Well that’s true no matter what but if you had a noble mc you can have different kinds of a romance relationship with him before he got very aggressive with you going from a one way crush to sleeping with him
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Rival with MC. Hector always has to be better than the MC. Calea pours gasoline on it by mocking whoever is doing worse at a given task
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Hector is a savage bully to the MC and they both hated each other even before the revolt
3a - unrequited interest
3b - MC stole a kiss once
3c - they had a summer fling two years before the revolt that Hector ended as soon as his father came back from a trip
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So yeah my first MC definitely had the rivalry. Not the intense dislike and bullying one.
I think the 1) Hector could be reconciled with under very specific circumstances, such as the MC growing very powerful and life-threatening to the Keriatous, with him of course not wanting to dismantle the aristocracy in favour of the helotry and yeomanry, he also has to be compassionate/naive/dumb enough to be willing to spare the Keriatou and accept them under the fold.
Calea, if the aristo MC has a good relationship with her (“approaching fondness” I think were the exact words) could probably straight up throw her family under the bus to save herself so I don’t really count her fate to be tied to the rest of House Keriatou.
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@Havenstone To extend the question - is there going to be a way to reconcile with your Keriatou cousins at all?
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I said I would write a post about rudimentary blood magic and here it is.
“Was it so unlikely? Ten assassins had no chance against one man?”
“No chance at all. We are speaking of the Thaumatarch. He is not one man. He has so Changed his own mind that he may handle dozens of tasks at once and still remain aware of every breath around him, every tensed muscle, every subtle shade of light. He is garlanded with Talismans. Ten assassins, or thirty, would be naught but a moment’s distraction.”
“A distraction from what?”
“If we ever meet Sarcifer, we may ask him.”
It’s Xthonos, I say: the Beginning of All Things. Kleitos is like a living god, and what task befits a god better than the pursuit of Origin itself? For such a man-made-god, how can mere ants compare? What worth are they, when the world itself waits to be discovered?
The great irony is that he will fall to these ants. The world he and his forebears created allows no other outcome in the end. And his task, whatever it may be, will likely die with him, unfinished.
But that’s getting far, far ahead of ourselves. First, a crucial disclaimer: this is all highly speculative and should not be mistaken for proper lore. Our protagonists have barely glimpsed the wider world, and that’s not a great foundation for what I’ll be trying to do: crafting a world model for blood magic itself. But let’s try nevertheless.
The Perceived World ·「 The Mask of Reality 」
Form (Nature) · Purpose
Change · Memory ·「 Spirit 」
The Beginning (the Unknowable)
Altogether pretty simple. These are layers of abstraction stacked on top of each other, beginning with an unknown state and ending with the everyday world. I believe the role of Theurgic trance is unmasking these layers in order to perceive underlying principles: we peel back the mask of reality to perceive nature and purpose (telos), so that we can Change them. With enough training, a Theurge can peel back the mask of form and purpose itself, unveiling principles that Karagond materialism would call “meta-telos”: principles that shape how Change itself behaves.
"There is a meta-telos built into the fabric of time and form: the tendency of things to return to their original nature. Years of philosophical training is required to understand this enough to perceive it. Mastering it is one of the conditions for being admitted to the Third Kyklos as a Theurge."
—Cerlota
Change itself is an emanation of the Beginning: the difference between “then” and “now” is what’s changed in the meantime. Thus, blood magic becomes the power closest to the beginning — what some might call the work of the divine. That’s what Theurgy literally means.
The Beginning is unknown, and for the purpose of our story, would remain unknowable. Some cultures would say it’s Xthonos: the Natural Law, Order incarnate. The Seracca might answer the Nagyeh, “the Gods Who Play, Many and One, in whose Song we all dance, ancestors and the living together”, the origin of immaterial spirit for the Seracca. The anti-Xthonic philosophers of old Erezza argued that flux was the deepest nature of things; some Nyrish philosophers write of a primordial kenon — the philosopher’s void yearning to be filled — as the source of all things. But from all of these, we can derive Change to set the world in motion.
