Alternatively, you can just steal/deplete the thaumatarch of blood and watch the flying moutain of Kalos falling.
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Yeah but it dosent look as cool
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I find it more poetic, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, quite literally. They murdered countless helots to keep their fancy castles in the air, now that the helots rebelled, they’ll be more grounded very fast.
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Now I’m wondering what “The Siege of Aekos” will look like with a rebellion that’s resolutely non-violent and doesn’t lay violent siege.
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Belatedly:
I’ve gone through the code for G1 Ch4 and can confirm I had misremembered. You can keep the secret of your Theurgy from the Hegemony until the game-critical moments, even if your followers know about it.
I’ll be tweaking the code slightly to adjust this if you have a high number of Ch 4 deserters. Otherwise, the secret can be kept.
Other major factions will be highly active at that point. So there will be a violent siege in Game 4, whether or not you’re the one instigating it; and there will be sufficient reason for you to be nearby even if you’re not leading an army.
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Ah, so the larger disintegration of the Hegemony will be violent. Your specific rebels may be a non-violent faction. That will be an interesting dynamic in the endgame. Even if the non-violent factions were larger and more decisive, the violent factions will claim to have assumed the most risk and therefore are entitled to the larger share of postwar power. The non-violent revolt will probably have to continue resistance well into the post-hegemony order.
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To quote Javik from Mass Effect.
“X race claimed to find the path to eternal peace. Y preferred war and wiped them out.”
Something to be concerned about.
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Will there be any option to have Shayard join the abhuman federation or at least have very close ties as their association of tribes where everyone knows theurgy is pretty much the outcome my MC would think is best for his fellow helot
I think having each helot camp form a tribal government and seizing the land previously owned by their noble master makes the most sense from a perspective of the governabilty of the region after a civil war and the fact that I can’t see the nobility as an institution surviving mass adoption of theurgy by the helotry
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I vaguely remember two particular Game 1 “internal thoughts/dialogue” options that may answer your question:
#1: “Is there a possibility of recruiting hundreds of tough survivors from across the Ward?” (aka have the Abhuman Federation outright join Shayard, or at least send liaisons/ambassadors to formalize your alliance)
#2: “Could I convince my overall band to join me in seeking refuge across the Xaos-lands?” (this sounds the closest to your suggested “Shayard joins the Abhuman Federation” angle)
Perhaps the current generation of XoR’s nobility will be pushed aside by your newly empowered helot wisards, but elitism as an overall concept never seems to truly fade from history (both historical and fictional).
The “Full Circle Revolution” trope exists for a reason; thus, you may wish to consider having your MC fully embrace Cerlota’s “regulated Theurgy” agenda (to prevent your faction’s top-performing wisards from getting any funny ideas about oppressing everybody else/becoming the next Thaumatarch).
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Maybe but a society where everyone has magic powers likely couldn’t have any form of slavery system. Also as the helotry are used to farming collectively in large estates I was intending to give their villages ownership of the land as a village rather than breaking it up into plots they wouldn’t know how to tend. It would be harder to manage them but their village elders are likely still going to be objects of respect.
both my MC and the helotry in general logically would have little respect for the notion of property rights as being unquestionable as freed slaves historically rarely have.
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There will definitely be the option for very close ties to the Abhuman Federation, including potentially some form of union with it as and when the southern Wards fall. In Game 2, you can get to know two major Abhuman characters, M’kyar and Laj-jas, and get more of a sense of what obstacles there are to a Seracca-Udud union.
@mshan95032, Game 2 will also make clear that the Abhumans are very different from the Xaos-landers, either as potential allies/recruits for your rebellion or as sources of possible cross-Ward refuge. A literal great gulf separates the Xaos-lands from the Abhuman Federation, so the threat of Storms wouldn’t apply on the Seracca side. The problem there is that (as we know from Yed’s Game 1 story) the Abhumans themselves chase any human renegades who cross their border into the Xaos-lands. That policy, and the reasons behind it, would obviously need to change before any refuge in their territory was possible.
