Help with my new storyline

[Flagg]

not the taking of the mantle
the reading of the broken winged crane and signing of herself over to the ebon dragon in order to avoid dying of old age

I thought you were talking about her taking of the Imperial Manse.


Where did you get this other stuff?

 

[Jukashi]

Actually, The 1e book, if I'm not mistaken, explicitely states that she considers nothing more important than the preservation of the Realm.


And in the 2nd Ed. book, it states that Mnemon knows that her mother took power in order to save Creation.

 

[Kremlin KOA]

yet she made no provision for the realm outliving her, AND she gave herself over to the ebon dragon


hence sold out creation


now the way the realm was structured the realm was to secure her power and access to the manse, she never set an heir or prepared for her demise.


She never trained anyone else in the use of the imperial manse


She never set programs in place to recreate large numbers of Jade warstriders and jade power armour


She never moved beyond creating a status quo on the isle,


She never sought to rebuild a larger realm and take back l;and from the fair folk


In short, her actions were short sighted and simplistic


She started out good and got completely corrupted


Screw it she killed her own daughter for following her into the manse

 

[Sherwood]

In the 1e rules, the storyline tells us that the empire has invaded the river province area around Nexus on three different occations, and has pulled back out because the locals made the fight too expensive and any occupation would have been a blood bath.  So, you can't say that she hasn't tried to expand the borders of the empire.


And why set up a replacement when you believe that you are going to be around and running things for many more years?  I remember reading that she was planning on announcing her successor once she hit 1000 years as empress.  So, what ever happened, it took her by surprise.

 

[Jukashi]

I believe she also never announced her successor because, frankly, there was no one good enough for the job.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

You are correct.

 

[Persell]

I believe she also never announced her successor because, frankly, there was no one good enough for the job.

Or if there was they might kill her in order to get on the throne faster.  That's why she constantly pit people against each other - so they'd be so busy fighting each other that they wouldn't target her.

 

[Jukashi]

Only partly. She also did it because a situation where the people feuding and scheming against each other actually had real power would only be a disimprovement over her system.

 

[Bizar]

I think she never considered the ED would take her away from the realm. She may have been powerful but this does not mean she was smart. Look at Stalin he wasn't very clever just very paranoid and he managed to hold on to his seat for quite a while. He is still responcible for the most deaths in the world.


I base the fact that she did not willingly go to the ED on the one full-page splat in the 1e DB book where she is chained to a post awaiting her wedding.


All her actions simply tell me that she wasn't to smart and got ito bed with the ED for the right reasons and did not realize the concequences. In hindsight it's always easy to tell where someone went wrong especially when that someone isn't to smart.

 

[Flagg]

He is still responcible for the most deaths in the world.

Meh. Old age and disease make Stalin look like a punk-ass bitch by comparison.

 

[Bizar]

That might be so, I'm not going t discus geo-politics here, but the point remains that you do not need to be smart to be in power. You just have to get the right circumstances. I think it was the same with the empress and that the ED played her so he could take her out of the equasion whenhe had to and leave just the right amount of chaos in it's wake.

 

[Persell]

But you're forgetting that the Scarlet Empress played not just all of the Dragon-Blooded but also Chejop Kejak and the Bronze Faction for almost a millenia, so I don't think we should fully discount her.  I think that her being able to manipulate them for so long made her overconfident when it came to dealing with a Yozi.

 

[Solfi]

Whether the Empress or the Bronze Faction had the upper hand in those dealings is hardly clear.

 

[Kremlin KOA]

What I find hard to comprehend is how some people consider a 'good guy' the woman standing over an alter with a bloody knife while a little girl looks up from lying on it and says "Mommy, what are you doing? I'm scared."

 

[Solfi]

... I'm sorry what?

 

[Bizar]

What I find hard to comprehend is how some people consider a 'good guy' the woman standing over an alter with a bloody knife while a little girl looks up from lying on it and says "Mommy, what are you doing? I'm scared."

Where does the good/bad guy bit come from, I do not think that there were any points made to this respect in this post. I believe you confuse succes with morality. Would you say that Stalin is good because he killed more people than Hitler and Mao combined? He was successful in that he grasped power and stayed in power untill he died, but good hardly.

But you're forgetting that the Scarlet Empress played not just all of the Dragon-Blooded but also Chejop Kejak and the Bronze Faction for almost a millenia, so I don't think we should fully discount her.  I think that her being able to manipulate them for so long made her overconfident when it came to dealing with a Yozi.

I think you are underestimating the arrogance and the Siddereal flaw here for one and also as I explained She didn't realise how much power she had given the ED over her.


The first part is because Chjop Kejak who was already somewhat deluded with his power when he planned the solar purge. He did not wish to recognise the other options and he did not want to recognise that there were things he could not see. This may easily explain why a puny, but very lucky DB could get to the throne and to power. He can't see the yozis so as far as he knows they aren't there.


I know it says somewhere that even the siddies were surprised by the empress grabbing power. It was a chaotic time and she might have slipped through the mazes or even the Fairies might have helped.


He also saw a great oppertunity. He could finally crush the Goldfaction and implement his masterplan the demonising of the other celestial exalted and create a much larger powerbase for his own visions of the future. Kejop is a very driven man and I will agree a smart one, but his obsession with a war that was fought several thousands of years ago is what blinds him. That and the siddie flaw: they will not recognise that they can be wrong and will always be internally devided because of it.


Also it is very well possible that when chejop made the deal he did check, but this is probably what ED would expect him to do. So he would act slowly and bit by bit strengthen his hold on her. Again Chejop cannot see the yozi influence and therefore cannot, unless he finds another way, verify how deep the empress has fallen.


Another option that occured to me is that when summoning a demon ED possesed it and brought our scarlet empress to his home. This would also explain the chains and stuff in the chapter seperation drawing in E : DB 1st ed.