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Nation Building A Dynasty Divided OOC

Characters
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Dystopianist

In peace an able subject, in chaos a crafty hero
It is said that an empire long divided must unite... and that an Empire long united must divide.

There have been two-hundred years of prosperity under the Kan Dynasty. But they have ruled for two hundred and fifty, and these last fifty years have not been kind to the nation of Suikai. Natural disasters plague the land, while bandits and barbarians roam wild. The Mandate of Heaven desperately yearns for a new lineage to take the throne. Within the year, the mystics whisper, the heroes of the empire will have a chance to claim it.


This nation-building game is set in the world of Suikai. The current ruling emperor is Quanfong, and he is largely regarded as corrupt and weak-willed. At the beginning of the game, the Purple Wave Bandits will launch a rebellion across the empire. Your job at first will be to gather an army and defeat them - establishing a power base will come soon after, because the emperor is too weak and has to give warlords regional power to defeat the Bandits.

It’s recommended that you start with at least one player controlling a noble scion, military corporal, or a rich peasant so to make it easier to build an army. The players should start in the same commandery and work together. Rough map will come soon.

Small note that this is largely correct but may be slightly off since I’m ABC, not pure Chinese. This list isn’t comprehensive, either.
  • All characters have a given name and a family name which goes before that. Each is usually one syllable long but two syllabled family names make up about a fourth of the population while two syllabled given names are very rare but not unheard of.
  • Educated males take a courtesy name, which is what they’re referred to by their peers. Female characters may also take one, I’ll leave it up to you whether you want to.
  • Titles are important. Only elders may refer to one by their given name, while peers use the courtesy name (or given name, in the case of women). People lower than you use your formal title, such as a family relation or job position followed by your family name, ie Lady Shu or Merchant Zheng. In-laws can be referred to by your spouse’s relations to them or by their formal title.
  • It’s quite common for losing generals to take positions under their conquerors to maintain their honor. This is why so many excellent generals are consolidated together under larger states.
  • Adoption is very common and usually the adoptee takes the adopter’s family name. Everybody with the same-charactered family names are considered related.

Here, I’ll give a quick low-down on Romance of the Three Kingdoms for the uninitiated. Trigger warning, long.

Basically, it’s the last years of the Han Dynasty. The emperors are corrupt and listen to eunuchs, and disasters and famine and plague and all that nasty stuff riddles the nation. Everybody’s mad, so a Taoist sorcerer called Zhang Jue (Zhang Jiao in some records) begins the Yellow Scarves Rebellion to overthrow the emperor. Emperor Shang is... kinda weak, and the imperial capital at Luoyang isn’t much better, so they’re forced to give regional power to warlords to stop the Yellow Scarves.

Okay, so now this guy called He Jin is mad that good generals like Lu Zhi are being reprimanded and that the imperial bureaucracy is incompetent, so he goes to confront the eunuchs influencing the emperor. Coming with him are his two lieutenants, the wealthy noble Yuan Shao and the up-and-coming administrator Cao Cao. But then when he arrives at the capital... the eunuchs stab him and he dies. Yuan Shao and Cao Cao are understandably upset so they tear up the city, and meanwhile the emperor has to escape.

In the countryside, the Emperor Shang and his brother Xian meet this insanely fat guy named Dong Zhuo, who picks them up and lets them carpool with him to the capital. But Dong Zhuo is cunning and crafty, so he‘s like, welp, I have the emperor, I’M IN CHARGE NOW. He also has this adopted son named Lu Bu who‘s insanely good at fighting.

In the meantime, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao form a coalition of warlords to oppose Dong Zhuo. Some of these warlords are Ma Teng, a Northern horselord, Teng’s friend Han Sui, the white-horse master Gongsun Zan, Yuan Shao’s half brother and general powerhouse Yuan Shu, the descendant of Sun Tzu Sun Jian, and most importantly, the shoemaker Liu Bei. Now, Liu Bei is probably the only one you have to remember here- he has two sworn brothers, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, and he’s arguably the hero of the story.

Yuan Shao gathers a massive force of his noble retainers and petitioners in the east, while Cao Cao recruits followers Mostly from his biological family (he’s adopted), including generals that will accompany him for years like Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan. With this large coalition of warlords, they beat Dong Zhuo back from Luoyang and he’s forced to settle in Chang’an, where... Lu Bu betrays him because they over a hot girl, then the city falls into disarray because of bandits and eventually, Cao Cao takes the city but not without the nation having fractured into several dozen pieces.

Ok, now we get into the real complicated stuff. Pay attention.

Yuan Shu declares himself emperor, and it almost looks like his Zhong Dynasty is gonna make it.... but then Sun Jian breaks diplomatic ties with him and everybody beats him up. Sun Jian promptly dies, and his son Sun Ce becomes the predominant force in the region.

