[Emperors of the Fading Suns] [Emperors of the Fading Suns] OOC Thread

[CrazyIvan]

I'd say it depends on the Circle's ruling on internal security, which allowing Third Circle Demons summoning is part of.

But creating a private network of spies isn't a matter of internal security?

That is my point, it will not be Cross that attacks Lookshy, it will be Fangs.

I'm not convinced that they not the same - especially since Malek keeps chewing her out for threatening to leave.

And so, Malek will soon own his personal network of spies. They will be his resources. Not the dominion's. Kinda like Fangs demons.

Fangs' demons, with the notable exception of a single Neomah, are all tasked with defending The Cross. And that's my problem - the among Fangs can accomplish (or indeed, any of our characters can accomplish) using only their own resources is staggering.

Of course some of us may gather significant power on our own, but we are part of a realm building game.
It's kind of the point to organize stuff, and IMHO if we can do this + all the IC goodness, we'll have one of the most awesome games ever played.

What I'm saying is you're asserting there is a realm with significant resources beyond those of the circle. I'm disputing that that's true. We are the realm. The moment Cunning Fangs leaves the Cross, especially if Mirror comes along, they're suddenly a force to be reckoned with on their own.

That is easily resolved through denounciation : "The Dominion doest not approve of Fangs summoning an army of demons and invading Lookshy. Fangs is acting of her own free will and the Dominion is not helping her in any way."
Voila.

You're assuming such a disavowal would be accepted.


"That's funny. She left from The Dominion, they were summoned in the Dominion, she sits on your council and you watched her march out. Expect to hear from us shortly."

 

[cyl]

You're illustrating my point for me. Malek taking over a city and installing himself as King, if that gets filed under "Personal Project" means everything can be sold as a personal project.
Though now I find myself supporting it, because this is just the kind of "Talk around in twisted legal pretzels" thing that Fangs rejoices in.

See, I knew you'd like it.


Nathir is a personal project of Malek as long as the Circle stays out of it, and while I could have him crowned king, I will not because that is not the way he thinks and what we as players have talked about and agreed upon.


Everything could be sold as a personal project but as soon as there the Dominion is touched, or its resources used, a Circle vote should be called.


In this particular example someone can do something that will affect the dominion and not ask the Circle for a vote.


Neither Malek or Fangs have asked the others about anything they have been doing so far, but now as the game is evolving to higher levels, we are asking ourselves, "hey, what should we do about that ?".


So acting as a unified Circle instead of a collection of individuals doing stuff on their own makes sense to me.

 

[CrazyIvan]

So acting as a unified Circle instead of a collection of individuals doing stuff on their own makes sense to me.

This would be true, except as far as I can read into your system, it enshrines 'a collection of individuals doing stuff on their own' as the vastly more expedient way of doing anything that doesn't need mortal bodies in order to succeed.


For example, I can't come up with a single thing I plan on having Fangs do in the medium or long term that she can't argue is a personal project. I think your plan and your intent are working at cross purposes.

 

[Arynne]

Maybe Flicker can start reminding people that she can also leave...and take a good chunk of the Cross's military with her.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Maybe Flicker can start reminding people that she can also leave...and take a good chunk of the Cross's military with her.

We could start Sanctuary II: Electric Boogaloo.


...and take all of the Cross's military with us >.>

 

[cyl]

Interesting points have been made and I will take time to answer later, but for now I must put my slave collar back on and work :rolleyes:

 

[xarvh]

LOL, imagine this same mess but with 300 insanely powerful solars with ego problems, plus 400 between Lunars and Siddies scheming behind them. O_O


Anyway.


Despite my snark apart, I think you are doing quite a job, since it's a huge mess that you have to work out.


I'd have a humble proposal.


You kind of keep everybody updated OOC on what your chars will do.


If someone of the players thinks her PC would object, you move the idea to an IC vote.

 

[xarvh]

Also, remember that you have Sanctuary Ambassador in Cross.


Tirana trusts Shiana enough that she can seal a pact on her behalf.


If you have arguments about Sanctuary, it is Shiana's duty to answer those.

 

[WlfSamurai]

I'd have a humble proposal.
You kind of keep everybody updated OOC on what your chars will do.


If someone of the players thinks her PC would object, you move the idea to an IC vote.

This is going to be my suggestion after reading the volumes of discussion and work everyone has already done. (BTW, if I ever go back to school, you guys are writing my papers.)


Let's take a page out of indie-gaming (yeah, I used the term) and do what xarvh just said.