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I assume this would require a highly cosmopolitan rebellion. but seems like an intersesting third option between siding with Halassur who are far from a perfect ally and having no friendly relations with any neighbours
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I’m wondering. Among the Seracca, do the warrior Yega’a practice combat theurgy, or is Seracca theurgy limited to Seers and self-change?
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Ah, but you see it was always in self-defense, or at least that is what my mc will claim and certainly what he would have regime propagandists claim.
Granted a fair bit of it may be “proactive” self-defense for the liberation of the oppressed masses of the Hegemony. 
But then it is not as if the Hegemony leadership would sit down and have tea with us…nor would my mc want them to and in any case, unlike an aristo my mc is not even human to them so one would assume they would prefer to go down with their sinking ship rather than capitulate to him and that certainly will be the assumption my mc operates under by say book 3 or so.
Nah, if he wants a shot at his rebellion becoming the most pre-emininent or dominant faction by book 5 my mc is gonna need to do something big in Aekos, preferably have all the foreign/Hallasurq spies he can get his hands on be present to watch it…as the fall of Aekos would have the potential to kill two birds with one stone and hopefully use our own magical superweapon(s) on it, so as to give Halassur something to think on before invading to get us on that cold war footing.
My mc would prefer it to be an economic only union as a way to get both more merchant support and to let foreign ideas and especially foreign religion filter in onto the newly free religious market.
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You bring up a good point; though, I do have a couple more questions to ask.
#1: If everyone in your MC’s society has access to Theurgy, how are you going to cover the (astronomically) expensive blood cost?
Are Harrowers still utilized in your nation, or have you instead completely banned them? (in favor of “self-sacrifice Theurgy” and/or the periodic, nationwide, non-lethal, and mandatory blood drives that don’t yield as much power as the “aetherial blood” generated from Harrowing)
And if you do still use Harrowers, who’s going to be on the unfortunate receiving end?
Are you limiting their use for convicted criminals/murderers/rapists? (thus yielding an incidental amount of aetherial blood, unless your new nation’s legal system feels incentivized to unjustly accuse as many scapegoats as possible to meet your monthly/annual blood quota)
Or, do you instead see yourself casting a wider net by targeting specific age groups, nationalities, and/or social classes?
(e.g. 1- exempting all Shayard citizens from Harrowing while instead targeting Karagonds,
2- “revenge-harrowing” the nobles, priests, Theurges, and other accomplices who aided and abetted the Hegemony’s history-wide practice of harrowing helots,
3- or if you’re following Halassur’s example, institute a policy of forcing everybody to harrow their firstborn babies 
)
#2: And if everybody in your society has the ability to magically nuke everybody else, how do you trust them to handle day-to-day domestic/petty disputes amongst themselves in a mature, productive manner? (that hopefully doesn’t incur tons of casualties/collateral damage)
Or in other words, “where’s your gun control?” 
Having Cerlota teach accountability/restraint to your first generation of helot wisards is a good start, but actions speak louder than words/philosophy.
What’s your suggested punishment/deterrent for the “loose cannon” wisards in your ranks?
Out of curiosity, what is the Seracca’s cultural attitude towards “marrying for love vs. marrying to form (or cement) political alliances”?
Which part of the above spectrum of opinion do M’kyar and Laj-jas fall under?
And are they high-ranking/influential enough amongst their respective guilds (and/or clans) that MC’s choice to marry one of them would represent marrying MC’s rebellion/regime to the entire Federation?
Ah, thanks for clarifying! And on another note, I imagine this is going to manifest in the form of a very awkward “first contact” conversation between my MC and the Abhumans.
Does this ‘great gulf’ have an official name (or nickname) yet? Or does everybody just simply stick with the generic (but accurate) ‘great gulf’ label?
Ooh, I wonder if the Xaos-lands has another major threat (apart from the Xaos-storms): a plague spread by the Unquiet Dead?
