This game certainly sounds interesting!
But they don’t revolt(at least not to our knowledge) they only defect. That’s not an option because the only way out is an area very similar to the DMZ, the Disputed Lands.
Which leads us to this:
The Imperial Religion
The Goldblood Empire worships an “Emperor of the Heavens”. The clergy say he is all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful. But he is not merciful and forgiving. Far from it. There are a couple different versions of the religion taught to different castes.
The Serf Version: The serf version preaches faithful service to one’s masters until death(or freedom), literacy is one of the gravest sins, and as a reward for remaining faithful and obedient to one’s masters, they shall be free and want for nothing once they die(The man who came up with the Imperial Religion didn’t actually believe it and this is a bit of dark humor on his part, because how could a dead man not be free or want for anything?). But if they rebel or even plot rebellion, they shall be eternally crucified in Oblivion(which is why the Goldbloods crucify people so much)
The Freeman and Freeholder Version:
The serf version with a few differences, namely the whole “serve your masters” thing is omitted and replaced with a part about how the Goldbloods are superior in every way, and that their rule is divinely ordained.
The Goldblood Version:
The entire book of Commandments is replaced with a book of Rights, they are told that they are the divinely ordained rulers of all that is earthly and thus they should conquer and subjugate the world and all of it’s peoples(There are no Goldbloods except in the Empire), and that they are genetically superior to the common people.
I can only imagine what your XoR helot would say about that.
Absolutely.
There isn’t one.
The gender-lock exists, not only because of the prohibition on women leading, but because it would be a very different story if the MC was female. You’re welcome to debate this with me, but don’t expect me to lift the gender-lock.
Most freemen or holders have been part of that caste for generations. And it’s not so much a lack of empathy as it is fear.
I should mention that the state military operates under a Goldblood only commissions policy.
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So, as your title suggests, this is a feudal simulator, where are the duchies, counties, baronies and granting someone the title of viceroy of the disputed lands and such?
Oh, all of those exist. And there already is a Viceroy of the Disputed Lands. (And it’s not a very prestigious position, given that the Disputed Lands is essentially a minefield with both sides conducting endless chévauchee on it’s people(apart from the Viceroy, there are no Goldbloods in the Disputed Lands)) Also, in the Goldblood peerage, a Duke is not the highest non-Imperial peerage.
Freeholders, armed with rifles and skilled in their use, through long years of practice.
You have around eighty of them, assembled in a loose skirmish order, for they have no training and are only accustomed to skirmish. They are highly experienced in camouflage and improvising weapons.
So, our freeholders are experienced and skilled, but have no training. How is that possible?
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Hunting and skirmishing with bandits and enemy forces(Goldbloods go to war with each other all the time) but because they are a levy force, they don’t get trained.
That’s one thing if they didn’t have advanced training, but no training at all? They have to train with rifles at some point, even if it’s something like “an older freeholder trains young apprentice to hunt” and not “were drilled a lot in the army”.
In short, something like “they only have basic training” would look more believable to me, rather than “they have no training, but are very skilled”.
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Oh, they do that. I’ll see about making that clearer.
Also, what do you think of the lore?
Seems interesting so far.
While it doesn’t follow real history, it does remind me of some real societies, like Russian Empire before abolishment of serfdom, France before the revolution, and US before abolishment of slavery.
I found it strange that all the factory serfs are male.
A lot of potential for interesting conflict in the plot.
Summary
I mean, most of the population is horribly opressed, which can lead to the uprising; there are freeholders who own more land than some landed Goldbloods do - they could want more political power in addition to land and wealth; their heir-choosing process can lead to intrigue and war; they are already at war for some disputed land; their society requires more people with edication and engineering skills in order to technologically advance and gain better weapons.
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The Goldbloods think (serf, no Goldblood would be caught dead doing manual labour) men are better at manual labour, and they deem factory work in need of more skill than farm work.
