed?

[ ] Ascension: The oldest of the Great Houses, most learned and far-flung. They claim that their private library-vaults stretch back to the Founding. Several of its members are known to be cultivators. The Ascension Clan also dominates the incense trade and has its fingers in a great many other pies relating to the numerous shrines and cults around Silverport.
(Bonus die to calls for spiritual or scholarly aid, but high expectations and extra demands on your time.)

[ ] Bridge: The richest and most warlike. Many of their soldiers allegedly served under the Abominations, which has worsened the clan's already poor reputation. Resources will not be a problem. Getting cooperation outside your clan will. The most recent Portlord was from this clan, and they are in the best initial position at game start as a result.
(Bonus die to calls for secular or martial aid, but poor relations with minor clans and the common people.)

[ ] Wisdom: The most numerous, with a great many elders living out their days in peace and quiet on a farm somewhere. Clan Wisdom is the largest landowner and food supplier in Silverport, a position they haven't been shy about using to extort concessions. A clothes shortage is merely embarrassing, but a rice shortage can prove deadly. At game start the current Portlord of Silverport has been elected from this clan.
(Bonus to relations with boss and clan, but poor relations with other major clans.)

[ ] Gold: The most recent to join the ranks of the Five Greats. Still looked down on in Silverport and treated by some as a minor clan, but well-connected abroad, with less dead weight and sinecures. Prone to high art and impracticality.
(Bonus die to actions involving foreign parts, but penalty to calls for aid.)

[ ] A Minor Clan: A rising star but not yet a great power in the politics of the city. Does the Portlord think your dynasty should replace Dragon as the fifth of the Five Greats? Or is your appointment merely intended to placate your extended family when someone else is elevated?
(No initial modifier. Optionally suggest a name, should be in wuxia/xianxia nounish style.)

 

[Exmorri]

Here's a less dramatic exposition of your character's surroundings and role.

If you're familiar with the basic elements of "advisor quest", "wuxia setting" and "merchant republic", a lot of this is probably redundant and you can mostly skip the first three tabs respectively. Otherwise, read on for an idea of where you are and what you're doing in this quest!

The quest The setting History&Culture Geography Minutiae

• 
  Credit where credit is due; Boney had this general idea first and I decided to do it too.
  

  In CK2 quests, you have your advisors, a handful of descriptive lines updated every half a decade or so that regularly spit out three or more neat little options for how to improve your lot in life. They are almost always trusted implicitly even among the most paranoid of threads unless they're described as twirling a moustache and carving chaotic sigils into the meeting room table, and I wondered what their life was like when they weren't delivering their annual reports. Do they truly have no desire other than to serve you, or do they have murkier motivations than their lord ever sees? When they tell you it will cost ten thousand gold to build new roads, will it actually cost that, or did they round it up from 9700 and change and pocket the difference? When a factory is built, is it staffed entirely along meritocratic lines? When you send a few thousand men to go punch goblins in the face, does all the loot they find make it's way back to you? And when they tell you that the people will be satisfied by no less than a new and grand cathedral to balm their souls, how do you know that a few extra local churches wouldn't do the job for a fraction of the time and effort?
  
  So now it's time to put you in that role and see how you do. It's not that you're disloyal, exactly. In fact, you're very loyal. It's just that not all that loyalty is to the same person.
  
  SV, it's time to cook the books.

  Click to shrink...

  
  In this specific quest, you'll be an advisor in a coastal merchant republic rather than a feudal state, still drawing on CK2 for a bunch of stuff (like the arbitrary value of five for number of major families to deal with). This means balancing more moneyed interests and fewer oathsworn vassals, with an army composed of mercenaries rather than a levy.
  
  Your boss, the new Portlord of Silverport, is somewhere between Doge of Venice and Consul of Rome: elected for ten years and planning to break with longstanding tradition by seeking re-election. You'll have to balance your own interests with that of the Portlord above you, the city beneath you, and the various powers beside you, such as the scholar caste and the ancestor cults and your family. (No adventurer orphans allowed!)
  
  
  
• This is a wuxia setting, with some mystic kung fu going around, as well as essence cultivation and shrines to small gods/spirits everywhere and thieves who become immortal by stealing the file with their name from the afterlife bureaucracy. Or so the legend goes.
  
  You do not have mystic kung fu, though. You have merely excellent mundane skill that's been called on to lead the reconstruction efforts of Silverport after some evil mystic-kung-fu wielders swept through and used their incredible cosmic power for incredibly petty (and destructive) purposes.
  
  The various cults of Silverport exist largely orthogonally to human power structures. They are not entirely separate, of course, but while a tyrant might be so prideful as to compel some worship be directed their way, no ruler would ever be so mad as to demand the people entirely abandon all their own gods and shrines. So a common man's rota might look something like this: Sunday to praise the Sun at the start of the week and ask for light and truth and virtue and guidance in all your affairs this week, Moonday to ask the Moon-Mother for health and life and luck and protection against all the things that lurk the night, then the next day to the shrine of your ancestors to show proper filial piety and ask for more specific guidance the next day (and the ancestors answer a great deal more often, not having to look upon the entire world as the Sun and Moon do).
  Then less often, perhaps monthly or seasonally, to the little shrine of the land where you live, and to the large temple of Eternal Light, patron deity of Silverport, and to the medium-sized temples to the heavenly gods of general goods such as wine and wealth and the earthly spirits of specific things such as the forest and the valley.
  
  (World is loosely based on Exalted, and the Abominations on Infernal Exalted in particular.)
  
• 
  Silverport gained its independence as a city-state in a revolt from the Iron Empire some centuries ago, when a particularly harsh king decreed this and that and the other. The success of the rebellion laid the foundation for the anti-royalist attitude that still prevails today. Power is very much split between many clans and institutions rather than gathered in any one man's hands, it is a crime of sedition to propose that Silverport should have a king, and the elected Portlord has limited powers and is viewed as more coordinator and first-among-equals than ruler. Law forbids that the successor of a Portlord should be of the same clan; by custom the office rotates regularly between the five greatest clans.
  
  Over the course of time, with the growth of Silverport and the accumulation of new laws cleared out by revolution, this led to the Portlord gradually becoming more and more of a figurehead who would spend his first years in office getting accustomed to the job and his last years feathering his nest for retirement and embezzling for his clan, while true power was increasingly held by the city bureaucracy.
  At the edge of living memory, this system was reformed by Portlord Guardian Black, who had fifty-five clerks drowned for abuse of office during the Black Reforms. He gathered significantly more power to himself and to his office than the founders might have liked, but with 'clerk' at the time being a byword for unaccountable corruption, his actions were grudgingly accepted as the sadly necessary implemention of idealist principles in a realist world.
  
  Silverport is a free city, which the cynics will tell you merely means a thousand tiny tyrants instead of one large one. Or perhaps there is one large tyrant, and its name is Silver Coin. Taxes are unheard of in Silverport -- taxes are a king's prerogative, and Silverport has no king! -- but there is a docking fee collected at the port when you arrive, a temple tithe if you wish for the God of Silverport to bless and not curse you, a rent to be paid when you set up your stall to hawk your wares, even the cheap inns are painfully expensive, and there are a hundred other microtransactions that any visitor must pay.
  
