You know, in terms of material comforts and personal freedoms that obviously makes sense and applies to myself as well, but having grown up in subsidized housing with an Ojibwe father and a mother who for some years worked 50+ hours a week, the idea that I have more in common with a minor aristo (indeed, that an aristo MC’s life isn’t basically alien to me) than a helot never occurred to me. To be a bit self-deprecating, here I am on da computer at 1 PM on a Tuesday imagining that I’m Kalt because of the lives my grandparents lived
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High CHA MCs when they convince their followers to accept a famine in order to secure the Revolution and usher in a new world:
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Personally I resonate the most with question of Shayardene nationality and subjugation of MC’s homeland. I just can’t immerse myself enough as a helot to follow that part of the plot - it is hard to care about the nation or feel as a part of it as them.
I suppose such feeling makes sense as in some irl cases it took massive events and hard work to awaken national identity in lower classes of society. And in XoR the helotry is the lowest possible class, so it is what it is.
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I pick noble for my first time since for some reason I thought it was needed to be a mage 
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It’s more complicated than I thought. Grand Shayard clearly subjugated the Rim at some point and Rimmers are considered dumbass provincials by what was once the former Imperial Core.
My MC’s cosmopolitan by nature, she wants to learn as much as she can about the outside since her inclinations are more systematic and rationalistic.
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Main reason I’m going with nationalism is I think it’s the easiest path for developing an anti-Karagond basis of legitimacy for a new state. I also think it cuts the legs out from under some of the late game competitors that will be trying to establish a new Hegemony after the fall of Kleitos. I intend to build an alliance system as well.
Nationalism is one of the most effective ways to build a sense of unity between people that live hundreds of miles apart and will probably never meet or see each other’s home.
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Speaking for myself of course I feel their should be more unifying content this is already somewhat present in the Moot but I think you should make shared events between every focus or sub focus nothing huge but something to make every playthrough unique.
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You can take the Texan out of Texas…
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For clarification’s sake when you say High Cha/Com/Int does that mean 4+? And is 3 and below considered low? Or do the terms high/low vary depending on what you want to do?
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I personally play that more often primarily because in Uprising, low anarchy aristo is kinda objectively the “best” path gameplay wise. Mainly because it gives you access to Calea’s intel and a higher reputation with nobility. I agree that the helot path is more interesting story and lore wise but it doesn’t offer the best gameplay benefits. But that’s pretty good, having both paths be mechanically the same would be weird.
I’m sure that Stormwright is going to do a lot to fix that equilibrium. I really like the new approach now, that your helot or aristo status comes up to help in certain skill checks. I think it’s a good balance, both paths open different doorways for you, but at the end of the day you also need the stats to back it up.
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Yeah my helot playthroughs are always burn-down-the-system skeptical anarchists for this exact reason (as well as so I can try the more “evil”/cold-blooded paths like having your friends assassinated or murdering nobles on sight)
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These are the complete opposite of me. I’ve made it fairly clear that nationalism doesn’t resonate with me at all, and I don’t really vibe with skepticism. The religious aspect is way more interesting to me. I go Helot with church reform.
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Religion is another good vehicle for legitimization, particularly before there’s really such a thing as political ideologies in the way we have them today.
Not using either nationalism or religion strikes me as particularly challenging to build a large state in the endgame.
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Yeah I have no idea what the basis for a cosmopolitan skeptic’s nation is beyond raw power. Like I know logically there doesn’t necessarily need to be a reason for a state to exist beyond it serving its function for the denizens but people generally need some sort of basis for why your state and its governing principles should form their identity. The current state’s justification is based on religious scripture.
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Hi there! Have you heard the good news about the liberating embrace of kenon? 
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@Havenstone Two things: firstly I can’t believe I didn’t rec this earlier but adding the powderplot to the de Irde route as a second point of access is probably the easiest buff imaginable. Make the sus check a bit harder to represent tighter lips and there you go, content, and you get the bonus of having met Agarie in person before offing her, and seeing how her family reacts.
Secondly, do you have plans for Aletheia de Arquin to show up in the games again? Is she still alive if we routed her tagma? Still a tagmatarch? Did she get a promotion if she beat us?
If Irduin gets a phalangite response to whatever happens there she should totally be put in charge of it.