From my favorite game, Apocalypse World: Tell them the possible consequences and ask.


Example:


OOC, Kacie points out that Mirror is going to wipe out the DKs as her next "diplomatic" act and asks if that's cool. Normally on these tasks, we'd agree and say that works or "I like it, but tweak this one bit". In this case, however, I point out that Rhapsody would take issue with that. This, then, sets the framework for a scene to hash that out IC. Perhaps Rhapsody and Mirror meet inside a temple after dark and have a heated discussion. Or we just create a new scene where the entire group is already well into proceedings and this comes up.


This way, you get the best of both OOC quickness and IC drama. I'm with Kacie for not passing up good RP opportunities but I also agree we can speed up the stuff that we agree on in OOC.

 

[Kacie]

I'm fine with this.


On a completely unrelated note, if I remember correctly, the great library is surrounded by flesh that is essentially a cancer, right? Is that flesh all rotting, or could it be used as jerky or somehow made edible?

 

[Arynne]

Only a deathknight would think of that one.

 

[xarvh]

The Library proper is a torus that extends all around the Caldera.


Inside, the arboreal-moss-like body of the Behemoth was trained to grow into the building of the University.


The higher parts of the Behemoth started to develop meaty parts like tumors, whose weight eventually crushed good part of the University.


Said meaty parts often times develop in huge and irregularly shaped muscles and bones; when they randomly contract and release, the whole area is subject to a tremor.


The locals are so used to it that don't even mind any more.

 

[Kacie]

I'd say it's time for an experiment, wouldn't you guys?


If the experiment is a success, no more need to trade with Tirana for meat!

 

[xarvh]

Uh, I almost forgot.


The surface of the Behemoth is a pit of sticky acid and poisonous gases.


Nothing that could stop seven Exalts, but just mind it in whatever plans you have.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Uh, I almost forgot.
The surface of the Behemoth is a pit of sticky acid and poisonous gases.


Nothing that could stop seven Exalts, but just mind it in whatever plans you have.

It's always something. Geez.

 

[Kacie]

I'm confident that the shadow armor's filtration baffles can handle the gases.


Actually scratch that; I'm confident that the Pyre-immolation system can handle both the acid and the poisonous gases. And if it doesn't, I'm fairly confident of surviving.

 

[cyl]

Hopefully with the new guys in Mirunda, we will have stuff to feed our people with.


Now, about the discussion we had earlier.

The powers that be outside the Cross view each member of the circle as part of the whole; as Crazy Ivan says, what one Exalt does is going to be viewed as the Circle (and everyone in it) having done it.

The powers may judge our individual actions, but they would be immensely stupid to assimilate them to the people under our protection and make them pay for the bad deeds of one exalt.


Unless the people is involved in some way in an exalt's evil machinations, they should be left alone (considering the distances & the size).

If Nathir is linked to the Empire, it isn't on its own anymore, it is a piece of a whole. All of a sudden what happens there is the Circle's business, because the Circle runs the Empire. What happens there reflects on how the Circle governs its people.


Mirror is very shortly going to ask about Nathir, IC; Malek has said several times he's taking over Nathir and it will be part of the Empire.


If Malek doesn't say what he's doing in Nathir, it will at least be clear that he's hiding something big from the rest of the Circle.


If Malek says, "I rule Nathir, I'll cut you some sweet deals on the side because I can" - that's still entangling the Cross and the Circle with how Malek rules Nathir. How he rules it reflects on the rest of the Circle. If slavery is allowed in Nathir but not the Cross, that sends mixed signals to the rest of the world about how we as a Circle view slavery.

That highly depends on how we want to handle things with Nathir.


Malek is having a go at his first peaceful conquest and a new form of government in Nathir with a more discrete approach, hoping it will attract less attention to the city itself rather than going full totemic and crowning himself high king.

Let me put the point a different way.
Rhapsody has strong morals about what is right. If Mirror's attack on the DKs is a personal project, is it okay for her to have a personal project to thwart Mirror? If she automatically can't object in any meaningful way, then she's de-protagonized. She doesn't get a choice, but she gets the blame when shit goes down later. She doesn't get to have a character defining moment in calling out bad behavior.

Let me put the point a different way.


If anyone said "I don't want Mirror nowhere near the DKs, we will find another way for her to retrieve Berek's artifacts", would / should that stop you from doing what you intend to do ?

But creating a private network of spies isn't a matter of internal security?

