|
megane posted:e: to be somewhat constructive, are there any game settings with a big central state that's not super fascist Union in Lancer is explicitly set up to be the central superpower in the setting whose goals consist of keeping humanity alive and preventing abuse of human rights. They don't have snappy uniforms, or even a signature mech chassis. What they do have are Emancipator squadrons who go kick the poo poo out of slavers and fascists.
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 05:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 16:08 |
|
|
Union eventually got their hands on the setting's archetypal Hard Man Making Hard Choices and they hung him. Literally hung him by the neck.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 06:00
|
|
|
Union is, however, also perfectly willing to let large corporations go out and take over chunks of space for profit, as long as the corporations promise to not do too many human rights violations. Union really should take a long look into its own heart about that one, and maybe not do that. e: also i hate to be that guy but it's 'hanged' when you do it to kill a person. They only get hung when they're no longer animate, so you can say 'That Hard Man Making Hard Decisions was hanged by the neck, and then they hung him there for a while until he started to smell.'
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 06:04
|
|
|
Lambo Trillrissian posted:Exalted is a very good example of the challenges of writing a "realistic" (within a fantasy setting) imperialist antagonist: no matter how much you intend to clearly spell out that they are awful people doing irredeemable awful things, some of your most dedicated fans are always going to side with the fasc because the only thing holding them back from identifying whole hog as fascist in real life is generic westernized americana "We beat the germans and they were bad and fascist but we are good and not, because we beat them." I don't think the Realm is the best example, being run by idealized capital "N" Noble super-beings, but yeah, I get your point. And I don't mean that the Realm isn't an example, just that it's not totally free from elements that draw fascists other than just "a big empire".
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 06:08
|
|
|
 Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition, Part 3: "Additionally, the character will babble — finding it difficult to put together one coherent thought or sentence, as well as suffer from paranoid delusions, be physically weak, and obsessed with removing the noise generating implant causing his suffering ("Pluh ... please make it stop. Please ... oh god, man... make it stop! Make the noise in my head STOP!!!) and may even try to do it himself or attempt suicide." CS Countermeasures to Magic So, we have a brand new skill for Coalition soldiers: Knowledge of Magic (for military applications). It's apparently gained by all Coalition soldiers and their allies on the front for free, which is good, because holy poo poo, is it not worth taking as a skill pick. It starts 20% when trying to understand basic facts, and 5% for specific info, with +5% per additional level. They can tell what magic fashion is like (Techno-Wizards like bomber jackets, Necromancers wear bones, etc.), recognizing magic symbols / tattoos / pyramids (but not their effect or meaning), what sort of gesticulations might be magic, etc. They can also try to notice or identify mind control with this skill. I also like how you need this skill to recognize a mummy or zombie. "It's a walking, mummified corpse... could it be magic? Will need to observe further- gurk!"  "Actually, it's me who's the wizard, over here, on the left, with the goggles..." As aforementioned, Dog Boys are valued deeply by their units, and generally there are at least two assigned to a squad. The higher-ups are not entirely thrilled by the connection Coalition soldiers form to their Psi-Hound members, but recognize it as inevitable at the moment. However, Tolkeen has also recognized their value - as targets. However, units that get attached to their Dog Boys may redouble rather than break as they seek revenge for... their dog! Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:"Stay calm, soldier. We're the best of the best. The Dog Boys give us an edge against these wizards, but we aren't exactly helpless. We're the Coalition! And these sorcerers are flesh and blood just like us. Shoot 'em and they bleed. You all know that. So we're going to press forward. Anybody looks suspicious, and I mean anybody, you take 'em down. Don't hesitate. Don't doubt yourself. Don't let the fact that the individual might be a woman or look innocent cause you to hesitate for a second. Just do it! You here me?! Good. Now let's get some payback for Corporal Fang and the rest of the Pack. Somebody is going to bleed for them today. Now move out!"  Man's best reason to poo poo yourself. We get a lot of talk on how they can sense P.P.E. and magic, but we already knew all this. But it fills pages, though. We're referred to Rifts World Book 13: Lone Star for full details, as apparently the corebook information is merely "adequate". Psi-Stalkers are spookier, being bald and inclined to go crazy with their eyeliner, so they're not as beloved. While still valued, they're in the uncanny valley end of things for most Coalition troops. The Coalition also has their own Psychics; we're told only 4% of troops have psionic powers, which defies the old corebook value of about 25% for most humans to have psionics of some sort. Maybe they only mean master psychics, but who knows? Skelebots aren't as useful against Tolkeen since they're predictable and bad at recognizing magical threats, much less properly evaluating them. Though they tried massed Skelebot attacks early on, they've been ineffective for the most part. Generally, their best usage has been to flush out magic-users in raids on towns, which are then followed up by a live unit that can properly counter a wizard. Other times, they work to clear out ruins and lairs without risking human lives.  DO NOT WANT Anti-Magic Tactics Containing & controlling prisoners who are Practitioners of Magic Then, we get into Containment & Restraints. Generally, the Coalition prefers to just execute magical enemies, but sometimes they see a need to extract information. While they almost never bother capturing "monsters" that are mega-damage, humanoid spellcasters are likely targets. One method to capture them is with special restraining body armor meant to lock down the limbs and mouth, as well as restrict them by forcing them to wear armor. Simple gags, blindfolds, handcuffs, etc. are all used as well. In extreme cases, they use bionic implants and devices to wreck a spellcaster's magical power, from monitoring systems to devices that allow them to shut off a spellcaster's ability to speak or see. Others are designed for push-button torture. The weirdest solution is just replacing a prisoner's hands or arms with crappy bionic limbs. Once again, why bionics wreak havoc with magic power when a lost limb doesn't is unclear - the text even refers to some spellcasters hacking a bionic limb off to restore their magic power. i super don't get it  After the eleventh loop of Chinese Democracy, she could no longer remember her parents. What gets the lion's share of attention - a full page of text - is the White Noise Generator Implant, which is an implant designed to generate sonic torture to wreck a spellcaster's concentration and cause extended sleep deprivation. (Also, for some reason it impedes magical healing, which is a new notion as far as I'm aware.) And it gets a laborious amount of loving detail, from farcical skill penalties to increasing the amount of time it takes to cast spells. The saving throw against insanity is actually used for once - to resist interrogations. After a number of days equal to Mental Endurance, you go permanently insane in the following ways: Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:... dementia and hallucinations are commonplace... Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:At this point, the character has trouble recognizing what's real and what is not. He may fear that rescuers and even long-time friends and allies are not real ("It's a CS trick! I know it! I won't talk ... I won't come with you. Go awaaayyyy!!"). Additionally, the character will babble — finding it difficult to put together one coherent thought or sentence, as well as suffer from paranoid delusions, be physically weak, and obsessed with removing the noise generating implant causing his suffering ("Pluh ... please make it stop. Please ... oh god, man... make it stop! Make the noise in my head STOP!!!) and may even try to do it himself or attempt suicide. Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:In addition, the character is terrified (phobic) of Coalition Soldiers and cybernetic implants, and is leery of cyborgs and Headhunters. However, he is sympathetic and compassionate toward Crazies with their obvious head implants (sees them as kindred spirits who have probably suffered like him). Combat bonuses, attacks per melee round and skill performance are permanently reduced to half, and the character needs twice the normal amount of experience to attain a new level. Imagine having to roleplay that! I mean, I hope you just have to imagine it and that no GM has actually put a player (and their character) through that set of penalties - that'd be torture for the player. And yes, hilariously, though Mental Endurance plays a factor, the saving throw vs. insanity involved to resist it is only used to resist interrogation, not the insanity itself. So if you should have a bonus on saving throws vs. insanity, it doesn't apply against the insanity. Granted, that seems to be the norm for a lot of insanity-causing effects in Rifts, but it's particularly galling to see the mechanic called upon and then ignored for the very effect it's supposed to apply to. A number of Coalition items from the Psionic Technology section of Rifts World Book 12: Psyscape are reprinted "for the reader's convenience", but you can refer to that review for those. Next: Legendary drops.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 10:13
|
|
|
What brave and heroic people, implanting torture machines into enemy captives for... Why exactly? What is the purpose of this machinery? I mean it's a Hard Decision and to use one of our terms of the period, "the cruelty is the point," but what does all this horseshit actually accomplish? Rifts sure does seem to have a lot of "your character is crippled and weak after this horrible thing happened." For Juicers it made sense... for this?