The world is constructed from the Beginning to the final end, but Theurgy itself is a journey from end to beginning. Let’s anchor ourselves to that start of that journey and examine it closely in the context of this world model.
Within the game, we have two methods of entering our first Theurgic trance. Let’s begin with the First Exercise:
I see that nothing comes into the world without purpose. Fear does not cloud my vision. I see the world without its masks. I see myself without a mirror. I see the ends of all things. And I know I am the nature behind nature. I am the cause behind the final cause. I am a Maker of Change.
There’s nothing here about the Aristotelian elements; there’s nothing here about blood or aether. It’s all about perceiving the realm of nature and purpose. Within our world model:
The Perceived World ·「 The Mask of Reality 」
Form (Nature) · Purpose ← you are here
Change · Memory ·「 Spirit 」
The Beginning (the Unknowable)
Here, I believe Karagond Theurgy has biased our protagonists’ perceptions about what’s happening at this layer, and this has been interpolated onto how our protagonists interpret what they’re seeing. We should not trust what we perceive as “nature” — our conversation with Horion specifically poses the question of what nature is, and we are allowed to give two diametrically opposed (but not incompatible) answers: that “Any law that runs counter to nature will fail eventually” or that “everything changes. Even what we call nature”; this dichotomy is reflected in the Lykeion’s challenge to all First Kyklos Theurges, a ship of Theseus problem.
‘If you change wood’s teloi to all be the same as iron, do you still have wood, or iron, or something new?’
The Thaumatarchy perceives “nature” through a prism of control: that helots are called by the Angels to be sacrificed, that their Order is the order of Xthonos itself. Purpose is built into this nature.
What we call “nature” can instead be viewed as a construct, encompassing both purpose and what something is. I’ve chosen to call that “form”; you could also call it “material” or “matter”. It’s just something tangible in the world.
I make this distinction because out in the Xaos-lands, we can find a surprising number of connections to the concept of「 form 」specifically, or nature absent purpose. Becoming a Healer of Xaos is one such illustration:
Something in the hand remembers what it was to have bones, to be divided into digits…and the shift in that direction also lurches wild, out of your control. Now Veorn’s hand is stiffening, becoming more stone-like, shedding flakes of what looks like flint or bone chips. […]
You fight grimly to keep the hand from petrifying, search for the purpose of grasping and touching, try to bring it to the fore.
Pay attention to the order here: Veorn’s hand emerged first, before its basic telos (grasping and touching) had set. We dragged that memory out of the chaos and imbued it into his hand — but the memory of shape came first, stone-like, petrifying. I would argue that this stone is nearly pure form — form that defines nature. Unmoving, unyielding stone. Perhaps an imperfect imitation of something like…
pure elemental stone; there’s not even the usual trace of fire that you might have used to make it lighter. To your mind’s eye it immediately radiates hardness, utter impenetrability, to a degree you’ve never sensed in any other substance. You think that you could consume all the blood in your body without Changing it at all.
The towers of Vigil: a form so pure that it defines its nature as untouchable.
As for Vigil itself, well:
Witnessing the melting of all nature and purpose in the colossal Xaos-storm is as horrific as you’d expected. […]
Barely veiled by the chaos is a blaze bright enough to burn a hole in your mind. You throw up your hands reflexively in front of your now tightly-shut eyes, but it makes no difference—the white-hot light pounds through you as if flesh, bone, and eyelids were so much dust. That giant shape behind the Storm, the stony tree or city, is incandescent with raw power. Its gaps and hollows pulse with it.
To confess my bias, I have long suspected that the entity within Vigil is a tragic collective (un)consciousness, a dreaming people who’ve lost their form. What the Seracca might call a vortex of immaterial spirit (their origin of blood magic), gone horribly wrong. I find the duality of a formless power ringed by towers of pure form to be narratively compelling, if true. And it would speak to Vigil’s sheer power if it transcended entirely the realm of form and purpose, existing in the deeper abstraction of pure Change and Memory (that is to say, two principles intimately connected with Xaos-storms). For Vigil to be so eldritch and incomprehensible that we, untrained as we are, literally cannot perceive it as anything but raw power — and for the chance that should we return, years from now, with wisdom and knowledge, we might finally perceive the truth.
