I'm thinking of writing an omake on the complete disappearance of the Ymaryn from this point in history for two hundred years if Academia doesn't write a post today.
I'm having problems visualising what the Khemetri would do. Would they take over the land of the Ymaryn, or would the surrounding groups declare it a holy land?
The area would probably be declared cursed because of all the plague that would come up when the Ymaryn aren't constantly tending the land.
No one would want to settle the land because it would be essentially useless, but I wouldn't be surprised if expeditions would be taken to get lost knowledge or the secrets of our better iron.
I'm thinking of writing an omake on the complete disappearance of the Ymaryn from this point in history for two hundred years if Academia doesn't write a post today.
I'm having problems visualising what the Khemetri would do. Would they take over the land of the Ymaryn, or would the surrounding groups declare it a holy land?
I'm thinking of writing an omake on the complete disappearance of the Ymaryn from this point in history for two hundred years if Academia doesn't write a post today.
I'm having problems visualising what the Khemetri would do. Would they take over the land of the Ymaryn, or would the surrounding groups declare it a holy land?
O'Neill: The Ymaryn seems to be too good to be true.
Jackson: You mean aside the fact that they hadn't tried to torture, main, poke, marry, need a technical solution, or otherwise complicate our lives?
Teal'c: But they seem to have a complication of their own...The slaves seem to not appreciate the Ymaryn's help for example.
O'Neill: Oh no....
O'Neill: The Ymaryn seems to be too good to be true.
Jackson: You mean aside the fact that they hadn't tried to torture, main, poke, marry, need a technical solution, or otherwise complicate our lives?
Teal'c: But they seem to have a complication of their own...The slaves seem to not appreciate the Ymaryn's help for example.
O'Neill: Oh no....
Sooo... given that this is a weekend and I *could* stay up until 5AM if need be, how late do you think I should stay up? What time does AN usually post at, and do we know what time zone AN lives in?
Sooo... given that this is a weekend and I *could* stay up until 5AM if need be, how late do you think I should stay up? What time does AN usually post at, and do we know what time zone AN lives in?
He's Canadian as far as he's told us/hinted at us and updates around 12am EST time. Considering past update times if it's going to be today it'll probably be in the next two hours.
I think that's my fourth one from him now? And the first one was in regards to Yenyna teaching people Dragon Style Kung Fu if my aged memory does not fail me.
[X][King] Embrace the Absurd
[X][War] Keep fighting (2 Econ temp damage, +2 Econ next turn)
Main Turn
[Main] Build Theater (-1 Econ, -2 Wealth, -1 Culture, +4 Culture end of turn, +2 Culture next turn, other effects)
[Main] Expand Forest (-3 Econ, -3 Econ Expansion, grows forest, +4 Econ next turn if in settled and controlled territory, improved odds of success, other effects, +1 Sustainable Forest)
[Guild] Artisan Games (-3 Wealth, Culture, Mysticism, and Tech per action)
Provinces – [Main] War Mission – Trelli x2, [Sec] Raise Army (-2 Econ, -3 Wealth, +5 Martial, +1 Culture, potential additional effects)
Policies – Blackmouth Governor's Palace (9/9), Dragon Graveyard Temple (5/6) Significant Walls (19/46)
FC – Dragon Graveyard Temple (6/6), Redhills Baths (2/3)
Western – [Main] War Mission – Trelli, [Main] Support Artisans, [Sec] Governor's Palace
Greenshore – [Main] War Mission – Trelli, [Main] Build Roads
Gulvalley – [Main] War Mission - Trelli
Heaven's Hawk – [Main] Build Iron Mine
Txolla – [Main] Build Road, [Sec] Build Mills
Tinriver – [Main] War Mission – Trelli
Thunder Speakers – [Main] Build Roads
Thunder Horse – [Main] Build Roads
Far North – [Sec] Expand Econ, [Sec] Expand Forest
Response
Materials Tech (-10 Tech)
Support Artisans (-1 Econ, -4 Wealth, +5 Tech, +1 Culture, higher chance of innovations)
Build Porcelain Works (-2 Econ, -2 Tech, 1 sustainable forest, +3 Wealth, +3 Culture, increased chance of innovations)
More Farming (Main Expand Econ, -2 Centralization)
Support Harmurri (-2 Diplo, -5 Wealth)
Some called him Yshuyn the Mad, others Yshuyn the Wise, and still others whispered of him as Crow-Eyed Yshuyn, the king who had the insight of the trickster creator of the world.
