Records can be forged and past heritage can be linked quite easily to anyone else’s. I’m not saying it would not go unchallenged if your position to begin was weak or you had other exploitable flaws but a strong usurper can find legitimate roots quite easy enough - if history is any guide.
That again depends on how badly you break the system, I suppose.
It still requires non-helot people willing to believe the forgeries, unless you break the system badly enough, but then there’s no need for them anymore, as you can just impose your own vision anyway.
Also no position would be weaker than being a sub-human helot with middling charisma who doesn’t have a clue about acting like a “proper” aristo.
The Karagond/Xthonic caste system is definitely not ancient China where just about anyone could be the founder of new Imperial dynasty, under the right circumstances.
Wasn’t this similar to some small town in Tuscany… somewhere where they burned books …
Yeah, ah, the Laconnier thing seems more like maybe a resource for helot rebels, someone who might turn out to be a trustworthy person with a strong claim to put on a throne when you can’t plausibly occupy it yourself (without trying to tear the feudal system out by the roots).
Besides - wait, ‘Laconnier’ isn’t even a dynasty! It’s just the name of the forest into which the last prince disappeared, the forest of Laconne. The game doesn’t mention the family name of any of the old rulers, just the first names. Queen Samena, King Oster. And by the sound of the stories hinted at in the nationalist opening, they were very much monarchs forged in war. A noble who throws out the karagonds would be more than justified in titling himself King on that basis, without needing any Sovereign Bloodline connection.
Yeah, rather not. Then again I am trying to tear out the feudal system by the roots. For that matter I’d also like to keep the Hegemony together and not revert to just Shayard, especially since it wouldn’t contain Avezia any longer.
Well, hell, then I don’t think you have any reason to care about any Last Scion at all.
They’re still a possible threat upstart nobles could try to use against me, better to sever it as soon as possible, since with the hints we get, despite the Hegemony nationalist sentiment still seems fairly strong in Shayard, at least among disaffected nobles.
…yeah…I still don’t think you need to worry about it. Hegemony’s the enemy, not a mostly-irrelevant old family that may or may not be hiding out in a forest. If you ticked off the Shayardese nobles enough that they’re acting against your revolution, they’re going to do so by siding with the existing powers, not the powerless guy.
Not if they’re waiting for us to defeat the Hegemony first and only then turn on rebellion, as they may want to get rid of Karagond dominion just as much as we do, it’s likely what ought to come after that we fundamentally disagree on.
Until the Hegemony is defeated I’ll likely pretend to cooperate with the nationalist Shayardene nobles and they with the rebellion, as we have a common goal, that disappears the moment the Hegemony is defeated.
That’s still true at this stage, it won’t be the moment it looks like the rebellion has a genuine chance of defeating the Hegemony.
I do however expect a noble rebellion almost as soon as the Thaumatarch is defeated and I’d very much like to deny them any perceived legitimacy the Laconnier conspiracy might grant them.
Still my main point is that to come out on top as a helot you need to dismantle the Xthonic caste system in addition to the rule of the Hegemony, or you’re likely to still be left with nothing at all at the end of it.
I love all the “rage against the machine” attitude going on here. It’s very amusing, I can’t wait for your MCs to get demolished in future games. When you realise that destroying valuable infrastructure and the nobility, who act as officers, will only weaken your army in the long term and when you throw away a massive unifying factor, faith. Faith in itself is very important, if you can manipulate your followers into believing it. Combine that with sound decisions and you can get yourself a nice death cult who’ll go to the ends of the Earth to keep you safe.
This is going to be great!
3 Likes
Right, you just quoted the route for the (very) charismatic MC for whom starting his/her own religion/cult of personality is indeed the most viable option.
Inevitable, unless you go for the completely non-violent route, which again will likely only work for the high charisma MC, such as Mara’s evil Gandhi.
The pre-existing “faith” however comes with an abominable caste system attached. Also having to pretend to be a pious man of faith post-rebellion is a fate worse than death.
Officers who won’t follow my orders and/or are dedicated to “putting my character back in his proper place” as soon as the Hegemony is defeated are as good as worthless.
Besides the rebellion won’t need a/the regular army and you likely won’t need to defeat the Hegemony on the battlefield to win if you can make it come apart at the seams some other way.
