Literacy and an INT increase go together for helots. Otherwise you’ll remain as illiterate as most folk of the realm. An INT 1 helot, unboosted, will pick up bits of reading.
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Yet here I was thinking that was exactly what the Thaumatarch did to themselves, just a giant brain trying to get bigger, and what Cerlota meant by all of this.
If that’s not the case, I hope she was being more metaphorical than literal, because the idea that the Thaumatarch is basically just a giant collection of lobotomized brains with asteroid tattoos unable to feel human emotion but still able to turn a little fence into a fortress wall adds more nightmare fuel to a game where walls will grow legs and chase you when it rains unless you crucify a bunch of people every season.
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Tinkering with the mind is a different thing than tinkering with the brain. Modern perspectives may well lead a reader astray on this point. Our culture now has a well-ingrained assumption that every intellectual capacity is a function of a particular bit of the brain. But that’s not how older worldviews understood it. Those top-level Theurges who have expanded their mental teloi don’t do so as neurosurgeons but as philosophers and practitioners of meditative traditions. That’s been a separate and much more practically fruitful field of study than trying to work out the near-impenetrable mysteries of the physical mind-body interface. (Arguably true of our world too until 21st-century neuroscience, and for some purposes not even then.)
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You’ve mentioned before that future INT increases will all involve theurgy, will a Helot MC ever be able to read without being a theurge?
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Yeah literacy very much feels like an essential skill for managing a state of any kind
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If they’re going from 0 to 1 – yes. But I don’t intend to write a non-Theurgic path for characters of INT 2 and higher.
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I have often wondered about this. As a doctor (Internal Medicine), even when I work with stroke or nerve palsy patients, many of them frequently endorse symptoms that do not line up with the deficit they have in X artery or Y cranial nerve or whatever. In fact, sometimes they tell me things that are anatomically impossible to be true.
But obviously, what these people experience in their mind is true to them, even if it has no correlate with the matter. So even in the 21st century, I’d say there’s some degree of dualism between mind and body, and we probably won’t ever have all the answers.
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@Havenstone Are there some bigger timeskips in plans? I’m not quite sure, but from what I recall, each game is supposed to last a year in-universe time. Isn’t that a bit too short if we are to witness fall of centuries old empire and engage in nation-building?
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I’m pretty sure I’ve never said that, and unsay it if I did. 
Indeed, I said somewhere upthread that Game 2 would span at least two in-universe years. There will almost certainly be longer timeskips in Games 3 and 4, and Game 5 might span many years even before jumping decades ahead for some of the finales.
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Speaking of decades, will a sufficiently high INT MC be able to learn the secret of halting or slowing the aging process like the Thaumatarchs?
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Yes. Remembering that once you start using it, you can’t cross a Ward – but that may not be as much of a problem, by the time you’ve had a chance to learn it!
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I’m not sure about that empires have a tendency to fall little by little and then all at once.
The hegemony has been eating itself for centuries now with the brutalisation of the helot and the alienation of the nobility not to mention it’s growing blood supply and agricultural issues and the perpetual costly war that’s been stagnating.
Any collapse isn’t sudden it’s just one of the weeks where decades happen
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I tried using Google translate Italian, and I’m still confused about which context/meaning you picked for pace. Could you please clarify?
Then a reputation for consistently abiding by (and successfully encouraging/enforcing) guest-right) will make it much easier for MC to peacefully unify/recruit Wiendrj to their cause (over the course of a single evening/feast), right?
By the time dessert is served, I can already imagine the oaths of loyalty (and marriage alliance vows) being exchanged/signed.
And FYI, in general, it still amazes/comforts me that there’s real-life historical precedent for “teatime diplomacy”; after all, why waste energy/time burning bridges, when we can instead have a good time/laugh from accidentally burning our tongues? (from sipping tea too fast)
By the way, how does K feel about XoR’s non-aristo institutions of power (e.g. merchants and priesthood), and how does K feel about an MC who allies with such institutions?
Surely, K could recognize the useful potential of a corporate meritocracy (and/or helot-friendly reformed theocracy), right?
Then I suppose @Ramidel’s previously envisioned compromise (balancing apella membership between hereditary peer aristos vs. the elected “nobility of the robe”) might be my next best option here.
No trade with the Dead at the moment.
