Dice Exalted 3E - Tale of a Falling Empire OOC

[D. Rex]

No problem. I can't guarantee it'll go through though.

But of course. Lol though I can be pretty persuasive even without rolls. Plenty of points that could benefit both parties.

That said! It is just one idea that can get what she wants done. But fair is fair, as her offers aren't guaranteed either :p

 

[Rykon]

jaydude
I'm thinking of introducing a fact on V'Neef Merina.

Given that house V'Neef is both new and small, I'd assume Manato would have at least heard the name in passing, but I'd take it a step further. Before play had started, I had a rivalry intimacy with V'Neef wines on his sheet... So I am picturing a rivalry that dates back to the middle of primary school. The kind that would leave him with waking nightmares of being arranged to marry her as a mere first step into merging his business with hers. This would mean losing what brand identity he'd spent years cultivating before it could truly spread like a wildfire. The horror factor wouldn't necessarily be about a forced partnership, but the boundless fountain of smug teasing that would follow out of both personal amusement and raw ambition. It's this nightmare that has fostered a hidden Major to Defining Intimacy in Manato, "Please, Dragons, anyone but her. I'd never hear the end of it. Not even in the next life."

While I'm vaguely on the subject, I haven't had much free brain space to jot down everything I've conjured up for Manato's personal history. The only other thing worth noting that I have settled on would be a Tepet father who is recently deceased from the battle of Futile Blood and the loss of the Tepet Legions. So I could see interest in making friends with Kirito in support of getting the Satrap's court to have a collective change of heart. I had also silently decided last week there was a side item on the original sheet from Red Shadow Claws' game I intend to build back into the character with XP. Craft-Cooking. It'll be a gradual thing, but depending on how the game moves forward, opening restaurants as a natural extension of his food and wine supply chain sounds fun.

Suffice to say, there's plenty of entertaining threads here worth expanding on. Let me know if your thoughts and if you want a roll for the rivalry.

 

[jaydude]

jaydude
I'm thinking of introducing a fact on V'Neef Merina.

Given that house V'Neef is both new and small, I'd assume Manato would have at least heard the name in passing, but I'd take it a step further. Before play had started, I had a rivalry intimacy with V'Neef wines on his sheet... So I am picturing a rivalry that dates back to the middle of primary school. The kind that would leave him with waking nightmares of being arranged to marry her as a mere first step into merging his business with hers. This would mean losing what brand identity he'd spent years cultivating before it could truly spread like a wildfire. The horror factor wouldn't necessarily be about a forced partnership, but the boundless fountain of smug teasing that would follow out of both personal amusement and raw ambition. It's this nightmare that has fostered a hidden Major to Defining Intimacy in Manato, "Please, Dragons, anyone but her. I'd never hear the end of it. Not even in the next life."

While I'm vaguely on the subject, I haven't had much free brain space to jot down everything I've conjured up for Manato's personal history. The only other thing worth noting that I have settled on would be a Tepet father who is recently deceased from the battle of Futile Blood and the loss of the Tepet Legions. So I could see interest in making friends with Kirito in support of getting the Satrap's court to have a collective change of heart. I had also silently decided last week there was a side item on the original sheet from Red Shadow Claws' game I intend to build back into the character with XP. Craft-Cooking. It'll be a gradual thing, but depending on how the game moves forward, opening restaurants as a natural extension of his food and wine supply chain sounds fun.

Suffice to say, there's plenty of entertaining threads here worth expanding on. Let me know if your thoughts and if you want a roll for the rivalry.

All great ideas.

No roll needed for the rivalry. That Lore bonus was really just in case you wanted to spawn in another Dynast with a means of aiding you and your cause. It's my way of lessening my workload for this chronicle.

And yes, you can certainly have your father be a member of House Tepet, if you want to establish some common ground between Manato and Kirito.

 

[D. Rex]

jaydude
What would be needed if I wanted to start positively influencing Satori to be less of a greedy bitch? Such as considering marriage for her satrap, if such a marriage would put Fel in a position to influence her in such a way.

I would assume that involves a series of creating ties rather than rhetoric alone. To that end. If I were to roll now, would I be able to use a wp to add dice from define intimacy of the shadow crusades, AND use the air aspect ability to add dice by upholding that same principle, given that what he is doing is related to doing good for the duty of it.

 

[jaydude]

jaydude
What would be needed if I wanted to start positively influencing Satori to be less of a greedy bitch? Such as considering marriage for her satrap, if such a marriage would put Fel in a position to influence her in such a way.

I would assume that involves a series of creating ties rather than rhetoric alone. To that end. If I were to roll now, would I be able to use a wp to add dice from define intimacy of the shadow crusades, AND use the air aspect ability to add dice by upholding that same principle, given that what he is doing is related to doing good for the duty of it.