  What do they get out of it? Access to the greatest markets for a hundred, nay a thousand miles. Fortunes are made and lost every day in Silverport. Goods from across the world are available to any man or woman who can pay, and expert services too. Bookbinders and geomancers, surgeons and translators, astrologers and chemists, and tutors in any subject you care to name.
  
  
  
• 
  The entire region of your surroundings is dominated by the Great River, which is large enough that it could be called an inland sea by argumentative geographers. (For RL parallells, think Straits of Hormuz or Dover, or the wider parts of the Amazon.) The Great River flows northwards, and Silverport sits on its eastern bank where the Slow River flows into the Great River.
  
  Around the immediate vicinity of Silverport, particularly along the coast to the north and south for a dozen miles, are subject statelets and tributary towns and extended family holdings of various sorts. Going east up the Slow River proper are the Petty Princedoms, a fractious region where an ambitious mercenary company could carve out a valley and name its leader king. Further east and a bit south along what is sometimes called the Lower Slow River or the Bloody River are the Bloody Hills. This is widely viewed as a backwards place full of uncivilized and violent barbarians that no sane person wants anything to do with, except perhaps for blooding soldiers.
  
  Your neighboring state on the northern side is the polity called the Stratocracy of Tokara, forged out of the fall of the Iron Empire perhaps a century ago, when a religious movement dedicated to the God of War combined with some natural philosophers to turn their attentions to developing war as an art and a science. They talk a big game, and their strategic manuals are of good quality, but they don't actually fight as much as they'd like you to believe. All between north and east is the large region called the Iron Plains, formerly the Iron Empire, now fallen apart. Its lands have wilded greatly since the collapse, and are now home mostly to wildmen, nomads, and the occasional herder-peasant still verging on the outright nomadic.
  
  South lie a few more minor princedoms, and then the large and unwieldy Confederation of Caligia, a sort of elective monarchical union of many smaller statelets, currently embroiled in their third year of the civil war that is their third this past century. It seems to be something of a pastime of theirs whenever their elections for king of the Confederacy are stalled.
  
  Across the Grey River lies the country called 'Foundation', claiming itself to be the last loyal vassal state of the faraway semi-mythical Second Empire and the probably-mythical Dragon Emperor. They're an odd lot. It's bordered on the near south by the Dustlands, which is not so much a country as a mostly barren and undesirable strip of land at the feet of great mountains. Exiles and outcasts often go to seek their fortune there. Most simply die in an unmarked grave, but some settle into the frontier towns or become wealthy miners.
  
  There are more lands beyond these, but there is no use borrowing tomorrow's trouble when there is quite enough today. Leave such things to the voyages of trading expeditions. You have duties at home.
  
  
  
• 
  Recapping recent history: the five great families of this merchant republic used to be Ascension, Bridge, Dragon, Guardian, Wisdom. Then the Abominations came. They were maybe five or ten manlike beings (trauma and rumor have fogged their exact nature and number), and they demanded the surrender of the city. When the guards laughed loud and long at them, the Abominations called down a rain of fire from the skies and summoned up monsters from the sea, and took the city for their own by supernatural force. They took hostages, issued demands, and butchered the house of Guardian for daring to oppose them. The house of Gold, long unofficially accepted as the sixth in line, stepped up. Then the house of Dragon was also slain, these in their beds by night rather than as a public example, but still slain and scattered. The previous Portlord was murdered too. Turmoil reigned, the line of succession was unclear, and most persons of interest were too busy cowering before the storm to put the name of their own clan forward or strive for power lest they draw the wrathful eye of the Abominations. Now that scourge is gone, a new election has taken place, and the political maneuvering resumes alongside the reconstruction of the city.
  
  The starting game year is 769 Imperial Calendar. This calendar counts from the founding of the faraway Second Empire, which claims to be a successor state to the legendary (and almost certainly fictional) First Empire set up by the makers of the world at the beginning of Time. Many countries have their own local calendar and don't care much about the Second Empire, but the Imperial Calendar doesn't suffer date slippage and is widely enough known that there's always someone who can convert to and from it, so traveling merchants like it.
  
  The wider setting is very loosely based on White Wolf's Exalted, and the Abominations were very loosely inspired by a circle of Infernals. If you attempt to metagame based on this knowledge you will probably get it wrong, because I am altering the canon and all bets are off. Wuxia genre conventions might be more useful to look to.
  
  
  

.

 

[Exmorri]

Winning votes:

Spoiler

You will be the new Steward of Silverport. You shudder a little as the implications sink in. "No taxes" is all well and good an ideal when you're the one who'd be paying. When you're responsible for collecting, though? It's enough to make you briefly sympathetic to monarchists when you consider all the myriad tolls, tariffs, tithes, fees, fines, and rents you'll have to tally up. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad to work for a king who simply seized one part in ten... nah, belay that talk. You are a free citizen of a free city and you will pay for fair service rendered, but not a dinar for a tyrant who squats in a castle and extracts on the grounds of mere location.

You will also be overseeing a great deal of expenses, the largest of which is usually religious ceremonies and offerings. Ghosts of ancestors and gods of household, spirits of wood and water, Eternal Light the patron of Silverport, Sun and Moon watching over the world, many are the denizens of the supernatural world to stay on good terms with. At least it won't be your job to talk to them personally - just sign off on the incense and whatnot. On the other hand, for the coming year at least, reparations and reconstructions will probably outnumber offerings. So much burnt, so many dead, so much lost.

Your nomination is a hopeful sign that the minor clan of Avalanche may soon be raised to prominence and become one of the Five Great Houses of renown. Gossip and optimism run through your extended family like wildfire. Two main currents of topic are easy to overhear: those who want to direct resources towards you to help you in your new position and impress Wisdom Shining Void more thoroughly, and those who want to draw resources from you, expecting you to repay the favors that were no doubt expended to get you this position.

But it is hard to pay attention to the details of gossip when you are in the grips of inspiration. There will be so much you can do! Ideas and plans flit through your head. You've long had pleasant daydreams of invention and improvement, and with your new seat of power, you will be able to make some of them reality at last. The question is, what first?

Here you will select your life prior to achieving your current office. This stage and the next involve a form of chargen currency called shinies. These can be spent now and in the next stage of character development on traits, special resources, unique items, skilled followers, and other bits and bobs, mostly based on the background you select in this stage. Any shinies remaining unspent after that will carry over into the game and can be spent on powerful strokes of good luck in the first few turns.

YOU HAVE THREE (3) SHINIES.

Region of Origin - while Clan Avalanche has its heart and home in Silverport, there are family members and trade outposts scattered quite a ways abroad. Where were you raised? (Somewhat longer descriptions in this post, under Geography.)

