Choice of Rebels Part 1 WIP thread

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Sorry I’ve been so long in responding – I’ve been and am out of town. Few comments:

I. I prefer gendered surnames for authenticity and because they similar flow better. When reading about “Anna Comnenus” rather than “Anna Komnene,” I cringe. I feel like it adds more flavor then complexity – it’s for aesthetics rather than pedantry.

II. For that reason, if you just don’t want to do gender inflected surnames, I don’t think -atou is a problem. As evidenced by this thread, most people aren’t even aware it’s Modern Greek. If anything, they probably know Greek people with surnames in that form. So if you’re set on single form surnames, it’s fine keeping what you have. It’s better than -os anyway, which is just obviously masculine and discordant with female names.

III. Re: modesty, I feel like if shame over nudity is the same for either way, then both gender helots could labor shirtless and be seen as equally shameful. This is so even if we keep the real world notion of breasts being sexualized: after all, the Hegemony would look askance at a shirtless aristo male even if male shirtless ness isn’t sexual.

The point is the shame associated with such perceived immodesty rather than which parts are exposed, after all.

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@Iello, thanks for the advice. Gendered surnames would certainly add flavor as well as complexity, but I’m sticking with neutral ones, and hence will keep -atou. The gender-neutral dogma of the Karagond Hegemony has both plot and thematic significance, as will hopefully become more clear when the first Halassurq characters come on the scene next book. Halassur is decidedly not gender-neutral.

The point is the shame associated with such perceived immodesty rather than which parts are exposed, after all. Both are still relevant; a helot who stripped totally naked would be seen very differently than a shirtless one, due to “which parts are exposed.” Writing a culture which was truly indifferent on this point would be interesting… but I think it’s likely that a sexually repressive society like Karagon would have a genital taboo significantly stronger than the shame around other exposed skin.

Given that choice, the question is whether the culture considers breasts to be more like genitalia (as many Western societies do) or more like legs, bellies, arms, ankles, etc. While the answer will vary, I suspect a sexual dimorphism is overall more likely to take on a strong erotic charge than other physical traits, and thus to get more focus in sexually repressive cultures. If I were sticking with the gender-neutral Karagonds privileging breasts, for consistency I’d also have them be intensely concerned about the immodesty of beards – men are expected to shave or veil, because beards are intensely erotic (as, like breasts, they’re sexual dimorphisms that develop in adolescence). And helot males are more likely to be stubbly, which is shameful, etc.

But as mentioned above, I’m happy to write a Karagond culture which privileges neither breasts nor beards.

And @WulfyK wrote:
I hope you’ll make a scene where I can confront a devout aristo MC with the helot’s attitudes, shoving the value dissonance between the classes
Absolutely – that’s what Simon/Suzane is for! (Well, plus being an increasingly badass blademaster).

The sentence “perhaps he’d found out that you were the aristarchs’ close cousin” does still appear in this version, you should correct this.
Yoicks! Thanks for catching that. :slight_smile:

And Iarla Wester?
Killed either way.

But aren’t you going to include an option to buy weaknessless for $0.99 anyway?
Quite likely, but that doesn’t introduce any additional complexity or coding on my part – it just means none of your stats drop to 0 – while adding “bad luck” would require a slew of changes to the wealth and follower code.

What if the MC lied to Breden in order to make the real traitor feel safe?
Would the traitor really feel safe at hearing you say, “I’m not ruling anyone out”? Given that telling Breden you don’t trust her/him creates an adversarial relationship with someone you know to be influential in your band, I find it hard to imagine you lying about it – I don’t see the benefit.

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“Absolutely – that’s what Simon/Suzane is for! (Well, plus being an increasingly badass blademaster).”

And here I thought Simon was the exception since the other Aristo’s we meet in the first book are all quite perverted and just seem to use the ‘rules’ as a convenient excuse to feed their superiority complex whilst generally behaving like spoiled little brats.

Since in the helot path we already basically force Simon to dress and live like any other member of the our little band, I wonder how long he will cling to the ridiculous notions the Empire and the Faith of Xthonos apparently try to instill in the populace.

With all this talk about enforced modesty now I really want the option for my character to deliberately continue wearing what amounts to rags during the later stages of the rebellion as a none to subtle attack on both the wasteful decadence of the imperial elite and the faith of Xthonos that my character despises.

Lastly do the skeptics, dead relisgions we may be able to revive somewhat and the religions of the Hallassur and Abhumans (and perhaps whatever system prevails in the Xaos lands) share the Karagond/Xthonic notions of shame and morality when it comes to sex and nudity?
Besides as Breden already states since the nobles are mostly free to break the Canon when it suits them one my rebellion’s goals is to basically break the Canon for good.

