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A few in game questions


Adrian
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Are there any PC backgrounds, in Y1 or Y2, that should be taken as confirmation that the PC hails from Pievre?

EDIT: It's been mentioned before that faculty has been involved in breaking up Cliques and the like before, either at the behest of someone's parents or for their own purposes, but has the opposite ever happened before? Has the faculty ever played matchmaker for any of their students, either at the request of someone's parents or (New Gods knows why) for their own purposes?

Edited by Metis
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M;

"1.  There are no backgrounds for Pievran origins in Y1. But, you could role-play, say, "Family: Helpful and Attentive," "Station: Merchant," and "Prodigy: Debate Master" as Pievran decently well.

2.  Actually, the faculty nudging Cliques along is fairly common.  Professor Badcrumble was steering Ana Flavia toward Irene from about the second week of classes, since the poor, cursed girl clearly needed a loyal friend.  And Vernin is basically designed to get young aristocrats to network; the player character may be too independent ever to be targeted for this kind of thing, but by fourth year or so it's entirely possible that, say, Everwine would be repeatedly invited to Vernin-sanctioned parties attended by eligible young women from around Sommsch and Staade."

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33 minutes ago, Legate of Mineta said:

1.  There are no backgrounds for Pievran origins in Y1. But, you could role-play, say, "Family: Helpful and Attentive," "Station: Merchant," and "Prodigy: Debate Master" as Pievran decently well.

I can see Station: Merchant and Prodigy: Debate Master, but why Family: Helpful and Attentive? What part of...Pievrean doesn't sound right, Pievran? Pievren? Piev-something culture or something else makes HaA a good fit?

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M;

"Over the last few generations, foreigners have come to see Pievran culture as raising children in a way that seems excessive elsewhere.  Affluent merchant families make a show of having dedicated nannies until kids are near puberty, less affluent neighborhoods tend to have reasonably good communal child care, and there are even entire streets devoted to selling toys and children's fashion. (That Mineta has such a thing is not the issue. :) )

In a larger sense, it's fair to say that Pievran mores have for centuries had a kind of a competitive edge to how families are raised and presented to their neighbors (at least in high society).

But this is all happening on a spectrum; it's not a hard rule.  A Pievran Academagia student can most certainly have been brought up in conditions of resentment and scarcity."

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From the Team:

"The "Go to Hell" game is absolutely fascinating.

In Mineta, the only even vaguely game the players are likely to have heard of is called "War and Pilgrimage."  In the first half of the game, players are wizard-knights pushing out from a Grand Temple on one side of the board to defeat Dragons and Gates abominations to clear paths to the City on the other edge of the board.  Along the way, they leave behind Follies, Blights and Shrines (represented by face-down cards), and accrue Virtue cards.

The second half of the game is supposed to be years later, with the players returning to the Grand Temple from the City as pilgrims.  Now the gameplay assumes they're no longer towering heroes, but near the ends of their lives and vulnerable - and Follies represent old failings that slow them down, Blights are Dragon cultists or Mastery mages who can turn them against the other players, and Shrines are opportunities to refresh and activate Virtues to help survive the path ahead.

The game takes many, many hours, and it's never been as popular as chiasa or Professor CogSpring, but it has its audience."

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43 minutes ago, Legate of Mineta said:

From the Team:

"The "Go to Hell" game is absolutely fascinating.

In Mineta, the only even vaguely game the players are likely to have heard of is called "War and Pilgrimage."  In the first half of the game, players are wizard-knights pushing out from a Grand Temple on one side of the board to defeat Dragons and Gates abominations to clear paths to the City on the other edge of the board.  Along the way, they leave behind Follies, Blights and Shrines (represented by face-down cards), and accrue Virtue cards.

The second half of the game is supposed to be years later, with the players returning to the Grand Temple from the City as pilgrims.  Now the gameplay assumes they're no longer towering heroes, but near the ends of their lives and vulnerable - and Follies represent old failings that slow them down, Blights are Dragon cultists or Mastery mages who can turn them against the other players, and Shrines are opportunities to refresh and activate Virtues to help survive the path ahead.