But this possibility is only just that: a single possibility, emergent from the world model’s plane of form and purpose.
And with that, we reach the threshold of our Theurgy, the kind our protagonists wield. We’ve walked through the steps of the First Exercise, but first I should address how the Aristotelian elements (earth, water, air, fire, and aether) emerge from this world model. For a world composed entirely of just these five elements, you could conceptualise them as base units of nature, with all matter being their span. Or they could simply be among the easiest abstractions to latch onto in a Theurgic trance, and only seem to be fundamental as a result. Regardless, they fit easily.
Frankly, it’s at this point that I’ve gotten pretty tired of writing this and so I’ll wrap things up here. My understanding of Aristotelian philosophy and metaphysics is poor, all things considered, and I really welcome comments/roasts from people more knowledgeable on that front. Anyway, I’ll end with a tl;dr:
The Perceived World ·「 The Mask of Reality 」 ← the normal world
Form (Nature) · Purpose ← basic Theurgic trance
Change · Memory ·「 Spirit 」 ← source of blood magic, meta-telos
The Beginning (the Unknowable) ← the end of the road for Theurgic study
I suggest these are masks of the world, layered in a stack that is gradually peeled away, and that as we study blood magic, we’ll delve deeper and deeper. The final objective of Theurgy may be to trace its origins to the source of all existence. A key point of this model is that nature and purpose are not truly foundational. I would suggest, for example, that Ward-work’s secret technology may be operating on the level of Change and Memory itself, tinkering with how things are perceived by the world rather than what they are or do. Likewise for Vigil.
Once again, could be completely wrong about all this. But I figured it was worth sharing.
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My understanding of Aristotelianism and it’s medieval descendants like Thomism or Scotism is also pretty rough, so I’m sure I’m garbling much of this. What I understand is that in Aristotelian metaphysics, change is conceived as being a “movement” or “motion” from potency/dynamis to actuality/energeia (depending on whether Latin or Greek term is being used). The unmoved mover/unchanged changer (I believe that Aristotle possibly posits multiple rather than just one) is pure actuality. There is also a concept in Aristotle of “prime matter” which is pure potency and no actuality. In other words prime matter seems like it isn’t actually anything but is capable of becoming anything, ie it can bear any form.
All things except the unmoved mover/s are a union of a form with matter. Humanness would be a form and its union with a mixture of the four fundamental elements makes a human. This seems to apply to even the four basic elements in Aristotle’s thought since he writes that they can change into each other, which would seem to imply that water, fire, air and water are made of something even more fundamental, which would be prime matter.
Theurgy seems to involve either reinforcing the nature of a thing or acting against it with the former requiring much less effort of will and competence on the part of the Theurge than the latter. So perhaps in the former case (if we assume for the sake of the exercise that the Aristotelian metaphysics accurately describe things), the Theurge makes the matter reflect its form/nature more perfectly, while in the latter to a greater or less extent the Theurge is wrenching the matter from its form/nature and imposing a new form/nature on it through an effort of will that aether somehow acts as a catalyst for.
I think that’s pretty close to what I understand to be the Aristotelian concept. I think that Form is what makes a thing what it is (a human, a squirrel, a rock, etc) and that it also gives a thing its nature which determines its telos, so
I think this is what we would expect under this concept.
Anyway, I’ve gotten tired too and a lot of the above is just me thinking aloud to try to get the concepts clearer for myself since Aristotelian metaphysics definitely isn’t the lens I use to interpret the world through so it feels a bit awkward to try to do so. Not sure if that was too helpful or answered any questions, just throwing more stuff out there.
Edit: @Havenstone does Xthonism believe that the universe was created or does it think it is co-eternal with Xthonos?
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Is something like a constitutional monarchy possible?
