Uprising against the Verdant Lords (small update 12/9)

Hey, a monarchy can end with us on the throne. A republic… yeah, I don’t think mediaeval times were the best for those, certainly not on a large scale.

Everyone was a fashion disaster in the Middle Ages. Especially the rich (have you taken a look at the sorts of shoes they wore?).

She’d probably already be married at 14…

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A modern conception of those times then, like the Game of Thrones TV adaptation, which aged up the younger characters by two years on average to make it more palatable to our modern palettes.
Justify it by the fact that this world isn’t ours and marriage traditions evolved differently, including “consent” of the bride.

In the real ones, sure but they were no fun. In Song of Ice and Fire and its Game of Thrones tv adaption there are some characters who are decent, like say Loras Tyrell, Joffrey of all people and (implied in the books) Rhaegar Targaryen.
But, yeah it probably wasn’t easy and requires a personal tailor and bootmaker who can work to your specifications. :sweat_smile:
However fashionable characters are surprisingly common in medieval/renaissance fiction, including some of the other games and wip’s with a vaguely medieval-ish setting around here.

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Citizens - as the Romans did … citizens vs non-citizens; is one choice…

You can also set it up like the Dutch did… they are the closest historical example to your “business” citizens. or the Hansa League … use their structure in Hamburg and other guild-led cities…

They could be part of acceptable “Families” like Venice was for hundreds of years (like Mafia too)

Well, we are 7 and she is going out to the river beyond the adult fields for the first time so I guess she is 14-15ish Although the relationship with us would work better as a 12 so she’d be closer in age and thus more adversarial

So 12-15 in age.

Sure they were: Venice, Genoa and Amilfi just they were “Noble” Republics with participation limited to certain first-Families …

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Not bloody likely, I would think.
There already is a “royal” family claiming the throne. Even if they did make our family the new royal family that wouldn’t help us much as the real royal family would in that case likely be our distant urban relations. Who would “represent” us as much then as they do now. Being an impoverished cadet branch would be even less fun than being poor peasants.
Even if it was our immediate family then it would be our father, mother and older siblings before us.

But let’s say we do gain the throne, then what?
Is our mc even remotely qualified to rule anything, can we even read? I would want to be more then a glorified rubber stamp or pr. guy.
Lastly always relevant for me personally is the gay thing. Needing a “wife” to have biological children in order to be perceived as “legitimate” would take all the fun out of it anyway. :unamused:

In any case we are a peasant, possibly an illiterate peasant and they seldom make peasants royalty and my mc would be a poor lackey.

Which is what I thought this “Republic” would be too, a merchant or noble republic with participation and franchise limited to certain noble, or patrician families, not the unwashed masses.

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Well, find a cute (gay) prince, get him on the throne, have adopted babies declared as legally valid as heirs as biological children, live happily ever after. :grin: (Until your rivals overthrow and murder you and your boytoy…)

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Hah, so what does your mc plan to then, oh great and noble @ParrotWatcher? :stuck_out_tongue:
Hide who he really is and marry silly girl?

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Ew. No, why would anyone do that? But he’d probably be okay with a simple life living with his multiple boyfriends.

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Sigh, you can be hopeless sometimes @ParrotWatcher :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Since our mc is already living the simple life, you’re basically saying all you are going to is look for boyfriend(s), way to go apolitical. :rolling_eyes:

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I wouldn’t get too caught up in thinking like Medieval Europe or even Game of Thrones, which follows a pretty European model… if Laghuna ends up feeling too European, that would mean that I failed in my intentions…

Without intervening, the only significant uprising is the pro-monarchy one. (It’s sort of the French Revolution flipped on its head, with the peasants supporting a king and the elites supporting a republic.) The king in question does have the support of the peasants in Laghuna, who form nearly his entire army; he promises to protect them against the abuses of the lords. There’s also secret societies and looters and general rioters and even a cult who aren’t really part of the uprising but are still contributing to the general collapse.

I would like the main character to be able to get an alternative rebellion going, or influence a faction of the main one. We’ll see how much I’m able to write. Trying to get some sort of peasant republic would be a much greater challenge than anything else.