[ ] [Region] Silverport proper: Born and raised in the heart of the City of Cities, you know its people well, and you know how things are done here. -1 shinies
[ ] [Region] Silverport tributaries: A hundred villages and towns bow to the majesty of Silverport, and you rejoice at having moved to the capital.
[ ] [Region] Caligia: Living in this fractious confederation of statelets breeds a sharp ear for trouble and small differences.
[ ] [Region] Stratocracy of Tokara: Children are often fostered here for a particular sort of education.
[ ] [Region] Petty Princedoms: Sometimes you imagine seizing a valley of your own here. Or buying one.
[ ] [Region] Iron Plains: Wild men in wild lands teach the lessons of self-reliance.
[ ] [Region] Foundation: This supposed client state has told you a bit more about the Second Empire.
[ ] [Region] Dustland: Exiles and pitiless, silent mountains. What mysteries do they hold?
[ ] [Region] Bloody Hills: A savage, violent backwater that receives short shrift among civilized folk. +1 shinies
[ ] [Region] Rootless: You either travelled too much to build up contacts, or lost them somewhere along the way. +1 shinies
[ ] [Region] Faraway: Silverport seems almost foreign. +1 shinies

Sex - no mechanical effects, some cultural.

[ ] [Sex] Male
[ ] [Sex] Female

Are you married yet? If not, you will be pressured to get married soon. Can't have such a great person not leaving behind any descendants, after all.

[ ] [Status] Single
[ ] [Status] Married

Background - the most important part of this vote. Affects your starting stats and a lot of the further shiny options that will be available to you. If you want another precursor to Steward that isn't listed here, tell me and I'll see about adding it.

[ ] [Background] Innkeeper: Keeping track of comings and goings, payments and tabs, and who can be trusted to settle their debts has been good practice.
+Stewardship, +Diplomacy, -Learning

[ ] [Background] Travelogue Writer: When a caravan or treasure fleet on an extended journey needed someone to track their activities and contacts at each stop, they chose you. It's dry work, but sharpens the mind wonderfully.
+Stewardship, +Intrigue, -Martial

[ ] [Background] Temple Bookkeeper: You managed the mundane affairs of a major temple, counting donations and copying books.
+Stewardship, +Learning, -Diplomacy

[ ] [Background] Scribe: You studied for years at one of the great schools of writecraft, becoming particularly fluent with numbers, letters, argument and memory.
+Stewardship, +Learning, -Intrigue

[ ] [Background] Mercenary Band: Your knowledge of coin and payment has been accompanied by an education in the brutal side of life.
+Stewardship, +Martial, -Learning

[ ] [Background] Favored Heir: You have received a great deal of instruction from professional tutors since a young age, gaining a wide range of skills.
+Stewardship, +Learning, +Diplomacy, +Intrigue, -1 shinies

[ ] [Background] Cultivator: You spent years in meditation, fasting and taking cinnabar pills to unlock and refine your qi.
+Learning, -1 shinies
(does not give as much magic as WHF wizards, temper your expectations)


This vote is by task, separate winner in each category. For the benefit of the tally bot, please keep the format of "[X] [Category] Your vote". You do not need to vote in all categories if you are undecided in some of them.

 

[Exmorri]

(The following is an in-universe opinion. By someone who once got ripped off on a visit to Silverport and is still salty about it.)

The sages agree that the highest pursuit and the greatest pleasure in life is to cultivate wisdom and seek enlightenment. Many are the tools that may aid in this, from mundane tutors to great and esoteric projects of landscaping to create geomantically favorable locations.

In principle a clear mind is supposed to be able to reach a complete understanding of the self and the cosmos through meditation and thought alone, but there is a paradox here: such sufficient clarity of mind could only be achieved, it is thought, by one already fully enlightened. Similarly, while enlightenment grants great longevity, thorough cultivation is a project of decades that requires great longevity in the first place. The rulers of the First Empire at the beginning of Time were thusly immortal, they say, but the common man today is very much not.

Moreover, improper or bent cultivation may leave one powerful but mentally unbalanced. Imagine what a calamity it would be if a flawed cultivator could reign for a thousand years at a time.

The solution to all these problems, whether it be by fortunate chance or the design of the makers of the world, is reincarnation. When you die, your souls split apart: the Passionate soul (po) remains with the body until dissipation, while the Rational soul (hun) sojourns in the Underworld and there receives corrections from its fellow souls for a period of time. When this is done, the hun then drinks the tea of forgetfulness to forget its old life with all its errors so that it may continue rightly from where it first went wrong, and thereafter returns to the Middle World to seek out a pregnant woman and a new body to be born into, where it will also be united with a newly made po.

Sometimes the hun does not drink all of its tea and so is born into a new life with many more memories of its old life than normal. But this is a crime against the laws of the Underworld and it will be required to drink a double dose the next time, and usually also results in a crime against the Middle World for the soul will carry with it old errors and wickednesses.

Thus one soul may spend many lifetimes in pleasant meditation until all its errors are corrected, while a great sage who achieves right mastery in one lifetime will carry over much enlightenment, but a wicked cultivator will be made to forget all the new ways of wickedness they discovered.

And what of those who do not cultivate, you ask? What is reincarnation like for them?

Still much the same. For although "cultivation" in common speech is used about the esoteric and refined activities of sages and scholars, it might be more accurate to term this high cultivation. Of the common man one can speak of low cultivation which consists in following the precepts of good society: honor your parents and elders, carry out your duties, obey propriety, speak small words but perform great deeds, do what is right and not merely what is profitable, act in accordance with your station, and so forth.

Now less than one in a hundred is a high cultivator and their grades are largely a matter for the high cultivators. Therefore I shall speak now of the five grades of the soul of low cultivators, which are more than ninety-nine in a hundred.

The highest grade is the Scholar, who advances from the Student. The Scholar, if wise, may advance to become a high cultivator in the same lifetime. The Scholar studies the highest mastery: mastery of the self, the turning of the mind to understanding and knowledge. The Scholar uses speech to instruct.
The second grade is the General, who advances from the Soldier. The General studies the middle mastery: mastery of another man. The Soldier first accepts having this discipline imposed on himself, then helps to impose it on his unit. The General uses speech to command.
The third grade is the Commoner, who neither advances nor descends. The great majority of any society are Commoners. The Commoner studies the low mastery: mastery of tools and the world. The Commoner uses speech to greet.
The fourth grade is the Merchant, who descends from the Greedy. Where the Soldier practices obedience, the Greedy practices opportunism. Where the General seeks victory, the Merchant seeks profit. The Merchant studies no mastery. The Merchant uses speech to flatter.
The lowest grade is the Criminal, who descends from the Scoundrel. Where the Student learns the law, the Scoundrel breaks the law. Where the Scholar uplifts and brings light, the Criminal tears down and hides in darkness. The Criminal studies no mastery. The Criminal uses speech to lie.

Upon reincarnation, an ordinary man or woman may advance one grade. For example, a Commoner who has been loving and dutiful to her family may be reborn a Soldier, while a Criminal who repents of his errors may in his next life seek to acquire wealth as a Merchant instead. But if they reject the precepts of good society they are reborn a grade lower. But ordinary souls usually stay close to Commoner: they are perhaps particularly obedient in one life and become Soldiers or particularly greedy in one life and become Merchants; in the next life the Soldier becomes a drunken lout and the Merchant donates to charity and they become Commoners again.