Can it ever. The current Empress got into power after a succession war which killed a quarter of the Goldblood Empire’s entire population. And twenty-thousand Goldbloods, numbers which they’ve only just replenished.
Note that there is about twenty of them, and all of them got that land due to how loyal they were to their lords(they can give freeholders more land than they already have.)
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on how we think people would respond to those levels of oppression.
I guess part of the reason I just don’t really get the setting is because it’s said that it’s technologically advanced, in some ways even more so than our own world. So I just kind of assume those things would’ve been invented, but not used, which sounds like moustache twirling levels of douchbaggery, being an asshole for the sake of just being one, even if it hurts you too. I didn’t really imagine that those machines might’ve just never been invented in the first place.
I think it would help though if the author could explain which technologies the empire did develop because I just really struggle with picturing what the empire looks like on that front, obviously. 
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Well forgive me if I am repeating some of the same questions. For one when you say the serfs are “slave labor” do you mean they are working in the fields or do you mean they are doing whatever their master tells them? My second question is there any laws limiting how masters can treat serfs, or can they do whatever they want with their serfs? My third question is how graphic will the battle scenes be, and I think it would be interesting if you explore the divisions between the population and how that effects the Empire. If you want to make it a bit dark you could show how everyone of “higher birth” looks down upon the serfs and the freemen and treat them (especially the serfs) like dirt. My next question is will there be a court/political system in the game?
Loredump incoming…
The Peerage
From lowest to highest, here is the Goldblood peerage.
The Masters: They usually have fifty acres of farmland, a serf village, a manor, at least two freeholder families on their estate, a factor(a literate and numerate Freeman who manages the checkbook, the day to day stuff, the taxes and runs the estate when there are no Goldbloods) and some house serfs in employment. They are always vassals of a more high ranking peer. They don’t actually count as peers(If they did, the percentage of Goldbloods who were peers would be massively higher) and there are plenty of Goldbloods who own a Mastery, but have never been to it and left it to the factor to run. Also, half-Goldbloods can hold a Mastery, which means that the number of Masters is higher than the number of Goldbloods.
The Lords: They usually have hundreds of acres of land, multiple villages, a large manor, at least ten freeholders, several factors, a Master or two as vassals, a full household of serfs and a man-at-arms or two.
The Barons: They usually have 1000-4000 acres of land, around fifteen villages, a town, a fortified manor, a factor for each village and three for each town, tens of freeholders, a couple of Masters as vassals, a household with serfs in the junior positions and freemen in the senior positions, and a couple men-at-arms.
The Viscounts: They usually have 3000-10000 acres of land, tens of villages, two to four towns, a fortified compound, tens of factors, 100-300 freeholders, a Lord or two as vassals, ten Masters, an all Freeman household, a houseguard of twenty to forty men-at-arms.
The Counts: They usually have 10000-20000 acres of land, 100-200 villages, four to eight towns, a large fortified compound, at least a hundred factors, 300-600 freeholders, maybe a Viscount as a vassal, one or two Barons, a couple Lords, tens of Masters, an all Freeman household, and a houseguard of forty to eighty men-at-arms.
The Earls: They usually have 20000-100000 acres, 200-1000 villages, 8-40 towns, generally a small fortress, (I’ll stop listing factors now because they would be under vassal control), 600-3000 freeholders, perhaps a Count vassal, one or two Viscounts, a couple Barons, 8-20 Lords, 100-500 Masters, a Freeman household with Goldbloods filling the major positions, a houseguard of 80-300 men-at-arms.
The Dukes: They usually have 100000-600000 acres, thousands of villages, tens of towns, a major population centre, a fortress, thousands of freeholders, maybe an Earl vassal, a couple Counts, around ten Viscounts, tens of Barons, 100-200 Lords, 500-3000 Masters, a household of Freemen with Goldbloods filling the senior roles, a houseguard of hundreds of men-at-arms, maybe even a few professional soldiers.