I'm kinda working on stuff for another RP right now. I'll reply later on.

 

[D. Rex]

I'm kinda working on stuff for another RP right now. I'll reply later on.

No worries! Take your time, boss, i'll be around.

 

[Rykon]

D. Rex
From a raw mechanics perspective, we need to uncover more of her intimacies. The idea is to appeal to one and portray it in conflict with her greed. Alternatively, we can leverage an existing intimacy to create a new one that does conflict with her greed. Afterward, we reinforce her new one and while tearing away the greed, scene by scene.

My current plan is to wingman for Fel to build on her appreciation for him and inspire a more broad empathy for others.

It also helps the more people we influence around her as well, since we can get them to inadvertently help us instead of hinder us if we play our cards right. From a realistic perspective, it's like how people say you become the average of the people you spend the most time with. I reckon we can replicate a similar effect by verbally smiting the stupidity from her advisors.

It'll be especially effective when we have real dirt on said advisors. Which is why once he knows a little more about the illegal slaves guess, Manato will quickly be letting Asuna know she has assets to play with that were left behind by a family member. Hopefully with that lead on the finance minister to boot.

 

[D. Rex]

D. Rex
From a raw mechanics perspective, we need to uncover more of her intimacies. The idea is to appeal to one and portray it in conflict with her greed. Alternatively, we can leverage an existing intimacy to create a new one that does conflict with her greed. Afterward, we reinforce her new one and while tearing away the greed, scene by scene.

My current plan was to wingman for Fel to build on her appreciation for him and inspire a more broad empathy for others.

It also helps the more people we influence around her as well, since we can get them to inadvertently help us instead of hinder us if we play our cards right. From a realistic perspective, it's like how people say you become the average of the people you spend the most time with. I reckon we can replicate a similar effect by verbally smiting the stupidity from her advisors.

It'll be especially effective when we have real dirt on said advisors. Which is why once he knows a little more about the illegal slaves guess, Manato will quickly be letting Asuna know she has assets to play with that were left behind by a family member. Hopefully with that lead on the finance minister to boot.

Very very clever. I'm interested in helping along your plan. Lol much better than mine which was "roll until I hit". I'm still new to the social scene, so I'm gonna be taking notes from you!

 

[D. Rex]

Any ways i can help you along?

 

[Rykon]

Well... The other angle I've been considering is this. We know she worked hard enough to graduate "top of her class" at the Spiral Academy. A valedictorian kind of person cares about either the satisfaction of achievement or the accolades they get from others if not both. Why not get her to explain how she feels about her time in her role? What about what has happened makes her feel good or bad about her time in Kandara?

If she feels bad about being able to manage the people of Kandara, we can appeal to that pain. If she feels good about the financial performance of the satrapy, we can entice her with an opportunity to make more money by making the laws more "inviting to new and existing businesses" and thus create taxable income/sales growth.

Anything we can do to genuinely learn more about her will give us an edge in "helping us help her" better than we otherwise would. Even if it's seemingly trivial stuff like what she thinks of her parents/siblings/first cousins or what her favorite food is.

 

[D. Rex]

Well... The other angle I've been considering is this. We know she worked hard enough to graduate "top of her class" at the Spiral Academy. A valedictorian kind of person cares about either the satisfaction of achievement or the accolades they get from others if not both. Why not get her to explain how she feels about her time in her role? What about what has happened makes her feel good or bad about her time in Kandara?

If she feels bad about being able to manage the people of Kandara, we can appeal to that pain. If she feels good about the financial performance of the satrapy, we can entice her with an opportunity to make more money by making the laws more "inviting to new and existing businesses" and thus create taxable income/sales growth.

Anything we can do to genuinely learn more about her will give us an edge in "helping us help her" better than we otherwise would. Even if it's seemingly trivial stuff like what she thinks of her parents/siblings/first cousins or what her favorite food is.

I see! So then what I am doing, even if not rolling or forming ties, is putting myself in a position where I am friendly and a degree of closeness where I can learn more about her intimacies.

 

[Random Word]

I suspect the problem here is that she does very much care about her reputation - amongst her peers. Her job as Satrap is to make sure the Tithe arrives on the Isle on schedule and in full, every year. Her personal greed isn't really the problem, it's her professional Empress-given duty that is in deep conflict with the wellbeing of the populace. Her House keeps upping the Tithe to pay for increasingly expensive war preparations, and they don't care how she meets it so long as she does.