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Quick question to go in-between the very crazily intelligent posts above, if you don’t mind, Havie: do you plan on writing any more vignettes in the upcoming chapters where you can initiate romances with your Xaos companions, specifically S? She’s such an interesting and refreshing character compared to everyone else, but I haven’t had any chances to initiate anything in my canon play through, despite the 3 chances you’ve already generously written.
This is definitely just a problem of me, the player, not you the author, but for example, I chose to go after Hector instead of having a conversation with S in Chapter 3; xhe also rejected my advances right before the big battle (this one is weird, because I romance Breden from the beginning of the book to right after xhe tells me the Kryptast code (I want that sword!). I then precede to break up with Breden by implying that having a Kryptast code is untrustworthy, but S still says our relationship would be dishonorable because I’m dating Breden and the MC doesn’t correct xhim.) Finally, I can’t ask S out at either the village or the Whiskered Hawk because I go to Vigil with Ulbern instead of staying for the celebrations.
Either way, thank you for writing this amazing story and I’ll just enjoy my S romance in side play throughs if the plot takes top spot over relationships. After all, this isn’t a romance book.
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Not if your reconciliation is a public one…but Calea is going to be intent on keeping any help she gives you a secret, which could benefit your reputation as well as hers.
I expect so, yes.
Definitely.
They think the level of terror required to prop up the institution as it stands is unsustainable. They would prefer a lottery system for Harrowing, with voluntary substitutions possible, and a shift from chattel sale of helots to letting them be wage labor, either on the farms or in the cities. They’d support a child-harrowing-by-lot scheme too, if they learned how the mechanics work.
I do have kind of a theme going on here.
Mad King Hector will definitely be a possible late game antagonist. I won’t answer whether Reconciled Cousin Hector is an alternative possibility.
The universe emanated from Xthonos’s self-contemplation, beginning with Angels and vibrating on down to matter and Xaos. Most people think of that as a process that took some time, that there was a lengthy period when Xthonos was all in all and nothing else existed. Some theologians speculate that time is something that only came into existence as a lower emanation, so many of the higher emanations would on that account be co-eternal with Xthonos-- but eternally ontologically dependent on It, not equal in substance.
I think it should be, yes – a charter setting out rights and responsibilities, formally limiting the sovereign’s powers. But we’d still be at early-experiment stage, more Magna Carta than Glorious Revolution.
Well, I’ll have to, won’t I? 
At a minimum, a chance in Vigil for those who didn’t get the chance in the village/nomad section.
And ADAT the Carles and Olynna prologues had their first public outing:
Choice of Rebels Part 1 WIP thread - #517 by Havenstone
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@Havenstone So, I have a question about Carles the Jongler. Does he really just bumps a helot kid to fend off of himself with furious alastor and use it as a distraction to run away? Like, it’s quite radically different to what happens with aristo kid MC in wineroom.
Is it intended for Carles to be such a ruthless fellow? Does he consider only aristo kid to be worth saving, or is it just a matter of game balance (to make helot players have some advantages)?
Oh no, don’t tell me he’s the secret heir that Laconniers hide.
How would they react to the MC that wants to get rid of Harrowing entirely?
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On a related note, what is the position of Abelard and the Laconniers on the whole Helots and Harrowers thing?
(I have drafted a fairly unique “Red Bars” 2CHA/1INT Female Aristocrat build that goes the Jailbreak route and would be interested).
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My main would be somewhat ok with the first one if they felt like it was necessary, not so much with the last. The wage labor I could see him trying if he fail to get any land reform done without pissing off every noble in the Hegemony. He would really prefer for the former Helots to work on land own and run by their own since the nobility will still treat them like shit even if he tries to stop it
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A classy, badass reply that asserts Caroline’s heartfelt convictions, while giving just enough diplomatic leeway for Phaedrus to backtrack/save face. Well done. 
Wait, WHAT?! This dude founded the freaking Lykeion?! How old is Ocharsis, exactly?
And on another note, is it possible to end G5 with all of Kleitos’ original Ennearchs still alive? (and subservient to MC for one reason or another)
I wonder what sort of challenges you had in mind.
So far, I’m thinking…
1- The people most invested in a Shayard-Karagon diarchy don’t want to dilute Shayard’s power (or Karagon’s power) any further (by expanding the diarchy to a triarchy)
2- Cerlota will fiercely object to any crackup of Erezza, so she would push for a “all of us or none of us will join the triarchy”
Maybe those entitled aristo should have thought about those consequences before committing their human rights abuses against the lower orders? 
And besides, I am going out of my way to present myself as the “good cop” to Kalt’s “bad cop.”
If the aristos won’t fall in line with my reforms (and man up to bear with the short term humiliation), then Kalt gets the all justification he needs to reignite his “eat the rich” retaliation movement, which I might consider turning a blind eye towards (or perhaps even legitimize as my newest arm of my law enforcement).
Last I remembered from past discussions on the forum, “A positive radical flank effect occurs when the bargaining position of moderates is strengthened by the presence of more radical groups.” Perhaps aristo reformer MC and Kalt can create this flank effect?
How many ‘white sheep’ exception Theurges (covertly disillusioned with their brutal upbringing/colleagues, and are looking for a more positive role model) could MC poach from these Magic Mongols? (especially if MC is in the middle of building an international soft nationalism coalition that will form the basis of his de Syrnon-led monarchical koinon)
Or would MC’s interests be better served by completely wiping out and/or marginalizing the Magic Mongols?
Other than the dishonesty of Georden (and the consequences it had for Poric’s tongue/health/mental wellbeing), what other examples (past and future) of ugly Pelematou behavior should MC warily be on the lookout for?
Very much looking forward to editing/writing a Codex to promote (restored historical borders) Shayard’s role as the America-esque world police (instead of divinely justified tyrants) of the liberated, post-Hegemonic new world order!
Define “more manageable scales.” E.g. would authoritarian, monarchist, and “all historical borders” restored Shayard be happily stable with these consultative councils and charters, or would MC have to go even smaller with his nation-building scope (e.g. Earlund, aka Rim + Westriding) to get the desired “end the game with much less chance of revolt” political stability?
I find it very odd that Hector badly escalated from “it’s a different world out there, MC” moment of regret/softness/lamentations (during the “summer of love” segment with his cousin, aka aristo MC) into the “rawr, you are now my archenemy, and I shall commit human rights abuses left and right” war criminal that we see in the present day.
Hopefully, Game 2 and beyond gives aristo MC the clarity to find out who/what corrupted conflicted Hector into becoming the monster that hunts down aristo MC and their fellow rebels.
Or perhaps, Hector was always a monster from the get-go, and Game 1 simply provided the circumstances that encouraged Hector to reveal his true colors?
Will your Aristo MCs at least trust Yebben (and any of the original Rimmer Gang) with certain basic Theurgic lessons?
Why else are my MCs so inclined to ask if she’s (political alliance) girlfriend/wife material?
1- Cue the incoming “I volunteer as tribute” Katniss Everdeen-inspired NPCs? (or would you prefer a different analogy/archetype?)
2- You mentioned that the urban drudge classes would have the strongest backlash against Harrowing lottery, correct? Would Teren advise dealing with these detractors with a strong, repressive approach? (e.g. Theurgic discipline/deterrence) Or might something more devious/subtle be suggested instead? (per the Machiavellian inspiration for Teren’s characterization)
I specifically remember from Machiavelli’s “The Prince” that “it’s far more advantageous to maintain the image of being a morally impeccable ruler, than to 24/7 chain yourself to actually being that morally impeccable ruler.” Might Teren’s advice run along those similar lines of maintaining such hypocrisy?
3- On another note, my gut tells me it will be very, very hard for MC to balance between having both devious Teren and the more rigidly honor-driven highland Whends on his team.
My COM helot MC will be perfectly fine with the idyllic simple life as a post-Hegemonic farmer and/or mercenary soldier. 
My INT and CHA helot MCs, on the other hand… 
Surely, a high-CHA nationalist MC could persuade Teren that all of Shayard’s citizenry (both low and highborn) deserve better career opportunities/standards of living?
