Fixed 
That… is not something I knew could happen. I mentioned before that I don’t read the code and rely on trial and error, am I missing out on this wonderful intel opportunity because of stats? I doubt it’s lack of factional reputation with the nobles, I do everything I can to make them like me in my noble playthrough.
I’ll tell ya now: don’t fix Mara’s posts. It’s like disturbing a grave. Bad conduct, divine wrath and all that.
Other posters have been talking a bit about their MCs, so I thought I might do the same:
Godfrey de Eramant is basically a reactionary nationalist, inspired by old-fashioned notions of Shayardene chivalry. He isn’t particularly egalitarian, but takes his feudal responsibilities seriously and believes in taking care of those who’ve placed their faith in him. He isn’t a deep thinker (Int 0), but has a talent for killing and for leading men in a fight (Combat 2).
Where we’ve left off in Chapter 4, he’s planning to draw the small Phalangite force that’s been sent against him into an ambush and annihilate them utterly. He’ll seek to ride the shock-wave of that victory to draw the nobles and yeomanry to his banner and raise an army to seize the capital.
If his rebellion were to succeed then he’d probably ennoble some of the captains of his rebellion (e.g. Elery and Zvad), and grant them lands taken from some of the nobles who’ve fought against him. The rank and file of his rebellion are probably given their freedom and some money - he’ll want to maintain a standing army rather than seeing them disperse, so giving them farmsteads probably isn’t a good idea.
If the Laconniers turn out to be real, and can present a credible claim to the throne, then he could probably be persuaded to swear fealty to them.His ambitions would be happily satisfied with a moderately sized earldom in a free and sovereign Shayard.
He’s allowed himself to be declared Eclect of the Angels without really thinking it through, which seemed like a good idea at the time but will probably cause some long-term complications if he lives long enough.
I’m looking forward to seeing how his story develops!
mind if i join the party
i just love making ffffuckijdng seemingly-shallow characters who aren’t that interested but could still kill you they’re my weakness 
So my mc, Titania “Mom Tits” de Serin, always wanted to show themself up to their pissy dad ever since their mother died, and thus developed an insatiable appetite for gossip and challenges and making themself stronger and more learned and more aware. So, that one day, their father, with his head so firmly shoved up his own ass, could hold no power over them because they could one-up him on every front.
This made them prone especially to adventure away from his gaze as well as many ignoble, muddy acts of disobedience exploring, dirty fighting, tussling and generally answering most of their own questions by punching it and seeing what happens in the aftermath (2 COM). However, they tend to “jump first and think later”, and often run their mouth with not the most eloquent of thoughts (0 CHA).
Titty here seems to be the only MC out of all of you who just doesn’t care. They are aware that they could possibly die, but again, the rebellion would still exist, it was still started because of them and try as you might to deny it, it happened, and it changed history.
They do not want fame, or stability, or money, or equality in particular, it would be cool if that happened, but really, all things that come are surprising, but not that interesting. Mom Tits is just along for the ride. Call them shallow, but it feels good to disobey on a larger and larger scale each year.
This is probably why they get along with the helotry and yeomen well; they feel like staying true to their noble heritage and arrogance is rejecting change and advancement, and are aware that suffering alongside people means emphasizing with people, and distancing themself from those under them is a bad job. Titty tries their best to keep everyone alive, if they can, even if it means more work or more suffering for themself, not because they want more soliders or adoration, but because they’re people working towards a goal first and foremost. Everything else comes later.
They haven’t decided to mess with religion, for the most part, having the foresight to see where that might conflict with their love of risky battles somewhere down the line.
If the rebellion won, and they had somehow not been kicked off the leadership position (heck knows why), they’d probably help Shayard (and other countries) rebuild. Get themself a small, humble, but comfortable way of living. They’ve so many sights to see and so much work to do; they can sleep when they’re dead.
How severely are you going to shatter the caste system cause if you don’t fight the priests then “ennobling” former helots is likely to be next impossible. Really read up on the darkest days of India to see how pernicious a caste system can be.
Unless you plan to use you prophet status for that and even then it would cut so far against the grain that you’d better have epic charisma to suggest that “their telos was classified wrong”.
Wow, that’s um very modest, particularly for a noble, whereas my mc kind of has to be on top now (yes, I know, considering the Hegemony’s unofficial punishments of helots this is probably true in more ways then one) and he never wants to go back to the position of being a slave or servant again.
