I am actually gonna convince him, although if you are a painter could you offer to do him a ‘masterpiece’ since he seems to be self-centered and so would love a painting from the last Master painter.
I was gonna kill him from the beginning because I knew he was gonna insult my race when I came through the door, so yeah if I get rid of him I just hope the guards won’t mind having to clean up the blood.
Not I, I could tell from the poverty of his people that the king couldn’t care less about the welfare of his people, so his being an ass can hardly count as a surprise.
My strategy: Try to convince him to surrender, if that doesn’t work, it’s stabbity stab time. But if he does surrender I’m telling the general to replace him immediately.
I imagine this scene if you use seduce.
You finally arrive home.
Syphel grins “So I see you used your skills against the king…”
"It was an unexpected action from you but you did well, the general didn’t tell me how much of a success the mission was though."Gillien chimes in.
Syphel’s face lights up.
“Why don’t we ask the king?”
@CS_Closet I’m not sure if I understand correctly, but people from the Ehl Imperium are apparently from somewhere in Asia, and are decades in advance in technology when compared to the Empire.
China had invented gunpowder at least a millenium ago, and there are talks of bamboo bazookas that came soon afterwards, named the cloud-spearing arrows.
So, if my professor has a high intelligence, would he be able to create a custom weapon? Because it would be so awesome to be able to tote a miniature cannon around with my professor.
@Wyrmspawn I also thought that the Ehl Imperium were meant to be Asian (obviously metaphorically, not actually Asians who have been teleported into another world). I wonder if they could ever invade the Empire? @CS_Closet have you considered an invasion, it would work well if you were on the side of the rebels…
The idea of a custom weapon is a good one, but maybe get a professional blacksmith to do it, with you drawing out the plans? You may have to keep it secret, as if the Empire started mass producing them, or any other organisation for that matter, it could be… interesting, to say the least. Maybe the Elf woman from the bar (why am I so bad with names?) could make it for you, if she likes you enough? It may be a bit OP though…
The Ehl Imperium has existed for a very long time and absorbed a lot of different places into it, so part of it would be Asian-esque, I guess. Anyway, I don’t see why technology should be limited to developing in the same order as it did on Earth. Had Asylia not fallen, they would’ve likely developed pneumatic cannons, something that would have skipped the entire “gunpowder” phase of technology. But, I guess that’s not the point.
With advances in technology comes ever-increasing levels of specialization. People in the Ehl Imperium can focus on one specific area of knowledge because everything else that they need would be readily available for them. I highly doubt a linguistics professor would know anything about gunpowder aside from where to buy bullets from.
@Redgrave
The Imperium invade the Empire? It’s an inevitability that the two meet. How well that would go is really the question, though. I’ve thoroughly considered the effects of an invasion from Ehl, though I’m not including much about it in this game.
I plan on having Nil possibly make the PC a weapon, but it wouldn’t be a unique type. It’d probably be a major upgrade of what they already have.
You’re not alone, I get asian off of the Ehl Imperium too. Of course since the game says nothing about the shape of the MC’s eyes I suppose the skin could be any skin color obviously not from around there: Middle Eastern dusky, or even African dark just off the top of my head.
And that’s if the author is limiting the game to realistic ethnic types. Perhaps the citizens of Ehl are green or purple. 
And human nature being what it is, an invasion by the Ehl Imperium is easy to envision, especially since they have guns and the locals don't.
Although the author talking about throwing daggers and a hidden dagger is making me think of how funny it would be if the mild mannered linguistics professor is basically a ninja. lol
Personally I’ve always imagined the Ehl skintone to be Middle Eastern dusky, to contrast caucasian skintone I’ve imagined the empire to have, since everyone seems to be side eyeing the professor’s coloring rather than features. Though I can see where everyone is getting Asian from, especially with all gunpowder and whatnot.