The said that while it started with the war, whatever mad insights he gained came with news of the near obliteration of the Red Banner Company at the hands of the Trelli navy. The more experienced sea fighters had caught the Red Banner repositioning and had sent dozens of ships full of men to the bottom of the Yllthon. While the company had technically survived, they would not be able to fight for many years, and the tragedy had finally shattered something that was already broken within the king. Some said that he began to cry until he laughed, others that he started to laugh until he cried. Either way, at some point he either retreated to the palace shrine or was carried there by concerned attendants.
The next morning he walked out of the shrine and into legend.
"What is justice?" He demanded of the assembled court.
He heard the answers of everyone and then began to systematically twist them into absurdities. He relentlessly badgered everyone in attendance to give him a proper answer, one that he could not reduce to uselessness with a few adept arguments. Stern faced warriors were reduced to tears with the absolute viciousness with which the king laid into them, while priests ended up sitting on the floor with their heads held in their hands, paralyzed with existential doubt. Finally the king sat upon the throne and proclaimed.
"It is the job of the king to sort out what is just when it is unclear, and yet I think we can all agree that both I and my court have ever been less clear. Let us ask the question then of how the job can be done then. Can it be done, or is the position already an absurdity, a contradiction?" Yshuyn asked of everyone, eliciting fearful grimaces as those present contemplated the consequences of the king's proposal. "In the interest of charity, itself a contradiction and absurdity, I suppose I should attempt to reveal through action when logic fails."
The immediate response throughout the kingdom was a general unease, a fear that the king would begin issuing ludicrous and damaging decrees. As it turned out, while he had embraced the vicious mockery of the absurdities and hypocrisies of those around him, he hadn't descended into complete madness or self-indulgence. Rather, he essentially handed the war over fully to the war chiefs and proclaimed that if the gods had decreed that the war be done then who was he to stand in the way, but since his talents lay elsewhere, he would simply ensure that the blood mill of combat was supplied with a constant supply of men as grain, iron as millstone, and ships as drive shafts.
The War Chiefs weren't exactly pleased with the way he explicitly worded it that way, nor the priests with how Yshuyn sort of implied that they were bad people for suggesting all of this, but he was true to his word and kept the economy going and the warriors well supplied with arms and fresh recruits. He also continued to find ways to systematically insult and belittle everyone around him, but in exactly the sort of ways that couldn't invite either official censure or sufficient anger to trigger a serious and widespread plot against him. In particular, he achieved much of his insulting ways by supporting the lower classes in ways that struck against the pride of the traders, patricians, and priests - acts which garnered him widespread acclaim, particularly in the cities.
He commissioned plays and art that were hideously - but hilariously - critical of all elites and their concerns, with his own character often the one most targeted for mockery. The king was a fool who made foolish proclamations, getting the most sympathetic characters injured through his stupidity, but the most scathing critique fell perhaps hardest upon those who obeyed his commands without question or critique, and asked the question about who was causing the most problems, who was being truly disharmonious in the plot: the king, the nobles, or the small folk who questioned the madness of the first two? He flirted with the profane in his works, with suggesting that the kingship was not sacrosanct. He pulled up historical cases where the king may have been speeded from this world to the next by greedy or exasperated courts and made it explicit, and even cast prophecies of his own doom via assassination or lynch mob triggered by one mad decree too many. He seemed to take immense glee with the fact that other kings might feel nervous with art floating around that suggested that their reign was not given divine approval, but that because of the supposed divine approval of his own reign none could gainsay him on this. While he broke none of the laws that bound even kings, he did encode the protection of his works into the laws so that future kings might not sweep them away.