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Concerning the clothing, I think there would be some kind of scale of body parts which are considered even more obscene then others, ranging from those parts that can be exposed (head, neck and hands according to @Havenstone) on one end and genitals an absolute no-no on the other, and other parts somewhere in between.

The idea to make beards as indecent as female breasts are in our culture is interesting, but it would be much more difficult for the (male) helots to follow this rule then to stay clothed during work; I doubt they’d be alowed to keep razors in their houses.

BTW, I’ve got an idea for a catch-22: what if the Canon demands ritual cleanings and wearing clean clothes? The helots, who unlike yeomen or aristos can’t afford too many sets of clothing will either have to strip for work or risk to get their clothes dirty.

Anyway do the helots produce or buy their clothes themselves or are theiy issued by their masters?

I wonder what the nobles wear when practicing pygmachy and what free people engaged in action-loaded activities (e.g alastors and mercenaries) wear.

Also, concerning @idonotlikeusernames’ previous post, do the noble houses have coats of arms or other symbols or family colors? If yes, they would likely use these motives in their dress.

As to the re-coding: my next bunch of suggestions will concern the missions in chapter two, and you might have to change the coding for a lot of things anyway :stuck_out_tongue: B-)

The MC might think that if s/he claims to suspects Breden as well, the real traitor would feel more safe as ther’s one more person after whom the MC will look, so that s/he will have less time to search for them. Maybe it’s not the smartest choice, but the MC might well have INT 0 and think that it’s a good plan that will make the traitor feel safe.

Or you might add another option where the MC doesn’t say that s/he not ruling anyone out anyone but specificaly calls Breden a most likely suspect. (of course this should piss her/him even more)

And finally, will you reveal the population numbers?

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Quick responses: @indlun, the skeptics don’t believe any one thing, but they’ll at least be receptive to the idea that modesty isn’t as vital as you’ve always been taught. And one reason the Hegemony despises Abhumans is that they’re totally immodest primitives.

@WulfyK, masters provide helots with a new set of clothes each year, and I like your Catch-22. Fighting is no excuse for immodesty. I’m trying to decide whether every house has coats of arms.

And population is linked to agriculture, economy, and climate; I’m finally finishing my demographic model of the Thaumatarchy, and on my lunch break today sorted out the climatic map of the world (ocean gyres, prevailing winds, agricultural zones). So that will soon yield better numbers for the helotry of the Rim.

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“BTW, I’ve got an idea for a catch-22: what if the Canon demands ritual cleanings and wearing clean clothes? The helots, who unlike yeomen or aristos can’t afford too many sets of clothing will either have to strip for work or risk to get their clothes dirty.”

Proper personal hygiene is important for public health and therefore to keep up Helot work productivity and efficiency though whereas most nobles obviously have their own private bathing facilities I can imagine the Helots being forced to use communal facilities or even just the streams and rivers.
I do like your suggestion about clean clothing but I would add that it might be a bit redundant, at least for the upper classes, since a society as decadent as Karagon probably already has fashion notions where a proper noble cannot be seen wearing the same outfit twice and as such the clean clothes rule is probably meant as one of the few rules to specifically differentiate the Helots from what passes for the middle classes in the Hegemony.

"I wonder what the nobles wear when practising pygmachy and what free people engaged in action-loaded activities (e.g Alastors and mercenaries) wear. "

The Nobles probably wear something like the Karategi or Judogi for pygmachy as it covers basically everything their normal clothes would except for the feet, which might just be an allowance they would have to make for the sport. If pygmachy doesn’t emphasize kicking and fancy footwork overly much they might even wear some sort of soft shoes with it.

In a strange way I’ve always pictured Alastors wearing something drab but vaguely intimidating in my mind that comes to weird 16th century precursors of the once ubiquitous Chinese Mao suits as they also cover everything with basically whatever armour the individual Alastors have or can afford strapped over it.

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@Havenstone, good to hear this. I assume you’ll put this into World Index, right?

@idonotlikeusernames I like your idea of a keikogi-like dress for pygmachy. I think if showing feet is inappropriate, they might wear some socks, like in this photos (found them after a quick search): http://uppsalakyudo.se/pics/keikogi.jpg

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I think this is a fairly ridiculous amount of effort being put into the question of modesty taboos, considering their minimal overall importance to the story.

Anyway. Is it meant to be possible to provide food for your merry little band along the minimal-anarchy path, without looting from anyone? Or is it expected that you’d be sending a lot of them away?

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@Dominic, with respect, the story’s just getting started–it’s a bit early to say what’s of minimal importance.

I recognize it may not be what interests you, but it’s not insignificant. Even in the small amount written so far, one of the more significant choices in your relationship with Breden already hinges on your response to the modesty code; and it will continue to play a part in the game dynamics. Hopefully you’ll still be able to enjoy the game.

We’ll see how the final balance works for a minimal anarchy path. Probably will involve sending some people away; I’m going to nerf the merchant smuggling (it will bring results in spring, but not in time to save many lives).

