Jump to content
Black Chicken Studios Forums

Legate of Mineta

Members
  • Posts

    17,942
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    9

Legate of Mineta last won the day on February 22

Legate of Mineta had the most liked content!

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male

Recent Profile Visitors

8,270 profile views

Legate of Mineta's Achievements

Mentor

Mentor (12/14)

  • Conversation Starter Rare
  • Dedicated Rare
  • First Post Rare
  • Collaborator Rare
  • Posting Machine Rare

Recent Badges

12

Reputation

  1. Dani; "1. Each College has its own Society of the Regent's Cabinet or Society of the Regent's Salon that's theoretically the best of the best; the Regents invite students to join personally, and introduce them to alumni and interesting people from the wider world as a way of grooming them for future greatness. ... That obviously means different things depending on whether you're dealing with Regent Massioti or Regent Badcrumble. 2. Yes, up to and including roles in the Captain's Court. 3 and 4. We would not suggest skipping 100 classes in Y2. The number of marks on your record at any time does matter. 5. As different as you want it to be, but of course there are some limits where your imagination needs to step in and take over. 6. Clearly, the circumstances of some births are more awkward than others. 7. On any question of Guild membership, it's down to your skills, your ability to impress a patron/sponsor, and maybe your ability to pay dues. There aren't any specific checks to make clearing those hurdles as a royal more onerous than the default - though it's always possible that it would factor into certain story choices. An Artisan background would make the patron/sponsor stage relatively streamlined. 8. Yes. 9. You aren't able to join in Y2, although you may give Orso some reasons to reconsider his stance."
  2. Dani; I (personally) have been burned waayyyyyy too frequently to answer any of these, my apologies.
  3. Dani; "von Hengst: That would be telling. 1) It could be one of a number of reasons: you could be of a bastard royal line, or a royal ancestor might have married a commoner (possibly even of the Heroic line) without the correct dispensation, or one's original estates and titles might have been lost in battle over the centuries. Since none of those backgrounds imply any kind of stigma or opprobrium, though, we think it's fair to say a character with that particular combination to be considered very nearly noble (and eligible for a range of noble marriages) - and you probably do have a reasonably large estate somewhere, but as a private holding rather than one over which you'd exercise what we're gonna casually call feudal rights. (I.e., you can't thrash the peasants with quite the same degree of legal impunity as Durand's family can.) 2) And, yes, you can go from destitution from the aristocracy - particularly with the kind of magical education you're getting at the school. It's not at all unheard of for very powerful wizards to receive titles and holdings from various duchesses, dukes and princelings if one joins their courts - and, even if you just stay in Mineta, the Captain (and, for that matter, families like the Chards) can pull strings and confer nobility in exchange for unusual service. 3) Oh, I'm sorry, but our hypothetical plans for imperial politics are super-classified. 1. Year 3 is when you will see the majority of the specializations begin to appear, but some will show up in Y2. 2. The tradition is that there's a "Dux Alumni," or leader of the students, who delivers a valedictory address at the end of their senior year. This person doesn't necessarily take more courses than anybody else, if that's the question; grades are expected to be good (and the DA typically is academically at the top of their class), but intangibles are considered as well. Extra-curricular activities, prominent triumphs, "enriching" the Academy or Mineta more generally - all of those can play a part. (As can professorial favoritism, though that really shouldn't be the case.) And, in some cases, there really have been clear leaders of a given class: a century or so back a kid named Josaia Bloom, though a middle-of-the-road student, was credited with organizing the student body's defense against a siege from the Harpy Queen and her brood, and his leadership and clear-headedness under pressure left such an impression that nobody else could really have been appointed to the job. (His actual valedictory speech was, from all accounts, a mumbled disaster, but he's still remembered fondly.) 3. Thei: Time Slot. 1) If we understand the question correctly - you are asking if a character who's of royal background and descended from heroes could have a hereditary knighthood attached to the family name... then yes, it's defensible. You wouldn't be in possession of anything resembling a feudal estate, your family wouldn't have any vassals, and you certainly wouldn't enjoy tax exemptions or class-based legal protections (unless your legal skills were incredibly high and you wanted to push your luck in court), but if you tacked an honorific onto your name in your official correspondence you could probably get away with it. 2) Actually "divine bloodline without royal descent" could probably be a background in and of itself. There are Heroic lines that trace back to Auncish royals, and if you choose that background and consider that it applies to you, it's totally legit. 3 and 4) Travel times for summer vacation can and do vary widely, and wealth does factor into it to a degree. If you're from a faraway part of Elumia, expect some time on an air ship. Travel is different from what you have seen, systems-wise, in Y1.
  4. Dani; "We can't believe we capitalized "von." Anyway, yes, the von Hengst family is originally from Staade, Vilocian is Sarabine's first language, and a royal from Staade could well be related. And the family - or a branch of it, rather - was given control of the region in which the Purple Academy now resides precisely because of their anti-Mastery credentials. The von Hengsts led a company of wizard-adventurers/mercenaries that secured a degree of peace in the region a generation or so ago, and they were granted local titles and a decent chunk of land in exchange for continued service. (That's not to say that they were unfamiliar with the place even then - von Hengsts were involved in the siege that broke the original Purple Academy. They've historically been a very active campaigning house.)"