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 10:46
|
|
|
Nessus posted:What brave and heroic people, implanting torture machines into enemy captives for... Look, Kevin spent ages coming up with this and thinks it's really cool, okay? So you're gonna READ it, player. READ it and USE IT. I look forward to the inevitable set piece where the PCs have to make Hard Choices(TM) about mercy-killing hot female prisoners implanted with this, because there's Just No Time(TM) for a proper rescue and look, they're begging you to kill them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 10:50
|
|
|
Please tell me that the phrase TOLKEEN DELENDO EST appears irony-free somewhere.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 13:12
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:Union is, however, also perfectly willing to let large corporations go out and take over chunks of space for profit, as long as the corporations promise to not do too many human rights violations. They should, but that's one thing I really like about Lancer's writing. There's a strong sense of messiness and held over artifacts in the very long history of the factions, that is often absent in fictional histories. Union's Third Committee is more idealistic and committed to doing better, but is also a revolutionary reaction to a specific imperial regime and is crisscrossed with unexamined assumptions, compromises of convenience, and just the practical reality of managing a territory where responses have to be measured in years or decades of real time travel. It has a great lived in feel to it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 13:44
|
|
|
What Fire Has Wrought: Space Cadets Sometimes, a Dragon-Blooded family of the Threshold will reject the chance to relocate to the Blessed Isle and join a Great House. They might love their homeland, or they might prefer to be the big fish in a small pond rather than newcomers in a larger arena. Typically, the Empress found it expedient to bind such families to her by marriage. Other times, Dynasts married into mortal Threshold royalty and managed to have a lot of Dragon-blooded children. Further, when the Empress ended the privileges of the Shogunate gentes 500 years ago, she encouraged them to colonize the Threshold, particularly in the North, where the cold had slowed recovery from the Great Contagion. The Great Houses are prohibited from directly ruling Threshold states, so these families were kept legally distinct from any parent House, and they retained both their own surnames and their political independence. These are the cadet Houses, descended from the Dynasty but not part of the Great Houses. Granting and removing their status was, of course, the sole prerogative of the Empress. Cadet House members have all the rights and privileges of Dynasts, but they lack the power and support networks of the Great Houses. Some can afford to send their children to the secondary schools of the Blessed Isle, but they aren’t immersed in Realm culture to the same extent as those born and raised on the Isle. Great House Dynasts tend to see their cadet cousins as charmingly rustic but ultimately unsophisticated country bumpkins, lacking the influence to be useful allies in most cases. In practice, their actual sophistication, wealth and power vary wildly, as do the numbers of Dragon-Bloods in each House. The smallest cadet Houses have only single digits of Exalts, while the greatest may have over a hundred. For the Empress, they served as one of several checks on Great House power in the Threshold. She groomed them for independence from any parent House, guiding them into relationships with rivals and outcastes to ensure no one House could suborn them. Some cadet Houses never even had a parent House to start with, having either married into multiple Great Houses or been adopted by the Empress. Those cadet Houses that followed the Empress’ wishes received various benefits, such as Deliberative seats or lenient loan terms. Some of the cadet Houses have fallen, whether through migrating to the Isle and joining a Great House, accidentally loving themselves up, pissing off the Empress or just running out of Dragon-Bloods. Still, a few dozen continue to exist in the Threshold. House Ferem controls the Northern satrapy of Cherak, between Pneuma and Medo. It descends from a Shogunate legion, similar to Lookshy, but lost much of its great power after attack by the sorcerer Bagrash Kol centuries back. They still cling to their military culture and the remnants of their armory, and a few other cadet Houses in nearby satrapies carved out of what was once Grand Cherak in past centuries share their ancestry and maintain ties. House Desai is quite wealthy and controls the city-states of Gulmohar and Rook, long rivals of Jiara. They are primarily merchants and landed gentry, and traditionally the Desai have preferred to avoid involving themselves in governance, preferring to focus on their own leisure and patronage of the arts. However, they now find themselves split between their ambitions, the demands of satraps and royalty, and the call to the Wyld Hunt. Clans Burano and Ophris were both Great Houses, once. They were stricken from the Imperial ledgers after their legions went rogue in Prasad, but the Empress eventually chose to acknowledge their rule there. While they are technically cadet Houses, being local rulers tied by blood to the Dynasty, their practical status is uniquely idiosyncratic. House Yueh are the rulers of Nai Lei, a city-state of the Baihu sea people in the island satrapy of Nandao. While the Yueh monarchy there was overthrown, the House remains heavily in control of the Lamenting Stone Assembly that replaced them. They descend from a Tepet that married a Baihu prince, and the Yuehs have long considered themselves faithful allies of the Tepets. They also have profited heavily from the construction of a Merchant Fleet depot after the foundation of House V’neef. Now, however, they are terrified of getting caught between Peleps and V’neef, and are divided between their old loyalties and a search for new patrons that can actually protect them. Next time: Life as a Dynast
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 14:48
|
|
|
I wonder if the 'bionic limb messing with magic' thing comes from Kevin's vague knowledge of cyberpunk stuff, specifically Shadowrun and Essence. I kid, of course. He's never paid attention to another RPG.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 15:01
|
|
|
What Fire Has Wrought: Dynastiness The Dynasty has developed a tradition of child-rearing that is…not always very fun. The strong mother, they say, raises her child to excel, while the weak mother raises her child to be happy. Unfortunately, this is self-indulgent and cruel, for it makes the child weak. Many Dynasts take little personal hand at all in their child’s raising except to diligently choose good tutors, and this is considered normal. Loving your child is neither expected nor frowned on in most families – it is irrelevant to the goal of producing capable children. As a result, many Dynasts have absentee parents or parents who are not especially warm to them. Instead, they are raised by their social inferiors – the servants. They witness their parents disciplining servants, gently or brutally. While a child must initially obey the household servants, as those servants are obeying their parents and therefore are the vessels of Dynastic will, they are over time taught to command the servants instead. This is of course a tightly controlled power, temporarily revoked if abused or used foolishly, but it expands as a child matures. Children whose mother dies or are otherwise unwilling or unable to rear them are typically taken in by a relative, even if the father lives. Same-sex or infertile couples often adopt their House’s orphans, which provides parents for the kid and greater legitimacy for the couple. This means orphan Dynastic childhoods are typically indistinguishable from others, especially as the kids don’t usually spend much time with their parents anyway. A good nanny is expected to be obedient, quiet and attentive to a child’s needs. The nanny is the first teacher and provider a Dynast has, after all, and is likely to be their chief source of childhood affection. Many Dynasts love their nannies dearly and remember them fondly even into adulthood. Others are cruel to their nannies, but this is considered rude and uncouth in Dynastic society and likely to cause parental punishment. No parent wants a reputation for having bad things happen to their staff. Tutors are often the strict hand to match the nanny’s love. For the very young, tutelage is in the form of regimented play until the child is able to perform more advanced studies. As they mature, the areas of study increase, usually covering coordination, combat, command, history, politics, geography and the Immaculate Philosophy, among others. A Dynastic child will typically have young slaves as playmates, and they will also take part in the child’s lessons. Favored playmates sometimes follow a Dynast into adult life, becoming their most trusted servants. Siblings are rarely close enough in age to play with each other, though when they are – which is typical of twins, leftover children or adoptees – the relationship usually forms a hierarchy, with one sibling asserting authority and status. Children from other families, such as cousins, neighbors or the offspring of the parents’ Hearthmates, are usually brought in as a child matures, to ensure proper socialization with fellow Dynasts. Good parents also ensure their child meets many Dragon-Blooded, to inspire and educate them. The Realm has perhaps the finest educational system in Creation, thanks to generous endowments from the Scarlet Empress and frequent donations accompanying student applications for Dynastic children. The goal of the system is to instill carefully selected virtues to generations of Dragon-Blooded who will one day hold power. The four modern secondary schools that predominate in Dynastic society are exemplars of these virtues – moral leadership and piety for the Cloister of Wisdom, occult insight and the wisdom to use it well for the Heptagram, courage and military excellence for the House of Bells and a firm understanding of the mechanics of rule for the Spiral Academy. However, education starts well before that – around 2 to 3, when the House matriarch works with a child’s mother to select appropriate tutors. Tutors are generally patricians or young Dragon-Bloods who’ve just graduated secondary school and feel like helping a relative. These begin with the basics of proper speech, literacy, arithmetic, morals and other topics which vary by House. House Tepet starts combat training early, while House Cynis favors a curriculum including appreciation of art and music, and House Mnemon favors study of math, Immaculate doctrine and Realm history (particularly the life of Mnemon herself). All Houses also teach basic medical treatment and how to recognize the odors and flavors of common poisons, just in case. The goal of this early education is to teach discipline, obedience, respect for social superiors and how to be quiet and learn quickly. Dynasts are taught from a young age that they are the latest in a long, honorable line, and that they represent the dignity of the House. If the dominie of their primary school demands something of them, they must be able to perform – and so this is tested at childhood salons and galas. Primary schooling begins at age nine. Occasionally, a child will continue to be home-schooled instead. This choice allows for a personalized education with lots of personal attention from tutors. It is extremely rare for this continue through secondary education, however, as doing so robs a Dynast of the chance to establish lasting friendships and connections. If it does happen, it’s because a House matriarch has specific plans for the child and either doesn’t trust educators to prepare them properly or because they don’t want social ties to get in the way of what the child was born to do. For most kids, though, it’s off to primary school out of the intense, high-pressure tutoring of youth. Once at school, the young Dynast must cope with no longer being the sole focus of multiple servants and must learn to compete for the attention of educators. Class sizes are small, but it’s still multiple kids to one teacher rather than vice versa as it was before. The transition is often stressful. Dynastic students are a small minority at these primary schools and tend to be very quick to establish class hierarchies. Staff of all kinds, from administrators to teachers to guards, are used to dealing not just with mortal children of privilege but with young Dragon-Bloods. They are polite but firm, and do not allow Exaltation to go to a child’s head…well, not more than is socially appropriate, anyway. As time goes on and the pressure to prove worthy of Exaltation rises, the simple friendships and feuds of young childhood typically shift to cunning ambitions. Primary school is seen as a sieve, separating the wheat from the chaff – that is, the Exalted from the mortal, with both being children below the age of fourteen. Everyone is aware of the importance of the next few years, especially as kids start to Exalt and dominate their classes. Mortals in their fourth or fifth year are often obsessed with Exaltation. Every primary school has their own secret traditions and rituals meant to encourage Exaltation, handed down among students since the distant past. Some are dangerous, and some students die while trying to force themselves to Exalt. The Dragon’s blood cannot be forced if you don’t have it, but the stress and danger of these rituals triggers the moment of Exaltation just often enough to keep the legends going. Teachers and parents usually do what they can to prevent these traditions, but the stakes are just too high. When a student Exalts during primary school, their lives fundamentally change forever. A young Dragon-Blood is separated from the rest of the student body until they learn to control their new abilities, and when they return, they often don’t fit in well with un-Exalted friends. Some turn to bullying and tormenting those who’d picked on them before, while others drift away to form new cliques with older students that understand what their new power is like. Others retain their mortal friends as sycophants, sidekicks or hangers-on. There’s hundreds of primary schools on the Isle, plus a few lesser ones out in satrapies with large Dynastic populations or cadet Houses. These boarding schools are intended to give noble children their first taste of the wider world, and depending on the school and family, this may be a huge step down in standard of living, though still suitable for the social rank of the students. Uniforms are washed each night and ready each morning, the food is served three times a day and is nutritious and filling, and the school grounds are guarded by professionals, typically retired veterans of the legions. Next time: Life at school.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 16:02
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:I heartily agree, any 'mutates people into monsters!' thing drives me up the wall. Warhammer is of course the most blatant offender. Yeah, Wyld Mutants are presented just as people get really weird looking and killing them because of that is a hosed up thing to do. Just cos a guy has a skin condition that makes him go invisible when he's stressed out is no reason to march on his village. I think part of it is that 3E explicitly doesn't have 5000 existential threats for people to point at and go "see! if the Realm wasn't here everyone would die! It HAS to be this way it's good actually!!" Lunars are the closest and well, whose fault is that?