The game takes many, many hours, and it's never been as popular as chiasa or Professor CogSpring, but it has its audience."

1. How many players can play this game? Minimum/maximum.

2. Is there any tradition of defectors from the Oursouki (as opposed to Bassan) communities joining the Empire of Man?

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Rhi;

1.  Three to six is the rule, but there have been massive games throughout the years - sixteen players setting up four boards to approach the City from north, south, east and west, or princelings arranging actual room-sized maps of the region around Mineta instead of the traditional board and commissioning hundreds of special cards to accompany major campaigns.  (Actually, there's a non-trivial chance that Professor Sido played in one such game.)
 
It can also be played solo or duo, but success is more a function of luck.
 
2.  It's happened, but rarely.  You're not likely to see whole clans switch sides en masse, but it's not all that uncommon for (as an example) traveling traders or families fleeing to join.
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Free;

"Just about all the answers here are ancient - many are simple enough to draw in and of themselves but murderously tricky to work into some of the applicable spells.  (Mastery wizards literally went mad creating spells that fell under the auspice of "Sun" in their efforts to transform consciousness and turn humans into Gods in around the 8th century.)  "Water" is an obvious one that's actually in the game - easy to work, surprisingly hard to control, and thought by some theorists to have played a part in the Cataclysm itself.  It's a fairly common pheme, but most wizards never discover its more sublime uses."

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I like Schwarzbart's suggestion. :)

Now, for the reply:

"Professor Briardi would like to speak with the writer of this message in Legate Orsi's office immediately.

But, yes, creating undeath is a much greater crime than exotic transformation, even if you can make a legally compelling case that it was the work of an enchanted object or somesuch. Note that the manner of punishment is what we're talking about here, not it's final outcome..."

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Something tells me that while life extension magic is common enough to be readily accepted, all those folks trying for the more exotic and unorthodox permanent solutions over the centuries has been something of an awkward talking point for magic users having to deal with large numbers of pitchfork wielding peasants.

Which brings up another question. We're all well aware of the usual shenanigans that students do in the city that requires constant placation efforts by the faculty, but when was the last time students from the academagia really bungled up something awful that had the whole city up in arms?

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Free;

From the Team:

"Something awful that had the whole city up in arms?

We'd point you to 1648, when an incantation prodigy named Fastia Ulo was kidnapped from the Academy by an Undergate Thieves' Guild called "the Red and Gold Dagger."  They made the mistake of banishing her Familiar, some kind of elemental, in an attempt to scare her into doing their bidding, and she flipped out and created a phenomenon remembered as "the Fire Moon."  It was a terrifying apparition in the sky that descended upon Mineta over the course of a month before finally being shattered into a thousand and one smaller flames (now all carefully imprisoned in enchanted lead-glass lanterns around the island).  The Fire Moon didn't do a lot of physical harm directly, but people couldn't sleep for the lights in the sky, random liquids had a tendency to boil at random, and creatures of fire would periodically appear and roam the streets.  It was all... unsettling.

Rioters originally came for the Academy, but eventually blame fell on the Red and Gold Dagger... and now they don't exist anymore."

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5 minutes ago, Legate of Mineta said:

Free;

From the Team:

"Something awful that had the whole city up in arms?

We'd point you to 1648, when an incantation prodigy named Fastia Ulo was kidnapped from the Academy by an Undergate Thieves' Guild called "the Red and Gold Dagger."  They made the mistake of banishing her Familiar, some kind of elemental, in an attempt to scare her into doing their bidding, and she flipped out and created a phenomenon remembered as "the Fire Moon."  It was a terrifying apparition in the sky that descended upon Mineta over the course of a month before finally being shattered into a thousand and one smaller flames (now all carefully imprisoned in enchanted lead-glass lanterns around the island).  The Fire Moon didn't do a lot of physical harm directly, but people couldn't sleep for the lights in the sky, random liquids had a tendency to boil at random, and creatures of fire would periodically appear and roam the streets.  It was all... unsettling.

Rioters originally came for the Academy, but eventually blame fell on the Red and Gold Dagger... and now they don't exist anymore."

Would this event still be remembered in Mineta during the games' time?

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