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@Havenstone

Will you be adding any other options that don’t involve stealing aside from smuggling and begging?

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@Dominic, after completing the two completely nonviolent missions (smuggling and asking helots) you still have 89 people to feed and 131 adult bandits, from 274 total followers. So you either have to rob someone or send people away.

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Oh, there’s no question of whether it will affect my ability to enjoy the game. It barely even counts as a design issue, as I see it. It just seems a silly thing to worry about here.

Losing the merchant thing will be rough, though. That’ll leave minimal-brigandage characters with only begging from the helots to survive the first winter; they’ll definitely have to send a good chunk of people off.

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@Havenstone
Maybe you can add an “organize hunting parties” or “start gathering edible roots and berries.”

I feel like sending off some of your rebels basically violates the non-violent path since its tacit acceptance they will being stealing to survive wherever they go.

The nonviolent path should cause some casualties due to malnutrition and disease but not a third of your followers.

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@cascat07, it’s mentioned that the Whenward Band’s mainstay is hunting game, but that most of it died due to a pestilence.

@Havenston, do you have some sort of program that helps you with all this incredibly advanced world building or is it just a matter of diligent research, lots of experience, and piles of careful notes?

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Hm. The beards being immodest thing is kind of hilarious. I like it. It’s a nice counterpart to helot females having to work shirtless: helot males can’t shave as often or easily due to a lack of easy access to blades I’d guess, so they are similarly shamed.

As for aristos, I’m still hoping for a pro-imperial/reform oriented path :smiley:

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@cascat07, yes, the game already assumes you’re hunting and gathering as much as you can. Feeding what amounts to a small village for sixteen winter weeks is really hard.

@WinterHawk, lots of research and many spreadsheets of notes. There’s a spreadsheet out there called City that has some useful calculations, but I’ve not found it as helpful as I’d originally hoped – there are some arbitrary fudges to make it fit medieval England, and it’s not clear how you change those for a less Domesday context.

@Iello, in future games, especially once the scope widens beyond Shayard, you might just get your wish.

I think I’ll also revise the winter banditry so that time matters more – right now it’s hand-wavy for simplicity’s sake, but realistically, some of the raids should yield food rather later than others (given different time required for planning and fencing non-food items), which would have an impact on week-by-week survival rates. It’ll also mean people die off more gradually, leaving you less likely to have a single point where you choose whether to let a hundred starve.

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@Havenstone, can you present the notes on demographics and economy of rim squrare? I have a lot of headscratchers about this and seeing the numbers would help a lot.

Your idea to rewrite the banditry missions sounds impressive. Perhaps you should add weekly food rations/person to the stats? And will you pick up my suggestion for an “unlucky” perk in exchange for no 0 stat?

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I’ve got some suggestions for this part and I think it’s the right time to present them, here they are:

  1. a. In the Raid on the Owlscap Pass, it should be possible to send Elery with Zvad even if the MC doesn’t go.
    b. If s/he does, and has COM 0, s/he shouldn’t be shamefaced since everyone already knows of this weakness and shouldn’t expect them to participate in a fight
    c. If the MC has COM 0 but can use theurgy (and possibly already have used it), why can’t s/he protest suceesfuly and participate in the fight using theurgy?
    d. It’s possible to visit the Owlscap Pass before the raid while searching for a noble who is willing to betray the architelone. I think such previous knowledge of the location could be used in the raid.
    e. Why does raiding the Owlscap Pass not affect the relationship with Alaine as well in the way the plundering the market at Rim Square or the raid merchant town do?

  2. a. If I raid the Helot’s barns first, the possibility to raid the nobles’ barns disappears, I think it should be possible to do this afterwards, perhaps even partially redeaming themself in the eyes of the fellow rebels showing that they’ll rob nobles as well.
    b. If the MC is concerned about the traitors, maybe s/he can use these raids to take a closer look on some of these suspects?
    c. I still think there should be the possibility to raid yeoman barns. I’d like to know how many of them there are in realtion to the helots and arisots

  3. a. The raid’s target are called "temples and monateries, but it’s alvays the same temple. I think you should include an actual choice between two or three targets (one of them a monastery). They’d bring the same output.
    b. The rebel who encourages the people to join the rebels and gives the MC the title lie-breaker is just called “one of your women”, I think she deserves a name and perhaps an even larger role later.