In an orderly society, Scholars make law, Generals rule, Commoners are rewarded, Merchants are tolerated, and Criminals are suppressed. A fully disorderly society cannot exist, for it would not be a society at all, and Criminals by their nature as lawbreakers cannot make law. But the infamous city of Silverport is perhaps as disorderly as a society can be: there Merchants make law, Commoners rule, Criminals are rewarded, Scholars are tolerated, and Generals are suppressed!

 

[Exmorri]

Forum downtime hit just as I was calling it. Winning votes, slightly delayed:

Spoiler

1. [X] [Region] Stratocracy of Tokara: Children are often fostered here for a particular sort of education.
   Number of voters: 9
   veekie, No7sHere, Sirapthy, giodan, King50000, zamin, wingstrike96, Terran Imperium,StarkDemise
2. [X] [Sex] Male
   Number of voters: 13
   Marlin, Kalrotix, tri2, Cawasnow, Stranger1950, thamuzz, Pathetic King, Zaratustra,StarkDemise, Angelform, Alectai, The Meddler, Kingofbooks
3. [X] [Status] Married
   Number of voters: 21
   Marlin, Kalrotix, tri2, Cawasnow, Stranger1950, thamuzz, veekie, No7sHere, Sirapthy,giodan, King50000, zamin, wingstrike96, Terran Imperium, Zaratustra, StarkDemise,Angelform, Alectai, The Meddler, Kingofbooks, Derpmind
4. [X] [Background] Favored Heir: You have received a great deal of instruction from professional tutors since a young age, gaining a wide range of skills.
   Number of voters: 11
   veekie, No7sHere, Sirapthy, giodan, King50000, zamin, wingstrike96, Terran Imperium,StarkDemise, SandKing, Kingofbooks

A favored son of Clan Avalanche who studied abroad in Tokara before coming home to be married and tutored. That's life history outlined. Now comes the last and most finicky part.

You have TWO (2) shinies remaining for buying character traits and advantages. Because of the shared dependency all over, this vote is by plan. There is a two hour moratorium on voting. Moratorium over.

TROUBLES
You can get some extra shinies for your character by piling more problems on them too.

[ ] Very Divided Loyalties
+3 shinies. Go back to the first post and choose a second motivation.
[ ] Touched by the Abominations
+1 shiny. You were visibly marked where their shadow fell on you. Some may look at you in sympathy for what was done to you, others in horror as they remember what was done to them. You do not get to choose the mark. Cannot be taken with Twisted.
[ ] Twisted by the Abominations
+2 shinies. You were permanently altered by the wake of their passing. Perhaps a hive of locusts nests in your chest, or perhaps you can only sleep in the depths of the river. You do not get to choose the alteration. Cannot be taken with Touched.
[ ] Political Debt
+1 shiny. Clan Avalanche has put a lot of work into getting you your position and the elders are insistent you return the favor before they help you with anything else.
[ ] Monetary Debt
+1 shiny. You have borrowed a great deal of money for previous inspired projects that sadly did not work out as well as you had hoped.
[ ] Vendetta
+2 shinies. You have a rival of similar skill and power who feels slighted by being passed over for the post of Steward, who will seek to ruin and discredit you and take your place.
[ ] Tattered Meridians
+1 shiny, -2 Learning. Your qi flows are blocked in some places and overflow elsewhere. You will absolutely never be a cultivator, and worse, you suffer severe pain in the presence of any beings who are channeling qi, such as cultivators or gods. Cannot be taken with Promising Meridians.
[ ] Coward
+1 shiny, -2 Martial. You shy away from violence and battle, and are easily intimidated. Cannot be taken with Brave.
[ ] Cruel
+1 shiny, -2 Diplomacy. You are prone to using pain and threats to enforce your will.
[ ] Loose Lips
+1 shiny, -2 Intrigue. You have an unfortunate habit of blurting out whatever's on your mind. Cannot be taken with Levelheaded.

NICE THINGS
Each of your shinies can now buy one of the following items. +1 traits are not weaker than larger numbers, they'll just have more narrative effects and situational influence that cannot be fully quantified up front.

Physical traits
[ ] Resilient: You are difficult to put down. +1 Martial, resistance to being poisoned, reduce penalties and recover faster from any injuries you suffer.
[ ] Strong: A very straightforward advantage. +4 Martial.
[ ] Tall: You stand a head above most, giving you an edge in combat and a little bit of extra respect from everyone that has to lean backwards to look you in the eye. +2 Martial, bonus to relations with anyone that respects size, bonus to intimidation attempts

Mental traits
[ ] Brave: You can withstand terrors that make others flee. Cannot be taken with Coward. +1 Martial
[ ] Eidetic Memory: Unless severely distracted, you are able to memorize anything at a glance and recall it in perfect detail later. +1 Learning
[ ] Levelheaded: Nothing ever seems to startle or upset you. You always have your wits about you, even under stress. Cannot be taken with Loose Lips. +1 Intrigue
[ ] Organized: Through habit or obsession, you keep everything neat, tidy, and in it's place. +1 Stewardship
[ ] Paranoid: They'll never catch you off guard. Whoever they are. +1 Intrigue.
[ ] Polyglot: You easily pick up new languages. +1 Diplomacy
[ ] Quick: You're naturally brighter than the average person. +1 to all stats, though no narrative advantages.
[ ] Supernumerate: You can crunch numbers with ease, making bookkeeping and trigonometry a snap. +1 Stewardship

Social traits
[ ] Animal Kinship: You have a gift for getting along with and training animals. Regular animals, that is; it'd take a lot of work and luck to apply the knack to, say, hippogryphs. +1 Diplomacy
[ ] Gossipmonger: You have a knack for keeping one ear on the buzz of gossip all around you, giving you early warnings when something isn't quite right in your immediate vicinity and a source of low-level local information. +1 Intrigue
[ ] Honorable: You consistently stand by your word and your friends even when it costs you. +1 Diplomacy
[ ] Carouser: You're always the life of the party, and you have an easier time making new friends. +1 Diplomacy.
[ ] Silver Tongue: You are very, very good at telling lies. +1 Intrigue.

Miscellaneous benefits
[ ] Friends in <choose major clan>: Just what it says. May be taken up to four times, once for each of the current Great Houses.
[ ] Helpful Predecessor: The previous Steward of Silverport has graciously agreed to assist you and ensure a smooth transition. Bonus die to job-related Stewardship actions during the first year.
[ ] Past Life Memories: You retain fragments of knowledge from your previous incarnations. +1 Learning, tiny chance of randomly boosting any roll.
[ ] Promising Meridians: If you somehow find the time required for it between your job, your clan and your projects, you might also make a decent cultivator. Mutually exclusive with Tattered Meridians.
[ ] Prophetic Dreams: From time to time you get glimpses of futures that may come to pass.
[ ] A Silver Brush: It writes in any color, creates its own ink, and even takes dictation. So much more practical than a magic spear. +2 Stewardship, +1 Learning.
[ ] A Golden Flame: When clasped firmly, it glows with a warm and hearty light. Protects against cold, pierces all darkness, inspires bravery, and is said to even ward off the restless dead. +2 Martial, environmental effects.
[ ] A Bag of Holding: This small cloth bag is much larger on the inside and practically weightless no matter what you put in it. Enables you to always be well-prepared for anything and everything, even on short notice or when travelling.

