Look upon my works, ye mighty... (my players stay out, please)

[Cyronax]

Okay this might not be the most appropriate thread for this, but I'll try to twist this into an Emperor's Fancy idea.

--- So a slow festering slaad plague infects a number of people throughout the campaign region. Birthed slaad don't appear as fast as normal 4e or 3.5e dictates. One can't abide puncturing a slaad lesion, because that'll damage the host, BUT the host dies or is the first target for the birthed slaad.

Anyway, the PCs are infected initially with this plague and they have slowly gestating slaadi brood in nasty pussy bubbles/lesion somewhere on their person.

Over the course of the adventure(s), the party investigates what first caused this outbreak.

They then realize its either its a bio-terror weapon either sent from the Emperor on to his own subjects (for whatever reason -- probably simple weapons testing) or its an after product of a big project the Emperor commissioned.

Perhaps this big project was the Emperor trying to harness a plane of Ultimate Law (Mechanus ??) and learn to channel the holy law into himself to reorder reality.

The slaad plague was actually some god or outsider's earnest attempt to undo or fight against the infusion of extraplanar Law into the material plane. More interesting -- make this god or outsider non-evil ... so moral arguments become more complex.

Unfortunately for everyone, Law vs. Chaos usually gets nasty -- especially for the Unaligned bystanders.

So the PCs are caught up in something cosmic but also local. Their early adventure(s) is about curing themselves from the plague (and the responsibilities of birthing a hungry slaad brood). Questing for a Cure Disease ritual would be challenging enough for early heroic tier PCs. They then have a number of problems on their plate to deal with after that.

And of course all this came about because the Emperor is an incompetent and amoral windbag with too many ideas and time on his hands.

C.I.D.

 

[Piratecat]

Heh. I think my world is predicated on the theory that the Emperor is always right. If he is Emperor by divine right, then anything he does has the sanction of the Gods. Sure, mortals may object to it, but he's not a bad guy or a villain -- he's the Emperor. Whether you hate or love him, his whim is law.

This creates a society with appeasement and distraction of the Emperor himself, while toadies scramble madly to curry favor behind the scenes. Infighting, backbiting and constant fear characterize those who are intimate with His Divine Radiance. Sure, councilors and generals keep the empire running, and they try to stay out of the Emperor's span of attention, because if they do something he doesn't like? Schnicck. And believe me, someone will report on them just to gain favor.

This is why the empire has a history of such huge follies. Advisors actually encourage them to keep the emperor occupied while they rule behind the scenes. Just so long as no emperor overreaches himself or develops such grandiose plans that it puts the empire in peril....

You know. Plans like these.

 

[Rechan]

One of the great things about this thread: the PCs' province has just rebelled against the empire, and they're all expecting a fleet of ships to show up.

We haven't heard any of this from the Commentary thread. This is juicy info!

Or are teh PCs not involved?

 

[Rechan]

Night time is too dark. The Emperor is afraid of the dark, or he doesnt' like to walk in the dark.

So he has a giant crystal Scrying Disk placed in the sky. This disk functions just like the Sun during the night. It floats around the Empire in time with the Sun and Moon rotations, so "Night time" is reduced to the Second Daytime.

How about an ACTUAL pocket dimension created that is a snapshot of the Empire. In this dimension, basically everything is the same. This way nothing bad can happen. In fact, in this dimension, it might be an eternal Groundhog day. Possibly the snapshot is taken on the Emperor's birthday. So that in this tiny world, Every Day is the best day in the world, and can't be effected by reprecussions.

 

[haakon1]

you are making an assumption that people with the means to do so actually want to depose the emperor. There are definitely historical examples of societies where the people of a powerful ruler believe in that ruler so much they will pretty much accept whatever they decree. My assumption is that this is one of those societies; the people love the emperor as a god.

Love, fear, duty to the state, loyalty to the man, or greed . . . as long as those who are close to the emperor protect him for one of these reasons, he's safe.