But yeah, I included populism/elitism and monarchism/republicanism as distinct stats for this reason :slight_smile:

Don’t worry, she’s only a rival if you make her one. As far as hand-me-downs go, though, you’re wearing clothes that were originally Big Brother’s end then became Big Sister’s and are only now yours :stuck_out_tongue:

I haven’t entirely worked out the fashion aesthetic yet. The default for peasants is a shirt plus leggings, for both male and female. (The difference is mostly in accessories.) The rich are likely to be similar, but more elaborate. Most clothes are fitted, but some sort of poncho might be available.

I am looking at late teens as typical age for marriage, which is usually arranged. Big Brother’s marriage is in the planning stages, as you will see when you get back from the marsh. With Big Sister they may be considering candidates but it’ll be a few years before they take the plunge. The main character will have an arranged marriage plotline, though you can choose to go along with this or repudiate it as much as you wish (including for gay reasons :wink: ).

All good points… now that you bring up the Roman model, there’s also the term “patrician,” which has a good similarity to the overall social status.

I was aiming for something toward the younger end of that range, so I may have written her a little mature. Though she may try to put on a bit more of a mature face in front of her younger sibling. I could write her a bit different in other contexts. Hmm.
(Big Brother will be a few years older than her.)

The first Emperor of the Ming dynasty started out as a peasant. Take note of the “closest historical analogues” in my first post.
There’s also good old-fashioned lying about your ancestry.
I will say no more :zipper_mouth:

At seven? No.
After I finish all the age seven stuff, you’ll get to pick what kind of education you want. They have better public education than Medieval Europe. It is more similar to what the Aztecs had. Communities have schooling available for all children, though for most it is fairly low-level vocational stuff. However, if someone’s smart they could get more scholarly classes (I am assuming if the player wants to choose that, the main character has the ability). It still won’t be as fancy as anything that rich people get, but it would include basic literacy. Alternatively, you could get a martial education, or train under a healer or a seer.

Ooh, now I get to talk about family structure.

Back at the dawn of history in the Verdant Realm (when the only government body was the Assembly of Families, which only included a few families at all), they traced descent exclusively through the female line. As time went on, powerful men often wanted their own sons to inherit, and they conquered a lot of patrilineal peoples, so this became a lot more flexible. Nowadays, lower classes still usually trace descent through the mother’s line, though if a woman has only sons, they will usually keep at least one in the family. Wealthy men often keep their sons in the family and name them as heirs, but they don’t feel as much pressure to need sons.

So as long as you have a matrilineal line of relatives, no one’s really going to care if you’re not making babies.

In ancient times, marriage was pretty flexible, allowing groups and same-sex couples and so forth, as long as someobody’s procreating. Nowadays it is pretty much the norm that someone of the opposite sex should be involved, but a main character with a good deal of classicism can point to historical precedent (and a main character with a good deal of innovation doesn’t care :stuck_out_tongue: )

This is the way it works in practice, just not in theory :slight_smile:

This playstyle will be supported :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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So, what is the level of acceptance at? Fully accepted, allowed but frowned upon, or burn the deviants? (Please not the last one.)

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Largely accepted. Laghuna culture is more heteronormative than homophobic. It varies by social group and religious leanings, though. In ancient and classical times, homosexual relationships were considered fully normal and could marry and everything. People with classicist leanings, as tend to be the case for the elite (the republic’s government is modeled after classical times), are likely to think this way today. The empire to the northwest, which ruled the area a couple centuries ago, was stricter, and some people who favor them, or who practice their religion, have more disapproval, though more along the lines of grumbling than full-on hatred. The MC’s family would be fine with him having a husband or two, but would be disappointed if your character doesn’t also want to marry the wife they pick out for him.

Although Verdant-derived cultures tend to be pretty flexible on the marriage front where it comes to polygamy/group marriage and same-sex marriage, that doesn’t mean they’re totally liberal about relationships, however. They strongly disapprove of adultery, premarital relations, and they consider incest to include anyone in the same family lineage, no matter how distant the connection.

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What is your concept then?

Well you may know me, I love that sort of challenge, to go from a Republic, even if it is an aristocratic dominated one back to a monarchy is the worst form of governmental regression, so disappointed in my own country over that, even though we were more or less forced to by the great powers of the time. :cry:
Though it need not be a peasant republic, just a more inclusive one than they have currently going on.

:scream::cold_sweat::anguished:
Society definitely needs the modern loom and better cotton, wool, leather and/or silk production then. If my mc ever gets the disposable income any of those would make for great investment opportunities.

All lies. :unamused:
Even if they aren’t the nature of absolute monarchy is such that one of his successors is bound to become a worse tyrant then the lords of the republic are now.

