What advantage(s) will a player with a transferable save have over a player with a freshly created G2 character?
1 Like
Ok so, this is the timeline I’ve put together for the rebellion, dates in Hegemonic Era:
Spring 362: Birth of the MC
Spring 381: Death of Olen Stonehewer, first contact with Breden, MC turns 19
Summer 381: Rim Square cell forms, Alless Stonehewer sheltered
Autumn 381: The Fourth Harrowing, start of the rebellion
Winter 382: The Dread Winter
Spring 382: Horion and Linos, Venuer raids, MC turns 20
Summer 382: The Battle of High Crag
Autumn 382: Xaos interlude
Winter 383: Stay at Sojourn
Spring 383: Crossing the Southriding, MC turns 21
Summer/Autumn 383: Irduin
Winter 384: Irduin climax
Spring 384: The Glorious Season, MC turns 22
Going off of the Angelday (spring equinox) ball in which the MC and Calea both want to be seen as adults and the fact that she’s only a few months older, I’m going to say that MC’s birthday is just after Angelday, probably some time in the month of Allakone (an April baby, more or less). I doubt that a helot MC knows the precise day, though its possible.
@Havenstone are you willing to confirm that Allakone date? To turn this dating work into both feedback and a question (well, two questions, one which might be a technical error report): Firstly: what months precisely does the season in Grand Shayard cover? Secondly, why do the Shayarin records Ulmey has use Hegemonic (Koine) months? Since it is saying that Agrion (August, roughly) is no longer the month where children die, this is presumably being written by an author born prior to the conquest, who should know a different month as the one wot kills the children, no? Assuming this is an actual error all it needs is a slight tweak so that ‘Agrion’ is a translation of whatever Shayardene calendar was being used.
Everything that’s in the playtesting menu is only doable in a saved game, which includes some pretty big stuff like Vigil and being able to get Healer of Xaos. In addition optimized numbers for your rebellion will require a saved game, which should provide an advantage once rim management is in.
16 Likes
Kept prisoner on it, is more apt. A lot of the newly free helots will probably move, some of the more skilled ones can enter into a the re-distribution along with the yeomen and become farmers themselves, as for a lot of the rest being a paid farmhand isn’t glamorous but it is still a lot better than being a slave.
5 Likes
It should be slightly later than that, still in the spring. We can infer that the MC’s birthday is at least ~7 weeks after the encounter with Horion and Linos based on the timeline of Chapter 3, with the date that the chapter begins being our ambiguous pivot point. This is necessarily at least halfway through spring, to my potential dismay as an April baby.
The rest of the post will solely be about demonstrating this, feel free to skip if no further evidence is needed beyond my word.
- We receive reports of Horion’s suspicious death within 4 weeks of letting him go:
“What?” you gasp. It’s been less than four weeks since Horion and Linos left you—a short time for them to be found in the wilds and news to get around the Rim.
We can verify that the 4 weeks figure is accurate. Actually doing so is fun but not relevant, so I’ve enclosed it all in this dropdown section so people not interested can skip past.
Walking through the Brecks raid
The timing of this is tight: Hector’s veneur attack is dated eight days after meeting Horion:
The first crisis of the spring comes a mere eight days later.
The response to Hector can be estimated to take 2-3 weeks. We’ll walk through one particular route of the sheep raid, where we bring Kalt/Kala, convince the Brecklanders to join our attack, and then make an Odyssean escape. This features at least 3 days of travel out of the woods and at least 5 days of travel after that:
Three days later, your small raiding party arrives at the last hill of the Whendward wilds.
“Here’s the problem, girl…you’ve only been eating breadrusks this whole journey,” Grey Labedan scolds her amiably on the fifth night. “That won’t bring your choler down. Chew on some pursley—or here, eat the venison, it’ll cool you off.”
Kala waves the strip of meat away impatiently. “I only eat aristos.”