  5. Dani and Good Coyote; "1. This is a case where the mechanics themselves suggest the answer to the question: you come into the game 2% more likely than you would otherwise be to fall under scrutiny at any given time. It reflects the fairly simple truth that you were associated with a fairly suspect institution... but you left it at age 11 or earlier. People are a little bit wary of you, but the assumption is that you didn't learn anything too dangerous. Engaging in Purple Academy-themed activities later in your academic career might change that balance, though. 1.5. In the long term? If you don't get into any future trouble, it will probably be assumed that your time at the Academagia taught you the error of your ways (or your parents/guardians/tutors' ways, more to the point). Though there are certainly some courts out there where even a hint of childhood association might inspire dark whispers. 2. In the general population, saying you went there would probably just inspire confusion - and maybe a bit of unease. The glory days of the Purple Academy were centuries ago, and it was officially shut down; most people probably aren't aware that it was reopened, given that its current scale is quite small. That said, the Purple Academy of old is largely remembered for collars of enslavement and various sinister kinds of enchanted chains. It's not presented as the big bad guy in folk tales, but it's the mysterious place where tyrants would go to get magical equipment to dominate the local peasantry. (Now, are these folk tales good history? No, not really - if only because the old Purple Academy and its graduates didn't really have a lot of time for venal lordlings.) If you go around bragging that, actually, you were a student there, a reasonable subset of the population is going to assume that you're not really suited for polite company. 3. Why would Highborn Royals send their kids to the school? Because it's actually quite good! Combining enchantment and astrology is just not easily done, and the modern Purple Academy has tricks that even Vernin would envy. Moreover, the whole reason the school was allowed to be reconstituted is that it did so under the auspices of the Von Hengst family, and their history of fighting against Mastery mages is absolutely impeccable - and they have more than a few drops of royal blood in their veins as well. If your family has blood ties to the current Headmaster, Sarabine Von Hengst, then sending a child there for tutoring for a season or two before going to Mineta would be a sign of political support as much as anything else. You might then ask, how does that square up with the Purple Academy as we experienced it in the story? The sinister, shadowy version that seems to call back to the bad old days? We would then chuckle knowingly and change the subject. ... How's the weather in your part of Elumia? 4. [Redacted] 5. That's really subjective. We can't really say that being the Black Sheep of a Family Descended from Traitors (or maybe Descended from Heroes?) with an extra dose of Prodigy: Bad Luck Magnet is the worst of all combinations, but we would find it a pretty complicated life to live. Especially if your Familiar is a rock. In terms of a happier narrative, We'd lean towards following up Black Sheep with having been a page, or having been apprenticed to a local wizard - something that implies that you made a different kind of home for yourself once the bridges with your starter family were burned. 6. Rock salt is fairly common, as it happens - ironically enough, there's reason to believe that a significant percentage of the landmasses on which humanity now dwells were underwater for extended periods of time in an age before the world got ripped apart. There are also alchemical specialists who extract particles of sea salt from the general atmosphere; sea-level magical volatility ensures that there's a fair amount of salty vapor getting blasted upwards pretty much constantly. All that said, Mineta certainly consumes more salt than it locally produces, and it imports from various sources to the north. (Durand's family controls a salt mine or two.) 7. Debtors' prisons and workhouses, per se, aren't as common in the Renaglian-speaking territories as they are further north, but there are debtors who've been put to work in the Isola Triste (formerly a wizard's fortress and now the Captain's very own prison, not too far from Mineta proper) and in the surrounding farms. You also sometimes see them clearing roads or improving existing ones; maintaining ease of non-magical transport is one of the Captain's minor obsessions."
  6. Dani; "1. The Temple of Iudocia connection is a meaningful one, yes, but the distinction can also be drawn in social terms - Descended from Heroes is more likely to win you a free meal and admiring conversation in a random tavern than a generically aristocratic origin might. In terms of political opportunity, it can open doors for you, but it doesn't guarantee that you've had the upbringing to fit in among the Chards of the world. (Descended from royalty, in contrast, suggests that you've got a documented pedigree that's so unassailable that people would call you "eccentric" rather than "boorish" if you failed a Dancing check at a ball.) 2. Politically and socially, your word is certainly going to carry more weight if you were both. 3 and 4. If you had all three of those backgrounds, you'd have ancestral ties to some of the most powerful families across Elumia and you'd be able to draw, at least a little bit, on the good will or respect (or, okay, fear) earned by your heroic ancestor. Catherine might well be jealous, but she'd also see the value of being your best friend, and she'd probably be making small talk about which of her cousins you might marry someday for the good of both your houses. Or, you know, making a match herself. 5. Expected? Probably not. Your heroic ancestor can be assumed to have performed a quest or a labor that benefited the temple, but didn't necessarily swear the family to its service forevermore. (Which would be a cool Background idea!) But it would probably be a pleasant surprise and/or minor coup for the Temple if you did, and under certain circumstances they might work to magnify your fame as well...."
  7. Dani; Not that I am able to reveal here, alas!
  8. Dani; We haven't yet commented on Clubs, other than that is a Y2 Feature, sorry.
  9. Rhi; "1. No - or, at least, not in living memory. There have been expulsions for students who have repeatedly ignored warnings and crossed lines, but the school generally doesn't refer offenders of this sort to the Guard. 2. The Morvidus Regent has talked to her a time or two about which studies are considered appropriate and which studies are not. Did she really listen? Your player character probably isn't too sure. 3. Yes. Oh, absolutely, yes. Our girl's father's bunch were the "Ordo Annuli et Calicis," a group devoted to "preserving the noble path" in the Academy and Mineta at large (and to throwing huge banquets), and there's very much a spot open for her."
  10. Dani; "Journalistic opportunities are [Redacted] No comment on Mastery- that's Proscribed! 3. There is something... political."
×
×
  • Create New...