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 16:40
|
|
|
The game has also always been clear that beastmen in particular are absolutely human (and some of them are Exalted), and that having Opinions about you makes you a racist. Although, they were never exclusively from the Wyld, and that's still true in 3e even though 3e has been power-walking back the idea that beastmen come from some Lunar having sex with a snake.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 16:49
|
|
|
The implication in Fantasy 2e, at least, is that the Empire is genuinely wrong in how it treats mutants and that it's both a hosed up thing to do and only helping the actual forces of evil, at least. In places where they aren't driven from the community (like southern Norsca) they're just normal people with medical issues.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 16:51
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Although, they were never exclusively from the Wyld, and that's still true in 3e even though 3e has been power-walking back the idea that beastmen come from some Lunar having sex with a snake. Can I still make beastmen by loving a snake? Because I want to gently caress a snake and getting magic kids out of that sounds like an awesome bonus.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 16:51
|
|
|
RiotGearEpsilon posted:Can I still make beastmen by loving a snake? Because I want to gently caress a snake and getting magic kids out of that sounds like an awesome bonus. what the gently caress is wrong with you
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 16:56
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:what the gently caress is wrong with you I want to gently caress a snake and I want snake children, so that's two things
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 16:59
|
|
|
...yes, bestiality is still on the list of options; they just made "establish a freaky magical training ground" the preferred method of beastman creation for Lunars who have fur but aren't furry.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 17:10
|
|
|
What Fire Has Wrought: What If High School, But With Superpowers Even the worst and least prestigious primary schools are walled compounds designed to cater to everything the students will need for most of the year, outside holidays, including a small temple and usually a resident monk. Wealthier schools will often have extensive gardens, menageries, pools and so on. The more prestigious a school, the greater the proportion of its students will be Dynasts, and schools in backwater areas may not have any but patrician children. These are often not well prepared to handle it when one of their students unexpectedly Exalts. No matter what, however, the curriculum is the same, mandated by the Illustrious Compilers of the Perfected Curriculum. It covers anything from geography and culture to melee combat. Every student must complete at least one advanced course on political or religious studies, and the syllabi have generally not changed in centuries. Tradition, after all, is the cornerstone of the Realm, and for all that Dynasts crave novelty, they know the importance of the classics in establishing their worldview. Besides this unified core curriculum, primary schools typically specialize in some field, such as architecture, naval strategy, poetry or combat, to make themselves more attractive to parents and their Houses. A school aimed at governance might specialize in satrapial economics and spiritual concerns, and might even organize field trips to the satrapies to study them firsthand. Rarely, the more prestigious schools might even get a Dragon-Blood on sabbatical to teach a guest lecture or two. A school day will begin with devotions led by the monk (if there is one) or the school’s dominie (read: headmaster). After breakfast, the morning is intense study in the core curriculum, with afternoon classes being smaller and more individually focused. Afternoon classes are also segregated between mortals and Exalts, as is dining hall seating. They’re usually focused on practical knowledge, such as music, riding or martial arts, based on a student’s talents. Exalted students also often train in how to use their elemental power. After dinner, study continues with metaphysics and natural studies, such as astrology and geography, until curfew. Studying past curfew may be seen as diligent or as poor time management, depending on the student’s performance the next day. Some students are simply not able to be controlled properly in normal primary schools, even with Dynastic discipline and the formal training of primary school teachers. In these cases, if the parents can be made to admit their child is beyond help of the normal system, there are typically two primary school options left: the House of Ancient Stone and the Palace of the Tamed Storm. These are more like prisons than schools, with harsh punishments that are known to do one of two things. Either they mold the students into stern, disciplined people who excel in places of rigid authority, or they break students and make them unable to serve in most roles at all. Well, or the third option – they kill the kid. If a child is considered to be unruly enough to be sent to one of these institutions, typically it means their mother and House consider it a risk worth taking. For those fortunate few that Exalt in primary school, the House matriarch will meet with their mother personally to decide on their future. They will consult reports from servants, teachers and spies detailing practically everything of the Dynast’s young life, their choices and talents, and what deficiencies they still must correct. Together, they will arrange for the child to study at one of the four great secondary schools of the Realm, with their decision made for the good of the House, the Dynasty and the child, in that order. Of course, acceptance into a secondary school isn’t guaranteed, so a child’s mother and matriarch will go to some effort to make the kid stand out. There is no tuition for secondary school, but “generous donations” from a student’s House are expected. In theory, this has no influence on admissions. In practice, the best way to get in is to give money. Each school has a specialized curriculum that focuses on a specific approach to power, though they do also provide education outside that focus to ensure well-rounded students. After all, a general still has to know how to talk to people and a sorcerer should still know self-defense. Secondary schools are also valuable places to build social networks. Young Dragon-Bloods in secondary school often form friendships that will serve them throughout their entire lives, and those friendships often have far more influence than any amount of legislative or bureaucratic debate. Most students attending the four great secondary schools are Exalted, but with some regularity each school does also take exceptional mortals. To even compete, a mortal student must demonstrate thorough excellence throughout all of primary school and have a motivated mother and matriarch both pushing for them through backchannels. Thus, pretty much all mortals in these schools are un-Exalted Dynasts, with only the most influential patrician families with ranking members in the Thousand Scales able to compete. Even after acceptance, a mortal must continue to excel. Unlike primary school, there are no segregated classes for mortals and no lowered standard. They must be able to hold their own against Dragon-Bloods or be dismissed, which is a stigma that will follow them forever. The Exalted students are rarely happy to have mortals competing with them, and so any such mortal is likely to receive twice as much hazing as a normal student, on top of that. If they manage to survive the gauntlet and graduate, however, they have proven more than able to make up for their spiritual failings and will certainly be valued by their House. Not even all Dragon-Bloods get accepted into the four great secondary schools. Some lack the wealth or birth to make the cut, while others are simply considered unsuitable for education by decent schools. Some even get chosen for other paths by their matriarch. For them, other, lesser institutions still exist. Most are designed to prepare students for a life in the legions, the navies or the Thousand Scales, such as the ministerial schools that cluster around the Spiral Academy and are known as the Outer Coil. Most of their students are mortal Dynasts or patricians, and so are the vast majority of their instructors, though one or two at the most prestigious lesser schools may be Dragon-Blooded. Dragon-Blooded Dynasts that attend these schools, whether by choice or by flunking out of a more prestigious one or because they Exalted too late and failed to get a transfer to a better school, will likely be at the top of their social strata in the school but lack the high society connections enjoyed by their fellows at better institutions. On the other hand, their strong connections with the mortal nobility are also assets to be used for decades to come. Below the second-string schools are the schools of the Threshold. These are primarily attended by members of cadet Houses and the children of satrapial advisors, plus some of the children of their province’s wealthy and powerful mortals. Dynasts rarely attend these schools and even when they do, most would never admit it. Besides these alternatives, there is also Pasiap’s Stair, the military academy for those lost eggs who take the option of legion service. Its curriculum is extremely focused and difficult, and a certain number of Dynasts deliberately enroll there as a test of their own stamina. Next time: The Cloister of Wisdom
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 17:27
|
|
|