I hardly see how Malek developing a private network of spies with outsiders could be a matter of internal security.


If that was the case, mercs companies would not exist in Creation.

I'm not convinced that they not the same - especially since Malek keeps chewing her out for threatening to leave.

The difference lies on the Dominion's participation in Fangs.


If everyone knows she's going after Lookshy and she's allowed to summon an army of demons within the borders, then obviously we are accomplices. If she does that on her own, disavowal should still be a viable solution for the powers, who may ask us to sever ties from that branded criminal.

Fangs' demons, with the notable exception of a single Neomah, are all tasked with defending The Cross. And that's my problem - the among Fangs can accomplish (or indeed, any of our characters can accomplish) using only their own resources is staggering.

We are powerful, and we have vast powers. But we can either use them to the benefit of the Dominion, or for our own.


Keeping track of why we do what we do is not meant to set players apart, but to unite them when we are working for the dominion.


If we do that we can keep our freedom and pursue whatever agenda we want without tapping in the dominion's resources, and still be able to work on the dominion's problems when it is needed.

What I'm saying is you're asserting there is a realm with significant resources beyond those of the circle. I'm disputing that that's true. We are the realm. The moment Cunning Fangs leaves the Cross, especially if Mirror comes along, they're suddenly a force to be reckoned with on their own.

That is indeed where we disagree.


The realm has no significant resources yet, and its survival still depends on the good will of the exalts, but at one point it will change.


If we manage to make it a viable dominion, soon it will stand on its own and will generate its own resources without our help.


Should we consider ourselves the realm then ?


Let me put the point a different way.


If Fangs and Mirror were part of the Guild, the moment they leave, is the Guild still the Guild or not ?


And what happens to F&M's potential without the support of the Guild ? Is it lessened or does it stay exactly the same ?


An organization is bound to become greater and more powerful than its founders (even if the bar is set exceedingly high with celestial sorcerers).


Take Sanctuary for example. If the DB could rebel, I am not sure that Tirana and her lunars could survive the coup.


That is basically where we are going IMHO.


An Empire with its own resources and influence, independent and able to channel more than the exalts could individually.


At least that is what Malek is working on.

This would be true, except as far as I can read into your system, it enshrines 'a collection of individuals doing stuff on their own' as the vastly more expedient way of doing anything that doesn't need mortal bodies in order to succeed.
For example, I can't come up with a single thing I plan on having Fangs do in the medium or long term that she can't argue is a personal project. I think your plan and your intent are working at cross purposes.

'a collection of individuals doing stuff on their own' is what we have right now.


Some of these actions may benefit the dominion, but that does not mean they all do. (Mirror going after the DK does not benefit the dominion, Malek buying ships and putting them to good use does.)


I am merely suggesting that we take steps to avoid making things too confused in the future in terms of objectives, projects and patrimony.


Personal projects are motivated only by the exalt's interests, and not the dominion's.


Dominion's projects are motivated by the dominion's interests (which are determined by a charter) and not the exalt's personal agenda.


In other words:


If I say "I buy two ships with my jade", I do not automatically mean to give them up to the dominion forever.


I am free to decide what I give / lend / rent with what I have bought and paid for.


The same goes for the dominion's resources: it will not be fair to use the dominion's resources in pursuit of personal projects.


In both cases (personal / dominion) I think we ought to be very careful and keep things separate to avoid misappropriation and confusion.


Without us right now, the dominion is nothing. That does not mean it will stay that way forever.


As you said exalts are a significant force, but if they stand alone, they will be less powerful than millions of mortals working against them and regardless of the epic feat they accomplish and their personal powers, if enough people wants them dead, they will die (just look at what happened to all those high essence Solars).


Imagine the Guild comes to us one day and we say "no thank you you drug dealers and slave traders scumbags, piss off now !".


No one will buy from or sell to our community and it is likely to perish or stay underdeveloped.


Any other exalt is more powerful than a hundred merchants from the Guild and yet, the dominion cannot afford to make it its enemy.


I believe it is a power we could try to gather in this game to take it to the next level.

 

[cyl]

On a totally different matter: do demons have basic needs ? (food, water, rest)

 

[Kacie]

Let me put the point a different way.
If anyone said "I don't want Mirror nowhere near the DKs, we will find another way for her to retrieve Berek's artifacts", would / should that stop you from doing what you intend to do ?

Yes.


