Choice of Rebels Part 1 WIP thread

Oh, @Mardam you are so nice! :"> Well, people complain a lot less about my way of talking. But probably is due people are so used to my weird jar jar Binks speech. But is great someone telling me that after all, my original reason to come post here was improved English.

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@Wulfyk true but as I’ve already said one is only in a position to benefit from this if they happen to be Aristos, since slaves (helots) have no opportunities at all and what passes for the middle classes seem to be quite limited in their advancement as well.
Also it’s not my goal to cause total anarchy but the Harrowings (and the whole Xthonic religious nonsense that glorifies them) are abhorrent and cannot under any circumstance be allowed to continue. The only use of theurgy that seems really necessary to preserve a new society would be for agriculture, health services and manufacturing industry in that order. The blood needed for this can be drawn from prisoners of war, dangerous counter-revolutionaries, former Aristocrats and if required the Karagond and only the Karagond general population (helots and the minimal middle class) again in that order.
It can however not be drawn from Harrowings that kill the patient, so it will have to be a “blood tax” While I understand that drawing blood this way is less efficient than Harrowing it will also ensure a more constant supply that should be more than sufficient for these limited applications since the Hegemony seems to quite inefficient in its usage of Blood, wasting it on grandiose projects like floating palaces, super soldiers and the wards. Should Halassur try to attack the new state then I hope that my character’s reputation (if we can become the Merlin of this world) is enough to make them reconsider. If worse comes to worst in this case I might agree to some minor border adjustments and the payment of some sort of tribute (just not in blood or slaves). If that does not satisfy them, well then this would be one of the very few scenario’s in which my character would consent to a great patriotic blood tax levied on the entire population.
Should they however attack the Hegemony while they are still busy fighting my Rebellion, then it seriously depends on the conquered territory’s value but unless the conquered territories are really vital to the survival of any new state then I’m inclined to let them keep most or all of their “conquests”.

Any new social order will have devote significant resources to both education and non-theurgical research to eventually develop new non theurgical methods to reach and surpass the effects produced to current Hegemony Theurgy, which should be possible since the world apparently was already up to approximately sixteenth century standards, before Hera and her Hegemony caused traditional science and technology to take a back seat to Theurgy (if similar to our world Theurgy would seem to have gained prominence at the very worst time possible, just before this worlds rise of the scientific method).

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So when is the 3rd chapter supposed to be finished?

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@MSox99

I don’t think we’re allowed to ask those kinds of questions.

And Havenstone only just resumed working on CoR. So let us all be patient and refrain from pestering him any more than we already are.

@idonotlikeusernames So your MC (who is a helot) wants Shayard, Karagond and the other provinces to stay united (under his rule)? If yes, then he’s exactly what I imagined when I first asked if there are any pro-hegemony helots, one who prefers unity of the Hegemony over the independence of Shayard.

I hope for your MC that a blood tax that doesn’t involve killing is possible. I’d also like to know if the Xaos-storms and the undead can be fought and possibly defeated with conventional means.

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There’s nothing resembling a consensus definition of religion out there, but I tend to favor socio-anthropological ones (Durkheim, Geertz), under which the Hitler cult counts. It was pseudo-everything – science, Christian, pagan – but its system of symbols, roles, and rituals filled a religious role socially.

@Golgot, yes, Hera was the first, conquering Thaumatarch who brought the four provinces under her control and defeated the forces of Xaos from the West. She was assassinated by an unnamed servant of Xaos, after which her successor put the Great Wards up. We will get quite a lot more of her story in later games, including speaking to the man who sent the assassin.

The share of the world she conquered was similar to Halassur, so the dynamics aren’t quite the same as with Alexander. However, she did introduce some “anachronistic-seeming” ideas around gender, with rather more success than Alexandrian globalization.

@idnlun, I like your clear vision for your MC’s future state – but I didn’t mean to give any impression that “the world apparently was already up to approximately sixteenth century standards, before Hera and her Hegemony caused traditional science and technology to take a back seat to Theurgy”. The conquests of Hera took place in a medieval world, while the gameworld today is hitting an industrial revolution quite a bit earlier than ours did (as I’ve mentioned in this thread, though you’ve not yet been to the bits of the world where that’s obvious). Anything in the world that is up to 16th century+ tech levels has got there on the back of careful Theurgic research. It’s not anti-intellectual.

@MSox99, before George RR Martin finishes Winds of Winter.

