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

Choice of Games games
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1466

If Breden falls for the MC she’s conflicted, so it’s still possible that she betrays the band, but tries to save the MC.

A helot who stares down his or her betters is going to get beaten until he stops staring or dies. An attractive helot who draws attention to themselves is going to get raped. There is no law or police force that will protect them. They are chattel, and seen as little better than animals. Instead of developing confidence, they’d be terrified of drawing potentially predatory attention to themselves or their bodies.

If she loved them she wouldn’t have them harrowed after she’s done with them. Notice how the helot MC desperately tries to avoid her notice in the beginning of the story.

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1467

There was no need to poison the band though, not only it will expose his/her identity… the poison won’t even enough to harm everyone, if the poison was being put during cooking phase , everyone should had been affected , but apparently only half of them being affected, so it is the distribution phase that was the problem :slight_smile:
The trait was , the poison was not meant to really enough to hurt the band but enough to frame Breden… :slight_smile:

One thing i am curious is, if all kryptas are as easily traced as Breden, then the organisation is not as effective as rumour perceive , so the more dangerous spy should be someone who we least suspected :slight_smile:

But i agree that Breden is one of them, just not as cold hearted as them :slight_smile:

1468

Your vision of her blinds you same happens to me but contrary spectrum. :slight_smile:

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1469

Well… i also want to further investigate the 2nd kryptas by keeping Breden close, Breden should be aware that someone is framing him/her and may eventually confronts that person… or that person may try to further sabotage us, but this time Breden should be ready for her?? :-):wink:

The actual culprit may start to worry when we don’t believe Breden was the culprit , so she? may try to further frame Breden since she already suspect Breden’s split loyalty… :slight_smile:

1470

Dammit Mara, you’re slandering me with your headcanon again. The game never included a forced kiss, let alone a kinky one.

To repeat myself: I did initially write Breden as someone your character fell in love-at-first-sight with. The MC always had the choice to never act on that crush, and to completely sour on Breden as they got to know xhim better. This has really only been mildly toned down for the published version, where you still recognize Breden as an attractive person, even though you have the choice from the beginning not to be particularly attracted to xhim yourself.

I continue to think that intense-attraction-at-first-sight is not a choice, and happens all the time (to non-ace people) completely independent of the crush-object’s personality. Yes, Breden being attractive is a matter of “authorial fiat,” the same way that the gameworld weather is. And just like in the real world, your MC has the choice to act or not act on an attraction.

Hmmm…no, I wouldn’t say I ever tried to do that. From the beginning I tried to write Breden with a distinctive personality (bold to the point of brashness, overt confidence hiding deep insecurities, etc.). I wanted the character to be plausibly appealing, but not universally so–just enough to help people suspend their disbelief at my decision to write the MC to be attracted to Breden’s confidence and boldness.

Use of authorial fiat in writing MC personality and emotions is of course always controversial, perhaps most of all when it comes to romance. So as noted I toned it down in response to feedback.

Maybe not from you. :wink:

Talking about “the rebellion” slightly misconstrues my intention for the series. :slight_smile: Game 5 is shaping up to have up to thirty distinct post-Hegemonic factions in play. Three major ones, plus potentially a fourth (that’s yours, depending on whether you decide to go big league), interacting with a host of more localized factions as allies, rivals, sworn enemies, buffers, etc.

The choices you make in Games 2-4 (and plenty of the ones you’ve already made in Uprising) will affect those factions–their strength and morale, their capacities, their attitudes toward you. Or in some cases whether they even survive to Game 5 to trouble you/your rivals.

In short: there are/will be lots of rebellions, and Sarcifer will be a tremendously powerful ally to some of them.

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1471

I think i like Sarcifer, a Merlin for my new government perhaps? If i can raise my Int in Book 2, i definitely want him to teach me Theuge??

Another faction should be that Lanconnian prince/princess , i read that they should be the ones invading Karagond if karagond doesn’t have Theurge…

About Breden, it is possible they are not Kryptas? Well come to think about it, it could be he/she killed her/his former master, who was a Kryptas and stole the code… that can explain why the real traitor want Breden dead so much, assuming Joanna is the traitor, she could had recognised Breden as the one who killed her kryptas friend and for the MC to befriend with Breden is a real oppirtunity to kill her/him :slight_smile:

1472

This is wonderful news! A much more accurate portrayal of post-revolutionary societies and certainly an excellent opportunity to explore why they are so hard to rangle into a stable state and why generally speaking revolutionary states end up sucking for everyone involved.

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1473

Now you’re just poking at @idonotlikeusernames. :slight_smile:

I should note that wrangling things into a variety of stable states by the end of Game 5 will be possible, including outcomes that radically transform the pre-revolutionary status quo. XoR isn’t intended as conservative propaganda.

But nor is it revolutionary propaganda. It will be much easier to fall into an outcome that involves varying degrees of suck-for-everyone.