While @idonotlikeusernames’s politics gives me visions of Robespierre’s Reign of Terror and Stalin’s forced collectivization, induced famines, pogroms and purges, he’s absolutely right that the nobles will turn on a helot MC once the Hegemony is defeated if the helot MC doesn’t meekly accept a token title and sell his fellow helots out. The helot MC is at a decided disadvantage here, especially if he or she eschews the legitimacy that co-opting the church would give him/her. I think a “Third Estate” alliance between the helots and merchants would be key to checking the nobility as the merchant class has the wealth and the logistical know-how to keep the helots supplied and fed, as well as a strategic interest in increasing their own social standing and independence from noble dictates. Any helot rebellion that alienates the nobility, church, -and- merchants is doomed to failure. The helots may have numbers, but they lack the organizational skills or know-how to build anything lasting.
Only having support from one of these three educated groups is liable to be extremely expensive however, and potentially disastrous, as they selfishly milk you for every concession they can get when your ability to say no is limited. It’s much better to pull support from at least two if not all three of these groups so that you can play them against each other and avoid getting overly beholden to, or strongly opposed by, any of them. Unless you meta-game however, for an uneducated helot MC, this is much more easily said than done.
4 Likes
Just curious, why is a constitutional monarchy totally out of the question for you?
@idonotlikeusernames, what you are proposing will only cause massive shockwaves that will splinter the former Hegemony into fifty thousand pieces and shatter all semblance of order. Helots at their current state are not fit to rule. They have been brought up since birth to serve. They aren’t capable without education to manage anything yet. What needs to happen, is simple, a programme has to be developed to educate them in various tasks.
I like @P_Tigras’s idea. You’ll need to basically merge classes, create a compulsory education system and work on making essentially, a free-working class. Combine merchants, landholders, and helots as one.
I would also once again reveal the Shayard codex and make it mandatory for the Church to spread that. Make it so that people understand that while some people are born with inherent advantages such as status and wealth, the poor are still human beings, and worthy of life.
The nobility will be harder, but I would work on basically trying to find a balance of power between free holders and them. Perhaps by instituting a meritocracy, or at least in theory.
Does someone want to know what Mara de Jade planning for the Sayard?
I want to know the policies, not the vicious assassinations 
.
Well, I am just asking because for me made a cohesive wall of text in English required a lot of effort. I am improving, but there’s certain naive and childish tone in my redaction that pissed some people that send me rude pms about it and how stupid and clown I am. Sorry I am depressed right now Why is people so mean? I thought i was getting better with English.
Don’t worry @poison_mara, don’t you worry, just keep working and it will get better okay?
1 Like
You are so sweet, Well, I was talking about it with Mara aka The Evil Gandhi, and she wants to establish a new Empire based upon slavery. She won’t stop Harrowing. She just wants change the persons which harrow. Karagon population would be turn slaves, all of them Yeoman would be making a special social class based on commerce and artisans. And Helots would be Purged in massive death forced camps. Mines, forges and raw magic to destroy Karagon.
Sadly, I hardly doubt that @Havenstone let her commit genocide and mass murder of Karagon. However, Mara for now on has to be goodie, and peaceful until her religion and politics give her power and an army in the sayard.
1 Like
What kind of topsy turvy world is this turning into @P_Tigras and I agreeing on yet another thing. 
Except that I think they may not even bother with a token title.
You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
I do as well and that includes the few free yeoman still around, those are the people who merit the velvet glove treatment and I’ve thus far made it a point to avoid attacking the merchants.
Better maybe, but not ultimately achievable for a Helot MC who wants to retain any power after the rebellion. Besides to make any progress on a “third estate” the Xthonic caste system absolutely has to be broken and that prevents any collusion with the existing church. The educated folk of Nyr, who should number among them a fair few skeptics, may prove to be a trump card however and another reason why it’s important to look beyond mere Shayardene nationalism.
State skepticism should be very much doable.
If I’m lucky the skeptics of Nyr will form another educated group to draw on.
That’s what the Xthonic caste system wants you to believe and why it has to be broken beyond repair, yet it was a relatively educated Helot who started the rebellion in my case, so that belies that argument.
Just a short and miserable one filled with “service”, eh? Practically it wouldn’t be all that much different from the status-quo.
And sell out to a new noble monarchy and pretend to be pious, never!
Because it means giving up all power to the nobles again and making my character a powerless toy in their hands again who, depending on their mood may end up with a swift Harrowing, the “grand reward” of a position as lackey in the new palace, as a sharecropper or serf, or as the “lord” of a few acres of worthless wasteland in the middle of nowhere, none of those prospects are attractive in the slightest. Therefore not giving power back to the nobles again becomes very much a matter of self-preservation.
I’m also guessing “constitutional monarchy” here means Magna Carta at best, which would be entirely worthless to my mc.