Ooh, I like that angle. And him, being a dutiful husband, had to either clean up the mess so it didn't fall on his more important wife, or took the fall for it so she didn't have to. Maybe it was her idea to do which left him humiliated and in deep. Which is funny as it means he is having a really bad time now having to babysit Kitava and her nonsense as well.
Yeah, I like where all that is going. I think for sure an operation went sideways in some way and was traced back to her. Maybe there was an Exalt involved where she wasn't expecting one?
Rykon
Ah, now that you mention it, you're right. I haven't done much with FE Heroes, but I actually do have that version of Roy. As much as I love the Fire Emblem series, I haven't been able to play through as many titles as I'd like either. Anyhow, I'm not going for a spot-on duplicate, but he's very close to the image in my head of the character.
The horse's colour scheme is somewhat of a meta thing, in that it's the same as that of the horse used by the Brave Lion version of Roy in FE Heroes, the portrait for which I vaguely recalled you using for your character prior to the game's start. You certainly don't have to keep the horse if you don't want to, though.
Ah, I took a training charm so I could start with a larger quantity and raise their quality with the charm. Eventually, he'll lobby to train reserve/volunteer militias so that while we won't have to fund and feed a large standing force over the long term, we can raise a quality force relatively quickly when we have to.
Feel free.
Go ahead.
Okay, though I was already thinking of giving you the means to quickly replenish your troops in order to represent Sanctity of Merits. A part of that, besides a pre-existing infrastructure for training up replacement troops, would be soldiers kept on active reserve - or citizens with a bit of military training under their belts - who could be bought in to replace soldiers killed or wounded in their duties.
Sounds like a good fit then. Narratively it will make the area daunting to attack and inspire some degree of patriotism. Mechanically it provides justification for the sanctity of merits. I like when a plan comes together.
No worries. Enjoying the pace, actually.
Oh crap. I hadn't even thought about that. Practically, I think that's probably dumb to walk around with. Maybe, it's better to use only on sneaking missions or when she doesn't care. Is there a Charm that let's you banish your weapon to Elsewhere in Essence? I don't remember seeing it... That might be my next Charm purchase.
I'd say it depends. Given how valuable Artifact weapons are in-universe, logically they would draw attention to anyone carrying them, which won't entirely work for hiding in plain sight. On the other hand, having one on your person would logically mark you as an Essence-user, seeing as they're the only ones who can use such things, which might make people think twice about picking a fight with you.
Sure. 3E certainly allowed you to start with stuff that was above your Resources rating in value, provided there was a logical reason behind it. I don't think it unusual that an assassin would keep a few knives on her person.
Random Word
I definitely didn't think you'd implied anything about the structure of Kandara's bureaucracy or economy! Apologies for the misunderstanding. That was in large part why I made something plausible up to fill in the gaps. Until the British imported the idea of civil service exams from China to Europe in the mid1800s, China was the only place on earth that I know of with a civil service examination (Edit: I forgot about Korea). Up until that point, you basically had a choice between inherited roles, nepotism, or purchased roles (In Exalted we also likely have mystical selection systems like 'nepotism by the gods', 'ordained by fate' as in the case of Varangia, 'chosen by the ancient artifact', or 'succeeded at the harrowing trial'). Purchased roles was a massive step up in liberalization as it allowed a path for wealthy (probably therefore successful, and possibly even intelligent) merchants and professionals (judges, lawyers, etc) to buy their way into minor nobility and government or military positions while boosting the crown coffers, which is significantly more meritocratic than blood succession, and so I was actually giving Kandara quite a bit of credit for modernisation rather than implying Boroma and Netara were corrupt and incompetent. Being a small Satrapy that has spent most of its long history at war (a state that does not in any way lend itself to moving away from highly effective feudal models of collective defense), the odds of it having liberalized and centralized that far are low and show an unusual amount of effort spent on administrative reform. If Kandara were purely feudal, Kitava likely would instead be advocating for opening up administrative and military commissions for purchase (military commissions are purchased in the Realm, as are Satrapial appointments, so if Boroma and Netara are offended by the idea of purchasing positions then they're basically giving Kitava and the Realm the middle finger! She paid the Empress good Jade for this job, and a lot of it. The fact the Empress told her to buy the position notwithstanding.), and establishing or extending a bureaucratic civil service.
Good! This is a good opportunity to discuss the rules. Not, like, the Essence rules, the real rules. Let me walk you through my thought process so you can see where I went wrong. There are an infinite number of ways to run a roleplaying game, but one important axis is the source of truth. On one side is the players, and on the other the storyteller. In games without a storyteller or without players, obviously it leans all the way to the other side. On the players side of the axis, the players can declare true things about anything in the world. On the storyteller side of the axis, the players can only declare true things about their characters specifically (So, for example, I wouldn't have been able to write the post about Kitava's procession, because that involved a lot of NPCs and world details. I would have had to ask you what her procession looked like, and maybe roll to make it better, but you would ultimately tell me what the result was). Old school D&D leans all the way to the storyteller side, to the point that Lore skills only entitle you to ask a question and roll to maybe receive an answer, and there's no guarantee it's useful. Games like Nobilis, Chuubo's, Legend of the Wulin, Apocalypse World, Fate, etc tend to be somewhere between the players and the middle as the source of truth. Exalted 2e leaned towards the ST but much less than D&D because of ideas like stunting, 3e added things like the declare fact mechanic to lean a bit more towards the players. The rules don't tell the whole story, though, and there's plenty of wiggle room for every game. We should establish where you want this game to lie.
It's night, I have to be up early for kayaking tomorrow, and you've given me quite a lot to think about (in the very best of ways, let me assure you). Odds are that I'll end up more than willing to go along with your original idea of instituting a meritocratic system in a place that doesn't have it, but I'll have to get back to you in a couple of days.