There is I think nothing he likes more than magic and the feeling of real freedom and both require a great deal of power.
Mom Tits wants change and challenge. What truly is nobility? Besides, being cooped in indoors all day as befitting for a noble is… not their thing.
Yeah, my mc would probably love being “cooped up” in a well-stocked library (he’s probably about as bad as Duke Lyon from “Seven Kingdoms” about that) with actual doors that can be locked, so he can have some privacy. Sadly I don’t think he’ll ever have as much time as he wants to do just that. 
Though he’ll probably agree with yours in his extreme dislike of pomp and ceremony, which is why dear old dad, if he lives to the end is likely to get the figurehead of state job, which is nothing but that. 
Oh… Mara is pised with you… I recommend you double check your beberages… and tea she loves poisoning tea. Poor divine … but Fixed a Mara commentary against a archi rival is like asking her for a poison menu.
You have a base Intel score based on your credibility with the various groups (helots, yeomen, nobles, priests, etc). Some get you more info than others, roughly proportionate with how hard it is to win them over. You can make up any Intel gap by paying off as many spies as your deputy recommends.
Getting Calea to send you intel is possible for some noble MCs who reestablish contact with her after Hector’s attack. But it’s not necessary to hit Intel 30, the score at which you get an accurate total of the troops arrayed against you.
Well, every caste and class system in human history has allowed for a measure of social mobility. The Indian caste system actually provides some interesting examples of this.
If Godfrey were challenged on his decisions then he’d probably justify them with reference to Shayardene tradition and folklore:
“Elery has proved her valour on the field of battle against the Karagonds many times. I see in her the same noble spirit as Good Queen Samena saw in Osbert the crofter when she gave him the accolade for vanquishing the enemy chieftain at the battle of Three Oaks.”
My MC’s choices lead a group of priests to join his rebellion at the end of Chapter 2 precisely because they see him as an opportunity to revive the old Shayardene Codex, which the Thaumaturgy had declared heretical. The Karagond orthodoxy already allows for downward class mobility, with Yeomen being forced off their land and becoming Helots - is this considered to bring about a change in their Teloi? Either way, I’m guessing there’ll be old precedents the Shayardene priests can dust off from before the Karagond conquest to allow for a degree of upward mobility as well. (Of course, Godfrey also wouldn’t object if his priests were to declare helotry to be a foreign corruption of the true faith and restore the Helots to villein or yeoman status instead…)
I send the spies but I found it stupid for me. I have 75 people they are more. So whatever RUN LIKE RATS HELOTS. Sadly my girl cant infiltrate in a camp of something she has to pretend be a warrior with some trashy lacoste spears she cant lift and found totally useless for run. However, her helots are very excited with them like I am a hero for having that spears… Whatever My girl wont fight with them. So helots could have them.
Havie TOO MANY PEOPLE ENTER IN MY BAND SUDDENLY I WANNA KICK THEM OUT … they are so useless lol I need warriors not crappy helots coming from the trash town.
This is true but the Karagond caste system allows no upward social mobility out of the helot caste at present. Which is why I believe that if the priesthood and the church of Xthonos are not sufficiently weakened that, even under the Shayardene codex, the best status that would be allowed to former helots would be either serf or “freedmen” with few rights and few options other then to become sharecroppers and/or day-labourers and that status appeals to my character not at all.
So I don’t think that if you are not very charismatic and don’t discredit the Xthonic religion enough you’d be allowed to ennoble former helots, best I can envision is bumping them up to yeomen and that still wouldn’t satisfy my character.
You can. As Havenstone said, you can be a noble MC who establishes contact with her. I think maybe you can only do it if you promise not to kill Hector.
Hey, nice name! I like MCs with custom names.
You’re right that the Hegemony doesn’t allow helots upward social mobility at present - but @Havenstone’s also made it clear that this is a recent development, and that plenty of priests resent the Karagonds for corrupting their religious texts.
Returning to an earlier “uncorrupted” version of the faith strikes me as eminently feasible, particularly of your rebellion has a nationalistic flavour, and is already harking back to a Golden Age when their homeland was free of foreign influences… but I guess we’ll see what @Havenstone has planned for the nation building stage of the game in due course.
