Choice of Rebels: Uprising — Lead the revolt against a bloodthirsty empire!

Is modification of plants considered plektosis? Do abhumans disapprove of that as well? I’m thinking mullow and whatever changes they are making to food crops to support the Hegemony’s population.

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By the way I been wondering of we ever will get the chance to turn ourselves to a Litch or immortal using Theurgy?

Thank you for the reply. I have a few follow-up questions/comments:

One: This one’s just a personal preference of mine. So I get that the Abhumas hate plektosis due to their traditions, but I do have to wonder if there could be some kind of compromise. It seems like there should be some way to get the theurgy beasts to an extent without completely alienating them, though perhaps not to the same extent. I mainly say this because hard either-or choices in situations like this have always been a major pet peeve of mine. That’s just me though. Then again, modifying one’s self has its own benefits as well, so that may be enough.

Two: In regards to the absorption of rival powers, you mentioned it’ll be hard work just to “replicate” the Hegemony. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by replicate in this context. I assume you mean securing the five provinces for your regime, correct?

Three: Are the Unquiet Dead sentient? I was under the impression that Geash was a lone litch with a zombie army that controlled the territory. I have to say, they’re probably the faction I’m most intrigued by.

Four: Do you have any advice for how I would go about fleeing without getting large amounts of my people captured as a theurge?

Sorry if you’ve already gone into this, the comments section is quite long and I only noticed how active it was about a year ago.

Also sorry for the lack of quotes, I don’t really understand how to do that.

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There’s always the option of expanding your new state away from the failed Karagon into the like-minded Abhumans - or leading an Abhuman force into Shayard to do the same…

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That’s kind of what I was thinking, actually. It’d be a new state, just incorporating the old territories as a part of its borders. I still called it the Hegemony more out of simplicity. The actual state I had in mind would be a more democratic federation, possibly with a degree of church involvement since I’m supposedly a prophet, rather than a theocracy.

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or if you’ve become sufficiently friendly with the Abhumans and learned their arts, you could design much more efficient Theurgy-beasts (which would however completely sever your relationship with the Abhumans, who believe plektosis is only OK if you’re doing it to yourself).

Learning the Abhuman arts sounds really exciting. I anticipate my rebel Ashfell will become enamored by the Seraccan way of life, though maybe not the way they intend—self-Change as a path to freedom: for people to search for their own telos and shatter the caste system by undermining its very premise.

(That might have to wait until after the war, anarchy, famine, and inevitable humanitarian disaster, of course. But rebels can still dream of the world that’s on the other side of that hell)

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Regardless of your choices, one of the major new religious movements that fires up in Game 3 (as a potential pacifist rival to your rebellion) will involve some syncretism between Xthonism and the Abhuman faith.

If this has something to do with Tamran, that makes me all the more excited for a character who’s only gotten four words of characterization so far.

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They don’t disapprove of that, no. The modification of sentient creatures – creatures with spirits, in their view – is what bothers them.

I’m afraid sometimes there simply are hard either-or choices. When you take a skill you’ve been taught and use it to do something your teacher’s culture believes to be horrible, you’re likely to face one. Your third choice, I suppose, is to do it in secret and not get caught…

I do plan for those to be possible endings of Game 5, yes.

That’s right: an empire within the Hegemony’s current boundaries is what I had in mind. You will also have options to set up a state with some sort of formal governance relationship to the powers beyond the borders – but I’m not yet sure whether any relationship of equals will really be thinkable, as opposed to you forming a client state under Abhuman or Halassurq suzerainty.

Ghaesh has sentient, indeed hyper-intelligent, companions. So no, he’s not alone. But nor does he have a zombie army.

Other folks on this thread or Discord can probably give you a step by step guide to doing it; I’m afraid my memory of the appropriate tactics has faded a bit. Do you have a preference for playing a COM, INT, or CHA character?

*set observant +1000

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I play INT, for the magic.

If I can just lie and make my Plektoi in secret, that’s fine by me.

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That “doomed” city sounds like a fascinating place. What did it used to be a part of, Shayard, Brauracha (spelling?), the Abhuman Federation or some other small state lost to time?

Does this mean we could also bring most of them into our own faction?

Truly immortal I don’t know, we do know that a greatly lengthened lifespan and freezing your age is possible with theurgy. Most hegemony theurges however look old but spry, according to our author as they delay using theurgy to combat aging for as long as possible. My mc would, on the other hand, desire to use it to freeze himself on the younger side of middle age with only slightly greying temples.
Aka old enough to look statesmanlike if desired but also young enough to still look young and blend in with that crowd if you are in good enough shape.

