I just hope Zvad and Breden haven’t no leadership at all. I dont trust them, there are some way i could watch them 24 hours and spy them? after all there are stupid dirty commoners how could i trust them?
@poison_mara
Are you like this in person, too xD…?
This talk about marriage has got me wondering if daddy dearest had any plans to marry the MC off to someone before they rebelled and ran off into the woods.
And what are Sybla’s feelings regarding the empire? I suppose the heart of the matter being whether or not she would join us if she believed that our rebellion had an appreciable chance of winning. She seemed pretty mercenary to me.
@Samurel_H_Young
I think she’s just being true to her character. At least I hope so. xD
Onward with WulfyK…
4.a. With Harrowing increasingly the common punishment for uppity helots, mutilation is just uncommon enough to be shocking, these days; nobles are within their rights to inflict it, but most don’t. It’s inefficient. Yebben was born blind, but Ora lost her eye to the young de Merres.
b. I was just writing a bit more of Ora today. But nothing I’ve written yet is enough to get her onto the notable rebels list, I’m afraid…
c. Same for Terret Abler, the healer.
d. Abler is a surname for helot healers. Caine may or may not appear in the story again. I’m afraid I’m going to repeatedly disappoint you by not fleshing out minor characters…
5.a. The code says “country” not county. Can you double check?
b. A Greek term for “district” – I can’t find one which is recognizable to the average educated Anglophone, and I don’t want to get too obscure. If you can suggest one which is more like Hegemony than Basileia, let me know!
c. You illustrate the problem well: both “States” and “Realms” are in fact of Latin origin. Any other suggestions?
d. Hmm. Let me think about it. I’m inclined to say that it doesn’t work that way – the natl-cosmo difference for nobles is really around names, not titles, and helot culture doesn’t have a simple equivalent.
@Sam Nah, im a dirty commoner myself so my character probably sendme to a harrowing without remorse =))
@poison_mara
Lol 
me, too.
4.a. Do the nobles or hegemonial authorities have some kind of eugenic program to kill off those who are born with disabilities or get crippled by accident? And if yes, how has Yebben survived?
b. =D>
c. 
d. :((
5.a. I’m sure I saw it, but It was a long while ago when I noticed this and can’t find it quickly, but unless you’ve already corrected it I’ll try to find it again.
b. I tryed to research and found this here do you like any of these terms? Otherwise you might call it an “Aristarchy”, similar to Archon/Archonty. And I hope @Iello can give me an advice, s/he seems to know more on ancient greek language and culture then me.
c. lands? And since Realm is from old french and not directly from latin like province, I think it could be also appropriate. I didn’t know state is from latin though, shame on me 
d. But a noble MC can get a higher nat. stat thanks to the name selection then any helot. Besides, I think changing this term (and perhaps a few other political/religious terms) would make the use of Shayarin vs. Koine more permanently notable for the player, just like theurge and wizard.
@Sneaks, that’s exactly my point, I find it very odd that a 19 years noble who is the sole heir(ess) of the family isn’t yet married or at least engaged to someone and no hints are that daddy is concerned about it. I fully agree with @poison_mara that a noble (and the MC’s father seems to be a typical one) would be very concerned about continuing the linage and would likely to try to arrange a marriage for the MC. And since helots who don’t have children are at risk to be harrowed, I’m also surprised that a helot MC is still a childless single too and not concerned about it, and Elery and Breden apparently too.
@Fiogan, welcome to the thread! Any specific feedback on the story so far? I’ve enjoyed your contribution to other threads.
On the issue of marriage, most straight nobles marry in their early 20s; that’s seen as the natural decade for reproduction. You’re right that many would be engaged by 19, and to speculate that your father’s been trying to get you betrothed. But with your House on an obvious downward spiral – losing your land, only one heir – no one’s been eager to take him up on it. (The Keriatou have their eyes set higher, and won’t be marrying their kids to anyone local).
As for the helotry, they also tend to start reproducing in their early 20s. Harrowing is uncommon for teenagers; non-reproducing 20-somethings will slowly begin to be culled, and every subsequent decade makes you more likely to be picked. I’ll be revising a couple of scenes in Ch 1 to make that clearer.