Are you sure the Unquiet Dead aren’t interested in the idea of a “Hotel Transylvania”-inspired vacation resort? (where they can feast upon human merchandise/luxuries, instead of human flesh/lives/blood)
Quick question: are there any gondoliers/gondolas in Shayard? (similar to those in Venice and Los Vegas)
Here are the practical uses I’d like to suggest, as described below:
1- In general, gondolas could add to the worldbuilding, flavor, immersion, and decadence of the Shayardene aristo (and merchant) lifestyle
2- Gondolas provide multiple opportunities for infiltration/eavesdropping/espionage on MC’s part, e.g.
a. Via MC acting as a fake aristo gondola customer who discusses sensitive business with a fellow aristo ally (once the gondola crosses into a bridge/blind spot where outside spies can’t easily observe/listen in)
b. Via MC disguising themself as “the forgettable hired help” gondolier who lulls their aristo customers into a false sense of security/complacency (through a mix of charm, brown-nosing, and singing prowess).
And PS, as a bonus for the players who chose the “Game 1 Carles the Jongler” prologue, perhaps they (while pretending to be gondoliers) can bypass/mitigate the CHA stat check (by virtue of having memorized/plagiarized Carles’ songs).
c. Or if the context was pleasure (instead of business), then perhaps MC might seek to woo/court de Firiac, Abelard, or Teren on a gondola date?
Do the Abhumans happen to know any teachable shark transformations that would enable MC to go underwater and tear apart enemy ships? (similar to Bruce from the “Jaws” film franchise)
And could Theurgy allow for INT MCs to create “able to be remotely detonated” underwater mines?
And what about a helot MC who’s on very good Game 1 terms with de Firiac? (and is about to spend a lot of additional Game 2 time hanging out with de Firiac, via trekking through the Xaos-land and beyond)
And on another note, if the helot MC and de Firiac happen to share the same gender/height/build, can helot MC and de Firiac occasionally function as each other’s body doubles/decoys? (aka, a “Prince and the Pauper”-inspired ploy)
Let me guess: this fake identity is probably “the scion of a prominent Westriding house” (the one(s) that aristo MC’s dad mentioned during G1 Ch 3 while conversing with Horion), correct?
Duly noted. So then at what later narrative point would it be safe (or at least more tolerably risky) for MC to begin the formal courtship/marriage attempt?
G2’s final chapter? (once MC has presumably made significant progress towards co-opting the Shayardene aristos)
Or G3-G5 instead? (after empire-building MC has presumably secured their reign)
Can the game’s dialogue/code accommodate for combined titles that simultaneously acknowledge both roles, or will other characters instead acknowledge only one of the two titles at any given time (depending on setting/personal preference)?
In XoR, have there ever been any former priests who became merchants (and vice-versa) who could provide insight to MC on how to navigate both worlds?
Or is this completely uncharted territory? (With no previously known “giants” to learn from here)
My pleasure!
And on another note, I’d like to recommend yet another audiobook I’ve previously listened to/enjoyed: “The Dictator’s Handbook”.
It has a rather interesting section that’s given me food for thought (on how a koinon might engage in bad faith behavior)
“Autocrats and democrats, at one level, fight over the exact same thing: staying in power. At another level, they are motivated to fight over different things. Democrats more often than autocrats fight when all other means of gaining policy concessions from foreign foes fail. In contrast, autocrats are more likely to fight casually, in the pursuit of land, slaves, and treasure.
This has important implications. As Sun Tzu suggested, autocrats are likely to grab what they can and return home. On the other hand, democrats fight where they have policy concerns, be these close to home, or, as can be the case, in far-flung lands. Further, once they have won, democrats are likely to hang around to enforce the policy settlement. Frequently this can mean deposing vanquished rivals and imposing puppet regimes that will do their policy bidding.
Thinking back to our discussion of foreign aid, we can see that war for democrats is just another way of achieving the goals for which foreign aid would otherwise be used. Foreign aid buys policy concessions; war imposes them. Either way, this also means that democrats, eager as they are to deliver desired policies to the folks back home, would much prefer to impose a compliant dictator (surely with some bogus trappings of democracy like elections that ensure the outcome desired by the democrat) than take their chances on the policies adopted by a democrat who must answer to her own domestic constituents.”
How many Leaguers happen to be disillusioned ex-Laconniers who were jealous/disappointed to find out that they didn’t have the royal blood/credentials to stake their claim on the Shayardene throne?
(thus defecting to the Leaguers primarily to spite their former Laconnier colleagues)
You did previously mention that the Leaguers have their own “more nationalistic subfaction”, right? (so maybe that’s where the ex-Laconniers are)
@Havenstone
If the Shayardene gryphon represents the former royal Shayardene family (aka Laconniers), what mascots/animals would best symbolize the Leaguers and Cabelites, respectively?
E.g. Perhaps a hydra (or chimera) for the Leaguers, and a ram (or horse) for the Cabelites?