The Kings: They usually have 800000-2000000 acres, 10000-24000 villages, 100-300 towns, a few major population centres, one or two cities, a large fortress, tens of thousands of freeholders, a Duke vassal, a couple Earls, ten Counts, tens of Viscounts, 100-200 Barons, 300-800 Lords, 3000-10000 Masters, a household of Freemen with Goldbloods in the senior roles, a houseguard of 1000-3000, with a smattering of professional soldiers.
The High Kings: They usually have 2000000-6000000 acres, tens of thousands of villages, 300-1000 towns, around ten major population centres, two to five cities, a massive fortress, 100000-300000 freeholders, a couple Dukes, ten Earls, tens of Counts, 100-200 Viscounts, 200-400 Barons, 500-1500 Lords, 10000-30000 Masters, a household of freemen with Goldbloods in the senior roles, a houseguard of 10000-30000, with a portion of them being professional soldiers.
They can be assigned to whatever role their master wants, but because the Goldblood Empire is quite agrarian, nearly all of the rural serfs work in the fields.
Serfs are property with no legal protections.
Sabres and Guns of Infinity would be a good baseline for how graphic the battle scenes are.
That will be one of the things I’ll be exploring.
I need to know what you mean by “political”, but there will be a court system, but it is Goldblood exclusive. Serfs get punished by their masters, with no evidence required, and freemen and freeholders get punished by the local lord.
This looks promising, but yeah setting our expectations right, the demo is really short, maybe you might have like posted this in the interest thread before posting in here, but hey great stuff.
Ok, here is a summarised recent history of the world, focused on the part the Goldbloods played in it.
History of the World
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Okay, four hundred years ago, in the year of 2606 we had the Peninsula of Ovtoria, a (relatively) small part of the world, and the current location of the Goldblood Empire.
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Around half of the world had invented the musket by then, but the Peninsula was not one of those places. They were using medieval technology up until 2800, when one of the civilizations that had achieved early modern technology established contact with them.
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On that peninsula, there were four major factions. The priesthood(note that this priesthood did not follow the current religion of the Goldblood Empire)(Also they were essentially feudal lords who owned serfs themselves), who stood as the dominant power for six hundred years. The Yeoman League, a loose group of farmers and landholders who were joined together by a mutual opposition to the priests’ harsh tariffs on farmers and landholders, which took ninety percent of their earnings, to be paid in coin by the landholders and kind by the farmers. The Trade League, a group of merchants and artisans who were nominal allies with the priesthood due to their very low(ten percent) tax rate on merchants and artisans, and opposed to the Yeoman League due to their proposal of an equal tax rate between the two. Also, another faction was emerging, made up of followers of the current religion of the Goldblood Empire. They were known as Goldbloods. They had a strong hatred towards the priesthood who they viewed as infidels, and peasants who needed to be put in their rightful place. They wanted power. And they were going to take it.
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In the year of 2612, the Goldbloods began an uprising, quickly winning the Trade League to their cause with promises of taxes for merchants and artisans being abolished once they reached power. The Yeoman League, having no love for the Goldbloods, or the current priesthood, adopted a stance of neutrality to the war. The serfs, who had lost their faith in the current religion at the time, didn’t really care to them this was just a change of owner. Some of them, the ones who thought the Goldbloods would win, rose up against their masters and handed over power of their lands to the Goldbloods. That was when the tradition of rewarding freedom and land to serfs that performed valuable deeds began. The members of these uprisings and their families were freed, with the leaders being given land. The war was quickly won, and a genocide of the priesthood began once victory was declared. The priests and their families were crucified along the roads(Which is where the whole “eternally crucified in Oblivion” thing comes from) with their tongues cut out so they could “speak no heresy”. The Trade League were not awarded tax exemptions, but there was little they could do, for the Goldbloods had spent a large amount of plundered wealth from the priesthood on hiring the mercenaries traditionally hired by the Trade League to destroy their meeting halls and kill their leaders. The Yeoman League got the same treatment, and both Leagues were destroyed in a year. It should be mentioned that serfdom then was far less harsh than it is currently, with it being closer to the medieval model.