Like the unisex aspects, much like XoR, but what are they doing for footwear, I guess in any case the mc doesn’t actually own any nice boots?

The horror. :fearful:

Legalizing gay marriage and adoption will definitely be core tenets/demands of my mc’s rebellion then.

Good, so we’ll at least be able to get the basics down. Still unlike the rich kids I assume we will have to teach ourselves management/politics and most etiquette, or what passes for it in any case.

Are knowledge of the classics of history and innovation necessarily opposed here? As usually in order to innovate we stand on the shoulders of the metaphorical giants who came before in order to keep what works (for us) and discard what doesn’t (anymore).

So poly is fully legal and supported then? Still they are going to have to be disappointed as my mc really doesn’t swing that way. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Well, I know what your MC needs to do with himself, then. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: World’s first fashion designer.

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This:

I deliberately wanted to make neither of the main factions be clearly “the good guys” :smiley:
I do want to include ways for you to attempt the challenge. I’ll just see how much I can manage to write :sweat_smile:
Your best bets would be getting your own side of the uprising going, or attempting to reform the republic from within. The latter would be even harder but not quite as dangerous.

I didn’t have any loom-related plans, but the spinning wheel has been invented… it just hasn’t spread to the republic yet.

This is exactly the conversation I was planning on having it be possible to have with certain other characters :smile:

Oh yeah, XoR is on my reading list, just haven’t gotten to it :slight_smile:
At seven you have no footwear. Wait until you don’t keep outgrowing them!

The government doesn’t regulate marriage. Gay marriage isn’t illegal, there’s just some social pressure that at least someone of the opposite sex should be involved, which mostly comes from the family level.

Adoption is iffier, since orphans theoretically should find some relative in the extended family to take care of them. There is some ancient precedent, however, typically involving wealthy people adopting capable commoners. You could certainly find some support for that.

Pretty much.

Um, hmm. Well, I was planning on tracking innovation/classicism as an opposed stat that represents whether you value ancient tradition or new ways as the sources for how to live. Knowledge of history or the classics would be tracked as a skill. Does that work for you, do you think?

Yes. It has been part of Verdant culture since ancient times and never challenged. I mean, the majority of people only marry one other person, especially for peasants (wealthy men are notorious for having many wives), but nobody would look askance at alternatives. The village healer has two husbands.

The romance options will vary in how poly/mono they are and what other romance options they’d get along with, though.

Honestly, introducing the spinning wheel would help free the peasants’ time and give them more economic power, which he could leverage for his desired revolution…
…why do you guys have to give me so much more to write when I haven’t even finished the first scene yet? :sweat_smile:

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Well maybe not designer, but innovator of more modern garment production, certainly. Probably need to become both a livestock “baron” and invent the modern loom and cotton gin, or the more modern silk production techniques, depending on the climate. Also the rich probably already have enough small-time fashion designers, as basically every high-end tailor and bootmaker used to be one by sheer necessity.
That should also make him wealthy enough to the point where it would definitely be in his best interest to side with some sort of republic over the capricious “nobles” of an absolute or feudal monarchy.

The spinning wheel is but the beginning. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Might prefer silk production in addition to the cattle, hmmm…silk and leather, a divine combination. :yum:

Yep, that works as my mc would still be able to use the parts he needs of them to innovate his own ideas on government, society and technology.

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You’ll find feudal monarchies in the rainforests to the far southeast. The wannabe king is more absolutist and not particularly into appointing nobles.

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My MC will become Empress.

We’ll need to see your world building to really help you with this but so far, it seems you have a grasp on historical societal retrospects and so I don’t doubt you have the ability.

Now, we readers will draw on our earth knowledge so, even if you had the Star Wars Republic magically appear on the moon, we’d still see it in terms of our history.

That’s ok. you can still take something and then own it and make it your own; that is what we story-tellers do.

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Hello, Eiwynn!!

So you say, frequently, from XoR to Modern Majesty, to some others I forget now, to this game. :stuck_out_tongue:

Well, like I said, all lies then those promises,if our would-be King is not even into sharing his power with his own elites, how can we expect him to take us peasants seriously. Which is certainly something my mc might say when speaking our against the monarchist uprising. :wink:

You know, this is beginning to sound a bit like the current state of a certain major real-world nation… Is acceptance of homosexuality correlated with which side you support?

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Yup. so I do. :clap: