Bay 12 Games Forum

I imagine that more specific information about the party and their own thoughts and feelings might be helpful. I could probably put that together tomorrow if we would prefer that additional information.
Otherwise, i'll just include that in a larger post moving the story forward.

The world is a broken place, and those living there do not even know it any longer. The old worlders were rulers of their entire world, but they underestimated its ability to hurt them. Volcanic activity, tectonic shifts, continent wide flooding, and violently seesawing weather were all problems that maybe the old worlders could have handled if they had come one at a time, but they didn't. So, splinter factions began to compete for those resources which might allow them to preserve themselves in limited numbers, but not everyone could be saved, and so desperation drove people to extreme lengths. Weapons of scale unimaginable in current times were used to gain leverage, to threaten, and to secure resources. As things got worse and people grew even more desperate it was only a matter of time until those weapons were actually used, dooming the last efforts of a civilization to save some remnant of its own self.
It was not however, the end. Infrastructure may not have survived, but people did. Through trial and error, they learned the new rules of this new world. As time passed, that world would begin to thrive again, in its own way.

The Old World does have its Caretakers however, magicians rendered inhuman by their proximity to wonders which cannot be comprehended by mere men. It is they who study and safegaurd the Animus, the force of ancients. Most treat them with a mix of reverence and distrust.

Stage Three

-Might as well reserve this just in case-

Blegh. I'd like to find out what's at the end of this trip, but we probably shouldn't leave our pawns unattended for a full month this early.

Quote

you allow Princess Ni'gwent to indulge her fantasy of ushering in a new elfish paradigm through the children you will give her

On the bright side, our elven bride is showing appropriate ambition. We should get to work on marrying her and producing the future pinnacle of elvenkind.


Let's decline the tiefling's offer, and instead take the outdoorsy elf on an adventure to one of the cave entrances. We can explore, hopefully pick up some sweet loot, and get the elf's opinion on local resources.

We should especially keep an eye out for wedding materials. While it's unlikely we'll find the ingredients for an elvish engagement ring in the middle of a cave, hope springs eternal and we're not going to find them just sitting around either.

I'll +1 the general sentiments here, but i have some thoughts to share.

I think that we should deliberately allow the Tiefling Cultists to expose themselves to risks in their journeys throughout the continent, in a canary in a coalmine approach to exploration. They are by far the most difficult to control, and allowing them to stretch themselves thin in their efforts to kill their god might mitigate some of the threat they pose.

I would consider sending a eugenics tiefling on each of the cultist tieflings missions of exploration. The logic for that specific choice is that those tieflings are likely much more amenable to passing information on to us, and in addition are probably the least offensive pick to the cult as far as someone to represent us is concerned. Perhaps a relatively unimportant patsy or three of the Twins which we can give a relatively meaningless position of temporary authority, such as ambassador. Their official purpose is to make contact with anyone the cultist exploration force encounters in their travels, but just as important is keeping an eye on those travels to begin with.
I am however, inclined to encourage cultist exploration to begin with, for the reasons i've already explained. Use them as willingly disposable pawns to suss out the dangers out there. If they die horrifically for it, then all the better, considering they don't even show us what we are to consider the bare minimum of respect.

I'd be okay with this if it was nested in announcements the same way combat logs are, where you expand them to see what's going on. They would probably be pretty damn repetitive at this stage of the game though.

Urist #1 "I saw a dog this morning."

Urist #2 "It was inevitable."

Prepare for oblivion dialogue.

Andrew, Scion of House Ravenblood. Representative to the Guild Combine.

Your Current Resources

It's time. You begin to get to work on preparing for the trip ahead by arranging a few minor transfers of power and setting to rest any lingering appointments. You decide firstly, to give Captain Elthis the authority to act on your behalf on the station, hiring him a few banking guild accountants to help him accomplish the sort of financial analysis you would normally do yourself. The man makes an excellent bodyguard, and you are fairly confident you can trust him to act in the spirit of your wishes, but investment projections are somewhat outside of his ken. He protests mildly, and suggests that once you find your way back home, you could probably have one of your father's aristocratic subjects take his place on the station. You also have him arrange to keep townsman who might bear undue loyalty to their kinsmen on-board the station as a token guard. Ultimately, he selects twenty that either fit that description, or which he'd like to keep at his side.