What a giant relief to find out that my envisioned Laconnier-Leaguer merger isn’t necessarily impossible after all.
On another note, here’s another imagined boon that come to mind (from such a merger):
What if the prize of having a Leilatou relative (Teren) linked to the Shayardene throne might be the attractive incentive that finally motivates Archon Phyrgia to join Laconnier MC’s rebellion against the Hegemony?
Which stat does Teren value more, INT, CHA, or a harmonious mix of the two?
Oh boy, is this where the “to Harrow or not to Harrow?” survival dilemma starts coming into play here? (where the only way for MC to reasonably feed all grain-hungry parties (domestic and foreign) is to finally stain their hands in Harrowing-related bloodshed)
Could you remind us again how much (approximated) mitigation we can expect from Whendish waterpower, self-sacrifice Theurgy, and (stolen) blood depot vials?
(Or is time for my MC to accept the XoR reality check that he cannot be both a humane leader AND an empire-builder at the same time?)
If we’re using Game of Thrones analogies here, which “King’s Landing” schemer would you say best describes Teren’s approach:
Tywin Lannister (“The Iron Fist”: rule through intimidation, deterrence, and occasional massacres/purges/regime changes, even to the extent of violating norms/guest-right),
Littlefinger/Petyr Baelish (“Chaos is a ladder”: aka, playing multiple sides against each other (and solving the problems YOU secretly created) can translate into social climbing opportunities, and one should stab as many backs as necessary to climb to the top and attain victory),
Varys (“For the good of the realm”: If you have sufficient reason to believe that your leader is tyrannical/unfit to lead (thus endangering the realm and its citizens), then it’s your duty to scheme/conspire behind said leader’s back to replace them with a more suitable candidate of your choosing)
or Olenna Tyrell? (“Bread and circuses”: “The people are hungry for more than just food. They crave distractions. And if we don’t provide them, they’ll create their own. And their distractions are likely to end with us (the aristos) being torn to pieces.”)
Now this brings a smile to my face.
I’m (once again) looking forward to my helot MC and Ganelon reuniting/working together under peaceful circumstances. (though I will (initially) have some strong words/scolding towards Ganelon for having associated himself with the likes of Hector)
I always did find it infuriatingly counter-intuitive that the (potentially) only way to save Horion and Linos’ lives would be to violate guest-right (thus alienating them); hopefully, MC will get an opportunity to express their “I imprisoned them to protect them” reasoning towards Teren.
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there is no way you are going to recruit an entire country over the course of one afternoon. We haven’t met them yet but I guarantee that the wiends internally disagree about issues of varying import up to and including line in the sand issues incompatible with the desires of other Wiendish factions. The 20 Wiends who can join us all have too much clan feuds to work together on their own for example.
I get the impression that the unquiet dead much more follow in book draculas “if you do business with me I will kill you and everyone you have ever loved just for fun” position
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Yeah I’m thinking the unquiet dead are basically some version of high level theurge. Their version of effective immortality was just less concerned with the mortal coil. To that end, they need blood. I think the reason it is called the “bloodless reach” is because they have already drained any inhabitants including themselves. They’re probably aren’t many unquiet dead, but they are probably exceedingly dangerous.
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Sorry, it’s a Latin borrowing into English – see definition three here, for pace as a preposition.
Ha! It might just be a little trickier than that.
K’s ready to work with them if they break ties with the old regime. “Corporate meritocracy” won’t be a thing for a few more centuries, though.
That’s one of the Game 5 special endings.
The canals I was talking about are arteries of long-distance trade, rather than urban waterways. Grand Shayard has some canals in its river district, running down to Osterport, the nearby port city; but I’m not thinking of it as Venice. CoG has some good Venice-esque games already, and I’d rather take things in different directions. And if I did have gondoliers, they wouldn’t be singing – the gameworld has had no Gilbert & Sullivan to launch that trope.
No. No gills, not yet anyway.
No. Sustaining or shifting Theurgic effects remotely is all but impossible – that’s Ward-wall level Theurgy, not something that even Cerlota knows how to do.
No – hanging out in the woods with a lone renegade (themselves a “hickard from the Rim”) doesn’t get you meaningfully closer to being able to pass in polite society.
And sorry, you’re not a double of anyone in your rebellion.
No – you don’t know the Westriding well enough to pass, and your accent (through Game 2) tells people you’re from the Rim. You’d be trying to disguise yourself as the scion of a Rimmer house too humble for most people to have heard of.