Warhammer Fantasy: Paths of the Damned Part 1: Ashes of Middenheim Shoulda gone to the cops So, our heroes are left to patrol the entire southern half of a huge city by themselves to find the cultists planning to poison a well. By supreme good fortune, they automatically happen on the well poisoning in progress. The cultists have hit on the idea that if they poison a highly trafficked well relied upon by a poorly patrolled slum district in the south, the mutations will spread further before being discovered and they can spark a riot. Note the cultists don't really have a plan beyond 'commit terrorism, try to get people killed'. That will come up in a bit. Anyway, the PCs will find a Burgher trying to pour a sack of something that's glowing and green into a poor district's well. PCs have the option to let him do this and 'warn the authorities later' (thought we wanted NO COPS) but our heroes aren't big enough dicks for that. If he spots the PCs, he tries to run. If he spots them following him, he tries to run. Any tests to catch or follow him are at a +10 bonus, but the book is weirdly confident the PCs will succeed at it. There's no provision made for if the PCs somehow fail to capture or tail the cultist. Now, our heroes have an edge on this guy, and that edge is Katiya's Fleet of Foot and Liniel's Being An Elf. As soon as the group sees an 'inconspicuous' rear end in a top hat in a dark robe with a big sack going for a well, the two Movement 5 characters intercept him. Given he's a lovely Burgher with totally average non-combatant stats and Katiya and Liniel are, while not front-line fighters, both reasonably good adventurers, they just run him down and Blood Bowl tackle him to the ground. Then they have to make him talk, but Otto is able to handle that with his Intimidate skill and a Fortune point. The team's Fortune sure gets a workout. The extremely subtle follower of Tzeentch has the loving mark of Tzeentch tattooed on his hand, and a big purple hand on the other, so it doesn't take that much effort for our heroes to figure out what his dealio is. Had they killed him or failed interrogating him, he just...has a map. In fact, we'll say that's what happened when they Intimidated him, he just gave them the map designed to let you continue the plot if you don't take him alive because seriously? So Otto wasted that Fortune point and I hate it. After getting the Extremely Subtle And Cunning Tzeentch lackey to talk, he takes them to a grain warehouse. They tie the cultist up outside to deliver to the cops later, then enter to adventure and encounter a really tiny setpiece. They all fail to spot the cultist guard waiting in the dark (It's a -20 to see him, you'll probably fail) and so the cultists within the tunnels hidden beneath the grain silo are activated, pulling up a barricade of barrels down in what seem to be more skaven tunnels and pulling out their little crossbows. Once again, the game decides to impose -10 to WS and -1 Movement to all human and elf PCs fighting in this area because it was designed by Skaven and is too short, but the cultists will have the same problem. Still, 3 guys with crossbows who know they're coming and are behind a barricade/cover is a danger to the PCs. Or it would be if the cultists weren't slow on the draw. I keep forgetting the RAW is 'Agi+d10 for Init' rather than 'd10+Agi Bonus' because that's the houserule my group has always used to make initiative variable, so I'm just going to keep running combats that way; RAW the cultists would be even more hosed, anyway. Liniel nails one with her longbow as the others charge in, except for Feargus, who is slow. They have to hack through the formidable barricade to get at the enemy, but, uh, it's Wounds 5, TB 2. Pierre just smashes it with a pick. They skirmish with the cultists for a bit, and Otto takes a few hits, but his armor deflects everything (hello, new Full Plate), but as they're killing those three the miniboss and his 3 buddies rush into the room. Now, the miniboss Cult Leader Guy has a full backstory and everything, but, uh, good luck having it come up. He is, however, a Mag 2 wizard with Lore of Chaos. This could be a problem as he sits behind his men and orders the 3 new arrivals to fire back at Liniel in the back line. Miraculously, all 3 miss the elf, but the wizard himself picks out what he thinks is a heroic knight among the melee fighters (Otto) and nails him with an attack spell. Otto's armor kind of saves his life here; Burning Blood is 2 Damage 4 hits, and without his full armor, Otto would've taken an extra 10 Wounds from it and probably gone down; as it is, he takes 5 and 0 instead of 10 and 5. Liniel opens up on the wizard in return and teaches him why he should've put up a barrier before going after Otto with a nasty 8 Wound arrow. The party breaks through the melee fighters before the crossbowmen can switch and wade in, and Katiya takes down the wizard with her saber, knocking him out with a Crit. She may not be a primary fighter, but she's SB 4 and WS 40; for a 1st tier Peasant Katiya Demechev is not to be hosed with. The remaining cultists fight to the death, inflicting a couple wounds on Katiya and Pierre but not putting up real resistance. Now, this encounter is actually pretty dangerous; it almost killed one of my PCs the time I ran it because that Burning Blood spell hurts, not to mention a bunch of crossbows and enemies who have some modicum of cover. A bunch of Damage 4 shooting is really dangerous to characters who aren't out of light armor yet and you can't active-defend shooting. Cultists might be idiots, but 6 cultists with crossbows and swords backed up by a Mag 2 wizard with the Lore of Chaos is actually quite dangerous to a newbie party. They'd have had a much easier time if they'd been able to spot and kill the sentry. So, since they took the leader alive, I guess they get his backstory via him making elaborate wizard threats and telling them he has Tzeentch's favor in his ranting. These chucklefuck terrorists are part of the Purple Hand, who were apparently big time enemy guys in Hams 1e's Enemy Within campaign. There's even a sidebar about 'players who have played that may fear they've found the main villain of the adventure! But no questioning will get them anywhere because this is one small cell of the defeated huge cult.' instead of 'Hey if they meta-know that the Purple Hand are a big deal elsewhere, meta-let them know this is just a sidestory'. These guys were hiding out here to not get murdered by Hunters and to keep a magic book out of the hands of the Hunters, and they happened to discover a bunch of hidden and abandoned Skaven supplies, including powdered Warpstone. So they just assumed it was a subtle sign from Tzeentch to take them and go dump them in the water supply and then somehow this would lead to great and subtle victory for the master planner. Cultists: Not too bright. As recommended in the book, the PCs find the evil book and take it to bring to the authorities, and also find a huge barrel of Warpstone. They put the sack from earlier with it and seal up the cult base rather than carry a whole cask of that poo poo through the streets, planning to get some help from the Collegium Theologica later, after they get Otto's burn wounds treated. Still, they wasted a major cult hideout and took the leader captive. Surely rich rewards await them and the cult plot is foiled? Next Time: The Return of Jackassery and its Waylaying
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 17:29
|
|
|
I don't know if it exists as a mod, but I imagine a Crusader Kings mod using the Exalted map would be perfect.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 18:57
|
|
|
 Inquisitor Welcome back to Inquisitor, where we’ll actually get to how you do stuff during the game! Today’s coverage includes the turn sequence, how actions work, and how movement works. All of these things are somewhat interesting, slightly quirky, and may or may not be an inelegant implementation of a fairly complex system designed halfway between a traditional RPG and a wargame. The Turn Sequence In Inquisitor, turns are structured as follows:
Fairly basic turn style that should be familiar to most gamers. Declaring actions are where the game gets interesting. When a player activates a model, they perform the following steps:
You can already see how this makes the game a bit more complicated - you’re guaranteed a single action, but there’s a variability in how many actions you can take. You declare all your actions before rolling to see if any of them are successful, so multi-stage plans that require multiple actions to perform can get pretty risky. Plus, you need to think about prioritising specific objectives, especially in a firefight with something that can blow your character’s head clean off. Some actions are Risky Actions: things like sprinting across icy ground, or firing a plasma pistol. If you roll more 1s than 6s on the Action Roll and perform a Risky Action, then it will go wrong in a very dangerous and unfriendly fashion. The GM is encouraged/required to tell you when an action would be Risky. Additionally, when performing a Risky Action after other, normal actions, the non-risky actions (if declared first) will still happen, and if you don’t have enough rolled Actions to get to the Risky Action, then it doesn’t matter how many 1s you’ve rolled, as that action doesn’t get to happen. The game also makes space for Combined Actions, where a model does things that make sense that they would be able to do at the same time. If it’s an action that would cause a test, then the chance of success is halved. Pause For Breath is a unique action designed to interact with the action declaration system above. If a model takes a Pause for Breath action, they may suspend declaring actions for that turn until after the actions up to the Pause for Breath are completed. This, in effect, means you get to roll Speed to see how many actions you have and then declare your actions according to how many times you can act. While it can be useful to do, it’s a double-edged sword in that you’re using up one of your actions during the turn to do so - you can either look around with certainty and hesitate a bit, or you can try to push forward. If you hesitate too much - such as, for example, pausing for breath as your first action and rolling no successes on your Action Roll, which meant you did nothing during that turn beyond clear your head a bit. Finally, a kind or merciful GM is encouraged to let players revise actions on the occasion where it would be impossible to complete them given the failure of other actions during a turn. For example, if a player declared that they wanted their Acolyte to burst through a door, roll into cover, pop up and shoot someone, and then huddle, and they fail to open the door? It’s likely that they would take different actions. If they change, however, they must spend an action as a sort of retroactive “Pause for Breath” as they reconfigure their view around what they can do now. Movement The chapter on Movement starts out with the usual description of models as representing dynamically-moving figures, hence the need to declare changes in stance. You’ve got three - Standing, Crouching, and Prone. You have to use an action to change stances, but that can be freely combined with any other action - if you do something, you can declare that your stance changes at the end of the action, bearing in mind the action declaration restrictions we’ve already talked about in the last post. Movement also covers a bit of Facing - namely, unless you declare otherwise, your model faces towards whatever its last action was towards, but turning and doing other stuff is free. There’s not a lot more to say about that, except it can lead to over-describing actions, and the GM is encouraged to be more or less lenient about facing stuff depending on the players. Actually declaring movement interacts very nicely with the action mechanic: rather than saying “My character will attempt X movement actions”, you declare where your model is going, and at what speed they’re going. Then, after declaring your other actions, you measure and determine how many actions it takes to get there at the speed you indicated. If you don’t have enough to get the entire way there, you take as many movement actions as you can and hope that things go well. There are six “general” movement speeds:
In addition, there’s a few special movement types:
As with all games, terrain changes how you can do stuff during an action.
