Is there a way to defeat the phalangites?
This is a pretty decent starting point for trying to figure it out.
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@Havenstone
First, I wanted to say thank you for putting in individualized responses for de Firiac and Swineherd if you run into the Xaos without them (and they are lovers). This is going to please people who see them as their romance interests.
Just out of curiosity, on this phrase:
kill more than three or two of us.
Did you intend to write it that way? What I mean is many people would have put the two before three: kill more than two or three of us.
When I speak the original out loud, it feels a little weird to my ear. But if it was deliberate, then cool.
Also, minor correction:
“Aye, ,” Zvad agrees. “They’ll think better of our rebellion for it.”
After Aye, there are two commas.
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Ok, so I’ve played it through a few times and thought it would be good to share what I’ve noticed.
-Joana is referenced in the beginning even if you don’t mention her “Fond as you are of her, it’s not old Joana who’s set your nerves afire today.”
-If you have no money, I think you should still be able to send a grain run and trade in mules or arms
-On the tax raid Zvad talks even if you don’t bring him “‘It’s the ravens we need to outrun milord,’ Zvad murmurs tautly”
-If you kick Breden out as a traitor, I think the traitor hunting dialogue should reflect that you are looking for other traitors.
-On the noble raid if Radmar refuses to accept your 3 options, you should probably get the chance to exile him
-If you romance Simon/Suzanne and put zhim in charge, it zhe shouldn’t beg to come with you the same as if someone else is in charge. At the very least my reply should be worded differently. (I’m not sure if the same is true for Kalt/Kala)
P.S. I took some screenshots of most of the relevant scenes, if you are interested.
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During the Bleys raid I wasn’t able to use Theurgy in secret to distract the alastors for some reason.
Edit:
Been testing the route where you unsuccessfully overthrow Chirex and Elery keeps showing up as available for raids.
After killing a Theurge with magic spears in chap 4, even though I never got any vials from Chirex.
[quote]“How… brother, how by Xthonos did that landslide start?” The rebel who asks is plainly afraid of the answer.
“Theurgy,” you reply. “The power to set things right.”
They all stare at you until Simon drops to one knee. “Brother Carder—glory to the Merciful Angels! The gift they’ve given you will save us all!” [/quote]
After destroying the phalangite supply train, even though at this point my Theurgy wasn’t a secret to the band anymore after killing enemy Theurges with the mage spears.
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Is it any wonder the organized Church of Xthonos and the caste system it is maintaining are my mc’s foremost enemies?
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The existence of clergy like Olynna, Linos, and the sympathetic Diakon who’s name escapes me would indicate your interpretation of the faith as monolithic is not entirely valid. More importantly even Stalin knew better than to try to completely eliminate the Orthodox Church…
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While my mc has zero personal belief or sympathy for “the faith” his plan currently is to just decapitate it by killing the Eclectoi and most/all of the ecclesiasts so the now Diakon led faith will hopefully fracture into about 1234 denominations and whenever one of them looks to be getting too powerful we’ll plant a copy of the old Karagond Codex somewhere and convict the leaders of being unreconstructed adherents to it. On the other hand dismantling all of the theocratic power structures would be a huge priority as my mc would want to faith and its oppressive caste system to have zero influence on the structures of any new state or in secular life.
Was trying to save his own skin and that of his master/lover, so he doesn’t really count. I doubt he’d have made the same offer to a helot if we didn’t have Horion as a possible hostage.
I don’t think my mc ever paid much attention to her, having lost his own belief very early on.
Good they can become the leader of their own small denomination, so long as they don’t follow the Karagond Codex or any of its abhorrent teachings.
Even under the Shayardene Codex bloodline, slavery and anti-gay nonsense will be persecuted.
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Apt choice of words…
Considering the completeness and duration of the Hegemony’s empire and your MC’s desire to keep the empire together I don’t expect the clergy will fracture in belief as dramatically as you hope. I also expect the religious population will remain a major destabilizing element unless you reach some compromise with them. IMO if some definitive religious policy is not adopted by the state then I expect religiously motivated warefare to claim that mantle will be nearly intractable.
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Makes pretty much sense to me. My MC might try to reform it, allow other beliefs to grow as well (like her version of “Kenon”, but the ‘base faith’ is going to have to splinter.
For some bizarre reason, I remember Edwer. Although if I’m honest, and we haven’t really dealt with her long, I like Etthenia much more…at least until she tries to overthrow my skeptical MC 
I actually think the anti-gay thing won’t be a problem with the Shayarden codex. Radmar mentions how their own Diakon considered the Karagond version bullcrap, and same-sex marriages among nobles is known to happen.
That said, the bloodline/slavery stuff will still be there, and if they keep up with the Harrowings, then those helots who don’t produce children will still be targeted first, so you definitely need to knock the slavery and bloodline nonsense out.
That’s why I figure, especially with a Cha 2 MC, one must build a competing religion which will fulfill the needs of the populace at large. It will face fierce conflict at first, but if it starts with "cease Harrowing helot’ (if possible) will certainly get millions of helot followers, even if they temper it with their take on the belief in Xthonos.
And yeah, the wars of the Reformation/30 years war, etc. come to mind now.
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Unfortunately I think some level of 30 Years War is inevitable as the current Karagon orthodoxy is incompatible with the rebellion. Especially, when everyone starts starving because there isnt enough blood to ripen the crops, keep the wards on and the floating palace floating. I know what the Karagons are going to choose to spend it on…
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Agreed, and I am sure Havenstone probably had this in the back of his mind as well (of course, other revolutions come to mind).
Even some of the plans the author talked about future installments deal with this as well. Step one is just managing to make the revolution survive, and grow.
Yep. Even a winning MC will probably still have to do something to keep the Wards up, and ripen the crops…and the Halassurqs are certainly going to make a move or two, and if one doesn’t counter with Theurgy…
I mean, a Theurge can still take down 30+ people when well supplied (and that is when you have surprise, environment, etc. on your side). Since the Hallasurqs have maintained their independence, then they definitely have something the equal of Theurges.
For that matter, I wonder if all the death will stir up the Undead that are mentioned in the lore section. A successful revolution (one the MC makes) is certainly going to create a lot of dead and that might get their attention. Havenstone used the term Unquiet Dead, and that is frequently meant for ghosts…if they are causing a racket, perhaps they might come down to ‘quell’ things.
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Whereas I’m rather hoping they’ll split into hundreds of different sects over how many Angels can balance on the tip of a needle or something like that.
The religious policy of the state will be a free religious market with free competition and zero public funding.
In practice that means don’t preach “bloodline”, anti-gay or pro slavery nonsense, get your followers to donate freely and don’t get too big and you should do fine. Whether you’re the reformed church of Xthonos, church of the latter-day Angels, a branch of the Hallasurq faith, the divine druids of the forgotten Gods, or the temple of the holy and fearsome spaghetti monster.
The revolutionary state really wouldn’t care all that much about religion so long as it steers clear of those taboo topics and the individual churches/denominations don’t grow too big.
Currently under the Karagond Codex I believe dynasties among the upper-classes operate along more Roman lines where the family name, not the bloodline of the child is considered the most important and adoption and gay marriage are fully allowed.
The bloodline nonsense is a possible drawback of the Shayardene Codex (since the Laconnier conspiracy is likely based on that one). At least that 's what I read between the lines and it would be another and altogether different reason why the Shayardene Codex might be anti-gay in practice, even if isn’t in theory, depending on how much the bloodline nonsense is prioritized.
The slavery and caste system issues are rather obvious, they’re the foremost thing my mc is fighting against and any priests who’d endorse slavery, no matter what Codex they use, are full-blown counterrevolutionaries, period! 
It’s why my INT focused mc aims at splintering the church into insignificant little pieces and wants to introduce a religious “free market”.
That’s what the blood tax would be for ideally, perhaps blood isn’t even needed at all, maybe the essence of magic can be obtained some other way. The unbelievable amounts of fear and dread while being Harrowed apparently do something to make blood more potent, but in no way is it certain those are the only feelings/emotions that work. Maybe a lovefest right before the blood tax could work just as well if a (slightly) different extraction/distillation process is used.
The mc’s live arterial blood certainly works well-enough in most cases, although it is horrifically limited in quantity.
Since those undead can apparently use magic and likely lack blood my mc would be most curious as to how they manage to do that and if that process can somehow be substituted for the current Harrowings. In any case Gaesh the arch-lich certainly seems to predate the Hegemony by a fair bit of time.
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Fixed another bug batch and posted updates. Thanks so much, everyone, for hunting down the (many) continuity errors and rough bits.
was a deliberate oddity, a switch-up of an English idiom to give a sense of difference 
She’s been introduced into the story, even if you don’t click on the option that introduces her.
Both options involve arranging an accident to get the Alastors out of the square. Both are secret, though one more plausible than the other. What other option would you want included?
For those just joining us who missed references upthread to the Unqiuet Dead, here’s a smidgen of lore and a hint or two of what’s to come.
Ah, the contradictions of liberalism.
Yes, this is the case.
I suspect the modulo error reported by a couple of people is cache-related, and dashingdon says he’s tweaked the XoR version with some “cache-busting code” so it should sort itself out. Let me know, anyone, if you see it again!
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What I meant was, the option to knock out an alastor with a roof tile. I’ve always been able to do that in secret. But on one recent playthrough I had no other option than to do it publicly.
That’s really weird. There’s no conditionality on the roof tile option – there should be no circumstance where you can get the “set them on fire” option and not the roof tile. Hmmm.
Edit: I’ve rejigged the choice to put all the choosable options next to each other rather than separated by lots of indented code. Hopefully that will sort whatever problem there was.
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Say, a quick poll: how many of you actually use the “standing order” option to commit a certain number of bandits to repeat a raid all winter?
I don’t; I worry that I might lose to many people without keeping an eye on them.
And I imagine most people who don’t care to micromanage things to much will let their second in command take control of the food arrangements.
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I haven’t used it but I still suck at getting through chapter 2 atm.