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1474

I think it will also be depressing to write about the 20+ million people who die of a famine. See, but now I have an image of Warlord China in the 1920s and me being the Nationalist Chinese Government trying to assert my authority over the fake post-Hegemonic states.

Can’t wait!

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1475

You could avert that depressing outcome by shipping them off to die in human wave attacks (if you’ve got the charisma of a Khoimeini), or continuing to harvest people for their blood…

Maybe I’ll pick that up for the plane ride home. :slight_smile:

Oh, and a quick clarification of something I said above:

I don’t mean it happens to every non-ace person, or happens frequently to most of us. I’ve experienced it 2-3 times myself, which is probably above average. But I think it’s a common enough experience that it’s not unrealistic for it to happen to the MC.

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1476

So I just want to first apologise if this was answered already. The whole concept of using blood harrowed seems to be based off on having a sustainable source of blood to have. Will we learn the real reason why Hera had to keep expanding and getting more people to Harrow in the future? Because I have a feeling that this is also a key problem that broke out and began to reach terminal velocity recently.

But I have a feeling that will be a… horrible decision, one of those classical leadership decisions. Do I continue to harrow, sacrifice my subjects to maintain this agricultural system, or do I wean them off it even if it means that millions will die.

1477

I would rather becomes the Regent or Chief minister ZuGe Liang of the Xu Kingdom in the Romance of 3 kingdoms :slight_smile:

1478

A big part has historically been due to conservative states not tolerating the mere existence of revolutionary ones. :man_shrugging: :unamused:
In any case given that my mc is a helot and those three major factions are likely to be Hallassur, the Laconniers and maybe Horion’s League faction, yeah, my mc needs a fourth option as none of those offer (former) helots/slaves, like my mc, any kind of future worth fighting for.

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1479

I mean, if- Stalin decides to go and do disastrous agricultural reform that creates a famine that wipes out the Ukraine. Then is it really the US’ fault especially when Herbert Hoover organizes a western relief effort to try to feed them?

No that’s called the failure of the government to provide for their people and them paying for it. Stalin probably put on weight just like Mao did. Great men of the people aren’t they?

1480

Havie, Breden for me is all except attractive, Are physical features I don’t like In the middle of a damn forest at night without know her and a Helot.
Put in my role-playing perspective What do you believe? Of course That is blood Magic. You didn’t let me agency back then to not kiss her or not being attracted to her.

I know that wasn’t your attempt at all. But from the perspective that someone who is not attracted to women to begin with all looked weird and fishy. Even worse, That was time choice of romance appear with the mind control wedding.

Now text is really similar, but from a role-playing perspective is different like day to night. Due I don’t have to like her and I don’t have to even kiss her.

Lol The difference between kiss a random commoner and not kiss the commoner is a world different in a role-playing perspective. If you think so imagine you kissing random person in the street with no reason. …

Hey That at least was a easy fix.

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1481

Go further back, all the way to when 20th century radical socialism hadn’t devolved into the Soviet Communism quite yet.

Well…I don’t want to get into that history right now when I’m in Brussels on my piece of crap phone, but suffice it to say, I don’t see anybody stepping up to provide aid in this case as even Hallassur likely doesn’t have that kind of food reserves. So even the Hallasurqs will kill the population, particularly the Helot population in their own orgy of genocide to built their own unsustainable society, as @Havenstone alluded to previously. I’ll search for that post once I’m back on a better device with a proper screen and keyboard.

The so-called reformist priests and nobles in the Hegemony also won’t hesistate to “cull” surplus helots as their reforms are more like animal welfare than anything else when it comes to the (former) heltos.

Besides we are the original rebellion my mc isn’t going to just simply roll over and step aside in favour of any snotty toff who thinks he knows best.

1482

Speaking of Brussels, did you know he also fed the Belgians during WW1? The more you know eh?

1483

Real people have physical traits. Breden’s physical appearance is never described. I figured that you hadn’t given Breden a physical description because you desired readers to see whatever they personally considered most physically appealing in Breden.

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1484

Wait… aren’t you choosing Breden as male? So you could kiss him…

Breden was female in my first save, and i do feel she had that enigmatic charm with the way she talk and her wisdom…

In my 2nd save , Breden was male, but now he was like a faithful buddy who back me up… and his friendly approach towards Suzanne was like a future best man of mine… in fact in a way he was also closest with Suzanne and had been teasing about Suzanne’s fondless to me , that for me was like a best buddy :slight_smile:
@P_Tigras
For me, i find attractiveness in Breden due to his/her intelligent communication , Breden communication skill is the exact definition of charismatic, charisma is not determine by appearance solely…
Same with Suzanne , her attractiveness was her strong belief and her awe towards me, her strong affection towards a medieval courtly romance is attractive for me too :slight_smile:

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1485

Sometimes I wish Breden would be described better like Suzane/Simon and Kala/Kalt, it would help me envision her better but I also understand that certain physical traits while attractive for one player wouldn’t be attractive for another so this was the best way to go about it.

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