Exhausting! There’s also the effect of combining actions with movement. Crawling, Jumping, Evading, and other forms of movement like crashing through windows all give the usual Combined Action penalty of halving the relative skill. All other movement types (Sneaking, Walking, and Running) give a 2% penalty for every yard traveled that turn. So, when Inquisitor Janoslav is chasing down a scribe who willingly altered the official departmental coding on several envelopes, he spends 1 action Running, and another action Running and Shooting. As such, his BS is (12 yards moved x 2%) -24%, plus all other modifiers that might come from range, the target’s movement, cover, and other such factors. The movement system is actually kind of good when you play it as written. The idea that characters should be moving to objects and locations, rather than just declaring movement actions and using a tape measure to decide where they go. It’s a little penalize-y if you want to run somewhere and you end up just short of it/using up all of your actions to get there, but it’s a neat dynamic that makes you think about how your dudes would move to keep them alive. As you’ve all been quite helpful, our generated characters for Inquisitor include:
While I haven’t detailed their stats here quite yet, these characters will be referred to in examples and used to show how different skills can be used in this game. Next Time: Violence, At A Distance and Up Close
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 19:07
|
|
|
What Fire Has Wrought: What If High School, But With Monks The Cloister of Wisdom is built around a single lesson – the first lesson they teach each student: Master yourself, master your Essence. All things flow from this. The faculty are patient, and they teach patience. First-years spend much of their time in meditation, though their other lessons are not neglected. As they advance in the school, they will study the Immaculate Texts, commentaries on them, ethics, rhetoric, oratory and many other subjects. First priority, however, is always ensuring that students cultivate a meditative state and master their Essence, which the Cloister treats as fundamental to all education. The Cloister is a humble monastic compound in Incas Prefecture near the Palace Sublime. It gets fewer students each year than the Spiral Academy or House of Bells, and many of them are lost eggs who take the razor. The students live a monastic life, eating only rice and vegetables and rising with the sun for prayers before spending the day in study and meditation. Almost all faculty are Immaculate monks, and it is considered one of the highest honors to be invited to teach there. The monks enforce the same discipline they follow onto the students. Young Dragon-Bloods are often high on their own power when they arrive, but at the Cloister, they are treated as the lowest novices, even by mortal monks. The mortal monks, while very respectful, never hesitate to inform their spiritual betters of the errors of the students, and it is not uncommon for unruly students to be sentenced to hours of meditation to calm their Essence, and if they don’t improve, this can stretch out to days or even weeks. The monks are very good at taming the pride of young Dragon-Bloods. Those Exalts that lash out at their instructors discover that while they may be strong, the monks are stronger yet, capable of terrifying martial feats. Exposure to such skill is one of the chief benefits of Cloister education. All students receive combat training as part of the curriculum, featuring options of both the famous Immaculate Dragon styles and more secular alternatives, by the best martial artists the Realm has. This cultivates mental and physical discipline, teaches self-defense and helps them master their Essence. When students graduate, they typically emerge on the other side with a serenity uncommon outside of Immaculate monasteries. While the world rages, the Cloister graduates maintain a calm to the depths of their Essence, centered and aware of the universe. They are ready for anything, even the quiet espionage work that a few of them always get earmarked for. After all, an Immaculate monk can be spotted at a glance, what with the tonsure and the clothing, but someone who serves the Order without taking the vows can walk unnoticed by even the most wicked, passing on what they learn back to the Order. Less than half of all graduates actually take the monastic vows of the Order, but they almost all remain sympathetic to its aims. The Order takes pride on being well informed, and those students they mold into their image of virtue are some of the reasons why. The Heptagram is the school of the sorcerer, requiring great wisdom, fortitude and ambition from its students. For those who have the aptitude and have families that will allow their study of such strange arts, the Heptagram is ready. Those who are accepted into it travel to the Isle of Voices for seven years of highly personalized tutoring from what the Dynasty considers to be the best sorcerers in the world. When they come out, they are never truly the same. Sorcery takes a strange place in the Realm, as it is seen as both morally questionable and also so great a boon it cannot be ignored. The only place in the Realm where it is celebrated without reservation is the Heptagram. The school takes up much of the windswept island, which is little more than a craggy outcropping on the northern coast. It is impossible to approach except by one path, sealed and warded by bound demons, elementals and other sorcerous protections that drive off those who arrive under false pretenses. The school proper is six towers encircling a seventh in geomantic harmony. The outer towers are full of labs, summoning circles and rare equipment for magical practice. The central tower is the faculty and student housing, plus the single lecture hall, where each student has an assigned seat. Food and the grounds are both handled by bound elementals and demons, warded heavily for obedience. The Heptagram never has more than a few dozen students at any time, and a little more than half as many sorcerers and scholars on staff. Occasionally, one of them is a visiting Sidereal, their identity concealed from all but a chosen few. Study is a mix of careful guidance and autodidactic self-directed work, as students pursue their own course once they have mastered the basics. No sorcerer can truly walk the same path as any other, after all, and despite a unified design, the Heptagram allows students to find their own path, advancing individually. Classes have no fixed schedule, but lectures are announced well in advance and are often attended by the entire student body. Practical courses are similar and happen whenever their teachers feel like it. Vast libraries in the school are organized based on utility and danger, tiered to determine which students qualify to read them. One entire tower is nothing but scrolls and books and tablets. That the study at the Heptagram is self-directed does not make it easier. You have seven years to master sorcery, period. That’s it. Despite the fact that there are many teachers, they’re still swamped with requests to review theses, help with rituals or any number of other things. Independent study and experimentation have to be balanced with attending lectures and practicals, and there’s just not enough time. There’s never enough time. Graduation from the Heptagram is not promised. Not all have the potential to learn sorcery, let alone the self-discipline or drive. Most students manage to complete their course of study one way or another, but a handful go home in disgrace…or don’t go home. The graveyard beyond the walls, tended to by the spirits, is a warning to work harder. Sorcery itself is a strange thing for the Realm. Dynasts tend to find sorcerers off-putting, with their strange powers and frequent dealings with demons. Sorcerers have powers others do not understand and cannot predict, especially because so much of the Realm’s sorcerous knowledge is concealed from those that do not pass the Heptagram’s strict grading. Sorcerers are therefore not trusted. Patricians follow the lead of their betters, and peasants have any number of terrified superstitions about sorcerers and their demonic servants. However, sorcery is also a valuable asset that no House will willingly give up. Sorcerers will have their needs provided for, but they will not ever be popular. Most of society is inconvenient for them to deal with, and thus the stereotype of the sorcerer locked away in her tower, up to Dragons know what. It’s not always just their tendency to be solitary – they are often driven to be solitary out of ostracism. Visitors invariably want something from them and leave as soon as they can. Dynastic sorcerers tend to be rather lonely. Next time: The House of Bells and the Spiral Academy
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 19:11
|
|
|
I knew Paperwork Inquisitor was the right choice.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 19:13
|
|
|
Hedningen posted:
This brings me real joy.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 19:40
|
|
|
why would you type this
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 20:01
|
|
|
poor impulse control, thesaurusaurus.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 20:09
|
|
|
Xelkelvos posted:I don't know if it exists as a mod, but I imagine a Crusader Kings mod using the Exalted map would be perfect. I am/was part of a team making an Exalted Mod for CK2, but the sheer scope of it has prove daunting and it's been on a long hiatus from development. We got some cool stuff done though, I still think it would work in principle
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 20:51
|
|
|
Thesaurasaurus posted:why would you type this Secretly a Ancient civilization God? Like I can very much imagine Zeus typing out something like that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 20:55
|
|
|
Kaza42 posted:I am/was part of a team making an Exalted Mod for CK2, but the sheer scope of it has prove daunting and it's been on a long hiatus from development. We got some cool stuff done though, I still think it would work in principle Have you considered doing a Realm Civil War CK mod first? It would be a more limited scope, involve definite dynastic structure, and also there's a ton of content for the Great Houses in 3e. And also CK is basically about playing nobles being terrible anyways so it seems apropos.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 21:04
|
|
|
What Fire Has Wrought: What If High School, But With Even More Cliques The House of Bells is the school for legion officers, the premier military academy of the Realm. They teach courage, discipline and strength. It’s not an easy course, but what comes out the other side is a well-rounded commander that will be respected by their subordinates and obey their superiors. The House’s campus sprawls over hundreds of acres near Arjuf, by far the largest of all four main secondary schools. It has massive fields, forests, marshes and other landscapes painstakingly recreating potential battle conditions. At the heart of it all are the barracks, mess hall, classrooms and faculty housing. Along the coast is an artificial bay for naval training and boarding maneuvers. Nearby villages are used for urban warfare practice, housing for the staff and limited recreation activities for the students. The grounds are encircled by a low boundary wall. Students are not permitted to leave without the dominie’s permission, but requesting permission is a quick way to earn the disdain of your fellow students. The wall does not, in fact, prevent anyone from going over it, after all. You just have to not get caught. Hundreds of students, spread out over the seven year curriculum, attend the school. They are divided up into five-man fangs that sleep in the same barracks and are graded as a unit. This promotes a sense of communal responsibility and ensures that even those not ideally suited for the House of Bells make it through alive. Accidents do happen, of course, and it’s rare year that doesn’t see at least one major injury or even death among the cadets, but those who do are given reverent ceremonies and posthumously graduated with full honors. Failing out is significantly more common, because the House of Bells has no desire to earn a reputation as a killing field. Traditionally, the legions rejected any House of Bells dropout from ever holding an officer’s post, but the new house legions are less picky. Still, they’d much prefer proper graduates, even to the extent of promoting them over those that buy their positions. Graduation from the House of Bells is a mark of merit, and anyone that can claim it will be welcome in any army. The House of Bells is a very tough school, draining on the mind, body and spirit. Cadets get up at sunrise for physical training, which includes calisthenics, stretching and a three-mile run. The elder students usually drive the younger ones before them lest they be caught flagging by the faculty. The rest of the day is intense study or practice of military maneuvers. Cadets must prove their skill with small-unit tactics, strategy, military history, logistics and command ethics, among other things. Older cadets specialize and work closely with faculty whose experience matches their goals. A would-be naval commander, for example, may train under Peleps Nalani, renowned for the seven notches on her belt – each