2COM/1CHA Helot
Ruthless/Devout/Homelander
High Anarchy - Uprising Start
I’ve only posted a general overview of my choices, and I assume some game knowledge. If there is demand, or people run into trouble with my build, I’ll post a line-by-line.
And you can do the builds instead with Compassionate or Cosmopolitan with minimal modifications if you want. Skeptical is more complicated.
I expect there will never be a 100% fit either way; you can end up in a weird liminal non-class, but you’re unlikely to get to a point where you’re ever fully seen by most people as “one of us.” But let’s see how the writing goes.
My guess is: no!
Even historically in our far less oppressive European societies the established nobility had a well established tendency to look down upon the recently ennobled especially if they suddenly ranked higher up the nobility totem pole to boot. For such a noble house to be seen as “legitimate”, fully integrated nobility would take 2-3 generations. This is probably the baseline of how it used to work in this world under the old Shayardene monarchy/empire too.
In XoR, by the time our (former) helot mc’s would be in a position to declare or have themselves declared “noble” we combine that with an immutable caste system that is on par with the worst interpretations of the Indian one to boot.
In short the helot mc who goes for that is as “legitimate” as the size and loyalty of their armies and their magical prowess and the fear, shock and awe they can generate with can make them.
Of course I am ignoring the potential “eclect” thing here as that would make them a special case but even so much of the nobility and priesthood have little faith and less loyalty towards a (former) helot “eclect”.
If you go either of those routes of course some of them maybe even a lot of them, depending on how much you sell out to their interests, will opportunistically buy into your new regime…but that won’t stop them from not seeing you or your family as very legitimate nobility and secretly preferring a more socially acceptable ruler or figurehead.
Being informed that I am now a clan leader of a new Wendish clan, one based in Shaynard … gives me the perfect structure to forge my new society into, one that is more chaotic and yet more flexible and durable which allows everyone (including the thurages) to be a part of competing interests even against other mages.
Imagine a fusion of the Scottish clans and the American political parties … a truly unholy marriage that would be perfect to rule the world with
Both Emperor of Han (Liu Bang) and Ming ( Zhu Yuan Zang) were consider helots , but once they manage to defeat the old dynasty , they had been elevated as “Mandate Of Heaven”, hence it is possible if your army is strong enough and enough followers
I don’t have the code in front of me but if I recall correctly you need to have an open, friendly conversation about Theurgy with Horion when he’s in your camp.
China isn’t really comparable, because they had a couple of memes that Karagond doesn’t; Confucian meritocracy and the concept that the Mandate of Heaven rests on the victor.
If a Shayardene helot declared his rule over Karagond nobles, while it’s not impossible for him to be accepted (despite @idonotlikeusernames’ denunciations), he’s working against the way that they believe the universe works and will have to either work with them to get past all that, provide other reasons to support him, or ensure that the nobles are too broken to oppose him.
“Accepted” as in (barely) tolerated, which would fall well short of the sort of genuine acceptance the original poster who asked this question seems to be aiming for.
Most likely a mix of both, which is why that route does not appeal to me at all, as you probably need to both sell out heavily (to those willing to opportunistically throw in with you at the last minute) and be in many ways a worse tyrant (be absolutely ruthless, merciless and viciously cruel to those who won’t) who generates even more fear than the current one.
Yep, that one plain and simple does not exist in this world.
Which leaves:
This may be a slight possibility if you can play up the eclect nonsense convincingly and then legitimate that with exactly the sort of crushing victory our dear author already said is impossible at the start of the last game (no matter what we do as it stands now at the start of the last game we may at best be the paramount faction standing starting out, but we simply cannot dispose of all credible rival claimants in time to really lay the groundwork for this trope as a helot “eclect” and would be “emperor”). In any case you’re not building on what was there already but an eclect mc, especially a (former) helot one would be trying to be the originator of this trope (which will inevitably come to bite your dynasty in the ass sometime, even if you are successful with it)
It’s already a big stretch to have a Shayardene provincial noble declare their rule over Karagond nobles, but at least they are legally a person, a helot mc isn’t even a full person traditionally, religiously and legally speaking.
Yes, but given the certainty that, no matter what we do and how well we do it, there will still be credible rival claimants standing at the end of game 4/ beginning of game 5, not nearly well enough for the would-be helot “eclect” and emperor to really, convincingly originate the mandate of heaven trope, I would think.
@idonotlikeusernames I don’t think that it’s impossible to be accepted. On the contrary IMO, it’s very much possible.
The only Indian dynasty to have united all of India before the British, the Mauryas, were of lower caste origin.
And for an European example, Catherine I, the first reigning Empress of Russia was a servant/slave girl in her early life probably bought by the Emperor’s best friend to procure a mistress for Emperor Peter the Great.
Though the mandate of heaven seems like a meme, but the mandate of sword and/or myth-making clearly works.
What is the population of the hegemony and the empire in the east I forgot what it’s called
And can someone send me the code don’t know if that is a reasonable request or not sorry if it is if I am requesting to much
For Liu Bang, legend had it a white snake happens to crawl into his gathering ground and he slay it as a sign of righteous and mandate, well a white snake is a rare species afterall😅
Just posting to say that I’ve added a new build to the Wiki. My favorite build, though I usually do the Homelander variant. Perfect for those who want to roleplay as a Boyar, a Samurai, or various other warrior-aristocrats.
Agree with you that Eclect is substantially easier to play than Skeptical. It took me a while to figure out how to get “all red bars” on the playthrough (on 2COM, you need the “Helot becomes Plektoi Food” start, on 2INT the easiest way involves killing Simon.)
Probably a correct decision on the part of Havenstone though. Lots of leaders, even those that weren’t personally Devout, exploited faith and aesthetics thereof for political causes.
I consider Ruthless/Compassionate to be the least relevant bar to mess with, myself. Letting it happen as it will while the other two go deep red is a lot easier, especially for the uncharismatic.
Well guys, I have completed and written up runs where I keep every lieutenant alive and win a glorious victory…and now I did a run where I try to get rid of everyone. I feel dirty for taking a dive, but I figured I would post the results of my best (?) attempt.
I ran a 2COM/1INT Helot that had a grand old time in the Winter, with rations set to healthy and raiding everyone (but not Architelone, so I avoid getting tons of mules and saving Zvad.) I had the AI run the Winter.
In Act 3, I went Eclect. I later lost Zvad by trying to protect the mule trains (I only kept 14.)
In Act 4, I decided to fight with 223 rebels (and only 192 armed) against 1066 Karagond troops (in the real run, I didn’t scout them). I love how Kalt and Radmar truly embody the “Blood for the Blood God” mindset, and will fight any battle no matter the odds.
As it happens, we didn’t even make it to the second phase of the fight, and I had to declare a retreat at dawn. After the Plektoi came, I chose to search for Father rather than rallying the outlaws (this leads to the worst results).
The end result was a bloodbath with only 2 adult and 7 children rebels left. The rebellion is gone, but I like to imagine that Alless is roaming around the wilderness at least.
Ok fine. To balance it out, I will share the results of my 2CHA/1INT Noblewoman game, where I win a glorious victory and keep all lieutenants and a massive army alive.
The big thing is that if you have amassed a giant force and can effectively reduce the enemy army to nearly nothing, you should NOT sacrifice Suzane/Elery to kill all the enemy Theurges. The game indexes much more heavily on enemy soldiers than on Theurges.