  4. There should be a choice to take Radmar with the group to the market town raid. Then he might help to fight off the alastors with smaller losses, and the MC might have the opportunity to react to this like after Elery’s action at Owlscap Pass

  5. a. When I rob the Architelone and contact the noble(s) or the merchant, is anyone blamed and harrowed for this? You should make it more clear.
    b.What is neccesary to be able to accept the offer at the inn and not to kill Noemi if I use theurgy on her?
    c. Fellen mentions having two daughters, yet in the alastor raid it’s mentioned that alastors are deployed away from their families. Isn’t this a contradiction?
    d. There should be a possibility to kill the guards but leave the Architelon herself alive.
    e. The punishments are oddly disbalanced. Ismene and Alaine are tortured untill they confess and then harrowed, but if Bleys is made responisble he’s surprisingly NOT tortured for a confession or information but subjected to addtional torture and humiliation for no apparent reason other than sadism. I think the punishment for all three should be the same, and as they’re all form the merchant or noble class, a harrwing alone would be already very degrading and painful for any of them.
    f. Also, if Ismene is executed, her friends and kin who think that she’s innocent begin muttering. By contrast, when a noblewoman is killed by alastors for heresy after Ecclesiast Olynna’s arrest nothing similar is mentioned. Are the de Galis that more powerful then the unnamed noblewomen’s family?
    g.Finally, if the MC promises Bleys to hide his involvement or even blame someone else but betrays him, he should’t have any reason to beleave that his family is still alive and will be released. I think in this case he should betray the MC and agree to bring alstors or even phalangites to the meeting with MC, hoping both to escape torture and save or revenge his family. This way, you could write a battle and give the MC a chance to use theurgy in this mission as well.

  6. The Attack on the alastors only work if the MC has COM 2. Radmar doesn’t appear here. I think there should be a possibility to include him into the party and be succesful with COM 1 due to some action of him. Then the MC shoul again have the opportunity to either praise him ore become jealous.

  7. When smuggling, the MC can only contact Alaine Leybirdge. I think you could diversify the mission by adding another merchant, what about the one who can help the MC in the Architelone raid?

  8. Only the Noble MC has the idea to send the father to ask the helots for food, the Helot MC should have this option too.

a. If I send some rebels away, they’re led by Teva, who isn’t mentioned anywhere else and doesn’t apperar in the notable rebels list. I think some background on her should be provided.
b. The player should have the ability to send any of the notable rebels with this group, possibly as the group leader, especially if s/he’s jealous of some some them.
c. If I send too many people away, a negative number of able-bodied men appears, you should either fix this bug or make a maximum for the send away group.

a. When sabotaging the harrowers, a theurgy-using MC should have the possibility to remove details and take them to the rebel’s camp in order to study them for better understanding of the technology (and of course some of the rebels wouldn’t like this)
b. I think the quality of the traps should depend on the INT stat
c. If the MC has a not bad realtionship with the nobles and/or the priesthood, they should have the possibility to visit some of them to recruit them for the rebellion, not only the helots.

a. on some occasions hangings are mentiones (Ciels’ father, Ora’s husband). should’t they’ve been harrowed? It’s mentioned in Chapter 1 that outright killings of helots are not encouraged as a waste of blood.
b. How is Ciels’ gender coded?

  1. After thinking about @Dominic 's concerns, I have a few ideas for new (mostly nonviolent) missions:
    a. How about a con? the MC will go to a town posing as a trader, if s/he has CHA 2, they’ll succeed and trick someone into giving them a loan of money or trust them some goods
    b. searching for a lost silver mine/buried treasure. if the INT is 2 or they’ll succed and get some silver.
    c. stealing cattle, not not only the grain from barns.
    d. forging coins and use them for trade. Might it be done with some theurgy?
    e. Contact Ismene de Galis or another sympathetic noble and ask for support (I guess a nationalist noble might have a chance)
    f. fight and some rival bandit(s) who refuse to join the MC’s band, taking their possesions and possibly capture and turn him/her/them to the alastors for the bounty.
    g. Send or lead a party ino the Xaos-lands. What if there’s something valuable or edible?

@Iello It would be notably harder for the men, as they have to shave constantly, while female helots working shirtless seem to be not the general rule, it think it should be possible for a helot of either gender to stay always clothed (unless they’re stripped for a whipping) - of course her or his clothes would likely be dirty and torn form work giving them an unpleasant (and Xaotic) apperance. That’s the idea of my catch 22.
Of course they also depend on how many items do the helots have, if they have spare clothes, they can wear one set for work and change into a clean set after that.

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Doing justice to that volume and quality of feedback is going to take a while! Meanwhile, any other regular readers want to chip in on any of the points @WulfyK raises, or similar?

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3b I absolutely agree - even if that means the MC has to ask who she is afterwards. People who make significant impact without dying very shortly thereafter are deserving of a name, to my mind. And to echo @Wulfyk 's point, then she could return later either in a more expansive roll, or even just as a cameo or off-screen mention.

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I’ll go back and attribute that line to an already-named character like Ciels or Elery, I think. I’m wary of introducing new names – readers already have a lot to keep track of mentally, and the bar for giving Bandit #18 a name is going to be fairly high. They’ve got to at least dominate a vignette like Ora.