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@Wulfyk I think my character would object to being called pro-Hegemony, pro-unity, yes, but decidedly not pro-Hegemony as any new governmental structure he could devise is sure to be vastly different and not focused through the Aristocracy and Priesthood and would probably involve replacing the current Hegemony institutions with a new bureaucracy probably based on a Judge Dee style interpretation of the old Chinese one except that the examinations, instead of being focused on knowledge of classical literature and religious doctrine, would focus on being a test of both aptitude and actual, useful, knowledge and skills.

Ideally this new bureaucracy would operate under the control of some sort of elected council or Senate and alongside elected local governments.
It would obviously handle most of the executive and judicial functions of the new State while the elected governments deals with the legislative parts.

Furthermore I don’t think Aekos in Karagon ought to remain the capital of any new State for long.

Also my MC isn’t fighting just so he can become a serf under a restored Shayardene Monarchy in an independent Shayard. Besides skepticism alone makes it seem worthwhile to include Nyryal in any successor state, if at all possible and I’m sure that Wiendrj, Erezza and even Karagon itself bring their own particular advantages to the table that make them worth fighting for too.

@Havenstone then I stand corrected, I apparently simply assumed that a great reliance on magic meant stagnation in other areas, as in many fantasy worlds, I might add, but it seems not to be the case in yours. It also means that researching non-theurgical methods just becomes an even longer term goal then I originally thought, it does not mean such research cannot possibly be worthwhile.

“Hera was the first, conquering Thaumatarch who brought the four provinces under her control and defeated the forces of Xaos from the West. She was assassinated by an unnamed servant of Xaos, after which her successor put the Great Wards up.”

Interesting it to me it seems to hint in the direction that Xaos is indeed the “fifth realm” that her forces “merely” devastated according to the codex.

“including speaking to the man who sent the assassin.”

I speculate this man might just be the eponymous “Storm Wielder” mentioned in your title for the sequel, and quite possibly the ruler of Xaos, or the fifth realm, if so I hope we can come to some sort accommodation with him and his realm so we won’t need the blood guzzling Wards any longer.
It would seem possible, since the Abhumans have also shared a border with Xaos for centuries and they’re obviously still around and that goes for the realm of the undead as well.

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“It also means that researching non-theurgical methods just becomes an even longer term goal then I originally thought, it does not mean such research cannot possibly be worthwhile.”

Absolutely correct.

And interesting speculations. :slight_smile:

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Wait, we talk to the guy who sent the assassin after the first Thaumatarch?!

At least one of those parties must have lived way longer than I’d ever anticipated! Does theurgy promote a crazy long lifespan or something?

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Well, not until Game 5. :wink:

Yes, if you’re one of the very best Theurges; everyone knows that Thaumatarchs live far longer than other people. But the last one died of natural causes, having lived much less than three centuries. So the prospect of meeting anyone from the age of Hera would be only slightly less astonishing to your character than to a reader.

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And what is the average noble/free people life expectancy? And why are there so few helots above 40, only because of harrowings?

If you make it past your early childhood diseases (which many don’t – children are more vulnerable to bad humors), a free non-Theurge can expect to live anywhere from 60-80. However, a helot past 40 is considered (a) past the best age for breeding or working and (b) increasingly vulnerable to disease, so they tend to be Harrowed before they have a chance to die (wastefully) of natural causes.

The helots age faster than free people? I mean a aristo of 40 would appear lot younger than a helot of same age? I could use that to spread the message helots deserve be slaves due their inferior blood and physical ans mental race ?

Also what could happen if i harrowing all more 30 years helots same time could the energy destroy hegemony?

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@Havenstone If the arists live so long, where are the MC’s grandparents? It would be odd if all four are dead.

and coming back to your religion definition, for me a religion necessarily includes the believe in supernatural higher powers, god(s), afterlife etc. If youll call Hitler’s cult of personality a religion, what makes any fandom o star worshipping really difeerent?

Mara: yes, hard manual labor ages you faster. And your MC doesn’t need to spread the message that helots deserve to be slaves due to their inferior nature; the Ecclesiasts have been doing that very effectively for the last few centuries.

If you start Harrowing every helot above 30, you’ll have a brief increase in blood phials – and then, unless you have some reliable external source of new slaves, you’ll have a collapsing helot population. You need the 30-somethings having kids to keep things stable.

