Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

Chirine, I have a few questions for you!

a - Which factions would be interested in getting their hands on one of the supposed Keys to Ksarul' Blue Room? The semi-secret sects within the temple of Ksarul would be in on the action, of course (some of them might actually be in conflict with each other, over how best to handle the "Key" or "Keys"). I also suspect that the Temple of Thumis might be interested in acquiring such "object", if only to thwart anything the Ksarul crew might try to pull off. Maybe the AOL too, to keep things in check for the Empire. What do you say?

I'm going to break this into three replies, If I may.

Everybody, and I do mean everybody, in and out of the Five Empires - all the various power blocs, the temples, the factions within the temples, the clans, the factions inside the clans, non-humans like the 'wild' Pe Choi and the Shen, the Undying Wizards, the Gods themselves, the Pariah Deities, the Imperium, the various factions in the Tlakotani family, the Hokun with their sticky glass fingers, you name it. (Me too, for that matter.) The Keys and Wards that they fit into are supremely high-value 'poker-chips' in the game of politics, and mere possession of one would confer a huge advantage to the holder. It's like having an 'Eye' or a steel sword, but on the cosmic scale.

Mayhem always did and always will ensue, when one of these things shows up. They are just too valuable to ignore, and keeping the things out of the hands of everybody else is a powerful objective.

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

Chirine, I have a few questions for you!

b - One of the solo Gardasiyal adventures sees the PC take part in a hunt on some high clan's fief. How are such fiefs organized and maintained? Who takes care of the grounds when there is no hunt? How do the clans that maintain the fief on a day-to-day basis sustain themselves? Are they basically agrarian clans that cultivate and whatever else they do as a regular activity? Where does the money needed to maintain the fief come from? Assuming we're talking about a large fief, are there medium clans in charge of lower clans, all of which work together on the fief?

The two-hex fiefs are miniature versions of the provinces and cities. You have a fief-holder, named by the Imperium, who supposedly is the absolute ruler of the fief in the name of the Seal Imperium; normally, the governor is one of the local worthies from one of the local high clans, and by an odd coincidence his 'advisory counsel' is all made up of the local notables from the local clans. On occasion, somebody from 'outside' gets nominated as a reward for service to the Imperium (or for a suitable 'inducement) and they either work with the locals to keep the place running and the taxes paid to the Imperium or they get dead or removed from office - usually, the former. All the Imperium wants to see are the tax revenues and nice quite reports saying that everything is quiet; a smart governor makes sure to keep the locals happy and the Imperium paid. All of the clans have relationships with each other; low defers to medium, medium defers to high, and occasionally the high defers to the governor. Everybody does indeed work together, up to and including removing an unpopular or incompetent or just plain nasty governor.

It's all about place, position, and the steady flow of things in society.

Yes, the local farming clans grow the crops, and the local merchant clans use their connections with the larger and more up-status clans to bring the crops to market and so generate the revenue that keep the whole Imperium going. Usually, a smart governor uses just the fief's revenue for upkeep, and lives within their means. The governor is, however, expected by the Imperium to invest their own money for anything major, and then to make back their investment from the local revenues. (You can see where this can lead.) This is why local governors love to see the arrival of player-characters in their fief; these can be hired or persuaded to go have a look at Something that the locals have been pestering the governor about. Since it might be treasure or something good, one sends in the PCs, and collects a percentage if they come back. Otherwise, talk to the clans, and get them to send more PCs. (Mayhem ensues.)

Does this help?

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

Chirine, I have a few questions for you!

c - Let's say members of a temple's secret faction (say, a bunch of priests of Ksarul) decide to kidnap the member of another temple (say, from the temple of Thumis or some other clan) on the assumption that that other priest/priestess has information they need to track one of the Keys. Obviously, this would breach the Concordat and would therefore be highly interesting to the Empire and even, why not, to any of these two temples' leadership which might actually not be aware of the Concordat-breaking plot. What sort of people would get hired to conduct such risky operation? Mercenaries of some sort (local/foreign humans and/or non-humans)? Any other suggestion?