But I love how Ehl seems so wonderfully steampunk. I mean airships! Yes please!`
@CS_Closet You’ve been collecting the stats people submit, right? What kind of distribution of the backgrounds have you seen? It seems from the comments like there are a lot of people that play the Ehl background; is that true from the data you’ve seen as well? Or is it a fairly even spread?
@CS_Closet knowing the empire, it seems likely that they would want to expand, and try to take over! They certainly seem like that, at least. I always think of Dain as similar to Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars…
the problem with the custom weapon is that characters like my Mara don’t have training or use weapon so my character lost a reward maybe something different like a enchanted amulet or a horse because my Mara go sell the useless weapon in any chance she have
@Nocturnal_Stillness You know Mara well :-)) a poisonus lipstick could be awesome but she has to be careful to not poison Dain
You mentioned before there will be more background related scenes later in the game. What chapter do you plan to include them?
It’s fascinating reading all of these comparisons between the Ehl and existing places. I really did just leave the skin coloration open to interpretation so that readers could envision whatever they feel comfortable with. Seeing such diverse views makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
@timaeus
The Ehl origin does come up pretty often. A rough breakdown of what I get in:
Ehl: 31%
Monaire: 30%
Sedel: 15%
Capel: 12%
Asylia: 12%
I would guess that those results (in part, anyway) have to do with the way the choice of origins is presented.
@Redgrave
I think they have different ambitions, but there are certain similarities. Dain would probably need a better reason than “because he can” to try and take over the Imperium, whereas the Imperium would try to take over something just because it’s there. Ehl would likely be the initiators in that conflict.
@MaraJade
I was using the special weapons and combat abilities to balance out the fact that a combat-oriented character is far more likely to die than a non-combative character. It wasn’t meant as an advantage, just another goal for a different style of play to try to improve the odds of surviving.
The poison lipstick does give me a good idea for a non-combat special ability, though. :-"
@Nocturnal_Stillness
The major origin-based scenes are in Chapter 6, assuming you’re still in the Empire at that point.
@CS_Closet a scenario with Ehl meeting Dain’s empire reminds me of the Spanish meeting the Aztecs for some reason… Both feature a powerful, technologically advanced nation against a weaker nation defending their land. Also, both the Spanish and the Ehl have guns. Although, Syphel and the MC (Reaver Boris Johnson in my case!) would be a pretty unstoppable team, fistfighting the gunslingers one by one?
I always thought of the empire as something like the Roman empire. With pre-emptive expansion policies, to attack first, and all that. So, it could be a reason for the Empire to conquer the Imperium. Also, the Roman Empire made it a point to absorb the military knowledge of places they conquer. Dain could want a firearm of his own.
Dain: I heard your people have powerful cannons.
Me: yes.
Dain: Alright, that’s too powerful and dangerous. What if they attack us? Destroy the Imperium, and take their cannons.
I would expect Dain to be the instigator since the original purpose of the Ehl voyage seemed to be peaceful in nature. The empire on the other hand seems to have a preemptive strike policy while giving the nations a chance to join peacefully. In my mind Dain would see the superior technology of the Ehl and quickly start finding countermeasures, most likely in the form of stealing the technology as quietly as possible and equipping Imperial forces with it. Then give Ehl the usual join us peacefully option and after that is rejected he would go to war.
Malacanth, that plan would take quite a while to work. One can’t just steal a bit of technology, you need to be able to reverse engineer it, and you need the infrastructure to mass produce the technology.
Dain’s empire seems to be strictly medieval, even if someone from Ehl just handed Dain the complete works of steampunk awesomeness it would take him years to catch up.
And of course, that assumes that Ehl will be technologically stagnant during that period of time, and even if Dain manages it for all we know the Imperium outnumbers the Empire, and their soldiers will have years more experience using their steampunk weapons and vehicles.
So Dain would have to have some serious fate manipulation up his sleeve to counteract that, which I suspect he does.
I guess in an Empire Imperial War we’d get to see if it’s better to be lucky or good.