@Havenstone Quick question: is it within our MC’s power during later games (e.g., probably G4) to depose Halassur’s current leadership (before the endgame that is G5), thus allowing us to install an ally and/or puppet ruler (e.g. G2’s Erjan)?
And as a follow-up question, does Erjan happen to have any ties to Halassur’s existing royal family, or would MC be asking Erjan to form a new dynasty from scratch?
After reading about @idonotlikeusernames’ “pretend to go along with and later exploit the Leaguer movement” grand scheme, the following (and/or possibly overlapping?) ideas came to mind:
If the more open-minded aristo ROs (e.g. Simon/Suzanne, Teren) were to become the mouthpieces/salespeople for a helot MC’s proposed reforms (perhaps even pretending to be the ‘actual leader’ of MC’s rebellion at MC’s insistence), and then (somehow) cleverly painted MC’s helot-friendly reforms as vital to aristo self-interest, then might the rest of the nobles become more receptive to those ideas?
Or, if the mouthpiece idea is not enough (or won’t work in the first place), then perhaps helot MC could rely on the “outside hire from Grand Shayard” to forge evidence of a bloodline?
The idea of “helot-led change disguised as aristo-led change” sounds excitingly subversive; could it work in the long run?
For me personally, there’s something very cathartic to be felt about the idea of an upstart helot defying the “savage helot barbarian” stereotype to instead worm his way into the inner circles of high society (and then ultimately beating the aristos at their own game of political intrigue).
Okay, noted. So since “agreeing to unite over a suspiciously convenient myth” will probably turn out to be an unsustainable ‘house built upon the sand’ plan, here’s another angle to consider: despite their differences in religious practices, could Xthonists and Abhumans at least perceive the value of banding together to form an ecumenical alliance? (e.g. something akin to the real-life “World Council of Churches”)
(And FYI, consistent with XoR’s Greek inspirations, I think ecumenical can be phrased as oikoumene in Koine.)
Surely, if a devout, cosmopolitan-minded MC is already eager to form a koinon that consists of all ex-Hegemony provinces AND the Abhuman Federation, an oikoumene is a logical extension (or next step) of his/her ambition, correct?
Also, there’s a certain section in the ecumenism Wikipedia page that’s drawn my attention:
“The focus of the church and the council following the gathering was on the damage created by the Second World War. The council and the movement went forward to continue the efforts of unifying the church globally in the mission of helping all those in need, whether it be a physical, emotional, or spiritual need. The movement led to an understanding amongst the churches that, despite difference, they could join together to be an element of great change in the world. To be an agent of hope and peace amongst the chaos and destruction that humans seem to create. More importantly the council and the movement lead to not only ecumenism but to the forming of councils amongst the denominations that connected churches across continental lines.”
Similar to the World Council of Churches, perhaps the key to solving the “Xthonist vs. Abhuman” wedge is convince the two sides to unite over shared/universal values of compassion and community? (instead of needlessly bickering over whose specific religious practices should reign supreme)
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These won’t generate any meaningful power, that’s been said above in the spoilers.
that’s pretty simple they’d be using their own blood for their theurgy. I was even thinking that this might be a helpful reinterpretation of the religious teachings of helot duty to self sacrifice and the call for their blood to power magic
It matters less if each theurge can’t do as much magic in a short time period if there are lots of theurges after all my MC went all winter without using any refined blood. if all of the millions of helots can use their own blood for magic even if the hegemony took some shayrdene territory they couldn’t enslave the people there. And I’d use what the influence I do have to get the helot villages/tribes to help in each others defence.