So far it sounds like she's executed that duty perfectly, and so her professional reputation is excellent. Her peers aren't grading her on how miserable her populace are, or how vulnerable she is to violent insurrection. Convincing her the civil war will be so bad she should start thinking about cultivating a safe personal power base outside the Isle might be a hard sell depending on her attitudes, but that would realign her priorities from wanting the approval of her House to ensuring the stability of her personal fiefdom. Alternatively you appeal to how unlikely it is she'll make her next Tithe payment on time if she doesn't change her policies, but in reality if she's kinder to the populace she is also highly unlikely to successfully make her next Tithe payment in full. This is the quandary here. You'd need to convince her that a partial Tithe payment was better than a serious risk of no payment at all, and her arrogance is such that she likely doesn't believe she could fail to maintain control just long enough to see the war break out, when it becomes markedly less relevant.

 

[Rykon]

That is a pretty accurate account of how things are and how things got to be there. As for how we can respond to it, her perspective can surely change if you shift her view of what "peers" means. People at home on the Blessed Isle can be considered peers sure. In the short term, they will see no issue. However, there are plenty of Dynasts wagging tongues in Kandara, right in her domain. In front of her and behind her back. Those can sting a lot more than the opinion of a desk jockey hundreds of miles away wondering why his lunch money is late.

Even still one can argue the value of protecting the Jade supply, which her house is known to covet in spades. Risking an insurrection not only loses ALL of the tithe, but ALL of the jade access. Jade that would not only not go into the hands of the house but would land in the hands of Anathema. It could also be argued that she doesn't have a monopoly on sorcerers in the Satrapy. Word of this failure can get back and get back quickly. Having the threat of getting all of the Dynasty talking about how she was single-handedly responsible for handing a Jade cache to a Solar is no small threat. Especially when we could rally other witnesses to testify to her policy and the events that took place.

Rather than merely threatening her though, I suspect we'll have to make personal sacrifices on behalf of the Kandaran people. Such as covering part of their tithe, getting a summoner to conjure spirit labor for the mine, getting special hearthstones or divine blessings from a local god that benefit the people and so forth.

 

[jaydude]

I have to say, I'm enjoying all the brainstorming that's happening here.

 

[Rykon]

Such plots are what breathe life into these games for me. I'm glad to see others are enjoying it as well. I think we're all on the right track, having to tackle the looming crisis from multiple sides at once.

I know Sherwood and Psychie are bound to have a rough time getting the people on their side. Hopefully, we can shuffle a few extra friends their way before the inevitable confrontation.

 

[D. Rex]

I concur with Rykon. The political intrigue at hand is refreshing complication to deal with and a puzzle of its own. And it let's us effect the world in different ways. I'm certainly looking forward to it all!

 

[D. Rex]

Fel is making a sacrifice here, hopefully the act of goodwill in helping Satori will pay off later. If his family or hers catches wind of this freebie, it could spark some trouble. Fel is accepting the responsibility and effort while getting nothing out of it. Manato might be able to take advantage of that investment.

 

[jaydude]

Sherwood and Psychie

Gonna make rolls here, to determine whether the speaker and the crowd see through your disguises.

Also, for this roll, the speaker will have a target number of 4 as opposed to 7.

With eight successes, the speaker will identify you both as disguised Dynasts.

Edit: Also decided to make a roll for Sengon. Six dice, with an additional two from essence use. With Xandra having two successes on her disguise roll, he recognizes her, but not Larissa.

 

[Random Word]

Oh fuck. Everyone knows what that means.

 

[Random Word]

Wait, doesn't House Cynis only have a monopoly on slaves on the Blessed Isle? I don't think the Realm considers the Guild illegal in the Threshold.

 

[Rykon]

From what I read it says "within the Realm" but given how differently the Threshold is managed compared to the Blessed Isle you may be right on that. Either way, it doesn't seem there's any illicit dealings worth focusing on at the moment. Figured I'd fish for an advantage while I had the thought, but there will be other opportunities.

 

[Random Word]

That's a good point. 'Within the Realm' does sound like it includes the Threshold. I remembered reading something that said only the Blessed Isle, but that may well have been 2e or I could be misremembering entirely.

 

[jaydude]

Hmm. I kinda want to bring the group back together for the start of the gala, or at least a meeting prior to it.

Sherwood and Psychie , do you mind holding off on investigating the speaker until the next day? Or do the two of you want to send Larissa and Xandra after him now?

Random Word , I know I've kinda been neglecting you for the last few days, but do you mind if I skip over Asuna's meeting, summarising it as the city's most influential merchants, patricians and the like agreeing to help with her festival?

If anyone else has anything they'd like to do prior to the start of the gala, let me know, and I'll try and accommodate you. I may be in control here, but you're in this game as well.

 

[Sherwood]

I was hoping to get everyone together to chase the guy down, just in case we run into some Solars. So I'm good on waiting for a while. I have two days for the Charm I used to work.

 

[Psychie]

I am good with holding off on the hunt for the speaker and his people.