The “actual Heg Theurge perspective” might have to wait for G3. But I haven’t finished writing the Seichareis scenes yet, so can’t rule it out.
Totally reasonable. I’ve just moved my family into a rat-, snake-, and monkey-infested cinderblock bungalow in a district of Nepal that sparked the civil war 30 years ago because of its enduring underdevelopment, and while a fair amount of infrastructure has been built since then – multiple paved highways! – it’s definitely got me in a “all of us Americans are aristos” mood. But that’s not true or fair. I’m glad that we’ve got plenty of readers who naturally lean helotward.
That last one. 
The premodern world was one where, for most people, the state and its governing principles didn’t form their identity. Plenty of empires didn’t try to impose a hegemonic religion or culture on their subjects, and were more enduring and resilient for it. An MC attracted to governance-at-scale should be taking cosmopolitanism seriously, and skepticism of a non-dogmatic variety can be helpful if you’re hoping for your future state to span major differences in credo.
No, I’ve not planned that. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, though.
Well, against all my “nice” instincts, I’ve tried not to water down the exclusionary and taunt-the-weakest aspects of nomad culture. It might just not be possible for Goksed to get a happy ending in his home phyle.
If you found a new token for the Whiskered Hawk, they’ll welcome you back as a phyle member. Otherwise, considering yourself “one of the Whiskered Hawk” would go beyond nomad norms – you were only ever a softlander who ran with them for a while.
I’m not sure I’ll give the MC the option to promote the nomad religious perspective, but it’s certainly one that could end up dominant in Sojourn under the right circumstances. The governance of Sojourn when it starts trying to incorporate more nomad phyles is going to be an interesting problem.
Similar answer to the “do you have to cut yourself,” but more so. A Theurge at the level of the Thaumatarch – one who’s used high enough metaTheurgy to start seriously breaking down their self-conception as a unified physical entity – could use aether at some distance, e.g. in another mage’s phial supply. For everyone else, wielding aether’s teleomorphic potential requires having it subliming out/off of their own body, making it possible to treat it essentially as an extension of their own natural aether. The telos of tool-wielding means that having it literally in-hand further eases the process.
That would be cool! I’ll see if I have time to add it.
It varies by Gara’u. Some of the predatory ones will make their textiles from their prey; some keep flocks. But the south’s finest textiles are self-grown and self-harvested by the desert sheep.
I think it’ll find a substantial following up north, if you’re ready to adapt it to the existing folkways of Nyr skeptics.
No shame to you or any of the Discord, but I don’t read furry erotica myself and so can’t promise anything when it comes to incorporating its tropes into intimate scenes with M’kyar.
I expect so, yes – but not until the late late game.
Phaedrx’s gender mirrors Breden’s, not the MC. And no, Ciels won’t follow the MC in transition.
They see that distance as the only thing that makes the material universe possible at all. Xthonos’s perfection and ontological uniqueness make it impossible for Its emanations to be coextensive with It. The highest of those emanations exist at a rightly-ordered distance, and emanate regular four-elemental matter back toward Xthonos as an act of praise.
There’s a tension built into any cosmology of spheres that tries to honor both our human intuitions that High = Good and Central = Good. Dante’s world-picture famously has everything orbiting around Satan. The gameworld’s cosmology has everything orbiting around its Unmoved Mover… but then has to explain celestial glories differently.
Leopards are cool? I mean, one of them snuck into Kathmandu and ate my dog a few years back, but I can’t really hold that against them.
My philosophy professor friend said he was happy that XoR readers would get an intro to concepts from the Greek greats, so I thought I’d throw in the Cave when it was appropriate.
The big dose phials are, broadly speaking, used only for big Changes. It’s possible to decant a phial slowly into your palm rather than smashing it, but if you try that with a big phial, you’ll have a lot of wasted aether.
Even more so:
We’ve talked above about the need for Theurges to be in physical contact with the aetherial blood to use it. In theory you could use your wisardry to rip the Harrower apart (including its Theurgically reinforced blood tanks), jump into what’s left of the tank, and Change something huge before all the aether sublimed away. But the reinforcement would make that time- and blood-consuming; there are easier ways to kill spectators. The Harrowers in cities, where you’d be best placed to do dramatic infrastructure damage, are also the ones with the most Hegemonic forces nearby to intervene before you managed to crack the tank.
Hadn’t realized I’d already shared so many of the Ennearchs on public record. No point in hiding the remainder, really. Here’s the full list with portfolio:
Ennearch Ocharsis, responsible for the Lykeion.
Ennearch Thaïs, responsible for the Mystikon.
Ennearch Anakilos, responsible for the Hegemony’s armies.
Ennearch Lacevra, responsible for the Hegemony’s fleets.
Ennearch Thneton, responsible for the Xthonic Ecclesiarchy.
Ennearch Hesychios, responsible for Theurgic research and development.
Ennearch Hypatia, responsible for trade regulation (both provincial and foreign)
Ennearch Cratylos, responsible for the Plektasts and healers.
Ennearch Praxa, responsible for the Alastors.
And yes, the Halassurqs do have Plektasts, who make giant boar Plektoi.
The Karagonds definitely still see the Halassurqs as Xaos-powered, but “Goete” has connotations of the hidden witch/warlock in our midst. The Halassurq magi are an open institution, a mirror of the holy Theurges in a society wholly given over to Xaotic evil.
The Court Season tends to start in the second half of the month of Linnane and run through the month of Xanthine – Feb and early March, in our calendar, before the Grand Shayard heat gets too unbearable.
Because it was being written by a priest whose job was to push the Karagond sacred calendar as part of the new Xthonic order. They’d certainly have known the old Shayarin names, but they didn’t use them in sacred written record.
I’ve so far left the MC’s birthday a little vague, but spring in Shayard is considered to start two months after Langnight, i.e. the end of Linnane and start of Xanthine. That’s a little earlier than we tend to call “spring” in the Anglosphere, but fits with solar reckoning and practice in plenty of countries a little closer to the equator than England. So I think setting the MC’s birthday in Allakone would fit all the evidence I’ve given so far.
@Verand, great to see you back. I’m not going to tell more details about Erjan’s mother’s capture just now, but can confirm she was an Erezziana Phalangite.
When a man wears the husband-mask, support for the children still falls on the legal father, who’s off fighting the Qarag but is still expected to return one day. Widows remarry, inheriting whatever property their dead husbands left as legacy, and with their new husbands responsible for supporting them and all the children whenever that legacy is exhausted.
The pro-natalism of Halassur has intensified greatly over the centuries of war, with the husband-mask definitely being one of the customs that didn’t exist in anything like its current form before the war.