The Campaign Builder's Guild

S&M, I think you have most of it down pat, and adding the 'la Cosa Nostra'.  Where was my head?


I also advise keeping the Bardic Magic tradition separate.  Makes it more special.
But though the bardc schools and the noble houses are often loosely tied, they need to be kept separate.  Sometimes they are on the same side, while other families are tightly bound to the empire or the chuch...or the burgeoning merchant class.
(cue orchestral intro---LC, maybe Debussy?)

Slavers, artisans, merchants already sick of the Empire's strictures of citizenship...what plae to they have?

Quote from: LordVreegBut though the bardc schools and the noble houses are often loosely tied, they need to be kept separate.  Sometimes they are on the same side, while other families are tightly bound to the empire or the chuch...or the burgeoning merchant class.
(cue orchestral intro---LC, maybe Debussy?)

Slavers, artisans, merchants already sick of the Empire's strictures of citizenship...what plae to they have?

I can see the ambivalence of the relationship - in a way they are P-B 3a and 3b. While the prime (offensive) directive among the Houses is every house for itself, they would be united defensively in opposing/countering any efforts by Church and/or State to undermine their power and influence as a whole: any action which would harm them all such as increase in levies. Each House would be actively jockeying for supremacy via avenues of influence in Church, State, or Mercantile power, (or combinations thereof) as most strategically suited to their particular circumstances. The historical basis of most of these individual house strategies would likely predate the New Empire's founding. Most of the nobles who forced John to sign the Magna Carta would have happily slit each others throats if it would increase their individual power. . . The Bardic Colleges would be tied to the houses at least in the public mind, even while pursuing their own agenda, as they still require their patronage - it doesn't sound like they have been ceded any resources at all as internal Imperial (Dept. of Education) structures - at best some may own the actual "campus grounds." They draw their actual membership primarily from the ranks of promising noble families, and finance their needs and much of their activities through tuition paid by those families. No doubt they do have some significant money making sidelines hidden behind double/triple blinds as well - they've been around for a long time and probably should secretly control a few things.

Hmm - instead of the above dependency, the appearance of which would still be maintained as a brilliant cover, um, guys, who actually runs the banks?  As I understand it, the Bardic Colleges are actually the oldest formal (non-familial) organization(s) in the Empire - by bleeding centuries! They've had the time to actually establish a hella-lot of power, financial and resource base infrastructures along with an elaborate shell game behind which to hide their control of said. . . Hell - they could have actually been the ones to propose the formation and structure of the New Empire, introduce the players to each other, and subtly engineer and finance this entire freakin' charade with no one the wiser! and with a lich (Devinious) secretly at the helm seeking to rebuild the power lost with the Old Empire's destruction this would not be at all far-fetched - instead it's what you would expect of someone capable of devising and conducting truly long-range plans.  Just what is it the Colleges know about him anyway? Don't know about anyone else but the twisted, perverted and labyrinthine deviousness of the idea really appeals to me. . . <surprise!>

{cue- Moondog, "The Witch of Endor". If you're not familiar with his work LV and LC, I'm sure you'll love his compositions - pretty much scored for chamber orchestra/small ensemble}

As for the mercantile class, I was going to say, they would have play through finances - take a look at Elizabeth I's debt until Drake bankrolled her at Spanish expense and the subsequent rise of the East India Trading Co. However, they might not have the leverage, but they might still be the cover for a Bardic Banking Bureau. . . In any case, we've so far overlooked the financiers in the power game and definitely need to identify them. Establishing the New Empire would have taken an astronomic monetary investment and you can bet that both Church and State are deeply indebted to someone - who will certainly take advantage of that situation.