Wulfy, the lack of grandparents is not all that odd – nobles have small families and often take a while to start breeding. Your father was an only (surviving) child, born when his parents were in their early 30s. He had you in his mid-30s, and you’re now 19. So he’s getting on, and his parents both passed away before any of the episodes that open the story.

Your mother came from a small House in the Lower Rim, which you’ve never visited; her father died young in an accident, and you remember your grandmother visiting two or three times in your childhood, before dying shortly before your mother did. You’ve never met your sole uncle, a naval captain who lives with his wife and children on the distant Coast and rarely visits his tiny patrimony in the Rim.

On religion, your definition so far would seem to exclude Theravada Buddhism, Confucianism, and arguably Taoism; belief in gods/“supernatural higher powers” is irrelevant in all three, as is afterlife. And you may be fine with that. It’s famously hard to come up with a definition that does comfortably include all the Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic “religions”; it’s perfectly respectable to say that not all societies have “religions” and that some things traditionally considered world religions should be considered philosophies or ideologies or whatever language you want to use.

Both in CoReb and in life, I’m interested in how rituals, symbols, and ideas related to Things of Ultimate Significance bind people together in a society, helping them make the necessary collective leap past meaninglessness – past that unanswerable “says who?” that threatens to reduce society to anomie or violence. When I see that going on, especially at national level, I’ll call it a religion (in the sociological/anthropological tradition I mentioned above).

Leader-worship can fit the bill – and of course Nazism was more than just a cult of personality, so the comparison to star-worshipping is not all that apt. But sure, some forms of fandom basically amount to a religious movement within the (small, sub-national) societies that take them with ultimate seriousness. Take the cult of Elvis: that’s a religion, no question about it. :slight_smile:

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@Havenstone, As to the definitions of religion, yoir concept is very unusual for me, but I think I know what your definition is. (and btw, I know a buddhist who says it’s not a religion but a philosophy).

Anyway, the Xthonos faith in CoR seems to be more similar to Abrahamic religions then to asian religions/philosophies: It has a holy scripture that is beleived to be a revelation of the Angels like the Torah/Bible/Quran, a hierarchic church structure that is very similar to the catholic church including an inquisition-like prosecution of “protestant” heresies and strict legal regulations of all aspects of life that reminds me of the sharia.

Now, my questions regarding demographics and family are done and I don’t have anything more until you update the game or someones comments here gives me a new ides.

@Havenstone

“before George RR Martin finishes Winds of Winter”

When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, then? :wink:

@Havenstone, @WulfyK may have run out of questions but sadly I have some instead.

How common is the Codex? We find a one religious text condemning some Heresy, and there would be one in a town’s Naos; But would say wealthy nobles have access to a copy of the Codex? Also, how much importance is placed on memorization of the Codex?

How intermingled is Theurgy and the Codex? Does the Codex tell of heroic Theurges fighting Xaos with nothing but their own blood and the will of Xthonos; or is it just the sacrifices of helot, the blessings awaiting in Eylisa, and most importantly, the punishments awaiting in Taratur?

I mean the Angels may not have made it personally to my blessing, but the priesthood still seems adamant to dislike me for any use of Theurgy. Yet Zebed’s only part in Theurgy is the Blessed Sacrifice.

@idonotlikeusernames I used the term pro-hegemony as synonimous with pro-unity, assuming that everybody would still call it Hegemony no mater what political and social structures it has. But I think renaming the whole might be a good idea and emphasize the change, how would your MC call the Hegemony once he take it over?

btw, i don’t know what a Judge Dee style interpretation of bureaucracy is, could you explain it more? (I googled it but didn’t find a sufficient answer, apparently Judge Dee is a series of crime novels set in ancient China, but I haven’t read them)

@WinterHawk, yes, especially since the invention of printing (though presses are closely held in Karagon), most noble houses and every Naos holds a copy of the entire Codex. Memorization of the Codex is a much-encouraged virtue, and almost everyone can rattle off significant stretches.

Most of the Codex pre-dates the Theurgic revolution in Karagon; it talks in many places about the Powers of the Angels used to destroy Xaos, and it’s taken for granted that this refers to Theurgy (either the primitive type known before the Karagonds perfected blood refinement, or a prophetic reference to the outpouring of Theurgic power that led to the founding of the Thaumatarchy).

The later books in the Codex refer specifically to the nascent Thaumatarchy. They are of course the ones that the Shayardene heretics would be inclined to see as illegitimate additions to the true canon.

WulfyK, yes, the religion of Xthonos is a nightmare Abrahamism.