@Havenstone Thanks for the clarification , i was imaging a typical ancient world settings with marriages at 13 year women like 19 men. So live Span its similar to ours? I mean ancient times usually have a live span of 30 to 40 so reprodution couldnt be at lately 20s. They have good medical tecnology?
There was a lot of variety in premodern cultures on age of marriage and reproduction – it wasn’t all teenagers. Plenty of medieval European areas, in particular, had both male and female first marriage on average in the 20s. Noble marriages sometimes took place earlier in those areas for property reasons; you could have highborn kids married by 15 while their serfs (with lower life expectancy) wed after 20. (Of course a life expectancy of 40 doesn’t mean people stopped being fertile in their 30s; you could start having kids at 20 and have 7-8 by 40).
The Hegemony has good health resources (Theurgic and apothecarial) for the rich and noble–rather better than the medieval historical average. Helots benefit slightly from this knowledge, but few live beyond 45-ish anyway, due to Harrowing and the demands of manual labor. Child mortality is still high by our modern Western standards, especially for helots.
@Havenstone Why, thank you. I’ll have to read it through again first, but I will try to do that soon-ish and let you know.
Also, our career paths seem to have been quite similar in some ways, so it will be interesting re-reading this and taking a look at it from that sort of perspective, as well.
@Havenstone I have a question.
What is the anarchy stat supposed to represent? I know when it’s checked and what it’s checked for (S vs. K and the argument with your dad). What I want to know though is, what is it representing in the story? Is it supposed to represent how much of the Hegemony your tearing apart, how much the local citizens are suffering from your rebellion, a combination of the two, a general measure of lawlessness, or is it something else?
I ask mostly because the earlier massaging of the stat got me wondering what it was I was massaging; and that is not a question you want to ask yourself, metaphorical or not. There are also a few instances in game where its meaning can get confusing, because as a player it feels like it is going up or down different for different reasons. I’ll use Sabotaging the Harrowers for an example.
If my really old notes/memory is still correct you receive 2 anarchy when you dose them in oil and set them on fire; 1 anarchy when you toss sand into their gears and leave them for the next Harrowing. That makes sense if the anarchy stat is a measure of your PC’s open attacks against the Hegemony, and their response/concern. If the anarchy stat is a measure of the population getting killed more randomly than normal it should be opposite; if you throw sand in the gears the Theurges go crazy and burn, what is it three helot camps, but if you burn the Harrowers they execute a few random helots and station some Alastors to guard them; sounds like another Thalsday afternoon to me.
However if it supposed to be a game mechanic to balance out decisions it works wonderfully. (This is probably how most have seen it, because its only important check is S vs. K, and the stat itself doesn’t color their view of the story like the devout vs skepticism stat does.) On one hand you have an out-come that gains respect with the helots at the cost of 10 active followers, and 2 of your 15 points before you lose S; on the other hand is a loss of respect from the helots, 10 active followers, and 1 of your 15 points before you lose S. The anarchy stat ends up functioning as a counter weight to doing the sabotage in the first place, and when you fail the (anarchy) penalty is reduced.
I have no idea which of these anarchy is supposed to be doing or what it is representing in the story.
tl;dr: What is anarchy? I used far to many to declarative statements for a post about a question. Analogy. What is anarchy?
Found a typo when attacking the Alastors.
By the time you think your bandits (( are are )) ready to take on the Hegemonic enforcers hand-to-hand, the two of you have agreed on six vulnerable towns and have tentative plans of assault for each.
5.a. I’ve looked carefully through both the world index and the main game, couldn’t find the county again but I’ve found some spelling misteaks, here they are:
-in the runaway helot opening, when the helot MC comes, the curtain closed beind you, the h in behind is missing
-in the nationalist opening, in one of Carles’ ballads the hero countered every one of his enemies’ strategems, it should be stratagems
-a few pages later, Samena took the norther coast, an n is missing
I also noted that while you normaly don’t use a hyphen in compound words, some are hypenatated for no obvious reason (e.g. ice-lands, Shame-Veined, plough-mates)
b and c. What do you think of these?