Meanwhile, some guy under the warlord Tao Qian and/or Kong Rong kills Cao Cao’s family, so Cao Cao goes attack Tao and/or Kong. He almost destroys them too, but Liu Bei inherits Tao Qian’s government position and Lu Bu reappears with a rebellion in Cao’s territory, so nope. Cao defeats Lu Bu, but then Lu Bu takes over Liu Bei’s territory, and Liu Bei and Cao Cao are forced to team up and beat up Lu Bu.

Okay, they beat up Lu Bu. Cao Cao promptly executes him but takes on his general Zhang Liao. Liu Bei doesn’t want to deal with Cao Cao so flees north to join up Yuan Shao, who just finished beating up Liu Bei’s childhood friend Gongsun Zan. But Cao Cao beats up Kong Rong and Zhang Lu, which gives him a ton of power. Liu Bei leaves Yuan Shao’s faction because Yuan Shao’s followers are all brown-nosers and sycophants, but he brings along two friends: Sun Qian and Zhao Yun.

Liu Bei goes south to join up with the warlord Liu Biao, who’s cool but old. His wife on the other hand, Lady Cai, is awful and demands them be killed. Lady Cai’s son Liu Cong is favored, but Liu Qi is better liked by his father, so Liu Bei teams up with Liu Qi and they take over the province when Liu Biao dies. Liu Bei also gets two new followers, the renowned strategists Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong.

Meanwhile, Cao Cao beats up Yuan Shao. Since his cousin Cao Ren is still busy hacking away at Ma Teng and Han Sui’s armies, he sends his guys Xiahou Yuan, Xu Chu and Li Dian down to see about taking over Liu Bei’s territory. Sun Ce was assassinated, so his brother Sun Quan is king now there.

Zhuge Liang gets Liu Bei to join up with Sun Quan, and together, they smash Cao Cao at the Battle of the Red Cliffs. So now we have three major factions: Liu Bei’s in the southwest, Cao Cao’s in the north, and Sun Quan’s in the southeast. Three Kingdoms.

Over the next few years which I’m less familiar with, Liu Bei beats up Shamoke, Meng Huo, Ha Xuan and Liu Zhang. Sun Quan takes out Liu Yao. Cao Cao finishes up the Xiongnu, the White Wave Bandits and Ma Teng and Han Sui’s forces. Teng’s son Ma Chao flees to Liu Bei, and Cao Cao also does some stupid stuff in Korea with the Gongsuns that I won’t get into.

Eventually though, the story ends with one of Cao Cao’s best generals, Sima Yi, taking power from his descendant Cao Rui, and replacing Cao‘s Wei Dynasty with the Jin Dynasty. At this point the leader of Liu Bei’s faction is his son and renowned moron Liu Shan, and Sun Quan’s grandson isn’t very good at his job either. So Sima Yi’s descendants are just like, yolo, and take over all of China.

There, Romance of the Three Kingdoms summarized. I ignored most of the real Three Kingdoms period, but nobody cares about that because it involves even more gnarly names like Jiang Wei and Wei Yan and Cao Pi.

Character Template:

Name:
your given, family, and courtesy name if applicable. Taoist name can also go here if you have one for some reason.
Age: Your age. I’ll usually give deference to players with a higher age in certain actions but do be aware your character might die later on so you’ll have to play as your character’s child if that happens.
Gender: Your gender. LGBTQ+ is okay, I‘m going to use a singular they in place of any neopronouns, though.
Background: Are you a peasant, a lord, a general? Barbarians and bandits also work as long as you have sufficient motive to either fight the Purple Wave Bandits or try and gain power.
Appearance: What you look like. Please no weird hair or eye colors, try to stick to dark brown or black when possible. I guess you cantake something like auburn if you’re a fire demigod or something, but I might veto that entirely.
Personality: How you act. Please don’t layer on meaningless things like “doesn’t like mean people.”
 
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Quick question. Considering how much time the original rotk covers, is it safe to assume we can keep writing in new characters as time progresses in the RP?
 
Quick question. Considering how much time the original rotk covers, is it safe to assume we can keep writing in new characters as time progresses in the RP?
Yep. These can be the children and relatives of your original characters, like Cao Pi or Sun Quan, or just proteges and successors like Jiang Wei and Deng Ai. I would like you to skew your first few characters towards the more mythical because that’s largely the trend in the story, but that’s by no means a hard and fast rule.
 
In the character sheet you mention fire demigods, I was wonder how much fantasy there will be in the roleplay? Should we be equipping our characters with elemental affinities, spells, legendary animals or weapons?
 