[blockquote=S&M]They've had the time to actually establish a hella-lot of power, financial and resource base infrastructures along with an elaborate shell game behind which to hide their control of said. . . Hell - they could have actually been the ones to propose the formation and structure of the New Empire, introduce the players to each other, and subtly engineer and finance this entire freakin' charade with no one the wiser! and with a lich (Devinious) secretly at the helm seeking to rebuild the power lost with the Old Empire's destruction this would not be at all far-fetched - instead it's what you would expect of someone capable of devising and conducting truly long-range plans. Just what is it the Colleges know about him anyway? Don't know about anyone else but the twisted, perverted and labyrinthine deviousness of the idea really appeals to me. . . <surprise!>[/blockquote]

Or, Devineous being the force behind one of the colleges.  And that the whole thing was started as a behind-the-scenes proxy war with 2-4 barci school factions (one backed by the lich, one holding the purse strings of the 2 major moneylenders, who aer non the wiser) trying to gain an advantage, and thje whole thing has just steamrolled into a life of its own...

Hmm. Well, I can see this working with the four (or even five) powerbases equally in the empire, but I don't so much like the idea of the whole 'conspiracy: bard starts up Empire!' thing. It just seems a bit of a cliché. This, I prefer:

QuoteOr, Devineous being the force behind one of the colleges. And that the whole thing was started as a behind-the-scenes proxy war with 2-4 barci school factions (one backed by the lich, one holding the purse strings of the 2 major moneylenders, who aer non the wiser) trying to gain an advantage, and thje whole thing has just steamrolled into a life of its own...

With the Church (with infighting between its bishops) providing police and labour, the nobles providing various different services (including support), the Emperor providing rulership, administration, spoils of war and right of existence to the Church, and the bards manipulating from behind the scenes, including controlling banks (different colleges could control separate banks, but have agreements with others etc) and having highly-placed contacts, this could become... very... interesting.

Actually I see the conspiracy as more of a long-term manipulation of trends by Devineous - simply carefully nudging some things here and there at times and allowing them to develop further on their own (no need to micro-manage a complicated plot) in directions which would ultimately benefit him regardless of the specific details of their eventual forms. Much of it actually takes advantage of the constant infighting and semi-alliances arising from it so that all contestants at least agree to elevate the conflict to a wider, less public arena. (They look like they're cooperating when really they're fighting dirtier for higher stakes. . .) I'm working off-line to sketch out a coherent version of this based on what's been pinned down so far and the suggestions currently afloat. There's some background points that need to get clarified and this will address possible answers to some of them as well. Ultimately I'm going for a proposal which will make a great deal of sense without falling into cliche - "the whole thing steamrolling into a life of it's own" with someone occasionally steering the steamroller for a moment and while sitting back and letting it roll at random the vast majority of the time with the ultimate result of "the Church (with infighting between its bishops) providing police and labour, the nobles providing various different services (including support), the Emperor providing rulership, administration, spoils of war and right of existence to the Church, and the bards manipulating from behind the scenes, including controlling banks (different colleges could control separate banks, but have agreements with others etc) and having highly-placed contacts, this could become... very... interesting." No matter what they do at that point, Devinious profits from a restructured power base similar to what he lost with the fall of the Old Empire which everyone has been only too glad to help rebuild. . . The greater problem than avoiding cliche is not making it so subtle and devious that it would be a royal (or is that Imperial?) bitch to actually run.

[blockquote=S&M]with the ultimate result of "the Church (with infighting between its bishops) providing police and labour, the nobles providing various different services (including support), the Emperor providing rulership, administration, spoils of war and right of existence to the Church, and the bards manipulating from behind the scenes, including controlling banks (different colleges could control separate banks, but have agreements with others etc) and having highly-placed contacts, this could become... very... interesting." No matter what they do at that point, Devinious profits from a restructured power base similar to what he lost with the fall of the Old Empire which everyone has been only too glad to help rebuild. . . The greater problem than avoiding cliche is not making it so subtle and devious that it would be a royal (or is that Imperial?) bitch to actually run.[/blockquote]

Not so worried about being hard to run, as long as we put the prime players in place and provice motivation scripts.  Once we get the snapshot nailed down, then we have to point the arrows what each group knows, and what this is causing them to do  (welcome to flowchart city).