BTW, for charismatic megalomaniac emperor, and hold he mesmerizes those close to him, I highly recommend seeing the movie "The Last Kingdom of Scotland", about Idi Amin. Excellent, excellent acting of what it's like to have an 18 Charisma leader who's slowly going insane . . .

 

[Beginning of the End]

Ethereal Tesseracts.

 

[Dandu]

Heh. I think my world is predicated on the theory that the Emperor is always right. If he is Emperor by divine right, then anything he does has the sanction of the Gods.

Do the gods actually support him? I ask because in a game where you can actually talk to the gods, this may come up.

 

[Piratecat]

Do the gods actually support him? I ask because in a game where you can actually talk to the gods, this may come up.

The high priest publicly supports the crown, which of course is the cornerstone of civilization. A more accurate question might be "when someone claims publicly that the emperor doesn't have the support of the gods, in what horrible way is he executed for treason and heresy?" So, y'know, it's not a question people are anxious to ask unless they are equipped to do something with the answer.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the emperor is deliberately, mindfully evil. I do think he has trouble seeing beyond his own chaotic whims. That's why you have lawful administrators.

Back on topic, wasn't it illegal in the real world for anyone who wasn't royalty to wear purple? I wonder if something like that would fly in a campaign setting.

 

[Cyronax]

Night time is too dark. The Emperor is afraid of the dark, or he doesnt' like to walk in the dark.

So he has a giant crystal Scrying Disk placed in the sky. This disk functions just like the Sun during the night. It floats around the Empire in time with the Sun and Moon rotations, so "Night time" is reduced to the Second Daytime.

How about an ACTUAL pocket dimension created that is a snapshot of the Empire. In this dimension, basically everything is the same. This way nothing bad can happen. In fact, in this dimension, it might be an eternal Groundhog day. Possibly the snapshot is taken on the Emperor's birthday. So that in this tiny world, Every Day is the best day in the world, and can't be effected by reprecussions.

This idea reminded me of that old adage -- "The sun never sets on the British Empire."

Random aside. I like the idea btw.

(Being glib): In the real world there are places where the sun stays high in the sky well into the night by government decreee --- People's Republic of China (or as Lou Dobbs would say 'commmmunist China').

Anyway, the Chinese government literally mandates that the whole country is on a unified time zone -- Beijing's time zone. This causes the western regions of China to have the sun stay up well into the night. I was in Xinjiang in the summer and the sun was up still at 11pm-ish. The spatial difference is akin to New York City and Seattle for reference.

C.I.D.

 

[Cyronax]

Heh. I think my world is predicated on the theory that the Emperor is always right. If he is Emperor by divine right, then anything he does has the sanction of the Gods. Sure, mortals may object to it, but he's not a bad guy or a villain -- he's the Emperor. Whether you hate or love him, his whim is law.

This creates a society with appeasement and distraction of the Emperor himself, while toadies scramble madly to curry favor behind the scenes. Infighting, backbiting and constant fear characterize those who are intimate with His Divine Radiance. Sure, councilors and generals keep the empire running, and they try to stay out of the Emperor's span of attention, because if they do something he doesn't like? Schnicck. And believe me, someone will report on them just to gain favor.

This is why the empire has a history of such huge follies. Advisors actually encourage them to keep the emperor occupied while they rule behind the scenes. Just so long as no emperor overreaches himself or develops such grandiose plans that it puts the empire in peril....

You know. Plans like these.

Your description of your campaign world reminds me slightly of the Dark heresy/Warhammer 40,000k campaign setting. The Emperor in that setting is himself inspired by the God Emperor Leto Attreides II from the Dune series.

I remember in that series Leto bred a vanguard imperial military elite known as the Fish Speakers. They were an all-female corps with some extreme behavorial conditioning -- I'll leave it at that for fear of upsetting Eric's Grandma. (Though this thread is already upsetting enough ).

C.I.D.