Here you go.
Are you sure that the other former helots in the band don’t want to ware fancy cloths? I think there are several based on characterization so far would be quite pleased with acquiring the trappings of the current rich and powerful…
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My mum used to have a postcard with a quote on her wall back when she still taught psychology at college. It was “I was meant to lead the revolution, not teach”.
Wearing something exactly the same way you associate it with an oppressor is… yo, it’s just weird and not nice. But repurposing something is cool, I can see new helot silk fashions being a thing.
But right now it’s not really… you know, practical to go around in posh clothes. Well, it’s not really practical ever, really.
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A yet the subject peoples of European colonialism virtually universally adopted western cloths…
Because a) the oppressors were still there for a long ass time, b) when they wipe out your culture you really have nothing else to fall back on, c) when western white culture becomes the standard for anything you kind of have to go along or else you’re a savage
What is different about all that and the situation in the gameworld?
Helots are a minority class, not a minority culture
I don’t think there is such a thing as a helot culture. The koine culture is the supreme one and I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t remain so post-revolt or that helots would not aspire to dress and act like their former masters.
That’s what I said. They’re a minority class, not a minority culture, as they share their culture with the old noble Houses.
Depending on the revolution you’re going for, you can aspire to kick out all things Koine and restore Shayard.
Right so helots are class in a minority culture depending on where they live. In our revolt’s case Shayard. There were many colonial revolts that attempted to rejected all trappings of western influence and yet here we are. Koine is the one thing that the various Contes have in common. I am almost certain it will remain the language of business and international relations.
Not to say there won’t be a drive for local cultural revival but unless the player pursues a completely isolationist Shayard (and I don’t see how such a state could survive the Hegemony’s counter-attack) koine will have to be the language of any potential alliance and future superstate.
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Of course my mc can’t be “sure” we can never be.
Oh, enlighten me, I’m not really seeing that, but again I, or rather my mc, could be very wrong there.
Yes, like @Bagelthief says my character’s issues with fancy clothes are mostly psychological although some of them would be very hard indeed to overcome. Not wanting to look like Hector Keriatou, or that traitor Ganelon, being one of the first and foremost among them.
This is where it becomes more a case of my character’s personal idiosyncrasies but the way I play him with his high int and moderate charisma he knows he doesn’t have any “fashion sense” (and likely never will) thus he’d rather be comfortable than ever bother with thinking up “new” fashions that use fancy clothes.
To wear them “effectively” (if there ever is such a thing) he’d have to have someone dress him up and that is where it becomes psychology again as he wouldn’t trust anyone who is knowledgeable about those things to not make him deliberately look as foolish and feel as uncomfortable as possible and, like I said before, having to be told what to wear and when and how to wear it would make him feel as if he was right back and powerless again under the thumbs of the Keratiou’s sadistic overseers and alastors.
If they’re custom fitted they can be quite comfortable, though objectively it’s of course not worth the price and well-made boots or gloves can actually be very practical depending on the circumstances.
However that brings me neatly to the last and perhaps most difficult bit to overcome of the psychological issues my mc has with them, from the in-game dialogues and comments it is strongly hinted at that with the Hegemony’s unofficial affinity for humiliating punishments with a sexual touch to them that a great many helots are essentially rape-survivors with many of the psych issues that would entail, which is why I repeatedly said that the custom fitting process for the damned things might as well be torture for my mc and likely many other helots as well. Of course if you don’t have them fitted and tell the tailors to “eyeball” it then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where you’ll always look foolish, like someone prancing around in their older brother’s or father’s clothes that are at least a size too big.
Of course, unless the author specifically tells us otherwise I choose to play my mc as having some, or perhaps many, of the issues of a “survivor”, whereas others might not.
Whereas my mc really can’t, though I’d be curious to know what you think that would like. rags fashioned out of silk?
Keep in mind that my mc simultaneously pushes hard against both the current Hegemonic caste and class system as well as the old Shayardene one as he also isn’t fighting this thing to merely become a penniless sharecropper in a “new Shayard”.
@Havenstone this appearance talk does remind me of another thing and I don’t know if it’s been asked before (if it was I couldn’t find it) but do their owners tattoo or brand their helots/drudges?
If so removing those marks along with any old scars from the overseers and alastor’s “punishments” is one thing that, in contrast to the clothes, my mc would consider “wasting” some blood on in the future in order to rid himself of them.
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Happily, so Zavd for one strikes me as the professional soldier/bandit type. His reaction to loot ah la Owlscap raid leaves me with the impression that he appreciates the finer things in life and should he come into disposable income he would certainly partake of some luxuries.
