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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 3594934" data-attributes="member: 3448">Hi Grand Archon!  Thanks for dropping by.  I'll answer your question as best as I can below.Quartz:  There's a lot of truth to that, but remember that Dame Brionna is a younger child.  But for the titles she's earning for herself, all of the family inheritance will go to her sister's children (presumably mainly to Abigail).  Having penniless noble cousins is not necessarily a good thing...Grand Archon:  It's not entirely clear.  My best guess is that the Church has no opposition to homosexuality anywhere, but I don't know for certain that's true.  In general, Aphonion is highly heteronormative, in the sense that I have never seen a same-sex marriage in the game world or social conventions to allow for a noble to not marry a member of the opposite sex and yet still produce legitimate heirs.  However, I've also never seen anti-gay bias in the game world.  Mostly, the occasional gay characters have relationships on the sly, often with a fair amount of being closeted, but don't face condemnation for it.It's worth noting that the DM is gay and out.  He also typically has PCs randomly generate orientation and lust levels.  (Thus, Alistair and Kit's characters are both meaningfully affected by having rolled high lusts, while Dame Brionna rolled low on lust.)  But the social norms are fairly conservative in what's expected but without the condemnation that was historically present in the real world.I would also draw a comparison to the treatment of sex (in the sense of male-female distinctions).  There are powerful female characters and they can become monarchs and so forth, but there's a lot of implicit patriarchy and a general assumption that military officers, knights, priests, and so forth are male unless they happen to be distinctive for being female.  It's sorta nominally egalitarian but without the deeper care and work necessary to make a game world fully egalitarian.  (And of course with regard to sex discrimination, there is regional variation, with some very male dominated areas and some matriarchal areas, but with most in a sorta "egalitarian but with patriarchal assumptions.")And now, on to the storyhour:-----[Session 21]The following day began with a few routine but important tasks.  Alistair used his new power as the Archduke to confer the protection of the palace wards on a list of trusted and important people, including the other members of the Archducal Council.  Dame Brionna reported multiple requests for audiences.  The Archbaroness of Mandrath, as representative of the Holy See of Paranswarm and the Council of Thirteen, sent a request for an audience with the Council and preferably with “His Divine Grace.”  She had phrased the request in the most carefully polite manner and engraved it in cloth of platinum.  The Council of Thirteen is the ruling council of hierarchs of the Temple of Paranswarm and consists of eleven ecclesiastical leaders, the Protector and Defender of the Faith, and the Archbaroness herself as the one secular member.  Dame Brionna also reported that the Archbaroness had delivered the Temple’s official gift, a chest filled with 5,000 platinum.  Alistair observed that that was a fairly standard gift from the Temple to a major non-Paranswarmian ruler, although also perhaps the least that they could give without being impolite.A young male drow brought the second audience request.  He was unarmed--from which it could be presumed he was in abject servitude--and carried a message requesting an audience for the Matron Mother of Dispania.  He did not identify her as more than the Matron Mother of the house in a single city, but he also did not identify a specific city.  The chamberlain had concluded that this was fully consistent with the usual pattern of a Matron Mother of Matron Mothers, because publicly announcing her position would encourage a host of assassins to attack her.  It was all but inconceivable that the ruling Matron Mother of a drowan great house would not have a substantial price on her head.  Even if the assassins all failed, they would be a nuisance and a distraction, so traveling incognito would make matters simpler and more efficient.The Council resolved to deal with the audience requests later in the day.  In the meantime, they decided that Canberry needed a means to fight the disinformation that its enemies were spreading.  Kit asked her secretary who the best rumormongers in the court were.Her secretary nodded thoughtfully.  “You need to know who to pass news to so that it will spread.  A wise thought.  As with so many other aspects of the court, I’m afraid it’s a little unsettled right now.  A couple of the matrons are still passable, but none are nearly as good at it as Lady Horskirt was.”“But Lady Horskirt…”“Was very close to the late Archduchess, yes; she followed her at the funeral.  You will need a noble lady, of course.  Mistress Tuttle, for example, is an excellent tongue-wag, but not noble, so no one takes her seriously.”</blockquote>

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