He then commissioned a play about a future king, furious at being compared to the historical "Mad King Yshuyn" striking those protections from the stele, and then, deciding that he rather liked being unbound from the law, began to strike away other, more fundamental laws, while also encoding new laws that fit his whims - a scathing critique of the very thing Yshuyn himself was doing in protecting these works!
But he did it so masterfully, the eye for relationships and talent that had propelled him to the kingship serving him well in his choice of artists, that even those targeted by his campaign of disparagement found themselves laughing along to his absurdities. More than that, his relentless pursuit of hypocrisy and foolishness earned him more than a few supporters among those that theoretically should despise him. More than a few priests - more often than not the most viciously mocked of his targets - began to take up his opinions and practices. Most entertainingly, Yshuyn invited his greatest supporter among the priests to publicly lambast and humiliate the man, resulting in the fellow firing back with every deficiency, hypocrisy, and stupidity of Yshuyn's own and the two entering into a gigantic shouting match in the middle of court where they got so into hurling insult and criticism that they began to put their words to rhyme and meter, followed by the summoning of musicians to accompany their performances. Finally they broke down into a fit of hysterical laughter at the utter waste of time and resources their argument had been and wandered away to continue preaching their detestation of the stupidities of the world independently.
Yshuyn did other things to further insult the patricians, priests, and traders. Most famously, he called for every prostitute in Valleyhome to attend to his court. Every prostitute, with even the unlicensed to receive a full pardon and official license through the king should they attend. Once the collection of confused but curious sex workers arrived, he then announced that he wished to interview them all.
"As a king, I shall be soon selling access to my daughter's bodies to the men who can provide me most with what I want, and thus I felt it behooved me, as the embodiment of all that is excellent in the kingdom, to receive mentorship in the practice by those most adept at it," he proclaimed, to the gobsmacking shock of the patricians in attendance and the cackling delight of the prostitutes. When soon enough confronted by an outraged father, Yshuyn was said to have nonchalantly said, "I suggest that you either increase your respect for those who have sex for power or survival, or ask yourself how my words could possibly sting."
While not even the king could get "sexual prowess" declared an official part of the Games, he certainly circulated money among the Guild of Hospitality and Entertainment during the festival to hold an unofficial version, while also encouraging competitions for "absurdities" of his own. Some were relatively easily received, such as boat racing competitions that pitted both sailors and shipwrights to the task of being the fastest team, but there were also other competitions that were insults at the elite, such as contests of who could shovel the most manure, or a given amount in a set amount of time, or just weird contests like "Who can make the hottest fire?" That last one rapidly ran into the problem of no-one having any idea how to even judge such a contest, which rapidly made it and other such ideas a perennial favourite of the king. Everyone knew that some fires were hotter than others the way that some men were faster or stronger than others, but how could you even measure the difference? More than a few priests began to butt heads with those opposed to "sullying" the games with anything other then pure expressions of physical prowess due to the philosophical fascination. Perhaps nothing could encapsulate the frustrations of the king in his quest for "actual justice" than the physical reality of knowing that one fire must be hotter than another but being utterly unable to find the truth of the matter.
While many criticized the king for spending rather exorbitant sums on contests that tended to produce curiosities at best the vast majority of the time, somewhere along the line someone figured out how to make an efficient "kiln" for cooking wood to charcoal, massively increasing the amount of coal they could get from a given input of wood. While building the structure required a far greater initial investment the priests were immediately calling for wider-spread implementation to better manage the forests, and from the far northern trade post and their experiments with the more resinous woods found there, there was some suggestion that the new methods could also allow for the production of the high quality pitch that the Trelli used so extensively in their warships. That might require expansion of the northern trading post to better harvest the forests, but from all reports the forests were so huge that if not for the glaring of the priests there might have been suggestion to not even manage their harvest.
There was no possibility of men ever meaningfully denting such bounty after all.