I repeat, this vote is by plan, two hour moratorium. Moratorium over.

If you have leftover shinies after the winning plan, they will result in very favorable random events and strokes of luck during the first few turns. You are allowed to spend more shinies than you have and start the game with negative shinies, and each of those will instead be converted into a botch or a sudden misfortune.

If there's a trait you think should be added to the list, suggest it and I'll try to think of reasonable stats for it.

Numeric impact: 0 is complete incompetence, 5 is untrained average, 10 is trained average, 15 is professional, 20 is renowned expert, 30 is as good as a mortal can get by training alone, 40 is achievable with a lot of luck and a divine blessing and stacked traits. This quest will use something like d50s rather than d100s.

 

[Exmorri]

Recent vote is still open, this is a pure story post.

Walking up the hill to the coronation grounds, the elders of the Avalanche Clan smile and cheer. Further away the chops and mons of other dynasties can be seen on their pennants and clothes. Everyone gathers around the empty chair in good formation. Up the single clear path comes Wisdom Shining Void, Portlord of Silverport, walking beside Seven Snakes, Priest of the Sun.
The Portlord looks at the throne and asks: "What is this?"
The priest responds gravely: "This is a throne for the King of Silverport."
The Portlord declaims: "Silverport has no king! Silverport is free!" and topples the chair.
The rest of the coronation passes in a blur until your name is called. You join the ranks of the other councilors. Wisdom Shining Void speaks: "It pleases me to announce"
He throws off his cap and rends his garments, his wrinkles fade into childlike smoothness, his naked skin turns from a normal yellow-brown to a garish purple-pink, his eyes widen into black orbs.
"that we have returned." speaks the Corruption. "All shall bow before us again."
The other councilors are also unmasking themselves of both garments and faces. You cannot move or speak. You can only watch in horror.
"And it pleases us also to welcome a new member to our ranks." The Corruption grasps you firmly by the hand and twists your wrist cruelly, then touches your forehead with searing fire.
Your flesh melts like wax at its touch, dripping down your face and blinding your eyes.
"Mmmm, you'll be so beautiful once we're done with you."

-

"Wake up! Wake up!" The voice startles you. You blink feverishly, trying to gather your bearings, and realize that the only thing dripping into your eyes is sweat, the darkness is because it's the middle of the night, and your hands are being held by your dear wife, Avalanche Jade. "Are you awake?" she asks, and you manage a nod. "You were having a bad dream. Scratching your face and whimpering."
"I dreamt the Abominations came back."

After an hour of tossing and turning, you eventually get back to sleep. There are no more bad dreams, only the mundane trouble of having underslept and being woken by the morning bustle of East Avalanche Mansion as three generations of the family prepare for the big day.

The actual coronation is a lot more detailed than any dream. Rather than an abstract dynasty surrounding you, there's your father with his crooked nose (it was that way when you returned from Tokara, and you can't remember if he had it before that), your mother munching on dried fruit (in this case mangoes, her second favorite after bananas), your wife carrying your younger son ("Can you say e-lec-tion?" "Lekkon!"), your older son complaining to you that his feet hurt (he's walked further than this before, you'll give him the piggyback ride he wants eventually), and your sister and brother and a profusion of uncles and aunts and nieces and nephews whose names you recite as a calming mantra, and further away your more distant relatives, and then all the other dynasties, and even a cluster of small gods come to gawk. And also the less resplendent parts of the assembled crowd like the street vendors trying to hawk their wares and the ushers trying to shoo away the street vendors and several red-faced members of Clan Dove surreptitiously shuffling to cover the fact that one of their children has just been loudly and messily sick. Possibly from eating street vendor food.

Reality also comes with other surprises. Rather than Seven Snakes comes a masked, veiled and hooded figure all in white, black and grey. Hmmm. A sun-priest is customary for this rite, but you suppose there's no rule against a moon-priest. Squints and scowls break out, but no one voices an objection as the rite proceeds.

"What is this?"

"This is a throne for the King of Silverport."

"Silverport has no king! Silverport is free!"

"A free man may not be owned, but if he is wise, he will let himself be guided." says the moon-priest. "The wise elders of the city wish for you to be their guide. Do you accept this task?"

Wisdom Shining Void draws a deep breath. "I do. May all the gods hear my vow: I will be a guide and not a king. I will illuminate the path, as the Sun illuminates. I will protect the people, as the Moon protects."

"The Moon hears your vow, and She will tell all the other gods. And do you understand that this office is a task for a time, and not a property for your disposal?"

"I do. When my task is done I will relinquish my office, and should I die my heir will have no claim on it."

The rest of the coronation ceremony passes without anyone tearing off false faces. The moon-priest gives a speech on care and comfort and healing. The new Portlord gives a speech promising to restore Silverport to glory, and closes by announcing he will be holding a feast to celebrate. The crowd drifts off in the direction of the feast. You, by prior appointment, kiss Jade goodbye, tell your children to stay with her and behave, and then walk briskly in the other direction. Towards the mishmash of architectural styles that is the Portlord's palace. Towards your first meeting with the high council. No, towards your first meeting on the high council. This will take some getting used to.

 

[Exmorri]

Spoiler: Winning vote

[*] Plan Great Clerk, Poor Restraint
-[*] Eidetic Memory: Unless severely distracted, you are able to memorize anything at a glance and recall it in perfect detail later. +1 Learning
-[*] Organized: Through habit or obsession, you keep everything neat, tidy, and in it's place. +1 Stewardship
-[*] Supernumerate: You can crunch numbers with ease, making bookkeeping and trigonometry a snap. +1 Stewardship
-[*] Monetary Debt

The walk to the Palace of the Portlords brings another reminder of how much the city has suffered. Construction workers dawdle on a scaffolding around a ruined mansion you're unfamiliar with. At its base, intense heat has caused the stonework to flow like mud before resolidifying, undermining the walls and leaving a large clot of semi-obsidian jutting into the street. An improvised ramp of wooden planks has been laid over the clot to ease passage.

On your arrival, you spy a bizarre foreign woman with the most garishly attention-grabbing hat you've seen. It's a foot and a half high, topped with another two feet of peacock plume. The rest of her outfit isn't much better. She reeks of horse, and when you don't see one nearby, you wonder what in the world would have driven an alchemist so barmy as to invent horse-scented perfume.

Spoiler: Marshal Image

"What are you doing here?" you ask.

"Enjoying the fresh air. Waiting for the big boss."

"You mean the Portlord?"

"Yah."

You frown, and apply logic. This woman can't be the new steward of the city, because that's you. She's probably not the spymaster, unless this is an elaborate cover identity where she's only pretending to be completely unsubtle. (Horse-scented perfume! What is the world coming to?) The grapevine says Ascension got one of theirs picked to be the chancellor, which means this woman is either the new marshal or the sage, and of those two, you know which one you'd bet on. Then again, maybe she's an important and well-connected foreign diplomat with a priority appointment. Which, on reflection, is also unlikely, because if you had to guess at her origin you'd say the Iron Plains, whose inhabitants do not tend to be either well-connected or important people.