Oh also sidebar: if/when the Whiskered Hawk join Sojourn after finding them a token, does that include Goksed? It’d be nice if the only way to find a good home for him wasn’t getting him and you exiled from the phyle. Would it be within nomad etiquette for the MC to still consider themselves one of the Whiskered Hawk, or do phyle loyalties not carry after setting off on your own?
Sidebar2: How do you feel about the opportunity to expand the nomadic faith in Sojourn, or at least see it spread against Xthonic/Hallasurq worship? Especially if the Whiskered Hawk come in (and maybe other nomad friends with time?) they’ll comprise a plurality of the inhabitants of SOjourn, I have to imagine that would shape the culture some. For that matter, how will multiple phyles in the same range and ostensibly under the same leader interact with one another? Do you see some sort of phylic apella forming or some such? Could be an interesting experiment in representative psuedo-democracy now that I think about it.
Also also also, Gredal/Goksed/Paia should each add one to the f_17_foll count if they make it all the way to Sojourn, since they stay. Yed too for that matter.
Also also also also, what exactly is preventing a Theurge from spending another Theurge’s aetherial blood supply? Like, if a Theurge is flying over head and I notice his phials and oil of vitriol on him before he moves to throw it, what’s stopping me from just spending the free aether in his bandolier and turning him into a fireball with his own oil?
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That does raise an interesting question on how close you have to be to use aether as a fuel source, I’d imagine it basically has to be in hand, the same way someone can’t use your blood even if you slice your hand open and it’s outside your body.
Though, do you actually have to open the vial or even have it in your hand, or is it being in your bandolier good enough?
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I mostly play Helot PCs. If I go violent resistance, I go High Anarchy; if I go moderately violent or pacifist, I go Low Anarchy
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@Havenstone I know you’re getting a lot of suggestions as of late, and it must be overwhelming, but I’ve also come up with one recently as well! 
While replaying Stormwright and traveling with the Whiskered Hawk, the MC can joke around with some of the kids of the tribe. At some point, one of the older children asks them if softlanders truly sleep in the middle of big piles of stones. The MC then answers and shares a description of an average house, emphasizing the comforts that you can afford in a world without Storms.
I thought it would be cool if an aristo MC also shared some of the other comforts that they might have experienced/seen their cousins experience such as warm blankets, soft pillows, roaring fireplaces and little things like these.
I think it would really add some extra depth to the themes of that conversation. MC would be like: “Life on the other side of the Ward is soooooo much better than here” while Jyrrek would counter “Sure, you have all these little comforts and whatnot, and you may have no Storms, but you’re a slave to the Harrower, while here we live free!” or “Don’t let “MC” fool you children, only the most privileged get to experience what they’ve described, and even they live in fear of the Harrower. Most of the softlanders stay in the same conditions as us, or even worse!”.
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To the surprise of probably no one, I haven’t gone pacifist before. Even if I were ideologically inclined, the combat is my favorite part of the game. Pacifism, gameplay-wise, is basically what if you played winter on extra hard mode and didn’t engage in any other mechanics.
I don’t really aim for a specific anarchy level though. I do whatever is needed to achieve my desired variables and chaos comes where it will. I’ll exploit what anarchy comes but I don’t really see a reason to lop off the heads of soldiers who already surrendered just to sow fear and chaos. I don’t really see what doors that opens for me with my particular goals. To take control of the church, there still needs to be one.
Even if I saw that as the clearest path to victory, it’s gonna result in a real case of the Peter Principle, where the skills needed to rise on the ranks are either unconnected to or, in this case, completely at odds with what is needed to actually do your job. To sow maximum anarchy, I need to make my top officers the people whose fighting style is most conducive to that. And that gives great odds of my officer corps being full of people who are either so good at destroying stuff because they’re too shortsighted to see when that’s a bad idea or are sadistic bastards who use the cause as an excuse to slaughter innocent people under flimsy justification. All of that will inevitably be blamed on me. They also tend to be the first to try and usurp you. Since the leaders of a revolution tend to be the main candidates for civilian office, I don’t want to risk having an administration made up of those people. Especially since they’re usually the first ones to stage a coup if you try to rein them in, see: the USSR after Lenin died.
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