In the character sheet you mention fire demigods, I was wonder how much fantasy there will be in the roleplay? Should we be equipping our characters with elemental affinities, spells, legendary animals or weapons?
It’s kind of low fantasy, but there’s definitely an element of sorcery mixed into the setting.

Fire demigod is a reference to Lady Zhurong, a barbarian chieftainess who was the only woman to fight in the entire Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Encountering spirits and gods is relatively normal and most “civilized” magic involves appealing to or being endowed by such entities, but among the barbarians you get wilder stuff like controlling animals and impenetrable armor.

Civilized magic is definitely something you could incorporate, but I’d prefer to limit it and barbarian magic to maybe one character at a time.

ETA: Technically you can be endowed a divine blessing like say, Mi Zhu for example, but I won’t count that as “civilized magic.” Usually that kind of thing requires you to screw around in a dirt hut for like ten years.
 
Dystopianist Dystopianist Would you be so kind as to repost that rundown of ROTK into here so I don't have to look back for the interest check?😁 also I'm not done with my CS yet finishing background still but when I'm done should I just hold it till there's a CS thread?

Haven't RPed on here in years I'm unsure lol
 
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Dystopianist Dystopianist Would you be so kind as to repost that rundown of ROTK into here so I don't have to look back for the interest check?😁 also I'm not done with my CS yet finishing background still but when I'm done should I just hold it till there's a CS thread?

Haven't RPed on here in years I'm unsure lol
Sure, though be mindful I skipped a lot of my favorite characters like Guo Jia and Yan Liang while completely ignoring some of the later events like War of the Eight Princes, Fancheng & Xiaoting, and Jiang Wei’s Eleven Campaigns on the Central Plains. I’ll dump it into a spoiler up top.

I was originally planning to just have you all post character sheets here, but I’ll make it CS thread now.
 
Dystopianist Dystopianist I'm creating a woman who has taken up role of Acting Lord while her husband is bedridden in the hopes of recovering from a rebel ambush. I just wanted to run the idea by you first and get your approval. She may or may not become the permanent leader of her faction. Depends on how the story goes.

Thoughts?
 
Dystopianist Dystopianist I'm creating a woman who has taken up role of Acting Lord while her husband is bedridden in the hopes of recovering from a rebel ambush. I just wanted to run the idea by you first and get your approval. She may or may not become the permanent leader of her faction. Depends on how the story goes.

Thoughts?
Sounds cool.
 
Tempestus Tempestus Your character looks awesome so far! But... uh, we’re not playing in China. We’re playing in fake China. I understand the urge to make a descendant of as awesome a general as Deng Ai, but it’s easier to play in faux-historical China so there won’t be too much ambiguity over things like the repeating crossbow and gunpowder.

Otherwise, great job.
 
Hey, I hate to do it to you guys, but I need to set the deadline for character submissions to Monday at midnight, EST. As I said, I don’t want to do this, but we really need to get all characters in so we can get the roleplay started.
 
I'm gonna have to bow out of this one due to deal life shit my utmost apologies. If it's still running once I'm more fit to play I'll take a look and let y'all know 😁
 
I'm gonna have to bow out of this one due to deal life shit my utmost apologies. If it's still running once I'm more fit to play I'll take a look and let y'all know 😁

It’s alright, thanks for showing interest.
 
Tempestus Tempestus Your character looks awesome so far! But... uh, we’re not playing in China. We’re playing in fake China. I understand the urge to make a descendant of as awesome a general as Deng Ai, but it’s easier to play in faux-historical China so there won’t be too much ambiguity over things like the repeating crossbow and gunpowder.

Otherwise, great job.

Made some slight adjustments.
 
Ok, I was going to write a more generic post, but I kept on hitting dead ends. Any thoughts from you guys about a starting location? Here’s the (very rough) map, capital at territory 1. E10CA81C-12E7-437A-A5E7-3756A8AA449F.jpeg
 
Well what territories belong to what faction?

1 is the imperial capital but what belongs to the warlords and what does the rebel faction possess?
 
27, 28, and 29 are probably going to be an independent Koxinga-esque faction from loyalists of an old usurper. Grey is barbarians and you can carve out more provinces from that. 25 and 26 are probably barbarian controlled. I'll make any other decisions based on where you start.
 
So this rebellion thats happening. Its a popular revolt or localized? I have this picture that the river cross through 10 is kind of what keeps them from spilling into 1.
 
So this rebellion thats happening. Its a popular revolt or localized? I have this picture that the river cross through 10 is kind of what keeps them from spilling into 1.
Popular, since it’s kind of a movement? It is mainly three large forces localized to two to three areas with some additional satellite forces in places it hasn’t reached. Territory 1 and surrounding is pretty much controlled by Imperial loyalists, so makes enough sense.
 

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