Thanks for making one for us.
I’m not sure if you’ve done it already, but, when it comes to charcters with flipped names, I think the wiki should be more neutral. Like using “De Firiac” when talking about Simon/Suzanne.
What does everyone think?
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I actually prefer it that way like in the DA series: fans use the last name of the PCs in order to understand who each one is talking about.
Ah, but there are other de Firiacs. Loanne, and her father who will probably have a role in G2.
Also, I’d like to share this Polandball with you regarding the Koinon:
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It’s a very cheap export and sometimes it even happened without anybody realizing, although those are also the more dangerous ones as from the dogmatic point of view the spontaneous ones can often lead to dangerous strands of revisionism. 
That is pretty much a given seeing where my mc comes from and where those two come from they start from vastly different positions and have starkly different world views. Not to mention the intentions of Hallassur’s young emperor are possibly downright genocidal in regards to Erezza and will create a society that will rapidly fall into the trap that seems to be the current situation in the Hegemony.
I’ve already said Hallassur’s intentions for building their own wondrous theurgy driven society through the genocide of Erezza and other parts of the Hegemony are likely to be ultimately self-destructive as the wonders of theurgy become unsustainable and there are no more or not enough slaves left to power them and whole shambles will come crashing down.
While that would certainly lead to revolutionary changes in Hallassur itself that would to put it lightly not be the way my mc would prefer to go about it.
Nevertheless, if it all works out reasonably well, in the end, it seems like, at least with the kinds of changes my mc espouses, that we’d be destined to become cold war enemies with Hallassur.
Although from our point of view possibly fighting that conflict in other states, instead of the killing fields along the border, would at least be an improvement.
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If you are lucky. Halassur will probably try and instigate a hot war with anyone who doesn’t hand over Karagon, Erezza, and Nyryal.(and where is your MC’s blood coming from? It doesn’t seem like you are harvesting from anywhere) My MC won’t, which means hot war. However, he is also willing to put up the Wards again.(at least the ones pertaining to Halassur (including the Erezziano and Nyrish Sea Wards) and the Xaos-Lands.)
Speaking of which, @Havenstone, will we be able to control the current Hegemonic borders by the start of Chap 4, G5?(Or will it be a “you’ve taken everything, the game’s over”?)
Very belatedly, back with my notes: there is no Fourth Kyklos. The Ennearchs and Thaumatarch are a circle too exclusive to be labelled as such. They’re no longer described in terms of Kyklos.
I’ll certainly add some more detailed maps to the websites. We’ll see whether they ever go well with the game itself – it would need to work as a mobile graphic.
For the wiki, I think it’ll be better to keep using the first names. As pointed out, there are other de Firiacs out there; and no one calls Kala “Swineherd.” But fans are in general welcome to use whatever label they find most helpful.
That’s the plan, yep. To Strange Horizons will probably be about a dozen quite different chapters, depending on the path you’ve chosen and your success in the rest of G5. I’d like to give some decent sense of where things are heading for you…how secure your control over your territory is, relationships with the neighbors, the outworking of your policies, whether you’ve just turned into a version of your father, etc.
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NO MARA WONT BE IN WAR WITH HALLASSUR THAT GIVE ME SPEARS… Nope I am Future Switzerland Vatican neutral bank religion empire Only nation on earth where mules have citizenship . A wonderful place to neighbours came chat about their wars and come to asking for money to banks build weapons in black market and go to church… BEST PLAN EVER.
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And a tiny, tiny nation that does not control the prime land of the future grand canal zone.
The Hallasurqs support the Laconniers and thereby, indirectly Hector. Possible Hallasurq genocidal intent on Errezza and Karagon aside that is a huge strike against them with my mc. They also likely want a perpetually pastoral and backwards Shayard where my mc would want progress, not to revert to medieval fuedalism and serfdom.
A trans-Erezza canal would not be a good thing for my MC, due to the fact that it would be a “chink in the armour”, in the defenses against Halassur.
I don’t know how your MC will survive, because he seems to be determined to make enemies of any faction that is not his own.
