Cacophonous Interlude is NOT active
(the QMPC does NOT hear what you write right now)
Next story update : Sometime in July would be nice
Next vote closing : TBD
Progress toward next update : 3,146 words
Code:
Anything I post that's not in text blocks or in spoilers
may be understood to be said by the QMPC, with the
exception of the Collaboration Post
(see Collaboration Post for details on itself)
Code:
Players do not need to use code blocks or spoilers
outside of cacophonous interludes
If you use code blocks, please limit yourself to 32 lines
and your lines to 57 characters, so that people on mobile
can read them without scrolling within the code block
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This is not meant to be Plagiarism Quest.
You're not discouraged from using outside reference
material or quoting other sources. When you do, please
cite your sources in spoilers or a code box.
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I have added some players who contributed a fair amount
the last two times as thread collaborators who can update
the collaboration post. If you'd like to update the
collaboration post too, contact me by PM and we'll talk
about it.
Check the Collaboration Post and read the latest story post in the Threadmarks to get a rough idea of where things are at.
If you're not already involved in the game, portions of either of these may be difficult to follow. But you can skip to the line that says "B R E A K" in the latest threadmarked story post and skim from there to get an idea of what's going on.
If there's no corresponding Closing The Vote post in the Informational threadmarks for the latest story post in (normal?) Threadmarks, then the game is in a cacophonous interlude and the QMPC will hear what you post, unless you do so with spoilers or code boxes. The NOTICES portion at the top of this post should also tell you if the game is in a cacophonous interlude.
So you can engage with other players, make suggestions, ask questions, and propose plans and you can compose a message to the QMPC all whether or not the game is in a cacophonous interlude. And once it is, you can vote and/or send a message to the QMPC by creating a post in the thread.
If you want to vote, simply do so as you would in other quests on this board. You may look at other players' votes to see how yours should be formatted. And you may check the tally to see that yours are counted as you intend them.
If you want to send a message to the QMPC, though, keep in mind that they are a creature of their time. They may not understand what you mean if you don't take the time to make it clear. This game rewards and demands work from its players. When a player wants to introduce a concept or tool or technology to the QMPC, that player will probably need to expend effort to explain it carefully, and take into consideration the limits of the QMPC's understanding of the world.
I think this is similar enough to Graeber's 'interpretive labor' that we can use the term colloquially to describe what is being asked of players. Put yourself in the mind of the QMPC and ask yourself how such a person can be made to understand what you want to tell them.
The QMPC has different values than we do. They have different assumptions about the world and objects and forces within it. Their goals may not align directly with number-go-up or color-get-big gaming agendas. But they want something, and will listen most attentively to players that tell them how to get more of or closer to what they want.
The Quest Master posts story updates that have 3 parts.
Quest Master Player Character responses to player posts made during the last cacophonous interlude
An update by the QMPC following a break of varying length but usually some number of years, covering what the character believes is worth mentioning
Requests by the QMPC for direction on a number of issues, which the players will provide in the form of votes
Following each story update, players posts are audible to the QMPC until voting is closed.
This is the cacophonous interlude.
Players may convey any information they can represent in text.
No images, sounds, or hyperlinks will get through (this is my limitation, not a limitation of the game, so please do not try to transcend it with clever protocol tricks).
Players may use spoilers or code blocks to communicate with each other without doing so in ways the QMPC can hear.
When votes are tallied, the QM collects player posts so that it may be known what the QMPC heard.
Votes are tallied in the conventional fashion. So only votes in the most recent post by each player are counted. [X] marks what the player is voting. And only identical write-ins accumulate.
Some votes are querying the players for their preference, in which case the only suboptimal answer is that which does not accurately reflect the preference of the players who nonetheless chose it (I don't think these kinds of misunderstandings can be helped).
Other votes are intended as puzzles where there is a choice the QM believes would best meet what they believe to be the goals of the players.
However, in these sorts of votes the QM has in mind a choice that would provide the players with what the QM thinks they most want, but which is not listed in the available votes.
In this way, clever write-ins are encouraged.
QM reads player posts, researches their suggestions, checks notes for precedent, determines what the QMPC thinks they already know on the topic, what they're right or wrong about, how likely they are to engage with the topic, how likely the QMPC's followers are to follow-through in the matter, and finally what the result is going to be later on.
QM composes QMPC's responses to player posts made during the cacophonous interlude and updates their notes.
When narrative benefits from uncertainty and chance, QM devises tests for QMPC or other characters and makes those tests using die rolls on a post made just for that purpose.
Skill or attribute tests will be made with a largely undocumented homebrew modification of the Burning Wheel system, mangled to suit the format of this game. (The Burning Wheelis a good system and I encourage you to check it out.)