As Yshuyn's life began to wind down and he found the fires of his outrage at the world dimming, he spent more and more time relaxing in the sunshine of the gardens of Valleyhome, talking philosophy with any who came upon him and generally irritating those who were opposed to his decisions. While quick to point out the flaws and hypocrisies of the elites, he did also call out the unnecessary crassness and cruelties of the lower classes, even if he found their actions less objectionable because they didn't preach one thing while doing another. So while he had sated the hunger for entertainment by the poor, he had also stoked an ugly fire within them that he had also refused to actually indulge. He had exposed flaws and tried to correct them, but the masses still instinctively wanted someone to pay for the stupidity of the past few decades of pointless war.
None among the People had seen the city of Trelli in generations, their naval activities too strong and the land routes too long or too fiercely contested. The warriors of the core were in good condition, but the Banner Companies were battered and the periphery was bleeding men for little visible gain. Many were now calling that this fight should just end, with the few who didn't just want to walk away saying that they should at least secure the rights of the slaves. They could probably get the Trelli to agree to abandon a section of their former colony where the slaves could go to have their own kingdom, but the former slaves weren't exactly going to be on the friendliest terms. If the People wanted to convince them that they weren't just a new set of conquerors and masters, they would have to be allowed to set their own path first.
This would annoy a lot of people, but it would help satisfy the divine directives of the gods to stamp down on slavery when possible. Of course, it would really anger the traders who looked to have had their biggest trade partners infuriated over nothing, but there were new trade goods that they might be interested in. Not just from the north, but the joint trade mission with the Harmurri the king had authorized had returned with seed samples from the distant Cotton Lands, although the Weavers Guild and associates seemed more interested. Yshuyn himself seemed to like the idea that with local access the fine cloth could be worn by more than just elites, to the benefit of all.
Also, taking things beloved by the elites and letting the poor have access, just to annoy the elites, had become a pleasure akin to a fine wine for him.
Patricians (3) - Objective: Build a Gymnasium within 2 turns. Success: +2 Culture Guild (3) - Objective: Lead in a textile type good within 3 turns. Success: Free random technology, Failure: -4 Wealth Traders (2) - Objective: Establish a navigable path to the Saffron Sea within 1 turns. Success: Ship innovation, Failure: Trelli gain trade power Yeomen (3)- Objective: Have 8 or more forest slots unoccupied within 3 turns. Success: +2 Econ Priests (2)- Objective: Build an Observatory within 2 turns. Failure: -1 RA, -1 Legitimacy Urban Poor (1)- Objective: Have another faction fail a quest within 2 turns. Failure: -2 Stability These counters iterate at the next mid-turn. The numbers in brackets indicate the general faction strength.
How to handle the war?
[] Peace out
[] Force the foundation of a new and independent kingdom for the former slaves
[] Keep fighting, surely the Trelli must crack?
Man, We must be near crit failing every combat roll, or their near critting theirs.
[X] Force the foundation of a new and independent kingdom for the former slaves
W.e at this point its obvious that the dice are fucking us, so lets just take what we can get.
Edit: Also the Urban poor want us to fuck ourselves I see.
So we HAVE to fail a quest or we lost stability. Wtf is that shit?
We have to take the middle option, it'll mean we fail the trader quest; however it means we don't get buttfucked by the urban poor who are spiteful little pricks
Man, We must be near crit failing every combat roll, or their near critting theirs.
[X] Force the foundation of a new and independent kingdom for the former slaves
W.e at this point its obvious that the dice are fucking us, so lets just take what we can get.
Edit: Also the Urban poor want us to fuck ourselves I see.
So we HAVE to fail a quest or we lost stability. Wtf is that shit?
Looking at our stats, we can hold out just fine, though I'm not so sure of the King's mental stability, since we're still turning a profit, and have basically maxed out the Martial we could have.
Full review to come later. It's a bit of an awkward time of day but theres a lot of cool stuff in the update.
We have to take the middle option, it'll mean we fail the trader quest; however it means we don't get buttfucked by the urban poor who are spiteful little pricks