As theurges can essentially all do suicidal attacks by using up all the aether in their brains you couldn’t actually harrow anyone as it’s too risky after all the blood from a baby would be less than that needed to subdue the parents.
the helots have a marked dislike to involve alastors or nobles in any dispute and have therefore already been governing themselves for the most part and helot elders largely seem to have their opinion because people respect them.
this and the fact that using your magic to resolve a dispute would likely result in your immediate death as everyone around you know can also do magic and if it didn’t would make you an outcast from the village effectively exiling all our dangerous loose cannons into the hegemony (or hallassur but not the abhumans). After all the reason I personally don’t kill people over petty disputes has less to do with the law and everything to do with the fact that I was socialised to understand that that’s unacceptable behaviour and that it’s wrong to kill people
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I thought I had already acknowledged the shortcoming of the nonlethal blood drive option from the get-go (thus I also suggested it would have to be paired with (or outright replaced by) other options); could you please elaborate what I’ve not yet considered?
Very valid points indeed, and limiting your faction to self-sacrifice theurgy will surely win you points with the Abhumans (who severely frown upon “using other people’s blood” theurgy).
So I guess you better spend those remaining G1 vials discreetly before your future Abhuman allies catch you red-handed!
@Havenstone What exactly is the current population size of all the Hegemony’s helots in XoR’s present day? Could MC ultimately end up commanding an army size comparable to that of China or India?
So basically, you would like your koinon (or just Shayard) to be a military alliance akin to NATO, correct?
And does your MC have any long-term plans to later consolidate power into a formalized, federal government? (with the helot elders of each village/tribe (and the yeomen leading community members) serving as your senate, while MC and his most trusted cohorts/lieutenants serve as executive branch/cabinet members)
Or, do you trust that your currently imagined (and informal) mutual defense pact will do just fine in the long run?
Exile is a good start, but why stop there? Why hand over your loose cannons to be conscripted for the Hegemony/Hallasur war machines, when you can perhaps offer a path of redemption to your would-be exiles?
Option #1: The loose cannons are forcibly punished by being conscripted into your Suicide Squad, only being allowed to go back home after surviving/accomplishing a certain quota of missions
Option #2: Similar to Option #1, but operating as scouts/double agent spies instead
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It’s not “doesn’t yield as much power.” It’s more like “bleeding people nonlethally doesn’t produce a meaningful amount of aether at all, especially compared to the costs, financial and otherwise, of doing so.” You’ll spend more aetherial blood keeping the people alive than you get by blood drives.
The blood is not an aether-dense tissue. That’s the brain.
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That likely would and I’d happily pretend to do so to them but my position is more not harrowing people with captured blood being fair game. I think not harrowing anyone and teaching everyone theurgy has potential to be more efficient long term as people seem to be able to regenerate their own aether so this has aspects of not milking your blood cow dry. As well as the obvious moral benefits and the fact that it will be popular with the abhumans and helotry.
Horion has dialogue where he mentions that redistributing the noble estates would bring 20 million Shayardene helots to your side so I assume the number is in the millions.
less like NATO and more like a tribal alliance as NATO is a formal agreement between states and relies on structures and legal understandings that I don’t think would be codifiable here.
Maybe an inter-tribal council could be formed but mainly to arbitrate inter-tribal disputes. But I doubt a modern state as we understand it would be possible with widespread magical knowledge as it would be hard to enforce a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Which is my motivation for downsizing into tribes as they would likely be a government structure that would actually be able to maintain order.
My MC’s goals here are to end harrowing and take the noble’s wealth for the helotry they aren’t especially concerned with being in charge after preferring to study their magic and help maintain the system. The Yeomanry will have to be happy with keeping the land they have a percentage of the land taken and not being taxed anymore, the merchants with playing pretty much the same role the abhuman merchants do and the priests i’m planning to bribe into not caring all that much about religious differences with the abhumans and also have them preach the new state of affairs
well as record keeping likely would remain not great they could probably get away with moving to another village where no one would recognise them. Law enforcement in the past struggled with identifying people in rural areas. Although as a decentralised form of warfare not punishing raiding against the hegemony or Hallassur so long as they didn’t raid fellow helots or interfere with trade with us might keep a lot of the violent crime on the right side of the border
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