And if MC was also bigoted/biased against foreigners, maybe MC could also suggest to Teren that they shift the burden of post-Hegemonic oppression entirely onto certain categories of non-Shayardenes (particularly Karagonds, Abhumans, and Halassurqs, while deliberately sparing (prospective member nations most likely to join the koinon) Whends, Erezzans, and Neres) to fund the envisioned “improved average Shayardene citizenry” experience.
Oh crap, this could potentially be the dealbreaker between my Devout Xthonist Eclect MCs and Teren. (unless Teren’s pragmatic “kill fewer overall people” utilitarian arguments eventually wins over MC)
Might Teren have constructive ideas on how to maintain both MC’s credibility as Eclect AND the “kill fewer overall people” utilitarian benefits of child Harrowing? (or instead perhaps suggest that MC’s Eclect credibility will be a worthy sacrifice on the altar of their shared ambitions to see Shayard rule the post-Hegemonic koinon)
Again, the Machiavellian “it’s far more advantageous to maintain the image of being a morally impeccable ruler, than to 24/7 chain yourself to actually being that morally impeccable ruler” lesson feels very applicable here.
Time to prop up Abelard as MC’s preferred allied and/or puppet heir!
If I had to guess, exempt all Shayardenes from helotry/Harrowing, while shifting the burden entirely onto their conquered foreign neigbors (similar to what I suggested earlier, but without the soft spot I have towards Whends, Erezzans, and Neres).
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But no land reforms and I assume in their vision that lottery would still include only helots.
They may, the population would not. As you said the Hegemony, much to its detriment, lacks the institutional framework of Halassur for that. So any baby harrowing will have to be done in (semi)secret to kids nobody cares about and it will never be large scale enough to be the primary source of aether for any realm that wants to be less totalitarian and dystopian than the hegemony.
Whereas my mc intends to destroy it. If my mc gets to know some of what I know he’d rather face the possibility of a century or two of Halassur being the dominant great or even superpower, as long as they honor the no slavery thing, to letting the Hegemony survive in any form.
It seems every good deed has its dark side. But don’t worry their time will come they just don’t know it yet, particularly if my mc goes for the western option.
How would Jev feel if Nyrish urbanism became the dominant strain? If my mc goes for the western option he’d need a good chunk of Nyral as the northern province to get at least one good northern port and as for whatever bits of Nyral are not under direct rule my mc would prefer a backyard of Nyrish city states over the unpredictability of the nomads. Not that the nomads will suddenly disappear but, much like happened in the US, some low level conflicts may arise with them and eventually my mc’s state would likely hem them into reservations over the decades and maybe even centuries or try to entice them them to settle down.
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It’s a Jailbreak run so Yebben is dead…but regardless, all my Aristo MCs would only trust aristocrats of proper breeding to learn Theurgy. It would be vulgar and horrid to arm the Helotry with such knowledge, not to mention that it would create a raging sh*tshow.
And besides, we’re not rebelling to free the Helots, we’re rebelling to establish rightful Shayardene dominion over them. The issue is the Karagond tyranny over the aristocracy of Shayard, nothing more.
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Time for a theory/conjecture of my own.
So in one of the prologues for G1 we can learn about House de Bors. The game informs us that they were once one of the most powerful noble houses in Shayard but by the time the MC is hearing Carles tell the story the Lord de Bors himself and his (immediate?) two heirs are dead, accused of conspiring against the Hegemony by the local Alastor captain with whom they have had trouble for years. The Archon is considering whether or not be done with the de Bors altogether at this point and just give the Alastor their land and helots.
We are also told what’s probably the real reason for their fall.
That brought whistles and nervous looks across the room. You dared a glance that way yourself and saw Gellard, Rim Square’s newly arrived Alastor commander. Although the conversation couldn’t possibly be audible across the rowdy wineroom, the Hegemonic captain was looking flatly at Carles, who returned the stare with a slight smile. One of the yeomen at Iarla’s rail ventured, “Quite the conspiracy, for that kind of reward to come out of it.”
The jongler inclined his head to her. "A great House demands a great revenge, if a slow one. The Karagonds hadn’t forgotten his father’s softness in the Rising three decades back.