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In 2800 a exploration fleet landed on the peninsula, bringing trade, firearms, and knowledge of other lands besides the peninsula and the nation above it. Luckily, this fleet was sent by one of the “nicer” powers, and so they did not attempt to colonize. What they did do was spread knowledge of democracy and human rights to the serfs.
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In 2805, a revolution started. The serfs rebelled, holding their masters hostage(they did other things as well, but this is a summarised history) until the Emperor agreed to hand over power to the people. He did, and the Ovtorian Constitution was signed by a coalition of serf leaders. The Goldbloods’ power was beaten down to ceremonial, the serfs were manumitted and allowed a vote. Contact and trade was established with the rest of the world, and the Empire(The Goldbloods were allowed to keep their old titles and the Emperor was allowed to be a figurehead ruler) of Ovtoria was one of the first members of the International League. (Tech by then had reached WW2 levels with the exception of nuclear weapons, which were still not invented)
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In the year of 2820, the fortress-city of Sungard was established as a safe haven and research facility for the Goldbloods.(Over 60000 Goldbloods were housed there, along with 200000 retainers) The government wanted the Goldbloods out of the capital(The reigning Emperor enjoyed interfering with politics and delighted in intrigue, having tried twice to re-establish the Goldbloods’ old power and killed the reigning President twice and the Minister of the Aristocrats(They were exclusively former serfs) five times), so they were forcibly relocated there, leaving only 500 who were not in Sungard.
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In the year of 2860(technology had reached 1990s levels by then), the Sungard Vaccination Program was launched, it was funded by the Emperor, and it impressed the world with it’s extreme effectiveness and relative cheapness.
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In the year of 2880, a terrible pandemic began. It was incredibly contagious and deadly, and half of the world had died and society had collapsed in infected areas when it reached the Peninsula of Ovtoria. It sent in there, and the Goldbloods called a general quarantine and retreated to Sungard(by that time six thousand Goldbloods had left Sungard). The plague was created by the scientific arm of the Goldbloods in Sungard, and the Emperor himself had ordered it released(His motive was to weaken the world for future conquest, and force Ovtoria to accept the Goldbloods as overlords. The plague ended the year after, and nineteen out of twenty people were dead, and the world was a mess of warlords and anarchy. Ovtoria got off relatively lightly, with only three-quarters of it’s population dead(A “kill switch” was implemented in the plague so the Emperor could make sure that it did not wipe out the world(He wanted a weakened, fragmented, terrified mess, easy to conquer and easy to control, not an empty wasteland) and he used that “kill switch” to make sure the plague did not destroy Ovtoria’s population to such small levels that he could not draw an army from it) and Sungard itself had suffered no casualties, apart from twenty men-at-arms killed when three thousand desperate Ovtorians tried to climb the city walls to escape the plague.
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In the year of 2881, the Peninsula of Ovtoria held it’s first re-election after the disease, due to most of the former cabinet members dying of it. The two parties were the Serfborn(Essentially a Worker’s Party), and the Dominion Party.(a very new party that advocated for a return to order at any cost) (Note that both parties and the Goldbloods tried to interfere with it and only citizens of the capital and second largest city got to vote in it, so it was hardly a fair election) was held and after a Goldblood assassination of both major candidates, which was successfully pinned on the other party twice. Civil war began after the Serfborn created a paramilitary wing and burned down the district in which the other party’s political base was located, and the Dominion Party retaliated by taking control of the second largest city and executing everyone who was known to have voted for the other party(They kept records of who voted for who in the Information Storage of every major city). The war quickly degenerated into savagery, and four years later, when an uneasy peace treaty was signed, ten million people had died or fled the country.