Tests may be a contest between two characters or against a static target with tiered results.
The rules being used and followed will be described in each post in which tests are made by die rolls.
Normal mortals count 7s and better as successes.
Heroic characters and characters who are otherwise innately magical count 6s and better as successes.
Demigod characters and characters who otherwise possess some spark of divinity count 5s and better as successes.
New gods and characters who have otherwise stolen the power of Old Gods count 4s and better as successes.
Old Gods count 3s and better as successes.
Sorcery and other magic skills lower the threshold of success by 1 to a minimum of 3 only when they are the skill being tested, not when they provide a bonus to other skills. Players may note that Old Gods' threshold of success does not improve when they use magic.
Bonus dice provided by Kahl's Warhorses and any incendiary devices more complicated than a burning arrow reroll 9s & 10s and keeps successes. These same bonus dice cancels successes on 1s & 2s, rerolls those, and additional 1s & 2s cancel additional successes. More 1s, 2, 9, or 10s mean more rerolling and more successes or cancelations, but only in the manner of the original die. That is, a 1 or 2 that comes up when a 9 on a bonus die is rerolled don't cancel successes or lead to further rerolling.
Research project results are determined by percentile dice with results falling into 5 tiers.
Uh oh: something has gone horribly wrong
Nuh uh: failure, but the boring kind
Huh: partial success
Uh huh: full success
Whoa: superior special case success
When players expect a test to be coming up -- for example if they vote for an invasion or to send a diplomat to manipulate a foreign leader -- they can improve the odds of the test turning out the way they want by providing the QMPC with advice specific to that matter. If the advice is not mistaken or outright bad, there will be at least a chance it will help. That is, decent advice adds dice.
QM composes the QMPC's post-break update, player vote questions, and player vote options.
GOTO 1
The QMPC is intended to be the only character the players will interact with in this game. (It's kind of possible that the players could maneuver the QMPC to surrender control of the Astute Cacophony to another character, but unlikely.)
The QMPC is a small, evil woman who knows magic and has not died, despite looking like she probably should have at some point. She goes by the name Bianca the Undying. Her early life took place in the Paleolithic, in which she has said that she traveled around quite a bit and came to understand the malleable nature of populations of people and animals and even the land itself. At some point she was trapped underground, to her displeasure. She remained trapped for a very long time.
When Bianca got out, she found her way to a community of eight tribes living pastoral and agrarian lifestyles in the local Copper Age. She made these people hers and they relied on her for magically enriching their fields so that they did not need to slash, burn, and move around a bit, unlike their neighbors. Bianca and her followers formalized their relationships into the Eight Ways Pact. Later, another tribe joined Bianca's followers bringing small horses and the Bronze Age and their pact was updated with a ninth directive.
Bianca has an agenda that requires her to have more power than she does right now. She believes that achieving divinity will get her that power.
2019-03-01 Advise a Bronze Age Villain
2019-03-07 Evil Bronze Age Mummy Tribal Goddess Wants to Hear What You Think!
2019-08-06 From Tomb to Palace: a Scholastic Quest of Blood, Mud, Roads, and Steel
2020-09-04 What Can SV Teach an Evil Sorceress? writing, roads, bloomeries, gunpowder, & sailing, maybe
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I want to see whatever people want to share with a story
villain or ancient world ruler.
If the things being shared aren't useful to the quest
NPC, let me tell players that through the quest NPC.
And if that means that every few updates some new blood
takes the same faltering stab at describing the
confounded bessemer process, so be it.
Unless you believe another player is misleading the quest
NPC, let each have their say. I don't mean to discourage
disagreement. You're all fallible and to the degree I am
not it is only because I have authorial fiat. What I
mean to discourage is discouragement.
You have no form. You have many voices. Some speak wisdom, some folly, some madness. Only you can hear your voices. So it has been for as long as you have been. But the things you know, and that you can know, stretch far, far beyond the cacophony that defines your perception and expression both.
Now, in this singular and unique moment you are invited to venture outside your world and reach the ear of a new listener, one who does not know all that you know, one that not only listens but sees and acts.
And there are three who call on you, the Astute Cacophony. But you can only choose one.
Choose whom you will advise:
[ ] Bianca the Undying rules the Nine Nations in a manner more like a particularly interventionist goddess than a queen. She has worked her sorcery to benefit the nine tribes who supplicate before her, and to cement her control over them, for the centuries since would-be grave-robbers unwittingly released her from a much, much older tomb. Know this of the Undying and her resources:
After 10,000 Years I Am Free: Bianca cannot be killed. That's why she was sealed away long, long ago. She wasn't the only Undying at the time and she doesn't know what happened to the others. She does not eat or sleep. She does not tire or grow bored.