“I only eat aristos” is one of the best lines in the story, incidentally, with the context of Kalt/Kala not eating meat based on their experience butchering pigs and understanding how the rest of the Hegemony sees helots as livestock too; and Kalt/Kala’s performative monstrosity to inspire fear in their enemies and to break taboos for their fellow slaves.
(We can assume these are 5 days in addition to the previous 3 because de Firiac’s version is set on the third night.)
We reach the Brecklander village on the 7th day, and they spend a day and a half leading us to the Keriatou sheep:
The next morning, you come upon your first flock—
The next day, you notice a smudge in the sky around noon and veer east to investigate it. As you’d hoped, it’s smoke rising from a tent settlement:
Uthwen and Labedan speak freely with other drovers you meet on the road, and you follow their stories to find the Keriatou flocks near Edder’s Wells, a day and a half later.
It then takes us about a week to escape hidden under sheepskin:
Of course, the pungent aroma of uncured, week-old sheepskins still hangs around all of you, even after scrubbing yourselves clean in the first stream you find.
Adding this all up, we find the 2-3 week window to be correct. We can compare this to how Calea asks for 2 weeks to convince Hector to not attack the rebellion:
You’re halfway back to the trees when you hear the exasperated shout: “I’ll do all I can, damn you! Give me two weeks.”
- The other strangers in the woods arrive shortly with Yed being the last, and then:
Two days after Yed’s arrival, a rumor reaches you
That’s when we get the “less than four weeks”. So it’s a very tight timing that might slightly spill over into “4 weeks” but it’s close enough.
- After that, if you test Breden, it takes 2 and a half weeks, totaling now to 6-7 weeks after encountering Horion:
You don’t bring the band to Corras’s Cave, of course, just a handful of your most discreet rangers. They return two and a half weeks later, just before Breden
And then the very next scene, an ambiguous amount of time later, we reach the Father confrontation:
A week before your twentieth birthday, the great rupture finally comes.
Bringing the final total to 7-8 weeks after encountering Horion. And we can infer this is still in the spring because we turn 20 before the grand moot / council of elders at the beginning of Chapter 4, and the potential Horion/Linos prison break and/or murder takes place a week into summer:
A week into the summer, however, you wake to an outcry. “The hostages—the hostages are dead!”
A week into the summer, however, you wake to an outcry. “The hostages—the hostages are gone!” Racing down to the prisoner enclosure, you find it empty.
Chapter 4’s events are not necessarily told in chronological order, but we know this takes place after deciding our strategy, which implies that the meeting happened literally at the beginning of summer.
10 Likes
Hey @Havenstone, long time no see!
Just popping in with a quick question sparked by the discord server. It was pointed out that Erjan’s mother is in fact Erezzan there, which I’d somehow missed up till now. Its fascinating to imagine how anyone in the Hegemony might adapt to life under their supposedly mortal enemy, but doubly so for a Hegemonic woman- one that’s presumably taken part in the same infant sacrifice the entire population was raised to despise the Hallasurqs for.
Reading the passage itself though, Erjan mentions how she “laid down her arms for good.”, which is a little ambiguous but makes it sound like she might have even been a phalangite of all things before her capture. Not only a foreigner, but a soldier assimilating, especially given Hallasurq gender norms, would make this whole story doubly interesting, and has a lot implications for their society more generally.
If its possible, would you mind confirming whether she ever did serve, and any particular details of her capture/experience in Hallasurq society? Sounds like she’d have a fascinating conversation with our MC, either way.
EDIT:
…And one more question(s), actually. The Hallasurq custom regarding…spousal substitution? during extended absences came up as well. I was wondering how exactly that relationship is expected to work, obligations wise.
When a man takes on the role of a husband, is that purely in the physical sense, or are there additional expectations placed on them to support their ‘wife’/children? How far does that extend? And how much can it vary from couple to couple, within the bounds of acceptability?