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In the year of 2885 the Goldbloods presented an ultimatum from Sungard. It ordered all citizens of Ovtoria to acknowledge the Goldbloods as their masters, or face destruction at the hands of the same plague that brought them down once before. The leaders of both factions sent envoys to determine whether they had caused the plague, and whether they could unleash it again. The envoys came back with proof. The leaders of both factions ordered their people to submit to the Goldbloods, lest they face death again.
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In the year of 2886, after they had issued the order, the people submitted. They were told that they would be treated no worse than they had been in the past, that they would be free under the Goldbloods. And the people believed them. After (most of) the Goldbloods and their retainers, grown to a population of 400000 retainers, and 70000 Goldbloods left the city to assert their authority over their newly given lands. The following five years were known as The Pacification of the Peasantry. It was a brutal time, as hundreds of thousands of serfs(Every member of the population who wasn’t a Goldblood or a retainer was a serf at the time) died at the hands of their masters(most often crucified) to “quash servile insurrection”(Note that one of the things which was punishable by crucifixion was teaching a serf how to read or write, and that’s why serfs are almost all illiterate when their distant ancestors were almost certainly literate) and millions more died of famine, disease(unrelated to the plague), and overwork. Every rebellion that started was quickly destroyed, the rebels in question (And any bystander who wasn’t a Goldblood) crucified on the roadside as a warning. Thus the Goldblood Empire was born. Sungard was made into the new capital, the old cities, damaged by war, were renamed(They were renamed once the serfs were manumitted to names like Freetown and Liberty, much to the annoyance of the Goldbloods) and given to powerful Goldbloods as seats of power.
Because I was “making it up as I go along” in the sense that before I wrote this history, apart from the plague and pacification I hadn’t worked out any of it, this has taken up most of my day, so I’ll be writing the history of the Goldblood Empire in full bloom later, something which I had completely figured out before I wrote this WiP.
Also, it’s come to my attention that people may find my putting explanations in brackets irritating so I made a poll.
- I think it’s a good idea.
- I really don’t care.
- It’s annoying, stop it.
0 voters
Population count time!
So, if 2606 year was 400 years prior to the game events, it’s 3006 now. The Peninsula of Ovtoria was a small part of the world.
Since 2880, several mass death events have occured, including a pandemic, pacification of serfs and several civil wars…
Current population should be about 48000000 people, according to the percentages you provided in your 1st post.
Average population growth per year in Medieval Europe ranged from −0,21 to 0,2%.
That means prior to these events (in 2880) the population of future Empire was about [does some formulas in Excel] 249-275 millions (if we include only deaths you gave numbers on and average population growth 0,1 - 0,2% per year).
You are completely correct.
And the world had around twenty billion people pre-pandemic. Currently they have two billion.
But a fairly populous one, and despite the current semi-civil war(It’s considered perfectly legal for a Goldblood to raise an attack force and go to a neighboring lord’s serf village, kill or take his serfs, hold the local factor for ransom, burn the fields, and kill his freeholders. It’s not common, mostly because the “juice isn’t worth the squeeze” even if serfs are taken, and they will have to deal with that lord doing the same thing to their villages.) it’s actually less chaotic than almost every other country.
That’s a lot of chaos and deaths.
So, do the people of this world still know Goldbloods manufactured the plague, or is it more “The people were punished by divine plague for their sins of practicing heretical democracy”?
The myth preached to serfs and freemen is that the Emperor in power during the plague and his chief scientist were incarnations of the Emperor of the Heavens and his lieutenant. So a bit of both really.
Goldbloods know it was them and due to their religion saying that the world is their birthright and commoners should be subservient to them, it and the pacification are looked upon as the right thing to do in that situation.
Edit: Also, it’s looked upon as an example of what happens to serfs who rebel, and the hanging shadow of a second plague serves to discourage revolt.