Just remember that those old Noble families are probably trying to play all sides against each other.  Publically denouncing the new merchant class, while making deals with them on the side, Searching for clues for the wherabouts for Devineous while unknowingly sending their kids to the Bardic College he is actually the disguised headmaster for, sending money to the Saint Alms fund of the poor while worshipping the Totem God of their ancient famuily in their basement.[note]I might have to run a deranged Harry Potteresque bardic school game in with them trying to help the aged and wise headmaster...who is actually Devineous.[/note].  

I can see the a few of the other BArdic Colleges being aware that Devineous escaped the ruin of the Old Empire and searching for him and his agents, scoring a victory or 2, but not even being aware he is actually running one of the rival schools.

Yeah - it's all in there - except Hogwarts, but I haven't quite gotten to the present - the actual factional divisions show up pretty easily. The one thing in your ideas that I'm uncertain of is if a lich can actually mask its nature (aura of fear etc.) that well to risk hiding in plain sight. I had actually though of having him masquerading a while back as   Lark Herioson - winding up a saint and anti-saint at the same time (see my remark in the wizards thread) but abandoned it on the grounds that it would have not been possible to pull off. The question is more than its remote possibility - the chance of discovery has to be very close to null to warrant the risk in cost/benefit analysis.

If my wi-fi feed is functioning smooth I think I'll have a draft ready to post this evening. Its long. No really, I  mean, like for me, its llooonnggg. ugh. would you be willing to do an editing scan to see tighten it up a little? I'm writing in Open Office, and can save as a Word.doc file if you don't have it.

Of course.  I am of thje belief that you are the fastest typist in the world, BTW, but I'll get a look later tonight.

(You, longwinded?  Perish Forbid)

k - off to work and more Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave to inspire a dark, sordid reality. . .

I haven't read all that has been typed here lately I've been busy elsewhere. One thing to keep in mind is that we want to detail much of the Empire, but also we need to keep some things vague enough for the DM running a game in the world.

Agreed - so far I think that's actually working pretty well as I'm really only outlining the basic (historical) maneuvers which set the stage. Even if everyone likes the whole thing as written, it's essentially top-down but not down very far, with little depth of detail. I'm primarily seeking to get enough of a framework that seperate threads can begin to discuss some of the detail we would want to include, e.g., separate discussion of the nuts and bolts of the Church structure and organization in which it's various prelates carry out their assorted internal feuds, a thread to flesh out the Bardic College concepts, etc.

I was about to start a separate thread re: Church organizational structure but realized there are some questions which haven't yet been addressed and need to be before we can go into that stage of detail. So I've compiled the ones I'm aware of and then started proposed historical back-story to suggest answers which help to explain the current situation. I still have a little more to go, but should be able to put the text into the wiki this weekend, hopefully tomorrow. I'll post here once that's done and include the URL for ease of discussion. While trying to present a coherent and comprehensive whole, I hope it's still modular enough to readily permit changes to it's parts without necessitating either using it whole-cloth or having to entirely rebuild from scratch something equally complete in order to get changes to work. Numbers (of Old and New Houses, surviving and new Bardic Colleges, etc.) are essentially arbitrary ball-park figures representing ranges high enough to support the complexity of their interplay but otherwise low enough to avoid unnecessary complication. All are open to adjustment in any time period and are assumed to have fluctuated considerably over the course of 5 centuries '" the most important figures being the results of various 'survival equations,' that is, if there were 100 Noble Houses in the Old Empire, what actually matters is how many survived the first century of civil war (and how/why) and how many of those have managed to survive to the present day (and in what condition). The function of this pattern of consideration, I think, will be readily apparent in the content of the text. I honestly think the historical novel is really very good but realize that that doesn't mean it's what every one is wanting to see in the setting. I've taken a few liberties with a couple of things already agreed upon - none really changing the root concepts, just putting a different spin on them for the sake of narrative continuity. If nothing else, I've been having a blast playing with this make-your-own jigsaw puzzle. And, oh yeah, it's long (even for me), but I believe quite thorough. I'm putting the preliminary questions here so you'll see what I'm trying to include and to suggest any questions I've missed but need to be taken into account.