"I'm guessing you've been hired to lead the soldiers then. May I ask your name?"

"I am Princess Ebuskun full-blooded. Yes. Very unusual terms of contract, but Portlord has best pay. With his money and my people, I will reunite Iron and make Silverport new capital. And your name?"

[] Write-in protagonist name

"-of Clan Avalanche", you stutter, pondering the implications. If this is her own interpretation of the post, things are going to be very interesting. If the Portlord has actually ordered that, things are also going to be very interesting. And you'll apparently be responsible for somehow funding the reunification of the Iron Empire. You haven't even formally met the Portlord yet, and today is already feeling like a disaster in the making. You make some polite excuses and head indoors, both to sit down and calm your stomach, and because you imagine awaiting Wisdom Shining Void in the meeting room will make a better impression than lounging nonchalantly against a wall like Ebuskun is doing.

One of the palace servants says you're expected, and shows you in. There's one other person waiting there already. He scrutinizes you. You scrutinize him right back.

Spoiler: Spymaster Image

This one is much easier, you think: he's a very important person sitting in the Portlord's council chamber, and he doesn't look the part. His clothes are cheap and unmarked, even if his bearing is haughty.

"You're the new spymaster, I take it?"

"Are you angling for my job?" he asks with a grin.

You shake your head. "Hardly. But I've met the marshal, you don't look like a scholar, and you don't look like you're Ascension either."

"Which, if you've deduced my job from that, means you're the steward. Right? Gold Morning, pleased to make your acquaintance."

He a seems a sight more sensible than Ebuskun. Sadly there's not much time to chit-chat before the Portlord sweeps in with his entourage and what must be the rest of the council coming from the coronation.

Spoiler: Portlord Image

He dismisses most of the servants, and settles in at the table with everyone else. "Our city is injured, our people lie slain in multitudes, our continuity of rule broken. There has been no Portlord for months, and they," he spits, "were not the sort to keep careful track of what they did. But we live, and we still have our harbors and our position, so we will recover, even if it takes us years. But for the moment, Silverport is like a man drunk, fatigued and injured: his very condition cripples his ability to understand what is wrong with him. Before anything else, you will help me to understand how bad our condition is."

He pulls out several small scrolls and stamps each of them with his seal of office before passing them around the table and beginning to give orders, starting with the man who is obviously the chancellor by his clan insignia.

"Ascension Ritual Blade, go and see the heads of all clans great and small, and see who will unite behind me in this time of need. Speak to them of glory, of emergency, or of duty as you judge best. Promise them whatever you think is reasonable. Threaten them if you must. I care little what you do, as long as you bring me results. Even one recalcitrant clan profiteering instead of contributing could be devastating. But above all, do not let them temporize - known enemies are better than lurking traitors."

Ascension Ritual Blade looks up at the ceiling, considering for a moment. "That will take two or three weeks."

"You have one." says Wisdom Shining Void flatly. "Time is our enemy. Send servants to the smaller clans." He turns to the strange foreign woman. "Ebuskun Jin, you should start by familiarizing yourself with the existing warriors and subcommanders. They will probably need some time to adjust to your presence."

"May I have them beaten if they are disobedient?"

"You may." The Portlord sighs, and turns to you. "Understand our situation. Measure our condition. In particular, start looking into which of our creditors and debtors are dead or gone so we can stop paying the former and replace the latter. You'll get an office here in the palace to help you. It's a small silver lining to the unfortunate demise of the previous administration - I can give out rooms and houses freely with the deaths of so many sinecureholders."

Gold Morning gets an order to start vetting the entire intelligence apparatus on the assumption they may have been corrupted or subverted, and the sage, Wolf Three, is told to... take off her hood? Your jaw drops as she does so to reveal a literal, mundane third eye in her forehead. You'd heard cultivators sometimes grew a third eye, but that was supposed to be a glorious thing glowing with qi that could see into the spirit world. This third eye is just creepy. It blinks. Winks? This is confusing, too.

Someone less hesitant than you asks the obvious question: "Why do you have a third eye?"

"The Abominations did it to me. They thought it would be funny, they said, to make my face match the literal meaning of my name. And then they forced me to watch spiritual as well as physical acts of defilement of my shrine." She explains in a bitter voice, closes her third eye, and pulls the hood back down over it.

So that eye does see into the spirit world, then.

"Wolf Three is unfortunately one of the most knowledgeable about the Abominations - not a field in which there's much competition, I imagine." says Wisdom Shining Void. "She was traumatized through no fault of her own and I expect you will all treat her with the respect due her position and as you would expect to be treated yourself. Am I clear?"

You mutter assent along with the rest of the table, even as you shudder a bit to be reminded both of the scourge of the past months and of your nightmare this morning. Wolf Three is told to look into whether there's any chance the Abominations might return, and if so, how they might be prevented from returning, and the meeting is dismissed. You'll meet again in one week once you have more concrete items to discuss and a better knowledge of your situation.

A servant offers to guide you to your new quarters, and you graciously accept. They're expansive, and only a little dusty from disuse. There's a large office for you, with tall shelves and a massive desk containing many drawers, and several smaller offices for the staff you're no doubt expected to have, and attached bedrooms for everyone. It might be a little lonely, though - no, wait, this is spacious enough you could easily invite Jade, your children and the wet nurse to all come and live here.

Settling into the nice chair, thinking about how the shelves really need their contents sorted and perhaps some helpful labels applied, and wondering whether you should search the desk drawers at once or after you've come to grips with your situation, it dawns on you that for the first time in a long while, you have no scheduled activities. No lessons to attend. No relatives to visit. Nothing that needs doing around the house. No family duties. Jade is probably still at the coronation feast, trying to stop your sons from getting a tummyache. Your old obligations have mostly ceased or been suspended indefinitely in favor of your new position, and the Portlord has given you an open-ended task where a lot of people, creditors in particular, will show up at your office and start giving you the information you need if you simply wait for them.

The freedom is intoxicating.

What will you do now?

—

Choose three:
[] Bury yourself in work immediately.
[] Socialize with one of your fellow councillors. (Pick a councillor, can be taken multiple times.)
[] Celebrate with your family.
[] Start networking with one of the Great Houses. They'll appreciate the information and access you can offer. (Pick a clan, can only be taken once.)
[] Hire clerks. You don't have much for them to do yet, but you surely will.
[] Begin abusing your office for profit as fast as you can.

-Voting is now for the FIRST WEEK in your new job, where you get your only chance to make first impressions and set the tone for future. After this we will move to six-month turns.
-"Do your job" is automatic in this turn, because it's currently so abstract. This is what else to do. Burying yourself in work option is diligence above and beyond the normal.
-Embezzlement options and whatnot will show up next turn when you have better budget information.
-Name vote is separate from actions vote. If you really want to vote for more than three actions, you can do so, and I'll use the three that get the most in total.