When Someone Asks If You're a God You Say Yes: The tribespeople who follow Bianca believe she is a deity. That doesn't mean they follow her orders without asking or that they fanatically devote themselves to her. But it means none of them would think to replace her and, if that were suggested, would find the concept bizarre.
Warriors, Come Out and Pla-ay: In special cases, smaller numbers of warriors are chosen by respected warleaders for attacks that require proven fighters or stealth or discipline. But in general war anyone who wants to fight, fights. Farmers, herders, and crofters all join when the tribe goes to war. Of the three choices, Bianca can field the largest number of capable if desperate combatants, so long as the chiefs and councils of each of the Nine Nations heed her call.
It Takes a Village: The densest level of urbanization found in Bianca's followers is the village. Some of them are large villages, but they are not towns or cities.
[ ] Zorella the Cursed is a very proficient killer, and must continue to kill to sustain her divinely cursed existence. Fortunately, she won sanctuary from a priestly kingdom, within whose borders she is respected for her might and station. Over time she proved herself and is now trusted with the administration of a client state, over which she is effectively rules as a vassal to the high priesthood who spared and protected her. The following describes Zorella's circumstances and situation:
Tell You What I Do Like… A Dyed in the Wool Killer: Zorella's skill at arms and as a leader of soldiers is unmatched by any mortal, but that's to be expected because her father was divine. She can and has stood alone against scores of warriors and slew them all. With preparation and from ambush she has killed hundreds, again alone. When leading a warband or, providence forbid, an army she serves as a huge force multiplier to those fighting under her.
Because You Have Done This, Cursed Are You Above All: In a misguided attempt to prove herself to her divine father, Zorella brought about the deaths of thousands of followers of other deities, many by her own hand. Not only was her divine father unimpressed, but other divinities were very upset and cursed her. Now she tires quickly in sunlight and must draw on the lives of others to sustain her own. Only with great effort can she cross clean water. And salt physically repulses her.
Sanctuary, Sanctuary: Hounded by those she'd persecuted, opportunists, and enemies in general, Zorella fled to a kingdom ruled by a priest of her divine father's cult. There she was given protection, in recognition of her heritage. Demigods do not age like mortals, and as the rulership of the holy kingdom was passed from oracle to seer to hierophant, Zorella came to be entrusted with the military might of the holy state. When, at the direction of the high priestess, she conquered a neighboring kingdom, she was made satrap, in which capacity she still serves.
Fear Will Keep the Local Systems in Line: The people of Zorella's satrapy recognize her as their ruler. They pay their taxes to her representatives and their tithes to her masters or mistresses. And they understand very well what happens if they don't. Zorella has governed the citystate assigned to her without major rebellion for just a little longer than living memory.
[ ] Oran the Wise is the name of a sorcerer and advisor to the most powerful emperor in the known world. But when Oran is asked a question, the answer does not come from the man who was once a boy named Oran. It comes, instead, from the magic ring Oran wears, which controls Oran in every way. Otherwise, things are kind of like this:
One Ring to Rule: The magic ring Oran wears is old, but not as old as Bianca. Meant to store the knowledge of its maker, so that their craft would not be lost, over time and across many wearers, the ring developed its own personality and goals. It calls itself Greatness and it wants to rule the world. Another imperfection in its making led to slow attrition of unused knowledge, so it no longer knows how to make rings like itself.
Those Who Would Perfect Their Work Must First Sharpen Their Tools: Oran is the strongest sorcerer that Greatness has ever known. The ring adds to this power, even before its knowledge and experience are taken into account. In the opinion of Greatness, station is more easily acquired with power than power is with station.
Where Power Predominates, There Love Is Lacking: Oran is indisputably the strongest sorcerer. He is not indisputably the most important or most politically powerful. The emperor consults with a council of sorcerers, of which Oran is only one. There's a lot of infighting, jockeying for position, and currying of favor.
Closer to the Throne, Closer to the Gallows: The emperor has a lot on his mind. His most important decisions seem to concern preventing and dealing with rebellions. There are many opportunities for advancement for those the emperor relies on. But the consequences of failure -- or even perceived failure -- are often dire.
Code:
All plainly written text should be in
character. To write out of character write
[spoiler=ooc] before what you want to say
out of character and [/spoiler] afterward.
You can also use [code] blocks like this,
but use generous carriage returns so your
text doesn't get a horizontal scroll. It
looks like 43 characters is the right
stopping point for the sake of mobile
readers. Please be considerate.
Only words will pass through to the main
character: no files no pictures, no glyphs,
no symbols.