representing the head of a Lintha captain she took on a pirate-hunting campaign. A promising cavalry recruit might train with Iruga Nagor, an outcaste who literally wrote the text on countering Marukani horse tactics and, it is rumored, secretly maintains his own shrine to the god Hiparkes. The day does not end until well after sundown, when the students collapse into bed, rising a few hours later to start the next day. Two of every seven days at the House of Bells are dedicated to field maneuvers. This typically means being divided into two armies, with the older cadets taking command ranks and squads of younger cadets serving as rank and file. Field trials may alternately include free-for-all combats, naval or shipboard maneuvering, and hunting down and killing condemned criminals, who have been offered the chance at freedom if they can escape the grounds without the students killing them. The field maneuver armies have no official names, but squads often have preferred titles for themselves and their forces, and commanding officers selected from such squads will make sure their subordinates know what their banner is. These titles have a tendency to follow squads even after graduation, and may occasionally serve as the name for a Sworn Kinship. The Spiral Academy is the school of subtlety, precision and understanding. No ruler can control what they do not understand. The Realm is as complex as any person, its blood and Essence replaced by commerce, information and power, its heart and mind formed by the ministries of the Thousand Scales. The students of the Spiral are not taught the inner workings of the Imperial Service because they will work in it, but because if they want to rule, they must understand it. It sits at the heart of the Imperial City, surrounded by tall walls. Students are not sealed in, but their sheer workload means they have little time to take much advantage of it. They must study culture, forms of government, moral theory and the practical mechanics of rule. What time they do not spend studying is spent handling paperwork as “apprentices” of the Thousand Scales or local merchants. The Spiral Academy charges a modest fee for student labor, which means it is by far the richest of the four schools, which it uses to get the best faculty it can, who might otherwise busy themselves making money on careers. Even a few years of teaching at the Academy is enough to make a teacher very wealthy. Most students believe they’re being trained just to be paper-pushers, and a few graduates each year do end up doing that, but most do not end up serving the Thousand Scales. Instead, they typically serve in satrapial, provincial and gubernatorial posts or administrative roles within their House. For the best, it used to mean joining the Empress’ own circle of ministers, whose duty was translating her edicts into law and passing it on to the rest of the government. The Spiral Academy also serves as a finishing school for spies. All students learn the basics of cryptography, observation and other tradecraft as part of the basic diplomacy courses, and in theory these skills are meant for use against the native governments of satrapies, but even the stupidest student understands that every Great House spies on the others. A secret curriculum of advanced espionage, called the Garden of Unheard Words, also exists within the school. Students are admitted to it when and if they discover it exists. While every secondary school has some manner of secret society passed on from older students to younger, the Spiral Academy has the most extensive network of them. Specifically, it has at least seven active, major secret societies. The Sorority of Dutiful Dowagers pledges to uncover corrupt judges and officials, while the Jewel-Strung Web is there to coordinate for mutual benefit and prosperity. Secret codes, handshakes and even secret languages are used, all to add to the mystique and camaraderie of the societies. Thanks to Realm primary school being a social meat-grinder, most Spiral Academy students are ready to view each other as stepping stones to power and prestige, and the secret societies are perfect vehicles for ambition. For the elders, who maintain their ties through faculty and staff at the Spiral Academy, the new members are extra bodies they can use in their personal scheming, and so students often end up caught up in the schemes of ranking officials, sneaking through the Imperial archives or attending exclusive parties in the name of their elders for reasons they can usually only guess at. Next time: Pasiap’s Stair
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 21:07
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:Have you considered doing a Realm Civil War CK mod first? It would be a more limited scope, involve definite dynastic structure, and also there's a ton of content for the Great Houses in 3e. And also CK is basically about playing nobles being terrible anyways so it seems apropos. That was actually the original plan, but it got feature creeped when more people joined in. May just go back to that and scrap the threshold for now
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2019 21:37
|
|
|
Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition, Part 4: "Perhaps an acquaintance, hero or stranger dies in their arms (or is too old or infirm to get it himself) and he/she/it entrusts them to get it and use it for some purpose — it's too powerful and must be destroyed or hidden better so nobody can ever use it, or to destroy the Coalition, or to Destroy Tolkeen or the Xiticix or..." It really does just ellipse out like that. The Magic Weapons of Tolkeen By Bill Coffin and Kevin Siembieda Tolkeen, while powerful in magic, isn't really the best at most things magical. We're told Lazlo has better spellcasters, Stormspire is better at Techno-Wizardry, and that the Federation of Magic has stronger magical warriors. However, it does have a diverse group of people, magical professions, and magical creatures. In addition, they have one of the greatest vaults of magical goods. It's said to exceed even the not-previously-mentioned Black Vault of the Coalition, where the fascists lock away magic items they can't destroy or wish to study. (Though treated as a rumor in this book, it'll be revealed and detailed in later material.) Legendary Artifacts This details several particularly powerful items held by Tolkeen, or in one case, sought by Tolkeen. The Coalition is trying to destroy them, for obvious reasons.  If they translate a new spell, does it become the Book of Eleven? The Book of Ten The Book of Ten is a mysterious spellbook written in at least a dozen languages, and contains a number of "Spells of Legend" within its pages. Scholars at Tolkeen have managed to decrypt ten of these spells, and are hoping to understand more of its text. (I guess tongues doesn't work?) In any case, only the most esteemed instructors get to learn them, though they might be provided as a reward to PCs. The spells (and their associated costs) are:
 "My brothers are coming! My brothers are coming!" "You're talking about the Coalition. Skull guys." "No!... yes." Poor Yorick was named by wizard who thought he was being clever. It's a stone, mega-damage skull that can be empowered to speak prophecy. However, it's often either vague, smug, or both. It generally doesn't answer questions unless  Damage of one legendary sword = damage of two mini-missiles Ironbane is essentially an anti-tech sword found on an alien world, and is pretty strong when used against robots and power-armor. Not much else to it; Tolkeen has used it in skirmishes and the Coalition wants to steal it away to deal a morale blow (given one badass sword isn't going to change the course of the war). We also get a digression about how if the Coalition gets it, they'll put in the Black Vault Which May Not Exist But It Totally Does Maybe You Should Rob It Wait You'll Never Get Away With That What Were We Talking About Anyway.  Rock of mages. The Founder's Stone is a magic rock that lets you cast four powerful elemental Warlock spells (tornado, earthquake, river of lava, and tidal wave from Rifts Conversion Book, all reprinted here). This can be used even if you're a not a spellcaster, and it has a regenerating P.P.E. reserve to power these spells. Warlocks use it at a reduced cost. It's currently possessed by Mida Elektis, a Warlock who's on the leading council of Tolkeen- technically it's owned by the king, but if he opts to take it back, he's probably in for a fight. There are supposedly three more stones with similar powers but different sets of spells, as well as a "Keystone" that grants grand power over elemental magic and elemental beings.  "No way am I drawing nine rings." The Nine Rings of Elder are magic rings that greatly enhance a spellcaster's power, increasing the range and duration of their magic while reducing the cost of all spells. Tolkeen is looking to find a way to make more, but is running into an issue where the Splugorth have a near-monopoly on known sources of the materials made to craft these. Meanwhile, the Coalition leadership is pretty freaked out at the notion at these might be reproduced, since it'd absolutely shift things in Tolkeen's favor. It won't happen, but I suppose they don't know that.  "But how will we know the Mobius when we find it?" The Mobius is a plot device Cosmic Cube sort of thing that numerous people are seeking out, and there are a bunch of legends around it. Everything said about it massively vague - maybe it lets you destroy anything, alter reality, eat your weight in oysters, whatever. As such, we mostly just get some adventure hooks centered around it.
Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Siege on Tolkeen posted:The player group's "reward" for this type of adventure may be all the people they helped along the way and some bits of money or valuables and/or information and friends acquired along the way that will help them in the adventure(s) that lie before them. Oh, there's one last hook, "Mobius?". The player characters get a lead on a "collection" of Mobiuses, and track down a pair of scholars who gladly show them the Mobius collection, which turns out to be a collection of comics by the French artist Moebius. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfelqZpapZA Next: TekWar. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Apr 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2019 10:41
|
|
|
What Fire Has Wrought: What If High School, But Hell Pasiap’s Stair is primarily a school for outcastes. Every outcaste encountered by the Realm has, traditionally, been offered two choices: the razor and the coin. Those who take the razor shave their heads and join the Immaculate Order. Those who take the coin are destined for a period of legion service before becoming fully members of the Dynasty. They train at Pasiap’s Stair, a school known for its torturously difficult curriculum. Unlike the House of Bells, it does not rely on donations from the Great Houses at all. It occupies an ancient fortress-manse in the Mhaltin range of mountains, near the Dragonswrath Desert, and specifically is located on top of Gray Mask Mountain. It is barren of comforts, and looks the part. The stairs the academy takes its name from climb around the mountain face, wide enough for two to walk abreast, and the storerooms and barracks of the school are hewn deep in the rock. Classes and field exercises require descending the stairs to the desert’s edge. Life at the Stair is unpleasant at best. At worst, it is intolerable. The course of study takes ten years, and it refines the rough, diverse outcastes into an elite, disciplined force that has held much of the world for seven hundred years. The Stair has a few hundred students at any given time, with a similar number of support staff and faculty. Other services are provided at the town of On-Sha, nearby. Students are grouped in fangs of five, and all punishment is collective. Drills last morning and night, with the time between taken up on tactics, math and the Immaculate Philosophy, plus other subjects intended to prepare the outcastes for Dynastic society despite their upbringing. Older students get paired with younger ones as advisors, to train them and bring them into the spirit of the legions. Studies are focused on strategy, tactics and the realities of warfare, with entire courses existing to handle proper sword-using or how to handle poor terrain. More advanced students drill the new cadets, to help them prepare for training enlisted men in the legions. There are no failing students at the Stair – you either graduate or die. (Occasionally, this means your fang murders you for holding everyone back and throws you off the mountain. These deaths are typically recorded as sleepwalking accidents and referred to euphemistically as ‘walking off the mountain.’) Outcastes with a talent for sorcery are trained in battle magic. While no sorcerers are on the permanent staff, faculty from the Heptagram, sorcerers on sabbatical or retired legion sorcerers are called in as needed. Each term ends with the Feast of Spears, a final exam in which the students are pitted against each other in a gigantic battle, serving as officers in an army staffed by slaves or local legion soldiers, with the tenth-years being the generals and younger students filling out the officer corps. The battle is followed by a massive feast, where graduating students finally get to relax a little…for the day