Our MCs will never meet, but I suspect that “even” yeoman status would be a very attractive proposition for the average helot rebel. They’ll have seen their parents and grandparents fed into harrowers and lived in regular fear of suffering the same agonising death. Becoming yeomen means that neither they, nor their children or grandchildren, will ever need to worry about that again for as long as Shayard remains free. And that’s even before we allow for all the other benefits which have made slaves willing to risk their lives for freedom throughout human history.
Thanks! He’s named after Godfrey de Bouillon.
Nice. My own MC is named Jorgen de Maeos. But I don’t think he’s in any shape to be presented as well as any of yours just yet.
Since I’m one of the few Breden fans here, I don’t think some of you caught it, but if you romance them, there’s this one scene where Breden tries to help your MC by picking a Kryptast code, if I’m not mistaken. And that just raises more questions than answers.
If you consider 300 years recent then yes and the USA is a “new” country.
Perhaps, although they will quickly find that their lot as sharecroppers and day-labourers is hardly any better than being a slave, depending on the exact laws there may even still be overseers and religious police administering corporeal punishments for the slightest “transgressions”. Absent further progressive social change most of the new “yeomen” would quickly find that the only “freedom” they have is between going back to the “jobs” they already did as slaves or starving.
Of course my mc would personally not accept “yeoman” or “freedman” status under a restored Shayardene monarchy as he didn’t fight the rebellion to go right back to doing the farm-animal menial jobs that he did before, only now as a nominally “free” yeoman.
This glosses over both the fact that Shayard back then was itself the major “foreign influence” on others, whether they appreciated that or not and that the “Golden Age” is long since passed. In particular farming in old Shayard was apparently conducted mostly by yeomen running a family farm but that economic model is not feasible today where we require theurges and mega-farms to feed the vastly expanded population and even if we wanted to most of the new “yeoman” families wouldn’t have the land or the know how to run their own small-scale family farms.
We can certainly do better than the current slave-plantation farming estates but I think the way forward lies in either co-operatives (the thing that made our Dutch agriculture great) or collective farming, depending on how much private sector my mc is going to allow for. If you try land-redistribution like Mugabe in Zimbabwe while chasing some golden age Shayardene dream that’s likely going to fail.
Feasible perhaps it is the “uncorrupted” bit that has me and my mc both scared, since @Havenstone has always declined to answer my questions on the original, Shayardene Codex and slavery I believe that the absence of slavery as an institution in Shayardene society right before its fall may have been more due to economic rather than moral or religious reasons and in the meantime the economic circumstances have changed in such a way as to give pro-slavery voices far greater influence.
The Shayardene Codex may turn out to have just as many nasty surprises as our Old Testament or the Koran and Sharia combined if you leave the current crop of even “moderate” ecclesiasts free to interpret it.
Well much like Bleys can become our telone I believe Breden might become our Kryptast if (s)he can be turned fully to our cause and in the middle stages of the game actually having a “double agent” might prove useful too and of course, should we win the new state will need its own intelligence agencies. 
Breden doesn’t even have the skill to lie well, they just lie and let you come to your own conclusions, which shows they’re fucking shit and not in here for the long haul, or at least, not likely to do well. God Breden, just. What. Do better.
“Yes I overheard it”, they say, then throw a pissy fit when you challenge them. God, Breden, please, calm your tits… I’m so disappointed in you…
That’s assuming the traitor (I won’t definitively say that it’s Breden) is a Kryptast. They could just be a regular person who is acting as an informant, possibly unwillingly.
What seems most likely to me is that Breden is the traitor, but they aren’t a trained spy - just a particularly charismatic helot the Hegemony flipped to use as an asset in rooting out sedition. Their family or someone else important to them is being held hostage while they are sent away to a different area entirely to reel in the rebels. Explains why they aren’t exactly the smoothest operator at times and do a rather poor job of deflecting suspicion, and also why they get sent to die as well if you don’t try to stop the harrowing. The Hegemony wouldn’t execute an asset as valuable as a trained spy out of hand, but putting down one more helot wouldn’t be a big deal, especially if that helot had outlived their usefulness.
Could be or Breden could choose to be a less than smooth operator at times exactly in order to deflect suspicion, particularly when she already knows you’re on to her, cause “surely a real, trained Kryptast wouldn’t make such rookie mistakes”. Of course Breden may be far from the top Kryptast, after all she got stuck with the very undesirable job of having to live and work like a helot for who knows how long. I’m also sure we will “meet” some of the top agents later on.