I put out what Mirror wants to do with full knowledge that other PCs would be upset and want her to not do what she sets out to do. The interesting part is how Mirror and the other PCs compromise.


~~~


Cyl, the issue appears to me to be that you are afraid all your work and effort in securing Nathir for Malek is going to be undone suddenly in one fell swoop. That's an awful place to be in, and I understand how that feels.


This is not my intention.


Mirror has absolutely no problem whatsoever in Malek ruling Nathir. The problem she will have is in how he chooses to take it over.


That leaves a lot of room for compromising. One way that Mirror would suggest compromise IC is that Malek go ahead and sweep into power in Nathir on the promise of cleaning up the crime and making Nathir a good, safe place to live again. And that's just one option.


The drama is in reaching that compromise, along with lots of yelling and recrimination over everything - after all, from past posts, Malek has cheerfully done everything except murder in order to become the main Crime Lord of Nathir.


Am I wrong about that, about what he led or okay'd his thugs to do?


I tend to expect that with a character arc like that, eventually the other PCs call the person on what they're doing, which gives the PC a chance to reform, compromise, or stick to their guns, walking farther down the road to corruption. Is this not what you intend to do with Malek, by having him act this way?

 

[cyl]

Cyl, the issue appears to me to be that you are afraid all your work and effort in securing Nathir for Malek is going to be undone suddenly in one fell swoop. That's an awful place to be in, and I understand how that feels.

Hrmm.


That's not it.


I've had Malek work on that particular plan for quite some time and I fully intend to give Nathir to Cross.


Malek is a believer, he's not doing what he does to send the dominion's treasury a bill when it actually exists


What I was trying to show is that I as a player could have wanted to make a personal project out of Nathir and not a Dominion Project, the same way that the networks of spies and thieves I'm building could be mine and mine only etc etc.


Even though we are in a realm building game, we are exalts, creatures of epic passions and needs, we can and should keep some room for "selfish" developments.


My main concern is taking the bad habit of merging our personal objectives and patrimony and the dominion's.


Forget the dominion for a minute and let's say we are partners and we run a company.


We make the initial investment, we work hard to see that company prosper and at one point it does run pretty smoothly without us working so hard and we get our sweet salaries and bonuses... but one of us wants to buy a the latest model of a luxury car, and he's 100 grand short.


Taking that cash from the company's finances is called asset misappropriation fraud and is punishable by law IRL.


I am not afraid of the dominion taking my assets, it's actually the opposite: I want to make sure that we do not take liberties with dominion's assets once they are established and lay out a few ground rules as to how we will interact with the Empire.

One way that Mirror would suggest compromise IC is that Malek go ahead and sweep into power in Nathir on the promise of cleaning up the crime and making Nathir a good, safe place to live again. And that's just one option.
The drama is in reaching that compromise, along with lots of yelling and recrimination over everything - after all, from past posts, Malek has cheerfully done everything except murder in order to become the main Crime Lord of Nathir.

I'm taking the back door on this one. I'm doing damage control, and taking the reins up to the point where I can turn the tables and say "this is now a major crime free city, and we now can go legit and make soooo much more jade than before".


His war is against greed and he believes that he can't fight it using regular methods.


He's a thief and has lived among whores, beggars and street rats, poor people who do not know better / have no other options.


Fighting the poor is not a solution for him, neither is locking up crime lords (pull one out and two more grow back).


He means to take control of the criminal underworld and transform it from the inside, a little evil for a greater good in short.

 

[Feantari]

Holy fuck walls of text.


The main issue I see with your suggestion Cyl is that it assumes there is a distinction between personal projects and dominion projects. As has been pointed out many times, this is not something we can really feasibly do without first talking about it.

The powers may judge our individual actions, but they would be immensely stupid to assimilate them to the people under our protection and make them pay for the bad deeds of one exalt.
Unless the people is involved in some way in an exalt's evil machinations, they should be left alone (considering the distances & the size).

Error, wrong, completely the main infeasible part of this plan. It doesn't matter how you see the actions of your character. It matters how every other external entity sees the actions of your character. It is incredibly naive to think that nation x or bad guy y isn't going to react to your individual actions by retaliating against the people that person cares about or is known to have ties to. I mean god damn look at every super hero movie ever. Sure, it isn't the people's fault that you are a crime lord, but that doesn't mean that someone trying to hunt you down won't sic the Wyld Hunt on your ass and increase trouble in the entire region.

Let me put the point a different way.