or so before they’re shipped off to the Imperial City to be sponsored into the legions. However, the legions are not now what they once were. Now run by the Houses, their leadership quality has plummeted as unqualified Dynasts are promoted over experienced but outcaste officers. Graduates no longer have a guaranteed job, and while receiving a commission was once a formality, it’s now a bureaucratic nightmare as the House legions find excuses to reject applicants from the Stair. Regardless of secondary school, graduates are almost always 21, the age of adulthood for both Exalted and un-Exalted Dynasts. This makes them full members of their Houses, with all the privileges and responsibilities thereof. Coming of age for a Dynast is always marked with a grand gala, though the un-Exalted ones are rather less lavish or well-attended. Galas for Exalts are grand parties, and part of the pomp and ritual of them is the formal amendment of the family registers to signify the new Prince of the Earth’s status. And this, of course, is when the pressure to serve the family starts in earnest. A sizable portion of attention on the gala will be from parents sizing you up as a potential fiancée. The coming-of-age party is the start of marriage negotiations, which typically last a decade or so. Arranged marriages are, after all, complex bargains not to be embarked on lightly, and definitely not without an idea how both sides will pursue their careers. After the gala, though, young Dynasts get their first real chance to relax. They will spend some time consulting with their mother and matriarch about their future prospects, weighing information from all factors, reports of their past and so on. Sometimes, they may even be allowed personal input, which is a sign of great trust but also high expectations. Those who graduate from the House of Bells have traditionally been guaranteed a legion commission or a post in their House’s paramilitary forces – usually as a scalelord, but those with well-connected parents were occasionally promoted beyond their experience. Their more experienced subordinates usually call such Dynasts ‘unhatched eggs.’ If they are unable to find a legion position and don’t want to work for their House’s forces, they will often take a sabbatical and travel, either for fun or as part of a Wyld Hunt, until a post opens up or they impress an officer with enough pull to bring them on as a staff officer. Failure to complete secondary education hugely limits your options, as it restricts you from holding various Thousand Scales posts and also ruins your reputation. If you go on to pursue further education and a career, your family won’t ignore you, at least, but you’ll still not be invited to important social functions. No one wants to show off the kid who never quite made it. More often, your best option is in fact to forgo Dynastic life and head out to the Threshold. A Dynastic dropout that does well out there can win acceptance from family and peers, and once you finally settle down, a lot more doors will be open for you. Similarly, while most Dynasts take a family job or work in the Thousand Scales right after graduation, many choose to delay entry into their careers to relax a bit after a childhood of grueling study. This is practically expected of young Dragon-Bloods and has no shame attached to it whatsoever. No one offers a job to a recent graduate without knowing it might be a year or two before they actually show up. While most families will expect you to end your sabbatical after the first few years, those that travel far and wide for it are given a much longer period. Dynastic families believe strongly that broad experience is healthy for a young Dragon-Blood and may be willing to put off your work for a decade or more as long as they know that when you return, you will be far more capable than if you’d taken up the job immediately. However, with the threat of civil war looming, many messagers have been sent out through the Realm and Threshold. Healthy experience is one thing, after all, and the throne is another. Generally speaking, the Empress’ disappearance has changed things up a lot for everyone. Military-trained kids will almost always find a job waiting for them in their House legions and perhaps even forbidden to work elsewhere. Those without military training, especially if they business skills, are often put to work in their House commercial interests, usually without their consultation. Those who show special skill with politics and socializing may instead be guided towards the Deliberative or Thousand Scales. Sorcerers, of course, will receive all the resources they need to practice their art, but are unlikely to be called on except when the House needs their skills or when they are to be married. Even relatives tend to hold the Realm’s general distrust of sorcery. Even now, though, the Grand Tour continues. It is common for young Dynasts to tour the Threshold after graduation, to better understand the world they command and enjoy it. Traditional routes include heading out to Arjuf and then to the wealthy Southern states and the pious Southwest. See the orreries of Varangia, the towers of Chiaroscuro and the stelae of Zephyr! Delight in the food and sex tourism of An-Teng, hunt the beasts of the Silent Crescent! Test your skill outside of school! Return home more experienced, more sophisticated, and with trophies plundered from foreign lands. You’re a Dynast. Enjoy life. Next time: Realm Society
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2019 14:32
|
|
|
Warhammer Fantasy: Paths of the Damned Part 1: Ashes of Middenheim The Ordo Fidelus Can't Stop Falling Down Those Stairs This is probably the part where most gaming groups are going to get really cross with this game, because it punishes them for going along with it and doing what they were assumed to do up to this point. When last our heroes did their business, the Brute Squad had taken out a cell of Purple Hand cultists (and have no idea why that's supposed to be super scary) and won a pretty balanced combat for their level, taking some dangerous relics and two captives off to be turned in, hopefully for rewards. Liniel is pretty excited about that possibility. The problem is, the game is going to decide right now that you get hosed because of NO COPS. You see, while the PCs did their business and beat the Purple Hand, the Ordo Fidelus was busy falling down the stairs. And that isn't even the worst of it. Jakob Bauer, the big ex-Roadwarden single-class fighter of the OF team, stumbled on a secret temple to Khorne while patrolling for the warpstone plot and decided to attack it by himself. He killed a bunch of cultists, but then grabbed the dark book of the cult after smashing their altar and walked out before the rest of them could swarm and kill him. Then the dumb fucker tried to walk through the streets, in plate, covered in blood, carrying a Khorne book, and remember the OF guys aren't official and don't have licenses or paperwork. If you guessed he got arrested on suspicion of being a Khornate, you get a prize for being smarter than Jakob Bauer. Meanwhile, Hoffer (the leader and Sigmarite warrior-priest type) got himself captured while loving around investigating the temple of Ulric. Only Fischer the creepy torture guy is still free and he's hiding in the Sigmarite temple in town. Also, they didn't stop any poisonings because they hosed off to do random other quests after splitting up and generally going about the investigation in the dumbest possible way. Meanwhile, Liebnitz, the actual villain, is rubbing his hands together with glee that he can prosecute a Sigmarite zealot as a Khornate because it will help him in his quest to cause a civil war in Middenheim. Good job, OF! You massively aided every single Chaos villain in this adventure by being dumbfuck amateurs! I kind of suspect this is deliberate: For one, the OF loving up is a good reason the PCs are still the heroes despite these high level guys running around. For two, it's honestly kind of a good warning: If you start acting invincible because you have a couple 50s and 60s in your stats and do things as stupidly as they did, yeah, you're gonna eat poo poo. Considering they were originally set up to show PCs what they'll be when they're 3rd tier, them getting their asses kicked for being idiots is also a good warning of the same. Meanwhile, though, more directly relevant to the Brute Squad, you remember how I mentioned the OF didn't stop any poisonings? Yeah, the PCs stopped the main thrust of the plot in the poor district, but without the cops watching the wells there was no way to stop the whole thing, and so a bunch of people have mutated throughout the city. Due to the secrecy of the PCs, the Watch and others have no idea what has happened and it's started a general riot, with the Watch hunting down suspected Chaos cultists on paranoid alert and mobs of citizens murdering 'deviant' mutants in the street. So effectively, the Purple Hand got most of what it wanted because the PCs did what the book told them to do. Remember, there was no consideration as to what happens if the PCs don't stay quiet. This is the intended outcome, that they mostly failed their last mission entirely by playing along with what's in the book. There's a couple encounters in the riot, one where you find people beating a moneylender to death after faking he's a mutant so they can murder him and clear his debts. Liniel makes the Per test to notice the man is rich- er, that he doesn't actually have horns (they're held on by string) and orders the Brute Squad in to save what might be a customer. There's a very easy fight possible here, but I'd kind of assume two local thugs will step aside when a team with an elven archer, a dude in plate, a dwarf, and two other obviously armed humans shows up and tells them to step off. You never actually get a reward for saving this guy and the encounter is pointless, but it'd have been in character for Networking Elf and her nose for potential paying customers for her merc team. The real encounter comes when the PCs see 4 Watchmen with drawn swords cornering a crying ten year old girl. She's grown a second hand on her left wrist, but otherwise looks fine. The men are clearly intending to kill her. The entire encounter is designed to bait the PCs into stepping in to save the child (which, you know, reasonable enough assumption that most will) and get them arrested. The thing is, you still get arrested if you don't, because someone in the crowd yells that 'THEY WERE WITH HER' even if you tried to walk away. And you know, Otto being a wannabe hero, he steps in between the guardsmen and the kid, still in his plate armor, and tells her to get going. After all, the party still has a license to be aiding the Watch and handling matters and investigating signed by Schutzmann. And heck, Katiya steps in next to him before he can start trouble and tries to spin it as 'Oh, actually, Guardsmen, we need your help. We have two dangerous prisoners who need to go to the Watch taken from a cult and-' And the game makes no provisions for trying to do something reasonable like that. It specifically says if players show their credentials the Watch ignores them. Remember, the Party in this case is dragging two Tzeentch marked, bloodied prisoners with them to back up their story. They have official sanction, in writing, signed by the captain of the city Watch and overall military commander of the city in the Graf's absence. The book assumes all of this will lead to them not fighting back when the Watchmen arrest them, because 'they can clear it up with Schutzmann', but it makes no real provisions for what happens if the players refuse to go quietly or whatever, just endless waves of Watchmen until you're arrested. There's no room for, say, Katiya using Charm to try to talk her way through this, or for the party to fight free and escape, and the book makes no provisions for if you have prisoners or whatever with you. This is because this encounter is super important to keeping you on the direct plot railroad and showing you Liebnitz is the bad guy. So we'll assume the heroes do agree to go with the Watch to get their papers checked (letting the girl escape while they do). On their way, they're intercepted by a squad of Teutogen Guard Knights in plate, led by Liebnitz, who offers to take them off the Watch's hands and handle their imprisonment so the Watchmen can get back to hunting mutants. The Watchmen agree as soon as he promises to make sure they receive credit for arresting the 'cultists'. The Teuotgen Guard are way more significant than Watchmen, being full Knights in plate and outnumbering the PCs by 2. Fighting out of this encounter (especially as you already lost your stuff earlier) is impossible. They're taken to the temple of Ulric and imprisoned, and this is where the book reveals Liebnitz is evil. He has the PCs locked up for later questioning and disposal (He wants to know how much they learned about the Icon and other matters before he gets rid of them) but he needs to lock down the temple against further investigation after capturing Hoffer. So he leaves them alone in a cell with a single inept guard. The cell door can be broken down with enough effort (it's rusty) but our team is blessed with someone with Pick Locks. Pierre, swearing copiously in Bretonnian, steals Liniel's hairpin and picks the lock. No word on what happens if he fails, so I guess he can just try until he succeeds. He and