If this quest comes to require as much work
as the last one, the pace of updates will
drop. I'll still manage one each month at
least, though.
Like most quests, each player can vote from the options given, write in their own option, or vote for someone else's write-in.
Additionally, each and every poster has a chance to be heard by the character or characters that I will be playing. All you have to do is type. However, one thing that happened last time was that there were too many people writing too much stuff and I couldn't keep up.
Maybe this time there won't be that kind of interest. But if there is, here's how I'm thinking it'll work:
If there are too many voices, they won't be understood because they'll be talking over each other.
If you want someone in particular to be heard by the main character, you can boost their signal by voting for them in a special category, [cacophony]. And if you want your own voice to be heard, you can encourage people to post [X] [cacophony] YourName to boost your own signal.
As in the previous question, a big part of this is going to be explaining your advice in terms the character can understand. And you must not only communicate your advice, you must also persuade the main character that your advice is of value.
When your message makes it through, the main character will be able to play your messages back at their leisure.
I've probably forgotten stuff that still needs adding to this.
Not because this is very similar character to the last one, but because this is the only villain truly free to enact most of her agenda, greatest political power.
[x] Bianca the Undying rules the Nine Nations in a manner more like a particularly interventionist goddess than a queen. She has worked her sorcery to benefit the nine tribes who supplicate before her, and to cement her control over them, for the centuries since would-be grave-robbers unwittingly released her from a much, much older tomb. Know this of the Undying and her resources:
I'm glad this is back. I learned more researching for this quest than I have over the past two semesters at college.
At first I was all for Bianca, but when you think about it, Zorella can probably get more done faster. There's no way Bianca could get the manpower together for a proper blast furnace to be economical for decades. And Oran would be way to limited by the people around him. Also with Bianca we would have to deal with people who just don't have the sort of city culture we need to get interesting things done. It seems likely that Zorella will eventually have a good position to take over the priesthood, especially with the starting city.
I cannot emphasize the importance of Zorella having control over a proper state.
At first I was all for Bianca, but when you think about it, Zorella can probably get more done faster. There's no way Bianca could get the manpower together for a proper blast furnace to be economical for decades.
Zorella is only like some sort of hated provincial governor, there is city in her land, but it's pretty well balanced...
Bianca can conquer stuff. For herself, not for the theocratic state that protects her/religion that she serves, like Zorella.
This version of the Quest is now explicidly optimized for much harder "proper blast furnaces", much harder tech uplifting. This is why stuff is balanced/tech level is lower than medieval. There is no iron working here.
[X] Bianca the Undying
Because Zorella is a vampire and Oran is the One Ring.
And additionally, magic is a thing and we're one of the big boyos. Pay attention to it lest we met our end via meddlesome paladins.
I see where this is going... Come on guys, you gotta remember the law of compounding gains. Zorellas slightly better start will lead to an exponential better outcome for a given time in the future.
As the hated vampire that serves as provincial governor, truly? I would have doubts. Not that Bianca is nice, but her political power over her people is MUCH better.
As the hated vampire that serves as provincial governor, truly? I would have doubts. Not that Bianca is nice, but her political power over her people is MUCH better.
Less than you think.
Zorella will Get. Things. Done. With her we can enact sweeping reforms, whereas Bianca might mistakenly care more about her peoples current miserable lives than the potential future better ones that would result from our temporary hardship.
EDIT:
Also, given bronze age I would bet that Biancas people don't even have writing yet! that would set us back so much...
I'm pretty sure that she is far from good person (villain quest) she is simply respected by her people (as deity, because she ruled for a very long time without dying) and enjoy much more power, both soft power and hard power.
My main issue with Zorella is that he is already being eyeballed by religious nutjobs. Sweeping reforms and advanced industry will only be decried as further heresy unless we can improve things for the common folk at the same time.
Bianca's already got authority over the common folk. People answer to her, and she doesn't need to worry about being jumped by a bunch of ambitious fuckboi religious nutjobs. At least, not in a bad way. People will do some crazy shit to please their Living Deity.
...we may need to introduce alphabet anyway. Even "advanced" bronze age civs, like Egypt, well...
This Quest is basically DESIGNED to start from a low base. Either have more power without a city, or be HATED with one, or be only one of many court sorcerers.
Oh, and keep in mind that the #1 way to drive our wonderful loser away is overwhelming them with information, so lets all try to keep things to one or two central topics per turn.
Some of my main topics will be : Economics & decision-making concepts for the pre-enlightenment dictator. Impress your neighbors, build a world wonder. The firmament, from fermions to fluorine. Steel mighty Steel, an Atomists Perspective. Plantasnd Beasts and how to breed them.