From the Helot point of view though, considering what happened to Dann, Calea and her brother are pure evil and an example of why the rules and social order of the Karagond canon and must be torn down, therefore I could imagine my MC even for all his usual principles turning a blind eye to anything the rebel Helots (like say a lynch mob) might choose to do to them later on.
So is it still impossible to get Simon with 0 charisma?
@hahaha01357 Yes it is still impossible to get Simon with 0 CHA. Nothing has changed in the beta files.
Well that’s a bummer. I’m not sure I like the other guy a lot. Did @Havenstone say anything about being able to get Simon in the future?
@hahaha01357 I don’t believe he has mentioned it. Although we don’t have much to base our opinions on for whether we like Simon or Kalt better. Simon could end up being such a pacifist that I can’t stand him; just like how Kalt is so bloodthirsty for nobles I can hardly stand him.
Right, let’s see if I can catch up with the comments. First, WulfyK.
3f. If you’ve been an arrogant noble, Breden won’t be romantically interested in you. Otherwise s/he will be, though the way you respond to the dancing overtures can slam that door.
Hector and Calea are both straight, and Calea, at least, is a potential future RO. Yes, the game will feature ROs who are not gender-flipping nor playersexual, as well as a couple more who are.
4a. A thoroughgoing eugenics program would never occur to the Karagonds. You can’t breed defects out of helots – they’re defective by nature. You can protect the naturally free humans from blood contamination by the helotry, of course. As for the disabled, they’re likely to be harrowed if the disability prevents them from doing typical helot chores. Ora’s one missing eye wasn’t that big of a deal; nor did Poric’s missing tongue doom him (though because of his offence to the Pelematou he would have been one of the “extra” youth Harrowed in the 4th Harrowing, like Caine – I’ll make that clear). Yebben’s days were clearly numbered; they’d have just been waiting for him to come of age.
5b-c. Hmmmm, not feeling it. I enjoy the etymological game, but my get out clause is that we do have “Romance language” bits of the gameworld in Erezza and the French-inflected coastal half of Shayard… so I don’t have to purge all Latinate words from my Shayardene dialogue, especially where the Anglo-Saxon or Greek alternative would be obscure or imprecise. Province and district came into English via French, same as realm (though less changed from their Latin roots, true).
6.a. Helots and drudges are definitely slaves; they’re bought and sold, and they have no recognised rights, so any trade or agriculture they manage in their “spare time” will yield nothing that can’t be seized at the whim of a free Shayardene.
b. Legally, all free non-nobles are of the same class – though guild members have special rights under the law, so guild-affiliated artisans and merchants have some advantages over peasant yeomen. I have no idea what the koine terms are for them, not being a (modern or old koine) Greek-speaker myself.
c. Officially, you can’t change your class in the Karagond system. But some people are “recognised to have always been in the wrong class” – whether that’s Alastors being ennobled or noble Houses essentially being downgraded to merchant within a couple generations of having lost their land. It’s been a very long time since a helot was freed on that principle. There are no legal ways to free a helot; their nature is service.
d. Nobility and connections are more decisive than skills and performance. That doesn’t mean the latter are insignificant, though.
e. Karagonds will virtually always outrank provincials, and the top-ranked Hegemonic offices (strategos, archimandrite, etc) in a province will almost always be held by Karagonds.
f. No outlaw would expect a pardon, no matter what they do. The forces of the Thaumatarchy are not really inclined to pardon people or negotiate with rebels (a policy underlined by their response to Cabel’s rebellion in the breadbasket of the Hegemony). They’ll have to be a LOT more frightened of you than they currently are before they start offering to pardon your cronies for turning you in. And they’ll kill outlaw children without remorse… though it’s just conceivable that if they found some surviving kids after wiping out your band, they’d return them to helotry rather than kill them in cold blood.
7. Noted.
And thanks for typo-catching, to you and @Sneaks – though “norther” is intentional, it’s an alternate archaic spelling. (Was “misteaks” intentional? )