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<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 7805982" data-attributes="member: 63"><p>Hm. Off the top of my head, we do a low rent Handmaid's Tale.</p><p></p><p>An eladrin husband and wife couple set up a 'forward operating base' near a colony town, where eladrin who want to attack and harass the foreigners can rest and supply. They persuade some patriotic eladrin women to come help set up the base, but then the wife - who is 'old fashioned' and looking to be lord of her own domain - strongarms the women into serving as sacred prostitutes. She keeps their personal belongings locked up and basically forces them to be indentured servants, justifying her cruelty by saying that she did <em>her</em> duty the same way a century ago, and the soldiers going to take revenge on the foreigners <em>need</em> this.</p><p></p><p>There are a couple women who buy into this and help keep the others under control. A few times men figured out that this is monstrous and either pressed back against the 'ruling couple,' or tried to sneak off and get help, but the couple's enforcers have killed all of them, and now the couple is more discerning about whom they trust with which women.</p><p></p><p>The PCs get wind of this when a Clergy priest is kidnapped and dragged back to the outpost to be ritually tortured. He was thrown into a cell, and one of the enslaved women tended to him and whispered to him that she was a prisoner too. Then a storm happened to roll in, and the enforcers weren't able to hear him as he cast <em>sending</em> to report what he'd seen.</p><p></p><p>You can nest the narrative with a couple more layers. Perhaps the people he contacted reach out to the PCs, and they have lurid ideas of how the culture must work. But they don't know where the outpost is, so the PCs have to go to a nearby small enclave which is nominally neutral, where they can maybe help with some standard 'slay the monster that's threatening the villagers so one of them will trust you' plot beat. An eladrin woman warily agrees to be guide for them, because her husband went to that outpost and never came back. She had been an <em>ananta paudha</em> for four years until she became pregnant and decided the father would make a good husband, so she left the service early. </p><p></p><p>It's uncommon for married eladrin men to keep going on combat missions, since usually it's over-eager young guys trying to earn a reputation for bravery, and nowadays the margins are less razor thin on whether their culture will survive, so many eladrin men are glad to settle down and have a normal life, though they're ready to take up arms in defense. Her husband went to the outpost for . . . some complex reason -- maybe they had a fight and he felt bad for losing his temper, or maybe one of his wife's aunts went to the outpost and he was undertaking the arduous journey to reach it because he wanted to check to make sure they were safe.</p><p></p><p>In the 'normal' enclave, the tradition of ananta paudha is falling out of favor. After all, the population has reached pretty much reached sexual parity, especially the younger generations. If anything, there's a cultural pressure for young men to go throw themselves into danger, and to protect women, so the youngest eladrin actually skew female. The role is more sacred now than practical, and in any civilized enclave it is meant only to be consensual.</p><p></p><p>They might even learn about the legal background of the couple that went to go found the outpost. Maybe they had trouble having a child of their own, so they tried to adopt, but got into trouble by refusing to raise an orphaned boy. It seems they only wanted girls, and hoped to groom them to be ananta paudha in order to get social status through their kids.</p><p></p><p>The mom who wants to find her husband leaves her kid with relatives, gears up, and leads the PCs into the woods. They are refused entrance, attacked if they rest anywhere nearby, and when the PCs finally do get in, the couple who runs the place realize the jig is up, set fire to the compound to cover their tracks, and flee.</p><p></p><p>That's the rough first draft.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 7805982, member: 63"] Hm. Off the top of my head, we do a low rent Handmaid's Tale. An eladrin husband and wife couple set up a 'forward operating base' near a colony town, where eladrin who want to attack and harass the foreigners can rest and supply. They persuade some patriotic eladrin women to come help set up the base, but then the wife - who is 'old fashioned' and looking to be lord of her own domain - strongarms the women into serving as sacred prostitutes. She keeps their personal belongings locked up and basically forces them to be indentured servants, justifying her cruelty by saying that she did [i]her[/i] duty the same way a century ago, and the soldiers going to take revenge on the foreigners [i]need[/i] this. There are a couple women who buy into this and help keep the others under control. A few times men figured out that this is monstrous and either pressed back against the 'ruling couple,' or tried to sneak off and get help, but the couple's enforcers have killed all of them, and now the couple is more discerning about whom they trust with which women. The PCs get wind of this when a Clergy priest is kidnapped and dragged back to the outpost to be ritually tortured. He was thrown into a cell, and one of the enslaved women tended to him and whispered to him that she was a prisoner too. Then a storm happened to roll in, and the enforcers weren't able to hear him as he cast [i]sending[/i] to report what he'd seen. You can nest the narrative with a couple more layers. Perhaps the people he contacted reach out to the PCs, and they have lurid ideas of how the culture must work. But they don't know where the outpost is, so the PCs have to go to a nearby small enclave which is nominally neutral, where they can maybe help with some standard 'slay the monster that's threatening the villagers so one of them will trust you' plot beat. An eladrin woman warily agrees to be guide for them, because her husband went to that outpost and never came back. She had been an [i]ananta paudha[/i] for four years until she became pregnant and decided the father would make a good husband, so she left the service early. It's uncommon for married eladrin men to keep going on combat missions, since usually it's over-eager young guys trying to earn a reputation for bravery, and nowadays the margins are less razor thin on whether their culture will survive, so many eladrin men are glad to settle down and have a normal life, though they're ready to take up arms in defense. Her husband went to the outpost for . . . some complex reason -- maybe they had a fight and he felt bad for losing his temper, or maybe one of his wife's aunts went to the outpost and he was undertaking the arduous journey to reach it because he wanted to check to make sure they were safe. In the 'normal' enclave, the tradition of ananta paudha is falling out of favor. After all, the population has reached pretty much reached sexual parity, especially the younger generations. If anything, there's a cultural pressure for young men to go throw themselves into danger, and to protect women, so the youngest eladrin actually skew female. The role is more sacred now than practical, and in any civilized enclave it is meant only to be consensual. They might even learn about the legal background of the couple that went to go found the outpost. Maybe they had trouble having a child of their own, so they tried to adopt, but got into trouble by refusing to raise an orphaned boy. It seems they only wanted girls, and hoped to groom them to be ananta paudha in order to get social status through their kids. The mom who wants to find her husband leaves her kid with relatives, gears up, and leads the PCs into the woods. They are refused entrance, attacked if they rest anywhere nearby, and when the PCs finally do get in, the couple who runs the place realize the jig is up, set fire to the compound to cover their tracks, and flee. That's the rough first draft. [/QUOTE]
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