Related, and my apologies if this has come up before somewhere that I’ve missed, but I was curious how closely tied this whole practice was to the Hegemonic invasions. Was this already something widespread pre-Hera, or was its mass adoption influenced by the militarization of Hallasurq and the ever expanding deployments out west? I’d always gotten the impression they’re even more pro-natalist than the Hegemony on account of their infant sacrifice and generally more desperate position, and wondered if this was another outgrowth of that siege mindset.
18 Likes
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.
17 Likes
:: snickers :: with so much info you give everyone you better live over a hundred so we can see all the games lol
In seriousness your hands down one of biggest builders and lore masters of worlds created in all of the games i have played be they IFs or other formats. I truely look forward to seeing how he current project goes forward and all the follow ups you have planned.
8 Likes
Or in another mage’s body. This phrase is honestly so evocative, enough that it makes me want to take a stab at what Kleitos is doing and how it relates to another evocative piece of theurgy, Vigil. In this rant I’ll be using brackets like [These] to denote teloi.
Meta-Telos, or Order Victorious
The term “meta-telos”, and derivitaves such as metateleic have been thrown around a lot in the Lykeion sessions on discord and some of our more wild theorizing here, but what is a meta-telos, like actually? At a basic level a meta-telos is what it sounds like, a concept which contains concepts. The rawest manifestation that we deal with are the elemental teloi, broad concepts that encompass a variety of more focused teloi, allowing our novice MC to make wide, unfocused changes ([Earth] encompassing [Weight], [Solidity], [Descent], and so on). High level theurgy seems to involve paring back these basic meta-teloi so as to discover the raw functions beneath, manipulating them with greater finesse without touching the rest.
So, what does this have to do with Kleitos and Vigil? Well, before we get to them we need to start with everyone’s favorie Theurgic test subject, Veorn. What is Veorn? Not who, what. “Veorn” is a human, which is a tool-user, which is a grasper, which is a runner, which is a hunter, which is a survivor. “Veorn” is [Veorn]. Veorn is a meta-telos. This is the blur that we see around living beings in trance, the meta-telos governing and ordering the sub-teloi that make life and choice possible. (Sidebar: This may also just literally be aether, which sublimates at the point of death. Two things can be true at once here.) Despite the attack by a Xaos-Storm [Veorn] remains intact, with the sub-teloi that are under its umbrella having been disrupted. I think that Xaos-Storms are actually much more precise than they seem. Here, in this case, [Veorn] remains intact while [Grasping] and [Tool-use] are disrupted, manifesting as his claw hand. By reaching back a step to [Veorn], we are able to right some sub-teloi.
Now, Vigil. I think that, while Vigil yet stands, [Vigil] has been rent apart. It’s most notable feature is the way that it is both city and tree, at the same time, in the same place. I think that what has happened on a raw, physical level to Vigil is that [Vigil] was destroyed, leaving its primary sub-teloi of [Growth] and [Shelter] exposed and overlapping. Without their controlling meta-telos (without the imposition of Order, to get theological) Xaos is able to reign, with Vigil no longer existing as a “unified physical entity”. This mindfucks the MC, because in a natural world it would never occur as meta-teloi order and sort the purposes below them to keep things cohesive. Theurges are the ones who create Xaos.
So what has Kleitos done to himself? It is my belief that he is intentionally attempting to suspend [Kleitos], so that his teloi are no longer constrained by physical form. This is a process that I think could only be accomplished via liberal use of talismans, but it’s what enables this sort of ranged aether use, as a first manifestation. Once you start to set [You] aside, you are no longer constrained by your [Hands]. You can project your [Tool-use], your [Grasping] forwards, outwards, theoretically far, far away. Done properly, you could [Grasp] half way across the world. You could [See] everything.
It is my belief that Kleitos is pursuing apotheosis through annihilation of the self- of the self-concept. He seeks to free his teloi from the burden of [Kleitos], so that his purpose might become the world’s purpose. If I’m right, I think we have our work cut out for us.
Clarifying note: I also think this is an impossible goal indicative of the height of Theurgic hubris and decadence, one which is doomed from the start and very likely to kill him if disrupted substantially.
