Creative Exercise: The Sovereign Dominion of Eyros

domino said:

Yeah. WAY back in post 139, I put foward a courier service. What Sarellion posted was the relevant post, verbatim.

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D'oh! Dunno how I forgot that. I remember reading it now.

Okay, how about this? We assume that the Raptors are the courrier service for the rich and powerful, while the courriers you mentioned work for the common folk, as you specificed? They might be related organizations, or rivals, or (at times) both, depending on how future contributions go.

Sound good?

I dunno, they can get a message anywhere in two days, if the timing is right. I don't think that the rich would want to bother with anything more expensive, just for that.

If you want to just call the courier service the Raptors, that could work. They share many of the same tricks, already. And making sure they are neutral is always a good idea.

I don't think I posted anything, but for ensuring the safety of the post, I was thinking that instead of bodyguards (which would just slow down the post) it's just generally assumed that interfering with it brings down the legions on the area like the wrath of God. We could always say that instead, they keep their own, private army, to do that instead.

Okay, that works for me. We'll make the Raptors the standard courrier service for commoners and powerful alike.

Hey, I somehow missed this thread until now when it's too big to really be readable (although I'll be browsing through the wiki y'all set up for some time to come.) Great stuff! I'm gonna start another thread asking about the process, hopefully tonight still, so if y'all don't mind popping in and having a look-see, I'd 'preciate it.

For my next contribution I work from some stuffe mentioned in post 5. I try to tie it in somehow as People imagine the pillars and so on different now.

Post:

Eyros has a long tradition of senatorial governance, with occassional periods of despotic autocracy when a particular family or individual gains dominance.

Contribution:

The senate could be considered the legislative body of the Dominion of Eyros, but there is no constitution detailing a rigid government system. In normal times, the senate passes the laws, serves as a meeting ground of the Pillars, authorizes the grand monarch to go to war and decides about the imperial household. Senators are nominally free to vote as they wish but the pillar doesn´t take kindly to senators who don´t do as they wish. As pureblooded senators can be called back within three months time, a wise senator does as told. Half-orcs can only be recalled if both pillars agree. But there is an unspoken agreement that half-orcs are considered to be affiliated with the -dal Pillar. if the -dal Pillar decides to withdraw a senator, the other one normally agrees. A half-orc can only be withdrawn after the year has passed.

The Grand Monarch is doing all the day to day politics and is able to veto laws if not passed by 2/3 of the senate.
There are also other privileges and powers who were granted or taken away depending on the grand monarch currently in the seat of power. He is also considered to be a senator of the appropriate house constellation and the supreme commander of all legions. The grand monarch cannot be withdrawn by the pillars. The Grand Monarch is also the moderator in house conflicts if the Senate isn´t able to solve the issue
If 1/2 of the Senate is unable to attend the sessions, all debates are postponed until the required number of senators are available. As senators often challenge each other, it happens more often as one might believe.

Most Grand Monarchs who were able to rule as dictators were able to control the military and disbanded the senate or just got hold of many senators.
Especially the half-orc descendants of the houses are prone to abandon their former allegiances and are often challenged by faithful members of their -dal pillar to remove them from important sessions.

Before Agathon´s reforms, some houses could get hold of rulership when the grand monarch was a member of their House, using political dominance in the Senate and the position of the monarch to gain the sole rulership.

During the reign of the last two monarchs the system has reached a stable position. The pillars accept most of the monarch´s wishes and the monarch takes care to considerate all Houses wishes.
There is alot of political wranglings in the Senate however and alliances are shifting all the time. In this time senators who are master duelists are in high demand and everyone is polishing his combat skills or his rhetorics. As fights in the Senate are increasingly common, the Grand Monarch friendly suggested that the fights should be fists only when fighting within the chamber, otherwise there wouldn´t be enough priests to attend to the wounds of the fighters or senators to attend to the sessions next week.

Emperor Ezlan managed to gain hold of the privilege to appoint the imperial judges, got a higher number of masks and so on.
His predecessor managed to form an alliance with the Praes Thanatos, who use their huge influence and privileges on behalf of the Grand Monarch. On the other side the Grand Monarch backs up the Praes Thanatos in their political endeavours. The Patriae Sicarii are happy to work withhin this stable alliance especially after having to work with an unstable alliance of houses in the Senate beforehand.

