Wouldn't any internal opposition be also well versed in assassination? As well as anyone trying to discreetly murder one's superiors?
You use your money gained by murders to pay other people to resolve the problem for you. If it doesn't work, you presumably use enough murder so that the problem is gone, one way or another😏
Money or slaves probably. If you don't have enough to solve the problem, get more. With murder.
It sounds more and more like they somehow managed to solve a lot of societal problems through education and indoctrination. They just tricked the cycle of abuse and backstabbing by focusing their cultural advancements around murder, thus making sure that everyone is actually interested and takes it seriously and that the more disciplined and realistic ones actually come out on top.
It might also be because remaining useful to the "higher order" like that is what prevents the Horned Rat from clamping down and wiping them out for not following his preferred mold. Like, maybe Clan Eshin would actually be able to abandon the Under-Empire and deal with more reliable customers on the surface realms, but the rest of Skavendom would probably get a religious imperative and divine aid to dig them out of whatever hole they are hiding and exterminate them to the last.
Pretty well. You've got some of the Empire's best units represented here. Steam Tanks and Demigryph Knights are generally considered to be the Empire's heavy hitters. Slayers aren't hugely powerful, but they're great tarpits. You've got some nice skirmishers to deal with enemy artillery or to serve as chaff. Your lords and heroes are a bit all over the place, but you have so many you'd probably be ok. I think your main weakness is a weird lack of line infantry, which might well mean your opponent could bog you down in large tarpits.
I should point out that Pestilens' day to day IS their religous order. If you're not a religous fanatic, you're not Pestilens. You wouldn't be able to survive a day, because of all the vile disease and decay that accompanies them. They're religous lunatics who worship the disease wracking their body as they see it as a manifestation of The Horned Rat in his aspect of Lord of Decay. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the ceremonial name (not his birth name) of the Plague Lord who rules Pestilens is Nurglitch.
Mors is the only one there that isn't part of the Pestilent Brotherhood, they just joined because of opportunism I guess. Of these, Clans Pestilens, Flem and Mors are on the Council of 13, or I guess were depending on the results of the Civil War in DL. The other seats are the Horned Rat, Seerlord Kritslik representing the Grey Seers and "interpreting the desires of the Horned Rat"(He really has two votes), Lord Verminkin representing Moulder, Nightlord Sneek representing Eshin, Lord Morskittar representing Skyre, and there's Clans Skab, Skaar, Skaul, Sleekit and Verms alongside Pestilens, Mors and Flem. I'm using Children of the Horned Rat 2E for this, other sources have different composition, so if you go to the wiki you will find a different composition of the council.
Sources differ, but they seem to have as much influence from Cathay as they do from Nippon, maybe more. Many sources say "Far East", but 7th Edition specifies that Eshin went to Cathay specifically, although they seem to have taken practices and concepts from Nippon and Ind as well. They weren't picky about their cultural appropriation.
In dark tongue (of which Queekish is a derivative) the root word for "decay" and "survival" is apparently Nurgh - so Nurglitch may well mean something approximating "Plague Lord".
I Shall Lock-Seal The Heavens, Yes-Yes!
The Sneaking Rat Sect holds its entrance examinations every year in the under-markets of Eight Pillar City. Swarms of lowly applicants flock to hidden alcoves, hoping to join the ranks of the infamous assassins, not knowing that the trials have already begun...
... Shameless shilling for someone else's story but have you tried "beware of chicken"? It... Well it subverts the expectations, let's say it like that.
A better option is Forge of Destiny in this site. IT is actually a stright foward cultivation story but actually good and deep rather than trying to subvert tropes that reader have never seen like in that story.
That is fair enough. I used that phrase mostly because that is what it does, it takes the normal xianxia formula of arrogant young master takes on the heavens and get Über powerful and replaces it with... Becoming a farmer and raising a chicken (and a lot more besides) and its genuinely good.I will be honest ever since the Last Jedi I have mental scars associated with the words 'subverts expectations' and I do not think I am the only one.
You might want to just say 'It's surprising'
I will be honest ever since the Last Jedi I have mental scars associated with the words 'subverts expectations' and I do not think I am the only one.
You might want to just say 'It's surprising'
