GAMING Post: Auldgory (default start and factions)

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Um, why do we need to know about factions when you haven't properly explained the extant Order of Things?

So, the monolithic entity which is the Starry Empire has within it, both a Republic, made up of citizen soldiers, but also includes the Noble Families of Ancient (Eastern) Bloodlines, Merchant Barons, and a Southeast of only loosely, 'loyal' subjects.

Play defaults to the PCs serving in the Banner Ranks of the Starry Empire, having gone into service at age 07, and beginning session 01 anywhere from 15 to 25 years of age.  Barbarian and Outlier characters are not only possible, but viable regardless of where the 'party's' initial deployment is located.

While it is possible to expend one's Blessings to dictate how the PC matriculated the service to that point (default is, Combat Rifleman), and which rank they achieved by start of play, there are other options, such as political aide, or, journalist.  Outlier and Barbarian hangers on or diplomats of unincorporated lands are just as reasonable an option.

However, Auldgory has the Endgame baked in from the get go, and Blessing points can be pooled to purchase caches, property, and to invest in the security and prosperity of Banner Ranks strongholds.  Or, Lodges may be joined (and infiltrated, or enemy groups destroyed), which require Downtime investments of increasing orders of magnitude (pop-pop) to attain, with no value for intermediate steps; Lodges hold Power (POW), and this can be appropriated for emergency use.

With a national Goddess who grants actual miracles and can even (not often) resurrect the dead, you can imagine the number of weblines which intersect to form a very convoluted, intricate, and merciless environment where who one knows may on the one hand save one's life, or by associative guilt, be brought into immortal peril.  This is where the Factions exist, and these are largely only the ones operating within the borders of the Empire.

The lands west of the Lashan Mountain Range/s are so varied, the distances so vast, that reaching another civilised polity (The Landmaster Concern of the Wide Roaming Lands chief among these) is a quest through alien wilderness, scattered with environmental hazards and unearthly arcane powers.  points west are the variable track of the Wasteland, which warps and alters all life which enters, and reorders the landscape into surrealistic bastions of Illogic.  ...and yet, it is the Voidbrood, from beyond space and time, who are the true menace: their least minions more than enough to corrupt and stall the advance of the Banner Ranks tasked with inevitable reunification.

I'll discuss the task resolution situation in a future post.