That leaves Centurion Isaura in charge of your remaining forces. There are technically three such officers, each in command of one third of your retinue, but she has seniority, so command goes to her by default. You could however, place one of the other two in charge if you wished. Centurion Isaura is a dour Islander woman reaching middle age, but she seems capable in instilling discipline. The hundred guards she's in charge of are among the most punctual and attentive underneath you, and often get vital sentry assignments for just that reason. She is however a fairly joyless person, and therefore not the best for inspiring morale, nor is she as good a conversational partner as your friend Elthis. She is quite competent however.
Centurion Danerick meanwhile, isn't a native Halian, but rather a foreign mercenary who served the family well enough that he was offered a permanant position in the House Ravenblood guard. He's charismatic and well liked, but also a bit of a scoundrel known for the vices of gambling and drinking. He makes up for that with the occasional flash of tactical brilliance, useful both for flushing out assassins and in preparing for a battle.
Finally is Centurion Ujarak, a townsman aristocrat and former veteran in the United Imperial Army. In his army days he was actually a member of an artillery company, and as the result of a mishap, is now deaf in one ear. He's experienced and dependable, but not actually very bright. The kind of man one can count on, as long as all you need him to do is follow the orders as you've set them out.


Once your affairs are in order, it's just a matter for the freighter you've booked passage on to leave. Part of the reason that news is so slow in reaching the station is the bottleneck of imperial regulation on space traffic. In order to be cleared for departure from a system, one needs to reach the outer reaches of that system by means of conventional engines, something that takes a week in your average freight hauler. In addition, only so much traffic is allowed to or from a system at once. For a trading hub, that means there will always be a queue of captains waiting to leave. Without such precautions, the void predators are much more likely to attack systems unannounced, at least as far as you understand such things. Truth be told, you know very little about the threat which seems to terrify those imperial authorities with the privilege of secret information on that enemy. 

That train of thought leads you to consider some of the implications of allowing another such trading hub to be built in your home system. Such a thing would clearly give your people greater access to the goods and services that the combine offers, as well as greater access to the interstellar traders that also flock to such places. In exchange, your House would be giving up a lot of autonomy to their space. There is after all, the ship bottleneck to consider. Allowing traders to flood in would make travel of Ravenblood ships to and from the system more limited. It's possible the benefits will outweigh that sacrifice, but it is at least worth thinking about. Tarla Numerica's chosen guild representative will probably attempt to wave away such concerns when she makes the case to the matriarch however, and speaking of you find that representative is a little younger than you might expect. Perhaps she's being given a chance to prove herself, or perhaps the shipping guild expects you will help them make the case for them.


Finally, you manage to leave aboard your chosen ship. It's a respectable enough vessel which you've contracted with before to deliver goods, The Wagonlord. You have no idea if the name is a joke or a historical reference, or if there is a story behind it, but the captain is dependable. Eurich's officer boards the ship as well, but she does so merely as a civilian passenger. She is armed with a coded for Eurich, asking him for a face to face meeting of some sort. You are sure such a thing will not be difficult to arrange.

The Wagonlord is a bare bones ship with few amenities but an abundance of space, making it a decent place for training. You expect the trip to take about two weeks, so that leaves you a little time for weapons practice. The raven blood House guard are experts in close combat with either saber or pistol, each the equal of any tutor you are likely to find among the traders and mercenaries of Vulture's Perch, so you figure you might as well turn to them for training.

As expected, after leaving the station it takes a week of slow travel before the ship is within the legal range for activating its Jump Drive. That first half of the trip is as boring and uneventful as one might expect under the conditions. A freight vessel making a routine shipment is not a terribly exciting place to be, and you have a great deal less to occupy your time with than you usually might. You are after all, well used to the routine of paperwork, looking over facts and figures to make calculations and decide how to invest. Now though, you concern yourself with more physical pursuits. Your education on martial matters hasn't been absent, but you are far from an adept master of either blades or firearms, and the training makes the gulf of skill between you and your guards immediately evident. You make some progress in short range marksmanship with a pistol, but your lack of stamina slows your efforts in brushing up with the sabre.

There is a brief pause in this routine to make the jump. The travel time is essentially nonexistent, but the sensation it leaves behind is palpable and universal, everyone is effected the same way, every time a jump occurs. At the conclusion, a mere fraction of a second after the Jump has been undertaken, passengers are overcome with a sense of vertigo, which would be dangerous if everyone did not strap in while preparations were being made. This is followed by the uneasy sense that you've forgotten something important, which is again, always the case. You've been told that in ancient times the effects of Jump travel on a person were more intense, but modern protections apparently make the side effects a great deal more mild. All in all however, the Jump is an unmitigated success, leaving you on the outer fringes of your home system. Finally, you are going back home.