My mc will work with Cabel faction wherever possible, he’ll also work with the merchants, even if that is going to require the sort of unpleasant compromises inherent in Titoism, he’ll work with any Erreziano, Nyrish and Wiendish factions not directly at odds with his goals, which in practice means all those that would abolish slavery and not replace it with the same thing under another name, such as serfdom.
It also goes on a geographic basis the more distant from his core territories the others are based the easier it will be for my mc to cooperate with other factions in spite of minor differences.
His ideological focus prevents him from condoning the current Church as he is directly opposed to the current theocracy and the caste system propagated by said church. His personal experiences in addition make it very difficult for him to work with any Shayardene “nobles”. Of the noble factions the Laconniers and the Loyalists are also directly opposed to his goals, if he had to feign cooperation it would be with the Leaguers, but he’d also plan to turn on them once the Thaumatarchy has fallen as he is sure they would attempt the same and post-revolution his vision is incompatible with a Shayard-led confederacy as he would want to retain a stronger form of federalism than that and in addition objects to making Shayard the leading nation.
My mc will not work to defeat one Hegemony just to restore another (the Shayardene one), whether under Leaguer or Laconnier “leadership”.
In general when it comes to working with others monarchism, theocracy and slavery are fundamentally at odds with his goals and adherents of those are enemies, not allies.
My mc is totally not seeing it, but then to paraphrase Cata again it is rather difficult to admire the polish on Hector’s well-heeled boots while getting kicked in the face or ribs with them. Also Hector is the worst kind of sadist. Should he ever fall into the hands of my mc alive he’d turn Hector into a maidservant, as you well know.
I mean the only two guys possibly worse than Hector would be prince nippletwister and the emperor of Halassur.
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Your pc is a trulky revolutionary. Robespierre will be proud and smell similar ending. Also Hector is hot like hell for Mara and knowing Mara her total lack of combat commercial religion and be Vatican Switzerland is a good destiny everyone needs a neutral ground religion black market and banks
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I was thinking that a canal from lake Aekos to the Northern Sea would be the easier lift for a transcontinental trade network. It takes advantage of the existing infrastructure, is centrally located, and is crossing much less rugged terrain.
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It also requires control of Aekos and pretty much locks it in as your faction’s capital. It’s true the trans Erezza canal requires a much heavier investment up front but a very big advantage is that it completely bypasses Aekos as the center of everything and allows direct trade between provinces, without first having to inefficiently route everything through the Aekos hub, which is likely to be a hotbed of sedition and unrest for any future regime, since you’ll always be the foreign conqueror and insolent rebel who dared end the glorious reign of the Hegemony to the (former) Karagond elite. So retaining Karagon itself as the economic center would be highly dangerous.
Also, it naturally precludes using Aekos as a WMD test-site in order to give Hallassur pause.
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Citizenship is only worth seven staters? That’s far too cheap!
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Mules are better than people so You can’t buy Mules in Mara VatiSwitz Mules also are protected by Religion and laws and are sacred and only nobles can mount them or saints. Also Mr Pumpkins will be the ministry of nature…
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Economic and political capitals are often not collocated. I’m sure the lower orders of Aekos are no less disenchanted with the Hegemony than your MC. Karagon invented helots after all. If your communist utopia is also going to be ethnocentric you are going to have your hands full…of genocide.
Also all the navigable waterways and industry are in the western part of the continent so even if Avezia is more geographically central it isn’t in terms of capital.
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In stable and mature polities, sure. I mean even we have Amsterdam (and Rotterdam) and the Hague. If I were turning insurrectionist tomorrow I know that I’d prefer either of the former to the latter as the base of my faction in a hypothetical civil war not to mention that the latter is, of course, the stronghold of the current government.
Unlike Avezia we can only ever think of decisively controlling Aekos very late in the game and that is to say nothing of the Hegemony possibly deliberately destroying the infrastructure leading to Aekos in an attempt to impede our march to there. If that were to happen my mc would have very little interest in re-establishing the central role of Aekos.