The first group of questions is about the fall of the Old Empire. Much of the subsequent storyline is written as if this essentially occurred overnight, e.g. the assassination of the Emperor and his direct heirs plunging the realm into chaos with multiple Houses presenting conflicting claims to succession. Clearly, even in such sudden scenario, a gradual process of degradation had to precede it to create the conditions necessary for such a result. Had the empire already descended into a civil war with one or more nobles seeking to supplant the Emperor? Were events sudden, unexpected and thorough enough to prevent the continuation of any Imperial dynasty by normal political means? How this came about would determine how well (if at all) the various Houses and other institutions were prepared to cope with the fallout. A plot by one or more Houses would most likely mean they at least believed that they were ready to capitalize on the vacuum created. Were any not involved in the attempted coup able to anticipate it and make preparations to weather the coming storm? With Devinious having a hand in these events, the question of how central his influence was to their creation adds a further variable to the above. To quote his wiki entry,

'Childhood friend of King Theo and archmage. After Theo's death he ascended to the throne, but after becoming a lich was deposed. He is a Lord of Knowledge, and the Arcane, and works to rebuild the empire. Out of spite he caused the first Fall, but he realises now that it weakened him greatly. Some of the Old Bardic Societies know of his existence, and hold secrets about him.'

If he essentially master-minded the entire affair from the shadows, he would have most likely played the participants against each other, such that multiple Houses executed the overthrow in concert, each believing that they had the backing and political position to smoothly ascend the throne. In this case it is unlikely that anyone, especially the actual participants, were in fact prepared to respond effectively to the actual situation which they had unwittingly created. These instead, if unmasked, would most likely become the first to fall to the retaliation of the other Houses in the ensuing civil wars. As shadow-leader behind such a conspiracy, this certainly would have been among Devinious' intended results, engineering the downfall by their own hands of virtually everyone against whom he had long nurtured a grudge in one fell stroke. (Since King Theo had founded the Empire, Devinious was the second Emperor. Both his  hatred and his plans for its fulfillment were truly as old as the Empire itself. . .) For the sake of simplicity, this is the scenario I'll be working from later.

Regarding recent history, the origins, motives and objectives, etc. of the individual power players who actually orchestrated the Re-founding need clarification. As the Church couldn't simply spring into being already complete, where did those who built it up come from? Were they all from Noble Houses? Were they of lower classes who rose to power via religious means? Did the separate followers of various 'Saints' of the Old Empire  (constituting the sort of individual monotheist 'personality cults' more typical of D&D religions) decide to unite as a synergetic single polytheist religion or was it unified from its inception? Much of this will have significant bearing on the allegiances of the various Houses. Additionally, which Houses have a Patron Saint in Church Canon and which failed to promote one (I'm assuming here that all of them at least tried to at some point) will further influence House factional lines.

Separately, where did the Emperor come from and what's he like politically? I'm assuming that he was from a Noble House (I think named somewhere) but what's his further background, i.e., why him? Is he an accomplished political strategist or an ambitious popular figure (such as military hero) whom the Church chose to support partly because they (thought they) could manipulate him (see Claudius Caesar as an example of this not working out as expected. . ) - I'm guessing the former (or a Claudius-like mistake) to be the case as there's been no indication that he's out of his depth and doesn't realize it '" so far by all appearances he's a very astute politician. Since he represents the ascension over the rest of one of the Houses to power as Imperial Family, how did opposing Houses react, and how did he deal with them (and his allies) once crowned?

As for the Houses, once the Old Empire fell what did they do? Which survived till now and which are new houses arising during the interregnum? From what do they (old and new) derive their current (social, economic and political) power base(s)? Pretty much the same needs to be asked of the Bardic Colleges '" which survived, which are new, what financial backing have they developed so as not to be dependent on House patronage, what spheres of influence have they developed and in what directions do their agendas move? To a lesser degree these same questions apply to some of the guilds and other mercantile/financial players; primarily as with regard to their relationships with the Houses and Colleges. Of necessity, money would have to have played a huge role in the developments over the course of the last 5 centuries or so, even if most of it (as typical) moved far behind the scenes. Simply tracking (who had control of) its basic movement, particularly once the Re-Founding movement began to gain steam into the present, will clarify a great deal of the above as it constitutes the one truly universal element which every single player, successful or now forgotten, had to take into account regardless of agenda or strategy.