This latter half of the trip is as uneventful as the first, though The Wagonlord makes better time, reaching the planet a day earlier than originally planned. The freighter is intercepted partway by Shortsword gunships, which make up the bulk of your family's system defence fleet. The ships in question lack Jump capabilities, but can be hauled by Freighters of sufficient size. Such interception is no cause for concern, and is mostly a formality intended to remind combine ships of who controls the territory they are being allowed to travel through. Once the wagonlord makes orbit of Halia, the armed escort disperses, and preparations begin for the ship to unload its cargo -passengers included-.


Your heart aches at beholding your beautiful blue home once again, and the rush of memory tricks you for a moment into thinking you can smell its salty air. You'll be able to hear the ocean once again, to eat your favourite foods, and to walk amongst people who you have a long history and culture in common with. You hardly mind life abroad, meeting new peoples and exploring all that the Emperor's worlds have to offer, but sometimes it is nice to return home. Eagerly, you make sure that you are on one of the first shuttle-craft to the surface, bound for your Father's holdings on the island of Saarlenia.

As you might expect, it is your father and sisters who arrive to meet you at the landing pad, all of which you have not seen the past few years. The first thing that strikes you is how much older your father seems. He's not an old man just yet, but his hair has lost its formerly lustrous colour, and the stress of lordship has left its clawmarks plainly visible in the furrowed wrinkling of his face. Nonetheless, he greets you with the same warm eyes and fatherly embrace you remembered him for. Your elder sister Delphina greets you in a similar fashion, but where age has lessened your father it seems to have empowered her. She's grown into a woman of statuesque dignity and proud bearing, clearly someone groomed to take on a position of power and authority. Your little sister Nitsa meanwhile, greets you more timidly. The two of you don't really know eachother very well anymore, truth be told, partially as a result of your absence as she grew into adulthood, and partially because you havn't had much reason to remain in contact in the meantime. Your mother is absent, something which you expected, but which draws a pang of sadness from you nonetheless. 

As you are ushered to a delightful early dinner, your family members spend an equal measure of time attempting to catch up with you and discussing the more pressing matters of state and politics on Halia. During the weeks sense the last message from home was sent your way, the standoff has settled into an uneasy enforced peace. It has become clear that the Matriarch isn't dying, and that right now she will brook no large scale civil war.

Eurich has uneasily stood down his forces, though he is still quite insistent that the Spymaster is the cause of his son's dissapearance, and that she should be interrogated immediately, and all of her assets turned over in case she is holding him somewhere. Her mother however, still has her under house arrest at the planetary palace, and seems intent on keeping her there for the near future, with no explanation yet being publicised as to why she is being held. That arrest has fuelled speculation that Eurich's hunch may be correct among some, while others hold that the Matriarch is doing so for her daughters own protection from the "madman" who would torture her if given the chance.

Sir Adam meanwhile, has mostly stood down his forces, though his honour demands that his Quest not be disbanded until some form of satisfaction is had. This is a problem, considering that his quest is military opposition to Eugen's influence itself, with a legion's worth of members. Meanwhile, some of his supporters have been spurred on by zealots into unruly mobs acting without his blessing, who hold that while Adam is checked by the authority of the matriarch, the faithful must hold to the Orthodox Creed over any other authority. None of those mobs are currently in position to cause any real damage to their would-be targets, but they are growing frustrated under the tightening grip of the Matriarch's martial law, which threatens to crush them if they overstep their boundaries much further.

Finally, most of the planetary lords have divided under uneasily partisan lines of silent support. Some are placing their faith in the authority of the Matriarch, and plan to back her in any course of action she deems necessary to re-establish order. Others however, think that the only way for this dispute to resolve is to let a civil war play out, albeit curbed in size by the Matriarch's influence. It is common philosophy in the Imperium that sometimes local civil wars are inevitable, and even neccecary, and that attempting to stop their existence entirely only ensures that when they do happen they will be significantly larger and more destructive.

You have a lot of potential actions to undertake in the next span of time. Upon receiving your message, Eurich will likely try to contact you shortly. Meanwhile, you have various potential proposals to offer, including contracts with the Shipping and Technologist guilds, and marriage offers you may wish to discuss with your direct relations. It is worth thinking about how you might frame those proposals, which you want to present right away or delay, and wether you want to spend time learning about your direct family's current situation or to speed off to try to secure an audience with Matriarch Alma Ravenblood.

Alright. I'll probably update later tonight, so anyone who wants to pipe up has time to.

Just need a little tiebreaker on the matter of who to leave in charge of business at Vulture's Perch (the station)