I fear it would be the Karagonds, even their helots who would be ethnocentric and view themselves as the “master race”, which, if true, only adds more difficulty to directly controlling Aekos or any other parts of former Karagon.
It would really not be great to have the economic hub under control of a warlord who at best only poses as a nominally loyal regional “governor”.
While my mc theoretically fights to liberate the former Karagond province same as other lands currently under Hegemony control it is likely to mostly be hostile terrain, even if the Karagond helots do join up. Problem is Karagond is more densely populated and less fertile as well as more built up and industrialized, which means there are likely less helots in Karagon today than any other province. Maybe some or even a majority of the drudges in Karagond can be won over too but unlike the other provinces inroads with the Karagond merchants who are currently on top and in the central location of the economic order would be a near impossible sell, since unlike the with the provincial merchant guilds we won’t free them from Karagond taxation, trade restrictions, quota’s and monopolies we’d be coming to take those things away from the Karagond guilds to at best force them to demean themselves by competing on a level field with former provincial subordinates turned competitors.
As for the Karagond nobility and clergy they make up the very heart and mind of everything my mc is fighting against. I really doubt any mutually satisfactory accommodation with them can be reached.
Really, the Reach, Grand Shayard and basically all of Karagond are likely to be the most hostile terrain for my mc and it would serve him in good stead to weaken, not strengthen those regions economically.
And we’ll move as much as we can eastwards, the industry is hinted to rely in large parts on minerals and other resources from Erezza, so relocating it also means a shorter supply chain.
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American industry relies on minerals from West Virginia, Wyoming, the Dakotas and West Texas. Those regions aren’t also centers of industry for a reason: geography.
I’d also point out several underdeveloped and unstable countries have separate commercial and political capitals. Brazil, Nigeria, China to name a few.
Side note: Karagon Undermensch? Totally no irl parallels…
Was a deliberate and mostly symbolic act. Building something like that while it would be somewhat attractive for my mc would require resources which we can use to dig most of the Grand Canal instead. I know which one of those options my mc would prefer. If we had unlimited money and resources then, sure, a newly built capital city would be great. As it is it would not be a priority in the slightest.
My mc will work with Karagonds same as any other people, however, what he refuses to do is indulge their notions that they are somehow better or above former provincials and I can see this would most certainly be a breaking point with their elites and might even affect their helots.
I can’t help it if the Hegemony itself runs a seemingly ethnocentric and caste-based society. My mc’s rebellion would naturally seek to break both of those notions. Instead of the Nietsche thing, a more apt comparison as to how most Karagonds might view “provincials” would be how most white people in the 1850’s and 60’s America viewed their own Black and Latino population as well as non-white foreigners. There are likely outliers among the Karagonds in both directions, from the would-be (post-rebellion) clansmen equivalents to the provincial sympathizers, but the majority view in Karagond would likely fall somewhere in-between in that place that might prevent outright conflict over it most of the time but there would be a lot of simmering, underlying tensions for generations to come.
In the meantime, there would be no ethnic cleansing, sure, but plenty of underlying tensions that would occasionally boil over and erupt.
Much like your own Southern States after the civil war the former province of Karagond would likely need reconstruction and reconstruction done properly in order to become a functional part of a successor state dominated for the most part by former “provincials”. Instead of our own Chechnya. Note Kadyrov has functionally re-instated slavery and runs concentration camps that are used in part in the persecution of gay people in the name of religious fundamentalism. All right under Putin’s nose who looks away in order to safeguard a fragile negative peace. Needless to say under those conditions someone like my mc would not countenance it and would not consider such a negative peace worthwhile.
I’ll reserve judgement on that as we know the Hegemony has control, not economic efficiency (routing everything through Aekos/Karagon and the monopolies of the Karagonds are likely to be very economically inefficient) or the greater social good in mind when it comes to not letting the provinces industrialize to any significant degree. Therefore we don’t and won’t know what would actually be workable yet.
Edit, put a 9 where it should have been 8.
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