Elery for another seems very taken with the MC a top a ::gasp:: horse. I can certainly see her taking on the accoutrements for a high ranking military officer -horse, bejeweled sabre, and fancy uniform included - as the rebellion progresses.
I would also say that in general the helots have shown and eye for looting which indicates an appreciation for the value of loots. Once disposing of said loots is not critical for items towards the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy I would not at all be surprised to hear them being pretty dang butthurt that they must only be wrapped in olive drab…
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Ah but, correct me if I’m mistaken, but wasn’t Zvad a “free” yeoman before becoming a bandit? If so he’d have been far less brutalized by the Hegemony’s nobles then most helots are.
So you think that Elery would want to become (like) one of those foppish, prancing and perpetually smug and smirking “noble” cavalry officers? Interesting speculation, if it’s true then I guess my mc will need to have a “talk” with her at some point in the future.
But when does the mc ever get on a horse? That must be something that only happens for noble mc’s in the first place, right? To be honest I haven’t played a noble mc in this game for years now.
Sadly, this is likely to be somewhat true however since it will take a very long time to even reach the “esteem” parts of that pyramid, considering just how difficult physiology and safety are going to be, though you’re right just drab olive may be a little too little, what if we add dull “regulation” grey, taupe and “rust” orange to the range of acceptable uniform colours as well, eh? 
On a more serious note my mc is not immune from the “esteem” part himself though he’d likely want to get that esteem mostly for his magical and intellectual accomplishments. As far as getting esteem for something physical goes he might want to practice mens sana in corpore sano and it wouldn’t be too difficult to go from just getting rid of any (disfiguring) tattoos/brands and the most severe scars to turning (or at least trying to) his body into a shrine to masculine perfection, with a little magical assistance.
Which, ironically would likely make him just as bad as some of the Hegemony’s more “elite” theurges (unless they lost the Greek appreciation for the body at the same time they got the nudity taboo of course) when it comes to that. However, unlike with Hector Keriatou and his overseers, my mc didn’t have any real contact with them so any condemnations of those people he has would be far more abstract and not associated with some of his most severe psychological issues.
And far be it from me to gainsay the psychological motivations of your MC. I just don’t think he should be too surprised when the other helots aren’t quite so susceptible to his eccentricities, and behave a bit more like the self-interested, non-ideological humans we find the world over regardless of circumstances.
Sure, you still haven’t answered my other question though, where in this game, besides the “noble” prologue does the mc ever ride a horse (in the presence of Ellery)?
True I suppose though I wouldn’t be surprised of some of the “survivor” helots would, like my mc, prefer to back out of getting their damned fancy clothes properly fitted, which means that they will look (and feel) foolish in them.
If the MC leads and takes Elery with them on the telon “persuasion” raid, and chooses to light the alastor barracks on fire as the distraction for the murder of the two alastor guards at the beginning of the raid they will have the option of riding the alastor captain’s horse away. A helot with 2 COM leaves the biggest impression on her.
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Ah, I see and I shouldn’t have been surprised, Elery has an affinity for combat/military things after all, whereas my mc has a COM stat of zero.
Not wanting to eat every horse you see does not mean you harbor a secret desire to become a member of the upper class. You are the only person that thinks that way.
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I have very unfortunate news Username, it seems that Hector not only spoke the same tongue as you…he was a human as well! How such a despicable being such as he became a human I cannot say. But with this information out there some heretics and malcontents could say that because of this shared human heritage you resemble one another. Preposterous I know but there is some truth to the words. He had a face you have a face. He had two arms and legs you have two arms and legs…What will you do? You’ve sought to destroy all signs of nobility and their ilk but you still share the same form as they do. The people are beginning to wonder if they’re not following another Hector in a different form.
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Perhaps, but my experience with survivors of some pretty horrible shit IRL is quite the opposite. Many of the soldiers and Afghan civilians I worked with were on the wrong side of one war/fued or other over the last 30 years if they were even that old. Their desire to be demonstrative with their newfound status as ANA soldiers or big shots in the Marjah community was borderline pathological. Golden AKs the works with guys like Hajji Bazgul, local warlord, while guys like my 1stSgt who fought for like litterally whoever seemed to be winning at the moment was dumping his money into a dream home in Kabul that was an endless source of misery and familial infighting for him. Your average Aghan Joe could not be more pleased with themself if there was occasion to wear their dress uniform which evokes the Soviets strongly:
Finally your block elder/local white beard always had to have a gold watch or something like that to identify themselves as a man of import.
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