You’re a rebel-- about as unmarriageable as it’s possible to be, given that de Firiac’s parents are utterly unsympathetic. The only point at which you could pretend to be “formally” courting S. in your own name would be some G4 or G5 moment where social order has broken down so far that “formal” lacks nearly all meaning and the de Firiacs are too terrified of you to refuse.
It’ll need to!
There are plenty of well-off priests who’ve maintained connections to their merchant families, but no precedent for someone holding high rank in the Syntechnia while also being, say, an Archimandrite.
None or next to none. On this thread we end up talking a lot about how the MC might try to assert a claim, but being a Laconnier for 99% of people isn’t and can’t be about putting yourself forward as the one true king. Rather, it’s about finding meaning in the idea that the one true king is still out there somewhere, and that the future will be one in which your people can regain what they’ve lost over the centuries of colonial oppression. Given the intensity of Karagond persecution, Laconniers don’t expect to be told who or where the one true king is, let alone to be told it’s them.
They’ll all be claiming the gryphon–it’s gone beyond being just a monarchic symbol to be seen by all as the sign of the nation. At least for a while, until someone else whose claim has much, much deeper historical roots asserts themselves.
Empire-building just is not a humane project. Never has been, never will be – even in worlds that don’t have blood tradeoffs to handle.
Teren isn’t like any of the GoT figures, and doesn’t value one of your stats more than another. (Most ROs won’t.) They’re also highly unlikely to buy “I imprisoned them to protect them.”
Now, back to writing iambic tercets for the great Keriatou masque flashback…
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Xthonosis doesn’t have a concept of religious celibacy. Remember that it’s divine law that you have and should seek out your other half. While some people never find that person, there’s no religious basis for a monastic rejection of sexual activity or marriage (that’s linked to specific religious developments in our world, which developed differently on the Christian and the Dharmic ends).
Which reminds me. @Havenstone: You’ve mentioned that arranged marriage fits into the soulmate scheme, since parents are often better at finding their child’s soulmate than the horny teenager themself. Among the classes that don’t practice compulsory heterosexuality (that is, non-helots), is there shame in a parent overriding their child’s known sexual preference to coerce an arranged marriage that will benefit the family?
Curses, that was one of the pillars of Alya’s plan - integrating the syntechnia into the government of her Neo-Thaumatarchy.
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Just to echo Ramidel: while the Hegemony is big on chastity (i.e. refraining from immoral sex), they don’t valorize celibacy (i.e. refraining from all sex). Monogamy, not sexlessness, is the Karagond ethical ideal; their monastic communities include many married monks.
Definitely–that’s going against nature.
That can still be part of the plan to break the hold of older ideas of privilege. Just don’t expect it to be a panacea.
If you’ll forgive a diversion: American culture tends to assume that markets, efficiency, and merit are all mutually reinforcing – which, under the right social circumstances and with the right institutional design, they are. But it’s easy even for us moderns (benefiting though we may from centuries of economic theory and a much stronger empirical base) to get that design wrong – as I saw firsthand during my years working in the USAID contractor system.
Al Gore’s “reinventing government” campaign shifted most management functions from USAID itself to for-profit development contractors, under the idea that private competition would yield better results than bureaucracy. But the market they created had high barriers to entry and a monopsonist client that had been stripped of much of its capacity to assess results. That’s not a recipe for greater efficiency, let alone effectiveness, as we saw over and over again in Afghanistan.
Profit-making actors are not inherently meritocratic or efficient. Markets only impose accountability if they’re designed to do so, and as Adam Smith famously noted, organized mercantile interests have a natural instinct to try to evade that kind of market discipline more than to embrace it. The more your merchant classes hold political power, the better the odds that they’re going to game the rules.
Coming back to the gameworld: a guild of merchants will have different ideas than the nobles about which group has the right to access various offices and functions. But they’ll still strongly believe in the rights of the group to hold those offices, rather than the modern meritocratic ideal of assessing each individual solely on the basis of their skill, hard work, and capacity. As in our world, the rise of bourgeois power at the expense of aristocracy doesn’t automatically or consistently lead to meritocracy or individualism, though it’s a necessary condition for both.
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Should we expect to see some of those and how they differ from the monks we’re more familiar with?
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If that was true the colonial experiments with corporate government in west Africa under belgian rule would have worked.
Private enterprise values profits especially short term profits and will accept offering worse service or not handling various responsibilities with care if it leads to them. After all private enterprise is efficient but it’s specifically efficient about profit extraction which shouldn’t be conflated with efficiency at offering up public service and often conflicts after all every cent spent on public service is considered by the private sector to be cost and something that should be removed by efficiency.
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