Ugg. At work.  Not where to answer questions/plot from.

I'll go dig for you, as this might help a bit, as it is pretty simple.  
BP is before present.  
[blockquote=Me from much earlier posting on empire.  Folks agreed, we went on...]To borrow from our friend Mormegil, I'm going to take his timeline and expand on it. These are still rough suggestions, but hopefully thought provoking ones. I'm not trying to step on any toes, but just trying to help get the 'personality' of this Empire described, so things fall into place better.
~650 BP City X starts to go through some sort of enlightenment, begins to attract talent, population, and dough.
~520 BP City X grows large, and moves from totalitarian govt. to more representative one. Local small populations centers (towns) start asking City X for protection.
~550 BP City Y and City Z, jealous, form an alliance (still a swear word in the current campaign...why not) and try to gain more support from other outsiders. They fear city X, and they atart banding people together against city X. City X, in turn, enlarges it's own power base.
~450 BP City X and the great man in charge of the representative Govt. defeat and conquer City Y, and lay claim to all the area between them. City Z acts tough for a few years, but eventually capitulates. Empire of City X oficially begins, with towns and such in the areas between giving fealty. Every ally that both sides grabbed is now under the control of City X, and this is the beginning of the First Empire.
~350 through 225 BP Empire of X goes through Golden age, the security of same allows learning and philosphy to grow, and all that crap.
~150 BP Invasion, fire, famine, and the rebellion of City Q trying to break away frays dramatically at the ties that bind the Empire. Combine this with a weak king/emperor and the forces of chaos subtly trying to til things, and the empire slides into chaos. Next 100 years a slide into chaos. (And Jubilex is Very Happy!  Yay, Happy Demons---if you decide to have demons)
~50 In some quiet corner that was once the Old Empire, an intelligent man tries to weave back the glory that was Empire X (trumpets, please). UNfortunately, this coincides with the growth of the new 'Saint-worship' Cult, which starts in the same small township. The intelligent man makes compromises and allies with the growing new religion, thinking he can keep it in check. UNfortunately, the Saint Worship (maybe having the last rulers of the odl empire as the first saints...just a thought)becomes stronger and stronger. This creates a zealotry that allows the intelligent man to create a readymade army that sweeps out of the small population center, and re-establishes the name of the old Empire, proclaiming to be it's second coming, on the authority of the Saint Worship religion.
`0 BP, as Turin said, the empire grew quickly, and due to the harshness that religeous conversion by the sword tends to create, there is much strife, as the conservative religeous forces try to consolidate their power and conquered terrritories suffer religeous backlash. If the expansion of the new empire is fueld by the new religion, that ties the two together, making newly conquered territories more likely to rebel, and areas in conflict outside the empire hate it even more.


Love the name Alcander. That is a winner.
The Roman Empire was called the Imperium. The Ottoman Empire was acually called the Sublime Ottoman State. You call things an Empire in history class, rarely in politics (Except for the Holy Roman Idiots). So I am far more fond of the Imperium of Allaha, since it avoids the Empire term. [/blockquote]

Also, it was postulated that the city states from before the earliest time mentioned above had been bopping each other for ~500 years, but that back in ~-1500BP, there was an earlier hegemony/alliance of city states that left some ruins, roads and temples.  Back in the good old days, when humans weren't so xenophobic, and when elves, men, dwarves and everyone got along....and all that happy crap.

So the ending of the Old Empire was more of a slide into chaos.  Devineous' creation came after this, but I could see him being imprisoned/hiding out in City Q around -400BP, after his moving himself to the throne fell apart.