So what you think. I thought to include something that the Grand Monarch can pass laws himself as long as the Senate doesn´t veto them or so.

This is a rough outline. I am not really sure if it would work so far.

Welcome Joshua, we're happy to receive new contributors. It is indeed a many pages to read now, but you could of course just read one or two sections (i.e. politics and culture) and then post contributions relating to that section, likely without problems.

Anyway, as for the class names I agree that we probably shouldn't specify any non-SRD classes most likely. I.E. in the Rules/Crunch thread I won't be posting Ikaido the Nientese gladiator as a samurai, but rather a fighter with maybe some rogue levels. As for the Arcaneaum's military arm, just say that they're warrior-mages. Individual DMs can use that as they may, perhaps making them fighter/sorcerer/eldritch knights, or just bards, or hexblades, or spellswords, or rogue/wizard/arcane tricksters, or wizard/monks even.

BTW, what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks are Moroii anyway?!?! I've never seen the term, and have no idea what it's from. If it's from something like Libris Mortis, it should probably not be specified in the contributions so as to avoid infringing on Product Identity or whatnot.

Regarding Xaleris, I think it's alright to have one other necromantic power....the only one already mentioned is the Praes Thanatos. And the ancient elves that are long-gone, so they don't really count. And whatever handful of necros may serve the Twelve in Kwlloch, but I doubt they're a serious necromantic force. Anyway, Xaleris could probably lie to the northwest, maybe across the northern parts of the western ocean, but keep in mind that another poster already contributed many, many pages ago that a large fog-shrouded island lay in the western ocean, and was a mystery, so it couldn't be Xaleris. Thus Xaleris would be further northwest rather than west....

/me shuts up

I think this works out with what we have so far Sar. And so does the final Arcaneum post (one suggestion, when you convert the magewrights in your campaign, make them adepts instead of wizards, more similar in power level).

I agree that it doesn't have to be hexblades, that was just what I thought up first as a solution for magic-lite, fighting-heavy base class. Many of them won't have access to prestige classes, so Eldritch Knight isn't really a solution. Perhaps we can make our own fighter-with-some-arcane-casting base class (I would say use mageblade, but the AU casting classes are not a good choice for a non-AU setting, as they are a pain to convert). The point is that they are not an army of wizards because that dupes and infringes on Praes Thanatos; heck even magewrights would be fine, except probably not martial enough.

Regarding Xaleris, I think it's alright to have one other necromantic power....the only one already mentioned is the Praes Thanatos. And the ancient elves that are long-gone

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Well, those are the only two powerful arcane groups that were detailed (and they had a very good reason to both be necromancers), so I understand people's desire to have a new group not also use the same specialty. And then there comes the issue of power. Are the new guys the best necromancers in the setting? If so, this constrasts with the established idea that the gnomes, having inherited great power and knowledge from the Valjin, are on the cutting edge of necromancy. If not, then why do the new guys even matter, since their main power base is their lich casters, and those aren't even as good as the Praes. It would be a good plan to give Xaleris another reason to be potent because then it works together better with the established facts. For instance, the metal idea or the vampire one would help.

We just keep them as some kind of magic using fighters. The Dm can decide then. We could say that their top guys are eldritch knights and the big chunk of lower guys just aspire to get there some day, having a mix of fighter and spellcaster levels.

Sad, I liked the hexblade idea the most.

Rystil Arden said:

Well, those are the only two powerful arcane groups that were detailed (and they had a very good reason to both be necromancers), so I understand people's desire to have a new group not also use the same specialty. And then there comes the issue of power. Are the new guys the best necromancers in the setting? If so, this constrasts with the established idea that the gnomes, having inherited great power and knowledge from the Valjin, are on the cutting edge of necromancy. If not, then why do the new guys even matter, since their main power base is their lich casters, and those aren't even as good as the Praes. It would be a good plan to give Xaleris another reason to be potent because then it works together better with the established facts. For instance, the metal idea or the vampire one would help.

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Admit it. You don´t want any group infringing on the territory of your pet ubergnomes