A downer ending to be sure. Anyway I still hope to be able to amass sufficient magic of mass destruction to be able to transition to a cold war posture with Halassur through the magical version of MAD. I guess that would fall under some variant of the “empire” endings then ,eh? :sweat_smile:

While I don’t expect them to get a lot of characterisation can we possibly open up (trade) relations with powers on the other continents, as naturally maritime trade would be a big goal of the whole canal.

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That give me some interesting ideas considering that we have already seen inadvertent plant to human modification. Thank you! I hope the situation in Nepal improves soon. The toll of the pandemic across South Asia has been horrific.

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Personally, if given the option, my character would not only freeze his age, but even reverse it if possible. Specifically, he’d become a small child so that for eternity, the hegemony will be taking orders from an elementary schooler and anyone who found this strange would be looked at funny for questioning our lord and savior little Timmy.

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It was probably a Braurach city originally, but the history is lost to time.

Yes, they can be an allied faction.

Possibly – we’ll see. You’d need to be able to develop good relations with the Qalsa (Corsairs) and either be friendly with Halassur or peel away some of its client states, which are the only ones you can contact.

Thank you. Yes, we’re praying for a turnaround in India – for the sake of the people there, of course, but also because it’ll give some sense of light at the end of the tunnel for us in Nepal.

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Good to hear from you Havenstone! Stay safe. I know a lot of people in South Asia and I’ve been checking in on them… fortunately everyone is ok so far, but the situation over there is pretty scary. Hoping things get better for everyone!

As far as the game goes – intrigued as always to see a discussion of whether we can replicate the Hegemony (or put together our own, hopefully not as terrible) empire in place of the Karagonds. Of course who knows if we’re just replacing one problem with another for down the road as our good intentions go awry… but that’s the fun of games with tough decisions!

Will choices and attributes like homelander vs cosmopolitan play a role in the shape of the future political setup that we’ll be able to put together?

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Yes. I think everything I wrote here remains valid as to my thoughts and plans on the subject.

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@Havenstone Out of interest, are you following the Revolutions podcast series?

I’ve been listening to their season on the Haitian Revolution - difficult to avoid drawing comparisons with Choice of Rebels!

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I’m not, actually – afraid I’ve never really gotten into podcasts. (There isn’t a regular stretch of my life like a commute or a jog where they would fit well.) But I might look this one up. :slight_smile:

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So many people talking about transforming into a beastman or an immortal lich…meanwhile I’m wondering about what will happen to my failruns with everybody dead except Ciels, Alira, and a few children (which btw is an ending you can arrive at while genuinely attempting to succeed.)

I can imagine returning from Xaos and wondering “dude where’s my rebellion.”

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I ran a hilarious ‘trolling’ run on the discord about a month back- your typical high-nosed noble, gets attacked succesfully by theurges twice, refuses to steal from anyone; even when rations for healthy children are at three quarters, is skeptical but uses ‘the angels will curse us if we steal’ as justification for not stealing

Obviously, the entirety of the kids deserted except alless and pin ( less mouths to feed, huzzah ! )
as well as Radmar stealing off to the Owlscap with Elery and a few others.

Fast forward to chapter 4, and somehow, my 0 CHA noble with morale in the dumps convinces his 89 rebels to stand and fight against the Hegemony’s 600 alastors and phalangites.

Over half of the Hegemonics died ( I spent the whole winter laying unhealthy amounts of traps instead of trying to get food ) but there were too many to beat. 15 Rebels were found and killed for trying to mutiny; Plektoi or Phalangites got to most of the rest, including Alless and Pin.

The survivors (not counting Zvad who ran, what a coward, right?) were: Radmar, Elery, Yebben, Yed, Kalt, Ciels, Alira and 2 other randoms.

In short, what you might call ’ a little trolling ’ was done. And so far, I haven’t found quite another run that brings so much agony and is also darkly hilarious at the same time. @Havenstone

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Fantastic! Great read (as was all the discussion surrounding it – I missed a fun chat a few years ago!). I think all of that makes sense, and is very encouraging for my plans for a low anarchy, cosmopolitan Karagond noble reformer type of game.

I’m still torn between intellect and charisma for my character and that will seem to make for some interesting differences based on what I decide to emphasize on my reformist run. I kind of imagine a high charisma cosmopolitan noble character be almost a sort of “Princess Leia” type of rebel leader. It’s a fun character concept.

As for the Revolutions podcast, I second the recommendation. Just as an FYI, the first two seasons on the English and American revolutions aren’t representative of the rest of the podcast – he really hits his stride with seasons 3 and 4 covering the French and Haitian revolutions respectively.

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