 

[Exmorri]

Eastern name order it is indeed. Vote will run a while longer because I'll be busy later today. In the meanwhile, have a character reference post. It'll fill out a bit on its own over time, now that life in the city has normalized and people can gossip about their boss without fear of being slaughtered in their beds.


Wisdom Shining Void, the Portlord of Silverport

Spoiler: Image

Opinion: 8/10. He firmly approves of your good work and sense of duty.

Younger than several of his predecessors, and well read on the history of Silverport, Void has an opinion about the course of history and a plan to change it.

Diplomacy: 18 to 22 - he's a seasoned veteran of political games.
Martial: 11 to 15 - he knows enough to leave the strategy to his betters.
Stewardship: 15 to 20 - he doesn't have your natural aptitude, but his experience makes up for it.
Intrigue: 15 to 20 - he's a cunning and subtle man when he wants to be.
Learning: 18 to 25 - he can match venerable sages on a good day.

Known Traits:
Ambitious - he intends to see Silverport not only restored but greater than ever before.
Diligent - he's worked long and hard to rise through the ranks and get where he is.
Gambler - he's known to risk a great deal both at the game table and in politics.
Perpetually Disappointed - he's been jaded by his own rise and has low expectations of everyone but himself.

---

Ascension Ritual Blade, Chancellor of Silverport

Spoiler: Image

Opinion: 5/10. Appreciates being covered for, but did not appreciate being dis-covered in the first place.
Known Traits:
Connected - he has friends in all of the Great Houses.
Clotheshorse - he spends a lot of money keeping up with fashion both new and local.

---

Ebuskun, Marshall of Silverport

Spoiler: Image

Opinion: 8/10. Solid mutual approval.

Diplomacy: 9 to 14 - polite, but unimpressive.
Martial: 15 to 25 - she's better than you, but it's hard to judge how much better.
Stewardship: 8 to 12 - it's clear she expects you to handle this side of things.
Intrigue: 5 to 10 - unfamiliar with the subtleties of Silverport.
Learning: 12 to 16 - she has a good memory, and learns fast.

Known Traits:
Foreigner - She hails from the far reaches of the Iron Plains.
Lost Heir - She's a would-be princess of the dead Iron Empire.

---

Gold Morning, Spymaster of Silverport

Spoiler: Image

Opinion: 6/10 - he's happy to chat with you

Diplomacy: 12 to 16 - polite and always has an interesting story
Martial: 6 to 8 - unskilled, but not entirely incompetent
Stewardship: 6 to 12 - it's hard to say
Intrigue: 15 to 18 - a bit better than you
Learning: 10 to 17 - you have the impression of a wide range of knowledge with occasional nonsense sprinkled in

Known Traits:
Studious - he has a penchant for reading and educating himself in his spare time.

---

Wolf Three, Sage of Silverport
Opinion: 4/10 - you remind her of bad memories.

Diplomacy: 6 to 12 - she's not rude, just not interesting.
Martial: 8 to 12 - basic experience from the school of hard knocks
Stewardship: 9 to 14 - she does her own accounting
Intrigue: 5 to 15 - you find it very hard to get a read on her
Learning: 20 to 22 - she's well versed in matters of both spirits and law

Known Traits:
Touched by the Abominations - she has a third eye in her forehead that can see into the spirit world.
Outcast - she's mostly cut off from Clan Wolf.
Geomancer - she has some training in feng shui.


---

Rain Maximum, Future Marshal (?)

Spoiler: Image

Opinion: 5/10 It's not personal.
Known Traits:
Resilient - He is hard to put down, and it shows

Diplomacy: 6 to 10 - makes an awful first impression
Martial: 18 to 24 - battle-scarred veteran
Stewardship: 4 to 8 - there are quartermasters for this
Intrigue: 8 to 12 - there are spies for this
Learning: 11 to 15 - understands the value of knowledge


---

Avalanche Jade, your wife
Opinion: 10/10 - you've been happily married for years.
Known Traits:
Socializer - she brightens any gathering she attends, and makes friends easily.
Levelheaded - nothing ever seems to startle or upset her.

Avalanche Horn, your older son
Opinion: 9/10 - loves you, but resents being punished sometimes
Known traits:
Loud - it's forgivable in small children.

Avalanche Furrow, your younger son
Opinion: 10/10 - Daddy!

Avalanche Bless, your daughter
Opinion: Undeveloped

 

[Exmorri]

Name: Avalanche Marble
Date of Birth: 746 IC
Personal wealth: 81g

Attributes:
Diplomacy 15: You are eloquent and polite wherever you go.
Martial 7+3: You can pass for a soldier if necessary.
Stewardship 17+3: Your aptitude with numbers is outstanding among your generation.
Intrigue 14: Your tutoring gave you a reasonable grasp of theoretical espionage, but you've had little practical experience yet.
Learning 16+2: You have a good memory and are well read.

Traits:
Eidetic Memory: Unless severely distracted, you are able to memorize anything at a glance and recall it in perfect detail later. +1 Learning
Organized: Through habit or obsession, you keep everything neat, tidy, and in it's place. +1 Stewardship
Supernumerate: You can crunch numbers with ease, making bookkeeping and trigonometry a snap. +1 Stewardship
Inspired: At times you have brilliant ideas. Sadly, they don't always work out, and the drive to implement them distracts you from everything else.
Blessing of Zara Metal-Mother, Southern God of Forges: Bonus to performing smithing and metalwork actions and learning associated skills.

Skills:
Tokaran Tactics: You have studied the war manuals of the Stratocracy. +1 Martial
Basic Smithing: You were blessed with this and then worked to ground the knowledge mundanely. +1 Martial
Advanced Smithing: You have a thorough understanding of fire and metal. +1 Stewardship
Master Smithing: The hammer is light in your hand now. +1 Martial
Old Tongue proficiency: A decent grasp of the language used in many ancient texts. +1 Learning

Connections:
Clan Avalanche, which you were born into. Major
Clan Wisdom. Minor
Clan Ascension. Minor
Clan Bridge. Minor
Temple of Examinations. Moderate
Temple of the City. Moderate

 

[Exmorri]

Spoiler: Winning votes

[*] Celebrate with your family.
[*] Hire clerks. You don't have much for them to do yet, but you surely will.
[*] Bury yourself in work immediately.

[*][Name] Marble

Grandma Green glares fiercely when she hears that no, she cannot in fact pump you for all the juiciest and freshest gossip immediately after you turn the corner from the palace, and in fact she should be ashamed for lurking in the alleys like a bandit trying to ambush you on your way home. All the clan deserves to hear it at the same time - well, maybe all of them is an exaggeration, but runners to the Old Avalanche Mansion and the New Avalanche Mansion soon get four generations of Avalanche readying to gather so they can hear what you've seen and heard at the palace. Musicians are hired, ovens are lit, the rumor mill spins up, and it seems everyone is eager to have another party tomorrow even though they just had one yesterday. You imagine there's several people celebrating even today, now that life is back to normal and will hopefully stay that way.