Player-characters. They're cheap, deniable, and expendable. They night be mercenaries, in which case they'd get a trifle more consideration as you might need to hire them again or need to hire more mercenaries, but usually they'd be the kind of clan members that the clan needs to find something useful for them to do. One is usually pretty careful about hiring the people from one's own temple or clan, as if they get caught they can talk too much. One can have the temple of clan send somebody from 'out of town', which has a big advantage in that they are unknown and don't have any (one hopes!) secrets that they can spill. One can also hire the Ndalu Clan or the Black Y Society, but that's just asking for trouble in matters like this. Put the word out that you need some likely young heroes for an adventure, and they'll be banging on your door.

It's how I got my start, doing this kind of 'odd job' for the Imperium. Luckily, I happened to be very, very good at it.

Kidnapping somebody is not done above ground in the daylight; it's done in the Underworlds or under some sort of Imperial writ. (See also "Man of Gold", where the various Imperial siblings have their henchbeings doing various nefarious deeds.) If your target happens to be in the Underworld, they are fair game; if walking down the street, they are not and the Concordat (and the Imperium) comes into play. With a writ, it's like arresting somebody, but then their patrons contact their Imperial sibling and get a release order. Much better to grab them when they are on an adventure, and 'invite' them to come home to meet the family and stay for a while. Ransoms are usually offered and accepted, too. Always keep in mind that you may need a favor from this person or their clan or temple in the future, and be polite...

Again, does this help?

[QUOTE=Hrugga;918637]

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Adventurous and fun it is!!! So how much more do you have to go till we can consume the complete
Saga...??? So Uncle please stop your blabbering and get on with it(bilabial phoneme fractives and proper honorifics used)!!!
Truth be told, I don't care who doesn't like it. I do. I will some how (if I have to make one myself)have a hard bound copy...Fan fiction indeed!!! I find it not so different from what the Professor wrote(maybe a bit more humorous).

H;0)

Well, I had set myself a limit / goal of 300,000 words for the whole thing, with a limit of 50,000 words for each volume. I am now up past 126,000+; the breakdown is like this, at the moment:

I - 10,549; II- 21,018; III - 8,528; IV - 10,895; V - 42,785; VI - 32,590

These are not 'hard' limits; I'm a lot more concerned with telling the stories, then anything else.

Breaking through 125,000 words was a great feeling, and the typing on the new laptop is working better and better with practice; losing the big 'billboard' Mac G5 was a terrible shock and a bad scare, as we nearly lost the digital version of the entire book. We had a hard-copy backup from March of 2015 (the three-ring binder I took to show to people at Gary Con that year) but there was no digital backup; this is now fixed, and we make backups regularly. I am still learning the version of Word that the laptop is loaded with, but it is coming.

I am doing a lot of 'translation' as I write, as we just didn't use a lot of the Tsolyani terms at the game table, like people seem to think we did; Phil was always happy to discourse on them on cue, but didn't let them get in the way of game play. We'd use the same 'shorthand' terms when our PCs were talking, and that's waht I'm trying to do in the book; I'm trying to portray the flow of our game play, and stay away from the 'nuts and bolts' as Phil just didn't use The Rules all that much. (Big, and I do mean BIG, miniatures games were the exception.) What I'm trying to do is tell our story, and Phil's, and about the sheer fun we had on our adventures.

A lot of the dialog is humorous because it was - Phil would spend quite a bit of effort to set up a situation where he could then drop a funny line, and he also appreciated things like our doing the 'Breakfast in the Bastion' scene from "Four Musketeers"; he got a good laugh from Gronan asking "Why do we always have to attack uphill?"

One thing to remember is that we gamed with Phil from 1974 (Gronan and company) to 1988 (Chirine and company), one night a week, 52 weeks a year; we have a lot of notes and recordings to go through. I'm going as fast as I can manage; projects like the Barsoomian flyers or painting up the Ladies-in-Waiting helps get me going, as I remember stuff and get it written up. The recent tubeway car model is helping me do Book IV's 'Malchairan Emerald', for example. Your questions also help, as they keep things fresh in my mind.

Completion date? I don't know, really. Sooner, rather then later, as I ramp up my production, I think; I'll just have to keep plugging away on the thing...

Hand 'em back to the clan, collect the reward, and get the hell out of town. The clan will sort it out.