So essentially we have a powerful Westriding house whose fate was undone by what I assume is Cabel’s revolt. I am not sure if the de Bors were still Archons when the revolt occured but they must have been important within the Westriding anyway. Them not being fully supportive of the Hegemony’s practices (which I assume is what they mean by soft) must have hindered them considerably and prejudiced the Hegemonic authorities against them.
In any case whichever House held the Archonate, they were not removed from power (immediately). Instead we are told that after some time passed the Archon suddenly died (in what really reeks of poisoning) and a new Archon by a different house came into power. Now, I believe that we can reasonably tell who that Archon was. As aristo-dad says when you bring Horion to your camp;
“You’ll not remember, but we last spoke some…seventeen years back, under the Archonate of your great-uncle.”
Now, I would bet that it was Conte Meletos Leilatou that was the successor to the unfortunate Archon. And what do we know about Meletos, and House Leilatou in general? Not much all in all, but Horion does tell us enough to paint a picture.
“Where to begin, ${kuria}? I came of age just before our family was elevated to the Archonate—a thoroughly unpleasant shock, I must say. We all knew that old Great-Uncle Meletos was both an insufferable prig and a backstabbing intriguer; who’d have thought that would be enough to win him a decade as Conte Shayardene? And thus uproot us all from a comfortable middle Westriding existence to permanent residence in a snakepit.” Horion’s scowl lightens slightly. “Fortunately, I was far enough from heritance to be left to my own preoccupations. The family have done their best to ignore me for some time now.”
So Meletos was the head of a House that could provide its members with a ‘comfortable middle Westriding existence’ and he was also known among his kin to be a ‘backstabbing intriguer’. Shortly after the defeat of the Cabelite rebellion and the passing of the previous Archon, this man is elevated to the Archonate and becomes the Karagond-appointed master of all Shayard.
So here is what’s essentially the crux of my conjecture. I think the Leilatou must have provided some great service to the Hegemony in order to be rewarded with dominion over all Shayard, much like the de Bors earned their displeasure with what was an obvious show of weakness. If the de Bors were the Archons of Shayard at the time, this would be an even greater intrigue with the Leilatou displacing not only another house from the archonty but potentially one of their ‘regional’ rivals. In any case, I would be very interested in learning what was so important that the Leilatou did which earned them their seat in the first place.
TLDR; The Leilatou lord at the time of the Cabelite rebellion, Meletos Leilatou, must have done a great service to Karagond to be rewarded in this way, much the same way that the de Bors were harshly punished for their failure to act. I want to know what it was.
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The weakness was likely that they took the expected course of trying to negotiate with Cabel who held a good deal of the food supply hostage, while the Karagonds preferred to shoot that proverbial hostage, which in turn made the food supply more precarious hastened the destabilization of the Hegemony by at least a couple of decades, maybe as much as a century and thus, however indirectly, caused the current situation that gave our mc’s rebellion the chance to rise up.
It’s an interesting bit of history, but remember that Carles’ version is probably coloured by the interests of his patrons, those being the Laconniers and Halassur. Since my mc plans to do away with the aristocracy and implement the necessary and long overdue land-reforms the De Bors are an historical footnote he has no particular interest in.
If that epoch is to be commemorated in the new order it is not House De Bors who will be remembered, much more likely in the case of my mc, particularly if working together closely with Cabel and his yeomen, would be monuments to Esther Cabel and streets and schools named after her.
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Yeah I mean more what was it that ol’ Meletos Leilatou did for the Hegemony. It must have been a consequencial service to be rewarded with an Archonty.
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My guess: treason. I suspect he may have somehow sold out both De Bors and Cabel to the Karagonds.
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As I’ve been working on the state of the rebellion in G2 C2, I had a glance back at Hugh’s illlustrative failrun…and I’m sorry to say that the example of a revolt of 12 survivors with cached wealth of 21,326 drachems has inspired the following code snippet:
*if (wonfight < 6)
*if wealth > (followers*3)
*set wealth (followers*3)
*set arms 0
*set mules 0
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