The Portlord is from Clan Wisdom. The Chancellor is from Clan Ascension. The Spymaster is from Clan Gold. The last two posts have been kept under wraps, which has led to a lot of speculation about whether Clan Bridge in its capacity as last of the Great Houses has managed to finagle a post on the Privvy Council or not, and if so, which one. After savoring some of the wilder speculation, you reveal that they haven't. It's you (obviously), Clan Wolf (there are puzzled looks), and a clanless foreigner (there are gasps). Migration to Silverport is routine, obviously, but under normal circumstances anyone skilled enough to be on the Privvy Council would get adopted or married into a clan right quick. So why...?

Then you drop Ebuskun's name, and the pieces start coming together fast. She's famous, in her way. Quite a few of your relatives have seen her several times both riding around town and joining soldiers on the training grounds, but nobody had guessed that she'd be the new Marshal. You learn that she's in line for what would have been the throne of the Iron Empire, her father is the currently leading pretender to that title (king-in-exile, he calls himself) and commands a band of several hundred nomad riders somewhere in the Iron Plains. You don't know whether to feel relieved or distressed that her stated ambition to reunite the long-dead empire might have some basis in fact.

"So, what was that you said about someone from Wolf?" Grinning, you offer your opinion that Ebuskun isn't even the oddest person on the council, and reveal the fact of Three's third eye. All nearby conversation grinds to a halt for a moment, then resumes with increased fervor.

Eventually, a sort of social consensus arises. Those of your relatives with contacts in Clan Wolf had heard nothing about this, which implies that Three is not in good standing with her clan, which means she's hired for nonpolitical reasons, which suggests Wolf is not going to be a threat and Avalanche can focus on other threats to their position like Plum.

The evening grows late with a score of cousins, uncles, aunts and other relatives pumping you for details on what the job is like, and returning the favor by sharing gossip about the other councillors. It ends only when Jade pulls you free, announcing to the crowd that you still owe her a daughter and she won't have anyone talking her husband to death before she can collect.
(Dramatis Personae updated! Portlord in particular.)

---

Your office feels oddly spacious and quiet when you return the next day. The two clerks you've hired help a bit, and Jade will be moving in soon with your children and the wet nurse, but there are still several entire rooms unoccupied in the section of the palace you've been assigned. You feel a little like a ghost haunting an abandoned house, a dead soul going through the habits of the living by mere rote.
[Well begun is half done: Stewardship, 29+19=48.]
But as you settle in, it becomes increasingly clear -- and frustrating -- that you are very much alive and having to deal with the troubles that result from other people being dead. The palace is bleeding money at a worrying rate. Yesterday you wondered if you could justify hiring clerks. Today it's becoming clear that two clerks are a drop in a bucket.

And that's just the paperwork you have, both that which was left over and that you've hastily written as creditors and debtors come to visit. The paperwork you don't have manages to somehow be even more frustrating despite its absence, as you infer sums and payments due and supplies to be delivered.

Some few scribes have kept full and complete records even during the, ah, transitional period, and for them you swear you'll make a great offering at the temple of whatever god watches over dutiful servants. Is it Mercury? You think it's some aspect of Mercury. You'll ask an astrologer later, there's work to be done now.

It only took you one day to become confident that the palace (the Portlord in official capacity signs contracts on behalf of the palace, to keep them separate from his personal dealings) is losing money. Two days later, you had fully grasped the magnitude. By the end of the week, when it's time for the council to reconvene with the preliminary reports, you have reconstructed enough of the palace finances that your estimate of the net expenditures is surely within a rounding error of the true figure. Thank goodness it was only a brief loss of paperwork due to neglect, and not some villain having deliberately run off with years of information.

That rounding error would still be more money than you've ever held in your life, though.

---

You also have more personal matters to attend to, mostly still revolving around money. Now that you have a very well-paid job and there's no way to hide it, the friendly uncle who sponsored your ill-fated reinvention of the plow is "suggesting" it's about time you start repaying him for the horses you killed. Several impecunious clan members have also shown up and started to lean on you to help support them. The pecunious ones have approved. Even Jade is expressing casual certainty that you'll buy her a new dress soon! Does no one respect your right to your hard-earned wages??
(Then again, you've had twenty years of education from the best tutors at the clan's expense. Maybe you shouldn't complain too loudly.)
The personal clerks you've hired need paying too - you tried borrowing some of the regular palace staff, and they turned out to be incompetent at anything outside their narrow niches. And of course you continue to set aside a tenth of your income for offerings and sacrifices at various temples.

---

VOTING TIME:
You have access to the palace finances, which are in bad shape, but the influx is still massive and poorly tracked. You have 18g from your upbringing, and you are now being paid the overwhelming new fortune of 50g/turn. Your personal expenditures are 15g/turn, 5 for each of clerks, family and religious offerings. Pick one vote in each of the following categories:

[] [Embezzle] Nothing. The palace is suffering enough without you adding to it.
[] [Embezzle] 10g/turn. Just a little padding to pay the clerks. (no risk)
[] [Embezzle] 25g/turn. You have obligations, gods damn it.
[] [Embezzle] 50g/turn. Some of the suppliers are corrupt. You expect you can replace them with honest ones and pocket the difference.
[] [Embezzle] 100g/turn. You've seen the palace budget. They probably won't miss it.
[] [Embezzle] 150g/turn. You're responsible for paying all the soldiers. That means you should be paid as much as the soldiers, right?
[] [Embezzle] 200g/turn. The palace is likely to go bankrupt soon. Get yours while the getting's good.
[] [Embezzle] 500g. Gather up every loose coin, blame the Abominations and the transition period! It's the perfect crime. (Forces mandatory revote to a lower amount next turn.)

You owe some money to your friendly uncle. How fast do you want to pay it back?
[] [Debt] Pay back 15g/turn. Stays ahead of the interest. You'll be done paying some time in the next Portlord's term.
[] [Debt] Pay back 25g/turn. Makes a dent. You'll be done paying in about eight years.
[] [Debt] Pay back 35g/turn. Compound interest is bad, get it away. You'll be done paying in about four years.
(Time frames assuming you don't rack up more debt, which is definitely a thing that can happen with your inspired projects!)

You could use some help getting the palace finances in order. Who do you want to reach out to?
[] [Help] Chancellor Blade. He can talk debtors into paying and creditors into delaying.
[] [Help] Marshall Ebuskun. She can bring soldiers to help enforce and collect payments.
[] [Help] Spymaster Morning. He can help find miscreants and verify dubious entries.
[] [Help] No one. You'll manage this on your own, for the glory of Avalanche!

Finally, inspiration is striking you with full force again. What project sounds most appealing?
[] [Inspiration] Metallurgy. The right sort of forge-complex might be able to produce starmetal from regular iron.
[] [Inspiration] Military drill. If Ebuskun is going to reunite Iron, she'll need the best army in the world, and you think you know how to create it.
[] [Inspiration] Chemistry. You have an absolutely brilliant idea: Flexible glass!
[] [Inspiration] You'll know the idea when it hits you. (Other selection at QM's whim.)

(Starmetal is the metal normally found in a fallen star.)

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