Katiya slip out and take the Single Inept Guard by surprise (The Guard's checks to hear people sneaking up are Hard, because he's drunk) and swiftly subdue him. Conveniently, all the PCs' gear is in a pile on his desk. He was sorting through it for valuables to steal that wouldn't be noticed, I guess. The heroes get free quick and arm and armor up, then hear moaning from another cell. Within, they find Hoffer the Witch Hunter at 0 wounds, beaten almost beyond recognition. The PCs run into another problem, now: No-one on this team has Heal, and Hoffer needs to be brought back to 1 Wound before he can move under his own power. They decide to rescue him, but have to bundle him up in a sack and pretend he's grain or corn or something on their way out of the temple. The temple escape is 'a Silent Move or Bluff (there is no Bluff skill, only Charm) test at +20%' and meant to be pretty easy, just there to build tension. Hoffer desperately begs to get to the Temple of Sigmar, and Fearghus points out that with Ulric apparently after them, Siggy probably IS their best chance. Soon enough, the PCs make it to the Temple of Sigmar, ask for a doctor for Hoffer, and Katiya quips that this is probably why Liebnitz stiffed them earlier. Instead of a mere doctor, though, they're brought to see the High Capitular himself, Werner Stolz. The situation is extremely serious and merits his direct attention. Remember, this man is a very, VERY high official in the Sigmarite church, who has been assigned to keep the peace between his cult and Ulric here in Middenheim for many years. He's actually a genuinely reasonable and helpful character this entire story. He tells the PCs the OF have caused a huge shitstorm; Bauer's arrest means that Liebnitz is now claiming this entire 'Ordo Fidelus' thing is a Khornate front and that the Sigmarite temple is sheltering Chaos cultists. It's a known thing that Liebnitz is an anti-Sigmarite crusader, so at this point no-one assumes he's a Khornate; they just think he's an rear end in a top hat demagogue who has finally found his opportunity to embarrass a rival cult. There's going to be a public trial for Jakob Bauer in 2 days, and the PCs have to find some kind of evidence to back up his story or for the sake of politics, Stolz is going to hand the would-be Hunters (though not the PCs) over as Chaos cultists to prevent a wider civil war. Those OF NPCs really hosed everything up, and the actual protagonists have to clean up after it to prevent a crisis. Stolz also personally heals the PCs to full before they go, because Sigmarite magic has a reasonably good slow heal and he's a High Priest. This is a huge honor for any main follower of Sigmar. None of the PCs are, but they still appreciate the moment. That plot point is fine, but the massive railroading (and the extremely hard to handle 'PCs get captured' scene; PCs hate surrendering almost as much as they hate running, usually) really shows. The heroes don't really get any choices in any of these matters, and they basically fail the whole poisoning plot-line by fiat specifically because they did what the game constantly told them to do (with, again, no planning for what happens if they don't). Still, if they hated Liebnitz for stiffing them before, NOW he's on the absolute top of The List and they're pretty sure a High Capitular of the Cult of Sigmar will reward them for loving the guy over. It's nice when you can mix business and pleasure. It also kind of sucks that most of the worst of this happens because some high level NPCs were dumbasses off screen. Next Time: Hunger for Burgher Night10194 fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Apr 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2019 17:11
|
|
|
What Fire Has Wrought: Life After High School The Great Houses take their time figuring out marriage options – it may take several years to find and push for the best match. In that time, many young Dynasts spend their time adventuring, while others move into careers immediately. Unmarried Dynasts rarely stay in one place alone, however. It is normal for them to attach themselves to existing households run by older relatives, where they’ll live as members of the household and make their talents available while attending local social events as needed, whether as tutors, guard trainers or spies. They do not, generally, work for money. Dynasts don’t ]i]need[/i] to. Only the Empress, after all, could outshine the Houses’ fortunes. All Dynasts, when they come of age, receive a House stipend, enough to live in a manner that won’t embarrass them. (And enough to boggle the mind of most patricians.) It might be enough for a small country manor or city townhouse, or an apartment in the Imperial City. The stipend is increased for married daughters, who are expected to support their husbands, and increases more for each child until those children come of age. It may also be increased for noteworthy labor or working over a decade for the House businesses, so elder Dragon-Bloods often pull in a shockingly large amount of money. Dynasts that do find outside work or work in the Imperial Service can supplement their stipend with income, allowing them room to spend even more lavishly. Not that they carry cash – that’d be gauche. They take what they want and their stewards or seneschals arrange for payment. The payment is rarely on par with normal prices, of course, but it is expected that most shopkeepers will appreciate the honor of receiving patronage from a Dragon-Blood…which actually can be worth a lot of jade if it’s repeat patronage, because a reputation for serving Dynasts is going to bring in a lot of business. In the Imperial City, you can find just about anything you want to buy with that patronage, too, from anywhere in the world. We get a sidebar on formal dueling in the Dynasty. It is an ancient, if not necessarily legal, practice. The Empress forbade death duels between Dynasts, you see, preferring her children kill her enemies. She personally charged violators of this law with dangerous, difficult and often humiliating responsibilities. However, since the Empress disappeared, violators with powerful family or friends have often been able to secure pardons that the Empress would never dream of having granted, which means there’s been a resurgence of death dueling in the past few years. Dynasts rarely travel alone. They have their aides, bodyguards, valets, flunkies and so on as entourage, which can stretch how far that stipend actually goes. Most of the entourage are probably patricians, though Dynasts have been known to pick up peasants and foreigners that catch their eye, too. Even the most sycophantic likely has combat training of some kind or otherwise valuable practical experience, since you never know when an assassin or impromptu Wyld Hunt will happen. Adventuring Dynasts tend to be able to live off their stipend fairly easily despite this, since they live lives of relative modesty. Many supplement their stipend by serving others, though never through menial labor. That would be beneath them. Carving the pillars of a temple is one thing, but a Dynast never tiles the roof, as it were. Even with the stipend and supplementary income, some Dynasts manage to outspend their means. No House wants a debtor, since it’s an easy source of pressure on the Dynast to make them work against the House. House Ragara, especially, thrives on the debt of their cousins, but they’re not the only ones. The Imperial Courts have been known to force debtors to serve the state, assigning them work for the Dynasty that will let them work off the debt, and Houses will often reduce the stipend of those that spend too much, or assign them seneschals that will tightly control their finances to keep the hole from getting deeper. For truly legendary cases of debt, a debtor may be effective exiled for a few years to the Threshold while the House settles their accounts and smooths over the problems they caused. The Blessed Isle is a busy place full of high society meetings. The Realm has developed a sophisticated party taxonomy, though many are a blend of various types. Salons are informal private parties, at least by Dynastic standards. Attendees still typically get hella dressed up for them and show off as much as possible, after all. A salon is usually arranged by a single Dynast and may run for several days. They can have any purpose, such as telling war stories, holding a Gateway tournament, gossiping about politics, competing with poetry – anything you like. There’s almost always plenty of time to relax and get drunk, high and full. Business is sometimes done at salons, but it’s almost always informal dealings. Salons are where you go to cut loose away from the prying eyes of mortals and free of the demands of House and family…officially, anyway. It’s not easy to ever really forget your responsibilities to your family, but you can pretend. Galas are insanely formal. They are arranged by a House or a group of Dynasts, and they tend to start early and run late. Very late, at times – a gala may last for days. No one ever wears less than their best for a gala – and never the same outfit twice – unless the whole point is provocation and flaunting your disregard for others, or you’re hopelessly inept. The hosts spare no expense, and a gala is essentially made for conspicuous consumption. Politeness dictates you invite every Dynast in the region, whether you want to or not. The best way of avoiding someone you don’t want to invite is to make sure to schedule it on a day they can’t come, and then loudly lament the fact when this is “discovered.” Smaller galas, for birthdays and such, are slightly more private. In these cases, you can reduce the guest list to family and friends and people you’re trying to build connections with. Some Great Houses, like the Nellens, also make a habit of inviting patricians to their galas occasionally, while others, like the Mnemon, practically never do. It would be unthinkable for a patrician to reject an invitation, because one gala can charge the course of their career. Galas are not for business, but may celebrate business deals that have already happened, especially for wedding galas. Weddings are highly ritualized, featuring an Imperial judge officially registering the new couple, and they are probably the single fanciest galas in the Realm, as both Great Houses (or both households, if the marriage is purely in-House) competing to outdo each other. Monks are traditionally part of the ceremony as well, but legally are not required. The judge has little chance to enjoy the party, sadly, as they are usually swarmed with partygoers trying to persuade or bribe them over upcoming cases. Celebrations are public festivals, which even peasants may attend. Dragon-Bloods rarely spend much effort on them as a result, and they’re often planned by patricians or un-Exalted Dynasts. They are less lavish than other parties, and the fashions are as a result less ostentatious. Dynasts are always careful to mind their behavior at a celebration, because the peasants are watching, and no one wants their parent to be called in front of the matriarch to explain their failure to instill proper decorum in their child. Assassinations, in particular, are almost never carried out at celebrations compared to other parties, and if they do happen they are almost always disguised as accidents or rely on slow-acting poisons. Next time: Going Visiting
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2019 17:24
|
|
|
Honestly, has anyone ever had the "and then you get captured" encounter go as planned without telling the players out of character "This is the part where you get captured"? The TPK "uhhhhh THE GIANTS TAKE YOU BACK TO THE KITCHEN TO EAT LATER" game-saving doesn't count.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2019 17:42
|
|
|
I'm sure that it's happened in games where things like getting captured and escaping are assumed, and the players have assurances that capture isn't the same as death. That's not the vast majority of games, though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2019 17:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 16:08 |
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:I'm sure that it's happened in games where things like getting captured and escaping are assumed, and the players have assurances that capture isn't the same as death. That's not the vast majority of games, though. Especially note: The players have recently acquired poo poo like 'actual full plate armor' and would be reasonable to assume 'you get captured' is 'So the GM can take the awesome item you got'. When I ran this, I basically had a talk with my players about this bit of the scenario (though they prevented the overall mutation outbreak) that amounted to 'I promise they're not taking the Runic Pendent you're working on permanently' since that party too had a Runesmith who was working on his Journeyman piece as the adventure went. Also note this is the second major unpaid job the Brute Squad has taken, where their employer turned out to never have an interest in paying them. This is going to be a Running Theme. I don't think the PCs ever actually canonically get paid for anything they do after the Skaven mission in this book. An awful lot of Hams Fantasy published adventures assume you'll work for exposure. Then some other ones pay you massive sums out of nowhere. It's a land of contrasts.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2019 17:51
|
|