I hadn’t thought about this but I suppose the tanks would have to be big enough to fit a human into wouldn’t they. Shame about turning them into bombs, will have to come up with some other acts of dramatic Harrower sabotage.
Ocharsis and Hesychios were the real deep cuts, all the other ones have been mentioned by Cerlota. Would you be willing to say who the first we meet will be? 
Also, I assume that Cratylos ascended most recently, alongside one other to replace the Ennearch that Sarcifer killed? Have any ascended within the MCs lifetime?
Then we’re getting out of Irduin fast, given the timeline required to reach GS in time for the season. Good to know, should be plenty of travel on the road to blend with.
This is honestly so interesting, makes me very excited for Dilek. To settle a Discord debate, how literal is the whole mask thing? I’ve advocated that its mostly a euphemism derived from a ritual nuptial garment, which seems most logical to me, but others seem to think that the mask-wearer is literally wearing a mask all the time (including in bed).
12 Likes
Yeah I actually do concur on that front. I was less talking about assimilation and imposing of culture and more “our nation needs to find some way to say we’re a successor to the Roman Empire to solidify itself”. On thinking, this probably matters more if there’s a ton of competing nations doing that who really want your land.
I figured it was ONLY in bed. That’s the act that would necessitate rping as the husband. 24-7 sounds insane. Bedding another man’s wife cannot be worth that much effort.
5 Likes
I think Phaedrx’s possibility of being nb made me convinced that they were going to genderflip based on the character instead of Breden, and be a genderflipping relationship where the character has to be gay/cetero like how K and S are genderflipping relationships where the character has to be bi/pan.
I shall continue to hope for more trans characters.
7 Likes
How’s does one go see vigil in chapter 1.
2 Likes
You fistly have to have saved the helot Wolfbait in the prologue of Uprising. Right now this is an option at the top of the playtest menu, in the future it will require an imported save. Assuming you’ve done that you need to be accepted into the village or nomads, and then talk to Bellem (village) or Kyllik (nomads). From there exhast their dialogue and express interest in going to Vigil, without backing down. Should play itself after that.
7 Likes
Putting my great disappointment at the answer to my pervious question aside /s 
, considering the approved feedback for Irduin will you be incorporating it with the endings update or during the latter balancing pass update
3 Likes
Does this open the door for blade-based theurgic martial arts? Cut someone with a blade and entry of the sword makes the extension easier and then you use their own aether as a weapon on someone else before they die.
3 Likes
Unfortunately:
So no vampiric in the moment casting. I suppose the follow-up for @Havenstone is if Kleitos could use someone else’s aether. If he can, this I think reinforces my belief that Kleitos has put a lot of work into suspending the meta-telos of identity that confers that “ownership” in the first place.
Sidenote: I think that a base and brief version of this trick of self-suspension may have been involved in Sarcifer managing to free himself from his bomb collar. Be curious what he has to say.
7 Likes
Eventually it gets so sharp it can cut spacetime. We accidentally cut a hole into the past and kill Hera.
7 Likes
Also another discord question connected to the other one 
, will we learn more about our companions thoughts on the various Sojourn reps and the nations they represent with the latter planned Sojourn update. Also is there a chance that we could talk one of the (non Seracca) ro’s into becoming a Seracca
3 Likes
“Come on, honey, put on the cat ears.”
7 Likes
Also, Edwer’s thoughts on the Seracca? I admit this one is just for my specific brand of playthrough, but his (and one supposes Breden’s) opinion on the Seracca and their faith are important for the long term health of my 1 Cha heretic lol.
Also maybe hot take: I think of all the gamgees Ciels would be the most interested in becoming Seracca. I think the possibility of a sensory world that expanded would attract them, more than any of the others.
6 Likes
You could always use the land of the nobles who you have to kill. Sure it might not be a lot depending on the way you play. But it’s a minor solution.
1 Like