If anyone said "I don't want Mirror nowhere near the DKs, we will find another way for her to retrieve Berek's artifacts", would / should that stop you from doing what you intend to do ?

Yes, it should, at the very minimum it should lead to discussion. Why? Because we are playing this game together and while we may end up deciding that Mirror should be a dick and not care about the concerns of _ it is a completely different thing than doing so while disregarding the people you are playing the game with.


This is also a good chance to reiterate the above point. We don't necessarily know what we would be getting into by taking a particular action. An individual may have a plan or expectations as to what will happen, but that means diddly in hind sight if it turns out you just pissed off the god of dragon kings and she comes and steals back all the eggs that Flicker has been working hard to hatch. Now one person's quest has directly fucked another person's. Or maybe there was a Lunar trying to pick up the pieces of that area and they come back to find out the people of cross are harboring a deathknight that just went all murder fest in the area. We don't know everything and thus we can't claim that an action motivated by personal desires and executed outside of the bounds of Cross will remain so.

I hardly see how Malek developing a private network of spies with outsiders could be a matter of internal security.
If that was the case, mercs companies would not exist in Creation.

I'm sure you don't, but there could be plenty of reasons. You could use your spies against other exalts in the party. You could attract spies of your enemies. They may learn too much, etc, etc. I'm not saying that we might not decide OOC that it is a perfectly fine thing for Malek to do, but declaring it to be none of anyone else's business just because you see it as none of our character's business is less than cool.

The difference lies on the Dominion's participation in Fangs.
If everyone knows she's going after Lookshy and she's allowed to summon an army of demons within the borders, then obviously we are accomplices. If she does that on her own, disavowal should still be a viable solution for the powers, who may ask us to sever ties from that branded criminal.

While we could brand her criminal and disavow knowledge of her actions that would sort of be a horrible thing to do to Crazy Ivan who wants his character to be involved in Cross. Thus it behooves us all to discuss things OOC and at least outline how our characters would react to certain things.

We are powerful, and we have vast powers. But we can either use them to the benefit of the Dominion, or for our own.
Keeping track of why we do what we do is not meant to set players apart, but to unite them when we are working for the dominion.


If we do that we can keep our freedom and pursue whatever agenda we want without tapping in the dominion's resources, and still be able to work on the dominion's problems when it is needed.


That is indeed where we disagree.


The realm has no significant resources yet, and its survival still depends on the good will of the exalts, but at one point it will change.


If we manage to make it a viable dominion, soon it will stand on its own and will generate its own resources without our help.


Should we consider ourselves the realm then ?

If you want Malek to have the freedom to pursue his own agendas at will then he cannot also be a ruler of the dominion. We have all severely restricted our freedom by taking up this cause. It is the very thing that Cunning Fangs is constantly chaffing against. There are certain to be things he can do on his own, but to pretend that you are free to do whatever you want is to fall into a very solar trap.


Yes, we should consider ourselves the realm. EVERYONE ELSE WILL.

That is basically where we are going IMHO.
An Empire with its own resources and influence, independent and able to channel more than the exalts could individually.


At least that is what Malek is working on.

This is a long, long ways off.


I think a system more like what Wlf outlined would serve better. It may take more posting and discussion, but I don't think we should consider that a bad thing when it comes to making sure the game is fun for everyone.

 

[Kacie]

Edit: Feantari said it all. No need for more text and arguments from me.


Thanks, Feantari!


I like what Wlf Samurai suggested, and I'm for implementing it.

 

[xarvh]

Feantari makes a good point.


To chime in, you guys are going all modern democracy with Cross, but such a thing is inconceivable for everyone else.


Everyone but you guys will see your Empire as no more than personal property of the PCs.

 

[Feantari]

Malek is trying to claim Nathir to respond to a need of the dominion and follow his personal plan.
We have spoken of it as players, but I do not believe I have openly mentionned my plans IC for Nathir.


This to me is a personal project, not a Circle's decision.


Aside from Argis who has lent Malek his stamp to help him speed things up to get what was needed for the dominion, I do not believe another character has expressed IC interests for this city on any level whatsoever.


Malek does not say what he is doing over there and no one asks.

To be completely fair Cyl, Argis hasn't expressed any IC interest in the city either because he doesn't know what is going on. As you say, he gave you the stamp to help you acquire supplies for Cross. He would probably have quite a bit to say if he knew it was used to help a criminal organization.


(which I should point out is not to say that I am not totes ok with that and in fact may have deliberately done so to help with that project ;-))

 

[Kacie]

Answering Cyl's question; demons are like spirits and gods; they don't require food, water, or rest.