This game would be centered around rebuilding a society following the collapse of an empire, and gameplay would begin with the landing of several ships on a foreign shore. It would have elements of survival, exploration, and politics. Gameplay would be rather light. I'm really open about where the game would go, and the lore of the fallen empire should be regarded as the faint etching in a relatively blank slate, rather than a template for the game to come. Initially I'd be interested in six players, preferably one from each faction, but that doesn't matter too much.
In the 3rd year AC1 the first signs of the coming catastrophe began to manifest. The timeline of events here is uncertain, particularly regarding the behavior of individual actors now shrouded in myth. This is only exacerbated by the insular attitude of each of the six factions of the Grand Council. What is known, however, is that sometime early in that year both the Dust and the Silence2 came. Their coincidence is a matter of ongoing debate. The Dust settled in both land and water and rendered them barren, a fact which Athurious the Fisher, the Master of Provisions at the time, did his best to obscure. Massive stockpiles are assumed to have been brought forward by him, and other Landsmen, in order to compensate for this sudden decrease in productivity. These would hold for less than a year. The Silence was a seemingly sudden lack of communion with the Divine by the Priesthood, and lack of wytching within the coven. The uncertainty in the timing of this event is primarily due to each organization attempting to keep quiet any mention of its own difficulties, coupled with a long standing animosity between the two that made rumors of this Silence less credible. Regardless, at the death of Archpriest Thelia an indeterminate Divine Election drew attention to the Silence, despite what appears to be a sham election placing Archpriest Reginal in control at the beginning of the next year. The Coven, under the leadership of Archwytch Doran, made a better show of continuing with their magyks, but faced mobs attacking them as frauds within the year.
In the 2nd year AC was the Delettering.3 The greatest immediate consequence was the loss of all records. The entire tax and property system collapsed, and banditry, already growing as desperate men and women tried to provide food for their families, truly blossomed. Coupled with newfound corruption, this was a year of rampant crime. Somewhere in all of this the Wardens effectively withdrew from the council and took to protecting their own. The Speaker, Vendis,4 took all of her wardens she could organize and developed a small haven, in which the effects of the cataclysm were fought against in an organized fashion. She is alternately credited with being responsible for organizing the ships which eventually escaped the mainland, and for delaying any efforts to organize resistance beyond the Wardens.
In the 1st year AC the dead rose, reportedly. It is hard to understand the reports here, at least in part because those who directly experienced this phenomenon were often either killed or lost their capacity for coherent thought. What is known is that more than four out of every five people were killed by the end of this year, usually at night, and without respect for any physical forms of protection. Most of those who survived this event fled on ships, seeking land despite no knowledge of the seas beyond their docks. It is unknown how many ships left the port, and there is still debate regarding how many survived to find new land. Contained herein are the stories of those survivors.
1Due to the ongoing debate regarding the precise date using antecataclysmic calendars (See the foreword of Prophecies Posteriori for a brief summary), the cataclysmocentric calendar will be used throughout, AC (antecataclysm) denoting years prior to the Cataclysm, and PC (postcataclysm) denoting years after the event.
2The Silence is taken by this author to refer to both the cessation of Divine connection and the loss of the art of wytching. The nuances of this definition, as well as the debate over whether the Silence was brought on suddenly or the result of several years of quiet decline are discussed in the appropriate chapter.
3While this name may be suggestive of a loss of ability on the part of lettered individuals, the fact that the ability to produce new text was not impaired is suggestive that, in fact, all text was simultaneously corrupted. No greater blow has been struck to the study of the Histories since.
4The theory of the collapse of the Wardens, and that there was no Speaker for this duration, cannot be traced to any primary documents from around this time period, and will not be discussed further here. For a less scrupulous historian, see Arams The Fall as Divine Plan.All of these factions will be fleshed out in detail if there is interest in the game.
Key: Council Member - Organization Structure/Method of Selection - Organization
Master of Coin Plutocratic - The Bursars
Master of Provisions Feudal/Plutocratic The Landsmen
Speaker of the Wardens Parliamentary/Meritocratic The Wardens
Craftsmaster Meritocratic/Democratic The Organization of Makers
Archpriest Divine Election Priesthood of the One Divine
Archwytch Seniority The Coven
Author
Topic: Children of a Fallen Empire - OOC/Interest Check (Read 555 times)