Based on the size of the Empire on the map, I think when we say those three main cities, obviously those were the three biggest cities within the borders during the birth of the first Empire, but there must have been dozens of smaller cities and hundreds of Townships, burghs, villages, hamlets, and stopovers. I would say, based on this and the plualistic format of governement proposed originally that approximately 100-150 major family groupings (gens) made up the patrician class of the Old Empire at the apex.  Some would have been in City Q [spoiler=Q] I have 'Avenue Q's' tune, "What do you do with a BA in English?', stuck in my head now.  Great.[/spoiler], and some more would have allied themselves with that crew.  I would say that those Gens would have been stricken from the rolls of the Empire (though the outlaw familes probably still remember who they are, nursing their anger.  Some nasty guy is probably using that anger, in between grading papers), and after some good fire and death, we'd be down to 50 Old Gens, and only half of those still have ancestral lands, businesses, positions.  A good half of them have a name and maybe a shadow of their former prospertity...but these folks, with 'sainted blood', are the biggest proponents of the Saintanist church.

[blockquote=S&M]'Childhood friend of King Theo and archmage. After Theo's death he ascended to the throne, but after becoming a lich was deposed. He is a Lord of Knowledge, and the Arcane, and works to rebuild the empire. Out of spite he caused the first Fall, but he realises now that it weakened him greatly. Some of the Old Bardic Societies know of his existence, and hold secrets about him.'

If he essentially master-minded the entire affair from the shadows, he would have most likely played the participants against each other, such that multiple Houses executed the overthrow in concert, each believing that they had the backing and political position to smoothly ascend the throne. In this case it is unlikely that anyone, especially the actual participants, were in fact prepared to respond effectively to the actual situation which they had unwittingly created. These instead, if unmasked, would most likely become the first to fall to the retaliation of the other Houses in the ensuing civil wars. As shadow-leader behind such a conspiracy, this certainly would have been among Devinious' intended results, engineering the downfall by their own hands of virtually everyone against whom he had long nurtured a grudge in one fell stroke. (Since King Theo had founded the Empire, Devinious was the second Emperor. Both his hatred and his plans for its fulfillment were truly as old as the Empire itself. . .) For the sake of simplicity, this is the scenario I'll be working from later.[/blockquote]
I'd say thay he helped create the Old Empire, but not always using the means he claimed, got sick of being second banana, killed off Theo, ascended to the position he felt he created, the old families discovered it (and the family that spearheaded this got the business from Devineous years later...whoooboy), and deposed and imprisoned him, after the 'Year of Rage'.  Got imprisoned/banished to City Q, and started pulling strings again, foments the rebellion in spiteful blindness, but suffers greatly when nearly all he created and his own corporeal body get hammered in the fall of City Q.
(must be a great 'behind the scenes' epic with the adventurers, led by the KNight of Family X, crashing in to lair).

More later.

Hmm - some of the time line won't sync with what I've got - the actual 1st Empire founding can go pretty much any which way - I didn't address it. One detail about it that's unclear to me from various threads - King Theo/Alcander - Theo's listed as founder in the Roll of Saints but Alcander is settled upon as first Emperor. Unless these were intended as different names for the same people I recommend that we simply take a page from Chinese history, with the architect being awarded the title posthumously. (Wen, Duke of Zhou planned the overthrow of the Shang, but died before executing it. His son Wu carried out the plans, becoming the first Zhou Emperor and his father is now known as King Wen). This serves sufficiently to canonize him as architect/"law giver," but throws a kink in the actual Imperial succession if Devinious succeeded him and he wasn't in fact the first Emperor. . . Anyway, the latter 50 years or so is the main sync problem - I'm writing this as 500 years from fall to Re-Founding - with the Church being established about halfway through and gradually growing. Over the course of this tho' I can weave all the suggestions for the present into place in a fashion that makes some real, practical political and economic sense that will set the stage for the Re-founding and subsequent expansion of the New Empire.

Mmm, Theo was part of the original set of names before the first (second? third?) revival of Cebegia. This also included Devinious as, as I remember, Devious. I think in the revival, we tried to give it a more 'Classic Era' foreign style, so we ended up with Alcander.

Theo Alcander works, as does Theo being the father and Alcander being the child, or Alcander being the title (protector of men) and Theo being the name.